The phrase that people often use to justify the breakup of Yugoslavia is: "We are very different, we are a different nation, culture, religion." Through that statement, the following is tacitly asserted - all Germans are, in essence, the same, all French, British and, of course, all Spanish, they are all completely uniform nations and that's why they survive, unlike Yugoslavia.
The truth couldn't be further. Driving through Spain you can see it better than anywhere. If you step into the country of the Basques (Euskal Herria as they call it) spread across four provinces in Spain (and three in France) you see at every step that it is a different country and people.
The nature itself is different because the relief is mountainous, wooded and you realize that the area you are in is Atlantic, not Mediterranean. But what catches your eye first are the names of the cities. Driving on the highway, you read that for San Sebastian they say Donostia, for Vitoria Gasteiz, for Pamplona Iruna. Even in Kosovo and Metohija, where both say they are completely different, the names of the cities are identical (Peć-Peje, Prizren-Prizreni, Priština-Prishtine), while here they could not be more different from each other.
The language will not confuse you any less - it sounds like Castilian (Spanish), but all the words will be unknown to you. While Catalan might seem like a variant of Castilian that a good Spanish speaker could get by with, Basque (a Euscal language) wouldn't really know what to do with. The two bases of their being are different from all the others with whom they share the country, and from here we see them all as Spaniards and we do not think that Xabi Alonso is any different from Sergio Ramos.
Despite the fact that they have not had their own country for a long time, the Basques have an identity that is known all over the world. They are the only larger authentic European people (so they did not come with the migration of Indo-Europeans) and they mostly inhabited the area between the Ebro and Garonne rivers in the kingdom of Navarre whose center was Iruna (Pamplona). The kingdom lasted for 1000 years, from the 9th to the 19th century, although in many periods it had the status of a vassal or was part of alliances, some Spanish, some French. Finally, with the collapse of the old regime in France and the unification of the Spanish kingdoms, the kingdom did not merge into both states.
We know about the struggle for Basque identity mainly through the ETU, an organization that was no stranger to terrorism as a tool and which believed that autonomy must be fought for by all means. What is forgotten is that ETA was initially an organization of activists who printed pamphlets, carried flags and promoted Basque identity in Franco's Spain and it was only nine years after their establishment that the first acts of violence and the first confirmed murder occurred.
This radicalization came as a reaction to the brutal treatment of the Basques by the Franco regime. After the return of democracy to Spain, the Basque people received a certain degree of autonomy, but they were separated into four provinces and now, eight years after ETA also committed to peace, they are fighting for greater autonomy and sovereignty with other methods.
After visiting these provinces, I ended up in Altsas, a small town with only seven and a half thousand inhabitants. A small town, seemingly like any other, sleepy, surrounded by mountains, rainy days. Nevertheless, the city is decorated with murals of some guys, and on the first day there was a big protest in the center.
The reason for the gathering is related to the title of the text, namely, in 2016, during a local festival, there was a fight between several guys, apparently, nothing shocking for an event during which a significant amount of alcohol is poured. But when we add that military police officers from the Civil Guard took the brunt of it, we know that this is a serious problem.
The media wrote about inter-ethnic hatred and the public prosecutor filed charges of terrorism against the perpetrators (a blow to a policeman is a blow to the state), and the eight from Altsasu were placed in the strictest prisons in Spain, hundreds of kilometers away from home. However, a different truth came to light - the military policemen there were not in uniform, but off-duty festival visitors, individuals like anyone else, and the video that surfaced showed that, of the eight accused, half did not participate in the fight, that the fight was not brutal (one of the injured military policemen appears in the video immediately after the fight, in a clean white shirt) and that after the fight both sides shook hands.
The protest I witnessed (one in a series of dozens of the same type) does not demand an acquittal, a misdemeanor is a misdemeanor, the protesters say. They protested demanding a fair trial, dismissal of the charge of terrorism and treating the case as it is, fighting and inflicting minor bodily injuries, and transferring the accused to closer prison units so that family can visit them.
On the second day, I again saw a large number of people walking, led by three people who were dressed in national costumes and played some unknown music on trumpets. I followed them and saw them protesting at a small railway station. One person explained to me that the superfast train on the Madrid-Paris line is coming soon and that they are against it. Jokingly, I suggested that they should familiarize themselves with our trains before any faster option bothered them. The reaction was that the trains in Spain are not bad, but that this one serves only to connect these two destinations, that it is extremely harmful to the environment and that no passing station has any benefit, but only a potential environmental disaster in order to reduce the hours on the Madrid-Paris route.
Two days, two protests in a small town between Danilovgrad and Rožaj. None of the theme protests have an idealistic situation, because the boys from Altsasu actually participated in the fight, and the high-speed train will really be fast and reduce the time of rail travel between the two capitals, but such is the protest.
If we wait for the perfect opportunity that no one will complain about, we will never rebel and allow ourselves to be treated as a means. People from Altsasu could have said: "Shut up, it's good until they beat us just because we're Basques" and "Let that faster train destroy the flora and fauna, and if I keep quiet, I have a chance to get my son a job", but they didn't.
The right to a fair trial and the right to environmental awareness are not abstract things, and rebellion is a natural state when some of these rights collapse. Moreover, maintaining the spirit of rebellion is what builds our identity, above all the identity of a political human being, a member of a community, a human being in general.
In Montenegro, the idea of a protest is meaningless. Every protest is looked for a flaw, the most cynical of which were those when the protests against the increase in electricity prices were criticized for not singing the Montenegrin national anthem and not carrying flags.
There are currently several environmental protests. True, the fight to protect the park and trees in Bar may slow down the construction of the kindergarten for a few days, but the responsibility for that lies with those who chose such a bad location. The fight against oil wells will perhaps reduce the inflow of foreign capital, and the fight for the preservation of Cijevna and Tara will slow down the development of some infrastructure in those areas to a small extent. No protest is ideal, but when protesting defends basic human rights, it is a necessity.
The eight from Altsasu were sentenced to severe sentences, but the charge of terrorism was dropped. Their parents' struggle continues. Even if they do not succeed, they maintain their identity through rebellion, not allowing themselves to be treated as a tool by the government. When we don't protest, when we allow it to be constantly imposed on us, to constantly suffer because of supposed "higher goals", then we are not agents, we do not have humanity, but we are an ordinary tool. To rebel with a cause is to be human.
Gallery
Bonus video:
