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10-12-2001 |  |
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The Basques, then and nowBy Josh Pater Perspectives Co-Editor
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Aldi luzeak, guztia ahaztu.
With the passing of time, all things are forgotten.
- Basque proverb
This adage is romantic, even quixotic. It invokes forgiveness, a sense of renewal. There is one problem, however: it doesn't seem to fit with the Basque experience. These people, occupying rough terrain in the north of the Iberian peninsula, certainly have experienced much passing of time. But to say that all has been forgotten over that period would be ill informed.
The first section of this investigation of the Basques considers some trends and features of Basque existence. The second section deals with the rise of modern Basque nationalism and more recent occurrences. This arrangement emphasizes that while current Basque events are rooted in long-standing currents they also indicate new paths. What North Americans hear of the Basques usually deals either with the annual ``running of the bulls'' popularized by Hemingway or separatist violence. However, there is much more to these intriguing people. Only after an (albeit incomplete) understanding of their heritage has been established can modern developments be understood. A look at general Basque history and trends compared with recent happenings offers a framework for understanding the Basques and where they may be headed.
Izena duen guztiak izatea ere badauke.
Everything with a name exists.
- Basque proverb
A major facet of the Basque consciousness is the centrality of their language. As Victor Hugo asserted in 1843, ``The Basque language is a country, almost a religion.'' What the Spanish call el País Vasco (roughly, ``Basqueland'') the Basques term Euskal Herria, ``the land of Euskera speakers.'' Sabino Arana, the nineteenth-century founder of modern Basque nationalism, invented the word Euzkadi by joining the words for ``Basque speaker'' and ``together.'' Meant as a replacement for Euskal Herria and still in use (but as Euskadi) today, Euzkadi was meant to signify not just a place but a country. The only designation for a Basque person is Euskaldun, which means Euskera speaker; this standard for Basqueness has been emphasized by separatists wishing to rid Basque nationalism of a racist definition. Thus one can say fairly, ``It is language that defines a Basque'' (Kurlansky 19).
Religion - which in Euskadi means Roman Catholicism - also is central. ``The Basque Saint'' Ignatius Loyola founded the strict, conservative Jesuit order in 1534. ``Those who know the Jesuits know that Basque nationalism is completely Catholic,'' noted Arana in 1899. Arana would know: he envisioned Euskadi as ``an essentially Catholic state.'' For the Basque Nationalist Party (known by its Spanish acronym PNV) he coined the slogan Jaungoikua eta Lagizarra, ``God and the Old Laws,'' still used by the party and abbreviated as JeL.
The Basque story includes an oft-forgotten history of firsts. Euskera is a linguistic orphan, probably the oldest European language still in use. It is quite possible that Basques have been in Europe longer than any others; they are often said to be direct descendants of Cro-Magnon man. Basques may have discovered modern North America before Columbus and John Cabot. And after Magellan was killed in the Philippines, a Basque crewman took over the helm and became the first to circumnavigate the globe.
Basques were among the early practitioners and promoters of capitalism. Decades before Smith's Wealth of Nations, while Spain still was expending much energy collecting gold from around the globe, the Basques spurred the creation of wealth throughout all of the Iberian peninsula by trading with Latin America. Industrialization came early to Euskadi (and brought ``a substantial middle class of the kind which ... has been eager to support nationalist aspirations'' [Conversi 48]).
A final ``first'' is one the Basques would rather have done without: the attack on Guernica. German planes flew in to aid Franco's forces, bombing the town on a busy market day. This first aerial bombing of civilians killed hundreds and reduced part of the important Basque town to rubble. ``The world was horrified - outraged at the ruthless massacre of unarmed civilians but also terrified at its first glimpse of the warfare of the future'' (Kurlansky 200). An eyewitness account from G. L. Steer ran in The New York Times shortly after the incident in 1937. Steer's chilling report gave the demoralization and ``destruction of the cradle of the Basque race'' as aims of the bombers. Two days later the Times published a German denial of involvement in the attack, disturbingly ironic when compared with what awaited Europe in World War II:
No country deplores more than Germany that methods of warfare are still employed that result in suffering for civilian populations... Attention is drawn to Chancellor Adolf Hitler's appeal ... to stigmatize all air bombings as barbarism and forbid them absolutely.
Another feature of the Basques is the way in which their past probes the concept of nationhood, asks what it means to be a nation. The Romans who conquered the Iberian peninsula around 200 B.C. pacified the resistant Basques with special privileges, an arrangement many today look back on approvingly. Centuries later the weak empire turned to the Visigoths for help controlling Iberia. This struggle actually served to solidify and preserve the Basques. Since then those who would rule the peninsula have all shared one thought: ``We must control the Basques'' (Kurlansky 35).
Much later the perception of Basqueness was still in flux. In the late nineteenth century Arana asked an important question: ``Who is a Basque?'' The issue was made all the more pressing by the recent surge in immigration to Euskadi. Arana concluded that a true Basque must come from four native grandparents and have Basque names. This was also a period of Spanish decline, marked by their defeat in the Spanish-American War in 1898. El Desastre, or ``The Disaster,'' as it came to be called, set off a flurry of self-definition and assessment by Spaniards. This low point for Spain served as an opportunity for Basque nationalism to gain a foothold. (Later, Franco's obsession with El Desastre inflamed his intense hatred of Basque nationalists.) Through his queries and activism Arana helped to give the Basques a nation. ``A country was the great unfinished work'' (Kurlansky 176).
Arrotz-herri, otso-herri.
A foreign land is a land of wolves.
- Basque proverb
Self-rule through traditional laws (called fueros in Spanish) has been a constant Basque desire. An early example is their tolerance of occupation during the Roman Empire. The Basques allowed the Romans movement throughout their land, content with having their own laws and not having to pay Roman taxes or serve in their military. Much later, the French successfully occupied the Basque province of Navarra in 1521. But, after the French needlessly antagonized the locals, Basques flocked to help the Castilian Spaniards push the French out.
Basque indignation at the chipping away of their fueros grew in the 19th and 20th centuries. The sides in the civil wars of the 19th century were conservative-liberal, Church-secular, and populist-bourgeoisie, but in Euskadi the fight was also regionalist-centralist. The Basques' fueros finally were eliminated in 1876, and the resulting bitterness in Euskadi translated into Basque support for any anti-centralist movement. Thus Basque nationalism can be traced to the abolition of the fueros, but it also has roots in social upheaval due to industrialization and immigration.
Modern Basque nationalism owes much to Sabino Arana. He coined ``Euzkadi'' and came up with the equation ``4 + 3 = 1.'' The formula, still seen in Basque graffiti, suggests that the four Spanish Basque provinces belong with the three French Basque provinces in one sovereign state. Arana founded the PNV - the Basque Nationalist Party - wrote its hymn and designed its flag. Arana's vision for Euskadi was ``an extremely decentralized federation of autonomous confederation of Catholic municipalities and provinces'' (Conversi 63). He emphasized their language as a means to preserve the ``unique'' Basque purity; thus many immigrants (the foreign wolves of the proverb above) were not taught to speak Basque.
Decades after Arana's death, a certain level of passivity among the PNV contrasted sharply with unrest among the youth. In the 1950s younger Basques could not forgive Franco's oppression, but neither could they stand the nonconfrontational PNV. This disillusionment led to the founding of Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA, ``Basque Homeland and Liberty''). ETA became a new agent of Basque nationalism.
ETA was heir to Arana's legacy, yet it diverged from his course. It turned its back on Spain, adopting Arana's tenets of ``Basque primitive independence, egalitarianism, social justice, [and] the idea of the Basques as a noble, democratic and freedom-loving people'' (Conversi 90). However, it abandoned Arana's focus on religion. And it redefined the standard for Basqueness from a racial category to one based on language.
Thus ETA's first task was the promotion of the Basque language. Franco had banned Euskera without delay after taking the Basque provinces. He demanded that the entire country ``speak Christian,'' - which for Franco meant Castilian, the dominant Spanish language. But here an interesting twist arises, thanks to religion's important place in Basque life. Franco was a staunch supporter of the church, something that might have turned young anti-Franco Basques against the clergy. However, Basque priests had long been guardians of Euskera; in the 1950s they ``became an undercover source for the preservation and dissemination of Basque culture'' (Kurlansky 237).
ETA soon adopted more than just language promotion as its purpose. ETA members in the 1960s increasingly subscribed to Marxist ideology. Before examining this development and its consequences, it is important to note the significance of this and other splits within ETA. Conversi attributes these changes to ETA's status as successors of Sabino Arana:
Arana left a legacy of contradictions and ambivalences that sowed the seeds of future nationalist fragmentation, and each of the opposing forces within the nationalist field claimed to be the true inheritor of his ideal... (73).
And Hooper points out the prevalence of these shifts: ``The history of ETA is of a succession of internal conflicts ... [E]ach time the more violent, less intellectual group has survived...'' (398).
The Marxist turn taken by ETA members can be explained partially by anti-Franco sentiment. ``Franco's venom had made communism appealing to those who hated him'' (Kurlansky 237). The writings of Federico Krutwig were another influence on ETA. Krutwig wrote Vasconia, a dogma to solidify the movement. By 1964 ETA's Third Assembly adopted his anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist creed. The Fifth Assembly of 1967 signaled ETA's further alterations with a new self-definition as ``a Basque socialist national liberation movement.'' The transformation due to anti-Franco sentiment is but one example of Basques chafing under oppressive regimes.
Under Franco the Basques endured oppression like they had never seen. After his troops had occupied Euskadi, Franco waged a ruthless campaign against signs of Basqueness. He banned Euskera and burned books written in it, closed the Basque university, suppressed Basque civic societies and publications and even ordered Euskera removed from tombstones. Franco's forces imprisoned and executed countless Basques on charges of separatism; over 100,000 went into exile in what became a Basque diaspora.
The vicious and often arbitrary oppression under the dictatorship as well as Basque cultural fragmentation and the refusal of the West to aid the beleaguered Basques were major factors in ETA's birth and formation. But Franco did not get away with everything. ETA operatives assassinated his political heir in 1973, causing Franco to weep. ``Ironically, although perhaps not surprisingly ... regional nationalism in its most radical and violent form ... ensured that Franco's style of government would not survive him'' (Hooper 383).
Spain's journey from Francoist fascism to democracy is complete, but the Basque problem persists. Many are dedicated to ensuring that the situation stay in the forefront of Basque and Spanish consciousness. ``We are not, nor have we ever been, nor shall we ever be Spaniards,'' declared one separatist in the 1980s. The question is whether other Basques agree. The Basques have enjoyed a surge in use of their language and awareness of their heritage since the death of Franco. Reproductions of Picasso's famous rendering of the attack on Guernica are very popular, suggesting that Basques are determined not to forget what can happen when they lose autonomy.
This by no means proves support for hard-line separatists. In a telephone poll conducted late in the year 2000, 84 percent of Basques said violence wasn't necessary to resolve the political disputes. However, elections this past May did not prove fruitful for Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's national Partido Popular; the pro-independence PNV took 43 percent of the vote, while a party allied with ETA took another 10 percent. Aznar takes a hard-nosed, law-and-order approach to the Basque problem (understandably, considering ETA tried to assassinate him five years back). Juan Jose Ibarretxe, head of the PNV, has demanded a Basque referendum on independence. Aznar adamantly refuses, but perhaps he should reconsider; there is evidence that most Basques would choose to stick with Spain.
Peace in Euskadi is a lofty yet elusive goal. If Aznar seeks progress, there is one important step he could take to ameliorate the prospects for peace. So far the government has not dealt with the dispersal throughout Spain of 500 persons imprisoned for ties to ETA. As has been seen, antagonism of the Basques only serves to provoke separatism, and this is no exception. In forcing families of the prisoners to travel great distances to visit them, the government stirs up pro-independence sentiment that otherwise would not be as strong.
Bi etxetako txakurra, goseak jan.
A dog which belongs to two homes dies of hunger.
- Basque proverb
The Basques have always been an enigma, a people that challenge assumptions. How one judges their current state depends, at least in part, on one's perception of their history. Hooper, for example, gives as one reason for the rise of Basque nationalism as ``sentimental hankering after traditional values mingled with a feeling of superiority with regard to the hated Castilians'' (382). Conversi is a bit more generous, saying that the labor of Arana and Krutwig represents ``a desperate search for cultural regeneration in a world that has only contempt for tradition'' (107). What is sure, however, is that although the proverbial Basque dog belongs to two homes, it will not starve but will continue to thrive.
Major sources:
Daniele Conversi, The Basques, the Catalans and Spain
John Hooper, The New Spaniards
Mark Kurlansky, A Basque History of the World