In fact, the Basque Country has reached 2023 live and through 810,000 speakers, according to the results of the last Sociolinguistic Survey.

The truth is that, although official stories often express something else, the processes of mastering languages do not take place naturally. But these preponderations, as in the rest of the public, are the result of the policies of the time in favour of these languages. In other words, the current dominance of Spanish and French is due to the impulses, decisions and political measures of the centuries.

Moreover, these measures, unfortunately, have not been taken solely in favour of these languages, but against others, such as the Basque language. In other words, the history of the last centuries of the Basque Country is of a process of diminishing and mastering. Not only measures against language, but also against speakers. The tools have been varied, from legislation to leave Euskera out of the central institutions of the time that underpin society, to the persecution of concrete speakers.

Some of these prohibitions and sanctions are part of our living memory, such as the ring applied to schoolchildren who practiced in Basque. A malicious and perverse strategy, as it made children as saviors of children, oppressors. In the recommendable film ‘Bizkarsoro’, recently released by filmmaker Josu Martínez at the San Sebastian Film Festival, the trajectory of this instrument of great destruction is also beautifully depicted.

So, yes: the fact that the Basque Country remains to this day taking into account the context that has touched him to live has a nuance of mystery. Or, more directly, that of miracles. But at the same time we know it has little mystery and a miracle. The reason for this duration is that for centuries, decades after decades, from generation to generation, thousands of people have opted for Euskera. Sometimes and how many, unconsciously, by instinct. On other occasions, many, with total conscience, as an exercise of individual and collective sovereignty. In any case, this sum has led us to survive to the present day, with a barrier to the aggression of the Spanish and French centuries, the strong background.

History is not flat or a straight line. On the contrary, braid is sinuous and complex. Many times the things of the past and the things we think are overcome give rise to new forces and variations. I would say that something like this has happened to us with the judicial aggression against the Basque people. On the one hand, the arguments and conclusions of the series of judgments that are taking place against the standards and laws that seek the normalization of Euskera are not strange: what they insist is that we have a single obligation with languages, to know Spanish. Spanish is the measure of fundamental rights, of course in the case of Hego Euskal Herria, but in the Northern Basque Country the dynamic is even more violent with French.

On the other hand, however, we find these issues of the past because we believed that in the Basque Autonomous Community, in Álava, in Bizkaia and in Gipuzkoa, we had already taken a route of official and legal protection, irreversible – we were aware that in most of Navarre and in Iparralde it was much more precarious. We believed that the minimums to guarantee the linguistic rights of the Basques were accepted and shared, not only in society, but also in almost the entire political arc and in the main institutions of the state. But no. Once again history has reminded us that braid is naughty and complex. And there are background currents that remain very strong.

I am about 25 years ago, when I was a journalist locked up in the force ‘Euskaldunon Egunkaria’, as our grandfather Joaquín Txiki said to me: “You will be closed the paper, for those who command are the children of before.” I recognize that when my grandfather told me that he looked at the benevolence of the young man with the old man: he understood his logic but thought he was very wrong. The blow of reality led me to become aware of his wisdom and the strength of the background currents.

Therefore, this is the current picture: we thought that thanks to the initiative and the impetus of many people, and the institutionalization of all this, we had guaranteed minimum instruments for the elaboration of linguistic policies in favor of the Basque, in the Autonomous Community and in part of Navarra. At the very least, because the shared diagnosis of Basque activity is essential to face the great challenges of the future. But beliefs have corrupted us above half, and the series of sentences of recent times has left us totally weakened by instrumentation. We have been shown that the background flow of the main languages is very strong and is always there at the door.

That is why the demonstration that the Council organised for the next 4 November in Bilbao is so important, a meeting point for the main institutions working in the varied and extensive Basque cultural activity: to put a stop to aggression, to say that we are thousands of citizens who focus on Basque, who live and live in Basque. Not only that, but also to point out that the linguistic question is intimately linked to the configuration of a more just and cohesive society, and that, therefore, betting on the Basque Country, to deepen the normalization of the Basque Country, is to take a step towards guaranteeing the rights of all and all, to deepen coexistence and democracy.

That is why we say ‘In the face of aggression: according to Euskera, in Euskera one’: betting on Euskera is to wager on all minority languages, contrary to what these sentences say, because Euskera is an integrating and integrative force. Even because betting on diversity and respect for others is betting on languages and minority speakers.

In short, the ‘mystery’ or ‘miracle’ of the Basque Country expressed by Mitxelena, to which I referred at the beginning, if we want it to continue to happen – that is, that the Basque Country and the people who focus on us in the Basque Country – we all need, on 4 November, in Bilbao, a fence to aggression. Or, in other words, to build a bridge to the future above the background currents of all time.