The look of the 'Piedad' merchant
- The other day I saw that they have to close the well-known clothing store Piedad from the esplanade of Pamplona, and I was glad. Contrary to logic, perhaps, and in an irrational way, but I was glad that on more than one occasion I had felt bad. I walked in with my mother and my aunts looking for something elegant for Sundays or for a wedding, and I instantly felt stuck in us the stark gaze of a dry merchant, as if we weren't the ones entering such an elegant and expensive trade, as if we didn't belong to those upper-class families and the most well-known surnames in Pamplona. In Piedad there is no pity.
We used to speak in Spanish, because Euskera was lost in our family at the beginning of the last century, but I perceive that same feeling in many Navarros vasco-speakers when they speak in Basque. For years and years, the fact of being Basque has been linked automatically to the fact that it is the town and to the scarcity of money and culture. They've had a really bad time and they're going through it. You just have to go to the hospital to see how many older Euskaldunes humbly talk to their sons and daughters so no one realizes they speak in Basque.
Those of us who are younger are also absolutely stigmatized, because some want to blindly believe that we are low-class and of a certain political line of thought.
The lack of prestige of being Basque is enormous. Certainly, the result of centuries of evil work. That is why, among other things, it is necessary to draft a new Basque law. Giving the Basque Government official status throughout Navarre, the right to use his language would be publicly and with all guarantees.
Zoning must be eliminated once and for all, since it is a totally orthopedic invention. People are constantly moving for a thousand reasons, and the logical thing is to recognize that the citizen carries with him the language and the right to use it, wherever it may be. Basic rights such as this cannot be limited to a single physical region. Nor should we forget that we are in the twenty-first century. Over the Internet we continuously move above all the scrublers and below all the brumas. How can this be combined with this unfortunate zoning? Can I send an online consultation from Tudela to the Department of Finance? And what do the finance workers do in those cases? Do you ask on the phone where the citizen is to know if they have to give the answer in Spanish or in Basque? Or do they determine their specific geographical location at that time by means of a geolocator? Surreal.
It's time to make a good and reasonable law and give the Basque the lathe he needs. As Etxepare would say. And let no one deceive us: despite the official status of the Basque Country, here the Castilian speaking people will not be discriminated against, among other things because they are far more than us. And furthermore, being a mere erdaldun is not a vital situation. You can learn Basque, as I have done myself and many people.
All we want is respect and equality. Nothing but the gaze of the piety cloak.
This article has been posted by Berria and we have brought it to ARGIA with the license CC by-sa
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