“I only ask God to not let me be indifferent to the pain” (Article and video)

Nicholas Rankin, the author of the book “Crónica desde Guernica: George Steer, corresponsal de guerra (Chronicles from Guernica: George Steer, War Correspondent)”, laid it out crystal clear in his 2011 talk at the annual conference organized by the Basque Children of ’37 Association of the UK (BC’37A UK) (available on their website).

Rankin lays out, brilliantly and highly readably, the cause and effect that connected the bombing of that Basque holy city, the article G. L. Steer published in The Times, and the arrival of Basque War Children to Great Britain.  In this text, he also offers a detailed description of the debate between the greater part of British society and a government that clearly sympathized with the cause of Francoism (order and anti-communism).  Civil society won the debate, and 4,000 Basque children were allowed to take refuge on the other side of the Bay of Biscay.

This social reaction was also fed by the reports of British non-professional eyewitnesses to the citizenry.  It’s extremely interesting to read the chronicles British sailors transporting supplies to Bilbao (and thereby breaking the Francoist blockade) made about what was happening on the Basque front.

“Tell what you see”

To know their stories and their feelings about the barbarism they were witness to, to reading the series of article Sarah Richardson wrote on the blog of the Tyne & Wear Museums’ blog regarding the relationships between Newcastle and the Basques who were defending Democracy during the Spanish Civil War is highly recommended.

In her texts, we can see how the sailors in that city, with their long and deep historical links to Bilbao, narrate to local papers what they’d seen and lived in that Basque city that had been surrounded and bombed by Francoists.  They even tell of their visit to the ruins of Guernica, taken by a Basque Government that was asking of them the same they asked of the journalists to the Basque front: “tell the world what you see, tell the world what the Francoists are doing”.

In Sarah Richardson’s three articles, we can also learn how the society of Newcastle reacted to get those children out of Bilbao and how they organized things so their arrival and stay would be carried out in the best conditions.

Those journalists, those sailors, those women and men of every class, ideology, and social condition were the bearers of Justice and Hope for the Basque who were suffering under the attacks of the Francoists and their allies.  Those journalists, role models of being willing to risk it all to tell the truth, were those bearers.  Those British sailors who visited the front and broke through the blockade of ships that were so brave against the armed trawlers and fishing boats of the Auxiliary Navy of Euzkadi, but then such cowards when facing the Royal British Navy, were those bearers.  The labor unions, political parties, associations, Christian groups, people on the right or on the left, of all classes and social conditions, who understood that solidarity with those who were suffering injustice is so much more important that the realpolitik that Western governments practiced during the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship that caused so much pain and hardship in the Basque people, were those bearers.

And it wasn’t just British society, thought I cite them here because I know their participation in this part of Basque history better.  But the same thing happened, for example, in France and Belgium.  The government of the USSR also played an active role, taking in many children to what at the time seemed to be a safe destination.  Definitely, in 1937, the Basques, at least those who were on the side of democracy and freedom, knew what international solidarity meant.

And truth be told, we had an ace: a Basque Government that was able to organize the exile of that Basque population with an efficiency that will never be sufficiently valued, not least because many historians work to ignore or downplay the titanic effort they carried out in the harshest of conditions.

But that Basque Government couldn’t have carried that work out without the key collaboration of the Basques of the Diaspora, without the support of a handful of governments who opened their doors to those masses of refugees, and without the solidarity of the thousands and thousands of friends of the Basques whom we’ve never thanked well (or appropriately) enough for their work and commitment in such complicated times.

Today’s refugees

All of that happened not so long ago, in the time of our parents or grandparents, for most of this reading this paper.  That’s what I recall those days when we find tens of thousands of refugees at the gates of Europe.  I remember the stories preserved in my family about the difficulties my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt, turned into refugees with nothing but a bindle, embarking on an English ship to the Northern Basque coast, where the Basque Government was organizing the reception of those who could manage to feel the disasters of the war.

I recall all of this and how today we’re proud of having one of the highest per-capita incomes in Europe, of being an advanced, modern nation, where the crisis didn’t hit quite as hard as it did elsewhere.

I recall all of this and I wonder: What is it all for if it’s possible we’re turning into a country of selfish people, where Humanity and Commitment to those who suffer have been diluted by R&D statistics and the last quarter’s GDP numbers?

Those Brits organized the reception of 4,000 Basque children without the support of a government while in a deep economic crisis.  We, today’s Basques, many of us who have family that lived in exile, watch TV or read the papers, and we get the feeling that those refugees at Europe’s gates have nothing to do with us.

Moreover, the excuses and hateful speeches that are being repeated, just adapted to today’s language, but carbon copies of the ones given in 1937, are terrible.  At that time, there were those who were sure that taking in those children would be tantamount to introducing the poison of communism into Great Britain, or that those refugees had less cultural training and therefore would be unable to adapt themselves to a civilized place, creating conflicts with the locals.  Today, we have to listen to the same disgusting speeches, where the only thing that’s changed is swapping “communist” for “jihadist”.  The photo of that poor Kurdish child drowned on a beach seems to be playing a similar role as Steer’s or Monks’ chronicles on the destruction of Guernica, and have triggered a reaction of solidarity.

But there’s a big difference, a huge difference.  We’ve been watching for years, for decades, how, at Europe’s gates, or even within Europe itself, those affected by war are barely scraping by trying to find a place to take refuge.  We see it and we think, Someone has to do something!  We expect our governments, our institutions, will do the work.

When will realize that that someone that has to do something is each and every one of us?  In 1937, those boys and girls, men and women, the persecuted, the refugees, were us.  Today, too.