Does Euskera make us people?

Spanish would make us “people” and French “gens”. I'm sick of treating language like an Amazon or a whale. How long will we continue to claim that we have to save the Amazon, the whales and the Basque Country? The Basque is saved from having a dictionary and a grammar, the Basque does not suffer. If we suffer, we suffer those of us who want to live in Basque. It is the future of our linguistic community that is at issue. We have to save ourselves as a community. In this community there is also room for the Castilian speaking speakers who have been delinguistized. Many have a motivation, an interest, and everything that has been achieved in favor of the Basque Country in the last 40-50 years cannot be understood without that conscious erdaldungo. In Pamplona, for example, they created the ikastolas so that their lack did not belong to their children. This should be a temporary historic accident, not a phenomenon that extends over time.

Does it not take too long?

There's bleeding. The phenomenon, in the conviction that it serves us, is being maintained and consolidated rather than reduced. That is why we are not making much progress. That is why we are not going beyond resistance. As Jon Sarasua rightly says, this is not a half-empty or half-full bottle, but a broken bottle. We're working, but we're always losing. For example, being so simple, why is it so difficult for us to define what is “Basque”? Because the discourse against the Basque Country is continuously underway and the word “Basque” has also emptied us of meaning. Today it is also said “Basque” to the erdaldune that has been formed in these lands, although it is known that historically and culturally this is not the case. Why do Pío Baroja not appear in the history of Basque and Axular literature in the history of Spain? We live distorted by opposite discourses.

Distorted distortions, centuries, empires, peoples... and the Basque country has always remained. Why?

Because Euskera is a people. If we believe that the Basque people are people, what comes next, we will keep it. At first, we managed with the alboka, until the trikitixa arrived from Italy. We update, adapt and deepen in our environment, congratulations and beatitudes. Same thing with electric guitar. If you are aware that Euskera is people, you don't care about the alboka or the guitar, or the txapela or the visor. These are superficial things. It is no coincidence that the criterion that has chosen our culture to define itself is the voice. It's very rare in the world. However, the fact that we have remained so far does not guarantee the future. How much can we endure under the current conditions? 30 years ago, Baxe Navarre was the most Euskaldun region in the Basque Country. For a people, eternal resistance is exhausting. Those who are constantly swimming against the current end up being dragged by the current.

What's at the heart of this passion for survival?

Based on our self-definition, the desire to be us has given us the courage to remain as a community until today, if you want weak and sick, but I live. In our case, despite being divided into different states, we have maintained the connection within the community. In our village, in Garralda, our elders told us little about Pamplona. Her capital was San Juan de Pie de Puerto, being emigrated by the aunt of our house. In principle, they were two states that had nothing to do with each other, our elders had no obvious Basque conscience, but their instinct linked them to a community. If the language is alive, this instinct still exists today, but if you have torn down borders it's because you don't need boundaries. The loss of language is the sincere limit that is imposed without borders or road controls.

We often forget that French and Spanish are taxes.

And how! The law does not treat the two languages equally and democratically. There is always a policy in favour of one. In Errate, Spanish classes are free for the immigrant population, but whoever wants to be educated in Basque will be required money and free hours. In Spanish everything is in favor of the wind, in Basque everything is a difficulty and an obstacle. This is one of the features of French and Spanish Jacobinism. They know perfectly well that language is identity and where it is lost, identity is lost. It is therefore much easier to govern the herd. It was not for nothing that a French scholar had said that there was still a subjugated people who did not lose their language.

In Lapurdi, Zuberoa and Baxe (Navarre), and in some places in Navarre, those who speak better in Basque than in Spanish are the strongest rivals in Basque.

That's self-fat. As the language of the ruling government is valid, you have difficulties to advance along the way, to climb the social ladder, and you sew with complexes that hate yourself. You come to believe it's the obstacle. That's why, and so that kids don't suffer from what you've suffered, you cut off the natural transmission of language. The self-government generated by the suffering of this denial is terrible. Blame your identity, your language, your community. You are convinced that you have not been able to be a lawyer for that reason that you have been a despised labrador all your life. But language is not to blame, but domination.

How can wars produce such unequal relations with the dominant state on both sides of the border?

As far as the North is concerned, think that in the last two world wars France has won. Whether you like it or not, it's always more comfortable to stick to the side of the victor. On the other hand, you've lost your parents, your children, your relatives, your friends -- and it would be unbearable to think that they died in useless battles. Therefore, within the propaganda “Morts pour la patrie” it is emphasized that they are heroes, in all the peoples they are built a monument and their death is justified. In the South, on the other hand, we have lost the wars against Spain in general, and we have been left with the instinct of the loser, the dignity of the effort of the defeated. To some extent, we've also translated this complex into language. That motivation and accumulated capacity during Franco's life erupted in his death. Ikastolas, social and political movements, adult literacy, teaching in Basque… took shape, the effervescence was terrible. However, this movement needs serious political support, as it is evident from 30 to 40 years later that this effort has not borne fruit and that this has resulted in a loss of effort and hope. Today, in the absence of political measures, the greatest effort also has a difficult future, as in Nafarroa Garaia it is quite obvious.

What are these measures to be implemented politically?

Firstly, the groups and parties that are in principle in favour of the Basque country should believe that we are people of that language. At the moment, the Basque community has no complete political representation. The issue of the Basque country does not have priority for the political groups, they always have more work than before. Furthermore, they should form a logical internal policy that responds to the principles proclaimed by these political groups. The easiest thing is to denounce the policy of the Spanish and French nationalist parties, but to be in the opposition or in a small power, a coherent policy must also be pursued. This is what is actually transmitted and not through campaigns in favor of the Basque Country that are made unnecessarily in most cases. It is not understood that the literate Basque Basque politicians speak in Spanish where the simultaneous translators are working, but this is a case that is constantly being seen. The books are published in Spanish... This is the model that is being collected. That is why I say that it is not so much to say what you want to do for the Basque country. Do and you'll see! The key is the coherence between what we do and say. In the meantime, we Basques are condemned to live in a complex way. If you do not need the Basque Country to be a nationalist mayor of Bilbao but to be a city council concierge, what does the Basque Country relate to? Instead of claiming so much that they are in favor of the Basque people, that they do so, and it will look. For this to happen, those of us who believe that Euskera is the essence of this people, we have to put pressure on the authorities, whoever they are, more or less, because so far they are all below the needs of the linguistic community.

A person can be multilingual. A people?

No. The appearance of bilingualism only occurs while a language is lost. The only bilingual that exists among us is the Basque, not the Spanish. That's why we're more diglosic than bilingual. It is no coincidence that the most violent attacks on the Basque people are carried out in the name of bilingualism. It would limit bilingualism to an era of resistance, but above all, we should decide what we want the second language and, on that basis, agree a level of knowledge. France did very well by threatening itself with English. I had passed the laws to protect the French, and there's already the problem. But all of this was long ago reported by Txepetxe in the book A Future for Our Past, which we still have to know.

Can disclosure be a way to combat oppression?

Disclosure fuels self-confidence and, as a people, provides a more direct view of oneself. We've always been told that we were marginal and exclusionary, and to turn that around, we need a self-knowledge and a vision of ourselves based on trust and without complexes. This is what we are with our misery and our virtues, but we do not believe that all our misery is natural, nor that all our virtues have come from outside. On the other hand, in order to find something, it is necessary to know its existence. Ignorance leaves you naked, and the one who doesn't know that he has something to lose doesn't feel the need to launch in search of anything. That is why the expansion and promotion of consciousness is inevitable. Unfortunately, no one attaches importance to it, they accuse us of things like “here they come back with the farms of always” or “the Guggenheim is our north”. Interestingly, in the Basque Country, the Guggenheim is the place where the book Orhipean is most sold, because the one who comes from outside feels enough curiosity to see where modernity is located. Why not from here? To do this, we must know that we do not know, that there is a broad world, a rich culture, that we have to know. Once we know, we will be able to decide whether it is worth joining or not. The one who does not know, cannot decide anything.

Jon Sarasua says that the challenge of Euskera is not just that of Euskera.

As Xalbador sang, it would be easier for us to be led by inertia and to live peacefully. But whoever is part of the Basque community has a worm to move forward, a belief that accuses it of doing well, and is convinced that what it does is not just for its own good, but a way of seeing the world. What is the situation of the other minority cultures? Where is the cultural heritage of mankind going? It is a question of restoring the balance between the peoples, cultures and languages of the world, so that everyone has a territory where to live peacefully by creating and breathing in their own culture. In this way, how can we help the Brazilian Yanomamines? If we are indigenous to Europe and are able to survive in what Europe is, we will be able to teach them something, and in other respects we will have nothing to learn from them.