(ARGIA note: Due to the length of the text, we will publish Joseba Barriola's work in three parts. This is your first part, reader)

The Council of Euskalgintza has published a document entitled “Social Consensus for the Impact on Linguistic Policies”. The document consists of three parts:

** Introduction (Preamble, Location, Principles, Purpose)

*** Direction and Objectives (Goals and conditions for convenient use of the Basque Country): Individual conditions and collective or structural conditions {universalization of knowledge and development of comfortable use spaces}

*** Sectoral orientation: administration, education, socio-economic area, media digital environment.

*** End of document: It is a matter of sharing, debating, agreeing with all the actors committed to the standardisation process and emphasising commitments and steps.

The Council of Euskalgintza “aims at accelerating the process of normalization of the Basque Country” and therefore “seeks to develop progressive linguistic policies”. Thus, once the location of the project has been completed and according to some principles, “the main objective is to create the conditions for a comfortable use of the Basque Country”. To this end, it calls on the “social partners”.

A) Linguistic standardisation is a basket of tailor. What is standardization? What process is involved? The mistake of this process is that it goes slowly, and that's why you have to speed it up?

Standardization. For many, the standard languages are English, Spanish or French. Is your situation normal, comfortable the north of normalization? Languages that in their own space spread a unique thought about languages (self-pride and contempt for others) and invade the space of other languages are not normalized, they are afflicted by a disease. They do not take into account equality and linguistic diversity. Hundreds of languages have been buried (even with the participation of the Basque people) with the dissemination of these “normal and sick” languages and thousands of other minority languages are valued today. That cannot be a standardisation model. The comfortable use of these languages is the convenience of the dominator. What, then, is “standardisation” for the Council?

What has Euskera been, so far? Has there been any process or have there been different process projects? The answer, of course, will be “many heads”, plural. All attempts to the contrary have as common denominator the “normalization of the Basque Country”. All that is done in Basque or on behalf of or in favour of the Basque Country is, without further ado, a unique process. Much less the process of normalization of the Basque Country. What exactly is the Council dealing with?

And about the process that is not defined, it is said that you have to “speed up.” One example: What has been the “process of normalization” promoted by the Basque Government (in economic, legal and regulatory terms and using the prestige of some Euskaltzales): slow? And that's why we need to speed up? Or is it the direction of the Government-led standardisation process itself that is wrong, and then the need is to take a new direction?

But the course cannot be “to make life today also in Basque”. The current lifestyle, with the biological diversity of life, with dignified life, with the focus of life, in short, with the sustainability of life, is compatible with the plurality of languages, with the life of the Basque Country, with the ability to speak human beings.

It is an oximoron to want to bring Euskera to life and to practice exploitation, patriarchy, eocide, genocide in Euskera. Within the barrier of controlled and limited linguistic respiratory zones that allow the global glottophagic system and glottophagic states of Spain and France, the Basque Country is also condemned to collapse or death.

In this sense, our problem is not to speed up what is there, but to change course.

B) Development of progressive language policies

B.1.- What is language policy? By reading the document, and bearing in mind that the measures proposed are basically proposed for implementation by the regional institutions, it can be concluded that it is linguistic policy that the political institutions do.

Questions: Does the Council itself make language policy? Do markets (banks, globalised pharmacies, digitalisation giant, petronor and iberdrola…)? What kind of language policy is AEK's? What about the Ikastolas? What does the Basque Journal do? And even more: Is it the Spanish or the French Parliament that does the linguistic policy and thereby conditions not only the abnormality of Spanish/French, but the evolution of Euskera and other languages? And is there nothing to say about it? Limiting autonomy makes the approach less clear.

2.- How is progressive and regressive linguistic policy defined? Where can the linguistic policies of the Basque and Navarro governments be placed? Can it be a linguistic policy if it forgets the progressive who is going forward, in a sense, to collapse and also, of course, to the collapse of languages (including the Basque language)?

3.- What is the language policy that has reached the top? What has been exhausted? What else can't you give? The linguistic policies of the autonomies? From the CAPV? Navarra? From the new North Society? So far (say the CAV) it has been appropriate and now, in this last time, has it touched up, but before it was adequate? Was it simply their problem that was slow and that is why we need to speed it up? Is it just a matter of speed and not of modes and of content and direction? Or from the beginning were they designed to slow down and soften the vitality of the Basque Country? Was linguistic autonomy set in motion to respond in some way to the demand of the people, organized to adapt to the limits of the glottic system established in the {State (brutally imposed by the Spanish State Constitution) and of the Great Powers of the Market}? Using autonomy, money, legal norms and prestige, has the self-perception of the Basque community been distorted? Have the people further away from the heart of the Basque Country (and from the equality of languages and the defense of the dignity of life and diversity...) assumed the leadership competence of the “process of normalization”? Is the government living in Spanish the head of the Basque life? Is the Minister of Buddhist Education who does not know Euskera responsible for euskaldunizar education? Does the erdaldun Azkuna command the Osakidetza Euskaldunization plan? They are just small examples.

It is said in the document that much has been learned about sociolinguistics in recent years. And yes, a lot has been written. But is sociolinguistics the one that gives us vital strength, or is it the one that gives us data to make false illusions or to immerse us in despair?

Yes, we have learned to be in the institutions, to accept plans, to spend money… but we have also learned to move away from the core of life, from the life of the Basque Country, from the core. In Osakidetza, plans were made for Euskaldunizar… but instead of concentrating all Euskaldunes and working on motivation, it began with a threat of decree. Instead of starting with the direction, they started with the lower administrators.

Steps have been taken. How not? Echoes of the explosion of consciousness that occurred in the 1960s have come to this day. There has been significant progress. And those have been the fruits of the leap that took place in the quality of the Basque. And now, the changed times, what has happened even with a pompous Autonomy? Why are there weaknesses in use, cultural consumption, knowledge and motivation? That needs to be studied. And I'm not stupid to think that the blame is on the autonomic institutions. They don't have the power to do that. It's a deeper, more global problem. But Autonomy is incapable, does not know or does not want, how to cope with the collapse of languages. He hasn't realized (or doesn't want to realize), because he's the defender of the system that leads to collapse.

But at the same time, outside the institutions and on the margins, qualitative steps are being taken: great and profound progress is being made in some media, in ecological theoretical reflections, in feminism, in cultural creation and in the construction of Euskaldunes communities (the new transformative cooperative movement, for example…). We need a new outbreak of consciousness. The living Basque is the one who declines the language of life.

The power of the Basque Autonomous Community we have known. Limited and dependent power, but it's been a new experience of power. It has done many things that seem to have been spectacular (money, laws and regulations and plans, it has coopted for the Basque people...). Quantitative measurements have been made, subsidies have been fed, legal rules have been established, but the essence of the vitality of the Basque country has never been seen. In this respect, the truth is that it has been absolutely inadequate, regrettable, disastrous. Neither the existence nor the priority of this “field” has been seen.