Lontano da dove?

Lately, my family and some friends have been asking me on a regular basis: Why do you have to go so far away? There wasn´t any closer place to move to? I am often tempted to answer the same way that character did in the Jewish story giving its title to Lontano da dove, the amazing account by Claudio Magris of the Jewish cultural legacy after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[1] Facing all sorts of difficulties in the country he is living in, a Jewish man plans to move away, and visits a rabbi to get his blessings before the trip. When the rabbi learns where the man wants to travel to, he asks: ‘Why so far?’. ‘Far from where?’‘, replies the man, touching on the errant condition of the Jewish people.

Sometimes, we take for granted we know where our home is, and even where it is natural to feel ourselves at home, and perhaps this is true for most people. However, some of us are not so sure our place ought to be close to where your ancestors lived and died, where your mother tongue is spoken, where most of your family lives, where you were born. Some of us are voluntary expatriates, still looking for the landscape, faces, sounds and atmospheres that may help us to recognize a spot as our own. In particular, we do not care about the nationalities or ethnic origin of the people surrounding us, working with us, or where the food, the films, the music we consume comes from. We are promiscuous, culturally promiscuous. We see as a positive thing to be constantly borrowing items from different cultures -as much as possible- to contruct our own. We are post-national in our minds. We abhor cultural endogamy. Actually, we value the availability and interaction of all this diversity in the same place. Therefore, paramount to us is to be surrounded by heterogeneity, and to be able to thrive there where a given ethnicity, culture, religion, skin colour or family name do not imply any advantages or disadvantages from the outset, where opportunities are there if you are determined enough, where every possible path in life is not already set, where choosing your own way does not raise eyebrows in disapproval.

Lontano? I will be closer to myself.

[1] Claudio Magris, Lontano da dove. Joseph Roth e la tradizione ebraico-oriental, Torino, 1971.

Photo: Shadows and reflections, 2007 © Eric Flexyourhead

Tell it like it is. Loud

In particular, I am writing this post for people who may read it from abroad, so you may know what is the reality of terror in Spain.

Some time ago, I noted in this blog how for the international media two plus two not always equals four (“Not separatists but terrorists”). Today, killers from the Basque terrorist group ETA gunned to death a man in the Spanish village of Mondragon. They did it as cowardly as usual, five bullets shot from behind, and in front of his wife and one of his daughters. Isaias Carrasco´s crime was to be a former councilor with the Socialist Party in a Basque village, that is, he was guilty of believing in democracy and pluralism; moreover, he did so in a region -the Basque Country- where believing in freedom and individual rights and publicly stating this position may be deadley dangerous. There is no democracy in the Basque Country, thanks to the ETA mob and its nationalist political allies, who threaten to kill anyone not sharing their insane political views. Often, the so-called moderate nationalists -who benefit from a virtual monopoly of political power thanks to the lack of freedom in the region- have made a subtle but invaluable contribution to this state of affairs.

Having abandoned politics because of radical nationalist pressures, Isaias was now just a lay worker. It did not matter. The totalitarian terrorists singled him out as member of the ‘oppresor class’ preventing the glorious Basque nation to set free, according to their extreme nationalistic nightmarish dream.

Nine months after my post, is sad to realize the non-Spanish media still consider this horrendous mafia as a bunch of romantic liberation activists. Shamefully enough, today the headlines are almost the same as they were nine months ago. Some extracts from leading international newspapers´ online editions today echoing the terrorist killing: “A gunman suspected of belonging to the Basque militant group ETA…” (The New York Times); “l’organisation séparatiste basque ETA…” (Le Monde); “…blamed the killing on the Basque separatist group ETA” (The Globe and Mail); “Officials blame the attack on Basque separatists.” (Los Angeles Times). It just goes on and on…

An organized group threatening and killing other people just because they do not agree with them is not a separatist group. It is a totalitarian terrorist group. Should we say it again? They are just TOTALITARIAN and TERRORISTS. Is it not obvious enough?

In Memoriam, Isaias Carrasco, 2008

Not separatists but terrorists

ETA announced today its break of the so called cease-fire it declared a year ago and which actually broke last December with a deadly attack at the Madrid airport. The international press echoes the announcement and, as always, there is a consensus on calling this Basque mob a ’separatist group’. Let us take a quick look at today´s online edition of some international papers. ‘Basque separatist group ETA calls off cease-fire’, The International Herald Tribune; ‘Basque separatist group to resume violence after halting 14-month ceasefire’, The Guardian; ‘Basque Group Ends Ceasefire’, The New York Times; ‘L’organisation séparatiste basque a annoncé…’, Le Monde; ‘Basque separatists call off year-old ceasefire’, The Globe and Mail . One hoped that after the 9/11 and the surge of global terror networks, terrorist groups would be called what they really are, and not designed by adjectives that perhaps conjure up an image of a romantic fight for freedom against an occupying power, but which nevertheless are far from reality. We in Spain have been suffering terror for more than thirty years. ETA has killed more than 800 people throughout these years, including policemen, politicians, civilians, and children. It is high time the world knows we cherish our democratic freedoms and have a constitutional system in which everyone may defend all sorts of ideas in the political arena, including independence and secession. However, the only way our laws allow it to be done is through non-violent and democratic means. ETA and its political branch, Batasuna, consider acceptable to kill anyone who does oppose their views. That is not separatism but a sheer practice of terror. The Spanish paper El País offered in today´s edition the best definition of these mafiosi: ‘An armed group in search of excuses not to disappear’.