Gabriela Ybarra: “It was hard for me to talk about the threat from ETA, it was something they taught you not to tell”

Writer Gabriela ybarra (Vizcaya, 1983) is the author of ‘The diner’, a small, short and very delicate book where he narrates the murder of his grandfather, Javier Ybarra, at the hands of ETA in 1977, and the death of his mother from cancer. Now this intimate story that, according to the author, was so hard to write and tell because they were two very personal stories, has been adapted into a film directed by Ángeles González – Sinde, the former Minister of Culture.

“The fact that my father was threatened was uncomfortable for our life. Sometimes, instead of venting my anger against those who threatened him, I would pay for my anger with him because I was always thinking that something would happen to us, ”Ybarra explains calmly. “Later I realized that it had been very unfair, terrorist threats are carried out in absolute solitude”, concludes.

Ybarra is writing again, this time he has not been able to put aside The terrorism, that aspect of his life about which he had so much trouble writing. “It was difficult to write the book and talk about it. In other words, talking about things that they had always told me that were not told ”, he concludes.

When speaking of ETA, for example, there are those who speak of the victims using the terms “die” and “kill” as if they were synonymous. The ending is the same, of course, however, it is obvious that the qualification between both verbs is fundamental, don’t you think?

The labels “assassinated” or “victim of ETA” have almost the power to erase the biography of the people on whom they fall. Many times, as they are depicted in the media, it seems that the lives of the victims of terrorism begins and ends at the time of the attack, reducing their personal history at the time of their death. In addition, to compensate for the horror that such a loss produces, the deceased tends to be given the halo of a hero or saint. It is uncomfortable for me that the victims of ETA are presented as morally superior beings because their humanity is somehow denied. I would like an effort to be made to recognize the humanity of those killed.

Do you think that the real identity is annulled because they become only a victim of terrorism and nothing else?

It is that the fact of being assassinated, for example, says little about my grandfather as a person. He does not say anything about who he was as a citizen, as a politician, as a husband, as a father, or about the work he did in the juvenile detention centers or about his interest in Basque heritage and culture. My grandfather, like everyone else, was a person with many facets and in some he would be better than in others. I think it’s important to remember that you don’t have to be perfect so they don’t kill you. Our lives are all imperfect, but precious, and no one has the right to take them from us in the name of any cause. What a murder does always leave behind is a trauma that is difficult for those who remain to digest and, if the grief is not well prepared, it is passed on to the next generation.

When reading the book there are several aspects that impact. One of them, without a doubt, is the serenity with which your grandfather confronts that the end is to be killed. The ETA members enter his house, take him away and he does not object, he simply assumes his death and prays.

There are different ways of living religion, right? I think he sees and assumes that he has no control over what is going to happen, so he just puts himself in the hands of God’s will. In a way, this was also done by my mother when she was sick, although she was not so believing, but she also gave herself to whatever might happen. The two faced, or at least I like to think that, that they assumed a very great death threat such as cancer or being kidnapped by armed guys, with simplicity. I think that if at that moment you get a superb part, you die badly. Or if you take refuge in the fact that there is a miracle or that someone saves you thinking that you are the most important thing, you will also die badly because, somehow, you will not be able to dedicate your last days to doing important things, such as, for example, reflect on your life or find meaning in your pain.

But, Gabriela, there is a huge difference between the two deaths. Your mother did have time for that, but not your grandfather.

Well, yes, but my grandfather also had time to reflect a lot, he wrote many letters and, look, I think that religion helped him make sense of that terrible situation he was going through.

I know that politics is not something you are excited to comment on, at least in public. But, your grandfather is killed by ETA and your father has always taken an escort for threats. How do you see from your prism a government – like the current one – that governs with the support of political formations that do not condemn the ETA murders or continue to pay tributes to ETA?

Look, if I’m honest, it’s not something I usually think about, really. In the end I am in my day to day …

Yeah, but, I don’t know, you don’t get flooded with rage, even sometimes, really?

No, I have never had rabies. And it is not for being good, I have always related to ETA as if they were fictional entities, as if they were not from this world. I haven’t seen them, I haven’t faced them, or anything at all. In the end, and perhaps it will surprise you, with whom I have unjustly vented my anger has been with the people next to me, such as, for example, my father.

Why?

Because in the end living a situation like this can leave you touched and, then, there are behaviors that you do not understand. Also, the fact that my father was threatened was uncomfortable for our lives, so, I suppose, instead of being angry with ETA I was angry with my close family. You say to yourself: “Oh my gosh, this guy, he’s thinking all day that something bad could happen to us. What ash! ”. And this is something that writing the book I realized and I said to myself: What injustice, right? That your own family is not able to see beyond.

But, of course, in that fear of your father was also your own protection, not just his. It must be very uncomfortable to live that way, with someone always by your side and taking precautions that someone who has never been threatened by ETA cannot understand.

Of course. It seems like a nuisance to you and in the end you stick with that because you tend to think about all the things that you cannot do, but not about how they can kill you. I think there is like a level of life of a lot of horror and discomfort that we can endure, however, sometimes we pretend that it does not exist because, if it did not, we would live in a constant panic attack. There are so many evils that can come that if you keep it in mind all the time you don’t live. I believe that in this denial of the existence of danger there is a lot of survival.

Is it not lived more thoroughly? I am not saying burning all the ships, but I am thinking of the danger that is avoided every day when ETA has you in the spotlight like your father did.

Yes, but hey, even with a real threat, you can’t live 24 hours a day thinking about it. In reality, most of the time you forget it, it only shows up in very specific moments. They are like almost ghostly apparitions, like a trauma that is there and that suddenly erupts. The truth is that you put it into your routine and, in some way, it is part of the landscape.

He has no longer been an escort for years. How does he feel now?

Thank God, in fact, since 2011 he has not had an escort. Now that I think about it, it’s not that many years. My father does not remember it much or talk about it, it is not a time for which you feel nostalgic. I don’t think anyone longed to have an escort, but it is true that you get used to certain ways of life because, for example, he never drove, he never looked for parking and now he goes to places he could not go, you know?

What places have you returned to?

For example, we took a trip with him through the Basque Country in 2012 through towns that he could not go to because he attracted a lot of attention. Imagine that he arrived with a car, two escorts and he is very inconspicuous and they see you quickly. Now he is anonymous, they do not recognize him, unless it is some very specific person who has seen a photo of his face, but now he is a person who can go anywhere.

What you say is very strong, but, my daughter, what serenity. You get used to things that are not normal, right?

No, of course they are not normal. You are the one who turns the abnormal into normal, but also a bit by moving on and not staying locked up at home. Do you know what happens? Which is also very unfair, all because the threats of terrorism are carried in a lot of loneliness. You can’t do many things, but the rest of your family can. My mother, my sisters or I have always gone everywhere, the only one who could not go was him.

You found out that your grandfather was killed by ETA because the mother of a classmate of yours ran away on the way to school. Have you told your son? Will you tell him?

Yes, I think I will explain it to him at some point, but it is still very small. Yes, I am telling you that my mother has died, that she was very ill; but the matter of my grandfather, the story of my family, I will tell you, although the moment is far away. When we go to Bilbao together I am excited to go with him to the places, so I will also tell him the reason why we left there. I think that the question that I am going to have to answer the most, more than that of my grandfather, is: why did you leave this place that you like so much?

The adaptation of ‘The diner’ to the cinema, the director is Ángeles González Sinde who, in addition, also has a close relationship with death.

Yes that’s how it is. Claudio, my editor, who was his partner died, his brother also died, and he has always been very interested in the subject of trauma. And besides, as a minister she also lived with an escort, right? So in the end, she understood the book very well when it was published and wrote one of the columns that I liked the most. It was later that the movie project came up.

Was it her idea to do the adaptation?

No. It was the idea of ​​the producer Isabel Delclaux, a girl born in Madrid, but whose whole family is from Bilbao. She starts working as a producer and decides that the first movie she wants to produce is ‘El Comensal’. So, we stayed and discussed the book that, by the way, she very nice brought everything underlined and imagining scenes.

Delusion?

Yes, I was very excited.

You haven’t written anything else, have you?

Well, I’m working on it.

Is it going to be a novel or something intimate like this?

It is quite connected with ‘The diner’. It is still my life, but it has more fiction. It is a very personal story and of some things that were left to be explored in the first book. I have returned to terrorism a bit, a bit against my will because I was exhausted last time. It was difficult to write the book and talk about it, talking about things that I had always been told that were not told, and it cost me a lot. Writing it was therapeutic, talking about it was more complicated.

Was it hard because it was telling intimacies that, in addition, are related to something that being a victim also wants to forget?

There was a lot of taboo. It seemed to me that he was doing something very indiscreet telling everything, although you let him dig as far as you want. The biggest indiscretion you could count on is that your family was threatened.

Why? Was it a stigma?

Well, I don’t know, it was something that was not said. Stigma? Depending on the environment, in the neighborhood where I grew up there were no people from the nationalist left who were very opposed. He lived in a place where there was no such thing, but even so, even if others knew it, it was not said.

A screaming silence.

Yes. But also, I think there was a part of shame.

Shame?

Yes, it is amazing, right? But yeah, now that I think about it there was a part of it.

But why?

Well, because everyone wants to be normal, they don’t want to have problems. Just as you do not count your problems out there, because you did not count this of being threatened either. Ya, it’s terrible.

@ MariaVillardon