Do not think it is a trivial matter, I met Euskal Herria or at least Basques in Hondarribia, Bidarrai and Alkiza. How much sleep? It asked, and as age increased, it allowed us to stay longer and longer. In those seven- or ten-day microworlds, I knew people like me, but at the same time very different. What were the scissors or meat? How didn't they let them go to school alone? In Guggh... What? It seemed to us that we were going to the other end of the world and we brought brave adventures back and then told us in exchange for letters. I had a friend of letters from Villava who sent me exciting chronicles about metropolitan life.
Now I'm not going to the colonies, it doesn't fit me because I think I've made it too high at age, but I look enviously at those who have the opportunity. For example, I have read attendees to the HIGA (Meeting of Young Minority Language Speakers) to be held from 17 to 21 July in Vitoria-Gasteiz. There will be 75 young activists from the world's minority languages who I do not know if they will do "five hard", but have been prepared for a five-day socio-cultural programme.
I don't know if the organizers will agree, but I think basically HIGA has the same spirit as the colonies. On the one hand, the possibility of discovering new worlds close to home; in addition, knowing young people so far away and realizing that you are both very subtle and different, that is, that the context may have nothing to do with, but that they have a lot of desire, concerns and expectations basically similar. Five days to review conferences, workshops, concerts and visits, to learn in different ways, to establish new relationships, to make networks a social reality and to share some chronic moving ones after the summer, to open a window into another person's diary and surprise them with their "normality".
If you have already started filling out the registration form, for example. On the web they clearly say that in order to participate in HIGA, two requirements must be met: one, to be a speaker of a minority language, which I know it meets. But the organizers have also defined youth, and surely the age limit for some will be too narrow: Are you 18 to 35? If you can ask for a visa from the colonies, because the summer colonies baga, the second to Euskarabentu and now HIGA!
Marfa, 1954. At Blackwell Elementary School in this Texas desert village, children were forced to participate in a peculiar ceremony. The teachers distributed pieces of paper to them and asked them to write: “I will not speak Spanish, neither at school nor at rest.” They put... [+]
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A few years ago, I wrote a little book about Tene Mujika, which is called Udazken Argitan. When I started doing that biographical essay, I met our protagonist today, Mr. Watson Kirkconnell. In 1928, Kirkconnell published a nice book of European Elect anthology, which included... [+]
A few months ago, I read a very interesting book. National thougth in Europe. A cultural history, by Joep Leerssen, in Catalan version (El pensament nacional Europa, Editorial Afers, 2019). It explains how Europe developed national thinking or, in other words, the national... [+]
The mystery of the origin of the Basque country has intensified with the hand of Irulegi. For me, the discussions on this hand are being nice, because we reiterate that history sometimes flees from the logic we establish from the present and is as human as the people who... [+]
Two weeks ago we left the Occitans preparing their people for war. It wasn't any war. During the 13th century, the sieges were ruthless in the territory of Occitania and suffered unforgettable violence.
We said the Crusade was, in fact, heraxial anti-cataract. The world of... [+]