Today, Thursday, the plenary of the Parliament of Navarra approved a motion by Navarre Suma to urge the foral government to inspect certain textbooks in Basque that are being used in the educational centers of the foral community "to verify their conformity with the Navarre curriculum and the institutional reality of the Foral Community".
The vote in favour of Navarre Suma was sufficient against the abstention of the PSN, while Geroa Bai, EH Bildu, Podemos and IE voted against.
Specifically, the Department of Education is requested to carry out a "complete examination" of the textbooks published in Euskera in public and concerted centers of model D, of the subjects of Compulsory Secondary Education "Geography and History" and "Basque Language and Literature" and of the subjects of Primary Education "Social Sciences" and "Basque Language and Literature".
In any case, one point of the motion by Navarre Suma has remained outstanding. In this regard, I asked the Minister of Education, Carlos Gimeno, to annul a foral order issued in the last legislature and to leave this proposal without effect. In the opinion of the right-wing coalition, this order is allowing the use of texts that "do not respect the curriculum or the institutional reality of Navarra".
It is a foral order of 2016 that leaves without effect a regulation prior to the stage of UPN Governments that orders not to use textbooks "that do not respect the curriculum or the institutional reality of Navarra" and that is excluded from the free system.
The PSN, Geroa Bai, EH Bildu, Podemos and Left-Ezkerra voted against the annulment of the lists of UPN and PSN.
According to the Member of Parliament of Navarra Suma Pedro González, “education is important for the nationalist parties, the education that introduces children in their symbols, in their language, in their territory, and when necessary they violate the legislation in force for this purpose”. According to Pedro González, the responsibility to keep some illegal books in the system is the responsibility of the counselor and the government," said lehendakari.
On behalf of the PSN, Jorge Agirre was in favour of carrying out an audit of the "use of the Basque Country" in textbooks, but he stressed that the educational inspection already does this work and also has to occupy larger spaces. "We believe that we have to do this, of course we do, that we have to review the materials," said the President of the Basque Government. Although he has criticized the "obsession" of Navarre Suma by the Basque Country, he has also advocated studying textbooks, such as "machistas models", with the aim of "eradicating them", for example. "They have to open the eyes of those who have to occupy us," he said.
“XXI. You are asking to censor books in the 21st century.”
The parliamentarian of Geroa Bai, Jabi Arakama, has ironized about the fact that Navarra Suma presents "many promising and exciting initiatives" in this legislature: "For example, a law in its relations with the administration to deprive the Basques of their rights or a law to ban symbols that Navarra Suma does not feel like his own." "He now presents us with a motion of censure on textbooks. We know very well what the obsessions of Navarra Suma are," he said.
EH spokeswoman Bildu, Bakartxo Ruiz, has asked Navarre Suma to withdraw the motion and has questioned that "in 2019, in the twenty-first century, we are talking about legal and illegal books, about banning books, about censuring books". "It's absolutely anachronistic. Nafarroa Suma always wants to look at the past and wants UPN to return to the model it has imposed on us for years.”
On the part of Podemos, Mikel Buil has pointed out that the Navarra Suma motion "is proposing censorship of books" and has criticized that it has "an obsession with the Basque Country, against the plurality of our land". "We defend a public school that respects freedom.
