This is the English translation of an article written by Basque journalist Martxelo Otamendi for today's printed edition of the newspaper Berria. It is an excellent reflection on the so-called "Wert Law" and its attacks against Basque and Catalan languages, so I have decided to translate and share it.
European Navajo and Wert
By Martxelo Otamendi
The work made by the school is basic when building or destroying a people. Here and everywhere. And History has let us uncountable examples showing this, either in our own lands or in many others all around the world.
How many schools in Basque or Catalan have French or Spanish states put along our lands, both in Catalan Countries or the Basque Country, since the public schooling system was spread a century and a half ago? Any school, neither a single classroom; even if they had put them as an experiment to prove that studying in Catalan or Basque could carry heavy mental problems... Not even for this.
During the formation of the USA, if Washington had decided to create schools in Navajo language for the students of this ethnic group, today Navajo nation could have had another strenght, and Mathematics could be taught in that language at universities along the Navajo land. But the creators of the nation, those white Europeans, those who have made history as exemplary men and women, did not commit that error. Nobody plays with the nation, and the school is the first step to make a nation change.
The same thing did France and Spain to the Navajo people of our land, to our ancestors. What happened then can be seen in the song Eskolan (at the school), by Gorka Knörr.
Eskolan dirade
gutaz trufatu
eta bortxa askoaz
hizkuntza bat ukatu.
Nik nahi dut hizkuntza bat
euskara gurea,
ez eta iñola ere
beste horiek ezarrita.
Note: this would be the translation of the lyrics:
At the school, they have
laughed at us
and by a huge violence
denied us a language.
I want a language
our euskera,
by no means
the one imposed by the others.
Spanish minister Wert, leaving aside differences, in background, is not so far from those attitudes against Navajo. The times have changed, also the methodes. Preventing it is in our hands, in Navajo's hands. The time has come to paint our faces.
Cap comentari:
Publica un comentari a l'entrada