Introduction
An ethnic group is a collection of people who identify themselves with one another with a common culture that is either real or imagined. It may consist of common traits such as religion, language, behavior, and customs or even habitat. In this case, an ethnic group may form a nation (Guibernau 215). Benedict Anderson defines a nation as a presumed political society thought by its members as naturally restricted and independent. That is, it is socially built by its people who distinguish themselves as being part of the group. They result from the creation of a language in which people can best identify with. An ethnic nation may be created when; a community wants to elevate itself in an independent status that will guarantee their rights or when a previously powerful language becomes less valuable and so the group clings on her own language. Thus a common code which can accommodate the variant dialects of a group can initiate the formation of an ethnic nation (5-7). It is formed on thought interactions between members even when they may not actually know each other or may not physically meet. It is a formation of people’s mental images of one another because they have similar interests, and are restricted by boundaries beyond which other nations occupy. Nations evolve through the availability of communication media like books which enhance the use of language as well as knowledge of other nations. In this case, the culture of a nation may keep changing, borrowing from cultures of other nations to help them integrate with them (Brass 85-88). As they interact though, they try to sustain their freedom and independence by resisting other nations who may attempt to exert authority over them. Members are propelled by comradeship within the nation by willing to defend it regardless of the real divisions within the nation (Geertz 39-43). In this essay, we shall look at the Basques identity, their relations with the Spanish and how they have been protecting themselves from external threats to this identity.
Background to the Basques identity
The union of Hispanic crowns was formed to create a collective Spanish state devoid of unification. Stanley Payne writes that Spain’s Habsburg imperial system permitted legal and administrative rights to Basques country. Even after a new regime emerged in the aftermath of succession wars of early 18th century, Basques country retained a separate constitutional system. Although the exact origin of Basques country and identity is tricky to tell, it is thought to have been formed by descendants of people resistant to Roman imperial expansions. They initially occupied the north and south of western Pyrenees. The first documented Basques state is the Pamplona, thought to have been formed in the 9th century (32-33). The Basques provinces of Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa and Alava were formally integrated in the Castile Kingdom in the 13th century but they were still allowed to possess separate administrations.
The Basques Country is today referred to as the ‘the Seven Are One’ with regard to her Seven traditional regions. Their cling to their identity has led them to be regarded as a region with the least assimilation of Palaeolithic Western Europe inhabitants to the indo-European migrations. With interference from the French revolution, the Basques self-government was weakened. The French republics tried to take up the entire French Basques into the French culture. On the other hand, the Spain granted to the Basques people some freedom to speak a language of choice, political independence as well as cultural freedom (Urla 820-21). The relationship between Spain and Basques is historically mutual. Spain relied on Basques ports while it recruited a majority of her marine and military personnel from the Basque Country. However, this interaction was altered amid the carlistic wars after the rich Basques erstwhile employees of the Spanish army began to introduce Spanish to Basques region. As a result, the Basque people began to yearn for Spanish because they felt it exposed literacy (Payne 35).
The Basques nationalism emerged from the 19th century with a section of inhabitants trying to fight for independence (Urla 833). The regime of Francisco Franco restricted the culture of Basques to folklore and the church; although this did not affect the spread of Spanish language in the Basques. Both Spanish and French became popular in the in respective Spanish and French Basque regions. As a result of trying to suppress the Basque Identity, the Spain chose Spanish as the language of public education (Keating 218).
Basque Nationalism
As seen before, Basque nationalism emerged as a fight for self-determination. The democratic constitution of 1869 abolished the Basque rights although it retained some regional autonomy through out Spain. This was also eliminated in 1876 in which a new regime of taxation was introduced in Basques. Demonstrations with violence greeted government attempts to raise tax quotas. The resistance to Spanish state was the ambition behind the Basque nationalism. Cultural identity, material advancement and moral salvation inspired the young Basque nationalists to pursue their search for identity. The founder of the Basque nationalism, Sabino de Arana conceded that he never knew Basque language and had wanted to learn it more (Payne 40-42). Most of the early nationalists began by publishing books to teach Basque language. Although early nationalist groups were hampered with splits, dissolutions and degenerations; a single organization took over from 1893 by trapping members’ loyalty and unity. The basic problem of this nationalism persisted in the shallowness of language and Basque culture (Ott 56). The use of Basque language continued to decline especially after Franco Francisco became the leader of Spain. After the early 20th century violence by the nationalists, Franco came to power and banned the use of Basque in schools. His intention was to suppress nationalism through limiting economic development (Woodworth 217). However, Stanley Payne argues that economic reasons alone did not induce Spanish nationalism. The Basque people may have learnt from other parts of Europe. For instance, Scottish nationalism was inspired by the determination to gain identification (48). Thus we can assert that the Basque people demanded their cultural identity which they had seen would be declined by the denial of Basque language use. As a result, a conflict with the Spanish government arose.
Why the conflict persists
The concern for Basque autonomy is more than economic justifications. It had to do with the desire to increase the demographic population of Basque language speakers. In 1964, in response to Franco’s desire for political and cultural domination, violence erupted as a demonstration. This slowly morphed into terrorism that still persists today (Abadie and Gardeazabal 126). The limited democracy brought about by the 1978 Spanish constitution and the Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country of 1979 gave way fro some form of decentralization but most Basque nationalists feel self-government is yet to be realized (Urla 837). They felt that Basque country lacked enough personnel to protect her distinct culture and this is caused by the central government’s historical sidelining of the Basque country.
The conflict also persists in the overlapping of Basque Spanish identities. Thus most people may relate with one of the cultures; which means that they either belong to either culture or even want a hybrid from both! Basque country has been allowed to regulate the study of local culture and language.However; most Basque people would want Spanish to be taught from early stage as well as the Basque language (Martinez-Herrera 16).
The Spanish government has permitted Basque country to collect local taxes and submit a small contribution to her for diplomatic and military expenditure. Hence this is an indication of how well a federal system can work best. In contrast, nationalists have continued to demand for self-government thus weakening the will to solve the conflict by instituting federal a relationship. The continued fight for self-determination is also seen by many as upsetting because it only serves to split the communities already in touch with each other as Basque exists within Spain (Abadie and Gardeazabal 128-129).
The use of terrorism to demand Independence
In determining how separatism would be fought, the founder of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) resorted to violence. With the thought that Basque had a different culture from the rest of Spain, Sobino Arana Goiri resented the Castilian culture by trying to repossess the independence of Euskadi (McGarry 208). Initially, racism was treated to non-Basque people. When the PNV began to fall from grace after the WWII, Its youthful members formed a violent group (EKIN-TALDEA-Group of Action) which then formed the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna [ETA]-Euskadi for Freedom which chose to demand independence through tough nationalism. This group was formed from three wings: The Culturists led by Emparanza, Obreristas led by Iturrioz and the Fercermundastas led by Zalbide. The overall leader was Zalbide (Urla 839).
Initially, they chose to spread their ideas through ads but the financial requirements and the futility of this method rendered by the dictatorship of Franco Francisco’s central administration forced them to adopt criminal ways in their activities. For instance, they planted a bomb at Amara and its explosion killed one girl. This marked the beginning of terrorism as a tool to reclaim Basque independence (Abadie and Gardeazabal 115). When they were pursued by the central government, this group escaped to France where they also sought support. To finance themselves, they resorted to robbery. For instance, they conducted a burglary at Vergara in Guipuzcoa. In the aftermath, its leader was arrested. Iturrioz took leadership from then (Martinez-Herrera 17-18).
In revenge, they conducted police killings in Sarasqueta but their leader also met his death. They also chose to revenge this murder in 1968 by killing Melton Manzanas (an underground police officer known for torturing suspects) in Irun in Guipuzcoa and then reiterated their course for freedom by announcing it. Despite the Spanish government trying to detain and sentencing to death of those charged with the murders, the killings went on. In 1973, the central government president, Luis Blanco was murdered while coming from a Sunday Church mass. This was followed by a bomb planting in 1974 at a Correo street restaurant in Madrid in which 12 more people met their end (Abadie and Gardeazabal 118-19).
Later, ETA was divided into two sections; the Military and the Politico-military. The latter was more violent than the former. Even after Franco and his dictatorship died, Jacqueline Urla writes that his successor, Adolfo Suarez’s government met more ETA killings. Their method of extermination involved either shooting or placing of bombs in public places (824). Thus they not only killed their targets but innocent people were also included. As a tool of forcing the central government to grant them independence, its first 23 years of operation saw about 775 people killed through terrorism (Abadie and Gardeazabal (130).
According to Alberto Abadie and Javier Gardeazabal, this group disguised itself by joining elections through its formed party, The Euskadi Revolutionary Party. However, after 7 years of existence, this party slowly dissolved in 1984. ETA regrouped when members of the radical politico-military side joined the military wing and a Barcelona bomb was fixed. Its aftermath; 21 people indiscriminately got killed (130-131). On July 10, 1997; this group kidnapped Miguel Blanco, a politician based in Basques autonomous community and a member of the Popular Party. They used him to compel the Spanish government to transfer all the ETA political prisoners to Basque within 2 days of abduction. When the government failed to yield, ETA shot the politician and later the group announced this action in the media. He was found already weakened by the bullet wounds in his head and died 12 hours later (Ott 325).
In 1998, ETA again tried diplomacy by signing a peace pact. However, in this wake, another youthful organization JARRAI was formed with similar nationalist ideas. Terrorism was perpetuated. Despite the on-and-off tactic, a damaging explosion at Barajas Airport on 30th Dec 2006 was largely attributed to ETA and her affiliates. In this attack, even non-Spanish citizens and the innocent Spanish people were attacked. The pursuit of this independence has continued to be bloody (Abadie and Gardeazabal 131).
Validity of Terrorism
Basques secession conflict, as we have discussed above, has involved terrorism. The group demanding independence feels that by inflicting insecurity, the Spanish government may succumb to their freedom. While the use of coercive tactics may continue to cause havoc, we may argue that it may not result in what the group intends. First, we understand that Basques is historically an economic benefit to Spain through her ports thus the central government would use any means to guard this advantage (Urla 842). Second, some of the Basques inhabitants may unlikely support terrorism. Most harbour a culture borrowed from both the Castilian and Basques lifestyle hence they do not wholly identify with the Basques culture (Payne 38). Much as they may want independence, they prefer to exist in a federal relationship than a complete separation.
Abadie and Gardeazabal argue that use of violence does not usually solve the problem, it aggravates it. In fact in its wake, some politicians have used it to pursue their own ambitions not the Basques’. Hence, they would rather the Spanish government continues the refusal, the ETA continues the torture and their fruits continue to be realized! Politicians on their part promise people to support its course by invoking its inexistent imminent benefits. And this only worsens the security of the ordinary people (132).
On the overall, terrorism involves an infringement on human rights and freedom to choose. In this case, the Council of Europe [CU] has continued to support the Spanish government to whip out the terrorism group. By invoking the effects of such activities, CU makes ETA to become less popular and the masses begin to see the value of peace (Ott 326). Thus, its determination to achieve separation by pretending to champion the people’s desires is reduced to mere criminal activities. Moreover, the fact that bombs are planted in public places and deaths involve just anyone is a further damage to its success. Families of Basques people who lost their lives in explosions may want the group discontinued.
Conclusion
We can deduce that though they may have been induced by Franco’s dictatorship over Basques, terrorist methods are suitable in fighting for independence and defence of culture. Aside from causing losses, it is a violation of human rights.
Works Cited
Abadie, Alberto, and Javier Gardeazabal. “The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country.” The American Economic Review. 93.1 (2003): 113-32.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism. Revised Ed. New York: Verso. 1991.
Brass, Paul. “Ethnic Groups and Ethnic Identity Formation.” Eds. Hutchinson, John and Smith, Anthony. Ethnicity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 85-99.
Geertz, Clifford. “Primordial and Civic Ties.” Eds. Hutchinson, John and Smith, Anthony D. Ethnicity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 29-44.
Guibernau, Montserrat. The Ethnicity Reader. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Keating, Michael. ”Spain: The Peripheral Nationalism and State Response.”
Eds. McGarry, John and Brendan O’Leary. Politics of Ethnic Conflict Regulation. New York: Routledge, 1993. 205-225.
Matinez-Herrera, Enric. “National Extremeism and Outcomes of State Policies in the Basque Country, 1979-2001.” Journal of Multicultural Studies. 4.1(2002):16-40.
Ott, Sandra. War, Judgment, and Memory in the Basque Borderland, 1914-1945. Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press. 2008.
Payne, Stanley. “Catalan and Basque Nationalism.” Journal of Contemporary History. 6.1 (1971): 15-51.
Urla, Jacqueline. “Cultural Politics in an Age of Statistics: Numbers, Nations, and the Making of Basque Identity.” American Ethnologist. 20.4 (1993): 818-43.
Woodworth, Paddy. The Basque Country: A Cultural History. New York: Oxford UP. 2008.