The greatest Basque shame

Every nation has its shameful realities, not always apparent, and Basques are no exception.

Every year the Bidasoa river towns of Hondarribia and Irun celebrate their fiestas around the main act of a copycat military parade that is representation of battles held long ago, when the local militias played a key role in defending the fortified places. These are known as "alarde", Spanish word that means posse or bravado but that originally meant military review.

They used to be male-only activities with a unique token decorative role for women, as "cantineras" (one per company), sort of fangirl and maid (and who-knows-what) for the military unit. Eventually what had to happen happened and "mixed" companies (with female "soldiers") demanded their place. Unlike in other cases of gender discrimination, where this change has been adopted quite naturally, in the Bidasoan towns the reaction was extreme, up to the point that Xabier Muguruza wrote a song calling them fundamentalists. Most local politicians sided with the reactionary majority even up to the point of challenging their own parties and bordering challenging the law at times. However tribunals forced them to accept that mixed companies had to be allowed in the official parade.

This was confronted by the fundamentalists by boycotting the official parade and making their own. So at the moment the only company taking part in the official parade of each town is the mixed company. Being followed soon after by the unofficial parallel parade.

To make things worse and increase the sociological violence against the mixed companies, the fundamentalists have systematically organized year after year a display of black plastics and black umbrellas with slogans like "we did not came to watch you".

However gradually their numbers have been dwindling. This year the presence of supporters of the mixed company at Hondarribia (Irun is yet to have its fiestas) has been very notable, for the first time maybe competing with the fundamentalist display.


The photo above is a quite clear example: there are still black umbrellas but what is more apparent is the lot of people cheering the brave company Jaizkibel, which is patiently winning this most important battle of today.

Source: Gara.

Sastre: past and present as Spaniard and as Basque

There is today a very interesting interview with acclaimed Spanish language dramatic author Alfonso Sastre at Gara newspaper. I am translating here, to the best of my capability, some of the most interesting passages.


Biographic notes:

Alfonso Sastre was born in 1926 at Madrid, beginning his career as dramatist in 1945, always with a rebellious intent that was heavily censored under fascism.

In 1974, in events that provide a sense of deja vú for today political repression, his wife, Eva Forest, and later himself as well were arrested for "collaboration with ETA". After his release on bail in 1975, and under death threats, he exiled himself to Bordeaux. Expelled by France in 1977, he is then refuged in Italy but returns to Spain upon his mother's death. After a second arrest for insults against the Army and the release of Eva, the family moves to Hondarribia in the Basque Country.

In 1998, upon the sudden judiciary closure of Egin newspaper, where he collaborated, he becomes director of its provisional replacement: Euskadi Información, a newspaper that published as stapled photocopies filled the void for moths until a new proper media was created from scratch and popular subscriptions: Gara.

In 2007, Eva Forest dies. In 2009 he became the leading figure of the list for the European Parliament Iniciativa Internacionalista, which suffered of widespread vote rigging, what probably prevented him from becoming MEP.

Some of his most celebrated plays are: 'Squad to death', 'The gag', 'Red earth', 'God's blood, Ana Kleiber', 'William Tell has sad eyes,' 'The fantastic tavern', 'The infinite journey of Sancho Panza', 'Too late for Philoctetes', 'Jenofa Juncal, the red gypsy woman of Jaizkibel mountain' and 'Where are you Ulalume, where are you?' His theater has been described as a mixture of Bertolt Brecht and the esperpento gender of Valle Inclán.

More information on Alfonso Sastre and Eva Forest at Sastre-Forest.com (in Basque and Spanish).


Interview fragments follow:

...

We are at a moment of laughing for not crying.

...

In the Basque Country there was a resistance to the Reform, that the Spanish left also proposed. A moment came when the ideas of a need of democratic break up vanished from the lands of Spain and found refuge in the Basque Country; it is here where the idea of going nowhere worth it if the new situation was not generated in terms of break up crystallized. These ideas crystallized here and are the origin of what later became the Basque Nationalist Left.

...

And Spanish and French intellectuals are at the height of the circumstances on the Basque case?

No, they are at the height of their ignorance of this situation. I believe that they are ignorants. I see that with the Spaniards I know: they are more or less at the same level, so to say, in everything but this issue. When the Basque issue is debated they ignore everything and, besides, it seems as if they reject trying to understand it.

Why that attitude?

Because of patriotism[1], of great power chauvinism... Lenin already mentioned chauvinistic patriotism; he made a criticism of what what was called great power chauvinism. And Spain and France are great powers in relation to the Basque Country. Chauvinism is a common philosophy that absolutely prevents them from seeing what is happening here. It is very difficuly. Friends living in Madrid, for example, say how difficult is to make understand some things that are understood living here. And it is because of the Spanish patriotism, which is totally blinding.

...

There are some people who have approached the problem and have understood it from Madrid; people like Antonio Álvarez-Solis[2], who understands the problem perfectly and is still a man who has moved all his life in territories distant from Basque matters. But he came by, looked and saw what was going on. Nothing but that. That, which looks so simple, must not be so because there are not many cases like him.

...

Eva[3] and I, specially Eva, created the Committee of Solidarity with the Basque Country and researched the tortures that were happening here, which were even more serious, more severe than the ones happening elsewhere in the State of Spain. Then we created some friendly links and these were part of the reasons why we came here.

And politically it is something I have said before: we saw that here the idea of break up [with fascism] was settled in a way in which it could not be prescinded and which was not betrayed. And all that complex of reasons made us came here, and also because in Madrid, for that great power chauvinism, we were in a rather not too "livable" situation, let's call it that way, at some times. If we would have remained there our destiny would have been to live in certain solitude or something like that, but we did not wish such a thing. And we did not doubt. We said: "our place from now on is the Basque Country", and we came to live here.

...

I have got setbacks because, even if the situation of a dramatist is not good anywhere in the Spanish territory, mine has been worse maybe for my betrayal of Spain, that is how my decision of choosing to live here has been evaluated. My career has gone downhill but would not have gone much better would I have not made this step; my works have been represented less than would have happened would I have stayed in Madrid. At the personal level however all have been satisfactions, because I would not enjoy the popular support, the sympathy I enjoy, the love from this People I love too... And that is a value that cannot be exchanged for anything.

...

And what do you think of a judiciary threat for a cause such as peace?

Peace is a subversive idea. It is a very subversive idea. That's it.

...

In the name of peace, for instance, or of justice, or freedom, in the Basque Country we witness arrests, illegalizations, repression... Do we live a perversion of language?

Effectively so, it is a perversion of language characteristic of power.

...

It is a weapon of mass destruction against intelligence; that is: intelligence is destroyed because it is dangerous for the system. And as they have all the might of the big media of expression and communication, they can do it: they can pervert language up to such extremes. And they do it. After all, it is a reflection of the intrinsic perversion of capitalism.

...

I have changed a lot in my theater, which has two very different phases. Since some moment I began making what I call complex tragedies. They are tragedies in which people laughs a lot sometimes. They are not really tragicomedies: tragicomedy is a balance that sometimes tends to one side and sometimes to the other, some sort of tragic line with comical episodes or a comic line with some tragic episodes. My complex tragedy is not a tragicomedy, it is true tragedy, just that, as life itself is that way, in these tragedies there are comical effects, and that makes theater becomes a representation of that complex reality; that is why I call them complex tragedies.

...

I am writing now some essays on [new socialism], a book titled: "Testing the future" in which I ask this kind of questions: how will socialism be? And some things are already very clear: we cannot talk anymore of a socialism of abundance; socialism cannot promise abundance anymore, that would be something negative. It is not socialism or abundance but neither socialism of poverty. Neither rich nor poor. It would be a society in which the concepts of rich and poor would be the ones excluded.

...

In the last years of fascism there was some sort of hyper-politicization of theater groups...

When Franco dies and reform begins instead of breaking up, previous compulsory censorship disappears and political parties become legal, including the communist party. Then the people of the hyper-politicized theater said: "our responsibility is over, there are now political parties, there is no censorship, so now let's do what we want". And the liberty they took was very minimal, almost ridiculous at times, because it was when total nudity appeared in the sceneries and language was populated by swear words. And that was freedom... so theater did not reach beyond. And some of the authors that had sponsored ideas of a true political theater were marginalized then; so, censors had not to forbid them anymore because it was the very companies which were not interested in their work. Censorship was not necessary anymore. That situation remains today.

Can that be a pattern of self-censorship to prevent uncomfortable situations?

Indeed. It is the same that happened under fascism. Possibilism as was called by Buero Vallejo[4] was a proposal of self-censorship. We all censored ourselves in some way. I wrote a piece on torture but, if I wanted it to be performed in Madrid (as I wanted), I could not place the action in Madrid. So I placed it in a more or less imaginary Algeria. But what I meant to denounce was torture in Spain. When this piece was translated to Russian, the translator asked me if I minded to place the action in Madrid. "I do not just mind" - I replied - "but that is what I would have done if possible". And in Moscow it was titled "Madrid does not sleep by night".

...

Officially there is no censorship. What do you think?

It does exist, it does exist... Censorship has been reproduced in different ways. The schedulers of theaters are today's censors. And is not that they have a purely ideological censorship but also a more trivial censorship as well. For instance, a piece of mine was not scheduled because they said it was sad: so they were censors against sadness.

...

Three years without Eva Forest... What did Eva mean in your life?

I am not yet in conditions of speaking of Eva calmly, but if it can be said in few words I will, and that Eva is... Thanks to her the Basque drift of our family happened. Would not it have been for her probably I'd be now in Madrid, in some apartment I don't know where, bittered about life. I do not know if I would have got to know well about this country because maybe I would be myself ignoring it, would I? I don't think so because I knew already enough to keep researching the matter. And, well, we are Basques because Eva wanted us to be so and she made it.

...

I am against what some years ago was called in Europe "weak thought". It was a criticism to Stalinist communists: better to have a weak thought than a dogmatic thought. I agreed that thought must not be dogmatic, because if it is dogmatic then it is not thought, but I disagreed with resigning to a mere weak thought. We will have to try at least that our thought has some strength; we will have to search for the reasons on which something we say is solid and not something circumstantial that is going to become false tomorrow but which will remain as truth tomorrow, the day after and long time in the future. The great thinkers have produced thoughts that are still valid today.

...

________________________

Notes:

[1] The use of the terms patriotism and nationalism seems to be one of those cases of "lost in translation" because while they are essentially synonyms in both Spanish and English, the emotional charge of each is quite different in either language. Patriotismo in Spanish has a fascist vibe and usage while nationalismo an anti-fascist and peripheral secessionist one. In English instead it is normally the term patriotism which has the favorable vibe and nationalism the opposite. I decided however to keep the literal translation of patriotismo into patriotism.

[2] Spanish-Catalan famous journalist and writer, founder of Interviú magazine and promoter of El Períodico (a Catalan diary). He took part in debates in the Basque TV until the new undemocratic government of López took over.

[3] Eva Forest, his late wife. Another famous author in Spanish language and a dedicated activist.

[4] Buero Vallejo Nájera, Spanish tragic novel author under fascism.

Gora San Fermin!

Today officially begin the most famous fiestas worldwide: the San Ferminak of Pamplona.

Panoramic view of the City Hall Plaza at the txupin

Of course, the tensions between the official Navarre and the other Navarre have been present all the time.

For instance, it was the turn for the txupin to be launched by a member the Basque Nationalist Left municipal group and that has caused that for the first time it has been launched instead by the members of the Giants and Big-Heads konpartsa instead of a councilor. Furthermore the councilors of this group were forbidden to access the balcony on the grounds that their t-shirts had Basque flags on them.

However the Basque banner was visible in the plaza anyhow:

Another conflict is the censorship imposed on some peñak (popular groups that co-organize the fiestas and give it the real feeling) because their banners, traditionally critical and humorous depictions of the social and political reality, included references to Basque prisoners.

For that reason all peñak have agreed that this year their banners will be black, representing censorship.

Again, regardless the municipal government, solidarity with the prisoners has been present in form of the traditional salutation, this year by the hand Asier Aranguren, a recently liberated local prisoner:

Yet another conflict has been with the platform for participative fiestas Gora Iruñea! The city government has repeatedly denied them permission to install scenarios and such, so this year they have asked for the very minimums, bringing the rest of activities to the street (1200 hours of street music, activities for children, 14 rock concerts, dances...). Still the right-wing Mayor and camarilla have rejected to concede any permission, forbidding even a popular dinner. The association will therefore be forced to relocate these activities in less adequate spaces but the clowns Pirritx eta Mari Motots need an scenario for their actuation so they may have to cancel this activity. However they have promised to act for the children of Pamplona in some other occasion.

Another prohibition is vuvuzelas.

Source: Gara (link 1, link 2, photo gallery).

And, by the way, who was San Fermin? Nobody seems to know nor care... ask the Pope. What the people really wants is a pretext for wild, almost endless party.

________________________

Update (Jul 8): La Haine reports of one person arrested and two more brutally beaten by local police for carrying the Basque flag to the txupin (inaugural ceremony repeated daily). It's perfectly legal and nobody would mind if it'd be the banner of Australia or Andalusia but the Basque ensign is apparently forbidden de facto by the fascist government of the city.

Ample solidarity with persecuted Basque language newspaper

A diverse array of high-profile people from the areas of culture and politics gathered at the monastery of Arantzazu, symbol of the resistence of Basque culture and language under fascism, to support the persecuted editors of Egunkaria newspaper, gratuitously accused of being part of ETA, in the inquisitorial campaign that has marred Basque and Spanish political situation in the last decade.

Among the supporters were known artists like Fermin Muguruza, linguists like Txillardegi, iconic politicians like Xabier Arzalluz, two former lehendakariak, Carlos Garaikoetxea and J.A. Ardanza, as well as the presidents of the three western Basque provincial governments.

They expressed their solidarity with the accused in the Egunkaria case and specially with former secretary general of major labor union LAB, Rafa Díez, who is now in prison.

Tomorrow the trial against Egunkaria editors, promoted by fascist organizations after the government gave up, will continue at Madrid.

Source: Gara [sp - eu].

Related posts:
- Multitudes support Egunkaria.
- Political trial against Basque-language newspaper.

Political trial against Basque-language newspaper

Egunkaria, the first and then only newspaper in Basque language was created by popular subscription in 1990 and abruptly closed in 2003 by the Spanish Neoinquisition (Audiencia Nacional: political tribunal inherited from the fascist regime). The accusations? The same as for so many other political attacks: all that has a Basque identity is ETA.

Immediately after its closure a new popular subscription managed to create a new Basque-language daily out of the blue in few months: Berria.

After much social and international upheaval against what was perceived as the most blatantly political persecution against press and linguistic freedom of all the Neoinquisition abuses, some months ago the state accusation finally dropped the case. But two fascist organizations: the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) and Dignidad y Justicia (Dignity and Justice) have acted as private prosecution and, against all precedent (never before an AN judge had taken a case dropped by the state), the judge in charge, Javier Gómez Bermúdez, accepted the case.

Yesterday, the trial as such has finally begun. Five journalists (Iñaki Uria, Xabier Oleaga, Joan Mari Torrealdai, Martxelo Otamendi and Txema Azurmendi) are being tried for collaboration with ETA. In fact they are being processed for being proud Basques.

Right to left: Joan Mari Torrealdai, Martxelo Otamendi, Iñaki Uria, Txema Auzmendi and Xabier Oleaga just before entering the political tribunal at Madrid

In the first day, the five political victims rejected to reply to the private accusation's questions and, in the defense turn, they denied any relation at all with ETA and denounced again the brutal tortures they were subjected to upon their detention, so they would sign self-inculpatory declarations. The journalists defended the independence and plurality of Egunkaria.

Torrealdai reported that, after being arrested by the Guardia Civil (military police corps), he had to get psychological treatment for a whole year, Otamendi reported the sexual abuses he was subject to while in detention, in addition to be forced to do physical exercise to the point of extenuation, Uria how he was applied "the bag" torture method ("controlled" asphyxia causing near death experiences once and again) and that he was threatened with a gun, including a simulated shot, that he was pointed with infrarred weapons and beaten with a telephone book (doesn't leave marks).

Uria declared that he has a long trajectory of working in Basque-language media (Argia, Egunkaria, Hamaika Telebista) and that he has never belonged to any political organization. He also recalled the birth of Egunkaria, when the platform Egunkaria Sortzen (creating the newspaper) was formed as a plural entity of some 70 people.

One of the accusations is that ETA appointed in fact the executive positions. Uria rejected that that was the case at all but that it was the late Joxemi Zumalabe who proposed him for vicedirector (later, in 1993, he became member of the administration council). He also reported that it was this council who elected Martxelo Otamendi as director of the newspaper.

He declared that in all the time he was in the decission-making structures of the newspaper he never heard of any sort of interference y ETA and that, would have been the case, he would have opposed it.

Oleaga reported that what the Spanish police wanted to get from the tortures he was subject to was that he signed that he was working in Egunkaria in 1993 and that it was Uria who proposed him. The reason for this was known to him later, because all the prosecution is based on some documents taken from ETA and dated to March 1993. However it was made evident from his social security records that he only began working at Egunkaria in 1995.

Otamendi's declaration focused on why Egunkaria has published interviews with ETA, as well as communications and excerpts from ETA's internal bulletin, Zutabe. He defended that such journalistic practices respond to a public interest and are well established in the Spanish and international jurispurdence and that journalists enjoy professional secret, so they can't be forced to reveal their sources.

The trial is due to cotinue today and in the following days. The solidarity with the persecuted journalists, both in and out of the Basque Country is overwhelming, naturally.

Source: Gara.

Aymeric Picaud on Basques (12th century)

This is a classical: one of the oldest extensive references to Basques. It includes most of the last book of the Codex Calixtinus (a pilgrim guide to St. James Way). Aymeric Picaud is merciless and full of hateful bigotry towards Basques and in fact with all other peoples south of his native Poitou: Santes, Girondines, Gascons, Castilians and even Galicians are all represented as barbaric, greedy, drunkard, irate and prone to banditry. But most of the fifth book (Liber Peregrinationis) is ironically dedicated to Basques (Northern Basques) and Navarrese (Southern Basques).

Later, already close to Pass of Cize [Ibaineta, Roncesvaux pass], we find the Basque Country that has at its coast to the north the city of Bayonne. This land is barbaric for its language, full of forests, mountainous, lacking in bread, wine and all food for the body except the consolation of apples, cider and milk. In this land, near the Pass of Cize, in the town of Ostabat and those of Saint-Jean [Donibane Garazi, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port] and Saint-Michel-Pied-de-Port, there are some villanous pass guards, who are totally condemned because they jump to the way of pilgrims with two or three spears and make them pay forcibly unjust taxes. And if any traveller rejects to pay the deniers he's asked for they pay him with the spears and take them anyhow, insulting him and registering even the pants.

They are ferocious and the land where they dwell is also ferocious, wild and barbarous: the ferocity of their faces, and the grunts of their barbarous language sow terror in the hearts of those who see them. Even if legally they should take taxes only from the traders, they get it unjustly from pilgrims and all travellers. When they must tax anything four or six deniers, they demand eight or twelve, that is: double. (...)

In the Basque Country there is a very high mountain named Pass of Cize, either because that is the gate of Spain [Iberian peninsula] or because through that mountain goods are carried from one land to the other; and its way up has eight miles and its way down eight as well. Its height is such that seems to reach heaven. Those who climb it think they can almost touch heaven with their hands. From its summit the British [English Channel] and Western [Atlantic Ocean or Bay of Biscay] seas can be seen, and the lands of three countries: Castile, Aragon and France. (...)

Notes:

1. I believe it is just impossible to see the English Channel from anywhere on the Pyrenees, so either Picaud was misled by some legend or he meant as "British Sea", the waters bordering Brittany by the south, i.e. the Bay of Biscay or part of it.

2. The description of the "three countries" implies that this journey was made in the period of the First Partition, when the Kingdom of Pamplona had been briefly divided between Castile and Aragon, that is: in 1076-1134. Probably in the late phase of this partition, as the word Navarre only came to use in that period of Aragonese rule.

In this very mountain, before Christianity grew fully by Spanish lands, the heathen Navarrese and Basques used not just to rob the pilgrims that journeyed to Saint James but also ride them as donkeys and kill them. (...)

After this valley Navarre begins, land considered happy for the bread and wine, the milk and cattle. The Navarrese and the Basques [Northern Basques] are very similar in what refers to food, clothes and language, but Basques are have fairer faces than Navarrese. These wear with short black clothes to the knees, like Scots, and use a type of shoes called albarcas [abarkak], made with uncured hairy leather, tied to the foot with strings, covering only the base of the foot and leaving the rest bare. They wear some black and short clothes long to the elbows and wavy like paenulae, that they call sayas. They eat, drink and wear like pigs; because all the family of a Navarrese home, the lord as the servant, the lady as the maid, usually eat their food mixed from a pot, not with a spoon but with their hands, and drink from a cup. If you saw them eating, you'd think them as dogs or pigs eating, and, if you heard them talking they would remind you the barking of dogs, becasue theyr language is completely barbaric. To God they call Urcia [Urtzi or Ost: an ancient impersonation of the sky with no myths attached]; to God's Mother, Andrea Maria [= Lady Mary]; to bread, orgui [ogi]; to wine, ardum [ardo]; to meat, aragui [haragi]; to the house, echea [etxe]; to the lord of the house, iaona [jauna]; to the lady, andrea; to the church, elicera [eliza, elizara = "to the church"]; to the presbyter, belaterra that means beautiful land [?]; to wheat, gari; to water, uric [ur, urik= partitive declination, used in negative]; to the king, ereguia [erregea]; to Saint James, iaona domne Iacue [jauna done Jakue: the lord St. James].

This is a barbaric people, distinct to all others in uses and way of life, full of evils, dark in color, of scary aspect, depraved, pervert, perfidious, disloyal and false, lusty, drunkard, in all kind of violences skilled, ferocious, wild, evil and reprobate, heathen and rough, brawler, lacking in any virtue and dexterous in all vices and iniquities; similar in evilness to the Getes and Saracens, and enemy of our people Gaulish in all. For just a denier a Basque or a Navarrese kills, if he can, a Frenchman. In some of its regions, specially in Alava and Biscay, the Navarrese man and woman show each other their shameful parts while they get warm. The Navarrese also use of the beasts in impure copulations, because it is said that a Navarrese hangs a lock from the legs of his mule or mare so nobody but himself can approach it. He also kisses lustly the sex of the woman and the mule. For all said the Navarrese have to be censored in all aspects. Nevertheless they are considered good in open battle, bad in assaulting castles, just in the payment of the tithe [religious tax] and asiduous in their offerings to the altars. Because every day, when they go to church, they make an offer to God of either bread, wine or wheat, or some other product. Every time that a Basque or Navarrese goes on journey, he hangs from the neck a horn like do hunters, and carries in his hands, as is customary, two or three spears that they call azconas. When entering or leaving home he whistles like a kite. And, when hidden in some occult place to rob, he wishes to call silently to his mates, he either hoots like an owl or howls like a wolf.

It is said that they descend of the lineage of the Scots because they are similar to them in uses and aspect. It is fame that Julius Caesar sent to Spain, to subdue the Spaniards, who did not want to pay tribute to three peoples: Nubians, Scots and Cornish, commanding them to kill all males and only respect the women. And having them invaded by sea that land, after destroying all their ships, they devastated it with blood and fire from Barcelona to Zaragoza and from the city of Bayonne to Moutains of Oca. They could not trespass those limits because the Castilians [sic] gathered and threw them away from their lands in fight. Fleeing, therefore, they reached the coastal mountains that are between Najera, Pamplona and Bayonne, that is: to the coast in the lands of Biscay and Alava, where they settled and built many fortresses, and they killed all the males and kidnapped the women, with whom they engendered children, who in turn were called Navarrese by their successors. Hence Navarre means not truthful, that is: engendered from not truthful lineage or non-legitimate ascendancy. The Navarrese also take their name primitively from a city called Naddaver, that is in the lands from where the apostle and evangelist Saint Matthew originally came from, in the early times.

Note: Obviously all in this last paragraph is a mere libellous and ahistorical farce but is anyhow interesting to transcribe here because it shows how defamation also worked in the Middle Ages and how many legends may have been created by griots and bards only to please this or that magnate and his particular version of history. This myth seems to have been circulating with enough strength in the time as to cause Picaud to believe it.

The word Navarre is surely Nabarra originally and means "the brownish" (land) and it was in times of this codex a very novel term applied to the short-lived County of Navarre that included part of the lands of modern Navarre. The term surely means the Mediterranean climate area that is not green all year long like the rest of the Basque Country. It is interesting anyhow that it had already become a common word to mean all Southern Basques, even if it was such a new idiom.

It is also interesting the mythical link made with Scots and other Atlantic-Celtic peoples, also in clothing and customs. It seems to me that even before blood groups and then modern genetics noticed some striking biological similitudes, customs and appearance already caused some to imagine some sort of link. There is another myth dating probably to this same Medieval period that tells that the lineage of the Lords of Biscay, instituted by Castile after conquest, originated as God Sugaar (aka Maju) had an affair with a Scottish princess in the fishing village of Mundaka, near the once important harbour of Bermeo. But that's about it in what regards to mythical links between Basques and Scots or any other people.

Whatever the case, it is a funny and sometimes interesting depiction of Basques. While I have skipped the paragraph on Gascons, they are described in very similar terms. The rest of the peoples visited are just barely mentioned but none causes a too favorable impression in Picaud either, except his native folk of Poitou. A bigot.

Source: posted by jeromor at Celtiberia.net (in Spanish).
.

19th century replica iron cargo boat

Built by Itsas Begia, a society from Ziburu (Lapurdi) focused in the preservation and recovery of Basque mariner history, the boat Brokoa arrived yesterday to Zumaia (Gipuzkoa) after several days of coasting from Portugalete (Biscay).

The Brokoa is a replica of 19th century cargo boats, known as txalupa haundi (broad boat), that sailed along the Basque coast carrying prime quality iron ore from the area of Bilbao to the many forges spread through the country (they were built not where lumber was aboundant and rivers could power their machinery, the ore could always be brought from elsewhere).

The ship is 13.7 m long and 3 m wide, with a max. depth of 80 cm, holding two masts 12 and 8 m high. It could carry some 10 tons of material, normally iron but was also common to complement the cargos with other less important merchandises, known as pacotilla (mariner word that now means in common Spanish "fake" or "low quality").

The journey they are now replicating began at the Biscaine port of Portugalete, north of Bilbao, where the original txalupa haundiak used to load the iron from nearby Somorrostro Valley. There the ancestors of the Brokoa were revised by the "ticket-seller major", who made sure that 8 maravedis per iron quintal were paid to the provincial government as taxes. From Portugalete they sailed to Muskiz and Castro Urdiales, where they visited a historical forge in good preservation state. From Castro they sailed to Plentzia, where are the forges of Butron (Gatika) and then to Lekeitio, where steel bars for naval construction used to be made.

And from Leketio, they made it to Zumaia in just three hours. The port of Zumaia used to supply all the industry of Western Gipuzkoa, along the Urola basin. In this locality they visited an old store still preserved.

Today they must have already done their last coastal journey to Donibane Lohitzune (St. Jean-de-Luz) in Lapurdi, also in some 3 hours. From Donibane, the iron used to be carried up the river Urdazubi to Azkaine in Navarre, where the iron ore was stored for its use at the forges of the low Pyrenees, like the one at the Monastery of San Salvador of Urdazubi. In that monastery will the iron end its journey this time too, after an oxen-pulled cart brings it to its destiny like more than a century ago.

Historian Gonzalo Dúo explains that this type of coastal navigation was only made in summertime, when the sea was calm, and always in daylight. It was a way to make some money for people that in winter worked as fishermen in the same kind of ships. They carried as much mineral as they could, sometimes causing the ship's wreckage.

This kind of traffic, he argues, caused much stronger connections between the people of the coast, finding surnames of various local origins, scattered along the Basque coast, something that did not happen in the interior.

In July 2010 the Brokoa will be at the meeting of old ships at Brest (Brittany) and its owners are already planning a longer journey for it along the whole coast of the Bay of Biscay: from the Galician Bayona (at the border with Portugal) to the Basque Baiona (Bayonne) in Lapurdi. Maybe for 2011.

Source: Gara.
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Txupinera vetoed for being sister of a prisioner

In a yet another incredible twist of the advance of Spanish neofascism in the Basque Country (by undemocratic means, of course), an unprecedented situation has happened yesterday, as the Great Week of Bilbao is getting ready one year more: the person proposed to be this year's txupinera (the person, traditionally a woman, who ignites the firecracker marking the beginning of the festive journey, which is known as txupin) has been vetoed by the Spanish-nationalist tory town councilors (remember that last elections were undemocratic as important options were forbidden from running, what heavily distorts the representation in favor of Spanish nationalist forces).

But the most outraging fact is why has she been vetoed: because her brother is imprisioned by Spain and she collaborates in organizing travels for family members to the remote prisions where Basque prisioners are sent.

The Fiestas of Bilbao (Bilboko Jaiak), known officially as Bilboko Aste Nagusia (Great Week of Bilbao) are celebrated the week after August 15th, lasting ten days in fact. Since the fall of fascism they have been co-organized by the Town Hall and the Coordination of Kompartsak (self organized fiesta groups), this has allowed them to become the most popular and wild fiestas ever anywhere on Earth. The fiestas are presided by a couple of persons: the pregonero/-a (speaker, someone notable that is honored with cheering up the masses with his/her discourses) and the txupinera (traditionally a woman, as pregoneros were in the past usually men). The latter is appointed by the Coordination of Kompartsak, a wholly autonomous entity, normally just ratifying the nominated person proposed by the kompartsa that takes the turn that year.

last years' txupinera (left) and pregonero (right) in their uniforms

This year it was the turn of Eguzkizaleak (the Guardians of the Sun), a kompartsa organized around ecologist NGO, Eguzki (the Sun). Being txupinera is just a honorary position as her main role is just being there dressed in her red uniform and igniting the festive rockets now and then. At most she may be asked to say something for the local TV. That's all.

Never before was a txupinera vetoed by the Town Hall. And this year's veto (or threat of it so far) doesn't forecast anything good for the future of the fiestas under this arrogant undemocratic Town Hall.

We'll see what happens. I don't really see the kompartsak yielding in this issue.

Source: Gara.
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Basque film triumphs in Cuba festival

The film Querida Bamako (Dear Bamako), co-directed by Txarli Llorente and Omer Oke (former Director of Immigration in the Western Basque autonmous government) got the first prize for fiction movies in the Festival of Poor Cinema of Cuba, plus the especial mention of the foreign press.

A Basque documentary, Sicarios del Capital (Hitmen of Capitalism), of Gregorio Subersiola, got the Zero Poverty prize in the section of documentary, videoart or experimental work. It deals with the political violence in Colombia, where people is murdered every other day, mostly for oposing the government and the ultra-wealthy.

This Festival of Gibara is focused in low-budget films from around the world, but, according to Omar Oke, it is a festival that gathers many films and lots of talent, because what they mean by "poor" is only about budget.

Oke evaluated positively the success of his film because, while commercial cinemas have rather ignored it, it has got a very good circulation in parallel and even alternative circuits. Thanks to this subdistribution it has been watched by many people in many festivals, at schools, at NGO meetings...

Oke has another film already finished: La Causa de Kripan (Kripan's Cause), which deals on female castration. He is still awaiting for donors to finish post-production.

Oke (l) and Llorente (r) before their movie's poster

Other films that earned prizes in the Gibara Festival are Chilean El Súper of F. Aljaro and F. del Río, Chile, and La Anunciación (The Annunciation) of E. Pineda Barnet, Cuba. Brazilian Café com Leite (Tú, Él, Yo) of D. Ribeiro got the first prize for short movies, while Bilal of Indian Sourav Sarangi obtained the first prize in the documentary, videoart and experimental work section.

Other prizes were given to Costa Rican El Camino (The Path), of Yshtar Yasin Gutiérrez (foreign press jury choice), Bolivian Humillados y Ofendidos (Humilliated and Offended) , of J.H. Alvárez, C. Brie and P. Brie (best Spanish American documentary) and Cuban Los Dioses Rotos (The Broken Gods), of E. Daranas (especial prize from the audience).

Source: Gara.
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