Wales and Euskal Herria

The Guardian published this article that reflects the lessons that can be shared between the Basques and the Welsh:

Basque in glory

Wales has much to learn from successes of the Basque country , writes the Plaid Cymru president, Ieuan Wyn Jones

Thursday June 13 2002 10:53 BST

My visit to the Basque country came 20 years after its people had secured a high degree of autonomy within the Spanish state. In the early 1980s they established a parliament with legislative powers, they had the ability to raise their own taxes and expectations were high that self-government would restore their confidence as a nation.

I wanted to gauge the extent to which those expectations had been met. They must have been doing something right; the nationalist parties have been in power for all this period. I was also visiting at an important time in the Welsh electoral calendar, 12 months before the next election to the Welsh assembly.

Currently, the Basque government is run by a coalition of three parties, with the nationalist PNV being the senior partner. Their partners are the EA, a smaller nationalist party and an even smaller left wing/green group. I also wanted to see how the nationalist parties worked in government, how coalition government worked and what tensions existed after the Spanish parties - the PP and socialists - made a massive effort to unseat them in the 2001 elections.

The Basques seem to be at ease with their identity, and the confidence they exude as a nation is everywhere. They know exactly who they are, and are proud of the fact that Franco's terrible regime failed to extinguish their sense of nationhood or their love of their language. And there is very little support for violence or terrorism. The vast majority of Basques see constitutional politics as the only way forward.

Their self-belief and confidence is best exemplified by their audacious - and ultimately successful - bid to secure a new Guggenheim museum. The magnificent Frank O. Gehry building in the heart of Bilbao is a 21st-century architectural icon, and attracts visitors from all over the world. Bilbao, once a city in decline following the collapse of its shipbuilding industry, is now a modern, prosperous city which regularly appears on the must-see lists of wealthy tourists.

In 20 years of autonomy, the Basques have seen their economy grow to being the most successful in the Spanish state. The current growth rate of 5.3% compares favourably with any country in Europe, twice the UK rate, and almost four times as much as Wales. The Welsh are falling behind the rest of the UK, while the Basques are striding way ahead the rest of Spain.

The Basques' success is based on sound economics, and this has enabled them to improve their public services. I was particularly impressed with their commitment to education. We have a lot to learn from them in the strategic and focused way their system of education and training meets the needs of their growing economy.

When the Basque parliament was first established, the Basque language faced the same crisis as that which faces the Welsh language today. About 25% of the Basques spoke their language then, a figure which compares to the 20% who speak Welsh. They also faced a similar situation, in that Basque speakers were largely concentrated in parts of the country. In Wales, most areas where Welsh is spoken by a majority of the population are in the north and west of our country.

But the Basques have made determined efforts, largely through education, to substantially increase the number of Basque speakers. They have made significant progress, and some people we spoke to said that up to 50% of the population has some grasp of the language. This is extraordinary, given that the language was banned during the Franco period.

There are clear differences between Wales and the Basque country, and it would be foolish to think that what they have done could be slavishly replicated in Wales. But one lesson that I took away from my visit was that we have to raise our game in Wales.

The first term of the national assembly in Cardiff Bay has been characterised by awful timidity, caution and petty squabbling. No wonder people think it is a glorified county council, under the current Labour-led coalition it acts like one. Wales deserves better than this.

With leadership, a bit of audacity, clear vision, determination and strategic thought, Wales' fortunes can be turned round. But we have to think big. I want a Plaid Cymru government in the national assembly to give the people of Wales a reason to be proud of our nation, and to improve our flagging economic fortunes.

Although we could not replicate precise policy initiatives, we can match the Basque's spirit and confidence. Wales can and must replicate their success.

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José Antonio Aguirre's Bio II

As promised, here you have the second installment on José Antonio Aguirre's bio:

Jose Antonio Aguirre y Lekube

A Basque Professor at Columbia University

by Prof. Gorka Aulestia, University of Deusto

Mayor and Parliamentarian

Jose Antonio followed those events with concern but with optimism for the future. He was at the time mayor of Getxo. He missed no occasion to speak publicly. He wanted young Basques to be studious. He spoke to workers of their rights. He tried to make women see their role in the future of Euskadi.

Primo de Rivera’s Spanish dictatorship finally fell in January of 1930. On the morning of April 14, 1931, Eibar proclaimed the Spanish Republic and our young mayor of Getxo did the same hours later in the name of his party.

Agirre was a born organizer. Within the PNV, almost continually in conflict, he stanched wounds and united personal wills. On July 14, 1931, the Cortes Constituyentes (Constituent Courts) were formed and Agirre took part as a parliamentarian within the small Basque minority group.

Those were convulsive years during which religion was offended even in the Cortes. The Basques were insulted and jeered, their language euskara was mocked, and little by little what started out as a breath of liberating air became a disappointment for Agirre and many Basques. Faced with parliamentarians of more advanced years armed with science, like Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Besteiro, Alcala Zamora, Azaña, Prieto, and Gil Robles, 27-year-old Agirre broke the mold of the two irreconcilable Spains by speaking of a New Spain of autonomous nations. He declared himself Catholic and nationalist, and developed a reputation as an able parliamentary negotiator.

But in response to his political demands, the Republic sent the Guardia Civil to break up the meeting between parliamentarians and Basques beneath the Tree of Gernika. In 1932 the Jesuits were expelled from Spain, as were the Jews and the Moors centuries before, thereby incurring more disfavor. Jose Antonio opposed Madrid in this matter.

On the personal level, Agirre married on July 8, 1933 in the Basilica of Begoña. With his wife María Zabala, he had three children, Aintzane, Joseba, and Iñaki, born in Bilbao, Paris, and New York respectively.

Agirre’s health deteriorated greatly during 1932 and 1933, so much so that on July 4, 1933 he stepped down as mayor of Getxo. In 1934, in spite of his parliamentary immunity, he was imprisoned at Larriñaga, but he was not cowed by the experience. His people beaten, slandered, persecuted, and imprisoned, the young representative began to demand the Statute [of Autonomy] and to speak of Euskadi’s aspirations for sovereignty. In 1935 he spoke in euskara before an international forum at a Conference on Nationalities in Geneva. That same year he published his book Entre la libertad y la revolución in which he told of his political experiences during the five years of the Spanish Republic.

The Civil War

The Spanish Civil War broke out on July 18, 1936. Agirre acquitted himself well during the conflict. On October 1, 1936 the Spanish Cortes approved the Basque Country’s Statute of Autonomy. On October 7 Agirre offered his life to the service of Euskadi in the Basilica of Begoña, and in Gernika he was elected President of the Basque Autonomous Government, with three-quarters of his territory in the hands of Franco’s troops.

The new lehendakari and his government, composed of a group of young politicians, were obliged to take on three dangerous and nearly impossible tasks: maintaining resistance in an unevenly matched war; being the leaders of all Basques with a multicolor government that did not skimp in its efforts or sacrifices to unite all the Basque political forces; and organizing a small nation with its own army, passports, and money.

The war was lost, and thus began the exile and exodus of more than 150,000 Basques. The lehendakari was forced to flee Euskadi in July of 1937, only one year into the war. He would never set foot on his native soil again. From Trucios, the last little village in Bizkaia, Agirre wrote these heartfelt lines full of confidence and hope: “The territory may have been conquered; but the soul of the Basque People has not; nor will it ever be.”

In Exile

An enormous task awaited Agirre in France. He had to organize the Basques in exile, regroup families, create children’s colonies, maintain contact with the Basque diaspora, escape the Gestapo and assure his own survival. The Gestapo had arrested his friend Companys, president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, in France, to send him to Spain to be executed in Barcelona. On May 8, 1940, Agirre moved from France to Belgium. There he found his mother who had been fined 3 million pesetas by the Franco authorities. Two days later Hitler’s troops invaded the Low Countries and surprised the lehendakari in Belgium. Misfortune piled upon misfortune, and his sister Encarna was killed in the Nazi bombing of La Panne. The Falangists of the Spanish consulate rubbed their hands in anticipation of capturing a big fish, the president of the Basques. Thus began the great odyssey described by Agirre in his book Escape Via Berlin, a chronicle of his fight for freedom. In it he says, “Our entire history is nothing but our people's most constant, persistent struggle for freedom.”

From the beginning of the Second World War (October 1939) Agirre urged free Basques to support the Allied cause. “We are fighters in this war.” He was the best symbol of a man fighting for freedom. He crossed the German front lines and hid in the Jesuit school St. Francis Xavier in Brussels. When the Gestapo began to register the convents in Brussels, he fled to Antwerp. Thanks to a false passport provided by the Panamanian consul, Agirre became “Dr. Alvarez Lastra,” citizen of Panama, completing his transformation with eyeglasses and a beautiful moustache. Later, he decided the best way to throw the Gestapo off his track was to hide in the wolf’s den, so he traveled to Berlin on January 7, 1941, and lived close by the Chancellery of the Reich for more than four months. After being reunited with his family, he managed to travel to Sweden on April 30.

New problems awaited “Alvarez” in the Swedish port of Göteborg because there were not enough ships leaving for America to accommodate all the people fleeing the war and the Nazi concentration camps. At last, after revealing his true identity to the Swedish customs officer, he obtained four tickets for passage on the Brazilian cargo ship Vasaholm that sailed on July 31, 1941. It arrived in Río de Janeiro on August 27.

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Back To Franco's Times

In this article published by The Guardian you will learn about the authoritarian measures that the Spanish government is implementing in its attempt to suffocate the Basque right to self determination. Counting with the complicity of the PSOE (after all, they are grateful Felipe Gonzalez was spared from facing a court of law for creating and deploying the state sponsored terrorist group GAL) the ruling party PP has been able to pass a new "Law of Political Parties", a law that allows the Spanish government to ban any political party that goes against their designs.

Here you have it:

Spanish MPs vote to ban pro-Eta party

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Guardian

Thursday June 6, 2002

The radical Basque political party Batasuna, which is seen as the Basque equivalent of Sinn Fein and wins up to 200,000 votes, was on the road to being banned yesterday after the Spanish lower house overwhelmingly backed a controversial bill controlling political parties.

The bill, tailor-made to ban Batasuna, was the personal project of the conservative Popular party prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, who won the backing of the Socialist opposition. It is expected to get final approval by the senate later this month.

Both parties accused Batasuna, whose representation in the 75-seat Basque regional parliament fell from 14 to seven last year, of acting as a front for the armed separatist group Eta.

The party historically takes 10-20% of the Basque vote. It boycotted the last general election to the Spanish parliament, where it had two deputies. It also has one euro MP.

The law, carried by 304 to 16, was criticised by moderate Basque nationalists and by the Basque bishops council. The bishops of Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria said at the weekend that it would bring increased confrontation.

Mr Aznar accused them of "serious moral and intellectual perversion". The Papal Nuncio in Madrid was called in by the foreign minister, Josep Pique, yesterday to be told of the government's "disgust and unease".

Mr Aznar congratulated parliament on backing the law. "It was a properly democratic expression of support and something indispensable in the fight against terrorism," he said.

But Basque nationalists and the hard left accused him of further dividing the Basques and said the law would help push radicals into clandestine activity. "This just adds fuel to the fire," Luis Carlos Rejon of the communist-led United Left party said.

Josu Erkoreka, of the moderate Basque Nationalist party, said: "A democracy that distinguishes between first-class, second-class and third- class democrats has a one-way ticket to nowhere."

Batasuna denies that it is part of Eta, and that it takes orders from the group, fighting for an independent state made up of four Spanish provinces and part of south-west France.

"Batasuna will keep on working because it has good proposals that will bring solutions," one of its regional deputies, Jone Goirzelaia, said.

Batasuna's leaders routinely refuse to condemn Eta killings and, occasionally, openly express sympathy for the organisation: for example, Eta prisoners receive homage at the party's rallies.

"The armed fight of Eta is not an attempt to impose ideas but to defend the legitimate rights of the Basque people," another deputy, Jon Salaberria, told the regional assembly in Vitoria recently.

An attempt to prosecute its leader, Arnaldo Otegi, in Madrid for allegedly shouting his support for Eta during a rally in France failed this week.

But Mr Otegi has been banned from France, where Batasuna and a number of other Basque groups have bases.

In recent years the Basque radicals' daily newspaper, Egin, has been closed and its youth wing, Segi, and prisoners support group, Gestoras Pro Amnistia, declared illegal.

The bill will enable parliament to ask a special court of 16 senior supreme court judges to ban the party for giving "tacit" support to terrorism, "fomenting civil confrontation", "paying homage" to terrorists or having too many ex-terrorists on its electoral lists.

The Basque regional parliament, of which Mr Aznar's Popular party failed to win control in last year's elections, says it will refuse to kick out the Batasuna deputies, who have already changed their official name to Socialist Nationalists.

"It would take tanks," its president, Juan Mari Atutxa of the Basque Nationalists, said.

Another bill is being prepared to withdraw public funds from parties which refuse to back municipal council or regional assembly motions condemning terrorism.

Now, the author Giles Tremlett needs to learn about a principle in law called "presumption of innocence". Aznar and his underlings are accusing Batasuna of being ETA's political wing, therefore, it is the Spanish government the one that has to prove it, until then, Batasuna is innocent of any charges.

The measures taken by Spain against the Basques amount to what can be compared to the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

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José Antonio Aguirre's Bio I

This is the first part of the bio on one of the most iconic characters in Basque history, the Lehendakari of the Basque Republic (1936-1937) José Antonio Aguirre.

You can find it at the web site for the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada in Reno.

Here it is:

Jose Antonio Aguirre y Lekube

A Basque Professor at Columbia University

by Prof. Gorka Aulestia, University of Deusto

It is not an easy task to describe perhaps the most charismatic of all the Basque nationalist politicians born in this century. I am speaking of Jose Antonio Agirre, standard-bearer and implementer of the political plans of his teacher and guide, Sabino Arana. Both were born in Bilbao (Bizkaia), both studied in the same school in Orduña, and both made a great effort to learn Basque. They were both in Larriñaga prison and in exile, and they both filled glorious pages in the history and culture of Euskal Herria. This article is about Agirre, who had so much in common with his hero.

His Childhood

Agirre was born, on March 6, 1904, in Bilbao one hundred days after Arana, the founder of the Basque Nationalist Party, died in Sukarrieta (Bizkaia). He was the oldest of ten children. His parents, Teodoro and Bernardina, were Gipuzkoan. His father, a lawyer, was born in Bergara and his mother in Mutriku. Jose Antonio was baptized in Santos Juanes (Bilbao). From earliest childhood he attended the first Bilbao ikastola located in the Plaza Nueva. He spent a great deal of time in Bergara where he improved his Basque and was a soprano in the acolyte choir of the parish church of San Pedro. Later he studied music and the violin. His love of music would last all his life.

His Studies

Agirre attended high school with the Jesuit Fathers in Orduña where he forgot almost all of his Basque, but with perseverance he recovered it later. His father died in 1920 when Jose Antonio was finishing high school, and he promised his pregnant mother that he would be a father to his ten siblings, a promise he kept throughout his life.

In 1925 he earned his degree in Law at the University of Deusto, and in 1926 he fulfilled his military service in the Garellano Regiment. Jose Antonio was not a brilliant student, but he did well enough in the subjects that interested him. However he stood out because of his human qualities and his love of sports, especially soccer. He played inside right for Athletic of Bilbao and helped the team become the champions of Spain.

When his studies ended he had to give up his sports activities and went to work as an attorney for the family-owned factory, Chocolates Bilbainos, where he made a name for himself because of his concern for the workers. He introduced a series of social and salary reforms in the workplace.

A Man of Commitment

Working for a factory was not what Agirre wanted to do with his life, however, and he opened a law office in Bilbao where he dealt with labor problems, union matters, and political questions. A devout Christian, he combined this work with responsibilities as president of the Catholic Action Group of Bizkaia and director of a study group in Las Arenas. He was one of the founders of AVASC (Agrupación Vasca de Acción Social Cristiana: Basque Group for Christian Social Action). Through this group he met men who were important to Basque culture and nationalism, such as “Aitzol” and Alberto Onaindia. He also took part in the creation of the Basque cultural societies Elai-Alai, Saski-Naski, Euskerea, and Txistulari.

Along with Jesús María Leizaola who would later become his right hand man, he entered politics, affiliating himself with the PNV (Basque Nationalist Party). He soon had a reputation as a likeable man of integrity, simplicity and responsibility and as a convincing orator.

Those were difficult years for democracy in Europe. The Nazi movement was advancing in Hitler’s Germany, and Benito Mussolini ruled as a tyrant after 1922. In Euskal Herria life was hard under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) who rejected Basque nationalism and the statutory dreams of the Basque people.

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A Vegetarian Basque Recipe

Here you have your first Basque recipe at this blog:

Cherries in Red Wine Soup
Source: Burt Wolf's Local Flavors, San Sebastian

Serves 6

Basque-native Gerald Hirigoyen is executive chef and owner of the restaurants Fringale and Pastis in San Francisco.

2 1/2 cups dry red wine
1/2 cup port
1/2 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
2 star anise
Zest of 1/2 lemon, cut with a lemon Zester into long thin spirals, or finely julienned
Zest of 1/2 orange, cut with a lemon Zester into long thin spirals, or finely julienned
2 cloves
2 pounds black cherries, freshly pitted (or unsweetened frozen)

Combine all of the ingredients except the black cherries in a large saucepan, bring to a boil, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the cherries and cook for 2 minutes longer.

Remove from the heat.

Remove and discard the vanilla bean. A garnish is not necessary; however, a dollop of crème fraîche or a small scoop of ice cream would be a nice accompaniment.

Bon Appetit!

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Nafarroa

We are back in Hegoalde after stops in Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Lapurdi. It is time we learn about Nafarroa. 

 

Nafarroa is the largest province of Euskal Herria.

  

History 

 

During the time of the Roman Empire, the territory of the province was inhabited by the Vascones, a pre-Roman tribe who peopled the southern slopes of the Pyrenees. The Vascones managed to maintain their separate Basque language and traditions even under the Roman rule. The area was never fully subjugated either by the Visigoths or by the Arabs. In 778, the Basques defeated a Frankish army in the Battle of Orreaga (Roncevaux Pass.) Two generations later, in 824, the chieftain Eneko Arista was chosen King of Pamplona, laying a foundation for the later Kingdom of Navarre. That kingdom reached its zenith during the reign of Santxo III of Navarre and covered the area of the present-day Euskal Herria and Errioxa (La Rioja), together with parts of modern Kantabria (Cantabria), Castile and León, and Aragoia (Aragon). After Santxo III died, the Kingdom of Navarre was divided between his sons and never fully recovered its importance. The army of Nafarroa fought beside other Christian Iberian kingdoms in the decisive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, after which the Muslim presence of more than 800 years on the Iberian Peninsula were slowly reduced to a small territory in the south. In 1515, the bulk of Nafarroa below the Pyrenees—Upper Nafarroa—was at last defeated after a long war against Castile and Aragon but retained some rights specific to it. The small portion of Nafarroa lying north of the Pyrenees—Lower Nafarroa—later came under French rule when its Huguenot sovereign became King Henri IV of France; with the declaration of the French Republic and execution of Louis XVI, the last King of France and Navarre, the kingdom was merged into a unitary French state.  

 

Community and geography 

 

Situated in the northeast of the Iberian peninsula, Nafarroa is bordered by Lapurdi, Nafarroa Beherea and Zuberoa to the north, Aragón to the east, La Rioja to the southwest, Gipuzkoa and Araba to the west. The territory includes an enclave, Petilla de Aragón, which is completely surrounded by Aragón. It is made up of 272 municipalities and of its total population approximately one-third live in the capital, Iruñea, and one-half in the capital’s metropolitan area. There are no other large municipalities in the region. The next largest are Tudela , Barañain, Burlada, Lizarra, Zizurkil, Tafalla, Atarrabia, and Ansoain. Despite its relatively small size, Nafarroa features stark contrasts in geography, from the Pyrenees mountain range that dominates the territory to the plains of the Ebro river valley in the south.  

 

Climate 

 

The climate of Nafarroa mixes influences from the Pyrenees mountains and Ebro river valley, creating a great difference between the climates of the north (much more humid and with frequent rainfall) and of the south (more Mediterranean with higher temperatures and more sporadic precipitation). One can pass from the humid Cantabrian valleys in the north to the arid, steppe-like Bardenas Reales on the banks of the Ebro river in just a few kilometers. Cultural heritage Nafarroa is a mixture of its ancient Basque tradition and culture with Mediterranean influences coming from the Ebro. The Ebro valley is amenable to wheat, vegetables, wine, and even olive trees as in Aragon and La Rioja. It was a part of the Roman Empire, and in the Middle Ages it became the taifa kingdom of Tudela. In the Middle Ages, Iruñea was a crossroads for Gascons from beyond the Pyrenees and Romance speakers. 

 

Culture 

 

Euskera (Basque) is the official language in Nafarroa, together with Spanish which was imposed through violent means to the indigenous population. The north-western part of the community is largely Basque-speaking while the southern part is almost completely Spanish-speaking. The capital Iruñea is in the mixed region. Nafarroa therefore is divided into three parts linguistically: regions where Basque is widespread (the Basque-speaking area), regions where Basque is present (the mixed region), and regions where Basque is absent (the Spanish-speaking area), a real tragedy for it means the original culture has been wiped out by the invaders. Since Nafarroa was an independent state in Europe for over 800 years the excuse presented by some scholars insisting that there was never an independent Basque state is not only preposterous but a lie designed to deny the Basque people its right to self determination. 

 

 

 

 

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Boise's Basque Voice

This article appeared at the Idaho Statesman a couple of weeks before I started blogging.

I reproduce it here because it is quite important, it shows the international community that the Basque quest for self determination has many sides.

Here you have it:

Sunday, November 4, 2001

Ambassador's visit brings Basque question home

In 1979, when the first Spanish ambassador to visit Boise was in town, he was not permitted to meet at the Basque Center. On Saturday, Ambassador Javier Ruperez got inside what locals call the "House of the Basques." But deep differences remain between Spain and Idaho Basques, who represent the largest population outside the homeland and who continue to press for a referendum on Basque independence.

After a closed-door lunch that lasted an hour longer than planned, Sen. Larry Craig was the first to emerge from the meeting, looking a bit shellshocked. "We got into a very spirited discussion," said Craig, who had met Ruperez on a trip to Spain and arranged his visit to Idaho.

"It got pretty heated, unexpectedly so," said Roy Eiguren, an influential Boise Basque and Spain's honorary vice consul in Idaho. The nut of the conflict is this: Ruperez and his boss, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, see the issue of Basque self-determination not as a political problem but as a matter of crushing the separatist terrorist group ETA, which has killed 900 people in 30 years. The government rejects proposals for talks with ETA's political arm, Idaho Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa's call for a brokered peace like that engineered in Northern Ireland by George Mitchell, and for an independence referendum in the four Basque provinces. "It is the overall conviction of the Spanish people that we don't have a political crisis," Ruperez said in an interview. "It should be solved mainly through the law enforcement agencies."

To put a referendum on independence to the people would be akin to letting an American state break away, Ruperez said. "We have one single country. We don't consider the possibility of splitting it up."

Aznar has characterized Basque nationalism, both violent and non-violent, as a "Nazi ideology." Ruperez offered his own bit of hot rhetoric: "I don't really care about the foment of Basque independence. What we do care about is violence." His passion is understandable. In 1979, the year Ruperez was elected to the Spanish Parliament, he was kidnapped by ETA and held for a month. Though he says that has no influence on his views, his voice betrayed bitterness when he said, "Those who kidnapped me, they are back on the streets, and not only back in the streets, but in the Basque Parliament."

Cenarrusa, who has been working on improving the lot of the Basque homeland for 30 years, wound up getting into what diplomats like to call "a frank and open" discussion. I wasn't in the meeting, but hearing it described afterward, it sounded rough and tumble.

Sitting around the same table after the lunch, I spoke with several of the principals, including Cenarrusa, Eiguren, Rep. David Bieter, D-Boise, Deputy Secretary of State Ben Ysursa and Gloria Totoricaguena, a Basque academic who lives in Boise.

"The ambassador gave his spiel but he didn't say anything about what the problems are over there," Cenarrusa said. "He talked about ETA, but I said, 'Where did ETA start?' It started with (Fascist Dictator Francisco) Franco suppressing Basque culture and assassinating people. Our end is to get rid of ETA, and he shares that goal," Cenarrusa said.

"But our other end is to allow the Basques self-determination," said Beiter, "and we don't share that goal." Ruperez rejects as a model two votes on separation in Canada's French-speaking Quebec, calling such a move "whimsy," and an attack at the "indivisibility" of Spain.

Beiter plans a memorial in the next Legislature urging Congress to back a referendum on Basque independence. "It's not whimsy. It's thousands of years of differences of language and culture. Quebec is the parallel. They got to vote."

That sentiment is gaining ground in Europe, where nationalist movements in Scotland and Wales may one day secure elections on independence. In September, the British magazine The Economist said Spain fuels terrorist sentiment: "Mr. Aznar's obduracy on the political front is playing into the extremists' hands – by pointlessly antagonizing the non-violent Basque majority." The Economist predicted independence would be rejected by voters, just as it was in Canada, a view Ruperez shares. But until his government changes, perhaps with Aznar's retirement in 2004, movement on resolving the Basque question seems unlikely.

.... ... .

Basque Refugees in England

This article comes to us via Guardian Unlimited:

Torn roots

After the bombing of Guernica, many Basque children were evacuated to the UK. Sixty-five years on speak about their experiences

Peter Lennon
Guardian

Wednesday May 22, 2002

Sixty-five years ago today, the luxury liner Habana steamed into Southampton harbour with 3,800 half-starved Basque children crammed into a vessel which normally accommodated 400. The British government's policy of strict non-intervention in the Spanish civil war had been severely tested when Guernica, the ancient capital of the Basques, was bombed mercilessly by planes of the Nazi Condor Legion on April 26, 1937, making a mockery of Germany's official stance of non-intervention.

The images of women and children in the burning ruins of this small town of no military significance so inflamed public opinion here that the Conservative government was obliged at least to permit the entry of child refugees. But the terms were inflexible: the refugee committees which organised the exodus had to guarantee they would be responsible for the upkeep of the children for the entire length of their stay.

On May 21, the evacuation began from besieged Bilbao. The crossing of the storm-lashed Bay of Biscay, under the reluctant escort of the Royal Navy, was nightmarish.

Helvecia Hidalgo, now 79, was 14 when she sailed on the Habana with her 10-year-old brother and eight-year-old sister. "When we arrived in Southampton, the Salvation Army were waiting for us, throwing sweets at us," she recalls. "We thought the English always dressed up like that.

"We were sent to a camp at North Stoneham, outside Southampton, where we lived 10 to a tent. When we first came in the camp, they gave us tea. I couldn't bear tea. 'Oh no', we said, 'in Spain we only have it for medicine'. I wouldn't touch it for years.

"But we had lovely white bread; we had rationing in Bilbao, where gradually the bread got darker and darker. We used to say they swept the floor to make it. It tasted horrible, so when we arrived here it tasted so delicious some children got ill from eating too much white bread."

Hermino Martinez, now 72, came from a small mining village outside Bilbao. "My mother had five other children, so they sent me, aged seven, and my 11-year-old brother to England," he says. "All 3,800 of us were put in tents at Stoneham. The committee had only a few days to prepare for 2,000 children, but double that number came. Later it rained and rained; there were bog conditions - appalling. The latrines were just an open trench thrown up by volunteers."

The scene at Stoneham camp on June 15, when Bilbao fell to Franco's forces, was described at the time by Yvonne Cloud, a member of the Basque Children's Committee. "A priest announced the news from a loudspeaker van," she wrote. "The impulse to destroy the bearer of evil news was swift. From the wailing and weeping crowd of children, swaying rhythmically in an abandonment of grief, a little knot sprang forward, rushing the van in an impotent attempt to vent feelings of aggression."

One group of children wrote a letter to the prime minister, adding with a precocious understanding of the realities of politics "or whoever most rules England", asking for "some big boat... to defend our mothers and brothers and grandfathers and our invalids". But the government never budged on its policy of non-intervention and never gave a penny towards the welfare of the children.

Adrian Bell, author of Only for Three Months: the Basque Children in Exile, comments: "When I was writing that book [in 1996], there was this report about stranded Bosnian child refugees. It was winter and there was this busload of children, coming to England, stuck on a mountain pass because the Home Office could not get their act together to provide entry visas. Just like 1937."

The Basque children began to be dispersed throughout Britain, the intention of never separating siblings often having to be abandoned by the hard-pressed refugee committees.

"In August, I was sent to a colony in Carshalton," Hidalgo remembers, "where they would take whole families. A lovely big farm called the Oaks and it had a mansion. They put us in the servants' quarters: the rest of the place was open to visitors on Sundays, but we were not supposed to go there. We had a matron who spoke Spanish. We all had jobs on a rota and looked after the younger ones."

But such comfort was rare. "I was sent all over the country," Martinez says. "To Swansea, to Tynemouth, to Brampton, near Carlisle. The worst place was Margate. It was that terrible winter of 1939 and there was no heating. The place was so bad it had to be closed down. I was sent to live with a family in Leicester. I was very happy with them - we still keep in touch. But by that time, I was separated from my brother".

With the outbreak of war, financial support for the Basque children diminished and their survival depended often on the generosity of working people. "The miners were marvellous," Martinez says. "They gave even when they could ill afford it.

"There was constant pressure from Franco's government to have us sent back. They claimed my parents had signed a document, but it had been falsified. The fact is my father was in jail, only allowed out when he became partly paralysed when they used machine oil for cooking. My mother was terribly poor and only too willing for us to be taken away from hunger."

Hidalgo married a Catalan she met when working at the Spanish Institute in London where she still lives. Martinez married a Swiss woman he met when she came to Britain on holiday in the 1950s. He got a degree going to night school, taught at a comprehensive and retired as head of a large technical department of a school in Barnet, north London, near his present home. Over the years, the majority of the children were reunited with their parents, but often in foreign countries to which Basque families had fled - typically, France or South America. "I went back for the first time in 1959," Martinez says. "What first shocked me was the fear of the people under Franco.

"Meeting my family was not a very joyful experience. We were such strangers. They had suffered so much and they thought that in England I had had a very comfortable life, which was anything but the case. They were still very, very poor working people, struggling to survive. My parents were illiterate and I had managed to get an honours degree. They realised I was educated. It was heartbreaking."

"I did not see my mother for 12 years," Hidalgo says. "Thinking very, very closely and considering we had a much better life than we would have had in Spain, even so I sometimes think that the children should be left with their parents. It's never the same after; a bond is broken."

Martinez adds: "When Labour took over [in Britain] in 1945, we had great hopes, following the defeat of fascism in Europe, that Spain would be dealt with. But of course it was not to be. The US saw fit to keep Franco in power. We had terrible fascism in Spain long after it had been defeated in Europe."

For more information you can also read the post about Dorothy Legarreta's book titled "The Gernika Generation".

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Ireland and Euskal Herria : Political Conflicts

In the article you are about to read you'll be able to understand why the peace process in Northern Ireland continues forward while Spain clamps down on Basque nationalism.

Here you have it is, it was published by CNN:

Similar conflicts, different paths

May 21, 2002 Posted: 9:13 AM EDT (1313 GMT)

By CNN's Alison Daniels

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The conflict in the Basque region bears some resemblance to that in Northern Ireland. In both, divisions are deeply entrenched.

But unlike the situation in Spain, major strides have been made in Northern Ireland towards a peaceful solution.

The Basque separatist group ETA watched closely as the Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire in 1994 after 25 years of violence, and all sides in the Northern Ireland conflict began peace talks in earnest.

In 1998, ETA declared its own cease-fire. One of the leading figures in the Irish peace process, the republican Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams, visited the Basque town of Bilbao in September 1998 advocating peace talks.

"There is bound to be distrust here. People have been hurt, people have been killed. There is bound to be suspicion. There is bound to be hatred. There is bound to be fear," Adams said. "And the way to resolve that is to seize that opportunity and build on that opportunity and widen the space which has been created."

But 14 months after it began, the Basque cease-fire was over.

"When ETA announced the truce in September 1998, it was a response to something called the Irish Forum -- meetings of Basque political parties to come to common conclusions about what was happening in Northern Ireland," said Inigo Gurruchaga, London correspondent for the Spanish daily newspaper El Correo.

"The influence was massive, but with the passing of time it has decreased. ... During the truce the Spanish government behaved without any political convergence," Gurruchaga said.

"And while they maintained clandestine direct dialogue with ETA, they always refused to maintain any type of political dialogue with their political representatives."

However, Spanish historian Anthony Gooch of the London School of Economics says the Basque nationalist party Herri Batasuna, despite its closeness to Sinn Fein, was also reluctant to be influenced by the Northern Ireland peace process.

"The Basques take what they like of the Irish experience ... and they leave what don't like, so they're very selective," Gooch said. "So you can't say Basques have followed the Sinn Fein model or ETA has followed the IRA model."

Dialogue and demographics

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made it clear that dialogue is the only option in Northern Ireland.

"There is every reason to proceed with it and push it forward, and ... I've satisfied myself clearly that the political will exists to do that," Blair said in January 2001. "We've just got to find a way of getting over these remaining problems."

Blair's counterpart in Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, holds a very different view.

"The only possible position on terrorism is to wipe it out. We will stamp it out wherever we find it," said the Spanish prime minister.

For some, Aznar's stance -- and the equally hard-line position of ETA -- offers little opportunity for Northern Ireland-style negotiations.

"One has the impression that the IRA is more or less getting what it wants along the lines that are being followed, whereas ETA is not getting what it wants and it can't possibly get what it wants," Gooch said.

Another difference between the two situations is that shifting demographics are shaping events in Northern Ireland.

"The inevitability of a future Northern Ireland integrated into the Republic of Ireland is due to demographics, to the growing number of Catholic families," Gurruchaga said.

"This is not happening in the Basque country. ... The political divisions in the Basque remain stable."

It was almost 10 years ago that No. 10 Downing Street, the home of Britain's prime minister, was the target of an IRA mortar attack. But by the end of the decade, after years of exhaustive diplomacy that included visits to Downing Street by Adams, the political landscape was unrecognisable.

It was inevitable that comparisons with Northern Ireland would be made when ETA declared its cease-fire in 1998.

But with the resumption of violence in Spain, it has become clear that the path taken in London and Belfast is a route many in Madrid and San Sebastian do not seem inclined to follow.

Amazingly enough, this so called "Spanish historian" by the name of Anthony Gooch blames Aznar and Madrid's shortcomings on Batasuna. Something tells me Gooch is not to happy that peace is at reach for the Irish.

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Bono the "Radical Chic Artist"

This article published by The Phoenix tells us what Fermin Muguruza thinks of Bono, the lead man for Irish band U2:

Basque planet

Fermin Muguruza takes Bono to task

BY JOSH KUN

On the opening night of the World Economic Forum last January, Bono introduced Jean-Paul Messier, the CEO of Vivendi-Universal, by calling him a " corporate motherfucker. " Far from an insult, it was an elbow nudge between millionaires and a sign of just how empty Bono’s merger of pop and politics has become. Even before Angélique Kidjo and Ravi Shankar took the stage to do a post–September 11 version of " we are the world, " the script’s finale had been written and performed: corporatized rebellion had triumphed, and the international audience of business executives and world leaders gathered to " address global issues " and to engage the forum’s " corporate members in global citizenship " had been assured that dissent can be bought.

As post-punk Basque singer/songwriter Fermin Muguruza reminds us on his 2000 album of cheery agit-ska, FM 99.00 Dub Manifest (newly available in the United States on Piranha), this was not the first time Bono had embarrassed himself in the presence of world leadership. In " Radical Chic, " Muguruza blasts Bono for calling the pope a " funky pontiff. " Bono’s blur of trans-national politics into corporate handshakes and wanna-be cool poses represents everything Muguruza — who since the 1980s has been a leading musical voice for Basque nationalist independence — is against.

Bono is what Muguruza calls a " radical chic artist " : someone who in trying to make rebellion cool sacrifices the true purpose of art: to be dangerous, to tell the truth, to upset the social balance. Just look at the yellow crime-scene tape bearing the slogan " Artist Line Do Not Cross " that adorns FM’s liner notes. At Muguruza’s world economic forum, the musician is not an entertainer but a people’s cop who protects and serves the non-corporate members of the global citizenry. The Basques are the oldest indigenous ethnic group in Europe, and for the past three decades many of them — the car-bombing separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ( " Basque homeland and freedom " ) being the most extreme example — have been struggling to be recognized as an autonomous people and region.

On FM’s opening track, Muguruza — who sings in Euskera, the Basque language — bills himself as the " commander " of a musical army armed with " dissident thinking against just one memory. " On " Nazio Ibilitaria Naiz, " a song from another Muguruza album now available, Brigadistak Sound System (Piranha), he calls himself " a wandering nation, " does a Public Enemy " fear of a Basque planet " riff, and then outlines a " strategy of symbolic resistance to linguistic domination, to the structured division of society. " He wants to keep modernization from becoming synonymous with cultural homogeneity — as he sings on " Big Benat and Korrika 2001: Reunite the World! " , he wants to be both a Basque and a citizen of the world, without having to sacrifice one for the other.

Although both albums were released more than two years ago, it’s hard to listen to either FM or Brigadistak without hearing them through the ears of Passover massacres and Jenin border attacks. Both albums come from a world of bombs exploding on city streets and of people so wedded to the land they call their own that they are willing to saturate it with their own blood. On FM’s " Ekhi Eder, " Muguruza laments that " the right to live in the place of birth appears to be on sale. "

Ever since the Franco dictatorship that Muguruza was born into suppressed Basque culture with death squads and political imprisonment, the violent tug-of-war between the Basques and the Spanish has had its echoes of the Middle East conflict, complete with political assassinations, ethnic separatism, and anti-state violence committed in the name of future state formation. Throughout Brigadistak — where Muguruza’s " musical army " is backed up by a global crew of " fellow travelers " that includes Mexican border punks Tijuana No and peripatetic Franco-Spanish agitator Manu Chao — he sings of language as if it were a weapon of war, of occupation as a way of life, and of culture as a military battlefield. He pays homage to his favorite Arabic bar while " remembering the words we have in common " ; he equates the US bombing of Iraq with " Madrid fascists " killing Basques.

You could see this as a shortsighted, even irresponsible, conflation of very different political situations. Or you could see it the way Muguruza does, as a brand of global thinking that instead of merging economies and linking national interests to international markets merges oppressions and links struggles. In short, one that calls Jean-Paul Messier a corporate motherfucker and doesn’t expect a laugh.

Issue Date: May 9 - 16, 2002

By the way, Manu Chao is Basque too, his mother is Basque, not Spaniard.

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