Basque ethnography at a glance

Piracy and plunder are as old as maritime trade. Yesterday’s pirates were seafaring peoples who engaged in pillaging and ravaging at deep waters and off the coast. The main shipping and freight traffic routes suffered from most intense pirate activity. These attacks often occurred across national borders or in areas under customary international law. There they raided and ransacked at will to later hide their fabulous loot in secluded havens.

Internet, the most heavily frequented sea at present, is not out of the rule of piracy. The so-called cyber pirates board our data vessels in order to either take hold of them or obtain secret information. In the rapidly unfolding digital age, information has become a treasure in itself. Information is certainly synonymous with power in the current knowledge-based economy. However, even if the importance of intangible assets has grown substantially, life for the man on the street still revolves around material riches.

Tax piracy, we so often hear about nowadays, is none other than piracy adapted to the new times. Tax pirates are modern mercenaries who plunder the treasury coffers and stash their dubious fortunes in established offshore strongholds. A tax haven is a country or secrecy jurisdiction used by money launderers, multinational companies and their army of lawyers and accountants to exercise evasive piratical habits.

Both in Basque —paradisu fiskala— and Spanish —paraíso fiscal—, as well as in other languages, such a place is literally called a ‘tax paradise’. Since paradise and heaven are closely related concepts, non-native speakers of English who are not familiar with the word ‘haven’ often simply do not notice the spelling difference and automatically assume it says ‘heaven’. Strikingly enough, though, a tax refuge turns into a paradise. Does it refer to the garden of earthly delights where God placed Adam and Eve? Might it allude to the heavenly home were the blessed enjoy the presence of God? Or is it rather an idyllic land of money, the god of our times, they are talking about?

Jaione Bilbao – Language Departament – Labayru Fundazioa

Pictures taken from misviajesporahi.es and educadictos.com.