Milestones of Basque History - Essay Example

Running Header: THREE PERSPECTIVES OF REPRESSION THREE PERSPECTIVES OF REPRESSION: BASQUE VIEWS OF THE SPANISH OCCUPATION Your University The conflict between the Basque people and the various governments in Spain over the last few centuries has been one of the most intransigent, and one of the most deeply passionate, in geopolitical history. The struggle of the Irish Republican Army against British occupation may be the only one in Western Europe that can be used to provide a parallel. The ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna - Basque for "Basque Homeland and Freedom") is a paramilitary organization whose goal is the creation of a Basque socialist nation that is independent of both Spain and France (Ben-Ami, p. 498). In its campaigns thus far, the ETA has committed over 900 killings and dozens of kidnappings. While the ETA did declare a unilateral cease-fire on March 22, 2006, on September 23, 2006, the organization announced that it would resume hostilities until the achievement of Basque independence (ETA). To understand the sentiments at work in all three of these documents - particularly the harsh dichotomies of the Arana piece - it is good to have an understanding of the dynamics at work within the ETA. To people outside of the Basque region, and, in particular, outside of Spain, the mission of the ETA sounds just like one of many small revolutionary groups, agitating for its own few square miles of self-determination, if only to avoid the larger taxing entities in the country around it (Funes, p. 499). Each of these little splinter groups has its own manifesto that spouts idealistic words and phrases, its own shrill anthem that sounds to the modern person listening from abroad much like, quite frankly, the declarations that leapt from the American colonies to the government of Great Britain in the later days of the eighteenth century. The modern chapter of the Basque story begins during the reign of Francisco Franco, and his attempts to drive the Basque nation off the very face of the planet. Because there had been Basque sympathizers with the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, Franco decided to eliminate any signs of Basque culture from the public consciousness. The Basque flag could not be displayed; Basque holidays could not be publicly celebrated; teaching the Basque language, or even speaking it in public, were forbidden; baptizing children who did not have Spanish surnames was proscribed (Sullivan, p. 88). This crackdown against non-Spanish cultures was not carried out throughout the country, however. While Guipuscoa and Biscay were also singled out for this attempted annihilation of local culture, because of their ostensible sympathies with the Republican cause, other territories were left alone. Because the regions of Alava and Navarre had been allied with Franco's faction during the Spanish Civil War, those regions were permitted to keep a reasonable degree of self-government (Clark 1984, pp. 82-84). The results of this cultural attempt at extermination may have been predictable. Once the civil war ended, many Basques left the rural parts of Castile, Galicia, Extremadura, and Andalusia, which diluted the identity of those regions, in which only a percentage of the initial Basque population remained (Hamilton, p. 138). The rest of the world, however, took notice of this repressive activity. Beginning with the excesses of the Franco era and ending with the transition in Spanish government to a democracy in 1975, the ETA received gestures of sympathy from around the globe. The peak of this support came in 1970, after the controversial "Burgos Trials," in which the Franco government showed its cruel and oppressive side to an international audience (Clark 1984, p. 128). The tide of international opinion, however, began to turn against the ETA as the 1970's progressed. In 1973, the ETA assassinated Franco's successor, Almirante Luis Carrero Blanco, and became increasingly radical after Spain became a democracy. The kidnapping and assassination of Miguel Angel Blanco, a local politician, in 1997 was a sign of how far the ETA's reputation had fallen in local and international circles (Zirakzadeh, p. 43). There are some commonalities among the three documents that are worthy of note. First, and most dominant, is the pastoral description that appears to be part of the Basque mystique. Arana writes of the Basque man as someone whose work ethic and drive are even symbolized by the rugged landscape of which most of the Basque region consists: the Basque can cultivate this region, whereas the lazy Spaniard does not even cultivate the bountiful fields that lie fallow all over his country. This idea of the hard-working peasant, working hard in a rural setting, is mirrored in both of the other documents. Aguirre's piece speaks of the Monday market and fair in Gernika, the town so brutally destroyed by the Nazi air force in 1937. The images of peasants making their way into the town, gently interacting with one another and selling their wares, settling into an afternoon of harmonious fellowship, saying the evening Angelus prayers, and then just as gently making their way home as the sun sets in the background. Aguirre also writes of the peasants patiently tilling their soil day in and day out, and also beginning and ending their work days in contemplative prayer. The ETA manifesto takes this theme as one of its core values: the use of the word "Euskadi", or homeland, is intentionally chosen to indicate that the focus of the ETA is not any particular religious or political agenda, but rather the restoration of that peaceful, idyllic land of placid self-determination, watched over by the Tree of Gernika. C.L. Irving makes note of this element in the Basque insurgency: the Basque self-concept includes nostalgic references to a lost past dominated by references to agricultural prosperity and a peaceful desire to merely live untouched by the grasping, materialistic cultures around them (p. 119). Ben-Ami touches on this point as well when he references the more archaic parts of the Basque ideal. In the twentieth century, virtually every society has moved beyond the agricultural ideal into a more industrialized, leisure-oriented paradigm of what constitutes contentment. The idealistic Basques are unique in this area (p. 517). Another commonality among the three documents is the spiritual values that appear to be central to the Basque culture. In the ETA manifesto, reference is made in the discussion of the word "Askatasuna" (democracy or freedom) to this centrality in Basque thought. The manifesto mentions that the Basque government holds the "faith and will" of the people, even in its period of exile. The use of the word faith in this context could be said to connote the central place that religion and spirituality have in the life of the Basque people. While this might not be significant if taken in isolation, this is mirrored in the other two documents. In Aguirre's description of idyllic Gernika before the Nazi atrocities, one of the central elements of the city was the church, a symbol of the spirituality of the city. The aforementioned prayers of the peasants, uttered before and after the work day, help this passage highlight the religious sensibilities of the Basques. In the Arana piece, religious scorn is weaved throughout the dichotomous contrasts between Basque and Spaniard. Of particular interest, however, is the contrast between the Basque language and the Spanish, where the author holds forth that the Basque language is beautiful to hear, but that while the Spanish language may sound like the braying of a donkey, hearing that braying would actually be preferable to hearing the blasphemy that forms a large part of every Spaniard's utterances. This idea that the Spaniard is incapable of living up to the high moral standards of his religion is continued with the statement that the Basque loves his family, while the Spaniard is engaged in adultery. Clearly, the moral purity associated with spirituality is an important part of the Basque identity. In Muro's analysis of the various subcultures within Spain that would bring about their own autonomy and independence, he makes note of the unique power that spirituality holds for the Basque. While fervent Catholicism is nothing new throughout the Iberian Peninsula, he notes, spirituality brings for the Basque a calming, yet energizing power that permits him to maintain the self-discipline required in a communal society isolated in a capitalistic world (Muro, p. 571). The Arana piece differs from the other two documents in its ethnic pride, which at times strays into arrogance. The syntax of the paragraph is designed to drive the idea that Spaniard and Basque are just about diametrical opposites into the consciousness of the reader. Besides the usual propagandistic measures of asserting the masculinity of all Basques while lampooning the effeminate nature of the most macho of all Spanish heroes - the bullfighter, Arana goes further and, in some ways, undermines the Basque claim to be more enlightened, more capable of communal life, than either of the cultures that surround them. Arana claims that the Basque needs racial purity - in other words, isolation from other cultures - while the Spanish culture benefits from the occasional invasion and conquest, because of the leavening factor of the invading culture. Also, Arana claims that the Basque makes a poor servant, because his genetic breeding prepares him to be a lord over others, whereas the Spaniards were born to be the vassals, or servants, of others. This last statement is ironic, given the Spanish hegemony over the Basque territories. This arrogance seems more suited to the Nazi oppressors that Aguirre decries in his essay, or to those who would oppose the work of the ETA as described in its manifesto. According to Aguirre, the Basques seem almost devoid of this pride. Those who survived the brutal attacks of the Nazi air force could do little but sit on the side of the roads, looking at the fire and destruction all around them, and weep, so total was the destruction. While these aerial attacks were clearly military atrocities carried out against a defenseless enemy, one would not expect the Basques as described in Arana's piece to sit on the side of the road, like shells of their former selves. Aguirre describes a far more domesticated, placid individual than Arana does. The ETA manifesto describes the Basques as a peaceful group of people who can set aside their political and religious beliefs and work together for the liberty and self-determination of a communal nation; the rugged individual in Arana's mind, one could argue, would have a difficult time putting aside personal agendas in such emotionally invested areas as religious beliefs for the greater good of an entire nation. Whereas Arana's paper centers on the contrasting images of the Basque man and the Spanish man, Aguirre's centers on a more peaceful image: the Tree of Gernika. According to Aguirre, this tree was the only object left whole by the Nazi fighters: such cultural symbols as church, town hall, and even the pelota court were utterly destroyed. The "thousand-year-old" Tree of Gernika, however, still remained after the attacks, serving as an inspiring symbol of the enduring dream of freedom and self-determination that encapsulates the Basque experience. This tree serves as a far more sympathetic image to people outside the dispute: while the Arana essay almost comes off as a racist screed, the Aguirre piece gives those who are inclined to side with the ETA a mental image to keep in their minds: the Tree asserting itself against a sky burned red by the rockets and the flames that devour one of the last bastions of freedom and autonomy. The ETA manifesto is not as boastful as Arana's writing, and not as idyllic as Aguirre's description of the way that Gernika was before Franco had his henchmen bring a horribly absolute destruction down on it. Statements of ideology, however, rarely have the syntactical freedom to ring with bombast or sing with imagery, and so the manifesto says many of the same things as the other two, just in a different way. The focus inherent in the ETA mandate is almost ascetic in its simplicity. This clarity of purpose is noted in other analyses of the ETA's agenda: similar to many of the radicals in the Irish Republican Army, and among the Arab insurgents in the Middle East, there are many members of the ETA who think nothing of sacrificing their lives for the dream of a socialist utopia in the midst of Western Europe (Jauregui, p. 587; Moxon-Browne, p. 26). The ETA wants one thing, according to this manifesto: the restoration of a place for the dream of a common, democratic way of life - a way of life that may have been destroyed by the whims of Franco, and may have been repressed even during the democratization of the rest of Spain, but remains as a pure, yet achievable, ideal in the minds of the ETA. That this restoration could take place despite the differences of religion and political belief - even in cases of different ethnic ancestry - shows the apparent power of the Basque socialist dream (Mees, p. 802). One might well wonder which of these documents best represents the mindset of the ETA. The trend of the last three decades has been an unhealthy lurch towards radicalism, even towards anarchy throughout the Basque regions administered by Spain (Bloom, p. 202, Douglass, p. 242). Was the increased radicalization that started in the mid-1970's and appears ready to resume in the wake of the September 23 declaration of continued hostilities an emergence of the arrogance present in Arana's sentiments, or a release of sublimated anger at the decades-long rejection of the Basque ideal Does the ETA only desire Basque independence, or will it not stop, as some have suggested, until all of Spain dissolves into a Balkan-style collection of duchies (Janke, p. 86). Would the descendants of the pastoral peasants in Aguirre's Gernika take up arms and slay local politicians, even the head of the nation Or is it a combination of the three documents that gives the best picture of the Basque culture Is it the fierce pride of the Basque that would make him such an excellent candidate to begin a communal society The answers have become buried in decades of armed strife and pointed rhetoric. Timing and geography are two of the most crucial factors in the self-determination of various peoples. The country of Switzerland, for example, was permitted to gel as an autonomous group of people, surrounded by the Alps. Despite the fact that four languages are spoken in that country, there has not been a significant incident that led to that country's autonomy being in jeopardy. The United States is a similar example: the primary threat to that country's stability, once separation from Great Britain became certain, was the division from within that resulted in the War Between the States in the middle of the nineteenth century. Countries like Spain, Italy and Germany gelled later into nations than the countries around them. Spain became a nation after a significant battle among the smaller regions that sought to govern themselves, the Basque region just one of these principalities. The Basques still have a desire to govern themselves; while many similar groups were granted that right during the twentieth century, the Basques were never able to achieve that independence from either Franco or his democratic successors. Because Franco's brutality has been replaced by a more benign democracy, the case of the ETA and the Basque separatists has become harder to push internationally. And so an era consumed with conflicts in the Middle East has little attention to pay to a regional dispute in Spain that has none of the nuclear undertones of an Arab-Israeli war. The choice for the Basques may well be either to make their war radical enough to merit international attention, or to accept the rule of Spain. Works Cited Ben-Ami, Shlomo. "Basque nationalism between archaism and modernity." Journal of Contemporary History, 26(3/4), 493-521. Bloom, M. (2005) Dying to kill: the allure of suicide terror. New York: Columbia University Press. Clark, R.P. (1990) Negotiating with ETA: obstacles to peace in the Basque country, 1975-1988. Reno: University of Nevada Press. Clark, R.P. (1984) The Basque insurgents: ETA, 1952-1980. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Douglass, W.A. (1990) "On the interpretation of terrorist violence: ETA and the Basque political process." Comparative Studies in Society and History, 32(2), 238-257. ETA. 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(1987) Spain and the ETA: the bid for Basque autonomy. London: Centre for Security and Conflict Studies. Muro, D. (2005) "Nationalism and nostalgia: the case of radical Basque nationalism." Nations and Nationalism, 11(4), 571. Payne, S.G. (1991) "Nationalism, regionalism and micronationalism in Spain." Journal of Contemporary History, 26(3/4), 479-491. Pestana Barros, C. (2003) "An intervention analysis of terrorism: the Spanish ETA case." Defence and Peace Economics, 14(6), 401-412. Shepard, W.S. (2002) "The ETA: Spain fights Europe's last active terrorist group." Mediterranean Quarterly 13(1), 54-68. Sullivan, J. (1988) ETA and Basque Nationalism: The Fight for Euskadi, 1890-1986. Oxford: Routledge. Tejerina, B. (2001) "Protest cycle, political violence and social movements in the Basque country." Nations and Nationalism, 7(1), 39-57. Zirakzadeh, C.E. (1991) A rebellious people: Basques, protests, and politics. Reno: University of Nevada Press. Zulaika, J. (2003) "Anthropologists, artists, terrorists: the Basque holiday from history." Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 4(2), 139-150. Read More