"Don't let them take this moment from you"

-Hello?

-Hi Borja. Juan here. Listen, we'll talk more calmly later on, but I need to know something right away. It seems like the [ETA] cell we arrested yesterday was going to knock you off and I need you to confirm a few things for me. Can you talk?... Borja?

-Yes, I'm still here, go on...

-Do you usually leave the house around eight in the morning and walk over to the square in front of City Hall, where some college mates pick you up on their way to class?

-Yes, yes... But listen...

-Wait! Do you make a stop in Rentería to pick up another friend and get to campus around nine...?

-Yes...

-Well, man, you're lucky you're still alive! We have an initial statement, but we're going in for another interrogation now. He's got to confirm a few more things. But that's what he's told us so far...

"They were standing right with you. They were going to shoot you on campus"

Studying was a refuge where I could feel like a normal young man

The worst part of this story is that it is not just mine... it has a thousand variations

The same message re-emerged again and again on streets and building walls

- OK, but you said "knock you off"... They were going to kill me?

-You had them standing right next to you. They were going to shoot you on campus, but at the last second they chickened out because they thought you might have a bodyguard. You're real lucky you're still alive, you were more dead than alive for a while there. They were going to come back, too, they've got it in for you. I gotta go, we'll talk later. Oh, and not a word about this to anyone. Bye...

-Juan? Juan?...

The conversation ended there. That phone call, in which the only fictitious thing is the name "Juan," eradicated any trace of innocence that might have been left in me, and put an end to the way I saw the world at age 21. Juan's call had caught me at the entrance of a movie theater. My friends walked in without waiting for me ("There goes Borja again with his phone calls"), and after hanging up, I went in to see a movie that I never remembered afterwards and which I watched without seeing.

I never told my friends about it. Nor did I tell my parents when I got home. Ever. The truth is, there was nobody to tell. I decided that fear and the vertigo of death were a burden that I should carry alone, and that I had to keep going alone.

I decided to protect the people around me with my silence, not realizing that, far from saving them any pain, I was causing an even greater suffering than I was able to fathom. Now I know that every time I got home late, it was me and my silence that were mostly responsible for the tears that ran down my parents' faces as they sat on the sofa with shoulders hunched, caught up in a web of anguish and fear for their son's life.

This was caused by my decision to conceal from them any fact, any insult, any threat or feeling of despair that I might experience. What I gave them in return for their fear was a cold, distant attitude, a misplaced sense of protectiveness disguised as indifference that hurts me to think about even today, knowing full well that I will never be able to wipe those tears from my parents' eyes. It's too late for that now.

That is why I cannot blame "Juan," I cannot complain about the coldness, the crudeness or the lack of sensitivity of his phone call, nor of the many calls there were after that. I can't, because I also turned into a cool and distant guy, even to my own people.

ETA failed to kill me, and it also failed to ruin my life. I kept on going to college, although I no longer did so with my regular friends but with another type of friends, friends who carried a gun, who never left my side even to go to the library, and who waited for me at the door of a classroom where it became harder and harder for me to go.

Studying was a refuge where I could feel like a normal young man with normal concerns and under normal pressure.

That is why I decided to extend that feeling and try to lead a "normal" life. I continued to go to bars and nightclubs, as though each weekend were my last. My God, I was in my twenties! But appearances did not quite manage to conceal the reality. Those kisses with my first girlfriend, or with casual relations, were not openly exchanged.

They were a furtive thing to me. A sense of modesty forced me to do so behind the back of the people who have been with me in every aspect of my life, turning them into a part of me that I will have to learn to live without, now [that ETA's violence is over]. What a cruel paradox.

The worst part of this story is that it is not just my story. This story has a thousand and one variations, as many as there are councilors from the PP or the Basque Socialist Party (and there are still people who do not understand what it is that unites us in Euskadi), as well as journalists, judges, police officers, chefs and a long list of people who have suffered, to the same extent as me or more, what it means to try to live freely in the Basque Country.

But let us go back to my parents, because this confession is meant for them. I am not so clear on dates, but I am on moments. The first time I had bodyguards was at age 19. From then on, this became an intermittent form of protection, until eventually it became permanent, I think right around the time of Juan's call. One day during the "intermittent" period, meaning when I was without bodyguards, I got home late at night and found some "decorations" on the wall that had not been there when I'd left the house earlier. There were threats made against me and a target spray-painted over my name.

I called the local police and minutes later an officer was wiping the wall with a paper tissue and saying: "It's very recent, you almost walked into them, they might have spray painted your face, too, while they were at it." Like I said, I cannot remember the exact dates, but there are sentences, moments and emotional blows that I will never forget.

I got up early, intending to do something about the graffiti. Too late. A neighbor who was an early riser woke my parents up, and they, without saying a word to me, scrubbed off the words on the wall with several scouring pads and lots of dignity, spurred on by their need to believe that by eliminating that infamous message on the wall, they could also eliminate the very real threats against their son. But the same message re-emerged again and again on streets and building walls, in letters and in phone calls to our house, and each one of them was a new blow that I know my parents have not yet recovered from.

Today, I know you are experiencing feelings of doubt, uncertainty and mistrust. And I understand, because so am I. I know that all the years of pain, suffering and fear cannot be forgotten merely because of a public announcement filled with arrogant, insufferable rhetoric. I am not forgetting now, nor will I ever. But I also knew all along that these murderers who are capable of the most cruel, disgraceful acts were not going to quit while admitting to their own absurdity, their wretchedness or the pain they have caused.

That is why I ask you not to let them steal this moment away from you. Do not let their infamy make you lose sight of the main thing: they are quitting, they are desisting, and not because of any shame over what they've done, or because they've suddenly been infected by a democratic virus.

They are quitting because we beat them, because we resisted, because they were not able to kick us out after all... Because when the PP and the Socialists worked together, we hurt them a lot, because the Ertzaintza [the Basque regional police force], the national police and the Civil Guard got them cornered.

Good for all of them. Also because the French authorities did their job, and because we used firm, efficient laws and because our motto was civic resistance. And because a growing number of indifferent people stopped being indifferent, and because the people who used to tell you that "your son knows what he's getting himself into" felt increasingly ashamed of treating both sides equally.

It is true that now they will attempt to make us believe that they are the architects of peace, and seek through lies what they failed to achieve with guns. They will seek to dilute the greatness of thousands of people who, like you, overcame fear with your dignity and courage.

Those who looked the other way, who never took a stand out of fear or out of a comfortable sense of being perfectly equidistant, will now tell us about the need to be "generous," the need to "take steps" and the need for "peace" when the fact is, they never suffered themselves or got involved in the fight against violence in any way.

Let us go on behaving the way we always have. Before now, we fought a totalitarianism that was armed with guns and explosives; now it will be easier for us because without their guns they're nothing. We will now have to deal with the hatred that continues to fester inside thousands of people who were told that murdering those who think differently was justifiable, and who now have an inner desert's crossing ahead of them before they can reach a new attitude of tolerance, and nobody can make that journey for them.

And the rest of us, in the meantime, have to direct our efforts at eliminating the intolerance and the totalitarian project that continues to exist in the Basque Country, just like we eliminated that spray paint off the walls.

We did not yield an inch when they were killing us, and we will not yield an inch just because they are not going to kill us anymore. And if all this ends badly, if the clumsiness of a few politicians or the wretchedness of a few petty interests enables the culture of violence to live on, here I will remain nevertheless, here we will all remain. Because if we were once able to put dignity ahead of fear, then fear can never again affect us.

Dad, mom, we will continue to work together so that your grandson, my son, can have a better future and live in a Basque Country where anything is considered worthwhile except for hatred and intolerance, and where coexistence can become something more than an overused word.

But that's all something to work on tomorrow. For today, let us simply celebrate the fact that not only are we still alive, but that we have also beaten them, and that we will be victorious once again in all that is left to do.

Do not let them steal this moment away from you, for this is your moment.