For CARTOONIST Asisko Urmeneta (Iruñea, 1965), to speak against Agosti Xaho “has always come out very cheap”. The political thinking of Sulatino occupies a special place in the comic book that he has just published, since he believes it is valid and current.

You presented the book at the headquarters of the Prefosta association, that of Xahoo. He says he moved his network. Are they always there behind your signature?

Typically, cartoonist work is usually a solo job, but I've always loved collectives. In the time of Napartheid it was also like this, the days of carabination, the nights… it is a joy. Like most things, it's not bad on its own, but it's better in the group; in other times in the fanzines, now in Xabiroi magazine. It also makes me very important that people communicate. One of the most beautiful things we can do in this life is precisely that: contacting interested people and interesada.Con Gartxot [with the movie] has happened to me and with Xaho, no doubt. About Shao, for example, now who knows the most: Patri Urkizu and Fermin Arkotxa. I went to meet them and they gave me the material in a very generous way. Also from the very beginning I was in contact with the people of the prefectural association.

The Prefost association has been installed in the home of Xaho. Did you know the character?

Xaho is a stranger in his land, that is, in Atharratze and in the Basque Country. I think we tell them Carlist Wars because we've lost them, if we had won them, we'd be talking about the war of Independence. In those years, Greece and Belgium achieved independence; in Italy, Hungary and the whole of Europe there were insurrections and romantic insurrections, and in the Basque Country too. Xaho was a leader of those romantic revolutions: Republican, Independentist, Red, Anticlerical, Feminist, Probably Homosexual… super advanced for his time and people uncomfortable for the current time. That's why it's either been rejected or devil. Then the inhabitants of Atharratze, the Prefect, did not know him too much. That's why [in the comic] I tell from the very beginning that, counting for them, Xaho's figure on the Internet had to be honored. A friend went through Atharratze and asked at the tourist office where Xaho's home was, but they didn't have any news of Xaho. I'm not going to accuse anyone of not knowing Xaho, nobody knows it well, except Patri Urkizu and Fermin Arkotxa, for example.

You were at the fair in Durango. What reception has the comic book had?

People are surprised that he invented Xaho's thought or the first journalism in Basque. In addition, he wondered: “How to write? Eskuaraz, Euskeraz, Euskaraz…”. I wasn't using the word batua, but I was saying we needed a national grammar, a national spelling, and we were poor in our wealth. In this year when we are celebrating the anniversary of Batua and the centenary of Euskaltzaindia, I have not heard a single vote claiming Xaho. They're astonished to hear this, or to hear that Xaho was from the writers' club and writers' club and very close. Feminist internationalist activist Flora Tristan introduced Xaho in a novel in which she strongly denounced that girls were enslaved in bishoprist-dependent orphanages and also talked about sexual slavery. Although today it is a little difficult to report them, Xaho did so in the first half of the 19th century. Your political thinking too, in your time yes, but now I find it extremely useful and indispensable.

Is it still uncomfortable?

No doubt, yes. He says living independence, living republic and living Basque Country. They were extraordinarily cultured people and, in my view, they had a sense of justice. On his journey in 1835 in Upper Navarre, I wanted to tell the world what war was all about, because some people said it was a dynamic issue. He said no, that the Basques were defending their national rights. He knew what had happened with the French Revolution in Lapurdi, Zuberoa and Baja Navarra, he saw that this danger existed in Hego Euskal Herria and that is why the Basques had risen. He was making a chronic accomplice; he had left as a special informant and at the same time he was doing it closely, because he was at home and it was his cause. The book was made in French and translated to the international community. This chronicle is also valid.

Do you see this comic book as a political input?

Yes, my earlier comics — starting with Napartheid — are always political. Some make politics with songs, others with economics -- I with comics. It is a political thought that is becoming fashionable “from the moment we go, what until now is not worth and what we want to ask is for us to depart from the current institutions and divisions.” I don't think about that, because I think we're the result of something. Apart from the material donated by Patrik [Urkizu] and Fermin [Arkotxa], I've read a lot about Xaho's work and then I've been exploring the time on the Internet a little bit. For example, what the United States of the Kingdom of Navarre said when it was giving the French Revolution: “The Constitution of Navarre cannot be destroyed either by the violations of the centuries, or by the silence of the Navarros, or by the mandate of any authority, because the rights of nations are expressive.” That end is a great element for me; here an injustice has been given, we were just, we are a people, we do not start living this morning. Here is a people invaded against our will, torn apart, denied and here we are living. If we are not free and normal, it is not because we are smaller, uglier or poorer… it is because the others had more tanks and it has touched us to live between two expansionist empires.

The discourse of Xaho and that of the people of that time — not only then — is a vitamin for me to understand where our discomfort has come from and where we have to go. They've taken everything away from us, but don't tell the thief why. We have been taken from the house but the crime does not prescribe. Related to this is what Xaho said in 1848: “The Basques have not given anyone a single touch of command.” We have never said “get in and order in our garden.” The unjust remains unjust in Xaho's time.

This interview was posted by Ipar Euskal Herriko Hitza and we brought it to ARGIA thanks to the CC-by-sa license.