ETA’s Truce

The best news I’ve heard in a long time. Hopefully this time ETA means the truce. As much as I want to get excited about it, we’ve been here before, and then we’ve had to deal with the disappointment and sadness of a terrorist attack all over again.

I haven’t given much thought to ETA ever since I moved to the US. It was so nice to move to a place where everything Basque has a positive connotation. I grew up dealing with terrorist attack after terrorist attack, and looking back now, I realize that with every murder I also grew more and more apart from a lot of things Basque. I never took up Basque dancing because I felt that many people in the group sympathized with ETA. I did not take classes at AEK for the same reason. Kind of stupid when you consider that my two best friends supported HB (way back when), but we never let that get in the middle of our friendship. As an example, I’d be at Terese’s house having coffee, leave at 7 pm to go to “Gesto por la paz“, and then meet up with her again at Txoko or some other bar. It took moving away 8000 kms, from Ortuella to Boise, and 7 or 8 years time to fully realize the extent of my stupidity. Like a lot of people in Spain, I made the worst association one could make: ETA=Euskadi. No wonder I struggled for so long with this issue of being Basque.

I am not confused anymore. I don’t struggle. I’m Basque. But I’m still against ETA. I do, however, hold the government responsible for the role they (haven’t) played in bringing peace to the Basque Country. I seriously hope this time is different. I hope we all work hard to make peace in the Basque Country a permanent reality. Euskadi (whether we are talking about Europe, the US, or South America) is so special, full of awesome people who mind their language and their culture, so different and unique… Let’s keep it nice and peaceful, shall we?

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