The Basque students who face during this week the exams of the university entrance exams (Evau) have had to analyze a homily of the Bishop of Bilbao García Añoveros of 1974 on the 'Basque problem' in the History exam. In addition, in the Spanish language test the proposed text analyzes a journalistic column written after the case of the commissions paid by the Community of Madrid for the purchase of masks in which the "Cayetanos assholes" are attacked.

The texts included in the History and Spanish Language exams have fueled controversy on social networks. The texts are selected by teachers of both subjects with a criterion in which the Department of Education led by the nationalist Jokin Bildarratz does not intervene.

In the case of the History exam, two texts have been included for analysis that complemented the two topics (to choose one) that Basque students had to complete. The theme to be developed was to choose between 'Fueros and Liberalism: The Carlist Wars and the Foral Question' or 'The creation of the Francoist State (1939-1959).

The second block was integrated as a text commentary an extract from the essay 'Oligarchy and Caciquism' by Joaquín Costa and a homily by the bishop of Bilbao García Añoveros. In the homily read in the churches of Biscay in February 1974, the 'Basque problem' was addressed as one of those that "most seriously damage coexistence in the Basque Country" and also the "diocesan Church".

Bishop Añoveros defends the "proper characteristics" of this "Basque problem" based on cultural singularities and especially its "millenary language". The pastor of the Biscayan Church underlines the "right" of the "Basque people" to defend this singularity but also recognizes it in "the other peoples of the Spanish State".

The homily read in the last years of Francoism denounces the "serious obstacles" of the Basque people to exercise this right to "preserve their own identity" due to the "notorious restrictions" to which the use of Basque in education and the media is subjected. The choice of the homily coincides with the political debate in the Basque Parliament on the new Education Law supported by PNV and EH Bildu that eliminates linguistic models and determines that Basque is the axis of training with the aim that all Basque schoolchildren accredit a B2 level of this language at the end of compulsory education.

The Basque selectivity has also incorporated an opinion column published in El Periódico de Aragón – a media outlet without a presence in Euskadi – on April 12, 2022 and signed by Miguel Miranda. The text was published in the midst of controversy over the payment of 6.6 million dollars to commission agents Alberto Luceño and Luis Medina for facilitating the purchase of masks from the Community of Madrid in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the text to be analyzed by the Basque students, it is defended that the "posh" -concept collected in the dictionary of the RAE- have disappeared from the youth language that has replaced them with the "Cayetanos". On two occasions he describes this alleged group as "assholes". The author warns that this group is only related among its members in spaces such as "inaccessible clubs, private colleges and universities and private clinics." In addition, he points them out because "they only want to live from the story, politics and mamoneo". The author presents himself as a "proud son of a bricklayer" and recognizes that he "always" had "repelús, phobia and a little disgust" to the so-called "Cayetanos".

  • Universities
  • Bilbao
  • Community of Madrid
  • Coronavirus
  • RAE
  • Bildu
  • PNV
  • EBAU
  • Biscay
  • Secondary education

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