In the first quarter of 1998, Eusenor was closed, a company that, among other things, published the Basque general encyclopedia of the same name. One afternoon, the board of directors informed all the members of the team that we were going to receive the last salary, which was from the company, which had no future. He was still a production manager. So I lived on the front line.

In the late 1980s, when I was working in Elhuyar, we raised with the Basque Government the idea of making an Encyclopedia in Euskera, and when the project was approved, a lot of people came to us to knock at the door. All or all of us were proclaiming that they had more “historic” rights than we did to make encyclopedias, and that, consequently, we should put the money that the Basque Government has given us into a common bag so that those who knew how to make encyclopedia could work. We were forced to hold a lot of meetings, all long, very tense.

Experts of different themes and profiles joined us in these endless meetings. Some of them conveyed ideology. Others worked on the strategic plans that the encyclopedia should have. A number of things were sold. Others were listening.

Suddenly, it was decided to start as a company based on a central idea. That is, we were the owners of the project to carry out the encyclopedia that Euskal Herria needed, and therefore, to us and nobody else, institutional help corresponded to us. Thus, the Basque Country began its activity in the 1990s.

Complaint of unfair competition

But when the doors of the institutions began to open, the other encyclopedic center organized around the editorial Lur informed the administration that it was driving unfair competition. The war broke out in the encyclopedia: the ideology, the linguistic models, the way of business, the selling system, the type of people -- it was all used as a weapon. And it has to be said that the administration withdrew and the relationship between many people was damaged. However, both projects were launched and began to produce a number of encyclopedia products.

In 1995, I started managing the production works in Eusenor. The first two years were quite rich, always from my personal point of view: we moved the working procedures, we got in touch with many external partners, we opened interesting marketing routes with Euskaldunon Egunkaria and Egin, we met different ordinary people.

Also at that time, the tool that would accelerate the finishing of Eusenor, that is, the Internet, was extended. We prepared an apparently powerful internet server, called Jalgi.

It's been 15 years since Eusenor gave us the last pay, and needless to say, the last six months were bad. When degradation processes begin in companies the misery of people emerge, and it was not an exception n.En this time when some, especially in France, have started the celebrations to remember the birth of Diderot, I felt the
need to expose thoughts that are part of my being, although the most common thing is to bring the things of war in silence. I'm not going to try to explain the details, because a lot of data and facts can have different interpretations. My thoughts on the ideas that form the trunk go, then.

Legitimacy

“We are the only legitimated ones to carry out the encyclopedia of this country, we know what Euskal Herria is and we have been trying for years to organize this project.”

All the works carried out by Eusenor's promoters were expressed around this idea. It is true that the companies and associations around the Basque Country played an important role in the Basque culture. But it is also true that the interests and forces of those of us who participated in it were very different. At the meetings, I experienced mixed feelings. Sometimes I was elated in euphoria. Other times, the ideas of absolute legitimation took me to the void, and I was worried.

As is often the case in Euskal Herria, we and those who were not our did not see them or take them for enemies. When the inhabitants of the earth began to defend before the administration the piece of cake they supposedly had, the war broke out. The promoters of Eusenor had been in contact with the administration for years, but the Earth’s warning was enough to intimidate the administration.

The ongoing negotiations began to recede until they were completely suspended. Therefore, the entire administration tart disappeared, and neither Eusenor nor Lur had the skills needed for the situation to improve. In many sectors of industry, companies co-operate, i.e. compete, but share it with different interests. We were not able to do that. In this sense, it must be said that those of the Earth asked us of Elhuyar to do what we had to do with those of the Basque Country, but the response of the representatives of the Basque Country was firm and strong: “We won’t talk.”

When I went from being a member of the meetings to being a manager, my internal doubts were accentuated, especially when many of the people behind the companies that formed the Basque Country showed us far away – and sometimes with suspicion – from our project. In other words, the euphoria of those of us who participated in the meetings of the Basque Country – of seven or eight people – did not become a collective euphoria. When it came time to sell, I realized that there was a huge distance between what we thought and sociedad.Que I know, there was
no bridge between the directions of Eusenor and Lur, but it was in the production of the two encyclopedias. There were those who wrote for each other, so Lur and Eusenor didn't get such different encyclopedias. The Internet ended encyclopedic projects and at the same time projects like Wikipedia allow information to be freer.

No, we were not able to share our projects, and we crushed our decisions with a number of adjectives that have been routinely used in Euskal Herria. I have not heard anyone say that we should act with arrogance or arrogance. We wanted to sell the product to the people of our institutions, to the ikastolas, to the Basques, with emotion, and we were not able to do it when we started from door to door – something else was when we divided it by sections with Egunkaria or Egin. We disguise ourselves as villains to defend purely economic interests, but I have not heard such recognition from anyone.

I was among all that, too. I had responsibilities and paid them. Also to those of us who suggested that they could do the same.