How to Interpret the History of ETA - Report Example

HOW TO INTERPRET THE HISTORY OF ETA Why the Basque problem became more acute after Franco’s death The Basque people over the last twentieth century have been a very unfortunate nation with struggles and many hardships for them. Though they did take a long time before they could attain an autonomy statute they shortly lost it despite of the more efforts that they tried enhancing in achieving it. In the 1930’s, they did lose in the Spanish civil war and as if that was not enough the other hard task that they were to face is the Francisco Franco military dictatorship that was more oppressive, and the Basque people had less say in the government. Woe to these people, their present is no better than their past because they have a centralized government that fails to recognize these people, and instead it does enact the policies that are discriminatory against them. What is exhilarating and thrilling about these people is how they have endured and tolerated the severe repression of their state and have maintained their pride, identity, culture and more so, they have not neglected neither forgotten their dream of self- determination (Zirakzadeh, Cyrus Ernesto 1991,pg.54). The Basques problem was a political armed conflict that involved Basque National Liberalization Movement, the state of Spanish and France. The Basque movement involved some social groups as well as the political organizations that were after finding their independence from the two states that is the state of Spain and France. These two organizations, social and political formed a Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) organization. This organization was not received well by the French, British, Spanish and the American authorities. Instead, they ruled out that it was more of a terrorist organization that was attacking the available governments of the time (Conversi, Daniele 1993,pg.43). This conflict was mainly in the Spanish grounds though present in France in a short notice. The organization however, did not waver and instead there emerged the longest and largest conflict that ever has ever witnessed. This debated conflict got hold of some of the domineering participants who were the political activists and the politicians as well as the military dimensions. This led the government of Spanish and French with Spain security forces to fight against this organization and any other emerging social groups. Unfortunately, with the formation of the ETA organization, many deaths were encountered that left over thousands of people in deathbeds mostly the Spanish politicians, armed forces members, security officers, journalists, police and some other civilians as well as some members of the ETA organization. Some of the major reasons that the Basque problem became acute especially after Franco’s death are due to some unwavering nature of conflicts that still existed within the people of Basque, their policies and others to mention in the subsequent highlights in the paper. The ethnic nationalism problem remained unchallenged for a long duration until sometime later in 1978. The policies that did come up just made the problem significant, the Francoise regime policies favored centralism thus; they radically opposed the ethnic regime. This was not the Castile centralism neither the Madrid but in either way, it was to favor the state, which was above the people. Francoise was doomed at the end and the Spanish state’s idea failed to be legitimate in the country of Basque. Unfavorably, this remained the case until when the transition had gone through the course it had that is in the latter 1980’s. Again, the violence that was still in existence, that is the ETA conflicts, was at its peak because in the Franco regime dictatorship is what prevailed with lots of suppression on the sentiments that ought to have risen during the period. There was also very few opportunities of dissent expression shortly after the dictatorship period was gone. The people still lived a life of fear and no questioning so that they could not alarm the underlying situation. This big reason for the situation not to ease but instead it does remains acute and with less changes (Zirakzadeh, Cyrus Ernesto 1991,pg.85). If the people had used the opportunity that the dictatorship is gone then they tend to raise their opinions and object the poor leadership then it would be a very different story since the Basque people would be living in a free world. Various historical changes occurred in the Basque nation in respect to the changes, different views are posed on the reasons that the ETA violence continued. One of the reasons was that the Basque nation was nearly on the verge of extinction nationally and it would be swept away from the peoples maps since its language, nature and culture were quickly being replaced with the aliens. With this, the Basque saw the need to put an urgent and peremptory need in order to end the progressive disappearance that was happening too fast. The trending changes of culture and language that was being experienced could have lead to other influential changes. The Basque country was sooner than later being assimilated into the aliens culture and languages and neglecting theirs (Desfor Edles 1998,pg 53). This contributed to the people inability to realize their need to raise their objections concerning the poor leadership. The only way that was to save the people was through achievement of the political independence. Particularly, the recovery of a language has to be a subordination process of cultural and political targets and goals that are reflected in the vision of eschatology independence, which serves as a remedy of the problems that encounters the culture identity. The death of Franco resulted to Spain attempting the dictatorship demounting process. However, this received a serious challenge that the Spanish adapted the regional nationalism regime. The situation was very serious especially during transition the problem in Euskadi, due to the terrorism nature that is with the ETA organization. The ETA was very hostile and very aggressive too and that is why it was best to adapt the regime of regional nationalism. Francism had more heightened in the Basque nation and it was in acute forms compared to other parts of Spain. Terror and repressions were considerably higher in the movement of the national Basque shortly after Franco’s death (Alba, Victor 1978,pg.63). His death was received with a relief and an elation that is hard to explain among the Basque people. It was almost immediately that there was revival of the social and political life that later became the momentous Basque nationalism support, mostly with its ETA version of radical reports. The process of demounting and democratizing the dictatorship that was prevalent, at first it seemed an easy and smooth process. This is because in the people of Francist a faint hope prevailed and less determination in the preserving of their authoritative system. Through such means of some slight redecorations such as the freedoms, and democratic rights also the institutional reforms that were for the system of state that specifically would have introduced into the state system. This kind of plan and strategy would have been very helpful to the Franchism that especially the death of the Caudilio, they would go through the difficult situation at least and be well placed than without the plans (Woodworth, Paddy 2001,pg.86). Spain in the 1975, after the death of the general Franco became a parliamentary monarchy. This means that the state is democratic with a social representative, and an institutional monarchy through which the monarch is a head of state and the prime minister, with an official title of the president of the government, is then the head of government for the Basque people. This sharply made some changes in the Basque region that could grow since their parliament also is bicameral and the congress deputy members their elections are through a proportional representation by a universal suffrage. A party or the coalition that only has the congress confidence mostly with the largest party with more seats too forms the government. The new governance pattern also adopted the new Spanish constitution of 1978 that paved way for the statutes of the autonomy of the region (Amnesty International 1985,pg.24). The constitution recognized the different nationalities and the regions that were within the state to be substantial. Despite of their different devolved government levels that were within their territories and they did guarantee them to use their distinctive language on their territories. This characterized an overall Spanish framework of solidarity and democracy between the regions. The military ETA activities have continued despite of the conflicts that have been in the organization unabatedly. In every internal dispute especially on every outcome had been the defection or the expulsion of the non-violent means advocates. The organization faced a lot of the internal tension and conflicts (Aguero 1995,pg.68). The military effort to calm this down did not bear much fruit. As a result, every dispute led to the suppression of peaceful means in the resolutions of conflicts. This kind of suppression sharply increased the depression of the Basque people and intensively led to the people fear and as a result, they still could not raise their issues effectively. However, changes were inevitable with the upcoming of some new leaders who had a rapid tempo to bring about the developments. Although most of these leaders landed in exile, the system remained in place through the new youth members who had joined with some of the radical motives. In fact, any means to suppress the pressure from the youths culminated into a split up of the ETA organization into various autonomous fragments and divisions that did concentrate more on the debating and discussing new ideas (Woodworth, Paddy 2001,pg.66). This also saw to the development of culture and language that were getting scarce and their absorption of their culture and language. In addition, the military strategies were inculcated all in effort to achieve and attain the self-rule for the Euzkadi. Furthermore, any group or individuals that despised or by any chance refused the radical struggles were expelled and thrown out of the ETA organization (Woodworth, Paddy 2001,pg.83). The ETA intensified its terror activities including the ceasefire. This was because the anti- Francoise hated the post Franco rule under Juan Carlos that was monarchial. With this, it did provoke the opposition to hasten strikes at the industries and terrorism as a way of destabilizing the monarchy. The orthodox François has also rejected any of the reforms formed by the monarchy and instead they advocated for change. Problems such as the unemployment increased highly, issues of drug trafficking also emerged due to some nationalities that followed this since they needed more land from morocco, which can as well be viewed as a sovereignty issue. Civilian’s death was on the rise after the death of Franco. Many of them died in the radical changes that were occurring. Many people as well were kidnapped, the terror activities of the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna organization heightened, and the problem was too much for some of the people to bear, so they followed what they had to from the radical leaders. The civil wars were more threatening in the Basque nation and the people too lived in fear of what would follow next. The deep tension that existed in the communities could tell it all that the people are not satisfied with the changes that were suppressing. The economy declined at an immense degree due to the continued violence that existed amongst the officials and the civilians inclusive. The military services instead of assisting the people who were in some of the big troubles they did contribute to the death of some of the innocent lives (Isaacs 1989,pg.96). The people perceived the ideas of the PNV organization as unfavorable since it had proven unsuccessfully during its reign. Their culture was being interfered with especially the ad vocation of the Roman Catholics denomination that did impede nationalism. They felt that their race as well as values of their religion was being colonized. This prompted the feeling of nationality as Basque people and neither Spanish nor French. However, Spain could not allow the split of the Basque people since they felt that it was part of their territorial regime (Funes, Maria 1998,pg.101). The French too, felt that the Basque nation was also a part of their jurisdiction. This kind of tension for either the Spanish or the French feeling that the Basque nation was their territory made the Basque problem more acute and much more violence was felt in the regions. They also felt that their culture was more interfered with especially the Romans Catholics who felt their territory was being more invoked into some of the political dimensions that were in the region. In conclusion, the post- François era faced a lot of troubles and challenges that most of them were fuelled by the activism of the Euskadi Ta Eskatasuna. They fueled the change of rule of dictatorship to Carlo Jung’s monarchial system that was accompanied by many deaths through terrorism that left very many people civilians, military officers, and police among others. Over 90% of the deaths caused by the ETA organization, statistics prove that most of the deaths were after the Franco’s regime. Despite of the ETA organization specific target to the Spanish region, most of the bombings were also affecting the people of Basque that were also causing deaths and causing havoc and chaos in the region of (Basque Daley, Suzanne 2000,pg.31). More of the ETA members and some of the prominent leaders and civilians were also kidnapped and murdered. The violence that prevailed also led to the effects of the economy, religions interference and the social cultures violations that reduced the economy and the state into more problems. The tension between the French and the Spanish to colonize the Basque nation also made the Basque problem to be more acute. References Aguero, F. 1995. Soldiers, Civilians and Democracy: Post-Franco Spain in Comparative Perspective. London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Alba, Victor. 1978. Transition in Spain: From Franco to Democracy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Amnesty International. 1985. Spain, the Question of Torture: Documents Exchanged by Amnesty International and the Government of Spain. Conversi, Daniele. 1993. Domino Effect or Internal Developments? The Influences of International Events and Political Ideologies on Catalan and Basque Nationalism. West European Politics 16 (3): 245-271. Daley, Suzanne. 2000. Spain’s Cross: Basque and Brutal. The New York Times. 29 November, sec. A. Desfor Edles, L. 1998. Symbol and Ritual in the new Spain: The Transition to Democracy after Franco. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Funes, Maria J. 1998. Social Responses to Political Violence in the Basque Country: Peace Movements and Their Audience. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 42 (4):493-510. Heywood, P. (ed.) 1999.Politics and Policy in Democratic Spain. London: Frank Cass Publishers. Isaacs, H. R. 1989. Idols of the Tribe: Group Identity and Political Change, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Woodworth, Paddy. 2001. Why Do They Kill? World Policy Journal 18 (1): 1-13. Zirakzadeh, Cyrus Ernesto. 1991. A Rebellious People: Basques, Protests, and Politics.Reno: University of Nevada Press Read More