All the Alavese crews have an Euskera technician. You are workers of the Crew, although in the year of the Provincial Council of Álava you live on the basis of the annual subsidy, in an unknown situation.

We try to forget it. Today, the network of Basque technicians in the country is linked to the political project of the Diputación de Álava. We have experienced great instability. We have been living quieter since the color of the political party of the Diputación changed, but the system of containment of the network has not changed. They say they want to stabilize, but we are still here.

For whom do you work the Basque technicians?

For our crew. However, quadrillas, the personal resources are different, the sociolinguistic situations are also different, and the deputation is the point of coordination, the foral service of Euskera. On the other hand, we have also taken the role of spokesman for the people who work in the crews for the normalization of the Basque country. We are going to ask the Member for something, we put pressure on him.

Do we whiten the conscience of the institutions the services and technicians of Euskera?

We are trying to make it difficult to justify conscience, both to the institutions and to the social partners. “You are there, you are working, what are we going to do?” says some Basque associations, and the truth is that that is the thorn that I have inside. It was inevitable that it would happen, but it makes me sad, and I will fight against it, because a strong Basque service needs a strong popular movement; if one axis is missing the other, it will not work. I would prefer a strong popular movement rather than a specific figure in public institutions. The normalization of the Basque Country is a matter for the whole of society, we know who does the real work.

He says it was inevitable.

People were tired, and many, burned, tired of framing the promotion of Euskera always in a struggle. For example, many have told me that since the creation of the Basque service the municipalities have taken care of the work that the association had previously done. Consequently, the association of Euskera has taken air, but it has also evicted it, since the association has been suspended and without functions. And paradoxically, the Basque services of the municipalities feel the need to activate society. For years, we have seen public institutions and social movements pressuring each other. Now, on the contrary, especially in the rural municipalities, where in Vitoria it works otherwise, there is a lack of pressure, this measure of tension. We have Basque services, but we do not have an organized number of interlocutors in the municipality.

In Vitoria-Gasteiz it works differently, as there is a very high percentage of Alavesa society.

Yes. In Álava it is the only city, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and the balance is totally unbalanced in terms of population and resources. Moreover, the specific weights of the City Hall of Vitoria-Gasteiz and the Council of Álava are at the same time as power points. The Basque country is clearly seen in matters of standardization. We have to do with the Basque service of the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz, but the difficulties in organizing shared programs are enormous: Consider a wide geographical space of 8,000 inhabitants as a group of objectives, or a “thing” like Vitoria, with that strong structure of civic centers from neighborhood to neighborhood… How to share programs?

Six quadrillas in Álava with different sociolinguistic situations. However, I thought they have a similar socio-linguistic basis in terms of the population under 30.

It's matching, but there's still a long way to go before it's a bertsolari. That number of people coming from education is for us the most useful material, in the Zuia crew, in Gesaltza, in La Rioja, in Salvatierra and everywhere. But Alavese society does not know how to react to this situation, because the response to this multitude is different in some cases and in others. Although in later generations the Basque equals, the permeability of Euskera in society is different. In Murgia, posters aimed at young people have been placed solely in Euskera, and according to the target group and activity, as well as other advertisements announcing activities without age limits. Ten years ago, in a Zigoitia, who organised such a sport, I would not think of the language in which it was to be performed. Today, yes. Another thing is how things are raised from the very beginning and what is the path that that that Basque technician planteamiento.El will follow can make the effort, the approach and the proposal, but it does not follow the whole process.

Its main obstacles are the geographical extension and dispersion of people.

In our case, this is not about the normalization of the Basque Country, but about social organization. If there is no social organization, if there is no reference centre, our work becomes almost impossible. I believe in the intensive work of the Basque services: take a geographical space and a limited people, and work on it intensively. Our goal has always been to organize activities for the entire crew, from Aramaio to Urkabustaiz, to organize something that can come together around the Basque people, but that doesn't make sense. And it has cost us to realize that! It is a very extensive region and its inhabitants have a certain way of moving and living. Our job should be to put your nose into that particular way of moving and living that people have and try to change linguistically. But at the moment we do not have enough resources for this. It's very difficult.

They should start organizing support groups.

Throughout the week I have four municipalities, I have four offices… It is very important that in each place we have a minimum structure of Euskera, which works at ease, in collaboration with public institutions, but also while working as a tensioner: “This has not been done. The Basque plan was approved, but it has not been complied with. Doe has not met any linguistic criteria…”.

What are the strategic plans of the Basque Country for? I have read you that the files are full of plans: from public capital to the speaking community in Article 206.

When an institution makes a press conference saying that it has approved a strategic plan for Euskera for the next four years, the value it has before society is totally devalued. I am becoming more and more aware of this. This press conference has no use as an act of communication, it does not say anything to the citizen. On the contrary, the Basque technicians have worked according to plan, and we have made the people in our environment work according to plan. Our committees of Euskera have been monitoring committees of the Basque Country, but this is not the way to activate the people, but to disactivate them. Power points, levels of compliance with the Euskera plan and surveys… are absolutely technical methodologies, essential for the Euskera technician, but not for the citizen: he needs something else, goes to meetings, works content, collaborates… Activation is a very complicated thing. How do you know which fiber you have to touch each other to activate the Euskaltzale inside?

Something difficult, activation. Are we talking about the activation of society through so many plans, methodologies and actions?

Little. This concept starts to produce some salsa. Historically, we've measured Euskaltzale people with a single pattern. The presentation of the people was made: “vasquist”. In some socio-linguistic spaces many have experienced militancy with the Basque Country, from Euskaltzalism they have resorted to other activities. That's the story, and we'll never thank those people for the work they've done. But the Vasophile is people over the age of one. Today, there are few young people who are simply Basque. Besides being Euskaltzale, young people are also “fans” of others.

Who should lead? Who is the responsibility for?

The question has no easy answers... I will say what I think: by simplifying a lot, if you take the two main axes of the normalization of the Basque country – the social movements and the public institutions – both have the ability to activate the people, each in its own way. So, in the long run, I would look for shared leadership. Social movements are an organized society, and today, for some social sectors, these structures have the greatest credibility. But that's the limit. They serve “some social sectors”, they are of limited accessibility, that is, outside these sectors there is a large part of society that does not even know they exist. Who has the capacity to reach society as a whole? Public entities: The government and the deputies. But I also refer now to the government, they have to work on another leadership: I do not believe that it gives the right messages, nor that it uses the right channels.

What do you mean?

I believe that the main public body in the Autonomous Community should do a self-organisation of years. As regards activation, I would ask the Basque Government, for example, to leave the way for general campaigns and expansive messages and to put forces in intensive work. It is a great job, resources are also limited, but I would ask the Basque Government to start activating real people. As far as its extension is concerned, the public authorities are the main resource: that it acts of activation together with the social movements and, in the long term, that society itself, with the public institutions in the background, takes the lead in helping and supporting society. Historically, it has done the opposite.