In this lengthy series of very well textured interviews, done in the subjects’ own language: Spanish, Bosque, French or English, we are treated to a masterful example of the video interview. From 2000 to 2010, Spanish police managed to bring down ETA commando strength from 1,000 to 50 as the peace talks wore on. The interesting aspect of this was that the talks began almost 20 years before the final cessation of hostilities, between two men, one from either side of the murderous divide that has existed between the aboriginal Basques and the various invaders of their mountainous homeland over many thousands of years. The Basques appear as white Europeans, but have no linguistic affinity with the Indo-European races.

What remains understated in this treatment of a movement for ethnic self-determination which is so abhorred by the West, from a terror-based struggle to one of negotiated alliance, is the uptick in Islamic terrorism in Spain, which was mentioned once but quickly glossed over. Reflective commentary by belligerents and peacemakers from both sides was woven a bit to neatly into a feel-good ending. However, the example of two men determined not to leave their generation’s problems on the shoulders of their children and grandchildren was so serenely anti-western, anti-materialistic, anti-modern, that it trumped the smothering hand of liberalism that attempted to apply a false patina with less art than was devoted to giving voice to men attempting to achieve mutual understanding while remaining different.

One Basque militant, who spent 19 years in a prison system renowned for torture, would reflect that he and his comrades had fallen prey to the killer’s tendency to get caught up in the means and thereby lose sight of the ends. This final note I consider important to the current nativist struggle in my country, to remain free from the mobs of thugs used to root us out by the soulless government. As a coach, I am constantly caught between my fighter’s irrational urge to fight as a defiant expression rather than as part of a comprehensive means to achieve an autonomous—or more realistically, semi-autonomous end.