From: mauricio@athena.mit.edu (Mauricio P Barahona)
Subject: Re: Indurain 
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:49:05 GMT

In article <9211180413.AA11842@cpuserver.acsc.com> <KMARCH%MAINE.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU> writes:
>
>Hello.  As an outsider, but with an opinion, I have heard that Indurain does 
>consider himself BASQUE, but that he was forced to rectify his pro-basque 
>comments by Spain.


    Who is this 'Spain' that goes around bullying cyclists? Is he or she 
related in any way to the Mafia? Please enlighten us.

    If you are referring to the country, I very much doubt that there was 
any special Cabinet Meeting to study the methods to force Indurain to 
rectify anything (and if there had been, I would like to stress the 
difference between Country and Government).

>                     Notice he was the only cyclist to wear a national flag 
>on his sleeve.

    So that was finally the method devised by our Crisis Cabinet. Smart,
really smart.

    The only pressure I can think of could have come from Banesto (a national
bank with headquarters in Madrid) which sponsors (to the last penny) Indurain's
team. It is thinkable that a national bank, with a national and EEC
oriented commercial strategy would not like an overstated role of Indurain 
as a political symbol. As you know, money makes the world go round. 

    Precisely this was the reason for Indurain wearing the national flag ONLY
on his sleeve instead of a COMPLETE bicoloured maillot (as the national
champions do in every country in Europe and they used to do in Spain till 
last year). Mr Conde forced the Spanish National Federation to approve this 
because the yellow-red maillot would diminish Indurain's publicitary impact
(the 'Banesto' logo would be less visible and all that stuff).

    I do not care about Indurain's political views, but the idea I got from
the interviews I read (some of them to french and italian papers) was that
he does not consider borders as something too important (and less important
as Europe gets more unified) and that he is both 'navarro' and 'basque' 
(terms which are not exclusive since basque is not only a geographic
cathegory but a cultural one as well). He stablished quite clearly his
desired not to be politically utilized.


>  This is typical of the center.  

     So the myth of the centre again. Which is it this time? The centre
of Spain, the centre of the Earth or the centre of mass. 

     Josecho, you were looking for oppressors the other day. I hereby give you
a universal theorem for finding the oppressor under every hypothesis:
   "If we have a system of more than one units, the oppressor is the
one which/who sits closer to the centre" 
    For a detailed proof you can see an article in the Journal of 
Self-Centered Hyper-Critical Oppressors, 25, 243-45 (1992) but here you have 
some examples:
    - The centre of mass is a universal oppressor because whatever you do
it is always in the centre
    - The centre of the earth is a global oppressor because it makes us 
weight and oppresses us with the atmospheric pressure
    - The centre of Spain is a local oppressor because it oppressed, it 
oppresses and it will oppress.


>                                        And there are far too many 
>navarros who consider themselves Basque to deny the relationship, even if 
>others do not want to or feel they can claim this heritage.  Originally 
>Navarra was the center of Euskadi, if I recall, but that's devide and 
>conquer for you (look at valencia, parts of former Galicia, etc.) 
             ^^^
    So, besides 'Spain' there is a 'you' dividing and conquering all
around. Good to know.

>                                                                  I won't 
>try your patience further.  regards, Kathleen <kmarch@maine>

    It is difficult for all of us (you are not more of an outsider than most
of us right now, believe me) to have an unprejudiced opinion. However, it is
safer if you apply the well-known Legendre-Jacobi(*) lemma:
    "Try not to have strong opinions based on weak facts"

(*) I am almost sure of this attribution but I will check, just in case.

    Regards,

      Mauricio Barahona
      MIT Physics                                mauricio@athena.mit.edu