FACTS

- Author of numerous theses that analyse youth and political violence, Javier Elzo is known for his political involvement and his analyses on the influence of ETA and its supporters. As a result, he has been threatened on numerous occasions and has needed bodyguards for years.

CONSEQUENCES

“I often say that by 5th February, 2007, I had lived for 10 years, 2 months and 2 days with some kind of protection. For four and a half of those years I needed bodyguards. It seems to me, or at least I’ve always wanted to believe that others were more exposed than I was. It’s very selfish to say this. Although this was always in my mind, I was very obsessed with the image of Ernest Lluch, because he didn’t like to think he was very exposed and that’s what happened to him”.

“I know what it is to feel insulted, and more than insulted, threatened. For example, some people have even gone to the point of making threatening gestures at me in the centre of San Sebastian at midday. Fear is very complicated. When you come to the door of your house, one of the most complicated situations, and suddenly you see a couple of people standing there who don’t move and you don’t know who they are and then they look at a car … These are situations I have gone through several times”.

“At the time when I was, so to say, living a maelstrom of threats, when it was relatively common to be insulted in the street, to find graffiti on the walls of my house, to receive verbal threats or when the Ertzaintza (Regional Police) or the Guardia Civil called me because they had found some papers; it’s as if you had a rush of adrenaline that, at least in my case, prevented me from realising the impact this was having on my family. Then I realized that that impact was much greater than I had thought at first. To the point that, today, I think my wife, son and daughter have suffered more, given my personal situation, than I have. It has probably been worse for them than for me”.

“That isolation, which I have also felt in certain places, is especially painful because you realize you’re in the way, that people don’t want to be with you. It’s not that this has been very widespread, but it is something I have experienced in certain places and it is like being excluded from affection”.

“It’s a perception that I have felt many times. The intense feeling that I cannot fail to say what I’m saying and that what I’m saying, I say without being aggressive, without hurting anyone and that I do not let myself get carried away by anger or fear”.

“In my personal life I have gone through both realities. And those two realities may have marked me very deeply and made me what I am. The irreducibility of evil on the one hand. The absolute need to know that evil of ETA really does exist; as if I didn’t know. But I cannot forget people who are family members of mine who saw the evil on the other side and who died seeing that evil on the other side. Hence, the barbed wire simile is so relevant. We have to break the wire, perhaps people who, in our personal history, have experienced both barbed wire fences”.

“I know the name of the person who planted the ‘firecracker’ at my house. I would like not to remember it, but there are other circumstances, some of which are positive that keep that name in my head. I wanted to forget these people and I don’t mind saying I have forgiven. I have forgiven him for nothing in return, partly because of my Christian belief. I have realized that forgiveness is a liberating force”.

“Only the truth will save us. At least, the search for truth and placing it above everything else and accepting that, among my people, there have been some who have done really savage things. And not only see the brutal deeds of the other side. That implies using the truth, the relentless pursuit of truth. I think that’s an on-going issue in the Basque Country”.