Navarra in Liberty: How a non-nationalist lives where nationalism rules

Within the series of conferences Navarra in Liberty, the film director. Iñaki Arteta, and the journalist and co-founder of Tabarnia, Jaume Vives, talked about how excluding nationalism ends up seriously hampering coexistence in democracy.

First, Arteta focused on the case of Basque nationalism, since, as he recalled, his whole life has been surrounded by news related to ETA terrorism, a situation that led him to make his films. «Nationalism felt very bad for someone to shoot a film with testimonies of the victims; if you are sensitive to them, you will immediately become a non-nationalist suspect», he said, to emphasize that, through cinema, «one can influence, even if he doesn’t fix the world». Precisely, he aspires that his films are «enduring» so that «the next generations can understand, and that it is clear that a fellow human being cannot be killed for an ideological question, that those who want to dominate others to the point of eliminating them they have a place in society».

The filmmaker said that, although the murders have stopped, in comparison of which «civil death is peanuts», the «sectarianism» exercised by nationalism is still pending, «which in Navarra we are now experience and can get worse», he added. . Thus, he said that the non-nationalists «have to pay severe tolls in terms of lack of freedom and aspirations in the professional and social spheres, because one becomes little less than invisible». In that sense, he added that society «is adapting to that condescension with nationalism so as to not suffer the consequences of a sectarian and supremacist regime».

Despite the price involved in being dissident and raising his voice, Arteta claimed that «one can always talk, even if it is more difficult in some circumstances than in others», and brought up again the context of terrorism, which he described as a «moral and civic laboratory that demonstrates who defends freedom and life».

As for Vives, he addressed the case of Catalonia, although he referred to nationalism in general as an ideology of «hate», which he opposed as the best antidote «patriotism, understood as love of our own, against contempt for what is alien». He indicated that it implies physical, psychological, institutional, moral and media violence, since «those who should govern for all do so only for a few, and others do not exist».

According to him, nationalism is an ideology that makes a fortune because «it is very profitable to create imaginary enemies, since those of yours are going to forgive everything, having a common enemy». In this line, the journalist said that nationalism is «an enemy of reality, like any ideology: nationalists have given a great kick to history, and they have sold us the economic lie that we live oppressed and we are being robbed». A speech that, he says, has bought by part of the citizenry, which resulted in having ended up having «two blocs confronted, because they have confronted us».

Vives said that the demonstration on October 8, 2017 served to make the non-nationalist bloc realise that they were not a minority and that «perhaps, the authoritarians were the nationalists».

«Nationalists took us out of the closet, forced us to go out on the street, for the impudence of so many years of despotism», he summarized, to conclude that «we must make war to ideas, but not lose respect for people». This is the way of achieving «social peace», whose indispensable requirement is to «know how to forgive, but also that the other asks for forgiveness.»



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