However, there is a member of the five hundred families that formed the oligarchy, who has offered a real portrait in 12 pages. Pedro Ibarra has written Report of the anti-Francoism in the Basque Country. It is an important book because it offers his testimony and that of his partner, Carmen Oriol, both from the oligarchy, explaining his militant and anti-Francoist commitment, but also because it contributes to knowing Neguri's economic, political and social elite. The conduct and moral codes of those who think they are above and privileged, the influence of National Catholicism, the political attitude of defense of their economic interests within Franco, the contempt for culture… All of this configures the portrait of a society. Pedro and Carmen dared to leave there, in the opposite direction, next to the working class.
They came out of the crudest oligarchy. “The few families who ruled in Bizkaia – says Ibarra – had political and economic power. They dominated directly in the big industry (electricity, steel, chemical industry, mining) and also in the big banks. And they governed indirectly, sometimes without intermediaries, in politics and during the Franco dictatorship. They also ruled in the few media that existed. That is, money was theirs, power and dominant ideology.”
And that oligarchy, let us not forget – I would add – is also alive and active, whether in Neguri or in other “quieter” places.
November 19 is World Bathing Day. Even today, in the twenty-first century, many workers here in the Basque Country do not have the right to use the toilet in their working days. Many transport workers are an example of this.
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