Jon Juaristi Linacero is a Spanish poet, essayist and translator in Spanish and Basque, as well as a self-confessed former ETA militant. At the moment he resides in Madrid.
At the age of 16, spurred by the reading of Federico Krutwig´s Vasconia, he entered in a fledgling ETA. His most notable action was to put Carlist armed cells in contact with ETA after the expulsion by the Franco regime of Carlos Hugo de Borbón Parma Later, at University, he entered a minority workerist grouping of ETA, named ETA VI Asamblea, which in 1973 amalgamated with the TrotskyistLiga Comunista Revolucionaria as its Basque branch. Having come to police attention, he abandoned his native city to study Romance Philology in Seville, returning eventually to the University of Deusto, where he received his doctorate. In Deusto he was expelled in 1972 "for agitation" but was re-admitted the following year. In this period he spent a number of spells in prison for "minor offences", and was condemned by the Tribunal of Public Order. In 1974 he left LCR and leftist political activity almost completely and dedicated himself to his academic career. In 1980, he affiliated himself with the Communist Party of Spain during its process of unification with Euskadiko Ezkerra, which would give rise to a new social-democratic group that actively rejected the use of violence. He left it in 1986, disappointed when EE did not form an alliance with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party after the Basque Autonomous Communityelections of 1986. In 1987 Juaristi joined the PSOE. Later, he declared in his memoirs that he did so spurred by "ethical imperatives" as a result of the attack by the radical separatist "Mendeku" group against the "Casa del Pueblo" in Portugalete. Several PSOE members were burned to death in the attack.
Current political activity
His criticism of ethnic nationalism and its invention and manipulation of myths, in particular on the part of Basque nationalism, has gained media visibility through numerous articles, essays, and speeches. Juaristi's stance against terrorism, and his support of victims of ETA violence, was further made visible by the formation of the Foro Ermua in 1997. In the last decade he has been defined, in various mass media interviews, as a "Spanish nationalist"." Since the end of the 1980s, due to his harsh criticism of Basque separatist violence, his life has been threatened by ETA. At the end of 1999, he left the university of Deusto and the Basque country after the ETA announcement that it would end its ceasefire of the previous year, and having been advised of the seriousness of the threats on his life by that group. Juaristi converted to Judaism for reasons more personal than religious:
El judaísmo para mí no es exactamente una religión, sino más bien una visión ética del mundo
Advertí que yo me consideraba un judío no religioso, si tal cosa es posible.
Juaristi dedicates a number of his articles to the criticism of antisemitism. He has also written in defense of Israel's right to be its own state.
Poetry
Juaristi's poetic voice is influenced by the Basque poet Gabriel Aresti, and by the Basque-born, Spanish-writing writers Miguel de Unamuno and —as well as by the irony of the poet and Anglo-American essayist W. H. Auden. His poetry frequently evokes the mood of the Bilbao of his childhood and youth, and its tone is disillusioned, bitter, urban and intelligent. His works of poetry have been published as the following:
Diario de un poeta recién cansado .
Suma de varia intención .
Arte de marear .
Los paisajes domésticos .
Mediodía .
Tiempo desapacible .
Poesía reunida .
Prosas en verso .
Essays
In Juaristi's essays analysis is a habitual subject, from a psychological and sociological perspective inspired by Carl Jung and Leon Polyakov, and the historical and mythical roots of European nationalism, particularly Basque nationalism. Philological references are found frequently in the texts, as well as references and anecdotes which deal with authors, subjects and works of occultism. These are usually mentioned with distance and irony.
Euskararen Ideologiak.
El linaje de Aitor. La invención de la tradición vasca.
Literatura vasca.
Arte en el País Vasco. Con Kosme M. de Barañano y Javier González de Durana.
Vicente de Arana.
Vestigios de Babel. Para una arqueología de los nacionalismos españoles.
Auto de Terminación: raza, nación y violencia en el País Vasco. Artículos: en colaboración con Juan Aranzadi y Patxo Unzueta.
La Europa de los pueblos: voz y forma. En colaboración con otros autores.
El chimbo expiatorio .
El bucle melancólico. Historias de nacionalistas vascos.
Sacra nemesis. Nuevas historias de nacionalistas vascos.
Sermo humilis: poesía y poética.
El bosque originario.
La tribu atribulada. El Nacionalismo Vasco explicado a mi padre.