The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [133]
In March 1980, two would-be Iparretarrak commandos decided to blow up the car of the wife of the sous-préfet in its parking place in the middle of the night. But, mishandling the explosives, the two blew themselves up instead. Given the type of devices and the time of night, the evidence indicates that they did not intend to hurt anyone, but many in French Basqueland saw this as evidence that their fears were coming true, that Iparretarrak, like ETA in the 1960s, was turning from vandalism to violence. Faced with violent attacks around the country by a variety of armed groups, both French and Middle Eastern, France started taking Iparretarrak seriously. Voters were demanding that the French police do something about terrorism, and it seemed likely that the French police would do a lot better up against these ETArists of the north than against Abu Nidal of Syria.
French Basqueland found itself with what may be an even higher number of police per capita than Spanish Basqueland. Officially, the eight officers for every 1,000 inhabitants is almost double the French national ratio. But the police turned up with nothing. In 1982, two officers were killed in Basse Navarre, and the French Basque group was again suspected. Another suspect was the Basque-Spanish Battalion, the forerunner of GAL. The matter was never cleared up, and the Iparretarrak soon vanished.
But the police remained. Unlike in Spain, they try not to let their presence be felt. From the French point of view, le Pays Basque is a tourist destination. Basque nationalism is often reduced to something folkloric, something nice for the tourists. French travel posters advertise, “Basqueland, land of folklore.” The ikurriña, that politically charged symbol that is fought over on the other side of the mountains, is a favorite souvenir of French Basqueland sold in every tourist shop—flags, scarves, earrings, key chains, even scented cardboard ikurriñas to dangle from the rearview mirror of the car.
Efforts to revive folk customs, even when intended as political acts, get French government support because the tourists like these events. A group in the inland side of Labourd, concerned about reviving folk customs, went to Ituren in Navarra to study the joaldunak, grim-faced ancestral pagan characters who awaken spring with their giant copper bells and black horsehair whips. They learned how to make the cone-shaped hats and how to wear the big copper bells and perform the dances. They learned enough so that a troop of joaldunak could make an appearance at a carnival festival, although their simple march in and out of town was not nearly as elaborate as the two-day ritual between Ituren and neighboring Zubieta. Joaldunak began appearing for the winter carnival in various Labourdine towns including St.-Jean-de-Luz, where the French always gave them a special round of applause. Joaldunak are characteristic of the residual pagan customs of northern Navarra but had never before appeared in Labourd, which leaves the question of whether a culture is being preserved or created in French Basqueland—what Mitterrand was referring to when he said that the legacy of Basque culture was being “even improved upon.” But the joaldunak at the St.-Jean-de-Luz carnival were no more incongruous than the Herri Batasuna campaign for local elections in 1998 in which Basque nationalists rode around San Sebastián with giant plaster joaldunak mounted on the roofs of cars. These joaldunak were not even somber looking. They had broad Howdy-Doody smiles.
OVER THE BORDER, in Ituren, joaldunak arrived one by one at the town plaza, a small paved space surrounded by a town hall and four other stone buildings. Some walked and others came by car, already wearing their laced-up black moccasins, carrying their cone-shaped hats, sheepskins, and bells.
In Ituren they have named the joaldunak Zanpantzar—a name which appears in all seven Basque dialects. In the French provinces, Zanpantzar is a grotesque papier-m