I have given up on my country’s politics. I don’t feel represented by any of the multiple choices that compete in Spain. All political parties, regardless of their apparent ideological differences, have sequestered democracy for their own purposes. They only act for their own benefit and if it serves the purpose of gaining or maintaining power. No political leader talks to or thinks about all the people anymore. When they say “the people”, they are only thinking about “their people”, the ones who voted or could vote for them.

Policies are not proposals for the Country’s well-being or progress, they are weapons that are thrown with contempt against the other side of an imaginary political spectrum. There is no checks and balances any more, all State Powers are in the hands of the political parties. Only a few independent judges resist in their every day lives in court. None of them have real power to change anything about how the country is governed.

In the Basque Country, a small region in the bigger State, the two main parties still talk about policy. And I really think they still believe in good policy. The problem here is that of the main political ideology, though, which is nationalism. At the best, it makes me sick how many times a day we repeat ourselves that there’s no better place than this and better people than us. At the worst, although nationalism is cool as long as it looks like a small country looking for its place in the world, we know how much pain and sorrow it has caused in our past, and we certainly know it is a seven headed hydra in the long run.

Looking at my countries (both the small and the big one) and the world around me, my only hope is in the small people. In you and me, in that, the day we meet in the field, because that day will arrive, we will not be willing to kill each other. Instead, that we will believe that we are brothers and sisters that need and want to live together. We will prevail over the leaders that sent us there. That’s my hope.