Lounge warriors

[Domingo Eizaguirre]

Dear Aitor,

I call lounge warriors to the lounge warriors, to those boasting of
abertzalism while stuffing themselves with wine and pintxos, who go to the
"manifas" as if they went to a football match, who can't get enough of
showing solidarity with those in jail and applauding whatever ETA does, but
who would shit themselves if they had to handle a gun and would have a
nervous breakdown if sent to jail. Of these there are plenty.

I don't agree with ETA, I used to, but I've moved on and realised that we
could go on like this for ever without getting anywhere. If after at least
twenty years of this we are still at square one (I'd be glad if you showed
me what ETA and HB have achieved over the past ten years), it is time to
change tactics. You may call it "one side giving up" (supossedly not
mine...), I call it stop banging our heads against the wall. I would like
ETA to stop (what is the aim in kidnapping Delclaux, to have the prisoners
sent to Euskal Herria twice as fast?, to get money?, what?), I don't want HB
to disband, but to become a *real party of the left*, to have the courage to
admit that right now they're going nowhere (30,000 fewer votes last time,
-15%), and try and find realistic objectives before it is too late (splits,
disenchantment). I am fully aware of state violence, and see that ETA, while
getting nothing, is used as an excuse to increase it and go into an orgy of
Spanish nationalism, worse, to split Basques by using the Ertzainza against
abertzales.

There's plenty o things to do, from ecology (reforestation, maintainment of
beaches, landscapes, rural ways, the things local governments do
half-heartedly) to health (seminars about healthy living, coaching children,
care of the elderly) to clearance and landscaping (if only temporal) of old
industrial sites, to language classes (Euskara, English, German), to IT
classes, to researching on needs for alternative industries, to maintaining
and developing the cooperatives (people are actually going to them from
abroad to learn!) to tourism (Euskara for foreigners), etc., etc, all while
ensuring people get a decent pay and transparency in politics and the state
(Spanish and French) don't use ETA's violence to justify and increase their
own (imagine two or three HB MPs putting Gonzalez on the skewer in
Parliament on the GAL affair). In short, to construct Euskal Herria little
by little. That looks duller that rallying behind the black eagles and
shouting, but better for everybody in the long term.

Look at Mila. She supports whatever ETA does, but this is not obstacle for
her to have a clear idea of needs in the Basque Country, and saying at the
same time that "in Bascongadas" we have a violence problem which hinders
reindustrialisation. When she gets beyond her personal reasons for
applauding violence (and you too) she would like to have a framework to
start doing something. If what she finds is yet more black arranoak and
empty shouting, she'll do what many are already doing, try and fend for
themselves and to hell with politics (lawyer to well-heeled Parisians?). I'm
kind of doing that myself, and I feel uneasy. If you would give your life
for your country, do it, work for it for the next forty years.

And if somebody thinks this is empty talk, well, nobody is forcing them to
read it.

Domingo