The Basque society, although slowly – giving little credibility to what is heard from there and here –, seeing what is there and discovering what is coming, begins to be aware of the gravity of the situation, but not in its entirety. Perhaps that is why a curious situation is emerging, while the political debate permeates all areas in society, the usual ones are being built – the bitter false power – and to face up to the right instruments, it may be late, too.

I am referring to the absurd Franco democrats of the far right. And I'm not just looking at Madrid. The attempt made here is evident and, despite the apparent arrangements, the origin of his personality is undeniable.

They appear more refined and effective than any institutional tyranny, as they do not need a coup d'état or civil war to impose themselves. On the contrary, they put into effect the aspect of democratic normality and, as democracy moves away, the new extreme franchisees are strengthened.

In the last fifty years, a lot has happened in this country, a lot, and I want to talk to the Basque youth about that.

I, with a lot of years between friars first and outside of another five or six, in my crew we saw few girls on vacation, the truth is that not alone either. But when I got away from the shade of the friars, yes, then yes.

But in those days we knew many new things, including the emergencies of many. From the black bulls on the margins of the road, the flags were hanging. Also the ikurrina, flying with parachutes the day of the Donostia tamborrada in the plaza of the Constitution. Also by bringing the ikurrina with the membership card to enter the Atotxa football camp, the arrests, there was always something.

They were quite confusing days. Unexpectedly, a friendly gang girl, after being arrested and tortured, was incarcerated. They said, for aiding someone from ETA.

After many years inside prison, he was released, but his situation worsened. Hard years, the next one, he was at home, he learned to live without income. Benefits of prison stay. I was always suspicious, I don't know why he was fired. And some friends feared helping her.

During this time he knew the real misery. Always with fear, the police visited him home often.

I spent the years and didn't know my friend. I heard about a school friend's celebrations. He told me that he was once again a school worker, making his life, and thinking about going out and living outside the village.

He told me his hard life. How she gradually started working. And he had a few students in his house that allowed him to move forward.

He was not judged and happy. Again, he was a normal, unsuspicious citizen who wanted to live. Live. Forget about prison and those black years.

The slave of all the capacity of the state. Fears, misery, sunshine. Ask for some work. That is, they diminished, broke and emptied the girl's story internally.

The story of the girl who had to take refuge in a small space of anonymous normality without her ideals, without her friends. Living like this is very hard.

I won't judge my friend. Next to me, I met the Abertzale. His father, like mine, was imprisoned and imprisoned for resistance to Franco. My friend was not sorry, not sir. I met him full of energy and ideas. He really believed in his freedom.

I was sorry, how he told me – perhaps a little understanding – his misery. Without forgiving anything, he told me how far they crouched and sunk. How, taking advantage of his weakness, they forced him to collaborate with the torturers he knew. The tear had to do everything in the eyes to be a person again.

Although it is rather doubtful, some dictatorships become something like democracy, although many Spaniards are now taking steps to try to return to the previous situation.

The long struggle we have had to decide freely on the future of the people has hardened, made it difficult for Basque society, but not in its entirety, so – my friend – after many years of illusion they let it down and depressed. Very tired, beaten, defeated.

My friend knew pretty well that the problems were not over. I knew a new social society was needed, but I wanted to live. And within the state I was fighting in at the time, in the calm of the supposed new peace, I wanted to make their new life.

My friendly friend passed the reds and the blacks, and he wanted to live.

My friend didn't know any welcome. This is the story of a girl who left her. It's a story that was blackmailed to him with his fear. But unfortunately, the story doesn't end with my friend. It's true, my friend leaned to himself, OK, but instead of despair, what do we offer them?

From time to time it comes to my mind and I imagine a girl who wanted to make her personal peace, who was walking past what Pantxika was, inside the nice port of our neighborhood. Instead of agreeing with the State of the torturers, it offered its existence and its character.

I haven't seen it long ago, I don't know where it is, but we are here.

My friend is not the only one, many have done so. Today and for a long time, how many prisoners – who needed them at home – have returned to prison?

We have a lot of work to do, it's OK to scream through the streets, but it's not enough.

Josu Iraeta, writer