A constant throng of people flows down the wide stone walkway of the Riviera. Walkers. Joggers. Strollers. In pairs. In threes. Alone. There’s one woman with long green hair and lots of people wearing white trainers. In fact, I calculate that out of every 10, about seven wear white sports shoes. Nike. Converse. Adidas. Others with logos I don’t recognize. But white. I think about how capitalism makes us monochrome without us really paying any attention to it. I’m glad I’m wearing my silver ‘Michael Jackson’ shoes. Across the river there is a massive billboard. White. Green. Blue. It says, Money doesn’t buy happiness. Good investments do. Sigh.
The Riviera in Bilbao is beautiful. It’s hard to believe that just 20 years ago, the water in this 15km-long estuary was once so polluted that it let off a putrid stench that enveloped the city. That it was known as the grey city, because the fumes that spewed out of the iron mines and shipyards along the river left a greasy layer of soot on all the buildings. Today, Bilbao has had a complete face lift. The Guggenheim Museum, ironically also grey, but very shiny, is the city’s most iconic structure. It houses exhibitions by some of the world’s most celebrated artists. Easily recognisable names like Basquiat, Warhol, and Yoko Ono. Along the riviera, there are murals, sculptures, drinking fountains, and benches. Lots of them. Wooden. Stone. Wrought Iron. Having spent the last ten years in Kenya where super highways have become synonymous with development with little consideration given to public spaces and beauty, I say enthusiastically to a few Basque people, “isn’t it amazing what good governance can do in such a short space of time?”. They agree cautiously, cocking their heads to one side before nodding, as though they’ve never really thought about it in this way before. Or, as I later learn, perhaps they don’t nod emphatically because they know a fuller story. One, that I, as a visitor, do not.
The tenth anniversary of the terrorist group ETA laying down is arms is being commemorated. And yet, outside the constant TV headlines and debates, I don’t hear people talk about it. It feels strange to me as the name ETA is one of the few things I, and I believe many of us foreigners, know about this region. I want to know more about how they feel about this painful chapter in their history, during which 853 people were killed and thousands more injured. Perhaps because I feel like I have a personal connection to it.
When I was five or six years old and living in Togo, two little girls came to stay at our house for a few weeks. They were about mine and my older sister’s age, and they had the prettiest names I’d ever heard. I remember that I had to give up my cot (it was a very big bamboo one) for the younger sister. I can’t remember if I was excited or annoyed but I know it must have been a ‘thing’ for me because I don’t remember many details about my childhood but this moment is etched in my mind. I remember a few other snippets. I remember we had a lot of fun together swimming at the local sports club. That their father always had two uniformed soldiers escorting him wherever he went. And that he played tennis really well.
As I dug deeper, I learned that the view I had of ETA, as freedom fighters, was only one version of the story. As someone from the Catalan region of Spain, with our own long history and complicated story of resistance to the Spanish state, I thought that their fight was related to fiscal autonomy. But whilst in Bilbao, I was told that the Basque Country was in fact ‘financially independent’ from Spain long before ETA’s armed struggle for full independence began. Allow me to digress into a mini history lesson. Apparently, the real issue is much older. It lies in the knowledge that Euskal Herria did not belong to Spain, and that in 1515, when the Kingdom of Navarra (where the Basque Region territory now lies) was annexed to Kingdoms of Castilla and León (modern-day Spain), not a single Navarro was present in the discussion. It was a big betrayal and why they rejected the Spanish state for centuries. In the 1959, the separatist movement ETA emerged, and like many movements, it included moderates who wanted a negotiated settlement and a more militant arm. When the political arm failed to negotiate for independence, the military wing took action. They targeted those linked to the central government. Judges. Police. Ministers. But sometimes they also shot those simply in close proximity to power – their drivers and their tailors. And when they started putting bombs in shopping centers and airports and killing innocent civilians, as well using more and more Mafia-like tactics, like intimidating and extorting businesses through a ‘revolutionary tax’ to get funds, they quickly lost a lot of the support they had. After four decades of armed struggle, and five years of negotiations, ETA announced a definitive cessation of its armed activity October 20 2011.
Sitting in reflection along the riviera I realize that even after you’ve washed the grime off the buildings so that they are shiny white, or fished all the bodies out of the river, the ghosts of the past still roam amongst us. All of us. As I was leaving the city, on my way to the airport I saw a protest of about 30 people, walking calmly down a street holding placards. The taxi driver told me that these were the family members of ETA prisoners who are still being held in jails thousands of miles away. They tell stories of torture, of being held even after they have served their sentences. Their families want them imprisoned closer to home so that they can visit them. But for some, that would be letting them off the hook. “Let them rot far away”, people say. What would they think if they knew that those exiled in Africa played tennis and had conjugal visits I wonder? One day I want to write about the two sisters with the beautiful names. And about the different faces of exile, terror, memory, loss and silence. But more than ever, I realize that it needs to be a deep exhumation and examination because every story has several sides.
Biography:
Maïmouna Jallow is multidisciplinary African feminist artist and content creator. In 2021 she released her debut film, Tales of the Accidental City. She is the author of the children’s book I’m the Colour of Honey and in 2018, edited an anthology of 12 re-imagined African folktales entitled Story Story, Story Come (Pavaipo/Ouida Book). A lover of the stage, Maïmouna toured four continents with a one-woman adaptation of Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives. Prior to that, Maimouna worked for the BBC World Service and for Medécins Sans Frontières (MSF) in the Horn of Africa region. She holds an MA in African Literature from SOAS, University of London.
Follow her on Instagram @MaimounaJallow
The Jist: Short and sweet content 