Mikelon, bandit! Well, we were just saying that you haven't been answering any emails lately... that you've set off the Earra fire! The issue of refugees is booming these days thanks to you: Mobilizations, media headlines, conversations in bars and bakeries, the support of citizens and municipalities in your localities...

 

For a few years we have shared dreams, pains, struggles, questions and conspiracies, those of us who write this letter and many others in this popular essay called Free Land, which is so dear to us. That is why, as soon as the news spread, the threads of this little net between us began to tremble. “We’re going to have to write something to these lovely criminals, aren’t we?” To them, yes. We don’t know you as well as Bego, but the following words are for you too, if you like them.

 

The news of his arrest has created all sorts of feelings for each of us. But surprise is not among them. We knew that you were working in the refugee support group, that you were outraged by the issue and the neglect of European governments. We know your immature inclination to act as consistently as possible with your thinking, your unhealed vice of disobeying unjust laws. You won't like to say it like that, in an open letter, but, little one, you're not the only one who knows how to disobey. The threat of years in prison has not stopped you, a sign that the hunger for justice moves your sensitive heart. Together with Malu and “el chaval” you have transformed the magical storytelling environment in which you live to fight the injustices of the world into trenches and cavi for revolutionary dreams (the most delicious hug to the locals! ). We know all your gifts - we have not forgotten your cherries, but we will talk about them another time - so we insist, how will the news surprise us?

 

No surprise, we have seen many of the ideas that have been the focus of our conversations in recent years reflected in your words and actions: An internationalist perspective that knows no borders, a combination of personal and collective commitment, closeness and sensitivity to suffering and injustice, political pedagogy through a humble model... Disobey the unjust by obeying the just; either to transform one’s own consumption habits, or to attack Europe’s criminal immigration laws.

 

We pictured you in the dungeon with your naughty smile on. And when you hear in court that the prosecutor accuses you of “aiding illegal immigration,” you’ve been depicted drawing a smile even more broadly.

 

So many laps and laps (that’s what champions are!) Remember this passage from one of those texts we gave him?

 

A time will end and a renewed community will be born from its ashes. In this evolution, as we break the old, we will build the new, making little disobedience or resistance and gradually increasing it. Through these actions we will begin to build a common house, and those of us who live in that house will act as we think (...)

 

Mikelon, Bego, you have added a new grain of good living to the Basque republic. And what, by the way! That Basque republic that we dream of, where refugees are welcome, where we will only know the current governments and ways of governing in history museums, where border guards have disappeared spontaneously due to unemployment. In that future country that we build or deconstruct even with the most humble daily attitudes, we will remember with Mikelon, Bego and other friends the episodes of exemplary actions of the past. By the fire, in a cheerful company and with half a forest in hand. Beautiful current actions that will not be indispensable by then.

 

We want Mikelon, Bego and the refugees with us in a free world, Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan or the Free Basque Country, the Free Territory. The likes of Mikelon and Bego are indispensable companions in the struggle for free people and peoples.

 

Mikelon, give birth home! We have to set an appointment for the next meeting and, firefly. Kiss the two of you, and welcome everyone.

 

The signatories are:
Friends of the Free Territory
Pena Oleaga Olabarria, Axier López, Joseba Álvarez Forcada, Aratz Zearreta, Haizea Isasa Mendez, Haizea Ziluaga Larreategi, Gorka Silvan and Irati Tobar