Letter from Basque country
         
Haunani-Kay Trask
         
January 15, 2003

     In response to increasing criminalization of Basque political parties by the Spanish government, the Basque people created an organization called Udalbiltza in 1999. An assembly of elected municipal representatives of Basque towns and cities dedicated to Basque autonomy and non-violence, Udalbilza recently hosted an international conference for peoples’ rights in Donostia (San Sebastian), on the north coast of Spain in the heart of Basque country. I attended as an invited international guest and spoke about the human right of self-determination as the democratic base for all peoples. Delegates traveled from Ireland, Quebec, South Africa, Palestine, the Sahara, Corsica, Slovenia, Scotland, Scandinavia (the Saami people), the Baltic states, Catalonia, and Flanders. There were Kurds, Berbers and indigenous Americans.
     The goal of the conference was the approval of a Charter of Rights for Basque Country that would also apply to stateless nations. We built a network of such nations, both organizational and intellectual, in the process of creating the Charter. In clever ways, the conference was designed in opposition to the increasing centralization of nation states, such as the European Union. Hoping to give voice to small nations struggling to be born, Udalbiltza succeeded in codifying rights to protect indigenous peoples the world over.
     At the closing ceremony of the conference, buoyed by the political accomplishments and infectious goodwill of my hosts, I recalled my experiences of the previous two weeks in Basque country. Feelings of solidarity welled up within me, because of the Basques’ refusal to relinquish their national uniqueness as a people despite more than two thousand years of oppression by various foreigners. I was also struck by the Basque people’s optimism, in contrast to the depression and hopelessness that, in the past few years, have gripped the Hawaiian people.
     I remembered the village of Hernani and the town hall, where large photographs of young Basque political prisoners are hung to memorialize their great sacrifices and remind townspeople of the obligation of all Basques to continue the struggle for human rights. Small bars and restaurants are filled with cultural insignia, proudly and defiantly heralding that the establishments are not only Basque owned but that they support Basque self-government. Similar gathering places display photos of torture victims, both male and female, martyred by Spanish authorities. Basque flags festoon the walls, and Basque political party insignia and t-shirts are for sale. Basque self-determination in celebrated — indeed, it is broadcast — to whomever walks in the door.
     I was continually struck by the fact that Basque country has countless public spaces to call its own: cafes, shops and restaurants, streets, whole hamlets and towns. I recall, in particular, a Basque bookstore where hundreds of books —mysteries, bestsellers, poetry, novels —originally published in dominant languages like English and Spanish, were available in Basque translation. Patrons, including children, browsed the stacks and engaged in lively conversation.
     Yes, I thought, the Basques are a people who embody a nation. They inhabit a country — the “Basque Country” it’s called — a geographic entity that exudes an ancient and profound continuity.
     Suddenly, I felt a penetrating sense of what it would mean for Hawaiians to control our own Native places in our own reconstituted nation. But Hawaiians have no public spaces or communities where businesses, schools, churches and neighborhoods — and, above all, political parties — represent an indigenous Hawaiian future. Nor are we likely to have them in the near future. We have been so thoroughly dispossessed that basic institutions characterizing a nation are absent, rendering us invisible as a political entity.
     Unlike Hawaiians, the Basque people have many such communities that anchor not only their unique Basque language, but their irrefutable land base. Known to all in Spain and France, these prehistorically defined areas of Basque residence are called Euskal Herria in their language. Containing seven provinces, Basque Country includes Viscaya, home of Bilbao and Guernica, infamously bombed by Nazi planes in 1937 because of the Basques’ ferocious resistance to fascism; Guipuzcoa, where the conference was hosted in Donostia and where movie stars now frequent an international film festival every year; Navarra, made famous in the United States by Ernest Hemingway’s description of the running of the bulls at Pamplona; and the northern and smaller provinces of Labourd, Basse Navarre and Soule. These lands are home to over 3 million.
     Three million people! If Hawaiians had such a populous nation, we, too, would be a major political and economic force in Hawai‘i. But numbers are only part of the story. Basques continue to speak their ancient language, not as a learned second language, but as their mother tongue. Some live in Basque cities, like Bilbao, an important industrial center. Others live in traditional villages in the remote mountains.
     Since time immemorial, the expanding and conquering nations of Europe have encountered and failed to subdue the people of Basque Country. Proudly conscious of their ancient origins, Basques do not define themselves or their historical place in the world according to their colonizers, whether Spanish or French. Unlike many Hawaiians today who trust non-Hawaiian politicians like Inouye and Lingle to ensure our entitlements, no Basque would trust non-Basque officials to protect their claims. They know that only Basques can ensure a Basque political future by safeguarding their national lands; that only other Basques understand the responsibilities and rights that flow from their aboriginal status. Because of their famous tenacity, no non-Basques dare claim Basque origins or identity.
     On returning home, exhilarated by working with the Basques, the oppressions of this military colony called the state of Hawai‘i struck me full in the face. I noticed immediately how Hawaiian communities are saturated with fear of unemployment and homelessness, and how many of our so-called Hawaiian leaders are concerned only with personal advancement and public adulation. The bitterness of our dispossession and the fated Diaspora of our people clarified my sense of what needs to be done.
     Those of us who refuse to relinquish our dignity have this to learn from the Basques: fighting for Hawaiian self-government, rather than seeking a servile “place at the table” — to use a commonplace of Hawaiian collaborators — is the only way to ensure survival as a nation.

Haunani-Kay Trask is a Hawaiian nationalist and the author of four books.