Basque Punk (I): Hertzainak

Now that Jello Biafra's journey to the Zionist colonies means for some some sort of funeral of Punk or at least Anglosaxon Punk (I'd say that there's much more than that opportunist leech, but there's some who are really mourning Punk altogether after that), maybe it is time to make a paused review of the other great Punk movement worldwide: the Basque one.

I'll start with Hertzainak. No wonder they gave the name to the book that reviewed what happened in those crazy years of the 1980s, when I was just a teenager: they were of all the bands the most emblematic one.

The name Hertzainak is an obsolete form of Ertzainak, meaning The Police. Surely a pun to the English band as well but a denunciation of the then new Western Basque autonomous police corps then being organized under Zionist, German and Spanish command and training.

Their first video (as far as I can recall) was this one:

The lyrics[eu] are very difficult for me to translate (because of the kind of grammar involved that sounds forced in English) but essentially they say: in spite of repression and business we are here to party. The chorus says:

Txoriek zelaietan mokoka garia,
Guk kanutotarako nahiago maria
Gaur mozkortu baino lehen, presta afaria
Hori duzu Hertzainok nahi dugun saria.

The birds in the fields 'beaking' the wheat
We rather prefer the marijuana for the joints
Before we get drunk tonight, let's make supper
that way you are the prize that we Hertzainak want.


A later song had a more clear message for the Basque police. It was titled Si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, ready for war). This video is unofficial with recent images:

The lyrics in Basque are in the YouTube link, I provide here a translation only:

All day you endure
tied to your gun
you are scary because you are masked
so nobody knows who you are
it does not matter handsome one
because everybody has a name and
yours: dog!
The smell of blood, the synthesis of violence.
'Si vis pacem, para bellum',
told you your payroll sergeant
'si vis pacem, para bellum':
a 9 mm [caliber gun] for you.
For your fame, above the tears,
hatred cries come
at the end of all protocols,
because what to show:
one less or it seems
they will have to replace compulsorily the last
number!
'Si vis pacem para bellum'
for how long will the dance go on
'si vis pacem...'

You can listen to a third Hertzainak's song in this blog here. Or, why not, use You Tube or stuff like that.

Next possibly Eskorbuto (we'll see but they are a must).