Sahara "a feira"
Every year, the first week of July, my grandmother and my aitites travel from Barakaldo to Galicia to make the udapasa in their native town, Boiro. The first dinner is always the same: octopus to feira. In Barakaldo they live in front of bar A nosa terra, a neighborhood in which the Galician listens more often than the Basque. However, the octopus is reserved for the Boiro or for very special celebrations. It's a ritual.
The same day my mother sent me a family photo while she ate aitite pulp to fair, I saw on television a report about the origin of the octopus. Do you know where most of the octopus that restaurants offer comes from? Western Sahara and Mauritania.
Dakhlan coves are the richest on the Moroccan coast: they catch 84% of the fish exported, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In the meantime, living conditions in the Sahrawi camps remain serious. They have no water supply and are prohibited from fishing on their coast
I am not surprised to learn that we import the octopus that they sell in the supermarkets of the countries of the South, but in the report they go to a very famous market in Ourense and the sellers show that they have not sold local octopuses for some time. In Europe, demand for this precious product has grown dramatically in recent years. Galicia is still a reference, but its mission is to collect, process, embed and export imported animals abroad. Does my grandfather know that the food he's craving in the photo is as strange as the food he'd buy in his neighborhood's Eroski?
The documentary is carried out in the Western Sahara, which means that we are feeding the polio that Morocco is doing illegally in the occupied territories. Dakhlan coves are the richest on the Moroccan coast: they catch 84% of the fish exported, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In the meantime, living conditions in the Sahrawi camps remain serious. They have no water supply and are prohibited from fishing on their coast. In the report, while journalists say so, there is the Moroccan police force, which forces them to return to the airport, and they will be deported for having reported this injustice.
Two consequences were added: 1. As with Israel, I have to try to boycott Moroccan products. 2nd Eating seasonal products is a form of resistance to colonialism. This consumer culture is used to getting what we like at any time and anywhere. Mangos, papais, maracuyas. Did you know that the fashionable quinoa makes the price of this product have risen and that many people in the Andes cannot afford their basic food? In favour of food sovereignty we can make many everyday gestures. My good intention this year has been not to buy tomato off-season and wait for it to be picked up in the consumer group basket. It was worth it.
My grandmother was a girl on the edge of her village, that unforgettable day when she found an octopus. She ran to carry her in the basket, eager to give her mother a surprise. A neighbor tried to deceive him with the intention of stealing a couple of tentacles: “For it to be soft, you have to catch it by cutting the inner tentacles.” My grandmother didn't believe it, and she responded firmly. “I leave or cry.” It's the grandmother's favorite anecdote.
The report ends with a sad warning: The octopuses of the Sahara and Mauritania are also being exhausted. Soon these mythological animals were born and will live in the farms.
Bidali zure iritzi artikuluak iritzia@argia.eus helbide elektronikora
ARGIAk ez du zertan bat etorri artikuluen edukiarekin. Idatzien gehienezko luzera 4.500 karakterekoa da (espazioak barne). Idazkera aldetik gutxieneko zuzentasun bat beharrezkoa da: batetik, ARGIAk ezin du hartu zuzenketa sakona egiteko lanik; bestetik, egitekotan edukia nahi gabe aldatzeko arriskua dago. ARGIAk azaleko zuzenketak edo moldaketak egingo dizkie artikuluei, behar izanez gero.
He forgives the oak trees, oak trees, oaks, herons, strawberries, dressings, chestnuts, birch, gorostidias, chamomiles, pine trees and all the societies of the trees, but today the hayedo has a date on the occasion of the celebrations of the winter border.
It is easier for me... [+]
Euskaraldia comes back. Apparently, it will be in the spring of next year. They have already presented it and the truth is that it has surprised me; not Euskaraldia himself, but his motto: We'll do it by moving around.
The first time I have read or heard it, the title of the... [+]
When the heteropatriarchal capitalist colonial system is questioned and fought, it attacks mercilessly. Using all the tools at your disposal to strengthen, strengthen and consolidate institutional power, media, justice, language, culture, violence...
In Switzerland, where every... [+]
I do not know if you also have the same perception – I recognise this: here I have started to write in a scientific way. I am referring to the natural extension of the word laziness. I hear more and more in the corners of Hego Euskal Herria: Basque, Spanish and, of course,... [+]
Many at Christmas feel more lazy than illusion when we think about meals and family gatherings. But we anticipate that it is not food that makes us feel collectively uncomfortable, but the normativity that defines the traditional family. Moreover, we would dare to say that the... [+]
I have always found the way in Spanish to the carriages that can be found here and there: humiliating. Isn't it a pretty light, white name or doesn't it have any connotation? After all, everything that was going on there had to be humiliated. It is known that for the god of... [+]
The end of the Syrian Arab Republic has caused great surprise at the way in which it has taken place: fast and almost without resistance. However, it is not so strange when we consider that the country was destroyed, impoverished and trodden. Most Syrians have long been... [+]
Novelty is usually one of the most heard words associated with the Durango Fair. The novelty is there, and here's the novelty. However, in some cases it is sufficient to give a different aspect to the previous one to paste that label. The CDs and remastered reeditions with... [+]
The Basque country has a very large water flow in the shortage. Every local drop curls and revives our culture. Offer a sea of water to that thirst. Although the Basque Country has come from a deep and dark well, we have all drawn our sample of salt water and turned it into a... [+]
Young people start consuming pornography before, as porn is their only sex education. How on earth have we come here?
Today, it has to be acknowledged that thanks to the Internet it is much easier to see pornography. Unfortunately, through a click, the 7-9 year-old boy comes to... [+]
On 5 December last, pp presented in the Parliament of Navarra a proposal for a law to decouple the processes of functionalization of the Secretariat and Intervention positions of the local entities of Navarra. If this were to happen, about 30 people would achieve well-deserved... [+]
This year marks the 51st anniversary of the United Nations proclamation of International Human Rights Day on 10 December. This date has become important in Euskal Herria and the Human Rights Observatory of Euskal Herria wants to offer some elements of reflection.
Progress on... [+]