I have recently had the opportunity to see the latest work by Pierre Carles, a committed documentary author. Under the name of Guérilla des FARC, l'avenir a une histoire (FARC guerrilla, the future has history), proposes a renewed account of the armed conflict that has lasted more than half a century in Colombia. His work aims to counterbalance an imaginary transported by the main media. The FARC-EP organization has been charged with “drug trafficking”, “kidnapping”, “child exploitation” and dozens of other massacres. He, in addition to presenting the social, economic and political context that has led thousands of people to take arms, collects the testimonies of guerrillas who, without abandoning their ideals, have made the leap from clandestine to public life.

On that rainy Sunday, in a crowded movie theater, there was an hour of colloquium between the spectator and the filmmaker. Various topics were discussed. Of course, parallels were made relevant to the situation in Palestine. But not a word about the conflict in the Basque Country. On that day we met a large number of committed people from different generations coming from the Baiona area. But speaking of the liberation movement, of the armed struggle and of the peace process, we were talking only about vague references, of what I had experienced in this small section of Western Europe.

As an internationalist, I try to take away my ethnocentrist glasses when it comes to looking at what happens abroad. In many parts of the world, too many people experience injustice, repression and oppression to the bone marrow, so as not to enter into out-of-place comparisons. But I wanted to bring this issue into this space, because it shows me a trend within the French left.

With them, liberation fights and potatoes suffer an inverse phenomenon. Potatoes (and food in general), increasingly closer, will be more valued. Better, no. But that village will give you a special charm. For with the political conflict the other way round: the farther away he is from the hexagon, the more attentive and romantic many left-wing militants will look at him. And whatever happens in Euskal Herria or in Catalonia will create a real rejection. I remember the endless talks I had with the militants in Bordeaux. It was very easy to talk about Chiapas, Chechnya, Bolivia or Palestine, and it was impossible to put the struggle of Euskal Herria on the table. Unfortunately, things have not changed much in that regard. Seeing culturally so far people so close to us socially makes me say that we still have work to win the battle of ideas.