Let us do what is necessary, sooner rather than later
We have just learned that the Durango Plateruena will close its doors in December. It is sad news for those of us who have been users of Plateruena over the years. But above all, a worrying news for the Basque people and for the Basque culture. With the closure of Plateruena, the Basque Country will lose its reference space and the Basque culture will lose a very important infrastructure.
But beyond the specific fact of Plateruena's closure, this closure is an indicator of deeper and more disturbing currents. It is an indicator of the social, cultural, technological, economic and structural political transformations that the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified but that come beforehand. Transformations that are taking us to another world.
The closure of Plateruena is the symbol of what we are not doing as a people and as a linguistic community to cope with these transformations. It is not yet late, but we are certainly behind schedule.
"In the short term, decisions should be made that generate a qualitative and quantitative leap in the normalization of the Basque country. Leaving all the burden at the expense of the citizens and limiting itself to the fascination of “positive” messages that want to distort reality, the Basque Country has done so”
The process of normalization of the Basque Country is not going well. No, it's not going well. We've been trying to get out of the crossroads for decades and not power. Of course, much is advanced, but the Basque country needs measures of a different dimension in order to meet the challenges posed by the threatening times we have here. Short-term decisions must be taken that represent a qualitative and quantitative leap in the normalization of the Basque country. If all the burden is left behind by the citizens and is reduced to the fascination of “positive” messages intended to distort reality, the Basque Country has been left out of its place. In the respiratory areas such as Plateruena the Basque Country will be able to resist for a while, but if this leap does not occur, those respiratory areas will become reserves of the Basques, which before or after will also disappear in the Indian Ocean.
The situation of Basque cultural activity is also very vulnerable. What was before worrying, the pandemic has left a critical situation: the situation of Basque cultural creators and infrastructures. The support of the institutions is limited to smallness and with a touch of alms; in the constantly burdensome struggle for the survival of cultural infrastructures (as we have seen with Plateruena); instead of the invisibility of the media, with exceptions, especially worrying their low presence in the public media; and the allusion to uniformizing uniformizing globalisation also has its cultural face, highlighting some cultural expressions. All this with all the blessing and disillusionment of the local authorities (institutional, economic and media) of all kinds.
We therefore call on the institutions, once and for all, to adopt effective structural measures in favour of our language and culture. It is not the time for fine words or ineffective symbolic measures. It is time to sit side by side with the world of Basque culture and culture, to share the diagnosis and to reach agreement on the measures that the situation requires. It is time to move from being in favor of the Basque to doing what is necessary in favor of the Basque. It is time to put Euskera and culture at the centre of Euskera.
To achieve this, it is time for the Basque people to stand up and go out into the street. To put pressure on the institutions and to address those linguishing and uniformizing tendencies that lead us to ruin as a people and as a linguistic community. As in other times, we Euskaltzales have the time to activate our language in defence of the Basque and Basque culture.
*Koldo Zarate Onaindia is a member of EHE
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