Euskal Herria and Christmas Cards
You’ve read about the trip to Euskal Herria (Basque Country) already, and about the launching of the ‘Croeso’ project by the Commission for Racial Equality in Cymru – so this won’t be a very long entry, just a few ideas that have started to grow out of the trip to Euskal Herria…
Our relationship with Euskal Herrian Euskaraz (the group’s name means ‘A Basque-speaking Basque Country) grew out of our presence in a seminar they had arranged in last year’s European Social Forum in London. It was obvious straight away that the two movements faced a number of similar challenges, while other aspects of our situations were noticeably different. The possibility for partnership work was immediately of interest.
The conference over the weekend was attended by members of groups in Euskal Herria, Cymru and Galicia. There will be another meeting shortly between representatives of Euskal Herria and Catalunya – the Catalans were not able to be present at the weekend. We’re also hoping to be able to include groups from Breizh (Brittany) and Eire by the time of the next full meeting (the 2006 European Social Forum).
One of the ideas that I’m most interested in personally is the possibility of arranging exchange visits, so that active members of Cymuned can have a chance to experience a culture and atmosphere which are similar in many ways, but at times frighteningly different. We feel that many of our members would find themselves genuinely inspired by spending time with activists in Euskal Herria, and believe that there would be real value in strengthening the connections between ordinary people of the two countries. We’re hoping to make some initial steps in that by arranging something for the football match between Cymru and Euskal Herria next year. It can be hard to put into words, but the three of us who went were all completely sure that this is an important connection.
In the new years, we’ll start on the work of seeing how many of our members would be willing to offer hospitality to activists from Euskal Herria, for from a weekend up to a week. If you’d be interested in being involved with that, email us at cymuned[at]cymuned.org and we’ll put you on the list.
And to finish with today – I’ve just ordered all my Christmad cards through our online shop – www.daldydir.com and then ‘Siop Cymuned’. There are some real classics in there – Sion Corn (Santa) being stopped by the Heddlu for painting signs has been a real favourite so far! Oh, and there are stickers to go on envelopes to spread the word as well – so what are you waiting for? Go for it!…;-)
In the conference at Martin Ugalde Culture Park:
Some other delegates:
No, Seimon, it’s not ‘just like the valleys, really’…!
One day, we too will have offices like this…
[From the left, Aran Jones, Dr Seimon Brooks, Llion Jones]
A ‘poor’ turnout for the protest because of the heavy snow.
