Bide Ertzean was a pop rock band from Tolosa, Gipuzkoa. In 2006 they released a very special album: Non Dira, which translates as Where Are They?
Every song in the album is inspired by different people, stories or moments from what is known as the Spanish Civil War, though it would be far more accurate to call it the Spanish Fascist Coup.
Non Dira is an incredibly moving and beautiful album. It's also deeply emotional. The fascist coup was brutal and 40 years of dictatorship followed. There were mass graves scattered across all of Spain but there was also a deafening silence.
People were afraid to speak and it took a long time after the fascist regime for people to start to open up about what happened. Even longer for the Spanish government to start supporting the search for bodies and to honour the memory of those who were lost.
In 1997, a group of women, survivors of the fascist coup and regime, got together and formed a group, Les Dones del 36, to tell their stories and to teach new generations that the social advances they were enjoying were not the result of the democracy that followed the dictatorship but of a fight and advances made since 1931 during the Second Spanish Republic.
As always, there are no perfect translations but here's my translation of the eleventh song in the album that was inspired by these women.
I want to learn again
The beauty of the fight
Where and how the light
Of freedom sparked
I want to hear again
What I left unheard
How to combine
Freedom and blood
After losing the war
After losing the peace
I will ask again
Though so long has passed
With what weapons can we resist
The dark attacks of silence?
After losing the war
After losing the peace
Do they still live? Are the dreams
Of that time still alive?
All those dreams crushed
by silence, are they still alive?
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