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Produced by the Pirates of Donostia
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I am very proud to see so many people looking so happy
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Happy birthday Pirates!
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If you don't really don't know, this is Ska.
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If they would have asked us in August 2003
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What we started what would become ten years later
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we wouldn't know answering that question
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But nowadays the answer is clear
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I have no doubt about the answer
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shoveling once and again, we have boarded Donostia
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congratulations to everybody!
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Be pirate!
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We're pirates because they have left us out of the proclamations
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they have condemn us to obtain the treasure by ourselves
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They left us out of the Aste Nagusia
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but we have returned and we're prepared to remain
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Be Pirate, board San Sebastian!
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Why pirates?
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Because we needed a person who was rebel
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we needed a person related to the sea
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related to Donostia
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the bay would be its square
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and he/she would express in there
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these characteristics were perfectly defined by the pirates
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The image of pirates is seen as something negative
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but it has a very big symbolic meaning for me
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it goes against those roles that are established, against the stereotypes and duties
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something to change a bit.
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I think it is a reasonable fight
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to the organizer of the Aste Nagusia in 2003
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a big event started to break in front of their faces
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it starts from a very simple question
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What happens in this city
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the festivals in august to be in this way
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The Aste Nagusia we know today
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it wasn't called 'Aste Nagusia' in basque, it was only named 'Semana Grande' in spanish
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and few events were carried out throughout it
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the most important ones, as always, the fireworks at night
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The Aste Nagusia was something just to see for us
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we had a sandwich, went for a walk... there were some parades and concerts and that was all.
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that was our party.
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it was a totally mercantilist model
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really, that was the way the Aste Nagusia was created in the XIX century, in the 1880th
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Jose Arana, from Eskoriatza, did this event to become real
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he come to live to Donosti when he was very young
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from Donostia he went on a trip to Madrid
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there he won the lottery and he returned to Donosti being rich
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that's why he started to organize the bullfighters festivals and the concerts
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continuing with his business logic
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On that years, Donostia was becoming quite famous
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In a great part, because Maria Cristina ,the Queen of spain, selected the beach of La Concha as her place for holiday
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After Maria Cristina, many aristrocrats from Madrid also came to this surroundings
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in that way, the Semana Grande was created in august
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before in august i think that at first it was organized in july
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but, the businessman and Josu Arana realized that
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the business would be much bigger if the festival was organized in august
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And well, we have to say it clear, to do that
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they sent to the periphery all the other festivities that were cellebrated in the center and the Old Town of Donostia.
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so that the comercial model and that kind of mercantilist festival would have free space.
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They have reproduced that model year-by-year, decade-by-decade
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during Franco times that logic of cellebrating increased completely,
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Franco died, and all the next municipal governments
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have kept the model completely.
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That model has been what specific powers have used
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to sustein a concrete image they wanted to relate with the city
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and in the last years it was very clear when more and more private businesses
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were taking part in the organization of the Big Week.
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And that way we began conversations with the CAT (municipal organ, Centro Atracción y Turismo)
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and the city hall
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And we created what is called the Popular Comision of the Festivities.
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'Jai Herrikoi Batzordea', in Basque.
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That way, with these conversations we wanted to work on our intentions.
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In Donoststia iw was not assumed that people could enjoy autonomously in the festival
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everything was very measured and thought from the municipal entity
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and they would decide what kind of Festival it would be done.
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The people were mere spectator of the party.
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In Donostia there have been several tries to change that feeling of just beeing spectator
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people have tried to open new paths to that popular participation in the party.
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They have tried to make txoznas (Basque popular bars, related to social movements)
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they have organized alternative programs to face the oficial program imposed from the City Hall
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all that from the 'Transition' to now has been.. and what to say during Franco's times
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all these tries were sistematicaly attacked from the municipal government
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and of course, it is controlled by the right of the city.
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Since then, they have tried to eliminate any trace of popular party
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We had a bad beginning in 1983, when Alkain was the mayor;
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we put a temporary bar, a "txozna" in the Boulevard, and he sent some local policemen to take it away
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In the following years, 1984, 1885 and 1986, we continued talking to the city council
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and we kept moving forward
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I have good memories from the 1986,when we came to an agreement with Labaien
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he gave us all the permits for the concertsthat we used to organise in the port;
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we got 4,000-5,000 people to be at the concerts,
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something inconceivable at that time, a great number
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And that is when our decline began,
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when the city council saw that we were taking shape
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and that we were, in some way, overshadowing the official programme,
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they saw the risk
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they said that our alternative proposal covered the official programme.
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And then, they started to ban it again
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But the worst moment and the hardest was the year 1988,
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when Albistur was the mayor; they set the objective not to let us the port
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they didn't let us be there; they told us that we couldn't set up anything there
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we thought that they would change their mind at the last moment, as they did other times,
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and when we came to set up our "txozna" and our place,
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just there, under that building,
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it was where we found the tremendous surprise
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about 40 local policemen showed up there, with their dogs, ball guns, helmets and shields,
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something we had never seen
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the local police equipped as riot police
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and when we started to set up everything
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they charged against us and a great fight began here, in Portaletas
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many people were injured, some women were hit by the balls
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other young people had their forehead and nose broken by the truncheon blows
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and it is said that some local policemen were also injured;
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it was a tremendous fight, after all;
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in fact, Donostia had never seen such a confrontation between the citizens and the police
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That led, of course, to the following repression,
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where 12 members of the commission were threatened
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to go to jail for 16 months, but, finally, the judge rejected it
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at least we resisted there that day; we managed to set up the "txozna"
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we managed to carry out our programme
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but, in the end, it happened what we thought
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At dawn, the 'Beltzak' came (the riot squad of the Ertzaina),I think it was their first intervention in Donostia
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they came in many vans, dressed totally as riot police,
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and we were not in a position to face them;it was neither our objective.
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they took away all the material we had, and they confiscated it
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The following days, we made some kinds of leaps,
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we used to set up the "txozna" at the Boulevard at six o'clock in the evening,
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and we used to last ther until 2-3 o'clock in the morning.
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when we dismantle the everithing, to avoid losing it
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and, in this way, we used to assemble and dismantle everything everyday.
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It was an exhaustion for us,
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but we managed to keep firm our flag.
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Besides, we saw that the city council not only was willing to ban it,
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but also to attack the citizens,
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and that it would be difficult to overcome that situation.
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That situation led us almost to the nothingness
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to those few things that the city council used to organise
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and although the citizens used to organise themselves for other fields, they gave in as far as the Aste Nagusia was concerned
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due to all those happenings.
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Some years passed, and I don't remember exactly when,
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but I think it was in 1990 or 1992, there was a sort of resurrection.
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New people came to join us, with new purposes.
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These people tried to keep and revive
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the spirit of the Aste Nagusia and Herriko Jai Batzordea,by means of the "koadrilak" (groups of friends).
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They got some results, and they were there for some years,
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until we got in some way to this moment.
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The party is important, so that the people can break the routine,
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the dayly routine, the work, everything that anyone does in an ordinary day.
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During the week , we have only some standard relationships, normalized relationships
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The party breaks the monotony
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the party breaks the way to understand life in a ritual way
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the party is important, specially, as a counterweight to that standardisation
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the political and economic power have standardized our lifestyle
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the party is that necessary counterweight and that mental hygiene of the people,
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so that the people can scape from the everyday life and understand that life has something more
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That we can meet each other and talk calmly, without so many regulations.
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What we are watching now is as important as "basque pelota" for the basque people
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this is the Fandango, the famous Fandango
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in the 90s there were some other attempts
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It is truth that, by then, the relationship between the city council and the party comission was not really good
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and there are two elements; I will talk specially about two of them
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on the one hand the bar tenders, which is a sector of the Old Part who felt that dissatisfaction
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I guess it is because as bartenders it has an influence on them
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but also because they were part of the popular movements
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and they wanted the party in Donosti to be popular and with its own identity.
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That is why they started to do little things like preparing lunches, games between groups of friends...
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When the bartenders started organising activities, the young people were not at the organisation yet.
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We started to organise activities on the street Ikatz.
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We were told that each bar had to organise a game:
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the game of four people walking on two skis, to take an egg in the air and games like that...
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We organised the "Euskal Bizikleta" (Basque Bicycle) with children's bikes.
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I remember it was something that we created the bartenders in the bars,
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and then, little by little the teamwork of some gaztetxes (occupied social centers) and the Gazte Asanblada (the youth assembly) resulted in the creation of the Pirates.
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It was a group of young people, really imaginative, and with new ideas,
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who had this feeling of mediocrity of the Aste Nagusia and this impossibility of orgainising a real party
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and who wanted to change all that.
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That is when, these two elements united and this is the result: Piratak.
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There is not Aste Nagusia without the donostiarrak (the inhabitants of Donostia).
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It is impossible to hide the memory of a city and it's desire to party.
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The treasure of this party is obvious and the desire to recover that treasure has gained strenth again.
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Let's do the boarding all together!
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Let's do the Aste Nagusia together! Long live the Pirates!
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Therefore, we needed a main activity, and that was 'The Boarding', without any doubt.
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And we went out to sea.
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We took the sea as the field of work and battle, for two main reasons:
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On the one hand, because we saw that if we wanted to change the party in Donosti
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we would need an element which we, the Donostiarrak, had relationship with,
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and we saw, clearly, that if something makes Donostia different, that is the sea.
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So, it was clear for us that everything that we organised, would be completely related to the sea.
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And, on the other hand, we realised that there was a bureaucratic vacuum in the administration with regard to the sea.
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specially, between the competences of the city council, the basque government and other public administrations
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and yes, we used that vacuum to develop our project
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That is why we suggested the boarding
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The boarding had a clear logic:
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we needed an activity that would join the party and the demands,
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that would be built over three main bases:
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The first one was the disobedience; we, as citizens, shouldn't ask permission to take part in out party.
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Therefore, it was a strong decisicion to celebrate that activity without asking for permission.
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The second one was the humour.
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We saw that the imagination had to be linked to the humour, in order to spread our message
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and in order to break that severity that transmitted the Aste Nagusia at that moment
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And the third one, of course, the participation.
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It had to be an event where as many people as possible could participate
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It started with that humbleness.
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That first year, only around 10, 15 or 20 rafts gathered, I don't remember exactly how many
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I remember that I was there
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It had an attraction, it was a success.
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We got it right, we had guessed right what the people really wanted
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"Drop anchor, down the bow..."
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Pirates are nice people.
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At the beginning, I remember that the first year the local police was waiting for them to arrest them
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I remember that when we finished the first boarding at the beach of La Concha
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the local police came to us, asking for documentation.
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We told them that we didn't have any documentation,
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and, next, they told us that we couldn't leave the remains of the rafts there.
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And, in the end, we held a meeting just there, and we decided to leave the rafts, in front of the city hall as a protest.
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We had many problems to carry that out,
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because from the city council and from the CAT they raised a huge number of obstacles and problems.
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But, little by little, when the Gazte Asanblada (Youth assembly) took charge of that work,
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that is when, with a good organisation, we succeeded in bringing forward this activity,
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"Local bosses and tyrants rowing in the galleys"
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"The Pirates' flag on the mast of the city hall..."
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At first, this movement started as something very informal; we were a group of friends.
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The second year, there was an ebolution, the third year a growth.
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We can say that when the fifth year came we gained recognition.
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The party was established completely.
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The party carried on, year after year, and what we organised had more and more success.
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And we realised that the donostiarras,
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and the citizens that take part in the program Pirates,
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need an image, an image to identify with.
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In 2007, we presented for the first time the character "Ezkila Kapitaina" (the captain Ezkila)
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In order to creat Ezkila Kapitaina, first of all, we looked back in history,
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we analised and read the history of Donostia,
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and we realised that some centuries ago
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Donostia was an important pirate port or, at least, an important corsair port.
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We started to become interested in characters, and we discovered among the characters, a pirate known as "Campanario"
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With a clumsy playword, we turned the spanish word "Campanario" into the basque word "Ezkila"
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and that is how "Ezkila Kapitaina" became the main image and icon of the Pirates of Donostia
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And an image that year after year gets more famous.
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Congratulations!
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Congratulations one more time, as we said on saturday, for having boarded Donostia.
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Congratulations for all the work.
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This kind of iniciative requires an almost professional organisation.
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It starts on January; we make an evaluation of last year and we propose new ideas for the next year.
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We talk, we reach some agreements and we consider them.
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Because all the material, all the waste that heap up there
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It is necessary the work of about 200 people.
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To tell the truth, people work almost 24 hours.
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Maybe the most visible work during the party is the one of being serving at the bar.
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or the security at the concerts, but, actually, both before the Aste Nagusia,
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during the Aste Nagusia, or after, there is a lot of work to do.
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For example, we start setting up the tent two days before;
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one week before, we hold a meeting among all the groups of friends to organise all the duties and responsibilities
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They might seem superficial, but apart from that work there are a lot of things to do while the people are partying
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there is a lot of cleaning to do, in order to leave everything ready for the next day.
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Some hours before the concerts, they must do the sound check, give the dinner to the groups,
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and after the Aste Nagusia, it comes the dismantling.
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Everything must be dismantled, to leave all the areas as they were before or better.
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Then, there are meetings to see where we have failed, what can be improved,
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in order to make improvements facing the coming years.
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By the time we realised, we had a programme for the whole week,
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and, at that time, a debate was created inside the Pirates about the new model of organisation.
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In this new model, anyone or any group can organise anything.
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As more and more groups of friends were taking part, it was the moment to create a "Kofradia".
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To gather all the groups and to organise games and activities for young people.
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And to organise a programme specially for ourselves, inside this new organisation.
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It is amazing to see that what it was created in a bar
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has now reached this point..
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The boarding starts at 5 o'clock in the morning,
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and it lasts the whole day, until the night.
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It starts at the port, and, to follow an order from the beginning,
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there are some volunteers with orange vests, as filters.
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Once having passed them, there is the place to assemble the raft.
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After having assembled the raft there are other volunteers to help to carry the raft to the sea.
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The best moment is when all the rafts leave the port to go to La Concha,
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but behind all that, there is a lot of voluntary and communitary work.
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And, that is why, an organisation was started to mantain order; each group has an hour to assemble their raft,
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and there are some volunteers to make the participants respect the schedule.
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Afterwards, there are other volunteers in the water gathering and ordering all the rafts.
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"In a half an hour, Donostia will be ours..."
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And in the morning, when people are preparing the rafts, there are other volunteers preparing the lunch,
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and when the boarding starts, at the same time, the organisers start cleaning up everything.
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and they keep on cleaning, until everyone gets to La Concha and everyone leaves.
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All aboard!
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"Drop anchor, down the bow..."
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"We've arrived with the strength of 200 cannons"
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"Throughout Donostia the laugh of the skull"
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"We've arrived with the strenght of 200 cannons"
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"Throughout Donostia the laugh of the skull"
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Security is also essential, and, that is why we work with the Red Cross and the firefighters.
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"The flag of the party waves next to the seaguls"
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"The wooden leg dancing in the streets"
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"The flag of the party waves next to the seaguls"
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"the wooden leg dancing in the streets"
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And then, when we arrive at the beach, there are people cleaning up everything until it gets dark.
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There are around 200 people in the organisation, and without this community work, "Abordaia" (the boarding) wouldn't exist.
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We threw the stone
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and we saw that from the first time the citizens joined the iniciative that we proposed.
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At that time, we had a question.
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How are we going to get back all the spaces that the city council and other authorities have taken away from us, the citizens?
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And some years later, we created "Irrikitaldia"
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An event where we parody the attitudes of the city council and the mayor
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and the obstacles they put.
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What do you think about this year's programme?
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Odon! Odon! (Ex-mayor of Donostia, Odon Elorza)
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Authorities try to impose a logic where they are always in first line.
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The priest, the soldier, the mayor... they are always in the first line, and the rest are secondary participants.
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That crash is a popular festival
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People boost a festival where they are the participants.
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And a festival that is imposed by a power has created a lot of contradictions.
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I was at work, in a bar and Barela called me.
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For me Pirates are many things
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I don´t know how to explain it.
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I was 15-16 and I had taken part in some games before...
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with my neighbours, they called me and said "come to the games" and I went and play in those games and took part in the Aste Nagusia
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I took part in some activities organized by Pirates, but that was all
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I was 15-16 and one day I was in the Old Part and a friend told me:
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Not Synced
Thank you Pirates of Donostia!
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During the last few years music has been a field The Pirates have used to make themselves noticeable
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During the last few years
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music has been a field The Pirates have used
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to make themselves noticeable
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on one hand, in the beginning The Pirates offered music at Trinitate Plaza
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Thanks The Pirates of Donostia!
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Thanks The Pirates of Donostia!
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During the last few years The Pirates have used music as a field
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to make themselves noticeable
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On one hand, in the beginning
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The Pirates offered music shows
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at Trinitate Plaza
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and balancing the budget was the unique goal
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My responsability during the three or four years