Astiberri · 2018
We live a boom of cultural products that analyzes the Basque conflict, from different formats and perspectives. Fernando Aramburu from best-selling fiction, Edurne Portela from the rehearsal and now, an asturian, Alfonso Zapico, From the journalistic graphic novel – in the purest Joe Sacco style – it helps build bridges between the two shores of the Basque Country. That the book was published in the same month of May 2018 when ETA announced its dissolution is no small matter. This is a comic about the meeting between two people, in principle very ideologically distant, but they manage to connect in many other facets, like music, For example. It seems that in the Esukadi of the years of lead, the same music could be heard on both sides of the trench. They are the socialist Eduardo Madina, whose leg was blown off by ETA 2002, and the historic leader of Kortatu, Fermín Muguruza, who began supporting the armed struggle of the terrorist group, but he has ended up advocating for the non-violent struggle to achieve the independence of Euskal Herria. Zapico tells us about the environment and the trajectory of both (Muguruza's father was a pelota champion and his grandfather was a stone lifter.), reviews some milestones of the conflict (the murder of Yoyes, the closing of the newspaper the newspaper, Lasa and Zabala…) and outlines problems that persist (the condemnation of the Altasu boys, the dispersion of the Basque prisoners…) In this half-inch democracy we live in. Very interesting. S.M.
