Territory and Terror: Conflicting Nationalisms in the Basque Country

Territory and Terror

All-Basque interpretations of national power have resulted in an uneasy mix of often fragmented and conflicting territorial identifications. Basques can identify themselves with France, Spain or an imagined Basque nation-state. Territory and Terror confronts the imagined and actual territorial dimensions of nationalism, shedding new light on the Basque conflict. The study provides a rich description of territoriality analysed from a comparative perspective and explores the relation between territoriality and regional differences in conflict intensity. It supplies an account of the oft-overlooked internal struggles between Basques, arguing that overestimation of Basque nationalism as the ideological force behind the conflict often leads to a disregard of the identification of many with France or Spain. In addition, the author investigates the conflicts between Basque nationalists themselves over key issues such as terrorist activity. Territory and Terror will appeal to students and researchers of nationalism and territoriality, in particular to those with an interest in the Basque country. Jan Mansvelt Beck is associate professor of geography at the University of Amsterdam. His research is focused on Spain and France and, in particular, on ethno-nationalism within these states.

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Territory and Terror Conflicting Nationalisms in the Basque Country

Jan Mansvelt Beck

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2005 Jan Mansvelt Beck All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-02380-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-34814-5 (Print Edition)

Contents

1

List of figures List of tables Acknowledgements

viii xi xii

Introduction

1

The problem 3 Approaches to conflicting nationalisms 4 The spacing and timing of nationalist conflict: a descriptive and interpretative frame 8 Method, scope and outline 17 2

The French-Basque experience: how Basques became French

19

Nationalist messages 19 Basque elite and the spread of French nationalism 21 Frenchification 28 Development of a strong state 32 Territorial administration: cosmetic decentralization 37 The current situation: the present distribution of Frenchness 38 3

The Spanish-Basque experience: a case of weak nation-state building Nationalist messages 42 Basque elite and the spread of Spanish nationalism 46 Castilianization 58 Weak-state development 61 Territorial administration: decentralization 68 The current state: the present distribution of Spanishness 70 France and Spain compared 74

41

viii 4

Contents Euskal Herria: rhetoric of commonness versus uncommon practice

77

Introduction 77 Nationalist claims: a short history of territorial and linguistic demands 77 Language and identity 80 Contact space and cross-border contacts 84 Nationalist symbols and practice of Euskal Herria 87 Conclusion: the territorial dimension of the imagined community 94 5

Basque nationalism: a recent and modest phenomenon

97

Nationalist messages 97 Mobilization behind new messages: process and pattern 100 A social ecology of mobilization 109 State reactions to language and territorial claims 118 Conclusion 124 6

Euskadi as a weak proto-state: the fragmentation of Basque society

126

Nationalist messages 127 Mobilization behind new messages: process and pattern in the pre-Franco period 131 Institutions of mobilization after Franco 135 A social ecology of mobilization 145 Accommodation and the regionalization of infrastructural power in Euskadi 154 Accommodation in Navarra: real or cosmetic? 168 Conclusion 174 7

The spatial dimension of violence: beyond the fracture lines Manifestations of political violence 177 From spiral of violence to ‘pain socialization’ 185 Ideological and organizational features of the adversaries in the conflict 186 A geography of support for violence 192 Supportive economy 196 Anti-system features of violence-rejecting nationalist parties 199 Conclusion 202

176

Contents 8

Conflict solutions: past and future scenarios

ix 205

The failure of short-term rapprochement 206 Institutionalization of conflict resolution and its impact on violence 208 Scenarios for peace 219 9

Conclusion

225

Bibliography Index

233 253

Figures

1.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 7.1 7.2

Euskal Herria: regions and important towns Illiteracy rates in Spain, Euskadi and Navarra, 1887–1981 Basque speakers, Hegoalde, 1995 Voting patterns in Euskadi and Navarra, 1979–2000 Basque self-identitification in Euskal Herria Pupils by level of schooling, Ikastolas France, 1969–2001 Basque nationalist vote share in cantonal elections, Iparralde, 2001 Children receiving bilingual education, Iparralde, 2003 Labour union delegates, Hegoalde, 1980–99 Proportion of students in Ikastolas, Hegoalde, 1964–81 Basque nationalist voting patterns in Hegoalde, European elections, 1999 Language and nationalist voting patterns, Euskadi, 2001 Basque speakers and nationalist vote, Euskadi, 2001 Basque speakers and nationalist vote, Navarra Foral elections, 1999 Language zones, Navarra and Euskadi ETA victims, 1960–2003 Basque radical nationalist votes and residuals, European elections, 1999

3 59 71 73 85 105 112 113 138 141 149 157 158 170 171 178 195

Tables

3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 8.1 8.2

Daily newspaper readership in Euskadi and Navarra, 2001 Democracy and dictatorship in Spain, 1868–present Voting patterns for ethnoregionalist parties in Spain, 1980–2000 Indicators of Basque self-identification Comparison of Basque national vote with Basque-speakers Settlement features of Basque-speaking mountain cantons, 1999 Elected labour union delegates by region, 2000 Positive and negative residuals, European elections, 1999 The Basque language in primary education and kindergarten, Euskadi, 2001 Basque immersion in primary schools in Navarra and language zones, 1991–8 ETA killings per region, 1960–2001 Street violence related to Basque nationalism, 1999–2002 Targets of ETA killings, 1960–2003 Targets of street violence Profiles of ETA militants Geographies of violence Policies for peace-seeking in the Basque conflict Peace initiatives in the Basque conflict

55 62 69 83 110 117 138 152 165 172 178 180 181 182 184 196 206 214

Acknowledgements

In 1996, the Deusto University in Bilbao invited me to teach for some weeks. I arrived just a few days after ETA killed Francisco Tomás y Valiente, one of the architects of the Spanish constitution. Tomás y Valiente was shot in his office room at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Although the event occurred 450km away from Deusto my colleagues were deeply saddened and highly anxious about their and my personal security. It was one of the rare events in which I personally experienced the link between terrorism and fear. In the midst of the turmoil I had the opportunity to become acquainted with my peers’ views on the Basque conflict. I would have liked to thank them all personally for the discussions that stimulated me to continue studying the Basque question, but fear obliges me to express my gratitude in a collective and anonymous way. For the same reasons I will only mention the institutions and not the people who helped in collecting data. For much of the basic material I am indebted to the Basque Autonomous Government and its departments. In particular their statistical office EUSTAT has generously provided many data. Similarly, the Navarra Foral Government and its administrative branches have helped very much in obtaining information. Moreover, contacts with regional and local representatives of all relevant political parties have helped me to gain insight into the politicization of Basque, Spanish and French identities. During my stay in the French Basque Country I enjoyed the personal contacts at the Institut Culturel Basque in Ustaritz. I owe many thanks to persons like Erramun Bachoc, Ur Apalategui and Txomin Heguy who opened my eyes to the cultural dimensions of Basqueness. In Bayonne the staff of the Basque Museum, the Municipal Library and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Bayonne were very helpful in providing documents not available in my country. The following persons have contributed to the book. I am very grateful to the anonymous reviewer whose critical and skilful comments have substantially improved the manuscript. Norbert Deckers helped me learn about violence while Daniele Conversi has led me to rethink and rewrite part of the argument. I am also very grateful to my Amsterdam colleagues Olga Nieuwenhuijs and Wim van Spengen who gave me much moral and academic support. Howard Turner and Edy Mulié deserve special mention. Howard improved my English and purified it

Acknowledgements

xiii

from Dutchisms, Hispanicisms and Gallicisms. Edy Mulié and the staff of IOGraph transformed my illustrations to a print-ready format. The Amsterdam Research Institute for Global Issues and Development Studies funded field visits while the Department of Geography of the University of Amsterdam freed me temporarily from teaching during these visits. Many people in the study area who helped are to a certain extent involved in the Basque conflict. As insiders their views are often biased. Evidently it is difficult to separate views from the human environment one is living in. For them I will remain an outsider from a remote country. Nevertheless I hope they will appreciate my interpretation of ‘their’ conflict, for which the responsibility is mine alone. Jan Mansvelt Beck Department of Geography, University of Amsterdam

1

Introduction

The impetus for this book comes from my amazement at the persistence of the Basque conflict despite the apparently tranquil conditions of economic prosperity, successful democratization, and state recognition of language diversity. Classical grievances of social deprivation, democratic deficit or linguistic discrimination now seem to be out of touch with reality. Paradoxically, the most troubled of the territories in which Basques live is the Spanish Basque Country, where there is a particularly high standard of living and benign official status for the Basque language. The state of which this territory forms a part has become one of Europe’s respected liberal democracies and one of Europe’s most decentralized states. Surprisingly, the intensity of the Basque conflict has remained extremely low in France, where Basques live in the economic periphery of a centralized state with their language being marginalized and restricted to the private domain. France would therefore be a perfect breeding ground for mobilizing Basque grievances, whereas in Spain democratic transformation, decentralization and the official promotion of Basque culture ought conversely to reduce the potential for conflict. The state border that cuts across the Basque region is therefore far more than just an administrative demarcation between two countries. Nowadays it has become the divide between conflict and peace, fear and freedom, hate and respect, terrorism and civil society. The divide rightly suggests that the Basque conflict has its own territory. It is, however, one facet of the territoriality of the Basque conflict. This is because territoriality is expressed in state and sub-state powers, political claims and identification. In a territorial sense, Basques can identify with France, Spain or an imagined Basque nation-state. Most scholarly publications on the Basque conflict are sadly lacking in territorial considerations. To my knowledge the only studies with a territorial perspective are those by Linz (1981), Anderson (1990), Loyer (1997) and Raento (1999). Their studies provide valuable insights into the Basque conflict but focus only on part of the Basque region (Anderson 1990; Raento 1999) or narrow down the conflict to a geopolitical question (Loyer 1997). Furthermore they share a ‘State flaw’ with most studies conducted by scholars from other disciplines, like social sciences or history. The ‘State flaw’ concerns a disregard for the substantial identification of many Basques with France or Spain, as a result of an overestimation of Basque nationalism as the ideological force behind the conflict. In this book I will emphasize the

2

Territory and Terror

different forms the conflict has taken as conditioned by their respective Spanish and French national settings vis-à-vis all-Basque interpretations of national power. In this comparative study I will explore the territoriality of the conflict by describing and analysing patterns of identification, their origins and the role of the local environment, and will argue that the conflict can only be understood in terms of competing identifications, one with the state and the other with the Basque Country. French nation-state building has included many French Basques whereas the Spanish nation-state has little legitimacy among Spanish Basques. Cross-border differences in the nature and intensity of the conflict, national identities and nation-building policies alone justify a comparative analysis based on what may be called the Greater Basque Country or Euskal Herria (Fig. 1.1). Paraphrasing Anderson (1991) Euskal Herria is the ‘imagined territory’ of Basque nationalists formed by the Spanish autonomous communities of the Basque Country (Euskadi) and Navarra, and the French provinces of Soule, Labourd and Basse Navarre. While geographical diversity is a justification for including the entire Basque region in a comparative study, territorial unity claimed by the Basque nationalist doctrine offers a distinct potential for comparison. I will show that an all-Basque territorial imagination does not correspond with the building of pan-Basque networks and the proliferation of the nationalist ideology. Basque nationalism is often associated with terrorism. Although Tejerina Montaña (1992), Loyer (1997), Raento (1997, 1999) and Domínguez Iribarren (1998) have paid some attention to the territoriality of terrorism, most studies analyse the complex relationship between terrorism and nationalism but hardly focus at all on the territorial dimensions of violence (Clark 1984; Jáuregui Beciartu 1985; Pérez-Agote 1986; Díez Medrano 1995; Conversi 1997; Sánchez-Cuenca 2001). In this book I will highlight the peculiar territoriality of terrorism, which shows remarkable differences with the territorial expressions of nationalism. In this respect it is relevant to answer the question why some regional and local contexts have become a breeding ground for a violent brand of nationalism while other environments have not. As in the case of any conflict the Basque conflict has changed according to its nature, intensity and context. There is an urgent need for an update of the conflict due to the following changes. The events of 11 September, followed by the ‘war on terrorism’, changed the international context, which has become more hostile towards ethnic violence. This inspired the Spanish government to intensify its efforts to combat terrorism through legal action and intensive policing. The assaults of 11 March in Madrid have alerted Europe’s security forces and reduced sympathy and understanding for terrorist actions, which may have an asphyxiating side effect on ETA and similar organizations. Since the late 1990s, Basque nationalism has become more radical and anti-systemic and less inclined to coalition and consent with Spanish system parties. Meanwhile political violence itself experienced a shift from targeted terror by specialized unities to street violence. The weakening of the old antagonisms and the rise of new contradictions within the Basque Country have resulted in an unprecedented political constellation creating both opportunities for and obstacles to a peace process.

Introduction

Bayonne

San Sebastián

Bilbao

3

5

1

6

7

2

Vitoria Pamplona

3 4

Portugal

France

Spain

1+2+3+4 1+2+3 5+6+7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Hegoalde Euskadi French Basque Country Vizcaya Guipúzcoa Álava Navarra Labourd Lower Navarre Soule

Hegoalde Iparralde Bizkaia Gipuzkoa Araba Nafarroa Lapurdi Nafarroa Beheroa Zuberoa

Figure 1.1 Euskal Herria: regions and important towns.

The problem Like all nationalist insurgencies, the Basque conflict has geographical dimensions. These dimensions can be detected in territorial claims, geo-historical mythologies, spatial configurations of nation-state formation and regional or local settings in which sub-state nationalism flourishes. My perspective will be developed along two lines: nationalization from above and nationalist mobilization from below. The first will consider why nation-state building has been able to attract French Basques and has had so little success among Spanish Basques. In line with Weber (1976) I will question why French Basques have evolved from peasants into Frenchmen and why a major proportion of the Spanish-Basque peasants have not

4

Territory and Terror

become Spaniards. The process of becoming Frenchmen or Spaniards will here be labelled as nationalization from above. In France and Spain, homogenizing forces reached the Basques from Paris and Madrid respectively. In this book I will analyse to what extent top-down processes of homogenization in both countries have differed and how these differences have affected the nationalization of the Basques. In the next sections the analytical framework for this statewide mobilization will be examined in more detail. The second line will focus on mobilization from below. Basque nationalism is firmly rooted in the northern part of the Spanish Basque Country and the northwestern fringe of the Navarra region, while in the other parts of Euskal Herria its appeal has been weak. What are the geographical patterns of Basque nationalist mobilization, how did they change in history and what is the role of the local environment or locale in the formation and continuity of these patterns? The focus will be particularly on the question of how and why specific regional and local contexts have become a breeding ground for Basque nationalism. Violence is the most striking feature of the Basque conflict. The occurrence of nationalist-inspired violence can be interpreted from the two mobilization perspectives. However, violence is not just a uniform manifestation of radical sub-state nationalism. At present, violence adopts different forms varying from organized street vandalism to assaults on a limited number of special ‘targets’. I will explore the extent to which geographical patterns of violence vary according to the type of violence and how incongruencies in violence patterns can be explained. Does violence particularly take place along ethnic fracture lines, as suggested by Kaplan (1994), within the ethnic community itself (Byman 1998), or does it mainly occur outside the homeland? The legitimization of violence has been studied in detail whereas, with the exception of the work of Loyer (1997), the geographical distribution of violence legitimization has received hardly any systematic analytical attention. From this geographical perspective I will analyse the locale’s role in the formation and continuity of patterns of violence. Of course it is known that violence is regarded more highly among Spain’s Basque speakers than among Spanish-speaking Basques, but why does legitimization have more of an impact in Basque-speaking parts of Guipúzcoa than in similar parts of Vizcaya? How and why have specific regional and local contexts become a breeding ground for the violent brand of nationalism while others have not?

Approaches to conflicting nationalisms Nationalization from above and sub-state mobilization can occur at the same moment and within the same territory. State-nationalist and peripheral nationalist doctrines may compete for sympathy and support in the same arena. In Euskal Herria, most conventional approaches have been applied to studies of both the nationalisms. Nationalisms can be seen as primordial or as creational. The primordialist view assumes an existing nation while in creationalism the nationalist phenomenon and the concomitant idea of the existence of nation are invented. I will adopt the line

Introduction

5

that during given historical periods, nationalism was created and subsequently supported by significant groups in society – a creationist interpretation as presented in the classic works of Kohn (1944), Gellner (1983) and Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983). Thus French, Spanish or Basque nationalism will be dealt with as creations. Like James Anderson I am also, however, aware that ‘Nationalisms do not simply exist in particular geographical and historical situations, they are in part constituted by their unique location in space and time’ (Anderson 1986: 119). We can assume that competing nationalisms have a genetic origin or that there are historicist and structuralist perspectives to explain their origin, persistence and evolution. Historicist approaches depart from more or less coincidental combinations of events, social and political phenomena that explain nationalism. The origin or evolution of nationalist competition is then linked with these time-specific combinations. In the Basque case, this has resulted in fruitful studies like the ones by Corcuera Atienza (1979) and Payne (1975). However, in this study I will adopt a structuralist perspective because I think that the occurrence of competing nationalisms in Euskal Herria is not a historical coincidence but can instead be explained by structural forces that are spatially and temporally determined. What structuralist approaches can be distinguished and what can be learned from them? Structuralist approaches can be roughly divided into two main categories – economic transformation theories and state development theories. Economic transformation theories see nationalist competition as a result of economic modernization. Economic modernization is reflected in the rise of new types of labour division. In culturally heterogeneous areas there are three alternative paths. The first one is assimilation to the state’s dominant culture. Former cultural minority groups adopt the high culture in a way as postulated by Gellner (1983). The outcome will be a melting-pot-like society without sub-state nationalism. The second route leads to internal colonialism (Hechter 1975). In the cultural periphery, sub-state nationalism develops due to an exploitative relationship with the state’s politico-economic centre, as Hechter demonstrated in Britain’s Celtic Fringe. Economic transformation thus results in a ‘cultural division of labour’ (Olzak 1992: 22–3). Cultural division of labour is also the basis for the ‘overdevelopment theory’ (Nairn 1977) where the cultural periphery is economically developed and where – particularly during an economic crisis – sub-state nationalism emerges. In Spain Lasuén (1986), though not acquainted with Nairn’s work, used a similar idea to ‘overdevelopment’ (an ‘inverted multi-regional state’) to explain sub-state nationalism. A third way in which diverse ethnic groups may interact is in competition for the same resources, particularly on the job market (Olzak 1992: 29–37). Olzak teaches us that migration, business cycles (crises) and upward or downward movement on the labour market of ethnically affiliated groups may result in ethnic conflict. Díez Medrano (1995) developed his own mutated version of ethnic competition by comparing Basque and Catalan nationalism. He argues that the specific Basque pattern of socio-economic development has resulted in intra-regional class conflict from which separatist mobilization stems. State development theories can be subdivided into culturalist and ‘expanding-

6

Territory and Terror

state’ approaches. Culturalists are interested in the intercultural relations where in theory two ideal-type developments may be pursued. The first is an assimilationist development in which formal education and other acculturation policies contribute to cultural homogenization, as for instance reflected by Eugen Weber’s work on France. The second development concerns the mobilizing effects of assimilation on minority cultures in danger. In his important book on the Basque conflict Conversi (1997) explains ethno-nationalist mobilization on the basis of the threat of cultural extinction. Finally the expanding-state approach sees nation-state building as a by-product of the increased intervention of the state in all spheres of life. Deliberate mobilization by the state of resources, particularly in times of war, created statewide interaction and mobilization frames (Tilly 1992). On the other hand, the increased production of desired collective goods by the state had a legitimizing effect (Mann 1986). All these different expressions of incorporation, integration, homogenization may vary according to their pace and geographical distribution. However, in line with Olzak’s discussion of modernization processes (1992: 15– 31), I recognize that the homogenizing role of modernizing states and economies may destroy and reaffirm ethnic boundaries, or in her words: ‘While modernization may erode the basis for smaller-scale ethnic identities, it simultaneously favours identification and mobilization along large regional or national ethnic party lines’. Much of the literature on the Basque conflict assumes it to be a product of competing nationalisms, and pays much attention to Basque nationalism, its ideology, mobilization, politics and their settings. However, as I discuss below, there are various flaws in this approach, namely: 1 2 3 4 5 6

the success of nation-state building in Euskal Herria; the role of the environment and locale in the conflict; the complex patterns of identity beyond nationalism; the Basque nation-building process; the description and analysis of daily violence; the role of pacifying institutional arrangements.

Reviewing the literature on the expanding nation-state as a homogenizing force I observe that there is an enormous body of studies on nation-state building in France (important publications include those by Agulhon 1988, 1996; Margadant 1979; Vigier 1982; Weber 1976). The number of studies relating to Spain is rapidly increasing (see for instance: Sánchez-Albornoz 1973, 1975; Fox 1997; Boyd 1997; Tusell 1999; Fusi 2000; Álvarez Junco 2001). The Basque conflict has mostly been studied in terms of the reaction to state and nation building. In contrast to the focus on reactive social processes, the question of to what extent nation-state building has been successful in Euskal Herria has been neglected. The role of the environment and locale in the Basque conflict is often disregarded. This is because, in most social theories, the conventional focus is on the behaviour of individuals (leaders), small groups (elites), large groups (voters), organizations, parties, and political systems in processes of modernization. Their active or reactive role in the cultural peripheries of nationalizing states has therefore

Introduction

7

widely been studied by social scientists. The literature on the Basque conflict perfectly reflects the emphasis on non-regionalized social phenomena. Social phenomena are, however, produced in a spatial context, have a location and differ from place to place. Nevertheless area- or place-bounded contexts in research on sub-state and, in particular, Basque nationalism have often been neglected. The anthropological studies of Heiberg (1989) and Zulaika (1988) and the sociological study by Tejerina Montaña (1992) highlight the crucial role of singular local environments in the conflict. Place-to-place variation has been identified in the works of some geographers (Anderson 1990; Loyer 1997; Raento 1999; Mansvelt Beck 1999b). Geographical units are thus only rarely used in studies of the Basque question. Conversely, in my approach, regions will be the units of analysis. I will demonstrate that nationalism and conflict in Euskal Herria lead to complex patterns on the map. The complexity of the Basque conflict, sometimes referred to as ‘the Basque Labyrinth’, is not just a question of a seeming disorder in political processes. The number of studies which identify complex patterns of identity in relation to the Basque question is increasing (Conversi 1997; Douglass 1998; Mansvelt Beck 1999a). This study can be seen as a contribution built on insights provided by this identity perspective. In addition to the existing identity studies, identity patterns beyond the conflict will be described and interpreted geographically. Nation-state building takes place via people and institutions. In this respect, the institutional structures of the state have been widely studied. However, in contrast to French and Spanish nation building, the institutional aspects of Basque nation building are underexposed. So far, the book on the Basque tragedy by Jáuregui (1996) is one of the few exceptions since it emphasizes the importance of Basque nation building in Euskadi. Finally, violence has been dealt with extensively by many scholars and from many angles and disciplines. Yet some aspects of violence are still underexposed. First, daily violence is one of the ways fear is created and manipulated within the Basque Country. It is high on the psychological agenda of many inhabitants of the Basque Country, but surprisingly low on the research agenda. The works of Zulaika (1988), Zulaika and Douglass (1996), Conversi (1997) and Irvin (1999) contain important contributions to the social meaning of violence. This book will add some insights into this daily and perhaps most fearful manifestation of nationalism by discussing its spatial patterns and comparing various types of violence connected with nationalism. Nationalist conflict often involves so-called peacemaking efforts. Studies on these efforts focus mainly on the political processes of negotiation between or within conflicting parties. The studies of Clark (1984), Jáuregui Beciartu (1985), Conversi (1997), Irvin (1999) and Sánchez-Cuenca (2001) have added much to the understanding of these processes. However, the institutional component of peacemaking has hardly been studied in the Basque case. Whereas in other parts of the world pacifying institutional arrangements have been successful, e.g. institutional pluralism in the Netherlands (Lijphart 1968), the Italian South Tyrol (Markusse 1997), Dutch- and German-speaking Belgium (Witte 1992) and Swedish-speaking

8

Territory and Terror

Finland (McRae 1997), institutional accommodation in the Basque conflict has not yet led to pacification. Though I could detect some flaws in existing studies on the Basque conflict, most approaches have provided valuable insights. My way of describing and interpreting the conflict will benefit from these insights and must be seen as an alternative view that has emanated from a geographer’s mind. Let me now explain how my approach is framed by geography.

The spacing and timing of nationalist conflict: a descriptive and interpretative frame My analytical model consists of the spacing and timing of nationalism. It is based on two concepts of nationalism, two types of nationalist diffusion and three scalespecific diffusion environments. In addition, the model contains a time dimension concerning continuity vis-à-vis discontinuity in long-term transformation processes and the gradualness of mid- and short-term change processes. Nationalism The two concepts of nationalism concern ideology and mobilization. Although nationalism can be defined in many ways, it is, according to Kellas (1998: 4), ‘both an ideology and a form of behaviour’. First, nationalism can be considered a doctrine or ideology claiming territorial autonomy for the nation (for a discussion of the concept of nationalism, see for instance Connor 1978; Smith 1991: 72–9; Williams 1994: 26–9). The nation is viewed as a social group sharing a collective identity, having a common history and a commonness of moral values and social practice. Both the nation-state’s official nationalism and the sub-state’s nationalism are based on an idealized notion of the nation, which is usually based on a mythified common history or ‘invented traditions’ (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). French and Spanish nationalist discourse encompasses the administrative territory of the respective states. In Basque nationalism the present doctrine focuses on an independent Euskal Herria (Fig. 1.1). Quite commonly, nation-state or ‘official nationalism’ (Kellas 1998) had its origin in an ethnic core from which cultural homogenization emerged (Smith 1986, 1991: 38–42). France and Spain, both old multi-lingual states, had clear ethnic cores in, respectively, the Île de France and the Castilian heartland. The languages, flags and anthems were the ‘traditional’ symbols in the diffusion of official nationalism. During the modern and postmodern era, these symbols have gradually been supplemented by public education in geography and history, state-controlled mass media and national representations in international sports and cultural events. At first sight, state and sub-state nationalism have the same ideological components: a mythified history, linguistic and other cultural symbols, nationalist paraphernalia like anthems, flags and sports, etc. However, a closer look at sub-state nationalism reveals that institutions and symbols legitimizing an imagined nationstate are less well represented than in the case of the existing state. For example,

Introduction

9

currency, educational system, public welfare and national teams in international sports competitions are often items desired in sub-state nationalist doctrines. However, in reality these items are absent and therefore cannot play similar symbolic roles as in official nationalism. As will be worked out in the discussion of the diffusion environments, the formation of ‘strong states’ is particularly relevant in the explanation of successful nation-state building. A second ideological difference between sub-state and official nationalism is the existence of grievances. Though official nationalist discourse may be based on a definition of a common enemy, particularly in times of war, sub-state nationalist discourse is usually directed against the state or states against which it has territorial claims. In general, the target population of the peripheral nationalists live in the territory of the states under ideological attack. The extra-dimension of grievances in the sub-state nationalist discourse is shown in the real or supposed deficiencies in the state’s functioning (Gurr 1993: 70–5). Articulated discontent about the role of the state in producing collective goods and services for the national minority, and often underlining discriminatory practice, is thus an extra ingredient in the peripheral nationalist menu. In the long term, the core values of nationalism may change. This is true for both official and counter-nationalism. Nation-state building may first be based on common ethnicity assuming a kind of Herderian Volksgeist, and later be replaced by a Renanian civic version of nationalism. The reverse may also occur. Similar ideological shifts can be observed in sub-state nationalism where new grievances against the state may arise, sometimes at the cost of old ones. The second concept of nationalism concerns mass mobilization. I am aware of the existence of proto-nationalist ethnically based collective identities that were probably at the origin of modern nationalism and date back to the Middle Ages (Llobera 1994). Several authors have suggested the existence of French, Spanish or Basque proto-nationalism before the modern era (i.e. Beaune 1985 and Lemarignier 1970 for France; Sánchez-Albornoz 1973 and Fusi 2000 for Spain; Letamendía 1977, Juaristi 1987 and Agirreazkuenaga 1987 for the Basque Country). In France and Spain, nationalist ideologies were already present during the old regime. Both states centralized and incorporated their peripheries by legislation, public administration, tax regulations and the provision of infrastructure. This long process that can be seen as a first building block in the nationalization of states (Tilly 1992: 72) had a limited impact on the state’s population. The diffusion of ‘high culture’ for instance was still limited to the couches aisées, the well-to-do who could read and write (Thiesse 1999: 72). As shown in Weber’s classic work on France, spatial diffusion of ‘Frenchness’ was still limited during most of the nineteenth century (Weber 1976). Parts of the state’s geography remained practically untouched by the state apparatus. Braudel described early nineteenth-century France as a patchwork of isolated local economies and the provinces which, in spite of their centralist origin, were ‘a jigsaw puzzle of regions and pays’ (Braudel 1989: 41). It is not only because of the initially reduced spread of nationalism and national features that little attention will be paid to the period prior to mass mobilization, it is also the existence of a wealthy body of literature on this subject that makes further discussion redundant. The only exception I will make is in the case of

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the doctrine affecting patterns of mass mobilization. Mass mobilization on the basis of nationalist goals can be seen as one of Kellas’ forms of behaviour. State nationalism can mobilize masses when societies become democratic. Tilly (1992: 116) has shown that the expansion of non-military state activity in mid-nineteenth-century Europe resulted in life within states becoming more ‘homogenized within states and heterogenized among states’. Assimilation to the dominant national culture of initially peripheral elites and later down to the social hierarchy spread the official language to linguistic minorities. The interaction between the state and its subjects became more and more intense. The state demanded more taxes, required soldiers for the emergent mass armies through conscription and, at the same time, its subjects claimed more political influence through suffrage. In the ideal-type of nationalist mobilization from above, democracy together with the state’s production of collective goods produced nationals in the right sense of the word, nationals loyal to their state, nationals for whom the nation and the state were one and the same. In politics, nation building implies the gradual introduction of democracy and an increasing nationalization of party systems ending up in a disappearance of parties based on regionalist and particularist aims. Completed geographical diffusion of the state’s official language over its territory through education, finally resulting in written and spoken communication in public life through newspapers, film, radio and TV, is another concrete ‘end result’ of a wider process of cultural standardization. Integration of regional economies is fostered by the intervention of states in many spheres of life. Economic integration has been stimulated by the creation of infrastructure, financial institutions and the unification of fiscal systems at the cost of regional and local ones. State bodies have thus contributed to the disappearance of regionalist compartmentalization by creating a statewide framework of communication and economic interaction. In the case of successful nationalization of the state’s space, the mental horizon of its inhabitants acquires a national perspective at the cost of regionalist loyalties. National habits, symbols and rituals become accepted all over the territory, while even such unpopular public measures as taxation and conscription for the military service finally become legitimized. This idea of nationalization is referred to in the work of classic authors like Deutsch (1966), Gellner (1983), and Rokkan (1970). Increased political participation at state level assumed the disappearance of local and regional allegiances and the emergence of statewide loyalties (Lipset and Rokkan 1967). Cultural homogenization in connection with the emergence of the state as the primary political arena populated by parties based on non-regional or local issues is known as the ‘nationalization thesis’ (Agnew, 1987). He mentions at least three electoral developments that have increased doubt about the nationalization thesis (Agnew 1987, Ch. 6). The first was the rise of ethno-regionalist movements like the one in the Basque Country. Second, he refers to strong regionalized and place-specific voting patterns. Finally, the decreasing voter turnouts, which reflect a decrease in political participation of people in some Western countries, have thrown doubts on the validity of the nationalization thesis. A new trend not captured by Agnew, nor by most classical theorists of the nationalization thesis, is

Introduction

11

postmodernism. Postmodernism is reflected in the relationship between the state and its citizens and in the hybridization of identities. According to James (1996: 46) a ‘postmodern nation’ is developing in which ‘the state penetrates more and more into day-to-day life (despite the ideologies of minimal government) while, on the other hand, the degree of one’s commitment to the nation increasingly becomes a question of autonomous choice’. The hybridization of identities as a state of being offers the possibility that persons or groups can hold multiple identities depending on time and place-specific contexts. Scholars of nationalism have generally neglected the existence of multiple identities. Brubaker (1998: 292) blames them all for ‘groupism’ as they ‘write about ethnic groups and nations as real entities, as communities, as substantial, enduring, internally homogeneous and externally bounded collectivities. … postmodernist theoretical sensitivity emphasizes the fragmentary, the ephemeral and the erosion of fixed forms and clear boundaries’. The above discussion on nationalist mobilization will have the following consequences for the analysis of Basque nationalism. First, Basque nationalism has an important mobilization dimension and will be studied in a way that is analogous to Spanish and French nationalism. Mobilization features are, like ideologies, not fixed in time. State and sub-state nationalism are diffusion processes that can be described and analysed in space–time terms. Second, I am aware that nationalist mobilization is often an incomplete process that can even be reversed in time. Nationalist mobilization may first occur from above to be regionally contested later by counter-mobilization from below. In the third place, the political geography of nationalization from above shows frozen regional voting patterns, incomplete nationalization and even successful counter-mobilization. If nationalization from above suffers from incompleteness, fragmentation and overt counter-forces, one should be prepared to observe the same imperfections with regard to mobilization from below. Finally all nationalist discourse and much scholarly work are based on groupism. This should make one extra alert to the existence of eclecticism in political discourse and practice, as well as the rise, erosion and persistence of hybrid identities. Two types of nationalist diffusion and their diffusion environments State nationalist and Basque nationalist ideologies are in competition in Euskal Herria. The success of this competition is reflected in the number and proportion of people mobilized behind the nation-state or nationalist Basque messages. To be successful, a message needs followers, but its success depends on space–time conditions. Each historical period has a specific geographic context that fosters one of the two nationalisms. I call these contexts diffusion environments. The diffusion environments will be subdivided into scale levels, ranging from international and state-bound to regional and local environments, each of these having a political, social, cultural and economic constellation specific for each historical period. Before discussing these historically determined diffusion environments, it is necessary to explore how the features of nationalist ideology are related to a successful

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Territory and Terror

spread. In my view, a nationalist message is potentially strong when it is uniform and continuous. Uniformity is reflected in the agreement on core values. In the case of Basque nationalism it has been demonstrated that a lack of ideological cohesion has continuously influenced the fragmented character of core values and concomitant mobilization (Conversi 1990, 1997). The Basque nationalist elite has never been able to unite along a commonly accepted discourse. Fragmented leadership and party systems nowadays reflect this fragmentation. Common core values may be accepted by the nationalist politicians, their organizations and institutions during a specific period. If, however, the discourse is discontinuous, the change involved in creating a sustainable body of believers will be reduced. Thus discourse uniformity and continuity are important ideological prerequisites for successful diffusion. In this case Basque, French and Spanish nationalism are being spread within state or sub-state environments. Only two states are involved in the diffusion. The international diffusion environment is, however, far more complex than a geopolitical approach with Spain, France and sub-state territorial entities playing their different roles. At an international level the following phenomena relevant to nationalist diffusion will be distinguished: wars, contagion, support and European integration. International wars can foster nationalization from above and below. Tilly (1992) argued that wars acted as catalysts in the nation-state making process in Europe. Frequent wars forced loose-knit territories to mobilize resources through coercion or urban capital. The mobilization of resources culminated in a nationalization of states when mass armies became the standard of warfare. Historically, therefore, international wars have helped to forge official nationalism. On the other hand, wars have been catalysts for the devolution of empires and states. The Second World War triggered decolonization in the British, French and Dutch empires. Later on, decolonization inspired the development of liberation ideas and theories. New theories can have a contagious effect that does not stop at international borders. Contagion has been present in official nationalism based on nineteenth-century romanticism and is nowadays displayed in the form of civic virtues exposed to international organizations of states to underline the political correctness of regimes. Not only the spread of ideologies or theories is relevant to the nationalist diffusion. Irish, Basque, Catalan, Quebec, Inuit or aboriginal militants may also imitate each other’s strategies, tactics and concrete actions (Gurr 1993: 134–5). The aborted 1998–9 Basque peace process, for instance, was inspired by the Northern Irish example, preceded by intensive contact between Basque and Irish nationalists. With the development of cheap global communication through the internet, the diffusion of information propaganda pertaining to nationalist ideas, movements and organizations is no longer hampered by state borders, while electronic mail offers new contact opportunities. The internet is not controlled by governments, and, as Castells (1997: 91) has pointed out, ‘the network structure of the internet reproduces exactly the autonomous, spontaneous networking of

Introduction

13

militia groups and of the Patriots at large without boundaries and without definite plan but sharing a purpose, a feeling and, most of all, an enemy’. Inspiration through global contagion is a mental resource for sub-state nationalism. Real resources consist of political and particularly logistic support from abroad. In this respect, the presence of diasporas can be helpful, as in the case of the Irish emigrant communities who morally, politically and financially helped the nationalist movement. Loyer (1997: 50–2) mentions the presence of people of Basque descent in Latin America supporting ETA, as well as several countries, like Algeria and Nicaragua, that have hosted Basque militants and their organizations. As will be demonstrated in Chapter 4, Spanish Basque diasporas living in France have supported the activists significantly. Moreover, when relations between France and Spain were poor during Franco’s dictatorship, the Basque exile community was able to offer shelter and support to ETA members, relatively unhindered by French public authority. Finally, the expansion and construction of the European Union is now offering new chances to regionalist and peripheral nationalist movements. A ‘Europe of the Regions’ in which regional administrations will be assigned more competencies is sometimes advocated from the supra-national level, particularly because regional authorities are considered to be more efficient in arranging interventions in economic life. On the other hand, regional governments themselves are eager to unite in order to capture an increasing share of collective resources. Ethnoregionalists generally have a special cause. The EU offers yet another platform on which their voice can be heard and to which claims for more autonomy and grievances against the state’s regime can be directed. European policies not only invite and stimulate the strengthening of regional administrations. If administrative regions are situated along state borders, the EU stimulates cooperation through programmes such as INTERREG. As it is located on both sides of the border Euskal Herria is one of Europe’s regions which is eligible for INTERREG resources. Although the abolishment of borders has paved the way for more economic interaction, this will not automatically lead to the development of a common Basque national identity. In this respect the German Anschluß has shown that mental borders that are not that old persist despite increased interaction. The state’s territory is the second scale level for nationalist diffusion. A diffusion process has transmitters and adopters of the innovation. What is actually diffused and what are the obstacles and stimuli for nationalist diffusion? With regard to nationalization, two main items are respectively the spread of the belief in a common nationhood and of a ‘common, mass public culture’ (Smith 1991: 14). The diffusion of innovations usually takes place down the spatial and social hierarchy. Nation building is usually a diffusion process transmitted through regional elites who transfer the innovation to the lower classes. Spatially, the spread of new ideas is often from the political and economic core areas to the periphery and from big cities through towns to the countryside. The nationalizing state is at the same time a diffusion environment in which the potential for the spread of the idea of a nation is unequally distributed. This unequal distribution can be explained by the manner and pace of three types of modernization or ‘revolution’: administrative,

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Territory and Terror

economic and cultural (Smith 1991: 59–61). The first revolution consists of administrative homogenization expressed in a unified legal system prescribing common duties and providing common rights for the state’s subjects. Taxation, conscription, the organization of public order and, as Tilly (1992) has shown, the rise of representative democracy at later stages, are dimensions of administrative homogenization. States encounter problems, however, when executing the administrative revolution. Tilly (1992) has shown that the process of imposing duties from above and claiming democratic rights from below has lasted at least one century in many European countries. Moreover, the influence of various elites with regard to dominating the state (first nobles and the higher clergy and later an emergent bourgeoisie), often in mutual competition, produced established elites in France, for example, who had a reduced control of the state. The separation between state and church in France not only reflects the involvement of a wider society in state affairs, but also expresses the power reduction of the pre-modern elite. Legitimization of the nation-state also takes place through the increase of infrastructural power (Mann 1986). Here the state’s increasing production of collective goods and services has become so important for the daily life that it has legitimized its proper existence. The timing and spacing of this long-term nationalization process need two specifications. In the case of timing, success depends on the stability of long-term evolution. If the administration is not able to build a strong state and sees its efforts frustrated by frequent regime changes then the state’s legitimization will be handicapped. A short-term change explaining an increase in the potential for collective protest or rebellion is the sudden opening-up of electoral arenas. In particular, when, after the demise of authoritarian rule, rapid democratization takes place, regional ethnic minorities find themselves confronted with new opportunities to mobilize (Gurr 1993: 138). A special case of territorial organization of the state refers to centralized or unitary versus federal arrangements. This is particularly relevant to today’s Spain which is a de facto federation (Moreno 1997: 122–65). Roessingh (1996) has pointed out that the territorial demarcation of ethnoterritories increases the potential to reinforce the ethnic group’s identity or ‘through a federal structure and on an ethnic basis, separate units may unwillingly be created up to a point when the daily interaction between the various cultures within the state is minimized in most aspects of life’ (Roessingh 1996: 257). The second revolution concerns economic growth and integration. Industrialization has been accompanied by increased urbanization, interregional trade and migration. Intensified interaction opened up formally isolated areas to the outside world, enabling people to broaden their mental horizons which gradually expanded to the state’s borders. Economic modernization thus helped old local and regional identifications to disappear. Economic development is, however, an unevenly distributed phenomenon. In economic peripheries, which are culturally different from the state’s ethnic core, a collective feeling of discontent against ‘internal colonialism’ could be developed as in the ‘Celtic fringe’ (Hechter 1975). In economic core areas, like Vizcaya and later Guipúzcoa, which nevertheless have a

Introduction

15

different cultural substance than the state’s core, increased interaction and migration could produce both nationalization from above and mobilization from below. This is actually the Janus face of economic integration and increased interaction that produce homogenization and assimilation to the dominant culture on the one hand and, at the same time, increase the ethnic consciousness of the subjects to be assimilated on the other. Moreover, in the case of economic growth there is a time dimension, particularly with regard to pace. Rapid economic changes produce either mass migration or mass unemployment. Massive flows of migrants can produce feelings of discontent among the existing population while mass unemployment may help to develop collectively felt grievances against the state and its institutions. Finally there is a cultural revolution in which the role of formal education in the country’s official language is crucial. Before the introduction of mandatory mass education, France and Spain were multi-lingual countries in which linguistic diversity was a ‘natural’ obstacle to respectively ‘frenchization’ and ‘castilianization’. The speaking, understanding and reading of the official languages was and is an asset for the spread of the idea of the nation. According to Anderson (1991) the printed word in particular has been at the root of the diffusion of the nation or ‘imagined community’. Formal education did even more than teach the state’s language. Geography and history schoolbooks glorified a common national heritage. The development of statewide mass media supplemented the state’s cultural homogenization. Mass culture does not stop with language. It implies far more (Billig 1995). The state’s subjects also gradually internalize a kind of nationalized behaviour varying from Spanish or French body language (abrazo versus accolade), a daily timetable with a relatively late Spanish lunch and supper time vis-à-vis a more common European schedule in France and the Spanish paseo, the daily parading, while the French stay at home. Thus, a culturally homogenized population appears, at least theoretically, to be more receptive to the official nationalist message. Nevertheless the more or less complete linguistic assimilation in both countries did not result in the disappearance of minority languages nor minority feelings. In Spain these feelings could be mobilized particularly in Catalonia and the Basque Country. Let me now descend to the intrastate scale levels. The future state envisaged by most Basque nationalists is Euskal Herria. The diffusion of Basque nationalism in Euskal Herria is conditioned by various factors. Cohesion and continuity of the nationalist doctrine, the availability of leadership and local elites transmitting the nationalist message and party organization under democratic conditions are conditions for the spread of Basque nationalism analogous to nationalization from above. Mobilization from below is further conditioned by collective memory, cultural heterogeneity, business cycles, regionalized infrastructural power and social control. The crucial issue here is not that all these factors have influenced Basque nationalist mobilization in Euskal Herria in a uniform way, but that they all had time-bounded and localized configurations. In some parts of the Basque Country such configurations are a fertile soil for Basque nationalism while in other parts they have been sterile as regards Basque nationalism and fertile as regards

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Territory and Terror

nation-state building. The state border crossing Euskal Herria is an important divide in this respect. On the French side of the Pyrenees, collective memory about the state and mass culture differs from that on the southern border. Although the border divides Euskal Herria in more than only a politico-administrative way, Euskal Herria will be taken into consideration as a mobilization environment because of its inclusion in the Basque territorial claims and because of supposed common cultural features. I will describe to what extent all-Basque political initiatives have been taken and what has been their impact in the north and the south. In addition I will compare north–south interaction with the emergence of common Basque identities. The main focus on regional diffusion environments will, however, be linked to the distinct administrative territories, e.g. the three French provinces, and the ‘autonomous communities’ of Euskadi and Navarra. Within these territories my study will be framed towards the roles played by regionalized collective memories, cultural vis-à-vis socio-economic patterning and institutions. The various regions have followed different paths under the dictatorship, with Navarra and the Province of Álava given preferential treatment. Therefore collective memory of Francoist repression varies from region to region – Navarra vis-à-vis Euskadi, Álava versus Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa (Chapter 6). Conversi (1997) has argued that the menace of cultural extinction has induced many ethnic Basques to opt for radical nationalism. Indeed, within Spain, Basque speakers have more of a propensity to become radical nationalists than Spanish speakers. This suggests that cultural patterns marked by language are connected with nationalist diffusion. But how are these patterns connected? Do people incline more towards nationalism when they live in homogeneous Basque-speaking areas or when they live in linguistically mixed settlements? The socio-economic patterning of development within these regional units may affect mobilization. Euskal Herria has a very varied economic geography. I will explore the relationship between the changes in local economy and mobilization. Large-scale enterprise is heavily concentrated in Vizcaya, smaller-scale but geographically scattered factories characterize Guipúzcoa, while Álava is developing rapidly and losing its rural features. In contrast, the French Basque area and Navarra are still the most rural territories of Euskal Herria. Apart from long-term economic transformation, business cycles may have strong local effects on mobilization. The latter can be observed in periods of economic shocks. In boom periods, mass migration may feed ethnic discontent while crisis can add a social dimension to ethnic protest. Institutions are important for mobilization on different geographical scales (Paasi 1997). In states concerned with hegemonic nation building, the official institutions only support nationalization from above. Only non-official institutions may be involved in counter-mobilization. The presence and impact of non-official counter-institutions under a hegemonic nation-state building regime is important for symbolic identification and mobilizing people. In states with a federalized structure, like Spain, the autonomous communities offer both a new opportunity structure for peripheral nationalists and a new territorial administrative milieu in which own institutions can be developed. These institutions, as in the case

Introduction

17

of the nation-state, can be used for nation building and for the development of regionalized infrastructural power. In Chapter 6, I will show that particularly in Euskadi the regional government has allocated a lot of policy resources to fostering Basque nationalism and to creating an alternative institutional base that challenges the state institutions. Finally, the main aim of nationalist apostles is to create a stable group of believers. Like religion, nationalism can be seen as a belief with symbols, rituals and practice. As in the case of religions, social control is crucial in the compliance with rituals and practice. Anthropologists like Heiberg (1989), Zulaika (1988) and MacClancy (1996) have used the magnifying glass to study the attachment of local people to Basque nationalism. Their studies reveal the importance of the locale for the rise of Basque nationalist movements. Violence is perhaps the most salient expression of the Basque conflict. As in the case of diffusion environments, I will trace the international, intra-state and intraregional dimensions of violence. Most descriptions of violence concern targeted attacks that cause physical harm to persons or material damage to objects. I will, however, apply a broader idea of violence in line with currently used conceptualizations of terrorism. In these conceptualizations terrorism combines the use of illegitimate violence to achieve political aims with the manipulation of fear to meet the same ends (Jenkins 1985; Laqueur 1999; Hoffman 1999). The territoriality of the different types of violence ranging from killings to threat will also be explored. Where there is political violence, there are also peacemaking efforts. Institutional plurality has failed in Euskadi as a means of pacification. I will search for an explanation of why plurality arrangements failed in the Basque Country and I will compare more successful arrangements to accommodate sub-state nationalism in other states.

Method, scope and outline The sources to be used consist of secondary and primary sources. The secondary source material consists of scholarly publications, research reports and published surveys. The primary material contains statistics on elections, socio-economic, demographic and language data, newspaper articles and information from the internet. The rest of the primary data was collected via personal observations, visits to Basque institutions and interviews with local politicians. Historically my scope will be limited to the mid-nineteenth century because of my focus on mobilization. Chapters 2 and 3 will deal with nationalization processes from above in respectively the French and Spanish parts of Euskal Herria. Most of the historical studies used for these chapters have been reread and reinterpreted in order to assess the successes and failures of nation-state building in the Basque Country. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 will treat the diffusion environments at lower scale levels. First the shared attributes of all inhabitants of Euskal Herria will be analysed (Chapter 4), then nationalist ideologies and mobilization change in respectively the French Basque Country (Chapter 5) and the Spanish Basque region (Chapter 6). Given the important way the new Spanish territorial administration affects the

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Territory and Terror

development of Basque nationalism and in particular Basque nation building, Euskadi and Navarra will be treated separately in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 will explore the territorial dimensions of violence. The prospects for pacification scenarios will be investigated in Chapter 8. The last chapter will contain some theoretical reflections which compare my empirical findings with some relevant theory and the results of other studies on the Basque conflict.

2

The French-Basque experience How Basques became French

Iparralde, or the ‘Northern Basque Country’, as the nationalists call the French Basque Country, has never been a fertile breeding ground for Basque nationalism. French Basques mainly identify with France. This identification is the result of many centuries of nationalization from above. In the mid-nineteenth century, France was far from being a united nation. The country was a patchwork of different languages, customs and traditions. According to Weber (1976) and Braudel (1989), France was economically fragmented, most areas being badly integrated and to a large degree economically self-sufficient. Communication with the various areas was also poor. People’s identifications were mainly local and at best regional. Almost half of children of school age could not write French. Viewed from Paris, the Basque Provinces were also culturally badly integrated. On Weber’s map of France the Département des Pyrénées Atlantiques in which the Basque Provinces are located, is in the category of predominantly nonFrench speaking. In this respect the Basques were part of a distinct linguistic archipelago situated on the fringe of the French landmass. French nationalizing forces were already operative halfway through the nineteenth century and had contact with the Basques.

Nationalist messages In France the idea of a nation probably goes back to the Middle Ages. Frenchness was linked to history, religion, signs and symbols (Llobera 1994: 54–7). The mythified history of the French nation assumes a Gallic origin, or in Thiesse’s words: ‘The Gauls have been elected as the nation’s ancestors’ (1999: 50). Thiesse argues that the invention of a Gallic origin fits in with a general European eighteenthcentury fashion of romanticizing a Celtic past. The specific French element of the Celtic idealization is its posterior association of Gallic subordination by Frank invaders with the French Revolution. Religious symbols linked the French nation and the monarchy. St Denis was connected with royalty and other patron saints like St Louis and St Michael became the ‘mediators between the divinity and the French people’ (Llobera 1994: 55). Together with the lilies of the royal French arms, the saints disappeared from the French nationalist discourse as a consequence of the Revolution.

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Territory and Terror

During the nineteenth century ideas of what was Frenchness and what was not became crystallized. Frenchness became connected with speaking French. In the nationalist discourse, the meaning of nationalism and patriotism became once and for all associated with the spirit of the revolution (Hermet 1996: 136–7). A legacy of the Revolution was the dominance of secularism in the nationalist discourse culminating in the definitive separation between the state and the church in 1905. These assumed virtues of Frenchness implicitly clarify what was not French or perhaps even anti-French. Other languages spoken in France, often referred to in a disdaining way as patois, and Catholicism had negative connotations. The church and patois were associated with anti-revolutionary sentiments, backwardness and a lack of civilization. Although the Revolution set out the principles of a secular state based on consent, popular sovereignty and French as the only official language, French nationalist ideology only acquired its definitive shape at the end of the nineteenth century. The struggle between church and state, regionalism and centralism and the appropriation of the nationalist and regionalist cause by the New Right in the 1890s finally added the French language to the dominant ideology (Ford 1993). In this respect, educational policies and military conscription, in Hermet’s words ‘national-civisme banalisé’, preceded the establishment of national ideology. ‘Banal symbols’ of national unity had more continuity than nationalist doctrines. The early symbols of the Republic have remained the same up to today. The tricolour and Marseillaise, respectively the flag and anthem, kept their position for two centuries, as did Marianne, the cock and the sword of the Republic. The tradition of placing monuments glorifying the secular republican state in almost every corner of ‘the Hexagon’ was invented during the first decades of the Third Republic (1871–1940). At that time the statue mania was at its heyday as France had its ‘régime statuomanique par excellence’ (Agulhon 1988: 147). July 14, when the Bastille was taken in 1789, is still France’s fête nationale. According to the web pages of the French Prime Minister, July 14 has a symbolic historical meaning expressed in the negation of royal absolutism and the recognition of the nation as the power base. The same pages contain the Constitution of 1958 in which the first article reflects the revolutionary legacy of égalité, liberté and fraternité and the second one the linguistic hegemony of French as the Republic’s official language. The idea of a French nation was spread over the state’s territory through the agents of the state and a business elite that gained influence under conditions of economic modernization. The agents of the state were engaged in public administration, the judicial apparatus and public education. One of the concrete examples of how the content of the French nation-state was transformed into a message to be spread over the state’s population was the role and place of French history and civic education in the school curricula. According to Ozouf (1963), the rise of mass education during the 1870s was accompanied by the instruction of patriotism in civic instruction and history. Common symbols regarding the past such as Joan of Arc, the Revolution and the successful colonial adventures in Africa symbolized and mythified the French unity and socialized the youth. Mass public education, of which the lay school was its main expression, became an important vehicle for

The French-Basque experience

21

the nationalist message. In Ozouf’s words: ‘at the lay school, the patrie played the role confined to God in the congregational school’ (Ozouf 1963: 125). The state not only formulated the nationalist discourse in education by promoting republican values and institutions, it also protected the discourse from religious contamination through the prescription of textbooks. Given the importance of state action, the United Kingdom was, by contrast, rather independent from economic modernization (Hermet 1996: 79). The state’s agents were crucially important for the diffusion of French nationhood to the periphery. These agents were civil servants, notaries, schoolmasters, tax inspectors, policemen and customs and army officers. What was their role in nationalizing the French Basques and how did Basques react to their presence? When did their position as intermediaries in the trickling down of French nationalism become important? Did the geographical pattern of nationalist diffusion follow the same path as the process of economic modernization within the Basque area?

Basque elite and the spread of French nationalism What exactly was the Basque area? In 1659, the area was divided into a French and a Spanish part. Until the Revolution, Basques on both parts of the border had their regional privileges, the fors, in each of the three provinces in France. The Biltzar (Bilçar in French) constituted the elected representatives of municipalities and parishes. Though their influence was decreasing, they were still able to bargain with the French kings. The outer border of three provinces of Labourd, Lower Navarre and Soule corresponded roughly to the Basque cultural area. The Revolution forcibly established the new administrative division into départements. From then on, the Basques lived in the Département des Basses Pyrénées, at present the Département des Pyrénées Atlantiques. They had to share the new département with the Occitan-speaking people of Béarn, east of Soule. The creation of this new administrative unit, which is bigger than the Basque heartland, is still reflected in the present administrative division of most institutions like the Army, the judicial system, the university and the Catholic church (Núñez Astrain 1997: 7). The Revolution can be seen as ‘an introduction of new and secular forces which would further erode the strength of Basque culture and language use in France’ (Jacob 1994: 38). Although, during the next two centuries, the internal administrative division changed several times and accentuated centrality within the département, the administrative area of today is still roughly the same (Chaussier 1996: 30–1). The préfecture, the département’s head office, was and still is located in Pau, outside the Basque Provinces and 120km from the coast. The borders of the communes, the lowest level in the administrative hierarchy, created together with the départements, cut through the valley assemblies that were soon abolished. Although the presence of the state became tangible at local level through the establishments of town halls, mayors, councils, secretaries and constables it had hardly any influence on agricultural practice. Old pasturing rights on commons, now belonging to the upstream village, were left intact (GómezIbáñez 1975: 59–61). Despite some short interruptions, centralism remained the

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cornerstone of French administration. Gómez-Ibáñez (1975: 61): ‘Throughout most of the nineteenth century, national elections were commonly manipulated by the Ministry of Interior, acting through the prefect. In fact vote-getting and election rigging in national elections were often the prefects’ most important duties. Local elections were freer.’ The latter, however, hardly made any difference to daily business because of the limited competencies and concomitant budgets of the communes. Who were the elite of the French Basque Provinces and where did they live? Though there are no historical studies that explicitly provide an answer to this question, it is possible to reconstruct the historical power base and to trace its geographical pattern. Such a reconstruction is mainly based on rereading and reinterpreting the work of Gómez-Ibáñez (1975), Jacob (1994), Lefebvre (1933), and Laborde (1994, 2001). The following picture emerges of a rural periphery in the interior and a modernizing coastal fringe. Compared to the social structure of other parts of France’s periphery, Basque peasant society was rather egalitarian. Economic differences between people were small, though there was a kind of underclass of outcasts, the so-called cagots or agotes (De Otazu y Llana 1986: 168). The family farm was predominantly self-sufficient and could only be inherited by the eldest son. Younger sons had to migrate or to become ministers. Most of the peasant population of the mid-nineteenth century lived in the interior. Due to high population pressure, poverty was widespread (Forné 1990: 409–50). In particular, a lot of people in Lower Navarre and Soule, the two provinces of the interior, departed for the New World and to big French cities like Toulouse, Paris and Bordeaux. In the 25 years before the Third Republic, these provinces lost 20–25 per cent of their populations, which then stagnated during most of the nineteenth century (Jacob 1994: 45–6). For the clergy, the Basque Country, despite its small population of some 120,000 inhabitants, was an important area for ministry with a disproportionally high share of ordinations compared to French areas (Jacob 1994: 47–9). In the rather shallow social landscape of poor family farmers, the local parish priests were regarded as authorities. Given the overwhelming drive for secularization by the French post-revolutionary administrations, local clergy were the natural enemy of the state. The clergy retained their importance as the Basque rural elite throughout the nineteenth century and even ‘till the 1940s moral consciousness depended on approval of the clergy’ (Dubosque and Pailhe 1986: 1070). Jacob (1994: 48) illustrated the intertwining of church and local politics by the Basque word for mayor, hauzaphez, which means priest of the neighbourhood. In contrast to the state’s administration, the church had its headquarters within the Basque domain, with Bayonne being the age-old bishop’s town. Up to the turn of the century, the clergy mainly preached and taught the catechism in Euskera (Basque). Although public administrations had previously attempted to curtail the use of patois by the clergy, only its official banning in 1903 had a substantial effect. According to the decree issued by the prefect in Pau, only French could be used to teach catechism. The surprising decision of the majority of the Basque priests to comply with the new norm could only be understood by the role of

The French-Basque experience

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Bishop Mgr Jauffret. He actively supported and legitimized France’s nationalizing politics within the church hierarchy. Frenchification implied secularization, initially imposed in education during the 1870s and ending up in the separation of state and church. Sometimes measures to secularize schools provoked incidents like the mass manifestation in St Palais in 1880, which followed the expulsion of reverend fathers (Sacx 1968: 196). More common, however, were the reactions in the local press, kind requests by councilmen to postpone the removal of nun teachers, or efforts by the local elite to try and undercut or evade government measures against the church by financing new Catholic écoles libres (Sacx 1968 passim; Mialocq and Lafitte 1988: 79–80). These écoles libres soon formed an extensive network of schools mainly confined to Iparralde (Izquierdo 2001: 68). Basque culture was not the divisive issue with regard to schools. Instead ‘ it was exclusively the ecclesiastic pressure [by which] the confessional school was presented … as more “moral”’ (Orpustan 1980: 154). Up to the Gaullist period, confessional education remained a key political issue in Basque politics (Orpustan 1980: 154). Incidents in Baïgorry concerning school accommodation for private Catholic education during the 1970s showed that confessional vis-à-vis lay education was still a divisive issue at village level because it reflected the class and ideological positions of the inhabitants (Bidart 1977: 196–8). The persistence of Catholic private vis-à-vis lay education is connected with the reproduction of local elites who continued to send their children to Catholic schools (Izquierdo 2001: 82–3). The separation between state and church gave rise to relatively few incidents in Basque Country. In 1906, Biarritz and Bayonne witnessed some mass protest (Sacx 1968: 204–5; Casenave 1982: 476). Bayonne did not have a Bishop between 1902 and 1906 due to the conflict between the Republic and the Vatican. Some villages in the vicinity of Bayonne showed their discontent through revolt (Desport 1985: 179–81). In Briscous the Army had to force the church doors to tackle angry villagers, in Mougerre a priest vainly tried to calm a protest, in Villefranque furious parishioners fought with the army and in Saint-Pierre d’Irube violent incidents occurred that were reported in detail by the local newspaper La Frontière du SudOuest. The forced restriction of the domain of the church turned the local seminaries into ‘seedbeds of subsequent Basque nationalism’ (Jacob 1994: 54). Moreover, restriction reinforced the predominantly Catholic and conservative orientation of Basque political participation in France’s democratic arenas, which lasted to the present day. Basque notables like pelote star Ybarnégaray and tennis champion Jean Borotra were prominent Catholic conservatives in regional and state politics between the two World Wars. They were examples for many Basque politicians at commune and canton levels, namely locally well-rooted native Basque notables who openly flirted with their Basqueness under the umbrella of a French centre-right party, having a crucial role as intermediaries between French national authority and local interests (Izquierdo 2001, passim). During the nineteenth century, the rural interior had little permanent representation from the outside world. There were relatively few commercial exchanges and the fiscal authorities did not regard taxing the area as a priority. The agriculture of the interior remained self-sufficient for a very long time. Laborde (1994) described

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Basque agriculture as semi-autarkic up to 1950 while from then on agricultural commercialization opened up the rural periphery from an economic point of view. More than anything, the diffusion of hybrid corn to substitute the traditional Basque variety of the Grand Roux helped to transform the rural economy, nowadays based on the sale of production surpluses. As Laborde (1994) demonstrated, the delay in economic integration compared to the other rural areas of France was reflected in the spread of cooperatives, agricultural credit facilities, processing plants and machinery. In reality, up to the 1950s, the only important economic exchange of the rural areas with the outside world was smuggling across the Spanish border, an activity that to date has led to stereotyping Basques as smugglers. The only long-term force operational in the countryside came from the state instead of the market. The introduction of the Code civil after the French Revolution harmed the indivisibility of the family farm because of the obligation to share farms equally among the children. The customary heir had to re-buy the property, often with loans or mortgages from wealthier families. Less important maisons could not reimburse the loans. As a result, the heir lost part of the property to the grandes familles leading to a concentration of land ownership and a decrease in the number of farms. Bidart’s (1975: 128) study on the area of Baïgorry estimated that two-fifths of the farms were lost over one and a half centuries. Until the early 1960s, the land market in the interior was mainly local business linked with a concentration of agrarian property. From then on, land was increasingly sold to outsiders from urban areas and this resulted in speculation. In Baïgorry 71.3 per cent of the land sales during 1964–71 were related to non-agrarian destinations (Bidart 1975: 130). The opening up of the land market in the rural interior was a result of tourism development (Bidart 1977: 165). The few agents of the state that were visible were probably the personnel who maintained public order, the gendarmerie, customs officers and some civil servants belonging to the sous-préfectures located in Bayonne and some small towns in the interior. With the generalization of compulsory public education at the end of the nineteenth century, teachers not only constituted a large group of state representatives, but also the most ubiquitous in rural areas (see next section). In the countryside, customs officers and gendarmes, and later on teachers, were often Frenchmen who originated from other parts of France. Quite a lot of customs officers lived in villages near the border. During the 1940s, the village of Sare was home to 72 douaniers and their families. They were visible and respected members of the population (Rémy 1973: 232–3). Gendarmes frequently married local women and were seen as good matches for peasants’ daughters (Douglass 1998: 87). Obviously the other agents of the French state had a similar position on the rural wedding market. Some representatives of the French state were already present on the regional political scene before the Revolution. As early as in 1660, the officers of the bailiwick of Ustaritz, 7km south of Bayonne, tried to expand their jurisdiction over the whole territory of Labourd because they thought it would probably enhance their careers. In 1784, Néville, the administrative official who served as the chief royal representative intendant in Bayonne unsuccessfully proposed bringing the Labourd area under a single administration (Goyhenetche 1999: 311, 314). The authorities in

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Bayonne continued to try to organize Basque space even after the Revolution. In March 1836, the Bayonne Chamber of Commerce sent a mémoire to the King to ask for the creation of a département distinct from the actual Basses-Pyrénées. The quest was not a claim for a separate Basque administrative area. Instead, it reflected Bayonne’s economic power with its commercial influence stretching into the Adour basin and extending into non-Basque areas (Chaussier 1996: 31–2). On the other hand, the claim emphasized the importance of the town’s bourgeoisie at the detriment of a reactionary aristocracy (Chaussier 1996: 70). For centuries, the wealthier and more powerful people of the Basque Provinces were to be found in the coastal fringe of the Labourd Province. Bayonne was the old coastal centre, seat of the provincial administration and residence of merchants who commercialized agricultural production from the hinterland. Since the Middle Ages, wine and subsequently Armagnac, originating from the inner Adour valley, have been exported via its port. Its small silting harbour in the mouth of the river Adour became more important after the construction of breakwaters in 1886, although continuous dredging was required to keep the sandbanks at some distance from the river mouth (Lefebvre 1933: 378–3). Due to its maritime and commercial role, Bayonne was the first node for interaction with the wider world of market and state. Market exchange with the hinterland was initially more focused on the Occitan-speaking Adour valley than on the neighbouring Basque areas. Bayonne’s entrepôt function can be explained by its location close to the Spanish border. Similarly to other European commercial cities, it attracted traders, merchants and shipping agents who made Bayonne ‘both a French and a foreign city’ (Laborde 1994: 209). The town had a cosmopolitan flavour particularly during epochs of favourable trading conditions because it attracted merchants, trading agents and brokers from Europe’s trading cities. The residents spoke Basque, Gascon, Spanish and French and the trading activities also brought Jews and Protestants to the town. When the press started to develop in the nineteenth century, there were several Spanish periodicals among the predominantly French ones (Díaz Noci and Urquijo Goitia 1998). Bayonne-based bascophiles like Antoine d’Abbadie and Captain Jean Duvoisain had many connections with the French elite, some of whom were even in Paris (Goyhenetche 1998). The former was a distinguished member of a learned society in Brussels and, as an explorer of Ethiopia, was involved in the debate on the exploration of Africa (Berger 1998: 26). Some of Bayonne’s cosmopolitan character was reflected in its Lycée international, a boarding school where French and Spanish were used as languages of instruction. The school attracted many Spanish children and youngsters from Gascony and Béarn in the interior of the département, who according to Recteur Bizos in 1901 could nicely reproduce the Castilian sounds (Raoux 1980: 204). Not surprisingly, Bayonne was the first Basque town whose inhabitants developed a mental horizon wider than its direct sphere of influence. The public protest against Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état of 1851 can be seen as one of the early stages of popular commitment to the French state (Margadant 1979; see also the section on strong-state development below). From the mid-nineteenth century onwards the influence of the press, which was mainly based in Bayonne, increased. Through

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Territory and Terror

the newspapers the elite followed the French and European debates between absolutist royalists vis-à-vis liberals and subsequently the debates between bourgeoisie and socialists (Díaz Noci and Urquijo Goitia 1998: 307). A French or even European mental horizon thus characterized the emerging public opinion of the Basque bourgeoisie. The L’Avenir newspaper, for instance, defended a moderate brand of republicanism during the 1880s, provided information on French national and international politics and supported local republican politicians running in elections. L’Avenir supported the ideal image of a provincial bourgeoisie concerned with stability and averse to abrupt change (Faur 1982: 466–7). By the end of the nineteenth century French, instead of Basque, politics occasionally caused conflicts in the rural periphery. For example, the fights during the 1893 elections in the village of Arrast, which resulted in one person’s death, were between republicans and monarchists (Goyhenetche 1998: 183). The last two decades of the nineteenth century gave rise to an expansion of the coastal elite in the Basque Country. North of Bayonne the development of high furnaces and metallurgy and the improvement of port facilities induced urban growth and helped the expansion of a middle class of small businessmen. South of Bayonne the coastal fringe saw the development of a tourist industry, initiated by Biarritz during the 1850s (Laborde 2001). Previously Biarritz had been a small sea resort for the Bayonne middle classes, who introduced French habits in the early nineteenth century. In 1837 local fashion was no longer Basque but French. Men wore a black tie, a straw hat and yellow shoes and women a wraparound skirt in a soft colour, a big straw hat and a coquet dark-blue silk waist apron. Until the First World War Biarritz developed rapidly into a society sea resort attracting members of the international aristocracy such as members of British and Spanish high society as well as the French jet set. Biarritz became a favourite destination of Marie Eugénie, the wife of Emperor Napoleon III. This increased the town’s popularity, and tourism was also boosted by the development of a railway system. The Biarritz cosmopolitan influence was in evidence all along the coast, particularly in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, which became another distinguished beach resort, though less prestigious than Biarritz. In the course of time, Anglet, Guéthary and Bidart were transformed into holiday resorts and the same happened, at a later stage, to Hendaye, Ciboure and Urrugne. Each resort had its own particular clientele. Guéthary, for instance, became the preferred location for the Bordeaux bourgeoisie for whom Biarritz soon became too expensive (Laborde 2001: 44). During the cosmopolitan years, Biarritz’ tourist flow was first French and to a lesser degree British and Spanish. Laborde (2001: 67) stated that the tourists were on average 62 per cent French from 1890 to 1935. The communities of holidaymakers and settled French, British and Spaniards had made their appearance in the hinterland with excursions to Cambo-les-Bains, the mountain of La Rhune, Sare and Saint-Pied-de-Port, particularly after the growth of the use of automobiles. During the twentieth century the aristocratic tourism of the fin-de-siècle was gradually substituted by middle-class tourism from France, and expanded along the coast up to the Spanish border. By 1933, when Lefebvre wrote his monograph

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on the Atlantic Pyrenees, he made mention of electric tramways connecting the whole coastal fringe from Bayonne through Biarritz to Hendaye ‘only for tourist interests’ (Lefebvre 1933: 293). With the development of mass tourism established small and medium tourist entrepreneurs proliferated. Owners of small-scale hotels, restaurants or campsites were increasingly selling a typical Basque folkloric image (Laborde 1994, 2001). For these local businessmen, friendly relations with their French guests were the basis of their subsistence. Today, tourism has become more French and more extensive than ever before. The linear conurbation nowadays encompasses the towns of Bayonne, Anglet and Biarritz and has about 200,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom depend on the tertiary sector. The latter has increased its share in the economy following the closure of the last high furnace in 1964. For centuries the bourgeoisie were outward-looking people, oriented first towards trade and subsequently towards international aristocratic and French middle-of-the-road tourism. It is therefore no surprise that the economic elite of the most developed fringe of the Basque area has always been oriented towards French national institutions, either so that they can direct their political claims or as a means of showing respect. The first linguistic studies conducted during the last quarter of the nineteenth century already located Bayonne and Biarritz in the French-speaking northern fringe of the Basque Country (Lefebvre 1933, passim). Diffusion of other French cultural attributes than language showed a similar coastal bias (Laborde 1994: 76). The Basque coast was introduced into the era of mass consumption in the 1860s when big department stores based on the model of Bon Marché in Paris were established in Bayonne and later Biarritz. In around 1900, in Bayonne, the chains of Printemps, Dames de France and Ville de Madrid established stores, the latter being the most widely spread in the area (Casenave 1982: 473). By the end of the nineteenth century, Bayonne was still a small city of 27,000 inhabitants with a central function as ‘the de facto capital of the French Basque Country’ (Casenave 1982: 469). Apart from being the administrative centre it was also the location of the courts of justice, a hospital and schools and it had a large, 1600-strong garrison. Large-scale consumerism was increasingly reflected in fashion and daily habits, first on the coastal strip and after 1900 in the interior as well. By the end of the 1920s, mundane mass culture had already a modest presence in the rural hinterland. Kurt Tucholsky, the German journalist and writer who published his travel adventures in the Pyrenees, had hoped to enjoy watching traditionally dressed Basques dancing to authentic music in the village of Saint-JeanPied-de-Port. To his annoyance he saw the villagers dressed to bourgeois standards dancing the foxtrot and the two-step (Tucholsky 1991: 52). Sports, initially practised by the happy few in Bayonne and Biarritz, later spread to the inland. In the French Basque area, rugby and swimming became far more popular than among Spanish Basques. Rugby was first played in Bordeaux but soon reached Bayonne in 1897. In 1904, L’Aviron rugby club was established preceded by the Société Nautique (1875), and Le Veloce Club (cycling, 1883) (Casenave 1982: 474). Rugby quickly gained enormous support and created a very

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special atmosphere in the town when the local club L’Aviron Bayonnais played in French competition (Holt 1981: 74–5). Although rugby forged local sentiments that culminated in Bayonne during the French championship of L’Aviron in 1913, the competition was statewide and French. The club song was of course in French. Popular tennis player Jean Borotra, the ‘bounding Basque’, later on Basque deputy in Paris, became a role model not only for Basques but also for the French middle class (Holt 1981: 179). In the Basque interior many local schoolmasters, frequently Frenchmen from outside the Basque area (Bidart 1977: 203–7), started to establish rugby clubs that were soon associated with French secularism. During the 1920s Basque clubs from Saint Pierre d’Irube, Bayonne, Cambo-les-Bains, Saint-Jeande-Luz and Hendaye played in the same competition. French mass culture and consumption started to diffuse from the Bayonne– Hendaye coastal fringe during the end of the nineteenth century and reached the rural inland probably long before it had had intense economic interaction. The early presence of what may be called a modernizing and frenchifying elite on the coast and a peasant society, that was continuously sending migrants abroad and to the French cities, is still echoed in present-day Iparralde. Economic growth, the formation of elite groups and the French language are concentrated in the coastal province of Labourd. Rural exoduses, due first to ecological stress and from the 1950s onward to agricultural modernization, education and the bright lights of Paris, Bordeaux and the Bayonne agglomeration, have resulted in a polarization between Labourd and the two provinces of the interior. The maps of Lefebvre’s book (1933, Planche XXXI) had already revealed a diminishing inland population during a period of 70 years, with all coastal communes experiencing a 100–200 per cent demographic growth. Since the industrial and tourist revolution of the 1880s, Labourd’s population has grown five times. In contrast, the present population of Lower Navarre and Soule, totalling 45,000 inhabitants, is about half the size it was on the eve of the economic revolution on the coast (De Azaola 1988, passim). The few industrial locations in the interior, for example the canvas shoe factories in Mauleón, established in the nineteenth century (Lefebvre 1933: 323–3), and the cottage-industry shoe production units in Hasparren and the old spa of Cambo-lesBains, were tiny industrial islands in a sea of modest peasants. The rural exodus was not only visible in numbers, but also in the creation of a kind of culture which fostered out-migration and resulted in the break-up of traditional family ties and old social networks. The social and psychological impact of the rural exodus had a reinforcing effect on migration (Laborde 1986: 50–4). Peripheral integration of the inland through migration soon made formal education, obviously in French, a passport to the labour market, even to the labour market on the Basque coastal fringe.

Frenchification According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1998: 540), to frenchify means to make French in form, character or manners. The adoption of the use of French in communication is therefore one of the ways Basques have undergone frenchification.

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This section deals with linguistic homogenization, or in other words assimilation to the French language. The use of French was spread first through the imposition of its use by the French kings under the ancien régime by an extremely small group of administrators and notaries, which had hardly any effect on the vast majority of Basque speakers. At later stages, a more widespread acculturation to French took place through education and the emergence of mass media. Education for those who spoke other languages than French did not start as a mission civilisatrice. Instead, until the time of mass education French was used as a means of exerting administrative control over people in the periphery. Napoleon regarded the centralization of education mainly as a way to control the state’s subjects (Suleiman 1978: 17–23). The educational system was therefore organized in a top-down manner, similar to the Company of Jesuits and the army. Centralized education became more and more successful after the Napoleonic era. In the Basque Country outside Bayonne the power holders in the villages generally supported educational initiatives before the government took financial responsibility for primary schooling in 1889. Scarce records emphasize the enthusiasm and concern which motivated village notables to establish and finance schools which were accessible to local boys as in Urrugne in the 1830s (Bruyères and Pialloux 1989: 164–5), or demands to French authorities to contract more teachers in Arbonne (Mialocq and Lafitte 1988: 170). Bidart, a village of humble peasants and fishermen, responded to the initiatives from Paris by establishing schools in the 1870s using local taxes, while laws were passed to enable the construction of schools and the recruitment of teachers (Sacx 1970). In Iparralde, French was a bridging language towards modernity during the eighteenth, nineteenth and part of the twentieth centuries (Jaureguiberry 1994: 42–7). As was the case everywhere in France, knowledge of French increased through education during the nineteenth century. The scant data available mostly relates to the Département des Basses-Pyrénées and not to the separate provinces. In 1863, on the eve of the introduction of compulsory primary education, 875 of 933 schools in the département used only French, while only about one out of five schoolchildren were unable to speak or write the country’s official language (Weber 1976: 500–1). More than 45 per cent of the population in the département lived in non-French-speaking communes. Other information, based on the signing of marriage contracts, suggested that the spread of French into the Basque Provinces was quite successful compared to other non-French-speaking areas. In the Département of Basses-Pyrénées, over 69 per cent of men were able to sign the marriage register by the end of the eighteenth century while 61 per cent were able to do so in the Basque Provinces. Both these figures were higher than the estimated French average of 47 per cent (Poussou 1977: 309). Poussou’s data supported the view of relatively early pre-modern frenchification of the Basque area, mainly confined to the town of Bayonne. Within Bayonne, the non-migrant population of settled citadins, Bayonne-born, were the most literate in French (Poussou 1977: 316). Soulice, the librarian of the city of Pau, drew up statistics on illiteracy in 1872 in the département of the Basses-Pyrénées. His figures deemed all those over six years of age who could not read or write as ‘ignorant’ (Soulice 1873: 4).

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Interpreting ‘ignorance’ as illiteracy, the lowest overall figures were in the cities of Bayonne and Pau with 39 and 40 per cent, respectively. In Saint-Etienne-deBaïgorry, which is in the interior, 75 per cent of the population were illiterate. Higher levels of illiteracy existed in 14 of the Basque cantons. In 10 of the 14 cantons, the illiteracy level was 65 per cent, well above the median of 52 per cent. The city of Bayonne, with its important Gascon-speaking population, was an island of ‘culture’ in a sea of rural backwardness as far as illiteracy was concerned. Soulice (1873: 14) was, however, very optimistic about the near future: ‘All the communes of the département, except one, now have schools offering 409 courses for adult males and four only for women in 1871.’ Almost a decade later, Soulice (1881) wrote an article on the history of primary education in the Basses-Pyrénées in which he illustrated the progress for the département as a whole. Frenchification in the Basque Country was in line with other parts of France as it followed the urban hierarchy and trickled down from the urban elite towards the lower classes (Furet and Ozouf 1977). During the 1870s, education in French became universal in the Basque area, though the regulations were initially rather tolerant of lessons being taught in Euskera (Furet and Ozouf 1977: 342). A school regulation of 1881 for the Basses-Pyrénées stated that ‘French will be the only language used at school, except in the districts of Bayonne and Mauléon, where translation exercises may be done from Basque into French and from French into Basque, limited by its needs, and uniquely with the perspective to teaching the national language to the children’ (Saez 1994: 137). The problem was how to teach French and how to teach in French to children whose language was Basque. This led to awkward situations as in Hasparren, where the children could talk easily in French about concepts such as longitude, altitude degrees or equator, but were not able to hold a simple conversation (Hourmat 1972, No. 128: 280–1). Although the data does not allow any rigid comparison between Iparralde and the Spanish Basque areas it convincingly indicates a more rapid diffusion of French compared to Spanish into the Basque linguistic heartland (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975: 88–99). In the interior, with its two-centuries-old tradition of out-migration, knowledge of French was an asset to becoming a successful migrant in France. This situation persisted until the end of the nineteenth century, before education became universally available in France. After the 1881–2 legislation, compulsory primary education provided by lay schools was extended into the remotest periphery. In many rural areas, however, it took time to obtain full enrolment. Against the background of a successful diffusion of French, the persistent use of Euskera caught the attention of authors like Jacob (1994: 41–2) who emphasized the enormous proportion of the Basque population still using Euskera as their common language on the eve of the Third Republic (1870–1940). The other side of the coin, diglossia, the use of the official language in the public domain while using Basque in daily affairs, is often not mentioned. The ability to write some French was not so poor as estimates of numbers of Basque speakers (often over 95 per cent) might suggest. At a rather early stage, command of French attained a high level

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compared to other parts of the country. Soon after the First World War, the younger generations of Iparralde could all speak French. The diffusion of French via the education system did not always go smoothly. In his pamphlet of 1974, Goyhenetche fulminated against the enforced use of French in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, denunciating the oppressive ways schoolchildren were obliged to speak French and to suppress the use of Basque. Goyhenetche’s examples vary from a local nineteenth-century regulation that forbade speaking ‘indecent words and Basque’ in 1849, to a humiliating practice during the twentieth century that forced children to speak French instead of Euskera (1974: 19–20). However, he ignores the acceptance of French education in the Basque periphery by many parents. In rural Baïgorry the school significantly gained in ideological influence to the detriment of the church and the family after the First World War (Bidart 1977: 154). After the Mitterand Government of the early 1980s the French Ministry of Education very cautiously opened the way for some Basque teaching. Though SEASKA, the Basquization organization promoting the use of Basque in public life and at schools, signed a framework agreement in 1992 in Bordeaux (Cassan 1997: 348–50), the Ministry still sets the terms for the exams. Throughout the twentieth century, Basque children were educated in French, and spoke French with teachers, civil servants, policemen, travellers and tourists. Modern mass media reinforced the use of French. Basque was practically ignored as a means of mass communication. It is almost pitiful to read about the very few Basque-language periodicals that appeared in Iparralde during the nineteenth century in the midst of a growing stream of French newspapers, weekly magazines and specialized periodicals (Díaz Noci and Urquijo Gotilla 1998). Today the most widespread regional newspapers in the Basque Country are perhaps fewer in number compared to one century ago. However, the two newspapers that remained, Sud Ouest and La République des Pyrénées, are written entirely in French and do not have an exclusive Basque circle of readers. The former is published in Bordeaux and covers the whole Aquitaine region while the latter is edited in Pau and has a Basque audience mainly in the Soule Province neighbouring the Pau district of Béarn. Etxezaharreta (1999) lists only seven weekly or monthly periodicals that are published in the French Basque Country. Most of these have only a limited local audience, some are only partially in Basque and others are published irregularly. Compared to the French-language daily newspapers with regional and national coverage they are like Basque drops in a French Ocean. A similar situation applies to radio and TV. The regional Basque branch of the official French system, FR3 Pays Basque, can only transmit for three minutes a day, a situation that symbolizes French hegemony in the media and ‘does not satisfy the Basque cultural world’ (Etxezaharreta 1999). The same might be said of the daily six minutes of Basque TV offered by FR3 (Cassan 1997: 44). The near absence of Basque-language media and the late language standardization established by Spanish Basques forced the Euskera-speaking audience to read and hear French in the media. Despite a totally frenchified environment, many people

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continued using Euskera at home and among friends. Euskera thus persisted for a long time in the private domain despite substantial migration from the Basquespeaking areas and despite the frenchification of the urbanizing coastal fringe. Whereas 40 years ago almost half the population of the three provinces still spoke Basque, at present the language is declining rapidly (see below).

Development of a strong state Today’s France is one of the strong states of Europe. State strength is the result of a long and painful historical process in which wars have acted as a catalyst. Strongstate features are reflected in an established representative democracy, a stable public order and a state guaranteeing infrastructure and a minimum living standard to its citizens. I am going to deal with the routes to stability each of these features took. I will demonstrate that this long-term process, initially characterized by fits and starts, finally ended up as a stable pattern which bridged the country and incorporated and integrated the Basque Provinces. Democratization Mass mobilization and participation in statewide issues had their origins in the Revolution. However, it took more than a century before the revolutionary seeds of mobilization resulted in rooted structures. Clubs that defended modern republican, democratic and social ideas were established in several cities (Amann 1975). During the first half of the nineteenth century, these clubs were only to be found in the big cities and there were practically none in the Basque area. Even after the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1848, the ‘democratic socialist’ coalition, France’s first national party that managed to dominate the centre and south, hardly penetrated the provinces. The rather small and unarmed crowds in Pau and Bayonne (respectively 500 and 200 persons: Margadant 1979: 16), protesting against Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état in 1851, reflected the minor impact of mass insurrection in the Basque area. Margadant’s mention of Pau was just to illustrate that there were towns unable to mobilize the countryside in contrast to other areas (Margadant 1979: 36). Early political nationalization was linked to the commercialization of agriculture, urbanization and proto-industrialization (Margadant 1979; Agulhon 1996). In line with this, the Basque Provinces with their predominantly self-sufficient agriculture remained on the edge of statewide mobilization. The small number of Basques involved in mass protest and the absence of any indication of urban–rural interaction in the protest organization suggest a geographically reduced identification with French state affairs. Such empathy was most probably confined to a small group of Bayonne citizens, a ‘dominating mercantile bourgeoisie’ (De Azaola 1988: 130). The 1848 elections were a prelude to the ‘second birth of universal suffrage’ in 1870 that consolidated the democratic system (Huard 1991: 102–28). Despite the early democratic take-off compared to other European states, universal suffrage for

The French-Basque experience

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women became a reality only at a very late stage (1944–5). Electoral participation was first orchestrated and organized by local committees. By the end of the nineteenth century, nationally organized parties had emerged. Although national elections dealt with issues which were often far beyond the local scope, they still retained a local flavour over the course of many years. Participation in French elections soon reached high levels all over France as shown in the abstention rates in the départements in the 1877 elections. The highest abstention rate was recorded in Corsica in the 35–40 per cent range followed by only six départements in the 30– 35 per cent brackets (Lancelot 1966: 108). Weber (1979: 273) who ranked the départements according to the abstention rate during 1876–1914 showed the Basses-Pyrénées to have the lowest abstention category, therefore indicating a high Basque participation rate. The candidates also exhibited a local flavour, including how they presented themselves to the electorate. With some exceptions – being real national protagonists – the elected candidates were local people, not from the lower classes but landowners, fonctionnaires, businessmen and even nobles. ‘In 1889, out of a Chamber of 576 deputies, there was not a single working peasant’ stated Zeldin (1979: 196) to illustrate the absence of poorer peasants in French national politics. The archetypal local candidate was born in the electoral district where he was a well-known and respected citizen (Huard 1991: 265). The long-term presence of some Basque notables in French politics during the twentieth century illustrates the relevance of intermediaries between the Basque electorate and the state’s democracy (Izquierdo 2001: 64–7). Before becing elected for the Assemblée Nationale, most candidates had already been active in local politics and non-governmental organizations. Sometimes Basque was used in the profession de foi, a statement of political principles, as by Antoine d’Abbadie’s brother Arnaud in nineteenth-century Bayonne to express his religiosity, or to affirm the politicians’ fidelity to the Republic (Huard 1991: 270–1). Catholicism and loyalty to the Republic remained long-standing features of Basque political participation in the French arena. After the First World War, which resulted in the death of 6,000 Basques, the Basque Country experienced the confirmation of the hegemony of ‘a ferocious French nationalism, defender of Catholic and ultraconservative values’ (Jacob and Larronde 1998: 197). The First World War deeply influenced the life of many Basques whose family members had joined up. When, in 1918, the news of the German capitulation reached Biarritz, Madame Marie Lafargue of the Opéra sang the Marseillaise on the balcony of the town hall, soon accompanied by the vibrant crowd (Sacx 1968: 213). Not only on the frenchified coast was solidarity with France expressed during and after the war, but also in other places. In Saint-Pierre d’Irube, which lost 31 of its youngsters from a population of just 786 inhabitants, the municipality provided financial help to displaced French and Belgian families who were housed locally. Such acts may be interpreted as an early sign of empathy vis-à-vis France, a solidarization with ‘us’ Frenchmen (Desport 1985: 178–9). When the festival to the memory of the war was held in Saint-Pierre d’Irube one year after it had ended, the Bayonne newspaper Courrier de Bayonne wrote about the beautiful patriotic songs and the spirit

34 Territory and Terror with which the Marseillaise was sung. During the war, newspapers frequently reported which medals had been awarded to Basque villagers thus connecting Basque local life with French loyalty. Until the Second World War, Basque politicians were often heads of local clans who stayed in power for extremely long periods. Former champion of pelote, the traditional Basque ball game, Jean Ybarnégaray, is a striking example of a clan politician who played a role as a deputy for 30 years to finish his career as a Vichy minister during the Second World War. Such personalized persistence has even remained a feature of modern politics, although this is mainly limited to Catholic conservatism. Political clans lost their grip on part of the electorate after the Algerian crises of the 1960s, but Basque politics remained French politics. Notables who are nowadays involved in Basque politics have lost a lot of their influence. Their successors continue displaying their Basqueness despite belonging to French national parties. Although Basque nationalists have at times done well in elections, power is still divided among French national parties (Dubosque and Pailhe 1986; Izquierdo 2001). These parties reflect the social cleavages related to class, rural–urban contradictions and religion. Even renewed activism for the creation of a Basque département has not mobilized the Basque voters in any substantial way (see also Chapter 5). Public order, draft and tax Crime, protest and insurgencies were controlled more and more by the French state. After the French Revolution, the state initially used brutal force against Basque deserters by deporting 3,000 of them. Only half returned alive (Jacob 1994: 35–6). State repression became more ‘proactive’ instead of ‘reactive’ during the second half of the eighteenth century (Tilly 1992: 115). The increased anticipation by the gendarmerie and police of potential unrest was a result of the increase in the number of police, which led to the eradication of brigandage (Weber 1979: 56). Weber (1979: 60–5) mentions increased police attention in the Basque arrondissement of Saint-Palais to vagrancy and child abuse, while sanctions on the unauthorized use of forests consolidated a low rate of délits forestiers after 1886. Evidently, the courts of justice only accepted French, not Basque, as the language of communication. The only activity that escaped the state’s control on delinquency for a long period was directly related to people’s survival, namely smuggling. In 1972, only three decades ago, the Mayor of Sare, a village on the Pyrenean border, welcomed his interviewer by saying: ‘Here you are in the Mecca of contraband’ (Rémy 1973: 231). Smugglers and customs officers finally disappeared from the scene with the abolishment of borders within the EU in 1986. The maintenance of public order to reduce crime or even to minimize ecological harm as in the case of land clearance was a strong-state feature that was accepted over time in the Basque Provinces similarly to the other peripheral regions of France. Less easy to accept was the extraction of manpower and capital (taxes) to fund state operations. The first coerced action of the state was to force local labour through corvée to construct roads during the 1750s and 1760s (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975:

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75, 77). Systematic military conscription was in force from 1798 onward. Weber (1976: 292–302) describes the long process of accepting military conscription that was initially received with hostility, fear or anxiety and that gave rise to many sorts of evasive practices. He assessed that ‘Auvergne and the Pyrenees specialized in desertion’ (p. 295). Indeed Weber’s maps revealing attempts to avoid military service during the 1819–26 period and ‘non-patriotic sentiment’ observed by military officers or indifference to military interests during the 1820–70 period, all classified the Basses-Pyrénées as being in the less frenchified category (pp. 104–5). Indeed the ‘répugnance pour le service militaire’ caused many potential recruits to escape to the other side of the ocean to settle as emigrants (Lefebvre 1933: 699). On the same page Lefebvre observed that evasion through emigration lasted up to the end of the nineteenth century due to a service time of seven(!) years. The delay in French ‘military’ integration compared to other French regions finally disappeared with the First World War. Apart from the high death toll of 6,000 soldiers, which had a disrupting effect on Basque social and economic life in the countryside, the demobilized soldiers became effective frenchification agents. Basque soldiers, who had been teased by their French-speaking comrades because of their poor command of French, became convinced of the usefulness of French language skills and subsequently changed their parents’ attitudes towards republican and francophone education (Jacob 1994: 55). Obviously, after the war, mass desertion ceased. According to Bortayrou (1998: 428–9), the refusal by 13 Basque recruits to subordinate themselves to military draft between 1992 and 1998 reflects a growing movement towards [Basque] independence. In my opinion however, the refusal should be interpreted as an incident in a century-long history of successfully coerced frenchification. Taxing was the other unwanted state activity that resulted in mass evasion. Evidently, with the increase of the state’s extractive capacity, evasion occurred everywhere in France. However, analogous to desertion, Basques were among the less-disciplined taxpayers of France, as revealed by Weber’s (1979: 107) map based on data from 1834. Nevertheless they shared this position of France’s worst taxpayers with 20 other départements of which 10 were even worse. Basques were thus just as reluctant taxpayers as many other inhabitants of France. The state and redistribution With the expansion of the State’s activities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Basque area became more and more subject to the redistribution of resources. Particularly the two provinces of the interior, Lower Navarre and Soule benefited economically from their position as one of France’s economic backwaters. The provision of transport infrastructure has been especially relevant from the point of view of peripheral integration for two reasons. First it was a visible expression of the integration of the region into the state’s territory while, second, it helped to foster communication with the rest of France and, more importantly from the perspective of frenchification, with other Frenchmen.

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Passable roads were crucial to external integration and the opening-up of the interior, even more than railways. Like most of France, the Basque Provinces were integrated into the roads and railroad system after 1880 (Weber 1979: 42). The corvée of the eighteenth century had already linked Bayonne with Pau and Mont Marsan, while also St Palais, St Jean Pied-de-Port and Mauléon had road outlets about that time (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975: 77–9). Under Napoleon III (1848– 70) internal communications were improved by the construction of roads over the famous Tour-de-France cols of Aubisque and Tourmalet. During the same time Bayonne acquired its railway link with the rest of France (1855), while in 1864 trains connected Bayonne with Madrid. The steep slopes of the interior together with the lack of commercialized agriculture hindered the establishment of a dense railway network. Nevertheless, by 1900, Bayonne was linked with St Jean Pied-dePort via a feeder line to Ossé through Baïgorry. Bayonne’s political pressure as a regional centre of power was remarkable in the process of France’s railway construction (Laborde 1994: 140–4). The city tried to capture part of the traffic to Spain in the face of competition from the railway crossing on the Mediterranean side of the Pyrenees. The Mediterranean link was constructed first and undermined Bayonne’s entrepôt position. At a regional level Bayonne tried to prevent other small towns in the Basque Country from acquiring an outward railway connection for fear of losing part of the economic multipliers. Paradoxically, the penetration of roads and railways to the interior left the peasant economy relatively intact. In contrast, the concentration of transportation infrastructure in Labourd reinforced economic integration with the rest of France and fostered further concentration of industrial and service activities. National integration through the transportation network was more intense than international integration. This could be observed in the dense internal network connecting the Basque Provinces with the rest of France, which contrasted with the few cross-border links to Spain (see Chapter 4). The phasing of road and railway construction was similar to, and perhaps even quicker than, construction in other peripheral areas of France. In the rural interior of Soule and Lower Navarre the development of transport infrastructure even exceeded agricultural modernization. Though no cost–benefit analyses of roads and railways are at our disposal, the connections in the interior were probably not the most lucrative ones, as was illustrated by the abandoning or near-failure of the inland lines (Laborde 1994: 145). The creation of transportation infrastructure in the Basque interior can be seen as a redistribution activity by the State via the channelling of tax money into construction and maintenance. A more obvious case of subsidizing the periphery was rural electrification completed just after the Second World War. Even the most remote farmstead was connected to the electricity grid, with the government paying for the cabling through the Génie Rural (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975: 82). Similar subsidies were granted in the case of school buses and the provision of agricultural credits during the twentieth century (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975: 89). Special assistance provided for regional industrialization also reflected the more favourable position within France of Bayonne and Pyrénées Atlantiques (Clout 1975: 125–7).

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Among the manifold state activities, the rise of the French welfare state has been a factor which contributed to the disappearance of traditional lifestyles. In particular, the introduction of early retirement arrangements for farmers, the Indemnité Viagère de Départ, and the construction of many old people’s homes have contributed to the break-up of the way of life dominated by the multi-generational family living on the farmstead (Laborde 1986: 77). The state’s impact on the Basque region originated from a highly centralized structure that has only slightly been eroded by recent decentralization policies.

Territorial administration: cosmetic decentralization France’s centralization was mitigated under the Mitterand Government of the early 1980s. Due to the influence of immigrant groups, more attention was paid to minority cultures (Safran 1989). The increasing recognition of cultures other than French soon opened up possibilities for the development of special policies at regional levels. Moreover, decentralization soon transferred some powers to lower administrative tiers. In 1983, French law was changed to provide more competencies to regions, départements and communes. According to Baguenard (1996: 30–5), the main results of the decentralization on each of these three administrative tiers were as follows. Regions received more, but no exclusive competencies in the field of regional planning. For the Basques this meant that some planning power was shifted from Paris to Bordeaux, Aquitaine’s capital, 200km north of Bayonne. The départements received more power with regard to social security and school transport, a power concentrated in Pau, while the authority of the lowest administrative level was increased with regard to town planning. In many domains, Baguenard (1996) observed a tangle of competencies between the tiers. For cultural peripheries, like the Soule and Lower Navarre Provinces, the new territorial administration of education and culture is particularly relevant to the creation of opportunities to slow down frenchification. Higher education is still the state’s exclusive responsibility, though after consultation with the ‘collectivités concernées’ (Baguenard 1996: 33). Secondary schools for children in the higher age groups (15–18 years) and at superior level – the lycées – are under the jurisdiction of the region and have to comply with the national plan. High schools for lower age groups (11–15 years) – collèges – are under the administration of the département, while those in the younger age categories are under the responsibility of the commune. The French Ministry of Education still has much to say in the way the main ethnic marker, Euskera, is integrated in the curricula. The margins of the use of Euskera at school are therefore still set by the state, as is illustrated by Cassan (1997: 60–1, 348–50) who clearly shows the decisive role of the Recteur de l’Académie in Bordeaux in sanctioning and conditioning its use. Cultural activities outside the realm of language, like museums, dance, arts, archives and libraries come under the supervision of various sub-state levels. The control of public expenditure was mainly in the hands of the prefects. After decentralization, control changed to become more of an ex post facto check of the legality of public expenses by an administrative court, while the budgetary control

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remained in the hands of the prefect and the regional accounting chamber. Thus, the central state still determines the decision-making space for regions and départements. France’s administrative reshuffling of the 1980s therefore resulted in cosmetic decentralization. In this way decentralization hardly weakened frenchifying forces.

The current situation: the present distribution of Frenchness The state of Frenchness is reflected in the way people behave like Frenchmen and the extent to which they feel French. French behaviour can be observed in the use of language, voting patterns and French mass culture. Feeling French is seen here as ethnic self-perception (Mansvelt Beck 1999a). Language and self-perception are not as closely related as might be expected because self-imagined Basque or French identities only partially overlap with regard to language attributes. One of the best recent surveys on language was conducted in 1991 by the Aizpurua team (1995). At first sight the publication refers to rather high proportions of people still able to speak Euskera compared to the Spanish Basque Country. Based on Aizpurua (1995: 60) the following figures are a testimony to the frenchification history. One out of every three inhabitants is still able to speak the old language, though only one out of five do so more or less fluently. Over two-thirds are thus mainly French-speaking. For 59 per cent, French is their only language of communication and for 7 per cent it strongly dominates as they are so-called passive bilinguals. The geographical language distribution confirms the historical penetration of French from the more developed and better integrated coastal area into the interior, with coastal Labourd having 66 per cent French speakers and 7 per cent passive bilinguals in Basque (Aizpurua 1995: 62–3). The interior provinces of Lower Navarre and Soule have respectively 35 per cent and 23 per cent French speakers (respectively 3 per cent and 14 per cent passive bilinguals). The most populated and economically advanced part of Iparralde is at the same time the most Francophone area. The newest estimates, which state that only 6 per cent of children still speak Basque as their mother tongue, suggest that the use of Euskera is now in a ‘free fall’ (Jacob 1999: 156). From a frenchification perspective, the rapid decline can be interpreted as an accelerated frenchification, scarcely hindered by measures to protect Basque. In politics, representatives can be elected to the Assemblée Nationale, the Parliament of the Region of Aquitaine and the councils of groups of municipalities or cantons and the municipalities or communes. At European elections, France elects 87 deputies for the Parliament by universal suffrage. In France the most effective political power still comes from the National Assembly. The ‘Basque’ presence is nowadays limited to one socialist deputy for Anglet, Bayonne (Nicole Perry) and two deputies of the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) Party, Michèle Alliot-Marie (Biarritz, Hendaye) and Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Michel Inchauspe (RPR). The Basque voice is embedded in French mainstream parties. This fits in

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with the general French pattern of regionalist interests, politically defended by French instead of regional parties. Consequently, many scholars of present-day regionalism in France pay a lot of attention to the party programmes of the main French parties instead of the discourse of ethnic or regionalist parties (see for instance Safran 1989; Rousseau 1987). A frenchified party representation is also shown in the parliament of Aquitaine, where the 17 seats for Pyrénées Atlantiques (out of 85 elected) are all occupied by ‘French’ parties. RPR (Biarritz), Socialists (Bayonne and Ispoure), UDF, and the CPNT ecologists (Bayonne) elected on 15 March 1998 represent the Basques in the regional arena. At lower levels, Basque ethnic parties have recently attained a share of around 20 per cent of the valid votes in some cantons and municipalities, reaching an overall percentage of 12 in the 2001 cantonal elections. This increase, though impressive compared to earlier Basque nationalist scores, implies, however, that French parties still dominate Iparralde’s electoral landscape (see also Chapter 5). These French parties are dominated by frenchified Basques as is illustrated by the following sample from the biographies of elected mayors in 2001. The Mayor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Michèle Alliot-Marie, was re-elected in the first round on 11 March 2001 for the French conservative RPR. She is currently a deputy for RPR in the Conseil Général of the Pyrénées Atlantiques and during the Seventies she occupied important functions in the French national Administration where she is still active as a commission member for foreign affairs. Her curriculum vitae as published in the French daily Le Figaro on 12 March 2001 includes obvious proof of her Frenchness: ‘Membre de l’Assemblée parlementaire de la francophonie’. Franck Borotra, Mayor of Biarritz for RPR, was a Minister during the mid-1990s and is RPR Député for the département of Yvelines, situated not far from Paris and is also conseiller général of this département. Jean Grenet, apart from being Mayor of Bayonne, is conseiller régional for right centrist UDF for Aquitaine. He was previously a deputy in the French National Assembly for Pyrénées Atlantiques. As a Bayonne, Mayor Grenet is the successor to his father who was in charge from 1959 to 1989. The frenchification of the Basque life style is almost complete. Obviously French and even cosmopolitan lifestyles were introduced at an early stage in Bayonne and later on in the tourist areas of the coast. It took a long time for the Basque heartland to open up to a fully French lifestyle. Traditional lifestyles started to disappear with the process of agricultural modernization that started in the 1950s. Whereas, in the past, French legislation on the inheritance of agricultural land could not destroy the traditional system of undivided family farms, the remaining farmers no longer work and live in a conventional way. They behave more and more like agricultural entrepreneurs, buying up land left behind by migrating peasants and seeking additional incomes from tourism. The erosion of Basque family life and conformation to French habits, timetables, contracts, forms, schools and municipal regulations have been the results. The French Basques still enjoy pelote basque, their traditional sport. Modern sports like rugby, swimming, cycling and soccer have also become very popular. Dancing in the discotheque is now the favourite weekend-night distraction among the youngsters and that has helped to reduce the old Basque dances to mere folklore.

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The French Basques mainly speak French, vote French and act French, but do they also feel French? Aizpurua’s survey (1995: 206) provides a provisional answer to this question. Almost half the Basques interviewed feel French (35 per cent) or more French than Basque (11 per cent). An equally French-as-Basque identity is claimed by 29 per cent of the respondents, while 19 per cent feel themselves predominantly Basques (13 per cent Basque and 6 per cent more Basque than French). The large number of respondents expressing a mixed Basque French or French Basque identity (52 per cent) reveals that the frenchification of the mind has perhaps taken place at a slower pace than frenchification of behaviour.

3

The Spanish-Basque experience A case of weak nation-state building

Seville, 16 October 2000: after a terrorist incident a local policeman shot an ETA member, who had just killed a Spanish military doctor, in the shoulder. ‘¡Estoy herido en el hombro!’ (‘I’m hurt in the shoulder!’), he shouted to his mate. His cry, in Spanish, reflected in a nutshell the ambiguity of many militant Basques. The etarra was prepared to take the personal risk of being killed for the sake of his deeply felt Basqueness, symbolized by ETA in Euskera. On the other hand, Basqueness in a linguistic sense was apparently absent in this person. In this chapter I will demonstrate that this etarra embodies the way many Basques have been nationalized from above. They combine successful language diffusion with incomplete nationstate building. The weakness of Spanish nation-state building is shaped by a history characterized by contradictory messages about the essence of the nation state and a lack of continuity in the transmission of nationalist messages. Besides interruptions in the process of democratization, discontinuities in the process of state legitimization have contributed to a weak nationalization from above. Like France, the Spain of the mid-nineteenth century was far from being united. Spain’s situation was similar regarding the languages spoken, customs and traditions that divided the country into a multitude of patrias chicas hardly connected with the outside world. Localism and particularism were usually reflected in a mental horizon restricted to nearby market towns and neighbouring villages. Although Spain’s territorial organization had been centralized since the coming of the Bourbon kings in the early seventeenth century, the mental map of the average Spaniard followed the mosaic-like pattern of local, and at best regional, communities and cultures. The Spain of the 1860s could be regarded as a less integrated and nationalized version of France. About one-third of its population did not speak Castilian, the official language, in comparison to one-quarter of French people who did not speak French. The transport system of roads and railways was worse than north of the Pyrenees. Compared to France, the authority of the state was weak in Spain’s periphery. It was within a poorly organized and fragmented state territory that concepts of Spanish nationalism were formulated and contested.

42 Territory and Terror

Nationalist messages Ideas about Spanish identity already existed before the age of mass mobilization. As in the case of France, images of the Spanish nation were already present in the Middle Ages (Fusi 2000: 45). According to Llobera (1994: 70) some authors even suggest that a Spanish national spirit dates back to the seventh century. After the unification of Castile and Aragon by the marriage of Isabela and Ferdinand in 1479, the main unifying force in Spain was religion. Religious purity also represented the essence of Spanishness during later centuries. Other more secular views on Spanish identity gained some momentum with the rise of liberalism in the nineteenth century. While, from the 1870s onward, the French political class could diffuse a common idea of French identity, the Spanish political elite of the nineteenth century never formulated a uniform ideology capable of nationalizing the minds of the Spaniards. From the start of mass mobilization, the elite strongly disagreed about the basic features of the Spanish nation and identity. Controversy, debate and even hostility among thinkers, ideologues, historians, writers or politicians about the essential identity of Spain characterized the spiritual climate of the country’s core. Fox (1997) sketched an incredibly rich intellectual life in Madrid in the era of liberalism and regeneracionismo. Paraphrasing Anderson (1991), Madrid’s elite did not produce one ‘imagined community’ but several of them. Unlike France, Spain did not have a contradiction between secular forces dominating the state’s politics and a Catholic Church trying to control education. In France, the full separation between church and state took place at the turn of the century, while in Spain church and state became separated only after the restoration of parliamentary democracy in 1977. Conceptualization of the Spanish nation in the nineteenth century was connected to the following political currents, each of them having its own support base and each having a divisive influence on Spanish society till today. The first current was conservative Catholicism in which the idea of a Spanish nation had a predominantly religious content. As Carr (1982: 351) put it: ‘To conservatives, religious unity was synonymous with Spanish greatness; it was not her shame but her glory that she had remained isolated and immune from progressive but “dissolvent” ideas from Luther to Voltaire.’ In the Catholic conservative view, public morals belonged to the domain of the church, which had to be the guardian of Christian values. As such the Catholic idea of Spanishness helped to preserve the status quo. The Spanish ‘race’ was glorified through its past of reconquista freeing the nation from anti-Christian blemishes and by its successful Christianization of its former colonies. During Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship (1923–30) and in particular during early Francoism, the crusade metaphor was used to emphasize Spain’s liberation from secular influences. Support for the Catholic idea of nationalism came from the traditional landed elite and the higher clergy. In contrast to France, the liberal view of the nation was not connected with an entirely secular and civic conceptualization of the nation-state. Instead, during the restoration (1875–98) a conservative moderado and a progressive liberal orientation could be observed. In the moderado orientation, a more conservative idea prevailed

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of a Spanish nation in which Catholicism as a component of Spanishness could persist. Not surprisingly, the church’s claims were accommodated by the moderados of Prime Minister Cánovas in the Constitution of 1876 through recognition of Catholicism as a state religion, while tolerating the practising of other beliefs in the private sphere. The progressive brand of liberalism which advocated representative democracy, civic society and a secular nation-state based on consent was supported mainly by the emerging middle class in those areas where industry and trade were developing. Efforts to promote this more civic conceptualization of nationalism based on a common future were frustrated by clerical and monarchist forces. By the end of the nineteenth century, the spectrum of modernizers was enlarged by socialists and anarchists, of whom the former held a more federalist and pluralist idea of Spain (Moreno 1997) and the latter had a non-national conceptualization of society. On the other hand, Spanish nationalism was contested by nationalist messages from the periphery, of which Catalan nationalism was the most successful in terms of mobilization and nation-building projects. The state’s role in education was the main battleground throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The points heavily debated between the various protagonists of Spanish nationalism concerned the state’s responsibility to provide education and the contents of education. The role of the state vis-à-vis the church in the provision of education was an ongoing dispute, even during the dictatorial periods of Primo de Rivera and Franco. Should education be publicly funded as the progressive liberals and later on the socialists and fascists wanted, or could church congregations continue to organize their own private education as the conservative supporters of the clergy advocated? Moreover, who should do the teaching, only state-paid personnel or perhaps teachers belonging to religious orders like Jesuits, LaSalleans, Piarists, Salustianos, Marists, Augustinians, or Teresianas? The second controversy was related to educational content. Should the moral content of education reflect civic, secular patriotism and if so what type of patriotism? Or should only Catholic values connected with Spanishness be proliferated? Boyd’s historical study (1997) on the construction of Spanish national identity in history textbooks reveals the persistence of diverging opinions on the Spanish nation. Until the 1960s, the Spanish Ministry of Education had never been able to impose a format on the contents of the curriculum in history. This is still reflected in today’s political debate on the importance of contemporary history in the teaching programmes, in particular its role in the diffusion of civic culture. The lack of conceptual homogenization of the history texts was a reflection of both the ideological disagreement and the weakness of the state, the latter expressed in a long-lasting respect of the autonomy of the catedráticos, scholars occupying the ‘chairs’ of the secondary schools (Boyd 1997: 17). Catedráticos were considered as independent scholars, not ‘normal’ civil servants subject to standard procedures, and were able to write and teach their own interpretations of history, though during the early Franco period many of the Republican teachers were purged. Competing institutions reflected clearly different images of the Spanish nation.

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The machinery that developed and diffused a liberal, progressive and civic nationalism initially consisted of the Ateneo de Madrid and the Institución de Libre Enseñanza, initiated by independent citizens (Fox 1997: 28–32). In addition, the Centro de Estudios Históricos was created by the Government to modernize the historical discipline in 1910 (Boyd 1997: 147–50). These institutions wanted to transform Spain into a nation where rationalism, civic and democratic values and practice prevailed. The voice of civic nationalism was slightly louder during the regeneration or regeneracionismo (1898–1923), the Second Republic (1931–6) and after the restoration of parliamentary democracy (1977–today). Secular civic nationalism was visible and exerted influence on the nationalization of Spain from its institutions and in politics but it never became hegemonic as in France. In Spain the church was obviously better organized than the state. Clergy remained influential in the political arena, whereas in education the church increased its efforts to organize its own educational facilities in response to expanding public education. During the 1880s, many private church-linked schools were established due to a proliferation of religious orders devoted to education (Boyd 1997: 23–30). By the end of the nineteenth century, Catalanists, anarchists and radical republicans began to challenge the public system (Boyd 1997: 39–40). Though ideologically the church did not fundamentally change its conceptualization of Spanish identity, it did change it in two ways that helped to impede the diffusion of a secular civic nationalist conceptualization. The first way was to abolish the old instrumental autonomy from the state by entering into the public budget system. Church-organized education could thereby benefit from public resources during the Primo de Rivera period. During this era the nationalist right had sympathy for Catholic schooling and for state education (Boyd 1997: 169). While the state increased its budgetary and logistic control on education, the church gained ideological control (Boyd 1997: 170–1). Therefore, with regard to education the church crept into the state’s sphere of influence, while in France the state cast the church aside. The second way to compete with the modernizers of the Institución de Libre Enseñanza was to use more modern pedagogical and didactical methods. Father Manjón, a priest from Andalusia, introduced progressive pedagogical methods that were quite innovative at the end of the nineteenth century. Instead of dry texts that had to be memorized, he introduced active learning methods involving games, open-air instruction and so on (Boyd 1997: 26– 7). However, the content of Manjón’s curriculum did not change since it also was based on a Catholic, conservative and anti-liberal morality. During most of the twentieth century, education in history, civics and geography in both public and Catholic schools continued to use out-dated methods based on the rote learning of lengthy and arid texts. Early Francoism glorified the great historical conquests of Spanish Christianization and rejected ‘modern’ secular influences that came from abroad. A whole range of ‘isms’ was banned from public life. ‘Freemason’ism, Protestantism, Communism, Socialism, etc. had nothing to do with a Spain that was ‘different’ and obviously better off than other countries. However, social reality in the devastated postwar economy did not coincide at all with the mythification of Spain’s

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past. The national-Catholic ideology that excluded secular and civic views from public life vanished with the increasing participation of technocrats in Government and administration at the cost of Falangists (Spanish fascists) and orthodox Catholics. Television, the most important new medium, downplayed political ideology and put soccer and amusement in the foreground. In education as well, Spanish nationalism lost importance. When, during the 1960s, the Franco regime liberalized the economy and tried to modernize education, history was marginalized in the curriculum. The democratic transition led to a shift in nationalist messages from above. The 1978 Constitution represents Spain as a multi-national state. While the 1932 and 1936 constitutions that respectively granted autonomy to Catalonia and opened the way to autonomy for the Basque Country, Navarra and Galicia, were hardly effective due to political turmoil and the civil war, today’s Constitution has a deep impact. To accommodate sub-state nationalism, the present Constitution recognizes the ‘will of the Spanish nation’ in its Preamble, while Article 2 refers to the existence of both a ‘Spanish nation’ and ‘the right to autonomy of the nationalities and regions’. The Constitution is pluralistic compared to previous texts because it includes the possibility, albeit in rather abstract terms, of rights for nationalities within the nation. Most Catalan or Galician nationalists have accepted this implicit pluralist message. Basque nationalism is, however, the exception to the rule as it has always rejected the new Constitution (see Chapter 6). The lack of a common interpretation of Spanish historiography among Spanish nationalists has lasted up to the present day. The lack of common ground is also reflected in the absence of sustainable national symbols. Neither republican nationalism nor national Catholicism has been able to impose symbols that could survive regime change. ‘Banal nationalism’, as Billig (1995) termed it, does not have such a long-lasting presence in the Spanish streets as for instance in France. At the start of the twentieth century there were hardly any national monuments, no statue mania as in France of the 1870s. At the end of the nineteenth century, the nationalist and religious monuments that were erected reflected the rivalry between clericalism and nationalism (Álvarez Junco 2001: 557–61). The national anthem was a latecomer in Europe as was the flag. After Franco’s death, many street names recalling the Caudillo or the notorious Falangist martyr José Antonio Primo de Rivera were replaced by the old neutral ones like Gran Vía or Paseo de la Estación. In other domains of life, early legislation potentially promoted nationbuilding in the form of, for instance, military conscription and mass education. However, as I will show later, nationalizing laws had little to do with reality because their implementation was far from effective. Competition between Spanish nationalist views supported by institutions belonging to a weak infrastructure impeded the development of one unifying Spanish identity. Moreover illiteracy, poverty and persistent localism were obstacles to the formation of an all-embracing Spanish identity. Until the early 1960s, a significant proportion of the population was illiterate and primarily interested in physical survival and not receptive to any nationalist message. The lack of identification with a Spanish nation-state was visible in deeply rooted localism,

46 Territory and Terror regionalism and sub-state nationalism. ‘Nineteenth century Spain was a country of official centralism, but of real localism’, in the words of Fusi (2000: 165). The survey of Sangrador García (1996) on identities and stereotypes in the Autonomous Communities of Spain has shown that localism is still vital. Except for the Madrilenian respondents, a significant proportion of the other Spaniards, including the inhabitants of all Castilian-speaking regions declared themselves amantes de su tierra, or ‘lovers of their homeland’ (Sangrador García 1996: 140–3). The relatively high scores on localism for people outside Madrid do not imply, however, that Madrid was the exclusive centre of Spanish identities. In the Basque Country, Spanish nationalism had its own urban-based institutions. As a counteraction to early Basque nationalism the Liga de Acción Monárquica was created in Vizcaya, while at the same time the Bilbao newspaper El Pueblo published a lot of articles with a Spanish nationalist content, written by well-known intellectuals (Fusi 2000: 241). Even today, a major part of the regional Basque press can still be seen as españolista (see next section).

Basque elite and the spread of Spanish nationalism When, in 1659, the Basque area was divided into a French and a Spanish part, Spain was still a kind of loose confederation. Regional privileges applied all over the country. For the Basques, the fueros, the Iberian version of the fors north of the Pyrenees, assigned a high degree of regional authority to the three so-called historical territories of Álava, Guipúzcoa, Navarra and Vizcaya. A fuero was originally a charter between a locality and a lord or king to recognize local customs, rights and privileges. They can be traced back to Visigoth Spain (Collins 1986: 200–1). In contrast to the charters in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, the Basque fueros encompassed larger areas. When, in 1833, Spain’s territorial administration was modelled according to the French départements, the newly created provinces coincided with the four fueros. During the preparatory phase, the peculiar features of Basque culture and history were used to discuss whether Álava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya should form one province or three (Burgueño 1996: 118, 145–6). When, in 1834, provinces were subdivided into administrative districts, partidos judiciales, the four Basque foral territories remained exempt (Burgueño 1996: 163). In contrast to France, where the Napoleonic borders of the departments cut through old kingdoms, language areas or, as in the case of Iparralde, merged but linguistically different areas, the Spanish centralization project respected old cultural boundaries far more. Carlism emerged in the 1830s as a reaction against centralization and homogenization. Its support base was mainly in Catalonia, the Basque Country and the ancient Kingdom of Navarra. Carlism was an anti-modernization movement comprising rural and small-town people (Payne 1975: 42). Unlike the Catalan Carlists, the Basques were keen to save the fueros. The old local elites, landed peasantry, lower clergy and town-based merchants, artisans who were threatened either by industrial development or by their survival because the fueros had hitherto exempted them from taxes and protected the ‘old’ economy were being

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challenged by the rising elites. The latter were linked to liberalism and industrialization. Discontent about the abolition of the fueros of 1877 was, however, renegotiated by the central administration with the provinces. The provinces, though centralist creations of Minister Javier de Burgos in 1833, were able to act as new, more or less representative bodies in defence of regional interests. In this way they managed to recover a certain degree of fiscal autonomy. However, some aspects of autonomy soon disappeared. The customs that were formerly on the outer border of Navarra and the three Basque Territories (the 1833 provinces), and even at micro-level, were abolished in 1841, as were the aduanillas (small customs) between Guipúzcoa and Álava. After the Civil War, Franco punished Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa for their support for the Republic during the Civil War by bringing them entirely under central control. Conversely Navarra and Álava were authorized to continue their ‘foral’ regime and that brought with it many fiscal privileges. The Spanish equivalent of the French communes were the municipios or municipalities, the lowest level in the administrative hierarchy, which were hardly affected by centralization initiatives. Spain’s policies aimed at transforming agriculture did not have much impact in the Basque Country or Navarra. Old pasturing rights on commons, organized at valley or municipal level, remained fairly untouched (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975: 62–5). Civil administration left the Basque countryside relatively unaffected. Gómez-Ibáñez (1975: 139–40) for instance found that in the 1890s the cadastral service of Navarra still employed the traditional Navarre measure of robada instead of metric units. Sixty years before France had already introduced a uniform registration system. Spain’s weaker centralization offered more opportunities to the local elite to develop counter-nationalism around alternative symbols. For the Basque area such opportunities did not, however, imply the absence of Spanish nationalism among the Basque elite. Who were the elite of Hegoalde, as many Basque nationalists now call the Spanish Basque Provinces and Navarra? Where did the elite live and to what extent did they develop Spanish nationalist ideas? As in the case of Iparralde, no historical studies explicitly provide an answer to these questions. Here too the historical power base and its geographical pattern have to be reconstructed by rereading and reinterpreting the studies of Linz (1973), Gómez-Ibáñez (1975), Payne (1975), Corcuera Atienza (1979), Zirakzadeh (1991), Conversi (1997) and many others. At the risk of overgeneralizing what Douglass called ‘the labyrinthine nature’ of its history (1998: 71), the following features can be observed. As in France, Basque pre-modern society was rather egalitarian. The supposed collective nobility, the hidalgía colectiva, granted by the Spanish kings, however, concealed social inequality and the existence of asymmetrical and exploitative labour relations. At the top of the social hierarchy De Otazu y Llana (1986) distinguished the so-called parientes mayores, powerful families owning land, grain mills and iron forges, able to maintain feudal and asymmetrical exchange relations with the less wealthy. The latter consisted of landed peasantry – the poorer farmers – and a rather large group of total have-nots, the so-called agotes, who lived separated from society on the Pyrenean foothills. As in Iparralde, on the autarkic farms only the eldest son was eligible to inherit the property. In Hegoalde as well the inheritance

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system gave rise to migration to other parts of the country and to the Americas and also led to a high proportion of Basques entering convents. Until the final abolition of the fueros the traditional Basque elite, whose interests were linked closely to those of the clerics, remained in power. At first sight, Basque society seemed rather unaffected by centralization efforts. The financial tentacles of the state that affected most of Spain during the desamortizaciones of the 1830s and the 1850s had little impact in Hegoalde because of the resistance of respectively the clergy and the provincial authority. Though liberalism was also introduced into parts of the urban bourgeoisie, it was soon transformed and adapted by the traditional elite, leaving little political influence for the still modest urban middle class (Rubio Pobes 1996: 307–19). The traditional elite soon acquired hegemonic power in the provincial authorities that controlled most new state institutions in the Basque area. The Basques actively participated in the Carlist wars, whose significance for the development of Basque nationalism is still disputed by scholars (see further on in this chapter). However, an important issue of Carlism was how Spain should be administered. According to the Carlists, Spain had to be a Catholic nation instead of a secular country. Moreover, the regional charters had to be recognized against the current of centralization. Hegoalde was an important battleground for these Spanish national questions. Although the Basque political class, of whom many were Carlists, was eager to keep their control of the regional administration, this did not imply a disinterest in Spanish politics. Basque ministers, high-ranking civil servants, officials and royal advisors were part of the Spanish scene, as were the Basque migrants who occupied more humble positions. A section of the Spanish political elite started to frequent San Sebastián, Lequeitio and Zarautz during the summer from the 1850s onward and converted these places into seaside resorts for Madrid’s high society at the turn of the century. In contrast to Iparralde, the spatial concentration of Hegoalde’s elite was not linked to one urban area due to a more complex urban hierarchy. In the mid-nineteenth century the biggest cities were still modest centres of innovation. Bilbao, San Sebastián, Vitoria and Pamplona each had some 20,000 inhabitants. The majority of the population lived in the countryside on individual far-flung farmsteads in the humid areas and concentrated in nuclear villages of España seca in Navarra and Álava. The survival of the traditional political class was soon at stake as a consequence of the industrial revolution and the final abolition of the fueros in 1876. Bilbao and San Sebastián were mainly Castilian-speaking towns, surrounded by Basque-speaking areas. Pamplona – where Castilian is also the vernacular language – was situated in the transition zone between Euskera in the north and Spanish in the south, while Vitoria was the centre of a mainly Castilianspeaking province. Bilbao became the paramount locus of a changing society. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century it was the Basque boomtown due to the establishment of furnaces, the increase in other metallurgic industries and shipbuilding, followed by the banking sector (De Azaola 1988: 141–55). The city’s population almost tripled during the last quarter of the century, to a total 83,000 inhabitants in 1900. Most of the population growth was caused by migration from other parts of

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Spain, which in turn gave rise to an urban proletariat of predominantly nonBasque origin (Ruiz Olabuénaga and Blanco 1994: 38–9). The introduction of Spanish workers into urban society contributed to the rise of socialism. Spanish socialism had one of its historical strongholds in the industrial districts of greater Bilbao. For the development of socialism, the working-class districts on the left bank of Bilbao’s Ría Nervión can even be seen as an autonomous diffusion centre instead of a satellite of Madrid (Fusi 1984: 147–56). At the same time, however, socialism was not essentially españolista because it emphasized more the ‘universal class identity’ than the ‘particular identity of the nation’ (Beriain 1997: 149). Industrialization linked Vizcaya with Great Britain. Specialized British technicians and engineers were contracted by the newborn industry. The coal boats that brought them to Spain increasingly took middle-class youngsters from Bilbao to the UK in order to study at high-standard institutions, such as polytechnics. These youngsters, encouraged by British migrants, introduced and popularized soccer in Vizcaya. Economic modernization of Guipúzcoa took another course than of Vizcaya as it combined the development of high-class tourism, initially of an aristocratic brand on the coast, with the dispersed spread of manufacturing. Industrialization was patterned around old working villages and small towns specializing in producing arms, bicycles and other metal goods that could be made in small factories. Proportionally more labourers came from the neighbouring farmsteads, spoke Euskera and had more sympathy for political manifestations of Basque identity. In the industrial townships of Guipúzcoa, the pueblos-taller, the socialists of the early twentieth century, spoke Euskera before an audience of skilled workers and were more or less on speaking terms with the Basque nationalists. Conversely the socialists of Vizcaya clashed constantly with Basque nationalists, Liberals, Republicans and Monarchists (Eguiguren 1994: 6–34). However, the socialists of Vizcaya under the leadership of Indalecio Prieto, Minister during the Second Republic, became more willing to compromise with Basque nationalists and they gradually adopted ideas as to how to federalize Spain. In 1936, on the eve of the Civil War, Prieto wrote the only pre-war Autonomy Statute of the Basque Country, which only took effect during the beginning of the Civil War. Obviously, the Bilbao socialists had their own protagonists, intellectual sympathizers and institutions. Their party offices, the casas del pueblo (houses of people), were part of the Bilbao urban landscape from 1890. Despite their evolution towards a federalist and autonomy stance, the Basque nationalists continued to associate the socialists with Spanish nationalism, not only before the Civil War, as Fusi (1984) has described, but also after the democratic transition in the post-Franco era. Industrialization also led to the increase of a liberal, initially conservative elite of españolista having their roots in the oligarchy of wealthy captains of industry. Under the leadership of the local political boss Víctor Chávarri they were able to dominate local urban politics through vote-buying and corrupt practices up to 1905 when the first non-corrupt elections took place (Fusi 1984: 148–50). Their successor party, the Republicans, dominated the Bilbao political scene together with the socialists during the 1905–23 period and the Second Republic. A liberal Spanish identity was very much present in the political life of Bilbao during the

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regeneracionismo period. Fusi (1984: 152) even considers Gregorio de Balparda to be the symbol of local liberalism and a passionate defender of Vizcaya’s historical links with Spain. The most powerful vehicle for his ideas was El Liberal, the most widely read newspaper in Bilbao. The Republicans had their social base in the prosperous urban middle class. They became a liberal, lay, urban-based and democratic modernizing force with Spanish sentiments (Fusi 1984: 154). Fusi observed a similar change in political orientation as in the case of the Socialists. From the first decade of the nineteenth century onwards, sensitivity towards demands for Basque autonomy increased among the Republicans (Fusi 1984: 152–5). During the Second Republic, this sensitivity was displayed by both Republican and Socialist leaders. The Republican politician Ramón de Madariaga wrote drafts for the Statute in 1931 and 1933. In non-industrialized Álava and Navarra Spanish nationalism was of a more traditional, Carlist-inspired brand. It was only after Franco’s death that socialism gained momentum in these provinces, albeit that it had some political influence in Navarra during the Second Republic. Before the Civil War, conservative clerical españolismo dominated these provinces. Particularly in Navarra, clericalism was firmly rooted in politics and society. Patronage and electoral manipulation guaranteed the continuity of regional power relations, especially in Álava, where partidos de notables without organization and affiliation dominated the political scene (De Pablo Contreras 1991: 23, 89–90). Both provinces were administered from the capitals with ‘a pre-industrial mentality’ (De Azaola 1988: 182). In Navarra the church was the main engine behind the mobilization into cooperatives, trade unions and mutually organized social security and banking (Loyer 1997: 134–7). In Álava and Navarra the traditional political class were able to survive even under postwar autocratic rule. With the outbreak of the Civil War, the massive anti-republican mobilization in both provinces contributed to the final victory of the nationalists. While on the battlefield Álava and Navarra took the side of Franco’s crusade, the Basque nationalists, republicans and socialists of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa chose the Republic. Today the Basque socialists are still a factor in Spanish politics, while the centreright most españolista Partido Popular also has considerable Basque representation. The latter is rooted in the liberal bourgeoisie of the industrial cities of the north and the more conservative of the interior in the Provinces of Álava and Navarra. The historical coincidence of various types of Spanish nationalism and Basque nationalism in the Basque Country is reflected in today’s divisions (Llera 1994: 79– 84). Historically these divisions are rooted in a nineteenth-century Bilbao that combined ‘a liberal, socialist and nationalist spirit’ (Fusi 1984: 147–60). Spanish nationalism in the Basque Country cannot, however, simply be seen as a product of ideological diffusion from the country’s ethnic and political core. In the industrialized cities, both socialism and republicanism were innovating Spanish forces in the construction of a civic, democratic and constitutional Spain in which Basque autonomy was seen as a modern system of democratic representation (Fusi 1984: 155). The success of Basque nationalism cannot therefore be explained on the basis

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of the weak presence of Spanish political identities in the big cities. However, can it be explained by a weak spread of Spanish mass culture? Mass culture first developed in the urban areas and the tourist resorts on the coast. Obviously the Bilbao agglomeration was among the earliest centres of cultural massification in the Basque area. Accelerated industrialization and the expansion of its maritime function were accompanied by increasing contacts inside and outside Spain. British technicians came to Bilbao to develop largescale iron smelting while consumption and cultural habits from elsewhere were imported and sometimes reinvented along the Nervión. Soon Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa became the most industrialized and wealthy provinces of Spain. Even the residents of small towns ‘had a high literacy rate, lived within the structure of modern communications’ (Payne 1975: 105). City, town and, with some delay, farmstead dwellers were keen participants in the growing Spanish mass consumption. The twentieth-century sequence of personal transport innovation from bikes, via scooters and mopeds, to cars first occurred in greater Bilbao and the scattered industrial settlements of Guipúzcoa before finally penetrating the rural areas of Álava and Navarra. Until the 1920s the rural areas were relatively untouched by agricultural modernization. If they were affected by the outside world, it was particularly by the labour demand from nearby industrializing areas. Around the expanding factories the most isolated and least productive baserriak (farmsteads) of the Cantabrian mountains were first abandoned for apartments in the cities. Mechanization of agriculture significantly increased during the 1960s with the introduction of minitractors on the small family farms in the northern humid parts and tractors and combine harvesters among the cereal growers of the dry plains of Álava and Navarra. Agricultural machinery accelerated the depopulation process due to labour expulsion. In fact when, during the 1950s and 1960s, the Basque Country experienced its second industrial revolution, the agricultural sector of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa almost stopped being a source of employment. Most peasants went to work in the industrial and services sectors. The link between agriculture and Basque language therefore disappeared. Conversely, in Navarra, Euskera remained the language of a predominantly farming population in the northeastern part of the region. In contrast to the French Basque Country, the rural areas of Hegoalde have a more complex structure and dynamics. In the south, cereal, wine growing and special crops, such as asparagus in Navarra, dominate in areas that have perhaps experienced more drastic agricultural modernization than in the depopulating northern farmsteads. Up to the 1950s, smuggling across the French border was an important activity. Customs officers and the guardia civil were the visible agents of the state. Teachers were the others, in particular following the Primo de Rivera dictatorship when public education became available to the masses. In the Castilian-speaking areas of Álava and Navarra, the presence of these representatives of the state has been accepted or at least tolerated by most people. In contrast and for different reasons many inhabitants of Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya and the Basque-speaking fringe of Navarra developed an antipathy towards them with the exception of teachers. In

52 Territory and Terror general the latter were respected. Rural Basque-speaking people needed education so that they could learn Spanish and qualify as skilled migrants, while for the urbanites education was an asset for survival or in order to make progress in the urban economy. No generalizations can be made concerning the perception of the other agents of the state. People working on infrastructure, transport and communication – such as the personnel of public companies for the provision of water, energy, road maintenance, railway workers, the post and so on – were regarded as rather neutral. More problematic were civil servants linked to administrative tasks. In the big cities, Spanish-speaking civil servants were an aspect of urban life because of their presence in the public administration sphere. During the Franco regime state agents became associated with an anti-worker ideology that generated a great deal of resentment in the workers’ districts of greater Bilbao. In the smaller industrialized towns of Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya and the Euskera-speaking villages of Navarra the agents of the Spanish state were often native Basques who traditionally had a similar political control as the caciques elsewhere in Spain. Heiberg (1985: 297–8) has shown that during the Second Republic and after the democratic transition local Basque identity at small-town level was opposed to the Basques connected with the state. The most hated were Spanish personnel that had to keep public order: the Guardia Civil and Policía Nacional. In the Basque Country and Navarra the paramilitary Civil Guards and the national police had been responsible for maintaining public order since the nineteenth century. The personnel were usually recruited from modest families from the poorer parts of the interior of Spain. Their negative image throughout history was due to their connection with the interests of the old political elite and with the repression of expressions of Basqueness. The hatred is particularly apparent in post-Franco Spain. While in other parts of Spain the Civil Guards are able to have a social life, have a drink in whatever bar they want and enjoy other social activities, in northern Hegoalde security force personnel live in social isolation, protected by the walls of their garrisons. It is socially unacceptable for a Basque girl in this area to marry a member of the Guardia Civil (Douglass 1998: 87). Basques were also members of the Spanish political elite. In contrast to Catalans, who were heavily under-represented, Basques formed part of the pre-industrial elite of Madrid and the colonial empire (Díez Medrano 1995). They occupied important positions in the Royal Court, politics and public administration. There had been Basque ministers throughout the centuries. The castilianized Spanish Basque elite sent their children to educational institutions all over Spain. It was only in the army that there were few Basques (Shubert 1990: 109). Family ties and intergenerational succession of the elite linked Basque towns to the Spanish administration. A special case in history is the elite from the rural area of the Baztán Valley in the north of Navarra that had a disproportionately large share in high-career personalities in the Spanish Empire (Caro Baroja 1969). The increased political and economic power of the families involved in producing and reproducing elites was finally able to change local power relations in the Valley and create an oligarchy at Valley level (Imízcoz Buenza 1996: 208–10). From the late nineteenth century up to the Second Republic, a Spanish core

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elite was represented in the Basque area. The elite varied from liberals, republicans and socialists with a secular view on the Spanish state, who shared the space in the towns of Guipúzcoa and Greater Bilbao, to a conservative Catholic brand of Carlists and neo-Carlists overtly represented in the agrarian Provinces of Navarra and Álava. In the industrialized provinces, the Spanish nationalist elite that shared the political space with the Basque nationalists adapted a special sensitivity towards Basqueness and concomitant claims. During the Primo de Rivera period (1923–30) the dictatorship promoted national-Catholic forces consisting of conservative Catholics alongside less influential Falangists (Spanish fascists), but still left room for other expressions of Spanish nationalism in the Vascongadas. Immediately after the Civil War a forced monopolization of national-Catholicism occurred at the cost of secular and civic representations of Spanishness and any manifestation of Basqueness. During the 1940s and 1950s, political organizations not in line with official nationalism were the object of harsh repressive measures. As was the case everywhere in Spain, the political families who supported the Franco uprising generated a new elite appointed by Franco consisting of Falangists, traditionalists, monarchists and Catholics (Linz 1988: 94–5). Surprisingly, the Falangist organization received average support in the Basque Provinces as was demonstrated by the membership rates of the women’s organization, the Sección Feminina (Linz and De Miguel 1966a: 308). The local business elite of the Basque Country who managed to survive were mainly organized in the Liga Vizcaíana, Guipúzcoana de Productores, or the Fomento de Trabajo and mostly maintained a low profile under the dictatorship. During the 1960s, only Bilbao’s large-scale heavy industries and the banking sector were closely linked with power, leaving the smaller entrepreneurs excluded from their politico-economic networks (Linz and De Miguel 1966b: 129–30). The Guipúzcoa industrialists, however, were more closely related to their interest groups than their colleagues of Vizcaya, a situation similar to the provinces of Alicante and Barcelona where, as was the case in Guipúzcoa, family business prevailed. However, even in Guipúzcoa where the official corporate structure, the Sindicatos, was the least appreciated organization, esteem was still higher than in all other provinces (Linz and De Miguel 1966b: 308–9). After the Civil War the old political elite composed of republicans, socialists and Basquists disintegrated. Their spokesmen were in exile, killed, imprisoned, or forced to be quiet and their newspapers were closed down or transformed into propaganda media for the new regime. In relative terms, this was more frequently the case in the two industrialized provinces than in Álava and Navarra, where the traditional elite remained in power. During the extreme poverty of the postwar period the Basque Country was among the first regions of Spain to witness protest actions by workers who were officially organized into vertical syndicates. In reality, autonomous grass-roots organizations emerged within the firms. The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT: socialists), Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos (STV: Basque nationalists), and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT: anarchists) organized the first strikes in Spain during the 1940s in Bilbao and the surrounding area. The communists did not take part in organizing labour because

54 Territory and Terror they were still involved in guerrilla activities (Vilar 1984: 164–6). The harsh repression of the 1940s and 1950s had a deep impact. Socialists, civic initiatives and Basque nationalist organizations were all eliminated, paralysed or dismantled. During the more liberal climate of the 1960s, however, strikes became a common phenomenon. Together with Barcelona and Madrid, Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa belonged to the most strike-prone provinces of Spain (Vilar 1984: 371). Vizcaya and Asturias, with their heavy industries, were the first provinces where the socialists and their trade union could re-establish an operational organization. Some of the Basque clergy expressed their solidarity with workers, in particular those workers with nationalist aspirations (see Chapter 6). Repression made counter-mobilization impossible while labour was forcibly organized into the so-called vertical syndicates controlled by the Francoist elite. The worst collective memory of repression exists in the two industrialized provinces of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa where the force of the oppressive apparatus was felt most keenly. During the Civil War these provinces took the side of the Republic and that may have been the trigger for the repression. The more structural background of repression was the long history and established presence of both Spanish and Basque nationalist counter-ideologies, each with considerable support and their own parties, newspapers, trade unions and protagonists. The aim of the autocratic regime was to destroy these tenuous structures of democracy and civic culture. Even during the apertura, the opening-up of Spain (1959– 75), when organizations at grass-roots level were unofficially recognized with regard to, for instance, negotiating on labour and housing conditions by respectively firm-specific organized workers and neighbourhood associations, the establishment of alternative organization at supra-firm or supra-local level remained punishable by law. In Navarra and Álava, territorial discrimination and political repression were far less intense than in the other two provinces, while economically they benefited from positive discrimination. After the transition to democracy, the old representations of Spanish nationalism were revived in Hegoalde. Two orientations of Spanish nationalism finally survived. The first was the Social Democrats of the Spanish socialist party (PSOE: Partido Socialista Obrera de España) operating under the regionalized name of PSE (Partido Socialista de Euskadi) or PSN (Partido Socialista de Navarra) and the second was the centralist more conservative and Catholic party of PP (Partido Popular). During regional elections for the new-born Autonomous Communities, new regionalist parties sympathizing with ‘Spanish’ parties were born: the Unión del Pueblo del Navarra and the Unidad Alavesa, both defending the old fueros and Catholic values, but strong adversaries of Basque nationalist parties. In contrast to the French Basque elite on the coast who were predominantly French nationalist, the Spanish and Basque nationalist elite had to share political space in the industrialized towns from the end of the nineteenth century. Though the Basque nationalists developed their own institutions, like the Batzokis (PNV party offices) and, at a later stage, their own trade unions, and were even able to dominate local politics in Bilbao and other cities, they never managed to gain the upper hand in the mass media. Although a Basque nationalist press emerged at the

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start of the twentieth century, with daily newspapers like Baserritarra, Correo Vasco, La Patria and the weekly Euzkadi (from 1913 a daily newspaper), the Spanish written press, first through La Gaceta del Norte and El Liberal dominated the Basque media scene. In 1913, the former had a circulation of 20,000 and the latter 17,000 (Gómez Mompart 1989: 31). These dailies, of respectively a liberal and conservative Catholic orientation, were basically ‘Spanish’ newspapers according to their contents, but mainly circulated within the Basque Country. Their readership within the region outnumbered Euzkadi, the biggest nationalist newspaper with a circulation of 4000 and the dailies with a statewide distribution (Gómez Mompart 1989: 32). The great majority of the newspapers were written in Spanish, even the Basque nationalist newspapers. The Franco dictatorship reduced the Spanish media representation to government-controlled and censored newspapers like El Diario Vasco, La Voz de España, Hierro, Unidad, and El Correo Español. When, after the democratic transition, the written press regained its freedom, the old picture of a Spanish-dominated press remerged. Basques are fervent readers of the press compared to Andalusians, Catalans or Madrilenians. If one compares newspaper circulation all over Spain, that is ‘Spanish’ regionally distributed newspapers – e.g. those newspapers that generally do not sympathize with a peripheral nationalist or a regionalist cause – and peripheral nationalist newspapers, the strong position of the regional ‘Spanish’ category soon becomes apparent (Table 3.1). Like the rest of Spain, the readers of ‘Spanish’ regional newspapers far outnumber the newspapers with a statewide distribution Table 3.1 Daily newspaper readership in Euskadi and Navarra, 2001 Newspapers

Euskadi n (×1000)

Spanish regional El Correo Español Diario Vasco Diario de Navarra Nationalist Gara Deia Euskaldunon Egunkariaa Spanish national El País El Mundo ABC Total

Navarra %

851 516 334 1 260 116 105 39 106 54 49 3

69.9

1217

100.0

21.4

8.7

n (×1000)

Total %

231 0 5 226 19 14 0 5 19 14 4 1

85.9

269

100.1

7.1

7.1

n (×1000)

%

1082 516 339 227 279 230 105 44 125 68 53 4

72.8

1486

100.0

18.8

8.4

Source: El País (2002). Note a Banned on 20 February 2003; readership: own estimate based on total readership of 44,000 (El Mundo 21 February 2003) and applying the same proportional distribution as Gara between Navarra and Euskadi as mentioned in the main source.

56 Territory and Terror and the peripheral nationalist press. These regional newspapers El Correo Español, Diario Vasco, and Diario de Navarra all have a rather neutral political character and have a lot of front-page news on Spanish statewide politics. Generally, issues concerning the Basque conflict are usually reported without taking sides. Nationally circulated Spanish ‘normal’ newspapers containing general information are less well read in Vascongadas when compared to the rest of Spain, though they still have a bigger readership than the Basque nationalist newspapers. In the case of TV audiences there is a similar Spanish bias as in the written press. The Basque channels of Euskaltelebista only attract an average 25 per cent of the audience in Euskadi and 12 per cent in Navarra, which is far fewer than that of the combined Spanish state and commercial stations (El País 2002: 263). As in Iparralde, the Basque elite also adopted other attributes of Spanish mass culture. However, the Spanish Basque elite played a more active role in the spread of mass culture than the smaller elite groups of Bayonne, Biarritz and Anglet. For instance, among Spanish banks and superstores Basque banks like the Banco de Bilbao and the Banco de Vizcaya (now merged) played an important role in the diffusion and popularizing of banking institutions in Spain. The superstores of Eroski, part of the famous cooperative of Mondragón, today compete with large French chains for domination of the Spanish market. In the rise of Spanish mass culture, the Basque Country has acted as a centre of innovation and diffusion for sports and gastronomy. Concurrently, some Spanish features of mass culture have been adopted by the Basques, though often interpreted in a Basque way. During the 1920s, soccer became the most popular sport of Spain (Tusell 1998b: 40). Athletic de Bilbao is the oldest professional football club of Spain and Bilbao was among the important centres from which football spread throughout Spain. Basque clubs enthusiastically participated in the Spanish national league that was set up in 1929. Something similar happened with soccer in Euskadi as had occurred with rugby in Iparralde. On the one hand there was a general commitment to take part in statewide competition, despite some nationalist voices claiming a separate Basque competition and national team. On the other hand, anti-Spanish feelings and Basque pride and nationalism found a medium of expression during the matches against clubs from the rest of Spain. When the soccer team of Athletic de Bilbao, always composed mainly of Basque players, plays against the arch-enemy Real Madrid, supporters use the opportunity to publicly glorify Basqueness and openly despise Spanishness. As in Bayonne, in the national rugby championship, if Athletic won the Spanish championship the city of Bilbao would be turned on its head by ecstatic supporters. In Euskadi and Navarra soccer spread to the smaller towns during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Football was a social activity for the young people of the area. The book on the local history of the coastal town of Zarautz deals with the establishment and history of the club together with the traditional Basque sports of rowing and pelota (Egaña 1987: 443–7). When, under Franco, the manifestation of anti-regime sentiments was curtailed, football remained one of the few outlets by which emotions of discontent could be expressed, albeit in a sublimated way. The

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state-controlled media paid a great deal of attention to football which, together with bullfighting, was one of the components of statewide nationalism that was firmly promoted throughout the Franco period. Basque gastronomy is famous in Spain. People from inland Spain have eaten seafood for centuries. Originally fish was transported and cold-stored by Leonese muleteers from the Maragatería to Madrid. The migration of Basques to Castile brought about the introduction of Basque cuisine to Madrid and other cities of Spain. Codfish prepared à la Basque and other typical dishes of the Basque kitchen can now be found all over Spain. Spain’s most popular TV cook Carlos Arguiñano is a Basque from Zarautz. His restaurant school attracts pupils from all parts of Spain. Many Madrilenians consider ‘their’ Basque restaurants to be among the best of the country. On the other hand, the Basques remained different from the rest of Spain, except La Rioja, because of their special gastronomic institutions of the Txokos, cooking associations of friends and neighbours that have commonly funded restaurant-like facilities. During the seventeenth century, the zarzuela gained popularity as a type of opera at the Spanish court. After a slack period, the genre was revived during the second half of the nineteenth century. Particularly the short pieces, the so-called sainete and género chico zarzuelas, became immensely popular. The zarzuela attracted an allSpanish audience and even conquered the former colonies of Latin America and the Philippines. Within Spain it became a real national brand of operetta that penetrated into the cultural periphery. The Basque area was no exception in this respect. The Arrriga Theatre in Bilbao became one of the most famous for zarzuela in Spain while San Sebastián also acquired a reputation as one of the country’s centres of zarzuela. Obviously in the provincial capitals, where the major part of the population was already Castilian-speaking, the performances were in Spanish. However, in the smaller towns, Castilian was also used as the language of the zarzuela. When in Zarautz, a small town 20km from San Sebastián, a local theatre was established in the 1920s, the zarzuelas of Crimen y castigo and El guirarrico were major successes alongside religious dramas performed in Euskera or Castilian (Egaña 1998: 471). As in the case of nationalizing politics in the artistic realm, the Basques not only were passive adopters of the new fashion but also had their own creative response. Jesús Guridi (1886–1961), born in Vitoria, and Pablo Sorozábal (1897–1988), from San Sebastián, became famous zarzuela composers in Spain. Some composers, like Victoriano Iraola from Pasajes de San Juan, introduced a Basque version of the zarzuela Bi itsubak in San Sebastián in 1884. What could be more typically ‘Spanish’ than bullfighting? Indeed, since the late nineteenth century, a circuit of fiestas related to bullfighting emerged out of a tradition that probably goes back to pre-Roman times. From Andalusia the fiesta cycle spread to the Spain’s cities, with Bilbao and Pamplona fulfilling important roles. In this way, the corrida de toros ‘became an excellent vehicle for conveying the growing sense of nationalism of the new urban bourgeoisie classes, those who could afford to go to corridas [my italics]’ (Douglass 1997: 125). The newly constructed railways facilitated the transport of fighting bulls. However, Douglass (1997) observed simultaneity between the Spanish nationalist content on the one hand and

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peripheral nationalist or regionalist dimension of bullfighting on the other. Obviously, the emerging national and regional press, and later on radio and TV paid a great deal of attention to bullfighting. The death of famous toreros like Manolete (1947) were cause for the venting of statewide emotions, while successful fighters like Juan Belmonte (1892–1962) and nowadays El Cordobés (Manuel Benítez Pérez) acquired nationwide popularity. Similarly to soccer, regionalist sentiments colour the national fiesta cycles. Under Franco, the media exploited the toros and soccer to emphasize a sort of common national interest and to detract attention from severe socio-economic and political problems. However, even under the dictatorship local and regional taste persisted in the preference for the type of bulls with regard to shape, weight and design. The empowerment of regional and local authorities and the institutionalization after the democratic transition meant that regional differences in the national cycle could be emphasized. Bilbao is an interesting case in point. It forms part of the national fiesta cycle, but today’s fiestas reflect the division into a Spanish and Basque urban elite. Bilbao’s Semana Grande actually has two festivals, a town-sponsored one and a private, upper-class one (Douglass 1997: 142–59). The former is oriented towards Basque traditions concerning music, dance, games, sports and food, while the latter focuses on highbrow expressions such as forums on bullfighting and painting exhibitions in fine hotels, often endorsed by banquets. Bullfighting also reveals the immense popularity of Pamplona’s San Fermines, which is deeply rooted in Spanish and Basque culture. Small towns have their arenas, perhaps erected temporarily for the fiestas. One of the few photographs in the book on the history of the small town of Zarautz shows the corrida of 1912 (Zumalde 1987: 503). Evidently, this is no coincidence.

Castilianization The Basque Country and Navarra were subject to castilianization during many centuries. The position of Basque, Catalan and other minority languages in public life was marginalized. Euskera had less resistance than Gallego and particularly Catalan. Catalan had a rich literary tradition and a comparatively high social prestige as many members of the urban petty bourgeoisie continued to practise it. Erosion of Basque through state formation had already taken place at a reduced scale during the fifteenth century when pressure was exerted to elect members for the local councils who could understand Castilian (Siguan 1992: 24). Euskera, which was not codified until 1971, 60 years later than Catalan, and is divided into many different dialects, was until recently considered a ‘low culture’, even by many Basque speakers themselves. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the Bourbon kings increasingly centralized Spain, minority languages have been subject to a dramatic offensive from Castilian. Catalan was ‘persecuted’ (Ferrer i Gironés 1985) while Basque gradually disappeared from Álava, most of Navarra and the cities. Before the introduction of mass education, Basque children – as was the case everywhere in Spain – learned Spanish often using ‘repressive methods’ (Tejerina Montaña 1992: 84–5). Shackles, slaps in the face, lashes and other kinds of punishment were used to teach the children Castilian and to prevent them from speaking Basque.

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70 60 50

%

40 30 20 10 0 1887

1910

1930

1950

Álava

Vizcaya

Euskadi

Guipúzcoa

Navarra

Spain

1970 1981

Figure 3.1 Illiteracy rates in Spain, Euskadi and Navarra, 1887–1981 (Ribas and Julià 1992).

The Spain of the mid-nineteenth century was not only a multi-lingual country – with Catalan, Galician and Basque as the most widely spoken non-official languages – it was also a country of illiterates. By that time, the ‘civilization mission’ in terms of cultural homogenization had not been as successful as in France. Messages in print about Spanishness could only reach a small proportion of the Spanish population. By 1887 two out of three Spaniards were not able to read and write. Galicia, the southern half and Aragon were the worst off. Surprisingly, the Basque Country and Navarra belonged to the better ‘educated’ part of the peninsula and they continued to be so. Until 1950, the literacy level remained some 15 per cent points above the Spanish average (Fig. 3.1). Spain’s backwardness was not a consequence of outdated legislation. As in the case of France with the Falloux Law in 1850, Spain already had its Moyano Law by 1857. France was able to universalize public education during the 1870s. Conversely, it took the Spanish administration, which had in the Moyano law a legal instrument that standardized the educational system in terms of curricula, textbooks, personnel examinations and degrees, until the 1930s to introduce real mass education. According to Boyd (1997: 169–70) 8,000 new public schools were built in 1930 and the number of primary teachers increased by 20 per cent. There were 387,000 more children in school than in 1922–3, a 23 per cent increase. The adult literacy level attained 73 per cent, a level that had already been reached 20 years earlier in Hegoalde. Female literacy was between 60 and 65 per cent. However, there was still an educational bias in favour of the cities. Meanwhile, 50 per cent of the children went to public schools and 20–25 per cent to private schools, most of the latter being, as usual, run by the church. Within the Basque

60

Territory and Terror

Country and Navarra, illiteracy remained highest in the Basque-speaking country areas. Gómez-Ibáñez (1975: 83–8) ascribed this not only to linguistic handicaps of local Euskera speakers to qualify in Castilian, but also to the settlement pattern of baserriak, isolated farmsteads which were poorly connected with the towns and nuclear villages where the schools were located. Castilianization through literacy as reflected in the diagram (Fig. 3.1) is not, however, a correct reflection of the entire linguistic situation of the castilianization history of Hegoalde. When mass immigration and education accelerated at first in Vizcaya around 1875, the newly arrived Castilian-speaking workers concentrated on the left bank of the Nervión where the Euskera-speaking population was almost extinct (Corcuera Atienza 1979: 144; Tejerina Montaña 1992: 87, 98). Although some of the lower clergy continued preaching and speaking Basque in the countryside, the church contributed to further castilianization in school where lessons were taught in Castilian. The religious congregations were as hostile as the official state institutions to the use of minority languages in education (Tejerina Montaña 1992: 89). Until the democratic transition, the spread of Spanish – connected with what Gellner called ‘high culture’ – followed the classical pattern of diffusion ending up in the replacement of Basque ‘low culture’. The following dynamic forces were behind this process of invasion and succession. Clearly, migration was an important drive to language spread. Until the 1950s, migration was only relevant to castilianization in Vizcaya and to a lesser degree San Sebastián. The more gentle and dispersed industrialization process in Guipúzcoa attracted mostly short-distance migrants from the same province. Migration from outside the Basque area to some of the developing towns of Guipúzcoa only gained momentum from the 1950s onwards. Migration to Álava and Navarra, occurred from the second half of the twentieth century, hardly affected the Basque-speaking areas because it was mostly directed towards those areas that were already Spanish speaking. As in the French Basque Country many rural areas depopulated to such an extent that only some parts of Navarra and Álava still have agriculture as their main source of subsistence. Evidently, city-ward migration of Basque-speaking people finally led to castilianization of the migrated. The second force came from the administration. Basque was banned from public space up to the democratic transition. There were no official documents in Basque, no radio, and later on no television, while education continued to be provided in Castilian. After the Civil War castilianizing forces took on a brutal shape. All manifestations of what was associated with Basque identity were now under severe attack. Basque was banned from public life and violations of the new rules were heavily penalized. Many parents prohibited their children from speaking Basque outside the home or even stopped them using the language at home (Tejerina Montaña 1992: 112–15). The few places in which the language was able to survive were in the smaller settlements where face-to-face contacts dominated and in the only institution that remained powerful during Francoism: the church – ‘the quietness of the cloister and the seminary became a refuge in the expectation of more favourable times’ (Tejerina Montaña 1992: 119).

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The press, relatively free until the outbreak of the Civil War, was almost entirely in Spanish, including most Basque nationalist periodicals. During the Franco era the marginal printed output in Basque was removed from the public scene. Today the most widely read newspapers are in Spanish. Table 3.1 shows that only one out of five readers in Euskadi and Navarra reads Basque nationalist newspapers. The situation is worse for Euskera because the nationalist press is mostly written in Castilian. Deia has approximately 80 per cent of its articles in Castilian and Gara about 60 per cent (own count on the internet). The most widely circulated regional newspapers El Correo Español and Diario Vasco are entirely in Castilian, although they do flirt with Euskera through their offers of free training courses in Basque on the internet. Euskaldunon Egunkaria, the only daily entirely in Basque with a tiny audience, was banned on 20 February 2003. The situation of harsh repression of Euskera was mitigated during the 1960s, which was a period of changes in the linguistic landscape. Bit by bit, Basque speakers managed to set up clandestine schools where Euskera was taught (Chapter 6). During the democratic transition (1975–82) the formerly centralized state created the Autonomous Communities to accommodate the demands of the peripheral nationalists. What was the impact of these new Communities on the Spanish language? In 1979 in Euskadi, and in 1990 in Navarra, new powers in the field of language – in particular its use in education, the media and administration – were transferred from the central government. For Euskera, decentralization resulted in the establishment of two different institutional contexts, one rather favourable in Euskadi and another less generous in Navarra. In Euskadi and to some degree in Navarra this led to an increase in Euskera proficiency (Tejerina Montaña 1992, 1996; Mezo 1996; see also Chapter 6). The linguistic revival did not, however, automatically imply that castilianization came to a halt. For many new Euskera speakers the language remains a second language, like English is a second language for many Dutch people. As Tejerina Montaña (1992), Cobarrubias (1999) and many others have observed, the conquest of part of the public domain by Basque has not extended to the private sphere. Newspapers, books, shops, and business continue to be in Spanish. Many prominent Basque nationalist politicians, such as PNV leader Arzalluz, seem to have little confidence in the language they promote. Their discourses are generally given in eloquent Castilian.

Weak-state development Today Spain is one of the respected member states of the European Union. The consolidation of parliamentary democracy, the rise in the standard of living and the esteemed membership of international institutions have contributed to this regaining of respect. Despite the outsiders’ image of Spain as a civic nation, the idea of a civic national community is still contested in Hegoalde and often debated in other Spanish regions. Here I will analyse the extent to which the lack of state legitimization can be explained by weak-state features. Subsequently I will focus on the timing and spacing of democratization, the state’s

62 Territory and Terror role in economic and infrastructural development and finally the degree of accommodation to regional protest resulting from the new territorial administration. Strong-state features are reflected in an established representative democracy, a stable public order and a state guaranteeing infrastructure and a minimum living standard to its citizens. Democratization One of the root causes of the lack of nation-building in Spain is the difficult path to democracy. When the first steps were made towards universal suffrage in nineteenth-century Spain, the process of democracy there had much in common with France. There were two dimensions, namely a formal, legal-administrative one and a responsive-participatory one. The former had to do with the extent to which people were entitled to take part in elections while the latter concerned the way the electorate were not hindered with regard to casting their votes or manipulated by the interference of non-democratic forces. In Spain the formal dimension shows an unstable record. The text in italic in Table 3.2 shows the non-democratic intermezzos, with Franco’s autocratic regime occupying the longest uninterrupted non-democratic period of 41 years during the 1868–2002 period. Some nondemocratic periods had a softer regime than others (Martínez Cuadrado 1969) such as for instance the period of 1877–90 and the soft dictatorship, ‘la dictablanda’ of Primo de Rivera. The observation of Álvarez Junco (1996: 98) that from 1808 to 1875 ‘the legitimacy of the Spanish state was constantly questioned, with fluctuations from liberal revolutions to periods of autocracy, from one dynasty to another, and from monarchy to republic’ can easily be prolonged deep into the twentieth century. Instability through regime change and frequent alternation of governments during democratic periods did not help the rooting of democracy. From 1876 to 1923, Spain had 27 governments, or one government every 21 months. The strong clientelistic practice linked to local oligarchies that disappeared in France during the 1870s acquired a Spanish version in widespread caciquismo, political bossism with caciques at the top of the local clientelistic hierarchy. Legislation was far too modern to become a state-implemented reality. Particularly in the rural areas Table 3.2 Democracy and dictatorship in Spain, 1868–present 1868–76 1872–6 1877–90 1890–1923 1923–31 1931–6 1936–9 1939–75 1975–7 1977–

Universal suffrage Carlist War Limited suffrage Universal suffrage Dictatorship Universal suffrage Civil War Franco dictatorship Transition to democracy Universal suffrage

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and provincial towns caciquismo was widespread. With the help of the local bosses, regime change was orchestrated from Madrid. The Basques could not escape from violations of electoral law. Bilbao was an early bridgehead for undistorted democracy. Other parts of the Basque territories, however, had to wait until Franco’s death to see caciquismo finally disappear. In the corrupted democracy, Basques participated together with Castilians, Andalusians and Galicians. Only Catalan politicians were significantly under-represented in the Spanish governments. Between 1833 and 1901, 2.7 per cent of 900 ministers were Catalans while Catalonia was home to 10 per cent of the Spanish population (Balcells 1996: 21). The French Basques were historically involved in the development of what Tilly (1992) has called a statewide ‘protest repertoire’. International wars provoked a mobilization of the Basques towards Frenchness. In contrast, the Spanish Basques were hardly mobilized as a result of international war. If they were mobilized it was during civil wars. The third Carlist war of the 1870s divided the Basques among themselves. To many Basques and Navarrese, Carlism was the expression of ‘rural small-town society that felt threatened by modern liberal capitalist and urban society’ (Payne 1975: 42). Other authors, for instance De Azaola (1988: 138–9), particularly link Carlism with religion as the mobilizing factor against secularizing forces. In Azaola’s (1988: 139) words, ‘more than servants of their King and more than defenders of their fueros, most Carlist combatants considered themselves as soldiers of God’. Another interpretation viewed Carlism as a countrywide peasant movement against liberal and centralizing forces that took a specific shape of proto-nationalism in the Basque area. However, the mobilizing power of Carlism in the Basque Provinces and Navarra was not only based on traditional Catholicism. Centralization was accompanied by worsening living conditions in the rural areas where people developed grievances against centralizing Madrid and liberal Bilbao. Those grievances were fertile ground for Basque nationalism (Garmendia 1985). During the last Carlist war, Vascongadas was reluctant to participate in the Madrid-led democratic experiment. While the Spanish abstention rate for the elections ranged from 60 per cent in 1873 to 45 per cent in 1876, the rates for Hegoalde were respectively 89 and 90 per cent (Martínez Cuadrado 1969, passim). Carlism was able to mobilize Basques against Spaniards and Basques against Basques. Mass mobilization for the Civil War (1936–9) also divided Spaniards and Basques between them and among themselves. Spain of the 1930s was a country strongly divided according to class lines, religious versus secular forces and contradictions between central forces and peripheral nationalism (Thomas 1986, Book 1). When, after the democratic transition, the Spanish party system revived, the weak nationalization of politics became apparent. Whereas, in France, regionalists play only a minor role at national level, Spain has a colourful collection of regionalists, independentists and separatists (Mansvelt Beck 2001). The ‘old’ nationalists of Catalonia and the Basque Country and regionalists from Galicia, the Canary Islands, Aragon Islands and Andalusia support the two mainstream parties (PP and PSOE). Out of the 350 members of the Congress, 34 represent non-Spanish parties. In contrast to the Basque nationalists, however, most of these

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parties conceptualize Spain as a decentralized state that needs further decentralization towards a federation or confederation. When, in spring 1999, the former leader of the Catalan nationalists of Convergència y Uniò Jordi Pujol was interviewed on television during the breakfast tertulias of the national Spanish public station TVE, he declared that in Spanish politics the Constitution needed to be reinterpreted: ‘hay que releer la Constitución’. Most of the regionalists are in favour of such a reinterpretation. The historical roots of democratization are not as deep as in the states of northwestern Europe. Pérez-Díaz (1993: 43–53) has emphasized reviving tendencies of clientelistic politics and of parties becoming oligarchic. Moreover, the lack of political roots in society is reflected in the ‘insulation of the political parties and the political class from public opinion’ Pérez-Díaz (1993: 46). There is a lack of transparency in the dealings between politicians and the private sector, which has often led to semi-legal deals that mutually benefit politicians and businessmen. This phenomenon has become known by the name of tráfico de influencias, the trafficking of influence. Public order, draft and tax The first statewide organization to maintain public order was the Civil Guards. The Guardia Civil, established in 1844, was indeed able to suppress protest and rebellion. However, during the course of many decades, they were hardly prepared to do their job properly. A lack of state resources due to chronic poverty resulted in an undermanned and poorly equipped branch of the administration. On occasions of public protest, their response was often particularly harsh (Castro Alfín 1991: 118). Usually their role was reactive, as they intervened after outbreaks of public protest. In contrast to the gendarmerie in France, who applied more preventive tactics regarding collective action, the Guardia Civil was a small reactive apparatus that in times of unrest had to use excessive violence to ensure the survival of its members. Spain’s poor performance in its use of the state’s monopoly of violence contributed to a weak development of a ‘protest repertoire’. The Spanish army had a dubious reputation due to their incompetence during the last colonial wars of the nineteenth century in Cuba and the Philippines and the uprising in the Rif of Spanish Morocco in the twentieth century. Up until the Franco era, the army was more of an internal repressive instrument to maintain public order rather than a war machine. It was no coincidence that many garrisons during the Franco dictatorship were located around the lower-class districts of Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao. Maintaining public order during the Francoist regime de-legitimized the state in many areas of the country. In Andalusia of the 1940s, agricultural labourers who were suspected of sympathizing with the banned anarchist, communist or socialist trade unions, or simply of harming interests of the landed elite were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or simply shot by the Civil Guards (Mansvelt Beck 1988: 85–7). On the other hand, postwar misery was so devastating that badly paid Civil Guards could easily be bribed. Trials against suspected opponents of the regime often resulted in exorbitant penalties. Shubert (1990: 249)

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recalled the example of Jordi Pujol, president of the Catalan Generalitat from the regional government 1980 to 2003 – who was sentenced to seven years because of distributing propaganda, an act of ‘military rebellion’. In the industrialized provinces of the Basque Country the Franco repression was so harsh that it left a legacy of resentment against the Guardia Civil, the Policía Nacional and the army as the main representation of the state’s instruments to maintain order. According to Ballbé (1983: 400) the autocratic regime did not fundamentally change the reactive practice of the security apparatus, instead it only intensified it. In Euskadi, the generalization of hate against the police forces took place during the 1960s (Juaristi 1997: 329). Exaggerated reactions to the manifestations of radical left nationalism through torture, unmotivated arrests, high penalization and so on de-legitimized the security forces and generated mass resentment (Zulaika 1988; Zulaika and Douglass 1996). Repression in the Basque Country was of a far higher intensity from the late 1950s onwards than in other parts of Spain (Conversi 1997: 225). Anthropologists like Heiberg (1989) and Zulaika (1988) and the sociologist Pérez-Agote (1986, 1987) have emphasized the role of small informal networks in keeping the collective memory of Francoist repression alive in the Basque Country. Despite the introduction of an independent Basque police force, the Ertzaintza, which was responsible for keeping public order (see Chapter 6), the paramilitary forces of the state are still active in Euskadi, particularly in affairs concerning state security and foreigners. Sometimes in democratic Spain the administration itself has fuelled the continuity of the repressive image of the Spanish state in Hegoalde. Basque militants use incidents of intimidation, beatings of prisoners and deportation to denounce ‘the repression by Madrid’ in the words of Núñez Astrain (1997). The latter was the editor-in-chief of Egin, the radical newspaper banned in 1998. The disqualification of the state’s activities to maintain public order under democracy, however, had a root cause going back to a weak Rechtsstaat. During the 1980s, high-ranking Spanish politicians and civil servants were behind the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), death squads who killed, took hostage and illegally arrested supposed ETA members. Former Minister of Interior José Barrionuevo, the exdirector of the state Security Department Rafael Vera, and the ex-Governor of Vizcaya Julián Sancristóbal were sentenced at the High Court to many years in prison for kidnapping and the illegal use of public funds (El País 17 March 2001). Other personalities involved were police inspectors, Secret Service officials and politicians. In his book on the GAL, the Irish journalist Paddy Woodworth convincingly argues that the dirty war organized by the young democratic regime did a great deal of harm to the legitimacy of Spain and its institutions in Hegoalde (Woodworth 2001). Obstructing the rule of law and disregarding the separation of powers discredited Spain, undermined loyalty to the state and ideologically fuelled anti-system forces in Hegoalde. Popular disapproval resulted in the Guardia Civil losing the little prestige it had in Spain and this was exacerbated by the sentencing of its former director Luis Roldán (1986–93) for fraud. Although the centre-right administration in power from 1996 to 2004 has repeatedly insisted that terrorism will be counteracted

66 Territory and Terror exclusively by legal means, faith in this proclaimed legality has been undermined by the posthumous official decoration of Melitón Manzanas. Manzanas, a commissioner of the political police and a notorious torturer in San Sebastián, was the first police officer shot by ETA in 1968. The decoration not only undermined the confidence in the legal quality of the Government’s actions towards Basque nationalists, it also triggered official protests from UGT, the socialist trade union (Gara 18 March 2001). The army did not turn Catalans, Basques or Galicians into Spaniards. The military was only mobilized in times of civil war, either in a guerrilla-like form as during the Carlist wars or in a chaotically organized way as during the Civil War. The army had little prestige. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the army was more of a private interest group of high officials than an amalgamating instrument for young males. In 1900, the army had 500 generals, 23,000 highranking officials and only 80,000 sergeants and soldiers (Cardona 1991). The officers from the cultural periphery were under-represented while those from Castilian-speaking Andalusia and New Castile were over-represented (Shubert 1990: 109). Conscription for military service was sabotaged everywhere. Desertion rates were high in Galicia while many Basques, Catalans and Madrileños avoided the service by making payments or by buying substitutes for their sons (Shubert 1990: 174–6). After the abolition of the fueros in 1876 several Basque towns set up collective substitution schemes that frustrated the new military standardization. In present-day democratic Spain the old Basque resistance against the draft has been revived. Dozens of elected Mayors refuse to perform their legal duty of administratively supervising recruitment. When I visited the Mayor of Zarautz in Spring 1997, he proudly told me that next day he had to appear before the San Sebastián Court of Justice because of his refusal to collaborate in the conscription. Another manifestation of the dislike of the army in Euskadi and Catalonia is the high proportion of conscientious objectors compared to other parts of Spain. The draft issue has now disappeared as an anti-state issue because military service was abolished on 31 December 2002. In the nineteenth century the desamortizaciones, Spain’s fiscal trick to raise public money, did not have a deep impact in the area. Until the abolition of the fueros and even afterward, Vascongadas did not particularly suffer from tax pressure. The protests against tax harmonization soon resulted in an agreement with the central government, the concierto económico, mitigating the economic repercussions. Until the Franco period, the Basques had a fiscal status aparte through the concierto: ‘they paid little more than half the proportionate tax burden of other Spaniards’ (Payne 1975: 103). In addition, the Spanish tax system was predominantly based on indirect taxes. Direct income tax was often evaded. Taxpayers were encouraged to exhibit this behaviour because of frequent oblivion, generous payment arrangements or retroactive exemption. The ineffective fiscal authorities plus slow and inefficient courts persisted in the Franco period (Tamames 1982: 1023). When, during the economic boom of the 1960s, the standard of living increased considerably, the Spanish middle class became one of the lowest taxed of the industrialized countries. Under the first democratically elected government of the

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transition (1978–82, President: Adolfo Suárez) fiscal pressure increased significantly as did state expenditure for social security and infrastructure. The state and redistribution Bilbao had a well-connected and important port with the interior of Spain as its hinterland. To a lesser degree, San Sebastián and Pasajes (Pasaia) also had a harbour role to play beyond the limits of Vasconia. The role of the state was limited to the construction of roads and railways. In the beginning and for a long time, roads were built under foral jurisdiction. Thereafter, the railroads were a private initiative for a long time and were run by private companies with reduced state intervention. Compared to other European countries, Spain nationalized its railways at a very late stage (1941). In relation to its port Bilbao’s railway connections, which dated from the nineteenth century, were mediocre, in particular the link with the coal-mining area of Asturias. The poor rail link was a result of low-cost engineering. The supply of cheap coal from Asturias for the blast furnaces of Bilbao often lost out to low-cost coal from Wales. Though there has been criticism of the economic efficiency linked with the creation of a national railway system (Tortella Casares 1975: 163–200; Shubert 1990: 17–19), Gómez Mendoza (1991) argued that railway construction finally fostered national economic growth and integration. Gómez-Ibáñez (1975: 79) observed that the road system integrated the French Basque Country far better into the national system than was comparatively the case in Spanish Navarra. His observation, however, cannot be applied generally to the whole of the Spanish Basque Country, but remains confined to the border areas and the countryside. From the end of the nineteenth century onwards, the rest of the Basque Country had good communications with the rest of Spain, not surprisingly as Vizcaya had become Spain’s industrial powerhouse. In the rural periphery of the Spanish Basque area the interference of the state in cooperatives, credits and infrastructure was delayed and less marked compared to the French Basque Country (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975). The history of the integration of the Basque Country with the rest of Spain is reflected in maps of traffic density which all show very high-density lines between San Sebastián and Bilbao on the one hand, and Madrid and the Ebro valley on the other (Escalona and Bielza 1989). Neither the Basque Country nor highly developed Catalonia was badly integrated with Spain’s mainland. Many initiatives for economic integration on a national scale came from Catalonia and Euskadi and many initiatives for sub-state institutions also came from the developed periphery. In the nineteenth century, Madrid was the location of the official Spanish stock exchange but Barcelona, Spain’s industrial core, had an informal stock exchange that also worked well (Sánchez Albornoz 1975: 36). During the Franco administration, the largest industrial cooperative in the world was developed in the Basque town of Mondragón (Arrasate) where alternative modes of organizing production and social security for the workers were developed. While in the nineteenth and early twentieth century protectionism contributed to

68 Territory and Terror the industrial growth in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa, the efforts to intensify state intervention during the 1940s and 1950s, which focused on self-sufficiency and were referred to as autarquía, put severe limitations on industrial development. Economic liberalization stimulated industrial growth during the 1960s. The industrial decline that started after the 1972 oil crisis led to the closure of most of the heavy industries in Vizcaya, Asturias and elsewhere in Spain. With the restructuring of heavy industries the central and regional administration tried to mitigate the social effects of the industrial crisis. In short, the history of state interventions in the Spanish economy has produced a positive balance for the Basque economy that was helped by protectionism. Two Basque historical grievances against the state’s interventions in economy and infrastructure, however, consist of non-intervention. Discrimination was experienced because Euskadi and Navarra did not have a public university, or a significant international airport. A third grievance is the classic one of rich regions forced by an emerging welfare state to transfer wealth to less prosperous regions. Inter-regional solidarity, as part of the new 1978 Constitution, is the institutionalized socio-economic link between the regions that has persisted as one of the integrative components of the state. Central authority over other components, however, has disappeared as a consequence of decentralization.

Territorial administration: decentralization The 1978 Constitution transformed Spain from a highly centralized state into an unconventional type of federation. With the creation of a new powerful administrative layer, the so-called Comunidades Autónomas (Autonomous Communities), whereby each regional unit had to assess its level of competencies in a bargaining process with the central government, a de facto federation was developing. Various labels have been attached to the evolving territorial administrations, such as mesogovernments (Pérez-Díaz 1993), a ‘postmodern’ mode of federal development (Agranoff and Ramos Gallarín 1997), a regionizable unitary state (BonimeBlanc 1987: 72), an imperfect federation or a federalizing state (Moreno 1997) and political regionalization (González Antón 1997: 641). The essence of all these qualifications is twofold. First, the new constitution gave rise to a more decentralized structure of territorial administration through the devolution of central power to the Autonomous Communities. The second concerns the asymmetrical nature of power devolution, both de jure and de facto (Agranoff and Ramos Gallarín 1997). According to these authors, the result of this process of federalization is a configuration of regions which differ according to the levels of their legal and fiscal competencies. The 17 regions or Autonomous Communities have powers varying from high-level competencies in Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia, Navarra and Andalusia to lower competencies in regions like Castile-Leon, Castile-La Mancha and Murcia. Two decades of democracy brought about a revival and consolidation of historical nationalism in the classical regions of sub-state nationalism and a rise of new ethno-regionalist or simply regionalist parties. In regions such as Andalusia, Aragon and Valencia, which had only a skin-deep

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nationalist tradition, new regionalist parties obtained seats in the respective parliaments (Table 3.3). In 2000, the Spanish Cortes in Madrid had 34 out of 350 seats occupied by peripheral nationalists from eight regions. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Spanish minority governments could only remain in office due to the support of the Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, respectively Convergencia i Unio and Partido Nacionalista Vasco. The new regionalized organization of space has reinforced the expression of the traditional territorial divisions. While before federalization the main grievance of many peripheral nationalists was the total absence of regional autonomy, the new type of grievance that developed concerned the delay or incomplete transfer of powers. The conflicts between the central and regional administration were finally fought before the Constitutional Court. Out of a total of 247 cases brought before the Court between 1981 and 1991, more than half were between the Central Government and Catalonia or the Basque Country (Agranoff and Ramos Gallarín 1997: 16–18). The role of the Constitutional Court on the one hand reflects a certain political legitimization of a core institution of the Spanish state, recognized by the leading parties of the Communities. On the other, the conflicts, and in addition the increasing number of Decrees by Autonomous Communities, totalling over 30,000 during the period 1981–90, reflect the emergence of a legal framework specific to the new politico-administrative tier. Table 3.3 Voting patterns for ethno-regionalist parties in Spain, 1980–2000 Region

Election Votes year % (A)

Ethno-regionalist parties Election Votes in parliament, 2000 year % (B)

A–B

Andalusia Aragon Asturias Basque Country Balearic Islands

2000 1999 1999 1998 1999

7 8 — 54 29

Canary Islands Cantabria Castile-Leon Castile-La Mancha Catalonia Extremadura Galicia La Rioja Madrid Murcia Navarra Valencia

1999 1999 1999 1999 1999 1997 1999 1999 1999 1999 1999 1999

39 14 5 — 46 — 25 6 — — 21 6

PA ChA — PNV, EH, EA PSN-NH, UM, PACT, COP CC, AHI PRC UPL, TC-PNC — CiU, ERC — BNG PR — — EH, PNV EU-EV

1982 1983 1983 1980 1983

9 19 — 55 9

– – na – +

1983 1983 1983 1983 1980 1983 1981 1983 1983 1983 1983 1983

19 13 — — 57 6 8 6 — — 18 6

+ + + na – – + nc na na + nc

Notes Acronyms as used on www.elmundo.es (2002). For the Basque Country and Navarra the other regionalist parties (Unidad Alavesa and Unión del Pueblo Navarro) have been left out because they are ideologically very close to the Spanish Partido Popular.

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Federalization has created a new political opportunity structure with ‘new resources for parties, elites and voters implied by the development of the state of the autonomies and the consequent emergence of political arenas in the communities’ (Pallarés et al. 1997: 168). Interestingly, however, with an increasing regional content electoral behaviour in general favours centrifugal tendencies during elections for the Autonomous Communities, whereas centripetal forces are more important when members for the Spanish Parliament have to be chosen. The new opportunity structure has given rise to clientelism all over Spain linked with the emergence of a new political class in the Autonomous Communities. In many Autonomous Communities a regional power elite has created new jobs in the public sector and provides contracts to local firms. This has led to a fragmentation of large-scale public institutions. For example, almost every Autonomous Community now has its university in the main city, while the university itself has branches in the smaller cities. New forms of clientelism have appeared under the label of neocaciquismo. For Catalans, Basques and Galicians, the high level of autonomy includes not only the possibility of making policies to protect and develop the minority languages in line with the Autonomy Statutes, but also the possibility of transmitting sub-state nationalist messages because education and part of the media can be brought under the control of the new regional political class. In Euskadi, education is entirely a matter for the Autonomous Community. In history books, schoolchildren are now confronted with various interpretations of the past, mostly rooted in Basque nationalism, as will be demonstrated in Chapter 6. During the daily weather forecast on Euskaltelebista, the Basque TV station, a map of Euskal Herria, consisting of Euskadi, Navarra and the French Basque Country is usually displayed. Discourse about the Basque nation, Basque nation-building and other manifestations of Basqueness now has a diffuse structure. Moreover, the transfer of so many powers in the field of public order, town and country planning, health, public works and so on opens the possibility for mesogovernments to demonstrate that they are better equipped to implement these tasks than the central government. In this respect it creates a regional niche in which the infrastructural power of the Basque regional authority can develop.

The current state: the present distribution of Spanishness The state of Spanishness is operationalized using the same methodology as in the previous chapter. Fortunately the same source (Aizpurua 1995) can be used to analyse the relationship between language and self-described identity. According to the survey by Aizpurua (1995: 60) 24 per cent of the Euskadi population and 10 per cent of the population of Navarra still have Euskera as their dominant language. In addition, 16 and 25 per cent, respectively, of the populations of Euskadi and Navarra still have some command of Basque. Most inhabitants of the two Autonomous Communities, however, communicate exclusively in Castilian (Euskadi 65 per cent and Navarra 66 per cent). Fig. 3.2 reveals that the ancient language has remained strongest in the interior of the Provinces of

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San Sebastián Bilbao

Pamplona

Vitoria

% Basque-speakers 80–100 40–80 10– 40 5–10

Navarra Guipuzcoa Alava Vizcaya

0– 5 Commons or Enclaves

Figure 3.2 Basque speakers, Hegoalde, 1995 (Eustat 1996; IEN 1996).

Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya, and the north-western fringe of Navarra. The big cities and the rest of Navarra and practically the entire province of Álava are nowadays Castilian-speaking areas. Measures to protect and promote Euskera have been particularly successful. In contrast to the French Basque Country, programmes of ‘linguistic normalization’ have counteracted the diffusion of the official state language. In politics, representatives can be elected to the European and Spanish Parliaments, the parliaments of the Autonomous Communities and the councils of the municipalities. In contrast to France, the Basque voice is not integrated into statewide mainstream parties. Basque political voices in Spain are divided into Spanish voices, Basque nationalist voices and regionalist voices of Navarra and Álava. Politically, Navarra and Álava have become part of a national Spanish party system, whereas Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya are politically the least hispanified territories. Euskadi and Navarra both have regional parliaments. Euskadi has one more administrative tier than Navarra, the so-called juntas forales of the former provinces, now called territorios históricos. In Spain, Euskadi and Catalonia – with relatively powerful comarcas or districts – are the only communities with a complex layering of powers.

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The electoral space of Euskadi is divided into hispanified or predominantly Basque nationalist parts. Basques representing Spanish parties and Basques representing Basquist parties attract voters at all the levels. Regionally, Navarra has the most hispanified party system, with a dominance of statewide parties in both elections for the Spanish parliament and the foral community. The important regionalist party, the Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN), usually runs a slate with the Partido Popular for the Spanish parliamentary elections. For the foral elections (Fig. 3.3), the UPN has been classified as a statewide party, although it is only confined to Navarra. The same applies to Unidad Alavesa, the regionalist party of Álava, which is closely related to the PP. On the other hand, the Spanish socialists of the PSOE and Izquierda Unida (the successor party to the Spanish Communist Party), with their tendency towards federalism, participate in the election under regional acronyms, but are also considered statewide parties. The graphs of Fig. 3.3 clearly demonstrate the successful hispanification of the party system of Navarra with statewide parties obtaining a valid-vote percentage of 70–80, vis-à-vis the half-hearted nationalization of the Euskadi region. In Euskadi, the image of the statewide parties shown by the graph compiled during the last Cortes elections is too flattering because the radical Basque nationalists did not occupy their seats (1996, HB) or did not take part in the elections at all (2000, EH). Euskadi, though slightly dominated by Basque nationalists, can be considered as a territory contested between statewide and Basque nationalist parties. Within Euskadi, the distribution of national Spanish and sub-state forces shows a clear pattern, however. Álava is the most Spanish province, while Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa are Basque nationalist zones, the latter the most radical one. In contrast to politics, Basque lifestyle is hispanified. Spanish lifestyle has become part of many aspects of ordinary life. Agriculture as a means of subsistence practically disappeared from the two industrialized Basque-speaking provinces, while migration to the Basque cities eroded traditional life in rural Navarra. ‘Typical’ Basque institutions like the Txokos, gastronomic societies, can also be found in the Rioja region outside the Basque area, while many pelota facilities are situated in villages of Castile and Leon. Rugby has become a French Basque sport, whereas soccer is more popular on the Spanish side of the border. Apart from the Baztán valley in Navarra, tourism has decreased mainly due to the increase in political violence. The more cosmopolitan orientation of the recently opened Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has increased a flow of mainly one-to-two day tourists from the rest of Spain and from outside the country. The question, therefore, is whether the Spanish Basques of Euskadi, who mainly speak Spanish, vote Basque and behave like Spanish, actually feel Spanish or Basque? In 1975, Gómez-Ibáñez (127) was still able to write the following: ‘In fact most Basques in the borderland … are quite conscious of their “French-ness” or “Spanish-ness”.’ Nowadays the situation has changed, although the nature of the change needs to be qualified. Based on different data, the following interpretations can be made. The first is based on Aizpurua’s sociolinguistic survey (1995: 206), whereas the second takes Martínez-Herrera’s study (2002a), elaborating a

The Spanish-Basque experience

1998 2000

1994 1996

1990 1993

1999

2000

1995

1996

1991

1993

1989

1987

1983

1982

1979

1977

1999

2000

1995 1996

1991 1993

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1987 1989

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1983 1986

%

1986

Parliament Navarra

Navarra, Spanish Parliament %

1979 1982

1986 1989

1979 1980

1977

1998 2000

1994 1996

1990 1993

1986 1989

1982 1984

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1979 1980

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1977

%

1982 1984

Parliament Euskadi

Euskadi, Spanish Parliament %

1977

73

Statewide parties Basque nationalist parties

Figure 3.3 Voting patterns in Euskadi and Navarra, 1979–2000 (El País, 1978–2001).

dynamic data set on subjective national identity, collected by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) from 1980 to 1998. If one interprets Aizpura’s study it looks as if Basque sentiments have been substituted for Spanish ones, particularly in Euskadi where only 20 per cent declare themselves predominantly Spanish and 45 per cent predominantly Basque while 28 per cent indicate a mixed Spanish Basque identity. For Navarra, Aizpurua unfortunately does not distinguish between Basque, Spanish and Navarrese identifications, the latter strongly rooted in the mixed and Spanish areas and slightly more important than a Basque identification in the Euskera-speaking zone (Vilches Plaza and Cosín Reta 1995: 291, 345, 387). If the observations by Gómez-Ibáñez are correct, the coming of democracy has de-hispanified the Basque mind. However, the data collected by Linz in 1979 and the CIS data series suggest that Basque, Navarrese and hybrid self-identifications have been far more important – even since the democratic transition – than Gómez-Ibáñez’s allusion to a hispanified borderland indicates. According to Martínez-Herrera (2002a: 436) identification with either Spain or the Autonomous Community has decreased in

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favour of dual Spanish–Basque identification, which has finally reduced polarization around the subjective identity issue. However, within Spain the Basques of Euskadi identify themselves as the least Spanish, compared to the inhabitants of the other Autonomous Communities. For all the regions, the attachment to the patria chica, confirms a local and regional identification (Sangrador García 1996: 37–8). However, the significantly lower identification scores of Euskadi Basques with Spain and Europe, respectively, distinguish them from the other inhabitants of Spain. Conversely, Navarrese do not differ very much according to their territorial identifications from the average Spaniards. In Chapter 6, I will show that a minority of the Navarrese are mobilized behind Basque nationalism, a phenomenon that has existed since the Second Republic and was revived and territorially polarized after the transition (Blinkhorn 1974; Linz 1986: 399–404, 430–40).

France and Spain compared The process of French and Spanish nation-state formation in the Basque area has been deeper and more complete in the French case and more superficial and incomplete on the Spanish side of the border. The most visible and successful aspects of nationalization in both countries are daily-life patterns, social practices and the language spoken. These are now practically frenchified and hispanified. Why has nationalization from above been less successful in Hegoalde than in the French Basque Country? At first sight, explanations based on economic transformation (see Chapter 1) seem to clarify the difference because the French Basques live in an economic and cultural periphery and most Spanish Basques are in one of the country’s economic cores. This could support Nairn’s overdevelopment theory (Nairn 1977), which is considered valid in the cases of Basque and Catalan nationalism in Spain (Díez Medrano 1995: 39–40). However, his theory lacks some substantial empirical evidence. This is because other economic cores with Catalan-speaking populations, like the Balearic Islands and Valencia did not witness the rise of a similarly strong ethno-nationalism, whereas economic peripheries like Galicia actually did (Martínez-Herrera 2002a). Additionally, based on Nairn, one would expect a coincidence of the economic and political geographical landscape within Hegoalde, which, as will be demonstrated in Chapter 6, is not the case. On the other hand, if Nairn’s theory were true one would expect the economic transformation on the northern edge of the Pyrenees to have led to a gradual disappearance of Basque identification at the cost of mobilization from above. The modest rise in sub-state nationalism from the 1960s to today does not, however, fit into Nairn’s model. Moreover, some economic peripheries like Corsica developed a substantial mobilization from below, whereas other regions such as Occitania hardly witnessed any such tendency. Thus, should state development as the engine of nationalization from above have been given priority over economic transformation? With regard to assimilation towards national language and culture as a dimension of state development, both states have been successful. Conversi’s claim that

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the threat of cultural extinction is the root cause of mobilization from below is hardly tenable in the French Basque situation, where there is no official protection of Basque culture and where the old language is in danger of dying out. Moreover, I will show in Chapter 6 that in some parts of the Basque Country, where Basque disappeared centuries ago in favour of Spanish, there is substantial mobilization from below whereas a Spanish identification would have been more in line with his culturalist approach. In my opinion, however, other dimensions of state development have been crucial to the success of nation-state formation. Apart from the role of nationalist messages and their diffusion I see nation-state identification to be a result of the state’s capacity to organize social security, equality before the law, public and personal safety and, last but not least, institutionalize ethnic conflict. The successful nationalization from above in France has its roots in an early formulation of a French nationalist discourse, invented and spread by a core elite and supported by a frenchified elite in the Basque towns. Historically, the frenchifying discourse has revealed remarkable continuity. International wars, in particular, have nourished the identification of Basques with the nation state. In addition, the development of a strong state able to distribute collective goods and the emergence of a ‘repertoire of contention’ (Tilly 2003: 47–8, 92) that could be channelled and institutionalized into a system of democratic representation has legitimized the French nation state as a spatial identity frame. The FrenchBasque repertoire of contention historically developed claim-making performances on the basis of grievances that were in Tilly’ s words either ‘prescribed’ or ‘tolerated’ by the French state but heavily penalized when they crossed the border towards ‘forbidden claim-making performances’ as I will argue in Chapter 7. As Izquierdo (2001) has demonstrated, many Basques channelled their cultural and socio-economic claims through French statewide parties while ethno-nationalist claims for more autonomy have emerged through political participation in the French party system and basically through tolerated performances. The French state thus provided an opportunity structure that could be used for political claims in which locally organized interests have become channelled and mediated by interaction within the hierarchy of the French polity (Izquierdo 2001: 70–1). Territorial organization along centralist lines has thus stimulated regional political interests to join French statewide parties and organizations. Conversely, Spain reveals a comparatively incomplete nationalization and concomitant state legitimization. Historically the Madrid-based core elite could not agree on the conceptualization of the essence of the Spanish nation-state. Secular vis-à-vis clerical contradictions and civic against authoritarian conceptions impeded a common imagination of the nation-state. Moreover, Madrid was not the only diffusion and innovation centre of Spanish nationalist narratives, since Bilbao was once a centre at which new Spanish and Basque nationalist messages were simultaneously created and transmitted. In addition, regime change often changed the idea of who the Spaniards were and what the main features were of the Spanish nation. Long-lasting autocratic regimes, interrupted by periods of halfhearted democracy with a clientelist routine did not create an institutionalized

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protest repertoire and maintained the psychological gap between the state and the citizens. The lack of a historically stable opportunity structure in Spain with a predominantly prescribed repertoire during repression and a relaxation towards forms of tolerated performances has finally led to radicalization of Basque protest and a significant counter-mobilization contesting the mobilization from above, phenomena theoretically supported by scholars of different schools (Gurr 1993, Snyder 1994, Tarrow 1995, Tilly 2003). In Spain a weak state with scarce resources to redistribute could not build enough infrastructural power to establish its legitimization. The return of democracy has transformed Spain into a de facto federation. With the coming of a quasi-federal state, an opportunity structure for peripheral nationalism has emerged.

4

Euskal Herria Rhetoric of commonness versus uncommon practice

Introduction In the imagined community of Basque nationalists the people of Euskal Herria are one big family living in a future state. They feel united because they are supposed to share historical roots, common symbols and a strong wish to form an independent nation-state. At present, all Basque nationalist parties are aiming to bring about the creation of an independent Greater Basque Country or Euskal Herria or Euzkadi as they call it. The PNV, the nationalist party which attracts the most votes, emphasizes in its third general principle ‘the recognition of “Euzkadi” as Patria and territory on both sides of the Pyrenees where the Basque Nation lives, the Ikurriña as the Flag and Euzko Abendaren Ereserkia as the Anthem’ (EAJ-PNV 2002, 1 September). The other nationalist parties – Batasuna (Unity), Eusko Alkartasuna (EA/Basque Solidarity), and Abertzaleen Batasuna (AB/Patriotic Unity) – have the same projection of the outer borders of their future state. Basque nationalists on both sides of the State border usually support the idea of Euskal Herria by references to common culture and history. In this chapter the nationalist narrative on Basque commonness will be compared with linguistic, socio-cultural, and political practice. I will demonstrate that the rhetoric of Basque commonness is not reflected in the formation of a pan-Basque national space.

Nationalist claims: a short history of territorial and linguistic demands Notions of Basque singularity have always been the foundation of a common fatherland. Historically the discourse of Basque singularity has been multifaceted, fluid over time and influenced by Zeitgeist. Therefore conceptualizations of Basqueness reflected time-bounded scientific paradigms, political discourses and clerical views. Bidart’s study on the approach to Basque singularity reflects a jumble of interpretations and metamorphoses, expressed in romantic, enlightened, republican, traditionalist, religious, fascist, nationalist and postmodernist versions (Bidart 2001). From the beginning of nationalist mobilization, Basque nationalists have been able to do their ideological shopping in a supermarket well supplied with ideas on who the Basques were. Some of these ideas have never become central to

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the formulation of a nationalist discourse because they only played a role in small circles of intellectuals, artists, or dreamers. From my perspective, however, only those conceptualizations of Basque singularity are relevant that have had some impact on nationalist mobilization. Such impact-producing discourse in ideology and mobilization can be conceived of as core values. Conversi (1990) has shown that core values in Basque nationalism in Spain have changed over time in his comparison of the ideas of Sabino Arana, the nineteenth-century inventor of Basqueness, with present-day nationalism. His study revealed a shift from a racial connotation of Basqueness to a more cultural content of nationalist ideology. Whereas, in the original nineteenth-century conception of Basque nationalism, common bloodlines expressed in surnames were dominant, present-day nationalists focus mainly on culture as the paramount common denominator of the Basque nation. The new cultural content is expressed in the shared intention to Basquify a future Euskal Herria by giving Basque a preferential status compared to Spanish and French. Language claims, however, are just part of a total set of ideals of what should be the imagined society of a Greater Basque Country. How have nationalist claims been shifted concerning respectively territoriality, language and religion? Territoriality concerns two geopolitical issues: first the demarcation and second the status with respect to the States of France, Spain and Europe. Today’s agreement among the nationalists on the outer boundaries of Euskal Herria is striking because Arana’s initial claims of Basque nationalism were confined to Vizcaya. In 1890, Arana wrote ‘Bizkaya por su independencia’, based on battles between Biscayans and Asturians, Leonese, and Castilians in respectively 888(!), 1355 and 1470 (Larronde 1977: 72–3). For Arana, Vizcaya, Navarra, Guipúzcoa and Álava were to be independent Basque states, each having their own institutions (Larronde 1977: 109–10). During the 1890s, however, the idea of a Basque confederation to which all the territories, including the French Basque Provinces could join became part of the nationalist message (Larronde 1977: 152–4). The basic idea of Zazpiak Bat [seven Basque Provinces in one] was first propagated by the French Basque Antoine d’Abbadie in 1836 (Goyhenetche 1993: 26). In Spanish Navarra, despite the presence of some separatist voices, the first steps of Basque nationalism were against independence and in favour of restoring the Navarrese fuero (Martínez-Peñuela Vírseda 1989: 57–8). In France, the modest Basque nationalist mobilization that emerged in the 1930s did not aim to achieve a greater Basque Country, but propagated a decentralization of the French state (Jacob 1994: 76–7). Quite often, nationalists claim that the outer borders of their country coincide with the old medieval Kingdom of Navarra, led by Sancho the Great. The projected Euskal Herria is, however, significantly smaller. The legendary Kingdom once included parts of present-day Castile, Cantabria and Aragon south of the Pyrenees and practically the whole of Aquitaine on the northern side. South of the Pyrenees, the supposed historical unity thus coincides with the historical provincial outer borders of Bourbon Spain. The only corrections to be made to the provincial borders are the inclusion into Euskal Herria of the ‘Spanish’ enclaves of the Condado de Treviño in Álava and Villaverde de Trucios in Vizcaya. According to the nationalist newspapers Deia (26 April

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2001) and Gara (15 December 2000) the twelfth-century enclave in Álava forms part of the cultural heritage of the Basque Country as Basque ‘was still spoken in the eighteenth century’ (Deia 26 April 2001). In the case of Treviño the historical claim to integration into Euskadi is indeed ‘very historical’ given that the incorporation into Castile dates back to the year 1200 and was a consequence of warfare between King Alfonso VIII of Castile and the Kingdom of Navarra. The inclusion of the three French Basque ‘historical territories’ into a future Euskal Herria is unprecedented in the ideology of the Basque nationalist parties, as it became part of their official programmes after restoring democracy in Spain. Under Francoism ETA was the first organization to aim at creating an independent Basque Country consisting of the seven provinces in Spain and France (Jáuregui Beciartu 1985: 114–15). During the transition, the territorial ambitions of the PNV had become the same as ETA’s. Regarding the legal status of Euskal Herria there have been changes over time from the restoration of the fueros to forms of autonomy within decentralized states to total independence. Though all the nationalist parties nowadays opt for independence within Europe, PNV and EA consider participation in Spanish institutions and institutions of the Autonomous and Foral Communities as a transitory phase on their way to independence. The nationalists nowadays consider udalbiltza, the assembly of Basque municipalities, as the democratic institution representing all Basques, which acts as a bridge across the present international and internal administrative borders. However, recent proposals by the PNV-EA coalition in power in Euskadi to assign Euskadi a transitory status of co-sovereignty with Spain suggest a kind of status aparte for Euskadi as a whole (El País 27 September 2002; see also Chapter 8). With the integration of Spain into the European Community in 1986, ‘Europe’ has become more and more important in the nationalist discourse. In the 2001 elections for the Euskadi parliament, the slate run by PNV and EA had ‘Europe’ firmly presented in its programme: ‘departing from the need to … defend and incorporate the … self-determination of the Basque Nation … the changing circumstances of the process of the construction of Europe will be taken in account’ (Coalición EAJ-PNV/EA 2001: 65). ‘The much-needed update of the Historical Rights of the Basque Nation in the present-day European context requires the direct presence of the Basque institutions in the European Union’ (Coalición EAJPNV/EA 2001: 67). Euskal Herritarrok (EH/Basque Citizens), ETA’s political wing, had the same claim during the campaign: ‘We want to construct a new Europe that defends the interests of the nations and their citizens, and therefore for us it is ineluctable to directly participate through a political and institutional representation that we still lack’ (Euskal Herritarrok 2002: section 2.5). Apart from the outer borders of Euskal Herria, the nationalist parties agree on claims concerning culture and language in the future nation state. The PNV-EA slate considers culture as an integration instrument and ‘a unifying element of nations and in particular in the whole of territories that compose Euskal Herria’ (Coalición EAJ-PNV/EA: 57). In the EH programme ‘Euskera is the own language of Euskal Herria and will therefore be the only official language in the whole of Euskal Herria’ (Euskal Herritarrok 2002: 4.2.3.b). The coalition of PNV-EA states

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that Euskera ‘is our own language: the only language spoken … all over our country [here presented as Euskal Herria, JMB]’ (Coalición EAJ-PNV/EA 2001: 59). Though, in the original nationalist doctrine, orthodox Catholicism was seen as an important component of Basqueness, all nationalist parties nowadays defend a secular state. Territorial and language claims are the common ones on which all the Basque nationalist parties now officially base their ideology. The parties differ, however, when it comes to the role of organized labour, the use of violence and the power to be attributed to foral and local authorities. The common pretension of a Basque-speaking Greater Basque Country in the nationalist discourse, which was hindered by the French and Spanish states, will now be confronted with daily-life experiences. Is there really so much in common between the inhabitants of Euskal Herria that they have developed a common will to independence enabling them to use their ‘own’ language?

Language and identity Speaking the same language does not automatically imply understanding each other and having the same identity or having a common exposure to, or perception of, symbols. An average Dutchman from Amsterdam will probably understand CNN English better than Dutch dialects from the more remote areas of Flanders in Belgium. Although he may share a command of official Dutch with a dialectspeaking Flemish person, the two will not have had any shared education, nor have any common perception of symbols of Dutchness. The same may happen in Euskal Herria, where Euskera as a common denominator is hardly spoken or understood in many parts of the claimed territory. For Basque nationalists, identity consists of a deep-rooted attachment of a Basque-speaking and Basque-feeling community to Euskal Herria. However, identity is in reality a complex, multi-layered concept that is hard to operationalize and even harder to measure. The scholarly work on Basque identity can be divided into four categories. The first one consists of a pseudo-scientific group of believers inspired by a political, mostly nationalist doctrine, who assume the existence of a common identity and political conviction shared by all, or at least increasingly shared by many Basques. Examples are studies by Del Valle (1993), Apalategi (1992), Letamendía (1997b: 185) and Leizaola (2000), all suggesting the existence of one undivided Basque nation having a common will of nation formation, a will obstructed by the existence of artificial state borders. The second category concerns anthropological studies that are usually conducted in one specific locality and cover a wide range of identity facets, but often hinder systematic comparison with other case studies (Zulaika 1988; Heiberg 1989; MacClancy 1996). The third type of studies concerns geo-historical approaches in which identity formation is seen as the complex result of interaction of local and regional actors and institutions and supra-local forces, often at the level of the nation state (Loyer 1997; Douglass 1998; Raento 1999). Sometimes European and global dimensions may enter into this third type of studies (Kockel 1999). Some of these approaches emphasize political expressions of identity (Douglass 1998; Raento 1999), while others, such as those by Loyer (1997: 159–79) and Mansvelt

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Beck (1999b), make a distinction between language features, political discourse and political mobilization. Finally, there is a category of survey-linked research in which identity statements of the respondents are the subject of covariate analysis with other attributes of the population (Linz 1986; Aizpurua 1995; Sangrador García 1996). In the last two types of approach, only a few studies cover the whole of Euskal Herria (Aizpurua 1995; Loyer 1997; Douglass 1998). My analysis will be confined to the questions of whether aspired linguistic unity is reflected in the language geography of Euskal Herria and how language geography is related to identity. The typology of identities developed earlier (Mansvelt Beck 1999b) will be used to construct identity profiles for respectively Euskadi, Navarra and Iparralde (the French Basque Country). These profiles consist of ascribed identity, ethnic self-perception and politicized identity. Basque identity may be linked with speaking Euskera, as language may be the only ethnic marker distinguishing Basques from non-Basques. This is the outsider’s definition of who is Basque and who is not, or the most common form of ascribed identity. The other component of the identity profile is ethnic self-perception, here seen as self-declared Basqueness. The third building block is politicized identity, reflected in the mobilization for Basque nationalist political aims. Speech is relevant not only in identity formation. As in the case of the Amsterdam-based Dutchman who does not understand Flemish dialect, Basques have many dialects of which some are as different from the others as Catalan from Castilian or Gallego (De Azaola 1988: 81). Seven Basque dialects are still spoken and, depending on the dialectological classification, they may be regrouped into four dialect categories. Laponce (1992: 596–7) has shown that the survival of language in the modern and postmodern eras is highly dependent on corpus and status planning. Corpus planning standardizes the language into grammatical and orthographic norms, while status planning regulates the use of the language in the public domain. The introduction of Basque corpus planning lasted until 1968 when, following on from an earlier initiative, the Basque language was standardized under the name of euskara batua or unified Basque. The lack of corpus planning during so many centuries and the absence of state or regional institutions that force ‘correct’ – read ‘standardized’ – forms of speech and writing have helped to preserve dialect diversity. During the centuries the mountains protected Euskera from Spanish and French. Similarly the steep slopes were internal obstacles to the development of a uniform language. Euskera became subject to status planning that strengthened its position only after the enactment of the Basque Autonomy Statute of 1979 leading to a ‘Law of normalization of Basque’ in Euskadi (1982) and the ‘Basque Language Law’ in Spanish Navarra (1986) (Intxausti 1992: 27–8). In Navarra, status planning is limited to only those parts of the region where Basque is spoken, while in Iparralde status planning so far has been more symbolic as it is mainly reduced to (bilingual) signposting. The introduction of standardized official Basque in practically the entire public sphere in Euskadi has, however, not been easy. People that claim to be euskaldun (Euskera-speaking) often mix up Basque and the state language in their informal conversations as I have noticed when listening to conversations in village bars. Rivalry between educational

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organizations connected with radical nationalism and official institutions of the Euskadi Administration has also obstructed standardization (MacClancy 1996; Tejerina Montaña 1996). Though minor differences in spelling still occur in official documents of respectively Navarra and Euskadi, standardization is helped by radio, TV and schoolbooks made under the auspices of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. These are heard, watched and read all over Euskal Herria, even on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees. In Cambo-les-Bains, in one of the few secondary schools where all subjects are taught in Basque, one can observe that various cars parked by the teachers have Spanish number plates. Indeed several teachers are professionals from Euskadi commuting across the state border. Despite immense efforts to re-Basquify Euskal Herria there is no real ‘national socialization’ as Williams has called the standardization of time, language, education, administration and bureaucracy (Williams 1994: 66–72). In Euskal Herria the language map remains fragmented by Basque dialects and what is even worse for the revival of the old language, Spanish- and French-speaking cities keep socializing their hinterlands through classical mechanisms of spatial diffusion. The administrative division has finally given birth to three different institutional environments for Euskera. The first is the favourable environment of Euskadi in which the command of Basque is increasing. Iparralde forms part of the wider administrative units of the Départements des Pyrénées Atlantiques and Aquitaine that hardly promote regional languages and where Basque, Gascon and Occitan are rapidly disappearing. Finally, Navarra is the in-between region in which the decrease of proficiency of Euskera has now stopped (see further Chapters 5 and 6). The second identity component, Basque self-perception, has been the subject of many surveys usually confined to Euskadi or the Autonomous Communities of Spain. Albeit Linz (1986) used survey data of 1979 to compare the identities of Euskadi, Navarra and Iparralde, it is questionable whether the methods applied allow for a rigid comparison, in particular because his survey results for Navarra show an extremely low Basque identification which is not in line with later surveys (Zabaleta 1995: 291, 345, 387; Aizpurua 1995). To my knowledge, Aizpurua’s sociolinguistic survey (1995) is the only one that encompasses Euskal Herria and enables a systematic cross-state comparison of identity patterns. In Euskadi Basque self-identification is strongest with 74 per cent considering themselves Basque compared to 48 and 34 per cent in Iparralde and Navarra, respectively (Aizpurua 1995: 52). Interpretation of the data displayed in Table 4.1 requires caution. Because of the way in which the questions were asked in the survey, ‘do you consider yourself Basque?’ produced a lower proportion of answers admitting a mixed identity than in other surveys. The 4 per cent classified as ‘to a certain degree’ in Euskadi is far below the percentages resulting from other surveys in which over half the population declared themselves to be Spanish as well as Basque (Díez Medrano 1995: 175; for a complete time series for the 1979–2001 period in Euskadi, see Martínez-Herrera 2002a: 437–8). Moreover, further interpretation of the data should take into account that the content of Basque identity is different for Basque speakers who associate being Basque more with their language than for non-Basque speakers. According to

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Table 4.1 Indicators of Basque self-identification Region

% Euskera speakers

% identifying as Basque

% voting Basque nationalist a

Euskadi Álava Vizcaya Guipúzcoa Navarra French Basque Country Labourd Low Navarra Soule

24 7 17 44 10 34 27 62 64

74 70 68 85 34 48 43 63 71

45 33 44 53 12 5 nd nd nd

Total

22

64

—

Sources: Aizpurua (1995), El País (1997), Le Monde (1997). Note a Calculations are based on 1996 elections for the Spanish parliament, and 1997 elections for the French parliament.

Aizpurua (1995: 105) one-third of the Euskera speakers see language as the main ethnic marker while only 8 per cent of the non-Basque speakers hold this opinion. For the latter, being born in the Greater Basque Country (32 per cent) or living and working there (28 per cent) determines Basque identity. Even if it is taken into account that Basque identity scores in Euskadi are some 20 per cent higher than survey results of earlier studies held in 1979, 1988 and 1991 have indicated (Díez Medrano 1995: 175), there still remains a significant discrepancy between speech and identity. This discrepancy is stronger in Euskadi and Navarra than in the French Basque Country. Most striking is the high proportion of predominantly Castilian-speaking Alavese who claim Basque identity (Table 4.1). Politicized identity is difficult to compare because of different electoral systems and competences at respectively state and sub-state levels. Due to the great differences of competences between Euskadi, Navarra and Aquitaine and the share of the Basque population – irrespective of the way Basque is defined – the state legislative elections are the most appropriate level at which to compare Basque nationalist voting. The resulting political landscape is fragmented albeit not in an identical way to the linguistic landscape. A rough comparison between Euskadi, Navarra and Iparralde shows that Euskadi – with almost half of its population voting for Basque nationalist parties – is politically far more ‘Basque’ than its language map would lead one to expect. Iparralde displays a reverse pattern in which the high proportion of Basque speakers is far less reflected in Basque nationalism. Navarra with its rather low proportion of Euskera speakers has a comparatively low nationalist mobilization, though the mobilized are mainly situated in the Basque-speaking zones that show a remarkable contiguity with the bordering Province of Guipúzcoa (Chapter 6). The three identity components are assembled in the three regional identity profiles that show remarkable differences

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between language, self-perception and politicized identity in Euskadi, Navarra and the French Basque Country (Fig. 4.1). Euskadi is the most Basque region with regard to self-perception and voting. Conversely, Iparralde would be the most Basque in terms of language. In comparison to speaking Basque, as reflected in selfperception percentages, feeling Basque is more important than proportions of Basque speakers would predict, in particular on the Spanish side of the border. This contrasting image confirms the crucial role of statehood in the formation of identity described in Chapters 2 and 3. The identity profiles display the fragmentation of the language, identity and political landscape of Euskal Herria, a fragmentation that contrasts with the allBasque political project of the nationalist parties. Both the identity profiles and the widespread occurrence of hybrid identities reflect the gap between nationalist claims for pan-Basque unity and the potential for unification. In this respect the comment of Clark (1985: 221) still holds true: Before a people can begin to structure political institutions for their self-governance, they must first have a clear sense of who they are as a group and as a culture. In this fundamental dimension of political culture, the Basques exhibit a disturbingly high degree of fragmentation and lack of consensus.

Contact space and cross-border contacts Cross-border contacts consist of economic interaction, the establishment of international institutional and legal frameworks and the building of cross-border infrastructure. Here the discussion will focus on the role of the border in panBasque interaction. Economic contacts across the international border range from relics of a pre-modern economy, via interaction due to a border location, to flows related to market unification and globalization. Literature on the economic geography of Euskal Herria can be classified as imagery of economic unity and representations emphasizing fragmentation. The former is often based on relics of ancient pasturing rights of French Basques in the bordering valleys of Spanish Navarra, while the latter are concerned with the functional regions whose centrality is articulated in the cities. The grazing arrangements in which uplands were shared by the herds from both sides of the border are known as facerías (Sp.) or faceries (Fr.) (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975: 47). These medieval treaties were not left untouched by the states’ legal frameworks, which gained in complexity during the era of modernization. Fernández de Casadevante Romani (1989: 182–6) has described the bureaucratization of the faceries as a result of the increase of bilateral regulation and the growth of state interventionism on each side of the border. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries freedom of movement was restricted to small grazing areas and herders who, by the 1920s, were obliged to carry passports and ownership and veterinary documents of their herds. In addition they had to pay a reimbursable deposit to prevent cattle smuggling. The herders were also subject to tightening surveillance and sanctions such as seizures and fines. The evolution from merely

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% 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Euskadi

Navarra

French Basque Country

Basque-speaking Basque self-perception Basque voting

Figure 4.1 Basque self-identitification in Euskal Herria. Basque-speaking and self-perception figures from Aizpurua (1995); voting statistics from El País (1997) and Le Monde (1997). ‘Basque-speaking’ is calculated as the sum of the percentages of bilinguals and bascophones. ‘Basque self-perception’ is taken as the percentage of respondents answering yes to the question ‘Do you consider yourself Basque?’ ‘Basque voting’ is the percentage of votes cast for Basque nationalist parties.

local, valley-bounded arrangements to international agreements regulating border relations is nowadays sometimes glorified as a reflection of pan-Basque brotherhood in Euskal Herria. A romantic book on Basque traditions presents the people of the area of Sare as ‘families without borders’ while emphasizing the cordiality of traditional grazing arrangements in the Roncal area of the Pyrenees (San Sebastián 1997, passim). These arrangements are, however, local, based on face-toface contacts, and do not exceed more than 20km (Gómez-Ibáñez 1975: 46). In addition, traditional grazing agreements were not specifically pan-Basque because they could be found anywhere in Euskal Herria, even between Basques and Gascons in the Landes area or between Euskera and Castilian-speaking Basques. Caro Baroja’s map of short and long-distance transhumance in Navarra shows a pattern of grazing arrangements beyond linguistic borders (Caro Baroja 1998: 207). Cross-border cordiality between French and Spanish Basques was also a byproduct of the existence of the border itself, particularly when protectionism was at its heyday. Smuggling generated warm relationships between the south and the north but, as in the case of grazing, merely on a local scale. More modern interaction across the border has been far less substantial than rural-to-urban migration has been within respectively Iparralde and Hegoalde, or from Iparralde to other parts of

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France. In this respect, the nineteenth-century migration of Basque girls from the Roncal area to the Mauléon shoe industry, or the contemporary flow of Spanish Basque females to Iparralde’s tourist industry, has been relatively unimportant. Another flow of ‘migrants’ consisted of some 500 refugees who settled during and after the Spanish Civil War. However, most refugees never became involved in significant cross-border interaction while, in the course of time, their commitment to the nationalist cause faded away (Jacob 1994; Douglass 1998). Gómez Piñeiro (1985: 66–8) has conceptualized the cities and towns of Euskal Herria as a ‘Basque urban system’ consisting of an urban hierarchy covering Euskal Herria. Unfortunately, the empirical basis for his conceptualization is extremely weak. For example it remains unclear, and to my idea unlikely, that Bayonne would be a lower-order centre of the hierarchy of which Bilbao is at the top. On the other hand, Bilbao may have central functions that reach well beyond the limits of Euskadi and Navarra, in particular concerning banking and manufacturing, that organize the economic space of Spain. In contrast, Iparralde is on the edge of France’s spatial organization, dominated by Paris. Even the coastal conurbation extending from Bayonne to San Sebastián, though showing continuity in urban densities on the coastal fringe, exhibits significant economic differences between the Spanish and the French parts. The Spanish part has a mainly internal Basque tourist orientation, while the French part has a French-cosmopolitan brand of tourism. Moreover, the integration of the ‘urban system’ through the transport system is rather weak. The highway connection between San Sebastián and Bilbao, a quick car drive of one hour over 100km, is not the scene of extremely high traffic intensity due to the extremely high toll. In Euskadi, the three provincial capitals ‘present urban areas spread out over the region but within the reach of each other … the level of functional interaction between these areas has been surprisingly low’ (Van Houtum and Lagendijk 2001: 761). The three airports of Euskadi, together with those of Biarritz and Pamplona, do not show a clear hierarchical pattern with one international airport serving the other ones, though given the reduced size of Euskal Herria, one international airport instead of one plus four would be a more realistic assumption. The image of a weakly integrated Euskal Herria is one of the concerns of the regional planning authorities of Euskadi (personal communication, 1997 visit to Government of Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz). These days there are low-intensity and asymmetric economic exchanges between the north and the south. Capital, cash and tourist flows go from south to north. Investments from Spain to France totalled €120 million (F800 million) in 1990–5, resulting in 500 new jobs in paper mills (Hendaye), a sweets factory (Bayonne) and the fishing industry (St Jean-de-Luz) (Les Echos 1995: 28). Investments from south of the Pyrenees in the French Basque Country have grown after European integration but are not abundant: ‘Bizcayans and Guipuzcoans are not very well acquainted with the reality of French Basque Country and they imagine it as nice, green and attractive to tourists. They do not see it as a favourable environment for industrial activities’ (Club 1993: 265). French Basque businesses hardly invest in the Spanish Basque region because it is ‘chicken-hearted’ to do so (Club 1993: 5). Cross-border shopping is almost exclusively practised by Spanish Basques, who are responsible for

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20 per cent of the turnover in the superstores of Iparralde. They are ordinary customers who go to the huge shopping malls of Carrefour or Décathlon where they buy ‘European’ products not yet available in Spain. Spanish Basques buy second homes along the Basque coast up to the Landes area and first residences close to the border, where Sokuburu is the favourite locality with 30 per cent of its houses owned by Spanish Basques. The purchase of accommodation after 1987 when a Royal Decree in Spain allowed Spaniards to purchase real estate in foreign countries for a maximum of F25 million (€140,000) has contributed to the increase in prices on the housing market, a phenomenon that was not always greeted with much sympathy by the local population (Club 1993: 359). One-third of the tourists in the mountainous Upper Soule come from the south, among them many weekend tourists. Basque tourism from Spain is institutionally represented by EROSKI, a branch of the Mondragón cooperative that has participated in the creation of a ski resort in Upper Soule. Finally, the Biarritz international airport has a cross-border influence with 15 per cent of airport traffic depending on Spain (Club 1993: 418). Publications on business contacts reveal a positive image of the French Basque Country among Spanish Basques (green, attractive to tourists, authentically Basque) and a negative image of Euskadi in the north. Nationalist politicians, like Roman Sudupe, deputy general of Guipúzcoa (Les Echos 1995: 27), occasionally admit the existence of an economic ‘mental border’. The space of Euskal Herria is most obviously organized in a fragmented way in its administrative structure: Euskadi has its own administrative hierarchy with Vitoria as its capital at the top, and Navarra has Pamplona as its capital, while Iparralde’s administrative capitals are situated outside the Basque area. Linguistic and cultural heterogeneity, weak internal economic interaction and institutional fragmentation are in strong contrast with the Basque nationalist discourse claiming all-Basque unity to be realized in a future nation state. Euskal Herria as the final territorial objective has led to the rise of specific nationalist symbols and practice varying from law-abiding initiatives of institutional collaboration in the framework of the EU to subversive actions that symbolize Basque linguistic and political unity.

Nationalist symbols and practice of Euskal Herria Basque nationalists have invented all-Basque symbols and institutions and have developed activities that cover the entire territory of their ‘imagined community’. Most of these symbols and practices consist of recently invented or re-invented expressions of cultural, political or institutional singularity. Many expressions have become sacred among Basque nationalists while others are continuously being disputed. The Ikurriña, the Basque flag designed by Sabino Arana in the nineteenth century, is just such a generally accepted symbol. However, the fact that the flag is used on both official occasions and in anti-system activities shows that the function of symbols may depend on the context in which it is situated. The practice of pan-Basque nationalism can be classified along the following dimensions. The first dimension concerns the degree of formality vis-à-vis informality. The

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more formalized a practice, the more bureaucracy and routine will be involved. In the case of formal organizations with all-Basque pretensions, the geographical coverage of these organizations will be examined. The second dimension regards the degree of anti-system content. The continuum varies from total anti-system practice, like direct involvement in ETA, to system-abiding economic cross-border cooperation in the framework of the INTERREG programme of the European Union. The geographical distribution of anti-system institutions and behaviour in Euskal Herria will now be described and the resulting patterns will be compared with the distribution of system-abiding institutions and rituals. First, I will describe the way nationalist parties have organized themselves at the level of Euskal Herria. The Autonomous Community of the Basque Country is the only region where Basque nationalism has been able to mobilize about half of the population (Fig. 4.1). No wonder that Euskadi has always been the nationalist stronghold from which bridgeheads were created in Spanish Navarra and Iparralde, albeit that both regions have known autonomous nationalist initiatives. The 2001 map of party offices of PNV (PNB in France), EA and EH (AB in France) shows many municipalities without any party seat in Navarra and Iparralde. In Navarra, EH – which was the nationalist party with by far the most votes – was represented in only 67 out of 275 municipalities. Surprisingly, the more systemabiding parties of PNV and EA have extremely small branches and membership in Iparralde and Navarra. While PNV has over 32,000 members in Spain, its PNB branch in the French Basque Country has proliferated poorly with only 40 members (Het Volkskrant Magazine 2001, 89: 28). PNV lost most of its support in Navarra after 1986 when EA split off from the rest. Their Batzokis, party offices, had to be closed down or were handed over to EA. Outside the area, the PNV branch now has one office in Pamplona for Navarra and another for the ‘northern’ PNB in Bayonne (EAJ-PNV 1 October 2002). Only four out of 75 Alkartetxes, the EA successor centres of the Batzokis can be found in Navarra, while the EA website makes mention of one such meeting point in Iparralde (EA 2002). EA has 87 of its 15,000 members in Iparralde where they have 15 out of a total of 389 municipal councillors. Apparently, only the former radical nationalist party EH, with its French Basque sister party AB, had a coverage of some significance in northwestern Navarra and Iparralde’s interior. Across the international border the militant nationalists had established ‘bonds of friendship and solidarity’ (Letamendía 1997a: 37). However, taking all parties together as a formal, measurable national network, the coverage over Euskal Herria is far from complete. The black holes in the spatial organization of nationalism occur particularly in Navarra and the French Basque Country. In the latter regions, however, the anti-system content of nationalism is dominant. A similar situation can be observed with respect to the youth organization Haika and its successor association Segi (since 23 June 2001; see Chapter 7). The prevalence of anti-system institutions in Iparralde and Navarra over system-abiding organizations gives rise to support for Conversi’s thesis that radical nationalism is fostered in areas where fear of cultural annihilation by assimilation to the official culture of the State is greatest (Conversi 1997: 236–40). Indeed,

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Euskera is mostly threatened in Iparralde and Navarra, where language protection by the authorities is respectively absent or weak (see Chapters 5 and 6). However, the success in cross-border party building of the radical nationalists is also limited. The French Basque AB received ideological, media and financial support from EH (Sud-Ouest 19 July 2000). Radicalization of the anti-system party of the south under the new name of Batasuna (‘Unity’, 25 June 2001) led to dissatisfaction among AB and the Navarra wing of Aralar. While Aralar almost immediately abandoned Batasuna, AB’s alienation from Batasuna culminated in a meeting in Ustaritz on 6 October 2002, when 67 per cent of its members voted for autonomy from Batasuna (Deia, Gara 7 October 2002). Culture within the nationalist parties differs from south to north. The herrikotabernas in the south, the party-community centres of Batasuna, have much in common as a neighbourhood or community meeting centre with the Batzokis of PNV, the Alkartetxes of EA, or the casas del pueblo of the Spanish socialists. Such party centres do not have an equivalent in Iparralde, not even historically (Chaussier 1996: 271). In addition, Chaussier (1996: 273–4) mentioned the role of group behaviour in cuadrillas (see also Chapter 6), absent in the north and specific to the Basque political culture of the south, again confirming the mental border between the French and Spanish Basques. Moreover, the French independentists of AB are seemingly more oriented towards democratic debate inside and outside the party. Their spokesman Richard Irazusta, when interviewed by the Spanish Basque TV, stated that AB is thinking ‘in a less military way’ than their southern colleagues of EH and that his party are not so enthusiastic about the ‘clandestine leadership of the struggle for independence’ (Deia 21 June 2001). In another interview about the impact of the Lizarra agreement, cease-fire and the return of violence he stated that ‘here [in Iparralde] we perceive the things in a very different way than in the south’ (Ayerbe and Fagoagoa 2000). In the same interview he blamed the increase of ETA activities during the cease-fire in France. European institution-building has taken place in the framework of a European Union that gave new opportunities to border regions in order to construct an integrated border-less European space. INTERREG has so far been the most important European programme to foster cross-border cooperation. The administrative regional units involved at the level of the regions, the main institutional actors below the European level, are Aquitaine, Euskadi and Navarra of which only Euskadi is the region where a Basque politico-cultural content dominates. Euskadi, however, shares only a minor part of the Basque borderline, whereas less ‘Basque’ Navarra has most of the borderline in common with Aquitaine. Moreover in the cultural ecology of Basqueness, the bordering municipalities of Hendaye and Urrugne in France and Irún in Spain are culturally French and Castilian, rather than Basque. By the end of the nineteenth century Juan Iturralde and Arturo Campión, two Navarrese nationalists, brought forward the first ideas regarding fostering crossborder cooperation between Basque-speaking communities in Spanish Navarra and France. Apart from restoring fueros, their aim was also to preserve and promote the Basque language. Although they were mobilized in the Asociación

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Euskara, they never established a party to put international Basque collaboration on the political agenda (Miranda García and Felones Morrás 1998: 134–5). One century after the initiative of Iturralde and Campión, formal cross-border cooperation became a fact. There are two different modes of official international cooperation. The first and most important one from the point of view of the budget concerns European regional programmes, partially paid for by the European Union and by state and sub-state administrations of the respective countries and regions involved. The second mode is the twinning of municipalities, of which Iturralde and Campión are spiritual fathers avant la lettre. INTERREG is the most important European programme that tries to integrate border regions. The Basque areas are involved in the three following INTERREG II programmes (1994–9): 1 2 3

the Atlantic area: from Cádiz in the south via Portugal and the French Atlantic coast through Ireland, west of the UK up to Scotland; south-west Europe with Spain, Portugal and southern France as participants; Pyrenees, Basque, Occitan, Spanish (Aragonese) and Catalan.

The Pyrenees programme is the most important one with a budget of €142.6 million (approximately $120 million) for 1994–9, six times larger than the Atlantic area budget and sixteen times larger than the south-west Europe programme. The latter is also the case for INTERREG III (2000–6), which will closely follow the lines set by INTERREG II (European Commission 2001). Regarding its content, the Pyrenees programme is also the most interesting one because, in contrast to the other programmes that are mainly concerned with infrastructure, economic and environmental policies, the Pyrenees programme has a unique scheme to reinforce regional identity. Although the major part of the budget is allocated to stimulate the cross-border economy and to foster cross-border circulation and information of people, 29 per cent is concerned with the reinforcement of regional identity. The measures focus on developing infrastructures for cooperation, on increasing reciprocal knowledge and understanding among the population, and on specialized training schemes (European Commission 2001). In INTERREG IIIA all the Spanish border provinces, including Guipúzcoa and Navarra and all French border départements with Pyrénées Atlantiques participate. Taking into account the effect of inflation, the budget is similar to the INTERREG II Pyrenean programme (€168,580,000 vis-à-vis €142,600,000). The website of Entreprise, Territoires et Développement (2002), in which French state institutions and private enterprise collaborate, provides some information about the content of the reinforcing of regional identity. The cultural policies involved only absorb 15 per cent of the budget and are related to the culture identitaire, in particular its capacity to build an image of the Basque Country: ‘This implies the mobilization of resources specifically allocated for culture of Basque expression, though they only represent 15 per cent of the total budget for culture in the Basque Country.’ All cross-border cultural exchanges with a Basque content reveal a general cultural interest, in

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which dance, music, language, museums and other cultural heritage are exchangeable. On the website, respect is paid to the French state institutions when discussing the ‘privileged place’ the schools have to occupy in accordance with the criteria set by the National [French] Educational system and the Ministry of Culture. The cultural content of the cross-border programme, which is predominantly an infrastructural programme stimulating the development of the Bay of Txingudi in the mouth of the Bidasoa, the border river, may match with the aspirations of the Navarrese policy makers, but not at all with the Guipúczoan counterparts. For them language is the kernel of Basqueness and the core value in the creation of a pan-Basque identity (see Chapter 6). Particularly on the French side of the border the ‘Basque’ content of cross-border cooperation should be taken with a pinch of salt. The Club report of 1993 (p. 5) expresses its concern for the new language situation, not because of the revival of Euskera, but because of the incursion of English into formal education in the south: ‘Will we see tomorrow the Basques of France and Spain speaking to each other in English?’ This concern is not only a consequence of the French language used by French Basque business interests on the coast. In addition, one should keep in mind that decisions are being taken with the approval of supra-Basque authorities located in Brussels, Madrid, Paris, Bordeaux and Pau. Apart from a different conceptualization of what the essence of regional identity is by the political and business classes in Guipúzcoa, Navarra and the French Basque Country respectively, the influence of supra-Basque levels in the decision-making process has finally depoliticized crossborder cultural policies. In contrast to Iparralde’s leaders, Euskadi’s politicians continually complain about the lack of a proper Basque decision space. The trans-border network of ‘Basque’ town twinning is rather thin. The list is as follows: Bayonne–Pamplona, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port–Estella, Saint-Palais– Sanguësa, and Ustaritz–Tolosa. The oldest link (1960) is between Bayonne and Pamplona, cities dominated by respectively French- and Spanish-speaking majorities. As can be expected, Euskera does not occupy an important place in the city link. Universal sports activities like the yearly cycling race and the exchange of handball teams form the backbone of the relationship. The small amount of data that could be traced about the other Basque twinning in the municipal library of Bayonne demonstrates the lack of intense interaction and the absence of a profound Basque linguistic content. In this respect the annual report of the most nationalist little town of Saint-Etienne-de-Baïgorry is telling (Bulletin Municipal 1999). The only cross-border reference in the multicolour edition is about tourist development in the Pyrenees, presented amid photos of the festive opening of the new building of the gendarmerie. Obviously local communities suffer more from budgetary constraints than in north-western Europe where a greater part of public budgets are spent by local authorities. Consequently, in smaller towns the tiny municipal budgets only allow some sports exchanges and school trips to be supported. The only effort aimed at creating a ‘Basque decision space’ at the level of Euskal Herria has been udalbiltza, the Assembly of Municipalities. Udalbiltza is a by-product of the truce proclaimed by ETA in 1999. Out of the 1778 mayors and councillors of the municipalities who attended the inauguration ceremony on 18 September 1999, only fourteen were representing the French Basques. Against the

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background of 158 French Basque municipalities, the small share of Iparralde indeed reflected the rather weak interest in creating trans-border institutions. The aims of udalbiltza are the following: 1 2

3

4

5

attesting to the existence of the Basque Country as a Nation; promoting the political structuring of the Basque Country, testifying to its territorial integrity and gathering all the local representatives within the six Basque Provinces within the same framework; fostering the national construction of the Basque Country, understood as a dynamic and democratic process, grounded on the Basques’ free participation and decisions; enhancing the process of constructive interrelations among the councils in the six provinces, supporting the local representatives’ joint actions in such fields as language, culture, sports, environment, land organization [regional planning or ordenación del territorio according to the Spanish version; JMB], economic development, social welfare, etc. [six provinces is one less than the traditional claim of seven]; projecting, at international level, the existence of the Basque Country as a single and different people and the will to behave as such in the future European community and institutions.

Udalbiltza, together with the officially supported claim of the Condado de Treviño and approval of the possibility to organize sports with teams and sportsmen representing the Basque Country, was the product of a rapprochement between EH, PNV and EA in the Basque Parliament (Onaindía 2000: 229). PNV and EA hoped to politically integrate EH, ETA’s political wing, by accommodating its claim for a ‘proper decision space for national construction’. This decision space has the usual outer border of the imagined territory of Euskal Herria. Internally the website shows an innovative division as the French Lower Navarra now forms one part with Spanish Navarra (udalbiltza 2002). Apart from the incomplete coverage of Euskal Herria by udalbiltza, democratic representation does not reflect the numbers of inhabitants. In udalbiltza mayors and councillors represent the municipalities. The weight of each municipality in political decision-making is equal. Within Euskadi, with the Spanish-voting big cities, malapportionment would multiply the nationalist seats by a factor of 1.7. This factor is extremely high compared for instance to the notorious case of County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland where, after gerrymandering, a Unionist multiplier of 1.4 applied (Darby 1976, quoted in Taylor and Johnston 1979: 370; Van Amersfoort and Mansvelt Beck 2000: 463). A similar pattern of malapportionment would occur in Iparralde where the most populous and ‘French’ municipalities on the coast would see their voice silenced. Apart from being far from a democratic representation, udalbiltza is a toothless tiger as a policy instrument. Its 2001 budget of €990,000 (about $840,000) is rather symbolic. Soccer club Athletic de Bilbao has a budget for 2000–1 that is 35 times larger than the programmed annual expenses of udalbiltza. The budget is split

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between 23 categories varying from sports, production of maps, statistics and propaganda to support to language and human rights organizations (Udalbiltza 2002). In January 2002, the budget allocated by the Euskadi government shrank to €450,759 due to internal quarrels. After the end of the cease-fire, udalbiltza became a platform of sharp debate over the use of violence condoned by Batasuna and rejected by PNV, EA and AB. The radical nationalists increasingly blamed PNV and EA with their largest voting clout for ‘paralysing their collaboration in udalbiltza, Lizarra [the peace-process agreement; see also Chapter 8] and the support platform for [political] prisoners Batera’ (El País 10 April 2000). Another all-Basque institution invented after the democratic transition in Spain is Korrika. Korrika is a 10-day relay run in which all age groups participate, first celebrated in 1980 and held every two years. It has been promoted by the informal Basque school system of the ikastolas, and AEK, the most radical association for adult literacy in Basque. The aim of Korrika is to promote the Basque language and demarcate the territory. The wooden baton passed on during the 10-day run which often covers a distance exceeding 2000km carries a message that is read after completing the route. Korrika, described as an invented ritual welcomed by all Basques (Del Valle 1993), has become a contested institution itself. Although Korrika follows a different course every time it is celebrated, it has always included Spanish and French-speaking areas. On most occasions even the county of Treviño, a Castilian enclave, was crossed, as well as the Rioja area of Álava, the Encartaciones district west of Bilbao and the surroundings of Tudela. In these areas Euskera is not spoken and their inhabitants are not always enthusiastic about its promotion. From personal observation in the Alavese Rioja during the late 1980s I know that reactions towards official support of Euskera are often openly hostile. The Spanish mainstream press considers AEK as a cover-up organization for ETA and Basque researchers see them as the most anti-system association (Tejerina et al. 1995: 115–17). The radicalization of the event has increasingly alienated non-radical sympathizers from the language activism. Fernando Savater, the famous Basque philosopher opposed to political violence, has qualified Korrika as ‘another flagrant case of support for Euskera … a sectarian mobilization with posters of prisoners calls for the general strike … and the paraphernalia of the auxiliary services of ETA’ (El Correo 15 April 2001). In the course of its two decades of existence Korrika has thus become more and more of an anti-system institution, still formally tolerated by the French and Spanish administrations and officially supported by the government of Euskadi. Udalbiltza and Korrika share the common idea of Basque singularity, which they believe to be shared by all the inhabitants of the Greater Basque Country. AEK, the organization fostering adult literacy in Euskera, is the only one active in Iparralde with some sixteen establishments and another four in the rest of France. AEK in France (including Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Pau) has twenty centres, with 1,250 students in 1998–9 (EBLUL 2002). In the south, 19,000 students are enrolled in AEK centres, which illustrates that AEK representation in Iparralde is still weak. In addition, HABE, the official organization for adult literacy in Euskadi is not active at all in Iparralde. Basque culture is not only celebrated during Korrika, which is always

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accompanied by cultural events, like poetry, dance, music, or sports. Pan-Basque efforts are also evident in the field of festivals of music and dance. MacClancy (1996: 215–16) has observed festivals of ‘our Basque culture’, where typical fishermen’s culture from the coast is celebrated as ‘Basque culture’ in Pamplona. In his view, newly constructed Basque culture embraces both global youth culture like punk or rock as well as traditional elements of Basque culture. This new culture has led to an enormous increase in the number of festivals: ‘there are so many of these modern fiestas that committed nationalists can spend many of their spring and summer weekends going from one event to another’ (MacClancy 1996: 215). The world of radical nationalists is connected with new kinds of music, like punk, rock or heavy metal (Lahusen 1993; MacClancy 1996; Kasmir 2000; Urla 2001). However, radical nationalist subculture is a more established phenomenon in the south than in the north (see Chapters 5 and 6). In Iparralde there is a weak proliferation of all the other institutions related to nationalism, whereas in Hegoalde ELA and LAB, trade unions associated with PNV and ETA respectively, have many more members than CCOO and UGT, the two biggest unions in Spain. LAB had 120 members in Iparralde in December 2000, a symbolic number compared to the 28,629 in the south (Gara, 22 January 2001). ELA, Euskadi’s biggest labour union, is practically non-existent in the French Basque Country. Obviously, the most informal anti-system organization is ETA. Given its informality it is virtually impossible to quantify the links of ETA with Iparralde. However, during the Franco regime many etarras found refuge in France and were able to operate from French territory. When the socialist leaders François Mitterand and Felipe González were in power, French police forces intensified their anti-ETA cooperation with Spain. The bulk of ETA and Iparretarrak (the French cousin of ETA) prisoners reflect their ‘Spanish’ orientation as the majority have Spanish citizenship and are held in Spanish jails. The French Senate’s meeting about police and security on 23 November 2000 put Corsican and Breton terrorism higher on its priority list than Basque ‘activism’ (Sénat 2002). The proceedings of the Senate reported one real assault during 1999 and the first eight months of 2000. Nevertheless, the French Senate affirmed some concern about ETA’s presence in France as the ‘logistic and military activity has remained very important on our territory, in particular in the proximity of the Spanish border’ (Sénat 2002). The latter reflects a historically grown situation in which ETA has used the French areas on the edge of the Pyrenees as a logistic support basis for its activities in Spain.

Conclusion: the territorial dimension of the imagined community Basque nationalism, like nationalism elsewhere, has been conceptualized in many ways. The core of the nationalist discourse has been variable in time and in space. The imagined community of Basques has therefore had different connotations of Basqueness and territoriality. After the democratic transition

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in Spain, nationalism became centred on language as the most important expression of Basqueness and Euskal Herria as its territorial demarcation. The idea of a Basque nation-state within the borders of Euskal Herria is promoted by the nationalists and massively communicated to the constituencies in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. Education, the media and nationalist newspapers help to spread the idea of unity, even beyond the borders of Euskadi. However, the assumed unity of Euskal Herria does not coincide with the geographical configuration of identities, the spatial pattern of interaction or with the geographical representation of nationalism. Identity profiles show remarkable differences between French and Spanish Basques, particularly regarding the politicization of Basqueness. Moreover the landscape of language, ethnic self-perception and Basque nationalism is fragmented. This fragmentation, emphasized by Linz (1986), has persisted up to the present day. Contact space and cross-border contacts glorified often by nationalists exist in the economic sphere. In the past these contacts were confined to the local level, closely following the borderline between Spain and France. At present, the centralizing role of cities not only shows the existence of the state border. Instead, even within Euskadi, interaction between Bilbao and San Sebastián is of a surprisingly low intensity. The geographical coverage of nationalist parties shows black holes in the political landscape, in particular in Iparralde and Navarra. In quantitative terms, anti-system and informal political institutions are weakly represented in Euskal Herria. Qualitatively they are important in Navarra and Iparralde, where mainstream nationalist institutions of Euskadi are nearly absent. But even with regard to anti-system politics, the Spanish–French border is a divide between the ‘Spanish’ and ‘French’ culture of the nationalist parties in the south and the north. At first sight, it seems that European integration has increased the opportunities for Basque unification. In reality however, decisions about cross-border cooperation are not taken by any political authority representing Euskal Herria, but by larger or smaller regional administrative entities. In addition, the nationalist language claims are only weakly reflected in the margins of the cross-border projects with their bias towards infrastructure and economy. The only political institution claiming to represent the Greater Basque Country is udalbiltza. Together with other all-Basque institutions such as the Korrika or AEK, udalbiltza has increasingly been contested among the nationalists themselves. Udalbiltza is becoming more and more associated with radicalism and violence. However, even in better times, udalbiltza was an ideological hobbyhorse of the nationalists rather than a powerful decision-making organization. Nationalist messages are nowadays spread from Euskadi through TV and radio to, for example, Navarra and Iparralde where 15–20 per cent of the inhabitants can receive TV from Euskadi. However, this nationalist media has only modestly been able to mobilize people. Its message centred on the strong wish for Basque unification – frustrated by the Spanish and French states – sees the inhabitants of Euskal Herria as victims of state formation. Victimization as a result of the development of state machinery, however, is a sentiment hard to mobilize in Spanish

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Navarra and even harder in the French Basque Country with its strong French identification There is a huge discrepancy between the desired unity and the real diversity in the map of Basqueness, Basque nationalism and the practice of Basque nation building. This discrepancy is a result of the geo-historical processes of nation-state building in a historically fragmented area. Surprisingly, the political discourse has not yet been adapted to this discrepancy. The few nationalist voices that recognize the imaginary features of the claimed territory are still silenced by the nationalist political class. So far, the existence of Euskal Herria is not an issue in the presentday debate between nationalists. In the nationalist rhetoric of the Euskadi-based political elite Euskal Herria is the imagined community that sharply contrasts with divided territory. The divide encompasses far more than only an administrative division, as nationalists tend to believe. It also applies to fragmented identities, institutions and compartmentalized interaction. The rhetoric of commonness is thus built on the quicksand of uncommon practice. One of the essential fault lines in the politico-cultural landscape is the Franco–Spanish border. In the next chapters I will demonstrate that mobilization from below in the French Basque Country compared to the Spanish Basque territories is more recent and weaker with a peculiar support base of postmodern de-Basquified intelligentsia and modern farmers.

5

Basque nationalism A recent and modest phenomenon

Basque nationalism is clearly visible in the cities and villages of Iparralde. Many cars have stickers of the Ikurriña, the Basque flag, on their rear windows. Billboards announce meetings of Abertzaleen Batasuna, the most voted-for nationalist party, or of Euskal Herriko Laborarien Batasuna, the nationalist farmer’s union. On the eve of the summer festivals in the villages, posters for dance, music and sport share public space with newly pasted posters and banners claiming freedom for Euskal Herria or the return of Basque prisoners to their homeland. The innocent visitor may therefore get the idea of a people strongly mobilized behind sub-state nationalism. Indeed, electoral support for Basque nationalism has increased from a nearto-zero level in 1960 to about one out of ten votes in local elections. However, compared to that in the Spanish Basque Country, Basque nationalist mobilization is not only modest, but also appeared at a very late stage. In this chapter I will argue that the lack of mobilization against the nation-state can be explained neither by the absence of Basque nationalist ideologies in Iparralde nor by the lack of grievances against standardization by the state or the disrupting effects of market expansion. The marginalization of Euskera through frenchification, the disappearance of the peasant economy because of agricultural modernization, urbanization and migration, and the concomitant break-up of traditional social ties and lifestyles may all create a fertile breeding ground for discontent. However, the exploitation of the potential for grievances by political entrepreneurs has never led to mass mobilization. In this chapter I will show that the weakness of mobilization from below in the French Basque Country is the result of the historical formation of a nationalist movement showing a lack of ideological cohesion and organizational capacity within an opportunity structure offering little chance to centrifugal forces.

Nationalist messages Before mobilization from above gained momentum in the French Basque Country, people were already advocating a special status for the Basque Country. In Parisian high politics, the brothers Dominique and Joseph Garat, elected as deputies of Labourd for the Tiers État in 1798, were defenders of Basque unity and rights in post-revolutionary France. However, the late eighteenth and early

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nineteenth centuries did not offer any opportunity for mass mobilization behind the proto-nationalist message of the Garat brothers (Jacob 1994: 1–38; Davant 2000: 187–8). Joseph-Augustin Chaho, another early nationalist and – paradoxically – commander of the National Guard in Bayonne, became an advocate of Basque unification within a federal structure during the 1833 Carlist war. He published his ideas during the 1836–47 period (Jacob 1994: 1–38). The few voters entitled to vote did not appreciate Chaho’s ideas. His nationalist message was confusing as it was mixed up with ideas defending Carlism, French republicanism, or promoting tourism to the Basque coast (Juaristi 1997: 42, 47–8). Because of his secular vision, Chaho remained isolated from his Basque audience since he was leftist in a conservative and clerical environment (Malherbe 1980: 51–2). During the nineteenth century his voice was one of the few lay voices that could be heard in Iparralde (Orpustan 1980: 147–8). In 1858 he died as a recalcitrant republican. Chaho was the first Basque buried in Bayonne with a civil ceremony, where the anarchist geographer Élisé Reclus delivered the funeral oration (Juristic 1997: 42). The few platforms that developed for Basque nationalist ideas during the late nineteenth century were the festivals of Basque poetry, initiated by Antoine d’Abbadie d’Arrast in 1853. This contest which was organized annually and was known as the jeux floraux or flower games was occasionally used to propagate political ideas varying from Basque nationalist to republican ones. From 1893 onwards the jeux floraux were organized by M. Guilbeau and J. Vinson. These bascophile gentlemen were also the initiators of Euskualzaleen Biltzarra, the Basquifying Assembly that existed for half a century. Goyhenetche (1993) has described the gestation period of the association that became one of the most representative longterm institutions of the French Basque Country. Language, tradition and love for the fatherland, the latter being both the Basque Country and France, were the leading ideas behind the establishment of Euskualzaleen Biltzarra in 1902 (Goyhenetche 1993: 4–5). The ideas within the Basquifying Assembly, however, were of quite different brands. Its members represented nationalist views like the one of the Spanish Basque Arturo Campión, federalist ideas (for instance Decrept), vaguely Carlist notions, royalist notions, conservative Catholic ideas (the clergy), or republican views (for example Guilbeau) (Goyhenetche 1993: 26–7, 33). None of these views, however, could direct the opinion within Euskualzaleen Biltzarra, or be spread to a wider audience. The rather small association, totalling 256 members in 1913, mainly consisted of a traditional elite who considered themselves literary or linguistic experts. Labourd was the most important geographic origin of the members during the first years. Over the years, Lower Navarre and Soule members joined while, under the influence of Arturo Campión, Spanish Navarra with its small number of Basque speakers was relatively well represented. Arana, the most influential inventor of Basque nationalism, soon dropped out, leading to a weak representation of Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya (Goyhenetche 1993: 15). Liberal professions such as notaries and medical doctors, chatelains, traders and clergy dominated Euskualzaleen Biltzarra. They represented the traditional elites with vested interests, while there were relatively few entrepreneurs, teachers and intellectuals (Goyhenetche 1993: 16–17). Bayonne’s emerging business class was

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not represented because its members were hardly interested in Euskera. Neither were there any representatives from the Mauléon and Hasparren entrepreneurs. Euskualzaleen Biltzarra was a relatively closed elite club whose members simply enjoyed their yearly banquets. Although the main aims were conservation and restoring Basque language and tradition, practical ideas to promote Basque in villages and at school were occasionally brought forward but not translated into concrete action. Therefore, Goyhenetche (1993: 25) concluded that the majority of the members regarded Basque culture as an agréable passe-temps (pleasant pastime) as he illustrated in another publication (Goyhenetche 1986: 82). Arturo Campión gave a discourse in 1903 in which he showed his concern for the conservation and restoration of the Basque language. His speech was given in Castilian reflecting his language hobbyism: ‘an aesthete of the Basque language without practising it’ (Goyhenetche 1986: 82). Euskualzaleen Biltzarra was thus a rather introverted organization lacking an overall nationalist sentiment that could mobilize its members. It was a nostalgic reaction to changes in lifestyle, the Parisian way, introduced and promoted by tourism and urbanization (Goyhenetche 1993: 36–8). The periodical L’Eskualduna never politicized the language question. L’Eskualduna, a Basque-language Catholic conservative weekly, was more strongly represented in the countryside than on the urbanized coastal fringe. Geographically it was the mirror of linguistic frenchification as revealed by a survey of the Diocese in 1909 (Tauzia 1974). In the Basque-speaking inland, almost 5000 copies were sold of L’Eskualduna, whereas the total recorded circulation of regional and local press in the interior was near to 7000 copies. Literacy in the rural interior, even in Euskera, should, however, not be overemphasized as many clergymen noticed that the peasants ‘did not have time to read a daily and that they only bought a newspaper on Sunday or market day’ (Tauzia 1974: 198). In addition, according to the priest of Sare: ‘The environment is more smuggler oriented [contrabandier] rather than intellectual’ (Tauzia 1974: 198). Jacob (1994, passim), who provided an extensive chronicle of French Basque nationalism, reviewed the successive discourses and their protagonists up to the first modest political mobilization of the 1960s. Abbot, then Canon Pierre Lafitte propagated nationalist ideas in the 1930s. His ideas, further developed and propagated by his former seminarists like Eugène Goyheneche, were sympathetically received in the Paris-based students’ association of Euskual-Ikasleen Biltzarra, which was linked with Euskualzaleen Biltzarra. The association advocated nationalist ideas of which decentralization, the promotion and protection of Basque language and culture and Catholic values were the cornerstones. In 1933, Lafitte founded a political organization, the so-called Euskualerriste movement. The movement never received mass support, although L’Eskualduna with its readership of more than 8700 gave the movement publicity (Jacob 1994: 79). The nationalist newspaper Aintzina, subsequently established as the movement’s mouthpiece, did not have any direct political impact. This was not surprising given the 230 subscriptions it had in 1934 (Jacob 1994: 80). The group of relatively highly educated youngsters, often ex-seminarists, supported local notables in the elections, which contributed to the continuity of what has been called the Basque

100 Territory and Terror political subsystem (Letamendia 1982). After the Second, World War, nationalist militants such as the priest Pierre Larzabal and Marc Légasse, the latter holding separatist and anarchist ideas, were not able to mobilize a wider constituency, despite the revival of Aintzina. This situation lasted until the early 1960s and has even continued to the present day. To summarize this short review, Basque nationalism had no shortage of ideas, or ideologues. It even had some organizations and means of communication that could have been a cradle for nationalist mobilization. The response of the electorate to these initiatives, however, was negligible. According to Letamendia (1982: 516) ‘Catholicism, more than the Basque language gives a deep sociological unity to the Basque political subsystem’ This subsystem has been characterized by centre-right conservatism and has distinguished the Basque Country from the more leftist surrounding areas. Before 1960, there was no trace of Basque nationalism in terms of party formation and organization (Letamendia 1982: 524).

Mobilization behind new messages: process and pattern The extremely limited way Basque nationalism mobilized young skilled Catholics in cultural associations and political organizations of modest size and pretensions changed during the early 1960s. So far only Chaho in the nineteenth century and Légasse had held unconventional secular ideas in a microcosm still dominated by conservative Catholicism. Both were prophets crying in the desert (Davant 2000: 130). In the 1960s, mobilization from below took place behind old and new grievances. The old ones were centred on claims to improve the status of the Basque language and to create a distinct département, whereas the new ones were linked with the negative consequences of deindustrialization, depopulation and tourist development and the question of Spanish Basque refugees. In contrast to the predominantly clerical traditionalist nationalism prior to the 1960s, the new nationalism was inspired by secular neo-Marxist ideas. Vrignon (1999), a journalist, has interviewed many radical nationalist protagonists of the 1960s and 1970s. In his book, based on documents of the nationalist movement and testimonies of militants, he reveals a scene of small groups of young people often educated in the universities of Paris or Bordeaux. The first party, Enbata, which was founded by Basque students at the University of Bordeaux in 1963, banned by the French authorities in 1972 and dissolved in 1974, was the first nationalist party to take part in elections. After its banning in 1974 Enbata continued as a periodical up to today. Enbata’s roots were in a Basque student association named Embata in the 1950s that after 1960 changed from a social club interested in Basque culture and supervised by priests into a political movement. The members were ‘representatives of the Basque bourgeoisie, upwardly mobile youth’ (Jacob 1994: 132). Their reaction to the entry into a new world was to reconstruct a mythical old world (Malherbe 1980: 53–5). Enbata could only modestly attract voters, although they seemed to have an initial success in supporting Michel Labéguerie who was elected as a deputy for the centrist MRP

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in the National Assembly in 1962. Enbata support was soon reduced to 5 per cent of the votes in the 1967 legislative elections and remained almost bereft of militants and voters in 1968. The following phenomena caused the limited capacity of Enbata to mobilize Iparralde’s constituencies. The first one was the ideological gap between Enbata’s secular leftist discourse and the conservative clerical political culture dominated by well-respected notables. Second, the representatives of Enbata who were often frenchified Basques born in well-to-do local elite families, lacked empathy with their target group. ‘Enbata was too Cartesian and too francophone at its start or basically too French because its initiators were young intellectuals ... deformed by the French bourgeois university’ as Davant, one of Enbata’s founders, wrote (Davant 2000: 131). Third, although Enbata always counted on support from extremely devoted militants, it was not able to form a stable base of active members. According to Vrignon (1999: 36–7), until 1968 there was a tremendous influx and outflow of Enbata members resulting in a near 100 per cent renewal of its membership. The movement attracted only youngsters but was unable to keep them on board. The latter became one the principal weaknesses of Enbata and its successor parties. The inability to form a stable group of party members was reflected in manifold secessions and the creation of new splinter parties. After 1968, with the creation of the Amaia group, a long list appeared of split-off groups with radical ideas that originated in Paris and arrived three to four years later in Iparralde (Vrignon 1999: 76). Ideological issues that divided the nationalists were whether socialism or nationalism should be given priority and, with the rise of ETA, whether violence should be legitimated and, if so, whether the use of violence should be confined to Spain or could also implicate France. Since the appearance of Iparretarrak in 1972 (‘Those of the ETA of the North’) who since 1973 have used violence following ETA’s example, the electoral success of Enbata’s successor parties has suffered from negative imagery in the media. The press often associated radical nationalism with violence. Since its introduction in Iparralde, violence has polarized the Basque nationalist community in France (Jacob 1994: 384). Despite the later ideological divides, the congress of 1963 in Itxassou set the core values of French Basque nationalism that have applied to the present day. At the congress at which Basque personalities from French mainstream parties were also presented, two Basque ‘models’ made their appearance, a nationalist one with a radical tendency and a regionalist one in which traditional and technocratic forces were opposed (Malherbe 1980: 68–83). After many splits, one socialist current finally survived institutionally: EHAS (Euskal Herriko Alderdi Sozialista, Basque Socialist Party), with a Proudhonian flavour (Malherbe 1980: 70–2). Obviously EHAS was a reincarnated version of Enbata’s radical current. From 1967 onwards, the nationalists had two distinct electoral support bases. The first consisted of the rural interior of Soule, with 9 per cent of the vote, while the average for Iparralde was 4.6 per cent. The higher vote for Enbata in 1967 in Soule, when compared to Lower Navarre (both rural areas), was not particularly due to the effects of economic crisis and agricultural modernization from which both areas suffered in a similar way. Instead the better voting results were linked to the

102 Territory and Terror implantation in the rural environment of CDJA (Centre Départemental des Jeunes Agriculteurs), which had some enthusiastic leaders. Young radicalized farmers and peasant workers around Mauléon supported the nationalists (Malherbe 1980: 74–5). These farmers were in an area relatively more involved in agricultural modernization than for instance around Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry. At present, the Soule electoral geography has, however, become less nationalist than it was during the early mobilization period (see next section). The second support base was the petty bourgeoisie in the urban environment of the Bayonne electoral district (Malherbe 1980: 77). To explain the first tiny step towards mobilization from below several causes can be summarized (Malherbe 1980: 53–62). In the first place there are the militants, often de-Basquified people, sometimes not even Basques, influenced by new revolutionary ideas in Paris or Bordeaux. They can be seen as a product of upward social mobility experienced by a first generation of Basque middle-class families, inspired by romantic ideas about a Basque reality that was already lost. Second, leftist ideas on the social order also found inspiration in a changing economic context. This context was one of persistent rural depopulation and expansion of tourism, well-known phenomena since the nineteenth century, and also the de-industrialization that occurred from the 1960s. Regarding tourism, two grievances arose. One was the limited access to the land market of the native population due to the expansion of tourist interests, and the other concerned the erosion of Basque language and culture through its folklorization, and the settlement of ‘leisure’ migrants. Les Forges de l’Adour in Tarnos, the steel industry, was the only big employer within the French Basque Country, and was already in crisis in the 1950s. Les Forges de l’Adour and related metal industries closed down in 1965. The sandal and canvas shoe factories of Mauléon and Hasparren encountered serious difficulties during the 1960s due to the Algerian crisis. The crisis hit hard as the industry sold 18–20 per cent of its production to Algeria. Rural depopulation was seen as a severe problem, as it was accompanied by a low standard of living. In the third place the question of Spanish Basque refugees, the legacy of the Civil War, followed during the 1960s by ETA members seeking refuge, fuelled the activists’ sentiments. Until 1968 Enbata was successful in their concern for refugees in terms of mobilization, media presentation and consciousness-raising of Iparralde’s population (Vrignon 1999: 32). Fourth, ideas from Spanish Basques and the Spanish Basque Country diffused among nationalist circles in the French Basque Country. Mondragón’s industrial cooperative inspired the new nationalist cooperatives of the north, while language activism under late Francoism through the ikastola school movement (see further below) had its follow-up in Iparralde. Enbata and its successor organizations glorified ETA martyrs under late Francoism, till they had their own martyrs of Iparretarrak, the armed group founded in 1972. Finally, there was an old grievance that attracted part of the nationalists and non-nationalists, namely the claim for a separate Basque département. This claim was supported by some of the nationalists of whom the radical abertzale saw it as a step to be followed by independence. EHAS ceased to exist in 1981 because its leaders were menaced by Iparretarrak (Jacob 1994: 223–5). During the 1980s the following successor parties to Enbata and EHAS reappeared in Iparralde:

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EMA (Ezkerreko Mugimendu Abertzalea, Movement of the Patriotic Left) 1985–the present, EB (Euskal Batasuna, Basque Unity) 1986–the present, EA (Eusko Alkartasuna) (the split-off party of the Spanish Basque PNV – Partido nacionalista Vasco in 1986), PNB-EAJ (the French Basque branch of the PNV in 1990).

Except for the French Basque branch of the PNV, which never gained significant electoral support, the other parties presented a common list of abertzale (patriots) candidates in 1988. Since 1992 EMA and EB have operated jointly under the name of its coalition party Abertzaleen Batasuna, United Patriots (Cassan 1997: 140–3). Although Abertzaleen Batasuna (AB) united the two most radical parties it has not been able to integrate EA and PNV-EAJ. Cantonal elections take place every six years. During the elections only part of the cantons participate (roughly half the cantons of the Basque Country). The others participate with a lag of three years. During the cantonal elections of March 2001 AB had to compete in five cantons with EA or PNV-EAJ (Gara 13 March 2001). For the other ten cantons that voted in 1998 the pattern was analogous for the regional elections with a 19 per cent nationalist vote for the Union pour le Pays Basque supported by PNV (Enbata, 3–19–1998, issue 1519). The EA and PNV-EAJ did not participate in the cantonal elections of 1998. The radical nationalists obtained 9.4 per cent of the votes during the first round. The schism between AB and the other nationalist parties has its origin in 1965 when Enbata member Christiane Etchalus was arrested in Spain because of links with ETA. The impact on Basque nationalist parties was a radicalization of Enbata and a concomitant breakaway from the movement of the Christian democrats (Jacob and Larronde 1998 : 200–1). The cleavage between AB and EA/PNB on the matter of the use of political violence brought forward by these authors reveals the persistent ideological and organizational fragmentation of Basque nationalism (Jacob and Larronde1998 : 203). In this sense the divide within Basque nationalism is similar to Hegoalde. In the French system where politicians to represent the district are often elected in the second or third rounds, nationalists have frequently supported politicians of French mainstream parties. In addition Basque nationalist parties in France seem to seek more support for concrete claims among mainstream parties than Spanish Basque nationalist parties are used to. The latter is particularly so in the case of the movement for an own Basque département and of language activism. While during the 1960s and 1970s Enbata supported the claim for a département, the nationalists of HAS (the old EHAS) perceived a Basque département as ‘a perpetuation of Napoleonic Administration’ and advocated the destruction of the existing administrative hierarchy (Vrignon 1999: 151, 167). Compared to newspapers of the Batasuna movement in the South, the issues of Enbata, which is still the voice of the radical nationalists of the North, combine empathy with and interest in the activities of public institutions such as the Chamber of Commerce in Bayonne. The contrast with the Basque nationalist newspapers of Spain is striking since they radically reject any institution belonging

104 Territory and Terror to the detested ‘Spanish state’. Even the position of the electoral platform of Abertzaleen Batasuna (AB), which was converted into a political party on 6 October 2001, is not identical to the radical brothers of the South (Gara 7 October 2001). The legitimization of violence by the radical nationalists of Hegoalde has been at the root of the alienation between the two movements. In addition AB has increasingly criticized the ‘uncritical and unrealistic political line’ chosen by Batasuna (the successor party to Herri Batasuna and Euskal Herritarrok, now banned by the Spanish authorities: El País 24 June 2001). The record of Iparretarrak, the only terrorist organization that has survived to the present day, is distinct from ETA’s record in Spain. Whereas in Spain ETA’s ideology was successfully institutionalized through a political party, a trade union, language associations and sports’ institutions, there were no such ideologically impregnated institutions that supported or legitimated Iparretarrak. Within today’s radical nationalist party AB and its predecessor parties during the 1970s and 1980s (Moruzzi and Boulaert 1988: 205) the majority of militants have always opted for peaceful means. Iparretarrak never obtained mass support like ETA because hatred of French institutions and Frenchness and fear of both the terrorist organization and repressive institutions were confined to small radical groups. The lack of mobilization as a result of fear is a consequence of context, containment and competition, which I will explain as follows. First, the context in which Iparretarrak emerged did not favour the diffusion of their ideas, in particular those concerning armed struggle. Most Basques were loyal to the state, French democracy enjoyed legitimacy in Iparralde and within Iparralde the group’s leftist ideas could hardly inspire the Basque-speaking of the interior, most of them Catholic conservatives. Second, violence and proselytism associated with Iparretarrak remained contained because, at a very early stage, public expressions of sympathy for the organization were banned and heavily penalized. For instance, in 1988 Hervé Thépaut, director of the Basque monthly Abil, was condemned to 20 months’ imprisonment for the publication of an Iparretarrak communiqué (Moruzzi and Boulaert 1988: 205). Moreover, violence could never be generalized as the French security forces soon neutralized it. Finally, Iparretarrak had to compete with and within organizations with militants having the same claims concerning territory, language and social questions, but a different opinion about the legitimacy of the use of violence. In contrast to ETA, they were never able to impose their will on nationalist parties, nor on labour unions or language associations, as I will show in the next sections. Peaceful rivals continued to dominate these organizations, while mainstream parties adopted some nationalist issues (see further below). Although the most visible mobilization from below is expressed in party formation and electoral behaviour, in Iparralde there are other institutions than political parties that mobilized people behind nationalist core values. These institutions concern language activism, farmer unionism, and cooperatives. In 1970 no Basque was taught at any officially recognized school in Iparralde. In that year only eight(!) children were given Basque classes at ikastolas, privately organized and financed schools (Tejerina Montaña 1992: 133). During the 1970s the ikastola movement

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2000 1800 1600

Pupils

1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 1969– 1973– 1970 1974

1978– 1984

1983– 1988– 1984 1989

1993– 1994

nursery

secondary

elementary

TOTAL

1996– 2000– 1997 2001

Figure 5.1 Pupils by level of schooling, Ikastolas France, 1969–2001. (Seaska 2001; Académie Bordeaux 2001).

gained momentum. Seaska, or cradle, the association to promote the use of Basque in education, established in Arcangues in 1969 on the southern edge of Bayonne, started to mobilize parents. Part of the mobilization was initialized and propagated by the radical group of Mende Berri, a small number of people who were very active during the 1970s (Vrignon 1999: 189). On the coast and in the universities Mende Berri taught Basque to many young people who were francophone and who became paradoxically the motor of the struggle for rebasquization (Vrignon 1999: 186). They soon started to achieve results. In 1985 Seaska comprised 80 teachers and 800 children (Davant 2000: 151). In 2000–1 the number of ikastola subscriptions had grown to 1851 children (Fig. 5.1) Mobilization with regard to education in Euskera was supported by nationalists and other people and institutions. The involvement of non-nationalist actors and institutions in language activism may explain the modest success of language mobilization. Three examples illustrate the extension of support beyond nationalist circles. First, in 1977, 3,500 people demonstrated for the official recognition of an ikastola in St Palais (Vrignon 1999: 207). The number of demonstrators is estimated as having been the same as all those who voted for EHAS in the 1978 legislative elections (base estimation: Jacob 1994: 220). Second, on 18 June 1978 all the mayors of Soule and Lower Navarre decided to engage in a one franc per capita donation for the ikastola (Vrignon 1999: 207–9). Third, in 1989, the association for bilingual education Ikas-bi (‘Learning two’) was able to collect 117 signatures out of the total of 157 Basque Mayors to support their claims (Cassan 1997: 58). Apart from the support from non-nationalist actors, the Euskera cause was also welcomed in state, church and private institutions not connected with Basque

106 Territory and Terror nationalism. Reports published under the auspices of the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie, Conseil Régional d’Aquitanie, the Département, elected politicians and many associations proposed long-term strategies for the future of the Basque Country with clear objectives to improve the status of Basque in public life and to increase the regional budget on typical Basque expressions of culture (Club 1993, 1994). Some associations for Basque-language education originated from the Catholic or French education system. Examples of the former were Euskualzaleen Biltzarra during the early 1960s and during the decades thereafter Euskal Haziak (the Young Shoots), while Ikas-bi became a bascophile expression of the latter from the mid-1980s onwards. The church was modestly sympathetic towards Euskera education, but hostile to radical nationalism. For example, radical nationalist students were evicted from the seminary, while Mgr Vincent, Bayonne’s bishop, prohibited hunger strikes in churches in 1972 (Vrignon 1999: 65). Later in this chapter, the diffusion of language activism towards the interior of Iparralde and the importance of the locale in the relationship between language activism and mobilization from below will be explored. There was no farmer unionism under a nationalist banner until the early 1980s. Until then the farmers were organized in associations that were part of large French umbrella organizations usually controlled by local notables. Local communities were often perceived as introverted and closed towards the outside world. At first sight, this perception of conservatism could be illustrated by the difficulties of French-speaking migrants with regard to becoming socially involved in community life or in certain instances reluctance to adopt innovations. Studies of local environments, however, have shown that farmers’ interests that differed from innovations propagated by public authorities and other outsider institutions often fed suspicion towards innovations. Paucelle (1976: 182–5) observed that many farmers despised notables in local politics in the remote municipality of Larrau in upper Soule. Public institutions were looked upon with a certain hostility as they were suspected of investing in favour of tourists and hunters instead of farmers and shepherds. Conflicting interests could also arise from innovations in agriculture itself. In Hasparren and Baïgorry, new investments in sheep milk production, stimulated by a consortium of local authorities, were not accessible to many small farmers as a result of inappropriate credit conditions (Candau et al. 1989, passim). The early discontent of young farmers observed around Mauléon during the late 1960s (Malherbe 1980: 74–5) was a forerunner of the organized alternative of ELB (Euskal Laborarien Batasuna: Union of the Workers of the Basque Country). Young people of Hasparren and Baïgorry who frequently met in the Centre Cantonal des Jeunes Agriculteurs (Cantonal Centre of Young Farmers) developed alternative views on political participation and local development. These views went against the power of the notables, tourism as a symbol of alienation and the loss of Basque identity and were instead in favour of local development (Candau et al. 1989: 72–3). The group of radical farmers who dropped out of the Centre Cantonal established the new union of ELB (Candau et al. 1989: 74). In 1981,

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ELB’s statutes were drawn up and it became affiliated to the Confédération Nationale du Syndicat des Travailleurs Paysans, the French umbrella organization of socialist tendency. Though probably one-third of the Basque farmers are organized in ELB, it is not under the command of Iparralde’s radical nationalist party (Jacob 1994: 332–3). Even the institutional links with LAB, Hegoalde’s labour union connected with ETA, and the affiliation of some of its leaders to AB have not made it a simple instrument of radical nationalism. ELB members of today contrast diametrically with the old elite represented in Euskualzaleen Biltzarra of the first half of the twentieth century. Compared to the conservative peasantry, they are socio-political innovators running productive farms. These farmers are quite aware of their interests as witnessed by one of their spokesmen: ‘We don’t want to live in a natural reserve open to tourist colonization’ (Candau et al. 1989: 88). The rise of this new group of local modernizers can be understood by changes in the local economy and the emergence of upward social mobility. From 1960 onwards the land market of Baïgorry opened up beyond the limits of the village due to the rise of tourism (Bidart 1975: 130, 1977: 165–85). Until the early 1960s, the land market in the interior was mainly local-business-linked with a concentration of agrarian property. During the 1964–71 period, land was increasingly sold to outsiders from urban areas and this led to speculation. In the nearby valley of Aldudes, half of the land was transferred to strangers from the rest of France who themselves represented 56 per cent of all absentee owners (Errecalde 1980: 222). Collective solidarity in Baïgorry diminished, while the younger generation became emancipated. In 1966, the first generation of villagers went to university, the majority (about 15) ex-seminarists. The wider mental horizon questioned the old values of ‘Euskaldun, fededun’ – ‘He who is Basque is a believer’. Emancipation as part of a wider process of modernization was expressed in individualization, occupational change, spread of radio, TV and newspapers, and in a loss of control of the priest and notary. No longer was the priest asked for permission to work on Sundays nor did the notary receive presents after providing his services. Contradictions emerged regarding the promotion of tourism between commerçants, the local businessmen (in favour) and farmers (against or reluctant). For the first time in history, the 1971 municipal elections in Baïgorry had two opposed lists. The first, a ‘youngsters’ list, had a non-ecclesiastical orientation with self-deployment values. They won, to the displeasure of the old notables. The rise of new models for association as a result of complex processes of local and supra-local market transformation and public intervention did not always have a nationalist content. The cooperative movement had a paradigmatic model in the huge industrial cooperative of Mondragón in the south during the 1970s (Club 1993: 7; Fourquet 1994: 52; Davant 2000: 151). Nationalists and nonnationalists adjusted the model to agrarian purposes. The Berria sheep milk cooperative of Macaya, close to Hasparren, had a radical nationalist orientation from its beginning. Conversely, Lur Berri in Saint-Palais was a cooperative established by Christian democrats (Malherbe 1980). In 1962, Lur Berri became radicalized when they felt subordinated to Béarn during the introduction of Funk G.75, a new

108 Territory and Terror corn variety (Malherbe 1980: 65). The diffusion was monopolized by the Béarn Coopérative Agricole des Céréales du Bassin de l’Adour. The impact of the cooperative movement should not be exaggerated. The movement, although it is in Aquitaine the most active in France, comprises 21 cooperatives employing a total number of 500 salaried persons (Fourquet 1994: 52). Compared to Mondragón, with its worldwide workforce of over 50,000, the movement in Iparralde is of dwarf-like proportions. Under the surface of visible organizations and associations, an alternative world has emerged. This world is a subculture of Basque pop music labelled as Euskal Rock’n’Roll, and juvenile protest culture often linked with left nationalism (Jacob 1994: 359–63; Larraburu and Etcheverry-Ainchart 2001). The latter authors describe the change from a Basque traditional music to Basque songs with a nationalist content during the 1960s, via nationalist protest songs, the so-called Kantaldi, during the 1970s to punk-like music styles with a strong anarcho-Basque tendency from the 1980s hitherto. In a musical sense, it contains references to all contemporary pop music styles. In a political sense, part of Eusko pop is connected to the radical nationalist left, the abertzale. However, the anarcho-individualist content often deviates from rigid ideological lines. Jacob (1994: 361) has provided the example of the first popular group of abertzale rockers of Patxa, created in 1986, who hardly wanted to collaborate with political parties and divided the Basque movement even more. The hybridization of music styles, political opinions and even language – given the mix of use of Basque and French or Spanish – makes it difficult to distinguish between Euskal Rock’n’Roll and similar music styles. However, the use of Euskera is probably the best defining criterion, followed by the connection with abertzale political culture (Larraburu and Etcheverry-Ainchart 2001: 221–30). Many rock bands, though sympathizing with abertzale, challenge the core values of independentists by joking about their principles. Moreover much humour would be lost if the groups were to have a 100 per cent devotion to ‘politicized social critics’ which would soon weaken their market position (Larraburu and Etcheverry-Ainchart 2001: 225). In a geographical sense, it is difficult to provide a clear-cut interpretation of Euskal Rock’n’Roll. From a diffusionist perspective, the cultural innovation started during the 1970s in the French Basque Country, while from the 1980s onwards the south has gained momentum as the centre of creation and diffusion. According to Jacob (1994: 362) the new abertzale youth culture had not yet penetrated into the interior of Iparralde in the 1980s. Nowadays abertzale bands from both sides of the Pyrenees have fans all over the Basque Country. Larraburu and EtcheverryAinchart (2001: 247–71) distinguish the following contexts in which booming Basque pop music, which has usurped ‘French’ rock, is nowadays flourishing. First, Eusko rock has been integrated into the circuit of village festivals in the French Basque Country and is able to attract spectators from areas as far as 50km from the site. The village festivals have therefore become a fertile market for bands from Hegoalde. In addition, radical nationalist parties and organizations have become important organizers of performances of Eusko bands during their political demonstrations, while associations to promote Euskera also manage to attract

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large audiences. For the Ikastola movement, the yearly celebration day on the Lake of Saint-Pée is a key event. At present, this event attracts between 80,000 and 100,000 people (Larraburu and Etcheverry-Ainchart 2001: 257). Given the sum of the nationalist votes of the cantonal elections of 1998 and 2001, which represents 15,000 valid votes, the number of spectators is not only astonishing, it also reveals the weak electoral appeal of Basque nationalist parties (see next section). Finally, in the early 1990s, the annual festival of Saint-Martin-d’Arrossa was initiated, a sort of meeting of different minority musical cultures like Breton, Irish, Basque and African. Apart from public performances, the three local radio stations frequently play Basque rock and have a comparatively wide audience in the Basque-speaking interior. Eusko rock does not, however, obey the market laws of CD-selling, particularly in the interior where CD shops are rarely present. The network of small barlike establishments where Eusko rock can frequently be heard is almost exclusively confined to Bayonne where abertzale bars have contributed greatly to its popularity (Larraburu and Etcheverry-Ainchart 2001: 270). Roughly two worlds of Basque rock can be distinguished (Larraburu and Etcheverry-Ainchart 2001: 298). The first world consists of the rural interior with its direct daily contact with Basque culture and where rock is an integral part of the village festivals. There the message in the music can be understood and appreciated. On the urbanized coast the authors suggest that Eusko rock forms part of an alternative juvenile lifestyle, expressed by music that can be lived (but not textually understood) and by dressing like the young radicals of Jarrai (nowadays Segi; Chapter 6). Basque rock as part of an underground lifestyle had hardly any impact inland (Larraburu and Etcheverry-Ainchart 2001: 304). Therefore, the enormous mass of spectators that can be mobilized during special events is not automatically a reliable indicant of nationalist mobilization from below. However, Eusko rock remains a fascinating phenomenon of cultural hybridization in which global and local elements are combined, of the emergence of a youth movement in which identity is a combination of nihilism (‘against anything’), localism and hedonism, of new lifestyles on the coast and Basqueness in the interior. With respect to music it is not possible to empirically test the suggestion of the coast–inland difference regarding nationalism. In contrast, more light can be shed on the coast–inland discrepancy by the following description and analysis of nationalist mobilization as expressed in the electoral geography. To what extent does the electoral landscape show a similar juxtaposition between the urbanized coast and the rural interior?

A social ecology of mobilization In regional, legislative or European elections the nationalist voice of the Basques has little outlet because of its small quantitative weight in the respective electorates. Therefore, nationalist support is probably best expressed in voting behaviour at lower levels of the administrative hierarchy, namely the cantons and municipalities. A canton consists of a group of adjacent municipalities. In cantonal elections, General Councillors are elected by direct suffrage for a term of six years in two ballots by absolute majority (single member), with one councillor for each canton.

110 Territory and Terror The French Basque Country has a total of 21 cantons. For 11 cantons, 2001 was the last election year while for ten cantons the last election year was 1998. Cantonal elections have been analysed instead of municipal elections because of the difficulty involved in interpreting the nationalist content of local parties. For the cantonal elections, the results for the first round have been analysed because in the second round nationalist candidates with low vote shares during the first round may have dropped out. Taking the cantonal elections of 2001 and 1998, the respective proportions of valid votes cast by the nationalists in the first round were 12 and 9 per cent. These proportions have been rather stable from the 1992 elections to the present day. Before 1992, the nationalists not only attracted a smaller number of voters, their support also fluctuated more than during the last decade. The 1978 legislative elections are sometimes seen as the first time that Basque nationalism was connected with the so-called ethnic vote, as the Basque-speaking zones of the inland attained higher scores than French-speaking areas (Vrignon 1999: 224). Indeed, roughly speaking, 6 per cent of votes in the francophone urban area of Bayonne–Anglet–Biarritz were cast in support of the nationalist parties during the cantonal elections of 1998–2001, as opposed to almost 15 per cent in the Euskera-speaking interior (Table 5.1). A closer look on Table 5.1, however, puts this image into perspective because in the interior the highest nationalist votes were cast not in the most bascophone areas, but in the interior of Labourd. A simple conclusion regarding the statistical relationship between language and nationalism cannot be drawn. The interior of Lower Navarre and Soule, the most Basque-speaking areas of Iparralde, shows a high variation with regard to voting behaviour which, in 2001, ranged from 5.8 per cent in the Canton of Saint-Palais to 29.1 per cent in Saint-Etienne-de-Baïgorry. In statistical terms, the seven cantons of this area had a standard deviation of 8.7, as opposed to 4.1 for the six cantons of interior Labourd and 3.6 for the seven cantons of the Bayonne agglomeration. Using the data from the level of municipalities, the

Table 5.1 Comparison of Basque national vote with Basque-speakers Area

% Basque nationalist vote (1998 + 2001)

% Basque-speakinga

Agglomeration Bayonneb Interior Labourd Lower Navarre and Soule

6.03 15.73 13.20

11.6 38.5 70.2

Sources: Voting data are taken from Gara (2001) and Enbata, 19 March 1998, issue 1519 (1998); data on Basque speaking, Gouvernement Basque et al. (1999: 16). Notes a Basque speakers are those who speak Euskera as a first language or speak it as a first language together with French. b The election data of Bayonne North, West and East (all 1998), Anglet North (1998) and South (2001), and Biarritz West (1998) and East (2001) cantons have been aggregated into the Bayonne Agglomeration, usually referred to as BAB (Bayonne, Anglet, Biarritz).

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following analysis reveals that there is no simple statistical relationship between the geography of voting behaviour and socio-cultural patterns. In order to prepare the municipal data for multiple regression analysis, several problems have to be solved. First, elections encompass only part of the Basque cantons because the other area held elections three years before (in 1998) the last ones that took place in 2001. Most language and socio-economic data have been available at the level of municipalities with the exception of the sub-municipal districts of South Anglet, East Biarritz and North Bayonne. Apart from election results, there is no other data available at sub-district level in the urbanized area as the data available only relates to the entire municipalities. Therefore, a new variable has been created for Anglet, Biarritz and Bayonne in which the election results of 1998 and 2001 have been aggregated. The other municipalities where cantonal elections held in 1998 have been left out of the analysis. Our sample therefore comprises three urban areas on the coast (1998 and 2001 election data) and 93 municipalities that participated in the 2001 elections. These municipalities cover the coast, the intermediary zone penetrated from the coast by suburbanization and tourism and the interior. A second problem concerns language data. The most detailed recent data that provides information at the level of municipalities is from 1991 (Aizpurua 1995). Data is available for most municipalities on the map (Aizpurua 1995: 69). By careful matching with the map of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques published by the Institut Géographique National (scale 1:125,000) the language data has been entered into the data set. The data, however, has been reduced to language classes, which has resulted in some loss of accuracy. For the few municipalities at which no data has been mapped, the lowest language category of fewer then 20 per cent Basque speakers has been applied. This is because these municipalities (Bidache, Arancou, Guiche and Sames) belong to the Gascon-speaking area (Lartigue 2001). The dependent variable is the percentage per municipality of Basque nationalist votes in comparison to the total of valid votes in the 2001 cantonal elections. The independent variables have been chosen as follows. The first set of variables consists of the proportion of Basquespeaking persons per municipality taken from Aizpurua’s (1995: 69) map and substituted for the missing municipalities. These variables have been chosen in order to test whether Basque nationalist voting behaviour can be explained by the language composition of the municipal population. Each language class has been reduced to a dichotomous variable. The second set of variables shows contact with the outside world through immigration and tourism. Contact is measured respectively by the variable ‘ratio of immigration’ as expressed in the number of immigrants per municipality in the 1990–9 period and by the variable ‘ratio of second homes’ as a proportion of the total of first homes per municipality in 1999 (INSEE 2000b). These variables correspond to a so-called contact hypothesis. From different academic angles, increased contact between cultures means a higher consciousness of own culture and ethnicity. Intercultural contact thus triggers the demarcation of ethnic boundaries (Barth 1969; Eriksen 1993: 36–41) and produces social mobilization (Deutsch 1966). After entering the independent language and contact variables into multiple

112 Territory and Terror

N

N

N N

N Saint-Etiennede-Baïgorry % Voting 20 – 64 10 – 20

N

5 – 10 0.5 – 5

N

Negative Residuals Positive Residuals

N

Non-Voting Cantons

Figure 5.2 Basque nationalist vote share in cantonal elections, Iparralde, 2001 (Gara 2001).

regression analysis the output shows disappointing results. Only 22 per cent of the variance is explained by a positive score with regard to the highest class of Basque-speaking (the over 80 per cent class) and by the variable ‘second-home ratio’. The other contact variable, ‘ratio of immigration’, does not explain nationalist voting. The analysis of the residuals of the regression reveals an interesting geographical pattern (Fig. 5.2). The positive residuals have been taken by selecting the cases (e.g. municipalities) with more than 1.5 times the standard deviation. This means that for the selected positive residuals the value predicted for nationalist voting is 16–44 per cent points above the percentages predicted by the regression analysis, and for the only negative residual it is –17 per cent. The positive residuals selected consist of five municipalities that are all concentrated around Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry. It is therefore no exaggeration to describe the canton of Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry as the heartland of French Basque nationalism. The heartland coincides with the pocket of Basque-language education in kindergartens and primary schools mapped by Jauréguiberry, though the pocket has an eastern extension reaching to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (Fig. 5.3). The only negative residual is Ciboure, south from Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Ciboure is one of the exceptions in the second concentration area of southern Labourd distinguished by Jauréguiberry. Other municipalities, notable on the electoral map, such as

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% Basque-speaking 80 – 100 p

vrp

45 – 80

vp p r p

vrp

0 – 20

p

vrp

p

vrp

r

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vrp

vrp

rp

vrp

VRP

20 – 45

rp

r

p

vrp

R rp

p

p

rp

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V v

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Letter size v 0 – 20% pupils

v

20 – 40%

v

40 – 60%

p

P

rp p

p r

v

School type

v r p

Volunteer-run Religious Public

Figure 5.3 Children receiving bilingual education, Iparralde, 2003 (Club de Prospective 1994; Académie Bordeaux 2003).

Barcus in eastern Soule, fit in the regression model. In Barcus the high proportion of Basque-speaking and second-homes predict the high nationalist vote of 14 per cent. Given the voting behaviour at the level of cantons and municipalities, the following building blocks can be discerned for a regional typology of mobilization from below in the French Basque Country. The first type is represented by the agglomeration of Bayonne–Anglet–Biarritz with a low level of mobilization from below, a low proportion of Basque-speaking people. Institutions with nationalist aims are highly concentrated in Bayonne’s medieval heart, ‘Petit-Bayonne’, which is the location of the seats of political parties, bookshops, bars, associations of language activism and so on. Out of the 93 partner institutions of the Institut Culturel Basque, 23 have their seats in Bayonne. The multitude of Basque nationalist paraphernalia in the old city centre gives an erroneous impression of its support base, although those people active in nationalist organizations are usually very dedicated to its cause. Second, there is a small fringe of modestly mobilized municipalities on the coast consisting of Saint-Jean de Luz, Hendaye, Ciboure, Guéthary and Bidart. With the exceptions of Hendaye and Ciboure, these municipalities represent a rather high

114 Territory and Terror nationalist vote of 17–19 per cent, very high second-home rates of over 50 per cent of the housing stock, 20–45 per cent Basque speakers and positive net migration during at least the past 25 years (INSEE 2000, passim). Saint-Jean de Luz, Hendaye, Ciboure, Guéthary and Bidart thus represent the second type of linguistically mixed, medium-size towns with ongoing development of the tourist industry and inward migration, an example par excellence of a contact zone between cultures where the dynamics of socio-economic transformation have increased ethnic consciousness. The two cases of Hendaye and Ciboure have other socioeconomic and demographic features, which may explain their different positions on the southern part of the coast. Ciboure still has a high proportion of Basque speakers of over 80 per cent. Although there is a high share of second homes, totalling 55 per cent, migration to Ciboure was only inward during the 1990–9 period. From 1975 to 1990 the annual net migration was negative. The rather low support for Basque nationalism in Ciboure can perhaps be explained by the fact that Basque speakers have only recently intensified their contact with the francophone population, a situation that still did not threaten Euskera. Hendaye, the other exception in this group is a frenchified town (less than 20 per cent Basque speakers with low voting results for the Basque nationalists). This border town, which has less than 8 per cent nationalist voting, has a long-standing presence of Frenchmen from all over France. For more than a century, French people have been employed in customs jobs and at the railway facilities. With regard to most of the features, Hendaye would perhaps better fit into the first category of urbanized areas with which it shares its long history of frenchification. As can be estimated from the seasonal fluctuations in the volume of waste collected, the numbers of holidaymakers during the summer period has a lesser impact in Ciboure and Hendaya than in the other coastal settlements (Soulé 1993a: 100). The third type is the contact zone between the urbanized coast and the rural interior. This is the area where, at canton level, the highest percentages of nationalist voting have been observed. It is not only an area where contact with the city is intensive due to the central functions of the Bayonne agglomeration, it is also a zone of increasing suburbanization and expansion of tourist industry. According to the report of the Club de Prospective (1993: 365–8) the municipalities adjacent to the coastal fringe in the interior play an essential role in the relocation of working people towards the interior. These places are accessible and provide opportunities on the land and housing market. Access to the land and housing market for many villagers and small-town dwellers has become difficult. This area is also attractive for the location of cultural institutions. While the Bayonne agglomeration accommodates up to one-third of the partner institutions of the Basque Cultural Institute, the Labourd-based institutions of the intermediary zone total also one-third. Within this zone of interface between the French coast and the Basque interior nationalist voting ranges from up to 5 per cent in the old spa of Cambo-les-Bains to 25 per cent in rapidly ‘touristifying’ Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle. Statistical indicators cannot explain these differences. Both are small towns of respectively 4416 and 4331 inhabitants, both have an important share of Basque-speaking people: Cambo-les-Bains 45–80 per cent and Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle over 80 per cent.

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Finally, the two towns have experienced immigration during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Linguistic activism reflected in the proportion of children attending bilingual or monolingual Basque schools is in the same category of 20–40 per cent (Club 1994). The only explanation for these differences may be in the localized success of nationalist political entrepreneurs in Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle visà-vis the lack of success in other municipalities. In Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle the success of the nationalists is shared between EAJ (PNB) and AB. EAJ’s representative is local councillor Edouard Piat who obtained 41 per cent of the nationalist vote. In his home village, more than twice as many votes were cast for Piat than in the other eight municipalities of the canton of Ustaritz together. Obviously his abertzale opponent Pantxo Belin, an activist on behalf of prisoners, is not specifically related to local politics. The old Basque bard and militant of Eusko Alkartasuna, Dr Manex Pagola in Urcuit in the canton of Saint-Pierre-d’Irube, performed better, similarly to Piat’s case, in his hometown and district. This illustrates that the electoral geography based on municipal statistics of cantonal elections cannot explain all the place-to-place differences in mobilization from below. The fourth type is the vast thinly populated rural inland where the population is ageing, agriculture is in decay and people are generally less mobilized than in the intermediary zone. However, the areas of Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry and, to a lesser degree, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Hasparren form clear exceptions. In the Canton of Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry the deputy for Abertzaleen Batasuna in the Council of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques Jean-Michel Galant obtained 29 per cent of the votes in the first round, while in his home village Ascarat where he is the Mayor he received 63 per cent of the vote. With a view to explaining high nationalist voting in these cantons compared to the cantons of Saint-Palais or Tardets it is not sufficient to refer to a changing socio-economic context as a consequence of tourism and urbanization though land speculation and settlement of outsiders have probably created some grievances. The initial success of some of the early nationalist political entrepreneurs has been explained from this changing context (Bidart 1977; Malherbe 1980). Placelinked continuity of nationalist support, however, depends on the creation of local groups of supporters of the nationalist ideal. The local coincidence of language activism, farmer’s unionism and mobilization in politics, particularly in SaintÉtienne-de-Baïgorry and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, may anticipate a further rise of nationalism in those parts of Iparralde where people are already mobilized behind language and agrarian interests but not yet behind parties. In these zones, nationalist political entrepreneurs may find a fertile seedbed for their ideas. Most of the inland provinces of Soule and Lower Navarre do not, however, show other types of mobilization. This is not because some inland districts have lower shares of Basque speakers than the cantons of Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry or Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Even the dialect difference of Soule with the rest of Iparralde does not offer an explanation for the low intensity of language activism. The village of Barcus, for example, has struggled hard to bring about the teaching of and in Basque at school. Barcus is, however, an enclave in a province where people vote massively for the French left and where the motivation to preserve and promote their language is low (Peillen 1994). The depopulated area in which the de-industrialized town of Mauléon, with its left-

116 Territory and Terror republican tradition, is the non-Basque centre has become a peripherally integrated part of the Pau urban area, both in an economic and a mental sense. The low nationalist mobilization of rural Soule, however, is not merely a result of the frenchifying influence of Pau. After all, why shouldn’t Bayonne exert a similar influence on its hinterland? Instead I will argue that low voting is the result of constraints to diffusion of political innovations imposed by the settlement pattern. Nationalist mobilization in politics and language activism are innovations that have spread unequally within the Basque-speaking realm of Iparralde. Why is this diffusion more successful in the districts of Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry and SaintJean-Pied-de-Port than in Soule? The main argument to explain the lack of success in Soule is that its settlement pattern has constrained the establishment of a group of early innovators – political entrepreneurs – and of adopters of the innovation, i.e. voters and active language supporters. Most political entrepreneurs are Basques who have studied outside the Basque Country or who, if they have done so in places like Bayonne, are generally impregnated with French high culture. They often hold posts in public education, administration, or are doctors, lawyers or artists. For these intellectuals cities and towns, or even big villages well connected with the city, are attractive places to settle. Obviously, most of them work in the cities. It is therefore logical to assume a bias in the availability of political entrepreneurs in the bigger settlements. Early adaptors of political innovation show a similar spatial pattern. Finally there is a special argument related to the role of schools as key institutions in language activism. Most of the Euskera-teaching institutions (ikastolak, bi-lingual education in public and private schools) are concentrated in southern Labourd with pockets in Baïgorry and the Saint-Pied-de-Port area (see Fig. 5.2; Jauréguiberry 1993: 38). The modest size of many schools as a consequence of both depopulation and the settlement pattern characterized by small and dispersed farmsteads and villages has made them unattractive to language projects (Jauréguiberry 1993: 40–1). For reasons of efficiency the bigger schools have been chosen for the introduction of bilingual education. The early adaptors of bilingual education are presumably children of parents with above-average levels of education. The fact that bilingually educated children score higher in school tests than non-bilingual may be due to the socio-cultural family environment (Jauréguiberry 1993: 39–41; Bachoc 1999: 231–3). Erramun Bachoc, the President of the Basque Language Council, stated that many children in bilingual education evidently benefit from the home situation ‘because their bookshelves are often well filled’ (personal communication with Mr Bachoc). Consequently the same bias of early mobilization and early mobilizers can be expected towards the bigger settlements. In this respect, it is no wonder that the few educational institutions that provide bilingual education in Soule are in Barcus, Tardets and Mauléon, the bigger settlements. There, the last group of Soule’s children receive education in Euskera: ‘If nothing is done, these will be the last Basque-speaking people in Soule because, after the age of ten, the children hardly speak the language anymore and do not attend bilingual schools’ (Peillen 1994: 260–1). Peillen’s pessimistic view on the shift to French in Soule is slightly counterbalanced by Bidart (1994) who has emphasized cultural initiatives like the local radio Xiberoko Botza, which was set up in 1982.

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My hypothesis is that a minimum threshold regarding settlement size should exist to enable educational and political innovation. The hypothesis is inspired by Hroch (2000) who has convincingly argued that in the period of gestation of nationalist mobilization, a group is required of mutually communicating intelligentsia and intellectuals that is sufficiently large to act as an early core of mobilizers. The geographical concentration of a group of children of sufficient size and a group of educators, parents and politicians who can socialize on the basis of new ideas on language, education and politics assumes that in areas with a scattered and aged population the probability of mobilization will be low. I will now test this hypothesis. Given the relatively large proportion of municipalities in the Mauléon district where there are fewer than 80 per cent Basque-speaking classes, the test has been based on the three Basque-speaking mountain cantons of Saint-Étienne-deBaïgorry, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Tardets-Sorhulus. The median size of municipalities is lowest in the least-mobilized canton of Tardets-Sorhulus (145 inhabitants), whereas the cantons of Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry and Saint-JeanPied-de-Port have bigger municipalities (Table 5.2). The cantonal centre of TardetsSorhulus has less than half the inhabitants than the centres of the two mobilized cantons. The threshold for schools with special facilities is thus more easily met in the latter centres than in Tardets-Sohulus. Moreover, as shown by the number of children in the 5–9-year-old age bracket, the probability of thresholds being met for special school facilities will be attained more easily in Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry and SaintJean-Pied-de-Port. Conversely, in Tardets-Sorhulus, 156 children are distributed over 14 municipalities of whom 28 live in the nuclear village. A few children living dispersed over Tardets-Sorhulus in isolated settlements amidst an ageing population together creates an environment hostile to innovating language activists or politicians with new ideas. Obviously, the bigger settlements in the intermediary zone are more attractive residences for nationalist innovators. In the highly mobilized canton of Ustaritz, for instance, the median number of inhabitants per municipality is 1375. In combination with the suburban development expressed in the increased settlement of highly educated commuters to the Bayonne agglomeration, a still substantial presence of Euskera and the settlement pattern also help to explain the canton’s high propensity towards mobilization from below. Moreover, the lay orientation of the new nationalism corresponds better with the intellectual background of the supporters of the new ideology. Table 5.2 Settlement features of Basque-speaking mountain cantons, 1999 Canton

Median municipalities size

Largest municipality

Children 5–9 years

Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port Tardets-Sorhulus

373 182 148

1526 1416 653

288 290 156

Source: INSEE (2000b).

118 Territory and Terror Although the nationalist movement recently gained momentum, one should not forget that Basque nationalism has still had only a limited political impact in the French Basque Country. In particular, social and economic claims have made little progress. Measures against land speculation and to promote the development of tourism, cooperatives and social housing are high on the agenda of Abertzaleen Batasuna, but have hardly changed policies. A similar observation has been made with regard to the claims on political prisoners. Two claims, however, have had some effect. These claims are at the same time the ones that are most intimately connected with the core values of Basque nationalism, namely language and territory. The concessions made so far by the French authorities go somewhat further than the cosmetic decentralization that occurred after the Deixonne Law of 1951. Given the limited support base of Basque nationalist parties it is surprising that concessions have been made. Therefore the following questions need to be answered. What is the content of these concessions? Are they structural changes in the institutions of the state or do they consist of merely cosmetic changes? Here it will be shown that the state accommodation of territorial and language claims is real but relatively unimportant.

State reactions to language and territorial claims In 1980, Pierre Bidart wrote that the Basque language was being ignored and obstructed by the official institutions and marginalized towards the oral domain (Bidart 1980: 181). Basque culture became privatized in libraries and collections, confined to ad hoc places like the Musée Basque and folklorized by, for instance, its dances or commercialized in tourism (Bidart 1980: 182). In 1999, Oyharçabal wrote that French was still the republic’s national language. He states that amendments to the law to assess the respect for regional languages and cultures of France have been refuted by the parliament (Oyharçabal 1999a: 60). The only legal references to regional languages are in the Deixonne law (1951) and the Savary circular (1982). In the related documents, particularly those concerning education, regional languages are characterized by ‘marginality and volunteer work’ (Oyharçabal 1999a: 61). These references may give the impression that government politics have not changed at all with respect to the Basque language. Indeed, the position of Euskera in administrative institutions and courts of justice is at zero level, while in the media it is still marginal. Signposting is, however, now spread all over Iparralde. The French national highway from Bayonne to San Sebastian now has bilingual road signs. Although these domains of public life are important for the struggle of language activists against language decline, the domain given the highest priority is education. The educational authorities had to cope with growing pressure from parents to introduce Basque at school. The ikastola movement motivated so many parents that initially local schools of the state system decided to regain the parents’ sympathy by introducing Euskera in the curriculum. The first public school to open a bilingual branch was in Sare in 1985 (personal communication, Erramun Bachoc). The integration of Euskera into the curriculum of the public system

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became a legal option after the Savary circular of 1982 (Cassan 1997: 83; Stuijt 1998: 5). The French administration has increasingly been involved in the introduction of Basque into education from 1982 onwards. This involvement has been visible in the co-financing of private and public institutions like Seaska (1982) and the Basque Cultural Institute in Ustaritz (1990). The former is the private umbrella association responsible for the introduction of Euskera in education and the latter is the main semi-public institution for language and cultural preservation and development. Although ikastolas are still private schools, the Ministry of Education, local authorities and the département nowadays provide 70 per cent of the budget (Stuijt 1998: 6). Moreover, during the 1990s public intervention in the control of teaching methods and materials increased, as well as in quality assessment. The recognition of Seaska by the French Ministry of Education was the result of a long process of bargaining, and often uneasy relations, between these parties. These relations started because budgetary problems relating to Seaska during the early 1980s urged them to look for state funding (Cassan 1997: 82). Most state concessions were made during the period of socialist government in France (Cassan 1997: 71–99). In the 3–11age group there are 24,500 pupils, of whom the great majority (73 per cent) are still given monolingual education in French. Of the remainder, 11 per cent are only taught in Basque for three hours a week, while another 11 per cent receive bilingual education provided by public or private denominational schools. Only 5 per cent of the children are immersed in Basque-taught education, mostly in ikastolas. The three hours per week model does not imply the preservation of Basque because, in a French-speaking environment, this does not create real bilingualism among the children. As Erramun Bachoc has stated, in order to maintain Basque a 100 per cent offer (and not the 16 per cent of the bilingual and immersion models; JMB) will be needed. All other measures are ‘just like pumping up a flat tire’ (Enbata 2001, 12 July, issue 1686). The contribution of the conventional educational system of public and private (Catholic) schools to bilingual education may seem low compared to Hegoalde (see Chapter 6). However, considering that Euskera has been introduced into the conventional system for only two decades, progress is unquestionable. The prospects of teaching Basque and teaching in Basque improved significantly after 1996 when, in Irissarry, the Minister of Education François Bayrou announced the universalization of the provision of Basque in the school curriculum in the Basque Country (Bachoc 1999: 236). The institutional involvement of the French state in language policies culminated in the establishment of the Council for the Basque Language (Conseil de la langue basque, or Hikuntz kontseilua) on 3 July 2001. Public institutions like the Ministry of Education and the département are represented in the Council together with Basque umbrella organizations like Ikas (the professional association of teachers), Euskaltzaindia (the Academy of the Basque Language), and the Institut Culturel Basque, as well as organizations and associations directly involved with the implementation of Basque-language policies such as Seaska, AEK (adult literacy programmes), radio stations and so on, aided by specialists. Most of the new institution’s efforts are focused on education. The Council has a yearly budget of €120,000.

120 Territory and Terror The first impression of Basque institution-building around language is one of a modest achievement by the activists. However, a closer look at the possibilities for further accommodation to language claims offers a less rosy picture with respect to the Basque language. This is because further institutionalization of the Basque language will be constrained by France’s centralist regulation, polarization within the language movement, and a geographical mismatch between linguistic mobilization and language geography. On 7 May 1999 France signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, adopted by the European Committee of Ministers in June 1992 and which entered into force on 1 March 1998. The Charter could only be signed following the publication of an official report written by an expert in constitutional law, Guy Carcassonne, who advised the government to sign the Charter (Carcassonne 1998). The Charter recognizes the ‘inalienable right’ to use a regional or minority language in the fourth paragraph of its Preamble, and links territory with language in a way that even administrative divisions may be changed if they are an obstacle to the promotion of regional languages (OellersFrahm 1999: 939; for the exact text in French: Clairis et al. 1999: 255–72). Oyharçabal (1999b: 122–3) has severely criticized the Carcassonne report because it does not recognize the connection between territory and language. The state does not have to interfere in these issues as the minority language is considered a private affair. In the Carcassonne report the signing of the Charter does not, therefore, have any consequence for French language legislation. But things turned out even worse. The Charter could not be ratified because the Conseil constitutionnel considered the territorial content and the recognition of special rights on ‘groups’ of the Charter as violating the constitutionally defined indivisibility of France and the equality before the law of all Frenchmen (OellersFrahm 1999: 940). Given the political and legal obstructions, the European Charter will not be ratified in the near future. Instead, as far as the Basque language promoters are concerned, it will remain a useless document in a state where French is still the only official language. Internal polarization is the second obstacle to language mobilization. Apart from Seaska, the other association that voluntarily organizes parents of children who receive bilingual education in the public system is Ikas-bi. Ikas-bi does not participate in the newly erected Conseil because they hold other views about the content of education. They opt for a curriculum in which Basque geography and history are translated from French, and argue against other associations that want a specific ‘Basque’ content, distinct from the official French version. Paradoxically the more radical language associations, such as AEK and Seaska, are represented in the Conseil, an institution supported by the French public sector, whereas Ikasbi, the association that only wants to translate the French curriculum into Basque, is not involved. Finally there is a geographical mismatch with most of the language mobilization in southern Labourd (Fig. 5.3). The areas where the language competence of speakers is highest show a low level of mobilization. This not only applies to parents who opt for ikastolas or bilingual schools for their children, but also to many

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French-speaking parents who send their children to Basque-language schools. The ethnic identity of these francophone parents is paradoxically rooted in the attribute they lost themselves: the Basque language. Apparently, this situation of language revival supported by French speakers who feel Basque themselves is reminiscent of similar situations in, for example, Wales where language revival of Welsh is experienced most intensively in the middle-class residential districts around Cardiff, where language reproduction within the domain of the home and the street is severely constrained, like ‘a plant that has grown vigorously but without a deep or extensive root system’ (Aitchison and Carter 2000: 87). In the areas of Iparralde most affected by language revival, the new symbolic identity in which language has a paramount place has a similar root system characterized by the absence of the Basque language at home and in daily life. Hybrid identities can be observed within institutions and individuals in which Basque, French and universal components are combined. The rugby club of Ustaritz, like many rugby clubs elsewhere in the Basque Country, was created as a modern lay institution boosted by teachers of the public educational system, similarly to other places (Bidart 1977: 203). The club songs of this lay ‘French’ institution are in Basque. Even those who do not practise Euskera can sing them. I met several members and supporters. They declared themselves to be ‘very Basque’, though not Basque-speaking, to support Ikas-bi, and they also sent their children to a bilingual school. However, they still voted for ‘French’ parties. They were a walking illustration of Brubaker’s criticism against groupism (see Chapter 1). To conclude, unless there is increasing state recognition in practice and the indisputable increase of mobilization behind language, the impact of language activism will remain rather modest. Despite the uneasy relations between language activists and state institutions, the presence of institutions and people devoted to the cause of language but not involved in sub-state nationalism has contributed to politics of compromise and consent. For some of those mobilized behind language claims, consensual politics may have given a satisfactory answer to their grievances. For the nationalists among them this will not be sufficient. In the near future, centralist legislation, internal fragmentation within the language movement, geographic mismatch, and a juxtaposition of symbolic identity vis-à-vis cultural resources will be obstacles to further mobilization. The second claim that has mobilized Basques of different political backgrounds is a territorial one that aims at the creation of a distinct Basque département. The quest for an own département has a long history, about which the book by Chaussier (1996) provides valuable information. Initially, claims for a Basque département came from Bayonne business interests articulated in the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie. This institution organized the economic interests in the département until 1946. Motivated by the economic spheres of influence of the two main cities Bayonne and Pau, the Chamber’s view was for a separation into two Chambers, one in each of the cities, accompanied by a new administrative division. The latter would imply the creation of a new Basque département, something already proposed in 1836 by the same Chamber. For those who wanted a Basque

122 Territory and Terror territorial administration the result of the claim was perverse. A new Chamber of Commerce was indeed created in Pau, but it incorporated the two Mauléon and Tardets Cantons of the Basque Province of Soule while there was no prospect for a new département. During the 1960s, Enbata’s activities gave a new dimension to the claims for a département. At the meeting in the village of Itxassou in 1963 they made public their proposal for a Basque département (Chaussier 1996: 37). It was the first demand with a nationalist content, linking cultural with political autonomy with the final aim to unite all Basque Provinces of the North and the South. The creation of a département was seen as a transitional step towards a kind of Euskal Herria, though the latter term was not yet used in the Charter of Itxassou. In 1975, the Association pour un Nouveau Département was established. The association was initiated and supported by Bayonne’s Chamber of Commerce, and aimed for the establishment of a new département. More power concerning regional development was claimed. Preservation and defence of the region’s cultural and linguistic heritage, in particular through bilingual education, were the other demands (Chaussier 1996: 112). During the inaugural meeting, the representation of elected municipal politicians was strongly biased towards the intermediary zone. The municipalities of the Bayonne agglomeration did not send any delegate to the meeting, while the Basque-speaking interior was weakly represented (Chaussier 1996: 113–15). Moreover, there was confusion as to whether the representation was an official appointment or just a personnel title, as well as about the conceptual content of the claim – whether nationalist or not. Within the Association the opinion that the population had to be mobilized and then consulted by referendum gained support and led to the establishment of the Association des Élus [Elected] pour un Département Pays Basque in 1980. This Association, in which elected politicians of municipalities seconded by one politician of the General Council of the département, had more nationalist aims, in particular concerning language. Their primary task was to organize a referendum about the territorial demands. Again the geographical bias of the delegated politicians to the association was strongly towards the transition zone between Bayonne’s agglomeration and the interior, notwithstanding the presence of a delegation from Bayonne and Anglet (Chaussier 1996: 144–5). The only big French party that began to support the idea of a new département was the Socialist Party. Although, within the region, the local socialists were initially against the new demands, during the 1975–80 period the Socialist Party started to deploy an election strategy in which decentralization and an own Basque département were in the programme for the presidential elections of 1981. Previous propositions by the socialists for decentralization in the National Assembly in 1980 and the election campaign of 1981 in favour of decentralization breathed new life into the two associations. The temporal rise and subsequent fall of the movement was characterized by three stages according to Chaussier (1996: 214–15). The first phase (1975–9) consisted of maturation under the dominance of the Chamber of Commerce, the second was an ephemeral climax phase with maximum involvement of local politicians, institutions and the Socialist Party (1981–2), and the final phase was a period of decline that lasted till 1985. After

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1985, the quest for a Basque département only remained part of the programme of nationalist parties. Why have territorial claims not been able to mobilize the Basques? The answer to this question can be related to political patterns and processes on various geographical scales. At the scale of Iparralde, the movement in itself had fundamental weaknesses. First, the involvement of political representatives from the cultural heartland and the urban agglomeration was weak. In addition, localities represented in the association frequently dropped out while others entered, resulting in a total lack of electoral continuity and stability (Chaussier 1996: 215). Finally, the movement was not able to mobilize the electorate or even become a substantial ingredient of public opinion. In an ironic way Chaussier (1996: 275) concludes that ‘the cause of a Département of the Basque Country has never merited any minor popular demonstration in the streets of Bayonne’. Within Iparralde the opposition of the local notables has been another important factor contributing to the movement’s failure. Most of them, Basque-speaking but representing French conservatism, were against the new claims (Malherbe 1980: 83). The administration of the département was against the new ideas, in particular the plan to organize a consultative referendum. The prefect’s letter of 1980 to the Mayors who were involved in the plan left no one in any doubt. He warned about the repercussions that the behaviour beyond their legal powers would have (Chaussier 1996: 145–6). At the level of state politics, the socialists did not fulfil their promise after coming to power in 1981. Instead, in 1982 the newly installed government under the leadership of the socialist Mitterand sent a study group of high-ranking civil servants supervised by Jean Ravail, who was himself General Inspector of the Ministry of the Interior. Other members of the Commission were officials of the Interior, the Foreign Affairs, and the Education, Culture and Sports ministries. Fear of separatism (Interior), ‘recognition of a will for independence’ (Foreign Affairs), and an emphasis on a sector approach instead of territoriality (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports), were the leading views at the top of the French state apparatus (Chaussier 1994: 116–17). Cross-border tensions and political violence by Iparretarrak certainly played a role in the sudden distrust of the new French government towards the territorial claims (Chaussier 1994: 119). The outcome of Mission Ravail was twofold. First, sector-specific policies in the fields of education, culture, and the economy were to be developed, and second, a vague proposal was made that referred to ‘a proper administrative structure’ and ‘a frame of action where the specificity of the Basque Country can develop’. The second proposal culminated in the creation of the Conseil de Développement du Pays Basque in 1996. The role foreseen for this Conseil concerned consultation and management coordination with the département. It was to be dominated by elected politicians (Chaussier 1994: 128). The introduction of this bureaucratic innovation would imply the preservation of the département and would probably be a source of conflict of competencies between département and conseil (Chaussier 1994: 130). Again, in the Parliament of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the proposal to create the Conseil was defended by socialists from Béarn and rejected

124 Territory and Terror by right-wing UDF-RPF Basques (Chaussier 1994: 135–46). With the creation of the Conseil de Développement du Pays Basque and the Conseil des Élus (Council of Elected Politicians) the French Administration made a concession towards territorial claims. In particular, the Development Council has become an interesting think-tank and debating-place without real political power. Compared to the Autonomous and Foral Community of respectively the Basque Country and Navarra, the two conseils do not offer a new opportunity structure to political entrepreneurs. This is because the existing département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques has not lost any of its politico-administrative competencies in favour of the newly created bodies. The other concession made concerned the Chamber of Commerce, which, in 1990, was able to reincorporate Soule into its area of action (Cassan 1997: 125). Chaussier (1994: 139) alluded to the weakness of Basque claims for more autonomy in a strong French state: ‘The Basque Country will have to satisfy itself with designing society on the basis of the imaginary, the culture and the language, within the technical limits determined by the state and its decentralized institutions.’ In the midst of almost complete dominance of the French language to the detriment of Euskera and an overwhelming frenchification, due to economic and demographic change, popular support suddenly started to increase. At the start of the twenty-first century, popular support for the creation of the département seemed to increase according to a survey of 2,000 people in which two-thirds of the respondents were in favour, and this was backed up by a demonstration by about 10,000 activists in Bayonne in October 1999 (Kerrouche 2002: 63–4). Mobilization is, however, too recent a phenomenon to assess whether it will continue or will instead be the final convulsions of disappearing Basque identity.

Conclusion Sub-state nationalism as an ideology has been present in the French Basque Country for more than a century. Potential followers of Basque nationalist messages were able to choose from a wide range of positions. Potential grievances regarding language discrimination, socio-economic deprivation and tourist colonization were waiting to be activated by nationalist or regionalist political entrepreneurs. However, it was many decades before a small group of activists was able to exploit the ideological resources, and the resulting mass mobilization that has occurred since the 1960s has remained a modest phenomenon that initially lacked continuity in message, affiliation and electoral support. During the 1990s mobilization stabilized somewhat. The geographical patterning of mobilization from below reveals a cosmetic nationalist landscape in old Bayonne, where Basque flags and other nationalist paraphernalia give an erroneous impression. The frenchified city is only important as a location for nationalist organizations, from where the transition zone between coast and inland is mobilized. It is in the intermediary zone of contact with French influences on the Basque interior that nationalism and language activism coincide. The establishment of such a Basque nationalist heartland is related to the settlement pattern that offers more opportunities to political innovators and their followers. Both innovators and

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followers are often Basques, frenchified by prolonged education and conscious about a threat of cultural extinction. Apart from postmodern de-Basquified intelligentsia, modern farmers form the support base of Basque nationalism. Barring a number of inland enclaves with high levels of ethno-nationalist mobilization, the weak support in the Basque inland is due to the lack of attraction of the settlement system for a group of political innovators which then impedes the establishment of communities of believers in a nationalist ideal. With continuing depopulation, the attractiveness to potential political change agents will further diminish. The occurrence of hybrid identities makes it difficult to describe and explain the geography of Basque nationalism in Iparralde. Temporary eruptions at pop and village festivals with a nationalist flavour do indeed attract many visitors. Moreover, folk dance and music, language and traditional sports attract so many people that the result is equivalent to a cultural revival. However, renewed mobilization in cultural life is only modestly reflected in politics. The small electoral weight of Basque nationalism has led parties to seek to form coalitions. The political successes in language promotion and, to a lesser degree, in the creation of own institutions are due to the support of frenchified sympathizers and ‘French’ institutions. The resulting accommodation of ethno-regionalist demands by the French state consists of a partial recognition of the language in education and the establishment of new administrative bodies without real political power. The above implies that no opportunity structure has been created in the north for Basque nation-building as has occurred in the south.

6

Euskadi as a weak proto-state The fragmentation of Basque society

‘Basque society’ is a much-frequented point of reference in the narratives of politicians of all orientations south of the Pyrenees. Basque society is often presented as a personalized symbol as if it were a human being with ideas, opinions and a concrete pattern of behaviour. When ETA abolished its cease-fire on 29 November 1999 it wanted ‘to communicate its analysis and decision to Basque society’. On the same day PNV’s president of the Basque Autonomous Community, Ibarretxe, assured the public that ‘Basque society would no longer tolerate a scene of violence’ (El País 29 November 1999). Gara, the radical nationalist newspaper, stated that ‘in the educational sphere we are suffering from the most important hispanizing aggression of this country, although Basque society has repeatedly opted for education in Euskera’ (23 May 2001). Previously, Otegi, spokesman for the radical nationalists, argued that ‘Basque society has to lay a proposal on the table … in favour of the rights of the prisoners’ (Gara 5 June 2001). Moreover, politicians of ‘Spanish’ parties like PP or PSOE often claim that ‘Basque society’ has opinions or sentiments that may be more pluralist than the imagined societal feelings of the nationalists. In Deia on 12 February 2001, the socialist leader Redondo wanted to underline that it is possible to build a Basque country but that he denounced a nationalism that gave ‘a [false; JMB] uniform and static image of the Basque society’. Evidently, the personalized ‘Basque society’ feels and thinks differently about politics according to the political affiliation of the spokesperson. Speaking in the name of all Basques is thus not only a feature of radical nationalists of ETA, as assumed by Zulaika and Douglass (1996: 57) or Wieviorka (1997: 312), but also an almost daily feature of the rhetoric of both Spanish Basque and Spanish politicians. Under the surface of the nationalist imagery of a unified and homogeneous people there has always been internal debate and tension about the political line to be followed. A multitude of splinter groups emerged from ETA during the 1959–86 period, reflecting the organization’s internal struggles (Sullivan 1988), and after recent schisms within Batasuna the ‘Aralar’ and ‘Zutik’ movements can be added to these. The PNV, the nationalist party that attracted the most votes, also has a history of internal disputes and secessions. These allusions to fragmentation will be developed in two directions. In the first

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place, I will analyse the gap between nationalist rhetoric and daily political experience. I will show that there is no clarity about what is exactly ‘Basque society’, the ‘Basque nation’, the ‘Basque people’, ‘Basque decision space’ or ‘Basque national construction’. The argument I will develop is that, similar to Spanish nationalism, Basque nationalism suffers from flaws in ideological cohesion and continuity. Second, Basque nationalism has created a support base that is divided according to the diverse nationalist orientations and unevenly distributed in the geography of Euskadi and Navarra. The orientation to which most attention will be paid concerns the nationalism embodied in PNV, the only party that has been in the autonomous government since its inauguration in 1981 and the main force behind Basque nation-building. In this chapter, I will show that the weak establishment of Basque civil society mirrors Spain as a whole. Pérez-Díaz (1993) has interpreted the return of civil society in Spain as a learning process for politicians and their parties, labour unions, employers’ associations and security forces. I will apply his interpretation to Hegoalde. Pérez-Díaz sees Spanish democracy jeopardized by clientelism, party oligarchies, a discrepancy between public discourse and political practice and a growing interference between political class and powerful economic interests (Pérez-Díaz 1993: 43). I will argue that the democratic learning process on a regional scale in the Spanish Basque Country has progressed less than in the rest of Spain and that the dangers for the functioning of democracy are far more serious than elsewhere in Spain. In particular, I will focus on the doubtful quality of civil society in Euskadi, which has contributed to the present stagnation of mobilization from below. Despite ideological differences, the nationalist message has some common core values about the envisaged future of ‘the Basque nation’. However, I will demonstrate that contradictions that emerged concerning the use of violence have divided nationalism, while the gap between political rhetoric and practice has delegitimized Basque nationalism among non-nationalists. I will argue that different conceptualizations of the Basque nation have contributed to the weakness of Basque nationalism. Like Spanish nationalism, Basque nationalism has suffered from ideological incoherence since its invention.

Nationalist messages It is often believed that Sabino de Arana y Goiri (1865–1903) was the auctor intellectualis of Basque nationalism. However, the founder of the PNV had several ideological precursors. In the sixteenth century manuscripts appeared that highlighted the superiority of Basques vis-à-vis Spaniards or French. Authors like Juan Martínez de Zaldibia considered the Basques to be the direct and pure descendants of Tubal, one of Noah’s mythical grandsons (Aranzadi 2000: 383– 448; Azurmendi 2000: 24–72). Writings by Garibay, Andrés de Poza and in particular the Jesuit Father Manuel de Larramendi in the eighteenth century provided further building blocks for the construction of a Basque identity. These blocks consisted of the fueros as a glorified and mythified species of regional autonomy, universal nobility – all Basques were considered nobles, religious

128 Territory and Terror purity and racial superiority. These protonationalist messages, of which Larramendi’s discourse was probably the most political one, did not produce mass mobilization. At best these messages can be interpreted as contributions to the formation of early ethnic consciousness based on collective nobility and regional privileges (Arazandi 2000: 578–9). The diffusion of the protonationalist narrative over a wider audience was hindered because most Basques could not read, while political mobilization had to wait for the introduction of universal suffrage in the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, the Basque constituencies were increasingly able to make a choice between various orientations of Basque nationalism. These orientations did not differ so much according to the items in the list of demands. For example, the great majority of Basque nationalist ideologues had common ideas about the importance of Catholic religion, the restoring of fueros as a means of acquiring greater political autonomy and Basque language and race as important attributes of Basqueness. The ideas about the imagined community differed especially with respect to the priority given to each of these points. Prominent nationalists like Arana or Arturo Campión changed their priorities during their lifetime. After his imprisonment, Arana took a more españolista (Spain-abiding) position though this view did not become public until 1917, 14 years after his death (Larronde 1977: 358). Arturo Campión y Jaime Bon, the forefather of Basque– Navarrese nationalism and grandson of an Italian, began his political thinking as a liberal, then became a Catholic fundamentalist and ended up as a nationalist. Arana’s known orientation during his life was towards the exclusion of maketos – a term of abuse for strangers, usually Spaniards, and for the defence of conservative clericalism and independence. At a mature age Campión viewed the restored fueros as a part of Spain while he considered Euskera a more important trait of Basqueness than race (Azcona Pastor and Gortari Unanua 2001: 172–9). More liberal and modernizing views were expressed in circles around the wealthy Bilbao ship owner Ramón de la Sota y Llano (Zirakzadeh 1991: 116–17). The latter, active in the cultural association of Euskalerría, joined Arana’s movement in 1899 (Larronde 1977: 274). The territorial aspirations of the early nationalists varied from restoring the old fueros and total independence, to a more efficient Spanish administration. On the other hand, in a cultural sense, the aspirations ranged from a xenophobic and exclusive anti-hispanism of Arana to a more inclusive cultural interest in Campión’s discourse to promote Basque language and culture. From this multitude of nationalist options, political claims crystallized out into the programme of the PNV, the Basque nationalist party established in 1895 by Arana and his friends. The main slogan was ‘God and the Old Laws’ to emphasize Catholicism and the restoring of the fueros. Campión’s nationalist message was hardly popularized. His ideas were communicated within the Asociación Euskara, a society with a similar elite composition as Euskualzaleen Biltzarra in the French Basque Country, and through the monthly Revista Euskara (1878–83) and the newspaper Arga (1879–81), which appeared four times a week. These short-lived initiatives illustrate that Campión’s early voice hardly mobilized the population. Elitism and geographical confinement to

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Navarra of the Euskaros, as Campión’s disciples were often called, explained the lack of mass mobilization. His ideas were spread among a small group of the conservative traditional elite without further diffusion to a wider audience of whom many could not even read his publications. The cultural and political views were not always eligible for mass consumption because he did not see any advantages in general education, nor in the active promotion of his ideas among the ‘innocent classes’ (Elorza 1978: 47). Campión’s audience was almost exclusively concentrated in Navarra, where PNV’s nationalist ideas were spread through the weekly Napartarra (1911–19), which had a maximum circulation of 2,800 copies (MartínezPeñuela Vírseda 1989: 97). Albeit Campión and his followers started to formulate their Basque nationalist ideology at an earlier stage than their counterparts in Bilbao, but the latter had an impact that became crucial for the gestation and early mobilization of Basque nationalism. Conceptualization of the Basque nation in nineteenth-century Bilbao had two orientations. The first was ultra-Catholic, independentist, exclusivist and anti-Spanish, and was mainly represented by its inventor Sabino de Arana y Goiri. The second was of a more liberal fuerist brand, more inclined towards autonomy within the Spanish state and less linked to religious orthodoxy. Arana, most glorified by today’s nationalists, idealized a racially pure Basque nation free from the influence of maketos. Arana’s eclecticism which, according to Payne (1975: 75), was ‘a curious blending of conflicting radicalisms, racism, anti-hispanism, religious fanaticism and anti-industrialism’ will only be discussed briefly because of the existence of an impressive body of literature in this field (see for instance Payne 1975; Larronde 1977; Elorza 1978; Corcuera Atienza 1979; Zirakzadeh 1991; Conversi 1997). Arana’s doctrine was not simply a claim to restore the fueros of before 1839. According to Fusi (1984: 168) this claim concerned an ‘extremely vague formula’ because the precise position of the Basque country within Spain was not defined. Arana introduced a new name for the imagined fatherland (Euzkadi), new names for institutions and parties, and designed the Ikurriña, the Basque flag. He invented such words as abenda (race), aberri (fatherland), abertzale (patriot), batzoki (party office), gudari (warrior/soldier) and ikurriña (Juaristi 1997: 201). Many basquified names like Joseba (Joseph), Imanol (Immanuel) or Andoni (Anthony), which in Basque-speaking environments were hardly accepted at first, were personal creations (Juaristi 1997: 202–4). In the context of accelerated industrialization and immigration, Arana’s peculiar creativity was grounded on resentment towards all that was related to the state’s centralization and industrialization. For Arana, who learned Basque in his adulthood, the Basque language had no direct priority. It served primarily to keep maketos out of Basque society. For many Basque nationalists of today, Arana is a great historical figure. His portrait occupies a prominent place in all the party offices of the PNV and EA. His nationalist legacy has been rendered banal through the naming of 187 streets and 49 squares and 37 schools in Euskadi (Díaz Herrera and Durán 2001). Arana’s symbolic presence in everyday life embodies the common identification of Basque nationalists and, at the same time, the exclusion of people holding alternative views. Arana’s initial supporters could be found in the circle of Bilbao petty bourgeoisie

130 Territory and Terror whose members were often marginalized by the abolition of the fueros. Part of the emerging entrepreneurs and middle class of Bilbao supported the liberal fuerist orientation, which was less exclusive, more constitution-abiding and less antimodern. This view on the Basque nation was a product of a group initiated by Fidel de Sagarmínaga and financially supported by Ramón de la Sota who himself originated from Castro-Urdiales in the adjacent Province of Cantabria. The group, founded as Sociedad Euskalerría, was an association created by the liberal fuerist party in 1876 that acted both as a political party and a cultural association. The group’s ideas began as fuerist with a liberal flavour, and attributed a great deal of value to Basque culture and language. The Euskalerriacos or Sotistas, as the group was commonly called, were in favour of economic modernization following the model of the English industrial revolution, while their envisaged functioning of the Basque provinces in the Spanish state originally focused on some modest tax reform (Zirakzadeh 1991: 113–17). Like the Euskaros of Navarra, the Euskalerriacos organized cultural activities. They had a theatre, newsletters and Hermes, a remarkably cosmopolitan cultural review, all financially supported by De la Sota. The social composition of the Sociedad Euskalerría was far more elitist than Arana’s supporters. The integration of the Euskalerriacos into the Partido Nacionalista Vasco, five years after the founding of PNV in 1895, reflected a gradual change within the Sociedad Euskalerría towards more nationalist positions (Larronde 1977: 273–5). This integration, however, introduced two currents into the party, the existing Aranaist one, anti-modernist and oriented towards separatism, and the ‘enlightened’ moderate one of the Euskalerriacos. The latter was pro-modernist, autonomist within the Spanish state and inclined to make coalitions with españolista parties. This century-old ideological dualism within the PNV is still important today since separatist and autonomist tendencies are still opposed in this party. De Pablo et al. (1999; 2001) used the metaphor of a pendulum to reflect the continuous alternation between separatist and autonomist dominance in the PNV. Another ideological division introduced into Basque nationalism concerned class contradiction (Zirakzadeh 1991: 132–5). Until 1920, conflicts within the PNV were mainly about separatism or autonomy and the role of religion in society. In the case of class conflict, a phenomenon that was repeatedly visible in strikes and workers’ protests in the highly industrialized urban area of Bilbao, the PNV nationalists never showed any solidarity with the workers, not even in the case of repressive actions of police forces. Under the leadership and inspiration of Elías Gallastegui, who initially belonged to the breakaway wing of Aranaists in the PNV, an alternative ideology originated. Through his publications in the Jagi-Jagi journal, run by Arana’s elder brother Luís, he developed a discourse in which proletarian struggle was combined with the desire for secession. Moreover, this ideological innovation is still important today. ETA and the political groups and organizations akin to ETA can be regarded as the legacy of Gallastegui’s message. The other ideological introductions concern secularism and the role of the Basque language. Secular voices were emerging even in the first decade of the twentieth century (Elorza 1978: 348). However, it was not until the post-Franco

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period that the Basque nationalist parties introduced a secular concept of the Basque nation. During the democratic transition, language as a core value in the nationalist message took over from the old emphasis on race (Conversi 1990). Evidently, interest in the ancient language was already present in the ideology of the nineteenth-century Euskaros of Navarra, who had a reduced political impact. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923–30), when political activities were banned, there was a cultural revival in which Euskera started to play a more prominent role (Mezo 1996: 73). Although it may look initially as if these ideologies were simply a reaction to local changes in social, economic and political conditions, there have certainly been spiritual inspirations from ideas and political developments elsewhere. Several authors have placed original nationalist views in a wider context of romanticism. In a more concrete way, nationalist ideologies have been influenced by cases of successful nationalism. For instance, while the euskalerriacos found inspiration in the industrial revolution and the example of British infrastructural power, the Aranaists followed ideas of the early Irish and Hungarian nationalists (Juaristi 1997: 52–5). Campión once followed the Swiss canton model (Elorza 1978: 28). Conversely Gallestegui was impressed by the ‘social’ nationalism of Sinn Fein. Today many strategies, views and action models are copied from or arise from consultation with Irish nationalists (Chapter 8), while the party programmes of the three main nationalist parties flirt with the European Union. In conclusion, there are many competing conceptualizations of the imagined community of the Basques. In this respect the ideological fragmentation is similar to the differentiation of views on the ‘Spanish nation’ as if it were to be a microcosm of Spanish nationalism. Ideological fragmentation does not only exist in theory. Instead, in the century-old history of Basque nationalism, mobilization processes and patterns reveal compartmentalization inspired by ideological fragmentation. In the next sections the role of the locale in the configuration of nationalism will be explored.

Mobilization behind new messages: process and pattern in the pre-Franco period Political mobilization in Hegoalde was interrupted by two dictatorships. The first one of Primo de Rivera left some room for specific types of mobilization. The second one, particularly in the first two decades after the Civil War, repressed all kinds of anti-regime expressions. Two periods will be distinguished to describe mobilization from below. The first period will be from the late nineteenth century to the Civil War. The second will be the post-Franco period. The nationalist mobilization behind Aranaist isolationist ideas and the more integrative perspective of the euskalerriacos embodied in the PNV of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century passed through the classical gestation–mass mobilization phases proposed by Hroch (2000). Agitation occurred in limited circles of intellectuals, artists and intelligentsia in Bilbao, in particular after the establishment of the PNV in 1895. In the late nineteenth century Bilbao was industrializing, urbanizing and polluting at an incredibly high pace. The expanding city was a centre of economic, cultural and

132 Territory and Terror political innovation. Together with Barcelona, the other industrial core of Spain, Bilbao became a fertile breeding ground for early liberalism, socialism and nationalism (Elorza 1978: 118; Fusi 1984). The PNV initially found support for its ideas among the urban petty bourgeoisie. After the integration of the euskalerriacos it was not until the end of the First World War that Basque nationalism transformed itself into a real mass movement. The newly established PNV, which had changed its name in 1913 into Comunión Nacionalista Vasca, soon managed to gain support among the Basque-speaking peasantry of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa by introducing new issues in the political programme. Tenant farmers welcomed the practical proposals of PNV to make them owners of the land they tilled (Elorza 1978: 190–201). From the First World War to 1923, the PNV acquired majority votes in Vizcaya and gained influence in Guipúzcoa. The phase of agitation now had its follow-up in nationalist mass mobilization (Mees 2001: 803). The rebirth of the intransigent Aranaist faction under the old name of PNV in 1921 could not be capitalized upon in the electoral arena because General Miguel Primo de Rivera suspended democratic life from 1923 to 1930. With the coming of the Second Republic a new PNV emerged from the Comunión and the Aranaist PNV as an interclass movement unifying native urban middle-class, autochthonous workers and the Basque-speaking peasantry (Elorza 1978: 201). The secession of Accion Nacionalista Vasca (ANV) with a more regionalist and leftist ideology than PNV immediately after the Comunión–PNV merge did not harm the interclass character of the nationalist movement because the ANV gained little support (Payne 1975: 118). In Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa the nationalist movement became a real mass movement. The electoral maps of 1933 and 1936 by Azcona Pastor and Gortari Unanua (2001: 85,87) show PNV domination in the Provinces in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa with the exception of the leftist stronghold on the left bank of the Nervión River in the working-class districts of greater Bilbao and some spots in the interior with a rightist majority. Conversely, Álava and Navarra were mainly in the hands of the Spanish right. In Guipúzcoa the spread of nationalism followed the diffusion of industrial development from the valley of the river Deba along the coast and some industrial towns in the interior. San Sebastián, Vergara, Andoain and Rentería became early centres of diffusion. In contrast to early nationalism in Vizcaya, which was supported by the petty bourgeoisie, nationalism in Guipúzcoa was an interclass phenomenon from its start (Aizpuru Murua 2000: 342–55). Non-Basque migrants, who totalled approximately one-fifth of the population in Guipúzcoa, remained excluded from the nationalist movement, although the ideological line of the nationalists of Guipúzcoa was less racist than in Vizcaya. Conversely, their bias was on the defence and promotion of Euskera. During the late 1920s the priest José Ariztimuño inspired language activism and was the driving force behind Euskaltzaleak, the association for the diffusion of Euskera. Under his pseudonym Aitzol, Ariztimuño was the harbinger of the present ideological focus on language instead of race. During the Second Republic he organized meetings to mobilize teachers, founded reviews and organized theatre and other activities to revitalize Euskera (Elorza 1978: 317–22). The locale in practical politics was extremely

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important due to the functioning of informal networks, caciquismo and coalition seeking with ‘Spanish’ parties. The pre-modern features of the political situation of Guipúzcoa were reflected at local level with widespread caciquismo practised by nationalist politicians and many unstable alliances. Compared to today’s support for radical separatism Guipúzcoa’s nationalism was peaceful and characterized by localism. The PNV and its splinter groups were important institutional manifestations of nationalism from below. The batzokis, the party offices originally created as cultural centres for the teaching of Euskera, had a content that went beyond pure politics. The batzokis were not only centres where PNV politicians and affiliates met but were also focal points of local social life. Apart from the bars and restaurant accommodation, the rooms were used for social, cultural and educational activities. Soon after their appearance in the 1890s the batzokis combined the function of a political office with a role as a community centre. During the first decades of the twentieth century many organizations were created that joined the PNV and its successor parties as vehicles for nationalist mobilization. These nationalist bodies consisted of communication media, a labour union, sports and cultural organizations, a women’s association and a farmers’ union. The list of newspapers, newsletters, pamphlets and reviews with a nationalist message would be too long to discuss here. During the Second Republic there were four PNV newspapers, three ANV press media, and 12 other PNV periodicals (De Pablo et al. 1998: 96–7). Nevertheless the Basque nationalist press had an extremely small readership compared to the españolista newspapers (Chapter 3). ELA-SOV (Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna, Solidaridad de Obreros Vascos, Basque Workers’ Solidarity, from now on ELA) was a Basque workers’ union established in 1911 as a reaction against the secular socialism of Spanish migrantworkers. The union started with a support base for Bilbao-based qualified labourers, which after the First World War soon attracted a lot of unskilled workers. The union explicitly excluded workers who could not prove Basque descent. Membership required at least one surname out of four to be etymologically Basque (Mees 1998: 63). According to the same author (p. 64) practical advantages in the field of health and unemployment insurances favoured affiliation. A decade after its creation ELA underwent a process of radicalization and emancipation from an organization obedient to the Catholic corporatist and nationalist principles towards a more autonomous class-linked organization. ELA never became a tight hierarchical organization because of the localism reflected in firm-specific claims and networks. When, after cautious collaboration in a corporatist setting during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, ELA re-emerged, it soon became the focus of 40,000 workers in Hegoalde and a potent force alongside PNV and ANV in the quest for more autonomy. Eusko Nekazarien Bazkuna (Basque Farmers Association, ENB) was founded in 1932 in order to promote ownership of the farms instead of tenancy, to protect farmers from tax pressure and to stimulate cooperatives for agricultural inputs and credits and provide some social security (Elorza 1978: 201–30). The first ENB groups emerged in Guipúzcoa, later followed by the eastern, most rural part of

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Vizcaya. The ENB was modelled on the Flemish Boerenbond. The ENB, which supported Basque nationalism, and in particular Catholic orthodoxy, was most visible in organizing mutual fire insurance. The nationalist electoral success of 1933 in the countryside of Guipúzcoa could be attributed to the support of the ENB (Elorza 1978: 212). The more peaceful tone of ENB documents contrasted with the Vizcaya-based ENB, which was ardently anti-capitalist and -caciquista (Elorza 1978: 219–20). The spatial diffusion of ENB affiliation was, in a certain way, contrary to the diffusion of PNV’s membership. The ENB’s diffusion started in Guipúzcoa areas of the north, where communication was easy, and spread rapidly to the rest of the province. Its diffusion into Vizcaya was slower and confined to the eastern third of the province. At the outbreak of the civil war ENB membership comprised two-thirds of Guipúzcoa farmers, whereas in Vizcaya it was only about one-seventh (Elorza 1978: 218–24). During the Second Republic, Guipúzcoa’s ENB was a crucial institution in opening up the rural areas to mobilization from below. As with other institutions of Basque nationalism, ENB hardly penetrated into Álava and Navarra. Emakume Abertzale Batza (Women’s Patriotic Association, EAB) was the Association of the Patriotic Women established in 1921 in Vizcaya following the Irish example of cumann namBan. According to Gallestegui, one of the founders, female militancy could support male action as in the case of the Irish struggle for independence (Elorza 1978: 388). During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera the EAB was banned. It re-emerged in 1931 and expanded in size during the Second Republic. Before the outbreak of the Civil War, the EAB had 28,000 members. The association supported the nationalist men in their claims while supporting membership of the nationalist labour union ELA for women, who worked as teachers or nurses (Ugalde Solano 1993). In the field of sports and culture, a lot of organizations enriched the institutional landscape of the first two decades of the twentieth century. The most prominent association was the mountaineers’ organization Mendigoixales, originally called Mendigoizales, which is again inspired by the Irish example (Elorza 1978: 389). The Mendigoixales were first formed in Bilbao and later spread to Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa as youth associations with a nationalist content. By 1921, there were 26 groups in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa and one in Álava (Zulaika 1988: 256). During the weekend excursions they spread nationalism among Basque youngsters. The Mendigoixales persisted under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and helped to continue a nationalist identification. Given the prominent position of priests in the performance of the Mendigoixales, the role of the clergy and indirectly the church was important for the continuity of Basque nationalism, as it was in the other institutions organizing labour, farmers or women. When, after the Civil War, Franco banned all political activities, the church was the only institution that could protect crypto-nationalist organizations. According to Tejerina Montaña (1992: 110) the existence of so many nationalist institutions was almost exclusively confined to Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa and is often regionally and locally divided according to ideological and policy lines reflected in ‘micro-society’. The clustering of overlapping institutional and often personal

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networks suddenly came to an end with the victory of Franco’s ‘blue’ army in 1937. During the Civil War, soldiers from Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa fought for the Republic against men from Álava and Navarra, who joined the Franco troops. Since then, the PNV has been the only institution able to survive in exile (De Pablo et al. 2001, passim). The observation of Gurr (1993: 129) that under severe repression a minority group’s grievances and identity are intensified, but its potential for political mobilization reduced holds true for the Basque minority during the postwar period. From 1937 to the early 1960s any expression of Basqueness was repressed. Political activities, whether carried out by parties or not, were heavily penalized, while at school, in the post offices and the town halls, the use of Euskera was eradicated. Acts of resistance were incidents because the fear of repression impeded mass involvement. For instance, when Franco visited Bilbao in 1950, a few ikurriñas and lampoons were displayed and the only act of resistance consisted of a failed attempt to poison the bulls for the official bullfight (De Pablo et al. 2001: 198). When repressive measures were relaxed during the 1960s, in particular in the field of culture, mobilization was reinitiated in language activism. In Guipúzcoa, the historical heartland of language activism, and, to a lesser degree, in Vizcaya, the population was mobilized behind education in Basque. From 1960 onwards a growing number of self-financed schools or Ikastolas were established where Euskera was taught, particularly in the Basque-speaking areas where they became very popular (see also next section). Under the dictatorship, Basque nationalist parties were not able to continue clandestinely. During the 1960s, ETA filled the nationalist political void. Soon after its foundation in 1959, the organization began to use violent methods. ETA gained legitimacy in radical nationalist circles and the political left. Their ideology was and still is a blend of Third World neo-Marxian liberation theories and nationalism. In its nationalist discourse it placed an emphasis on Euskera as the main marker of Basqueness. From the mid-1960s, the PNV and the women’s association EMA reappeared as underground organizations. PNV had representations in more than one-third of the municipalities of which Vizcaya was the stronghold (De Pablo et al. 2001: 280–1). Some of these were situated in the recently industrialized valleys of the Province of Álava, adjacent to Vizcaya. In Navarra, the PNV organization was still embryonic and ‘de facto zero’ (De Pablo et al. 2001: 281). Throughout the 1960s, the PNV did not have a municipal organization in Bilbao, the biggest city. Even in the early 1970s, when the PNV became organized in Vizcaya, the party complained about their weak organization in Guipúzcoa and their near absence in Navarra and Álava (De Pablo 2001: 314–15). After Franco’s death in 1975 mass remobilization occurred based on different conceptualizations of the Basque-imagined community.

Institutions of mobilization after Franco In 1975, nationalism in Hegoalde was divided according to several political parties. The PNV had soon risen from its ashes and had ideologically moved towards

136 Territory and Terror Christian democratic values, though it remained internally divided between separatism and autonomy within the Spanish state, and between fueros or a standardized administration as the organizational principle of the administrative territory. Second, Herri Batasuna (People’s Unity, HB), which was separatist, leftist and condoned violence, emerged as ETA’s political wing. Finally, Euskadiko Ezkerra (Euskadi’s Left), leftist and initially close to HB, ventured out on a brief journey from a non-system to a system party which resulted, in 1993, in a fusion with the PSE (Euskadi branch of the Spanish socialists). Internal contradictions within the PNV led to the secession of Eusko Alkartasuna (Basque Solidarity). Both ideological contradictions and localism were at the origin of the secession. The former consisted of fueros vis-à-vis intra-Basque standardization, Christian democratic against social democratic values and bilingualism opposed to dominance of Euskera. The latter is connected with the local support base of political actors. Party leader Javier Arzalluz and the first president of post-Franco Euskadi Carlos Garaikoetxea were incompatible characters, each supported by their respective regional clientele (Onaindía 2000: 81–8; Díaz Herrera and Durán 2001: 246–8). Arzalluz, born in Azkoitia (Guipúzcoa), had his power base in Vizcaya where he was a university teacher, whereas Garaikoetxea, a lawyer originating from Navarra, had his stronghold in Guipúzcoa and Navarra. The intent of Arzalluz to impose his will on the Navarra PNV at the end of the democratic transition resulted in a secession of the Navarra and Guipúzcoa sections. On a smaller scale, in the fishing town of Bermeo something similar had happened when Antton Ormaza, a local ship-owner and his disciples were expelled from the party after a similar type of discussion. Socio-economic change in the 1960s and 1970s deeply affected Hegoalde. Euskera, already marginalized by official politics, became further marginalized by mass migration into Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa from the rest of Spain. The huge immigration started in the late 1950s and ended with the industrial decline of the mid-1970s. The cry to recognize and revitalize the old language became a common issue among all the nationalist parties. When Franco died only one out of five inhabitants of Euskadi was still able to speak Euskera. Industrial growth was uncontrolled, with heavily polluted air and rivers and unplanned urban expansion leading to appalling living conditions for industrial workers. Grievances arose about bad centralist administration and anti-social policies. The repression under Franco of any attempt to organize workers or promote language reinforced resentment. After the democratic transition, the language grievance could no longer be applied to Euskadi because the Autonomy Statute of 1979 implied a transfer of competencies in the field of education and culture. Only radical institutions continued to express their discontent about Euskadi’s situation. The language discourse of nationalism now became particularly focused on Navarra, which was 10 per cent Basque-speaking and had its own Foral Statute in which Basque was assigned a special legal status in Basque-speaking and mixed zones. Protest against state repression was fuelled as a result of the GAL (see Chapter 3), keeping alive the memory of worse times under authoritarian rule. During the 1970s, sudden deindustrialization became one of the main grievances of ETA and

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its branches blaming the Spanish state and capitalism. As far as the PNV and later the EA were concerned, the Spanish administration was the scapegoat. The coming of the autonomy status had introduced a strange phenomenon into the nationalist discourse. On the one hand there was a continuous complaint about the slowness and incompleteness of the transfer of competencies from Madrid to Vitoria, Euskadi’s capital. On the other hand, claims for independence and the right to selfdetermination contradicted the demand for more autonomy within Spain. When, in 1986, Spain entered into the European Community, the nationalist parties all played the European card claiming direct participation in the decision-making processes of the Community and again, accusing Madrid of having defended Basque interests very poorly. Political life at the local level is often centred on the batzokis (PNV), herrikotabernas (ETA/Batasuna), or alkartexes (EA) (see Chapter 4). These centres differ according to their paraphernalia. The herrikotabernas, in particular, have distinct characteristics with photographs of prisoners, moneyboxes for support of prisoners and pamphlets for action against pollution, discrimination or capitalism. Quite commonly, their taverns are located in downtown areas where they can easily be spotted by banners on the façade. Conversely, the PNV and EA establishments have more of a community centre feeling to them. The nationalist factions are nowadays divided into different kinds of ‘big families’ led by authoritarian leaders followed by their loyal subjects. These micro-societies have institutional branches of which those in labour-unionism, language activism and the media have probably the most rooted structures, whereas other phenomena such as the environmental movement, the squatters and the rock and punk music scenes are less institutionalized. When democracy was restored, workers were again able to organize themselves into labour unions. Old and new labour unions soon replaced the old Francoist vertical syndicates. The ELA saw a steady increase of its influence in Hegoalde until the 1990s and the same applied to the other nationalist union Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak (Patriotic Workers Committee, LAB). This finally resulted in a remarkably strong position of the nationalist labour unions that have about half the delegates of Hegoalde (Fig. 6.1). In contrast, the ‘Spanish’ labour unions Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) and Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) saw their growth ended in 1990. The level of workers’ union membership is significantly higher in Euskadi than in the rest of Spain, respectively, 25 per cent as opposed to 15 per cent of all the workers, while the Navarra rate is similar to Spain. The ELA’s rebirth was preceded by underground activities at a local level. By the end of the 1960s, in the Casa Grande, the residence of the Jesuits in Loyola (Guipúzcoa) the leaders of the local ELA sections of factories in the valley of Urola were trained. Training took place under the cover of ‘spiritual exercise’ (Díaz Herrera and Durán 2001: 336–8). Nowadays ELA is no more the racist and ultraCatholic labour union it once was. The union, with 90,000 members in Euskadi, is by far the biggest and has 40 per cent of the delegates (Mees 1998). The ELA, together with the LAB, is a nationalist labour union whose aim is Basque independence. Although Mees (1998) has argued that ELA is no longer compliant to PNV demands and thus forms a kind of modern trade union, it is remarkably active

138 Territory and Terror % 50 40 30 20 10 0 1980

1982

1986

1990

1999

1994

ELA

ELA & LAB

CCOO

LAB

UGT

UGT & CCOO

Figure 6.1 Labour union delegates, Hegoalde, 1980–99 (Majuelo 2000).

in politics that are not connected with the improvement of labour conditions. Together with the LAB, it has been involved in the establishment of the 1998 Lizarra pact that tried to find a political solution to the Basque conflict (Chapter 8). Moreover, both unions have often mobilized their members in actions to promote the official use of Euskera. In this respect the nationalist unions have a scope that is far beyond that of mainstream unionism in the rest of Spain. Their involvement in politics throws serious doubts on their autonomy from the nationalist parties. Mees has recognized the case of the connections between LAB and ETA, but exaggerates the issue when he states that in the case of ELA ‘the independence from political parties is complete’ (Mees 1998: 71). Table 6.1 shows that ELA’s power base is located in the most nationalist provinces of Vizcaya and Guipúzca. Only in Navarra is their position weaker than the two ‘Spanish’ labour unions, the ‘socialist’ UGT and CCOO, which is situated left of the UGT. However, the joint proportion of nationalist delegates in Navarra of 33.1 per cent is surprisingly high Table 6.1 Elected labour union delegates by region, 2000 Labour Union

Alava

Guipuzcoa

Vizcaya

Euskadi

Navarra

Hegoalde

ELA-STV LAB CCOO UGT Other

31.5 11.5 18.0 23.0 15.0

44.5 24.3 15.6 9.6 6.2

41.2 11.7 19.7 16.3 11.2

40.2 16.2 17.7 15.4 10.5

19.9 13.2 21.6 32.6 12.8

35.4 15.5 18.6 19.5 11.0

Source: Calculations based on Majuelo (2000).

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given the relatively low ‘Basque’ voting of 21 per cent (Table 6.1; Chapter 3). From 1995 to 2001 ELA collaborated intensively with LAB. The LAB emerged almost simultaneously with the rebirth of ELA-STV, the PNV labour union. The LAB was set up by 40 members of ETA politico-militar, (ETApm) who in 1975 met in Biarritz (Majuelo 2000: 43). ETApm was an ETA splinter group whose members regarded political mobilization behind nationalist and Marxist ideals as a priority instead of the ‘old’ ETA that opted to continue the armed struggle. Most of the founders of LAB were from Guipúzcoa, among them Jon Idígoras, who had been a charismatic HB spokesman during most of the 1980s and 1990s. The regional origin of the LAB is still reflected in the high share (24.3 per cent) of delegates in Guipúzcoa (Table 6.1). The LAB, whose ideology is still close to ETA issues, has had a fragile relationship with ELA in which claims for sovereignty have been shared. The refusal to openly condemn killings by ETA and the liquidation by ETA of some ELA members finally led to a split between the two nationalist unions in 2001. In contrast, ETA and the LAB explain the disagreement by saying that ‘ELA would neutralize LAB and weaken the patriotic left’ (Gara 2001). Again, in the nationalist workers’ unions, an ideological and geographical fragmentation analogous to party politics can be observed. Soon after the first attempts to revive Basque nationalism during the early 1960s, language became an essential focus of ideological identification for the nationalists. The combination of nationalist and linguistic consciousness emerged when Euskera entered into the real battle for survival. Franco’s repression and immigration caused much inter-generation language shift among many Basquespeaking families. As was the case of the Basque middle class of the intermediate contact zone of the French Basque Country, the first to become mobilized behind linguistic nationalism in Hegoalde as well were those who had just lost the language themselves. Language thus began to play an important role as a symbol for the identity of specific groups (Tejerina Montaña 1992, 1996). When levels of repression decreased during the 1960s and 1970s, the language acquired the dimension of political resistance against the dictatorship. Given the weak underground representation of the PNV during the Franco era, the only visible organization that clearly defended the language was ETA, whose strategy made language subject to the political claim of Basque independence. The result was that, before the establishment of the Autonomous Community in 1981, private activities to revitalize and promote Euskera were intensively connected with the nationalist movement close to ETA. Therefore, it is not surprising that Guipúzcoa had the earliest and most dense diffusion of ikastolas and literacy centres to teach Euskera to adults. When, during the twilight of the Franco regime, Basque nationalists acquired more room to manoeuvre, nationalism became a visible phenomenon. According to Tejerina Montaña (1992: 320), the streets became the ‘space of expression and increasing hegemony of nationalist symbols’ Obviously language was the most important symbol, institutionalized in the ikastola movement and AEK, organized and funded by volunteers. The ikastola diffusion chart (Fig. 6.2) reveals that Aitzol’s legacy was obviously best maintained in Guipúzcoa, the most Basque-speaking province of Hegoalde.

140 Territory and Terror Surprisingly, Vizcaya, with its long-lasting nationalist tradition, did not have significantly more children going to ikastolas than Navarra or Álava, the two ‘Spanish’ provinces. While Basque language was under severe pressure during the early Franco period, during the relaxation of late Francoism ikastolas became the institution par excellence for combating cultural extinction. In this respect, the ikastolas were not a nationalist institution pur sang, as was demonstrated by the relatively weak presence of the ‘nationalist’ Province of Vizcaya. The most outspoken nationalist institution among the associations concerned with language activism was Alfabetatze Euskalduntze Koordinakundea (AEK), which was established in 1977 by radical nationalists. AEK was the first organization to create and coordinate language courses for adults. Because AEK took the lead in adult education, they already had a territorial network in Euskal Herria before the Basque Autonomous Government started to build institutions to promote Euskera. With a view to setting up adult literacy programmes, the Basque Administration created Helduen Alfabetatze eta Berreuskalduntzerako Erakundea (HABE) in 1981. Since then, AEK and HABE have an ‘unhappy history of conflictive relations’ (MacClancy 1996: 212–13). AEK is the politicized party in the conflict because the organization aims at raising nationalist consciousness together with teaching Basque. Conversely, HABE is the official institution that promotes the language in a more technical way. From the mid-1980s onwards, polarization between AEK and HABE led to splits from AEK and a further radicalization of AEK towards the patriotic left. BERTAN and IKA in fact broke away from AEK (Tejerina et al. 1995: 66–72). AEK has remained as the biggest institution, with 30 per cent of the total of almost 42,000 students living in Hegoalde. BERTAN is a federation of adult-literacy centres recognized by HABE and mainly operational in Bilbao, San Sebastián and Vitoria. BERTAN has existed as a legal body since 1992 and unites 15 centres totalling 10,500 students. Their share of the student market is about 26 per cent, which is equal to the share held by the municipalities that set up centres themselves (Gobierno Vasco 2002). IKA and the centres which do not operate within the framework of any federation, cater for 9 per cent of the students, thereby reflecting the organizational fragmentation of an institutional landscape divided between 16(!) organizations with different degrees of formal recognition, models of organization and didactical methods and sources of funding (Tejerina et al. 1995: 71). Although the political divide between AEK and other organizations is important, part of the AEK centres are subsidized and recognized by HABE. The third type of institutions connected with nationalism concerns the media. The nationalist press covering the whole of Hegoalde was reborn during the transition and has many written news media of which Deia (PNV), Gara (successor newspaper to Egin, Batasuna/ETA) and Egunkaria are nowadays the most important ones. Compared to nationalist voting, however, the nationalist media have an audience that lags far behind the so-called Spanish-regionalist press (Chapter 3). Consequently, the newspaper readership exposed to Basque nationalist views in Hegoalde may be estimated to be around 7, 6, 16 and 19 per cent in Navarra, Álava, Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya respectively (Azpillaga 2000). Finally, the cooperative of Mondragón, Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa,

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% 50 40 30 20 10 0 1964

1969

1972

1975

1978

Alava

Vizcaya

Guipúzcoa

Navarra

1981

Figure 6.2 Proportion of students in Ikastolas, Hegoalde, 1964–81 (Tejerina Montaña 1996; Anuario de Estadística 1965–82).

created by the Basque priest Father Jose Maria Arizmediarrieta in 1956, has become a symbol for many Basque nationalists, members of PNV and EA in particular. The cooperative that started modestly with the production of paraffin cooking stoves is nowadays a huge industrial holding with many branches all over the world. Though its aims were not directly nationalist, the cooperative became a model for many Basque nationalists concerning the organization of the economy and the provision of welfare. In this respect the discussions between the PNVdominated Basque government and the central administration in Madrid about decentralization of the welfare system, are not only a question of whether Madrid or the LAB and ELA control the economic resources connected with the system as is suggested by Díaz Herrero and Duran (2001: 356). It is also the nationalist quest for a different modelling of economic and social life according to the successful example of Mondragón. Some studies suggest that in areas with branches of the cooperative, local authorities have systematically favoured the cooperative at the expense of privately owned factories (Heiberg 1985: 302). While nationalism in the towns and villages is oriented towards local political centres with their own orientation, fragmentation between the different types of nationalist identification often have inter-local dimensions. MacClancy has described the ‘all-Basque’ glorification of local cultural expressions as being like a fishermen’s dance from the coast celebrated at a festival in inland Pamplona (MacClancy 1996: 216). The boundaries between abertzale and mainstream

142 Territory and Terror nationalists are often subtle. Abertzales show little interest in the promotion of Batua, or standardized Basque. Instead, they prefer local dialects and do not bother about corpus-planning rules of Euskera. While PNV and EA supporters usually dress and behave in a middle-of-the-road way, ETA sympathizers often dress and behave alternatively. AEK has also developed alternative nationalist symbols and rituals such as the Korrika, the yearly ‘all-Basque’ long-distance run to raise money (Del Valle 1993). Nationalists among themselves, and nationalists vis-à-vis non-nationalists, often inflate small cultural differences. In ex-Yugoslavia, Ignatieff referred to this phenomenon of exaggerating cultural distinction as the narcissism of minor differences (Ignatieff 1998). In the Basque Country, the Basque philosopher Fernando Savater, not the most popular person in nationalist circles, has alluded to this type of narcissism when analysing the conflict (Savater 2001). Various authors suggest that socially controlled PNV and EA subcultures have developed around ETA-Batasuna (Pérez-Agote 1986; Zulaika 1988; Gurrutxaga Abad 1996; Jáuregui 1996; Mansvelt Beck 1999b). The subcultures may have a sectarian character. Sectarianism is particularly reflected in the isolation of abertzales from the rest of society (see also Chapter 7). Anthropologists such as Heiberg (1989) and Zulaika (1988), and sociologists such as Pérez-Agote (1986, 1987) and Gurruchaga (1985), have emphasized the role of small informal networks in the reproduction of nationalist messages. These networks based on traditional culture are the cuadrillas, groups of the same age and sex who meet several times per week. Bars and restaurants are thus jointly frequented (el poteo) to enjoy drinks and snacks (pintxos). In bigger cities many cuadrillas have disappeared and have been replaced by looser, more individual and formal relations. In contrast, many cuadrillas in villages and small towns are now linked with Batasuna, PNV or EA. Compared to Iparralde, the cuadrilla is a typical Spanish Basque phenomenon. In other parts of Spain the cuadrilla is known under the name of pandilla, while pintxos are known as tapas or pinchos in Castilian spelling. Gastronomic societies or txokos, which are particularly common in Guipúzcoa and Navarra, and scouting and folkloric associations and sports clubs are other relevant institutions at a micro-level that have important roles as frames for the spread and reproduction of the nationalist message. During the 1960s and early 1970s, these informal parallel institutions were the harbingers of post-Franco nationalist institutions. Structures that were operative in an underground sphere, mostly at the level of the locale, for example the village, small town or neighbourhood, were frequently the blocks for nationalist institution-building during the early transition. The compartmentalization of nationalist mobilization under autocratic rule is still reflected in today’s localism. In this respect the relevance of the patria chica as a general Spanish phenomenon as outlined in Chapter 3, is reproduced within the regional setting of Hegoalde. Similar to the development of Eusko-Rock culture north of the Pyrenees, a sort of Basque alternative youth culture has developed in which Euskera has a high symbolical value and in which new types of Basque culture and Basqueness are being constructed. As in France, this subculture is difficult to define because of its fluid and hybrid features. Basque punk, hip-hop, radical rock, ska, hard rock,

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techno, heavy metal and other brands of music all express youth culture that is connected or otherwise to the world of radical nationalism. While the French Eusko rockers and their predecessors took the lead in the Basque alternative scene, the Spanish Basque punk rockers took over during the 1970s and 1980s. Several rock and punk bands had emotional or discursive links with the radical nationalist left but were initially not incorporated in their institutions. The first institutional connection of music bands with the abertzale world was in 1983, when Egin, the abertzale newspaper sponsored the ‘Egin Rock’ contest in Vitoria (Kasmir 2000: 196). Some of the Basque punk bands had a radical nationalist content. Others did not and were apolitical or anarchist (Lahusen 1993). The alternative youth culture that has developed in the abertzale orientation therefore has some overlap with the support base of other anti-system activities ranging from support for ETA prisoners, environmentalists, okupas (squatters), to participation in the kale borroka, the street violence promoted by ETA and its sister institutions. The scene however is not at all ‘traditionally’ Basque. Music and dress are similar to alternative circles. Euskera is often used in music, though frequently mixed up with Spanish and some English words. The symbols in vogue are often anti-traditionalist and even anti-PNV. The bars that have developed in this alternative microcosm do not have anything in common with the traditional Basque bars where cuadrillas took their wine and snacks. Instead they have more in common with the squatter bars of the informal Amsterdam circuit. Pot and ecstasy have replaced the traditional beverages. The drinks most commonly consumed are beer, taken from big one-litre bottles or litronas, and kalimotxo, coca cola mixed with red wine, while during festivals cider usually serves as a mid-day aperitif. The Basqueness of the bars is reflected in pictures of the prisoners, the nationalist paraphernalia sold and the moneyboxes to raise funds for prisoners support associations, and other movements associated with the abertzale world. The dress codes change rapidly. Palestinian shawls inspired by Palestine and navy-blue sweaters copied from the IRA provisionals gained popularity in the 1980s (Onaindía 2000: 212). After the turn of this century, abertzales often had either long or very short hair, hiking boots, piercings, earrings, tracksuit trousers, t-shirts with nationalist messages or horizontally striped and a Basque symbol hanging around their necks, for instance the arrano beltza (black eagle), the axe and the curled snake (ETA’s ‘coat of arms’) or the lauburu (Basque swastika) (Larraburu and Etcheverry-Ainchart 2001: 303–4). As in the case of Iparralde, these new expressions of anti-system culture are difficult to qualify, because of institutional overlaps with other subcultures, fluidity in time and space or intergenerational discontinuity. As Kasmir (2000) has demonstrated on the basis of her study of the punk band Hertzainak (The Police) in the context of Mondragón (Arrasate), an industrial medium-sized town of a mixed population of native Basque-speaking Basques and Spanish-speaking immigrants in Guipúzcoa, the punk rock scene forms a liminal space in local urban society. Cultural hybridization and a common anti-system mentality have opened the scene for both native Basques and the offspring of migrants, giving way to the construction of new types of an imagined community. At first sight these new concepts contest Basqueness exclusively based on descent and language and do not

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glorify rural life (Urla 2001). Such tendencies of multiculturalism, hybridity and simultaneously a more inclusive culture towards the migrants’ descendants also have been observed in a more rural context in Navarra (MacClancy 1996). They seem to contrast sharply with the picture sketched by Heiberg (1989) during the 1970s and early 1980s in Elgeta, an industrialized small town near Eibar where the migrant minority (one-fifth of the population) was living in a kind of social quarantine. In reality, however, the maintenance and creation of ethnic boundaries in Elgeta of the early 1980s and the radical nationalist networks of Guipúzcoa in the early twenty-first century differ only with respect to the access of migrants’ descendants to radical nationalist groups. The journalist Calleja has described how Basque youngsters become involved in radical nationalism through carefully organized ‘spontaneous’ youth festivals in villages and small towns of Guipúzcoa (Calleja 2001: 106–29). Segi (Carry On), the banned youth organization supporting ETA and successor to the equally banned organizations of Jarrai and Haika, organizes youth festivals that take place every weekend throughout the whole summer (Calleja 2001: 106). Calleja, who estimates the number of visitors per event to have been at least 10,000 in 2001 – the organizers usually report a total of 30,000 participants – emphasizes the socialization in a radical nationalism that on the one hand includes non-native Basques but excludes any expression of Spanish identity. Spanish police and the prison system are presented as, respectively, murdering and torturing institutions in the song lyrics of bands such as Su ta Gar (Fire and Flames) and EH Sukarra (The Fury of Euskal Herria) who simultaneously glorify violent resistance. The morality in which they are socialized is thus a new construction of Basqueness open to people of non-Basque origin but based on intolerance and hate towards all expressions of Spanishness (see also Chapter 7). Though the radical left has managed to incorporate part of the alternative scene into their world they are probably not able to impose their control. Radical politicians have to cope with the common phenomenon of short lifecycles in pop music: that of a rapid rise and fall of bands and concomitant music styles. The music festival of ETA’s youth branch Haika on 20 and 21 April 2001 did not invite the abertzale bands Hertzainak and Negu Gorriak (Red Winter) described by Kasmir (2000) and Urza (2001) respectively. Instead the audience of 12,000 visitors was entertained by the heavy metal group Anestesia, Txapelpunk (txapela is Basque for beret), Skalariak (The Ska Band), La Polla (The Dick), and Potato. La Polla, well known in other parts of Spain, was the most popular group at the festival (Gara 20 April; El Mundo 23 April 2001). Particularly in the bigger cities, new identities are continually being constructed and reinvented leading to new and unexpected combinations of nihilism, localism, hedonism and Basquism. Adopters of these alternative lifestyles can easily escape the control of whatever political movement since they may change lifestyle or simply disappear into anonymity. In contrast, in the smaller towns of Hegoalde with an established abertzale culture, it is harder to escape from social control. Evidently, with a more inclusive discourse, people of ‘Spanish’ origin are invited or urged to show solidarity and assimilate with abertzale subculture. The inclusion

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of basquified Spaniards does not however mean the social acceptance of those who still identify themselves with Spain. In the spring of 2001 the Spanish right-wing newspaper El Mundo published a series of articles about the ‘Basque Gulag’ that contained many grass-roots testimonies of exclusion by people with Spanish identity. In Hernani, in the vicinity of San Sebastián, half the population are of migrant origin and many children of migrants belong to abertzale culture. According to one of those interviewed, the contempt for Spanishness in Hernani is part of the daily routine: ‘You are ignored, menaced and belittled’; ‘They hate pathologically all what it means to be Spain, a Spanish political party or bullfights ... .’ And in Mondragón, where the abertzale bar was portrayed with allusions to inclusiveness (Kasmir 2000), a retired worker from Extremadura stated that ‘the nonnationalists lack freedom and live half hidden and half silent’. Reality among the Mondragón youth is also less rosy than the integration celebrated by the congenial visitors of the abertzale bars. Gangs of Spanish and Euskera speakers fight each other in the streets of the town (personal communication with local key informants). The following example again illustrates how Spaniards are excluded. When a journalist from El Mundo went to Tolosa, a gentle Basque person advised him ‘to speak Spanish as little as possible and conceal his nationality in the villages and not to contradict …’. I will describe the importance of the locale in mobilization from below in the following section.

A social ecology of mobilization In contrast to the French Basque Country, Spanish Basques have relevant political arenas in which to express their nationalist views. In the Cortes of Madrid the ‘Basque’ votes expressed on behalf of the 2.5 million inhabitants of Euskadi and Navarra in a country of 40.5 million inhabitants do not have much quantitative impact. Yet their political weight in the Spanish arena is substantial. Together with the Catalan nationalists of CiU, the PNV and EA have been influential in state politics up to March 2000 when the PP won with absolute majority. While the electoral system for the Spanish Parliament guarantees an equal position to voters living in Euskadi and Navarra, their position within the respective Autonomous Communities differs significantly. In this respect, Euskadi has a system that is more complex and legally more ambiguous than the Navarra system that internally resembles many other autonomous regions of Spain. Within Spain’s Constitution, the legal electoral framework of Euskadi is vague and ambiguous. The first additional provision of the Constitution states on the one hand that the Constitution ‘protects and respects the historical rights of the foral territories’. However, the provision does not make any concrete reference as to whether these rights should be seen as a ‘historical–cultural jewel’ or as ‘legal bodies with an absolute validity’ (Ruiz Olabuénaga et al. 1998: 180). After the establishment of the Autonomy Statute in 1979, the Euskadi government increased the internal legal complexity. In 1987, the Juntas Generales (parliaments) of the ‘Historical Territories’ (the former ‘Provinces’) were established, while the Basque Parliament adopted a new electoral law in 1990 (Ruiz Olabuénaga et al. 1998: 184–90). The

146 Territory and Terror in-built territorial fragmentation in the resulting electoral system is mainly due to the Historical Territories that refer to the fueros and to malapportionment with regard to the Basque parliament. Malapportionment concerns Álava, Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa which, since 1984, have each had 25 (initially 20) seats in the Vitoria parliament. Due to differences in the number of constituencies, one seat from Álava represents 7,000 voters, one from Guipúzcoa 20,000 and one from Vizcaya 35,000. This malapportionment favouring Álava, together with the nomination of its capital Vitoria as the seat of the Euskadi administration has made the integration of the hispanized territory of Álava into Euskadi acceptable to their voters. In addition, similar imbalances between demographic weight and political representation exist within the politico-administrative tier of the Historical Territories. The political behaviour of Basques has been the subject of several studies (Llera Ramo 1984, 1994; Linz 1986; Loyer 1997; Olabuénaga et al. 1998; Mansvelt Beck 1999b). Here, I will only summarize some highlights from the early transition to the end of the 1990s. The Basque party system that has developed from the transition hitherto has repeatedly been characterized as fragmented and polarized (Llera 1994: 20; Pallarés et al. 1997: 145; Ruiz Olabuénaga et al. 1998: 243–6). Polarization nowadays concerns the divisions with regard to violence, territoriality (fuerism vis-à-vis standardization), language and class. PNV has demonstrated most continuity and power in Euskadi where its support base has always been in Vizcaya, while in Álava it has increased substantially during the 1980s and 1990s. EA, which separated from PNV in 1986 but was less fuerista and more inclined towards the left, has its support base in Guipúzcoa and Navarra. The non-system party, or coalition or platform as they call themselves is nowadays Batasuna (Unity; banned 27 August 2002), the successor party to, respectively, Euskal Herritarrok (EH/ Basque Citizens 1998–2001) and HB (1978–98). The changes in name are more cosmetic rather than reflecting changes in political orientations. Under these three names the anti-system party gradually lost most of the electoral cake during the 1990s and 2000s. At present the only small party which is represented and has some influence in Basque politics is Izquierda Unida (United Left) of the former communists. During the 1990s this party was decentralized and now canvasses in the Basque Country under the name of Ezker Batua. The small vote of 5.6 per cent in the 2001 elections for the Basque Parliament enabled the party to participate in a minority coalition with PNV and EA. Politically, the PNV has been the backbone of Euskadi’s political system since the introduction of autonomy. Two other parties have vanished, namely Euskadiko Ezkerra and Unidad Alavesa (Alavese Unity). The latter party, which holds a modest number of seats in the Euskadi parliament, has applied exactly the same political discourse regarding the fueros as the PNV, albeit that the rest of their programme differed, in particular regarding the language issues since it was against re-basquization of mainly Castilian-speaking Álava. The PNV has continuously been in coalition governments and has reinforced its position in the elections for the Euskadi Parliament in 2001 when it ran a slate with the EA. The PNV’s anti-constitutional soberanista (sovereignty) orientation has

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become stronger since the pact with the radical nationalists and IU in 1998 (Chapter 8). The soberanista option now dominates the autonomista support within PNV, which implies that currently the anti-system content of this party has increased. In December 2001, during the annual negotiations about Euskadi’s fiscal position, the concierto económico, the PNV’s anti-constitutionalism culminated in their claim to be represented in the EU and its bodies at the same level as the current member states. The co-sovereignty claimed for Euskadi by its President in August 2002 is the most recent political development reflecting the soberanista stance. The radicalization of the PNV has been accompanied by the electoral successes of the PP, the most centralist party and as such the PNV’s antagonist. The PSOE-PSE, the other Spanish party of a more federalist brand, has gradually lost its share of the electorate. In Navarra, the PSOE and PP have alternated in coalition governments. The other party that has persisted is the Navarra-based UPN (Unión del Pueblo Navarra) that is foralist–regionalist and does not participate in elections at European or state level. If one reconsiders the divisions over territoriality, an increasing polarization between the main political forces of Euskadi can be observed. This is because, in the first instance, the former nationalist system parties PNV and EA continued to play the soberanista card with which they won the 2001 elections, obtaining 43 per cent of the valid votes as opposed to a joint 35 per cent during the previous elections of 1998. Second, a countertrend on the side of the Spanish parties has occurred, resulting in increasing votes for the centralist PP (2001: 23 per cent, 1998: 20 per cent). The polarization between Basque nationalists holding regional power increasingly expressing anti-constitutionalism and Spanish centralists in a majority government in Madrid is a growing obstacle to political compromise and has made coalition formation between these forces virtually impossible (see Chapter 8). Given the inequalities in power between the Navarra and Euskadi administrations, the elections for the Spanish and European Parliaments are the only ones to enable a more rigid geographical analysis. Municipal elections are also ruled out in an ecological analysis encompassing the whole of Hegoalde due to the participation of too many local parties that are difficult to identify as Basque nationalist or ‘Spanish’. Spanish legislative and European elections display the same turnout of about 64 per cent in, respectively, 2000 and 1999 (CD Basque Government ‘Electoral Information on Euskadi 1977–2001, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, 2002). Both elections have a striking similarity concerning Basque vis-à-vis Spanish voting. Over the years, however, legislative elections have a higher and more stable turnout than the European ones. In the 2000 legislative elections, ETA’s political wing, by that time EH, did not participate and this had a negative influence on the turnout of Guipúzcoa that was lower than in the other parts of Hegoalde (56 per cent against 67 per cent). Comparing the 2000 and 1996 legislative elections, the joint nationalist parties in Hegoalde obtained 452,386 votes against 616,128 in 2000 while the Spanish parties (PP, PSOE and IU) only showed a slight difference (922,000 vis-à-vis 912,000 votes). The withdrawal of ETA’s political arm, under its old name of HB, which still managed to attract 181,304 votes in 1996, has thus amputated radical nationalism in the 2000 ballot for the Cortes. Therefore, the

148 Territory and Terror 1999 European elections provide the most recent picture enabling an overall analysis of the electoral geography of Hegoalde. Apart from instability over time in turnout, the other interpretation problem in relation to the European elections concerns the combined list run by PNV and EA. As a consequence, localism linked to the EA or PNV cannot be deduced from an analysis. Thus, with regard to EA– PNV localism, I will use the 2000 elections, while in Chapter 7, I will analyse localism connected with ETA. The pattern of Basque nationalist voting displayed on the map in Fig. 6.3 reveals high concentrations in Euskadi and relatively low ones in Navarra. I will now distinguish zones with weak nationalist mobilization, areas with non-radical nationalist mobilization and radical nationalist zones. The areas of low to medium levels of nationalist mobilization comprise the municipalities of Bilbao, San Sebastián, Vitoria and Pamplona, which are characterized by an important non-Basque-speaking population. Similarly to PetitBayonne, the street scenes of the old downtown districts of the provincial capitals have an ethno-nationalist façade which hides the state identification of the majority of their inhabitants. In this respect Raento (1997: 196–201), who has explored the place-specificity of political mobilization, has paid attention to graffiti and demonstrations, the former also visible in many small towns of the Basque speaking realm. Raento’s observations can be extended to other expressions of mobilization from below. The ‘hot’ manifestations concern nationalist bars, banners which are hung up during fiestas, bookshops and stands in the same places, as well as graffiti and banners in highly visible places such as railway stations, viaducts, bridges and tourist areas. Party offices are usually located in the inner cities, as well as the offices of cultural associations for language, folklore, Basque editorials, etc. The mobilization patterns around the central cities show remarkable differences, ranging from ‘Spanish’ to radical nationalist affiliations. Weak nationalist mobilization is characteristic of the socialist worker districts of Bilbao on the left bank of the River Nervión. To these worker districts, the ‘Spanish’ enclaves of Ermua in Vizcaya, Eibar and Irún in Guipúzcoa, medium-size industrial towns should be added. These worker areas, which have an important history of immigration from other parts of Spain, are strongholds of socialism. South of Vitoria Basque nationalism is weakly represented in the Spanish-speaking areas, as is the case south of Pamplona. In these parts of Álava and Navarra the Carlist legacy connected with conservative clericalism is important, which is still reflected in the important vote for the right-wing ‘Spanish’ PP or their Navarrese regional sister party Unión del Pueblo Navarro during regional elections. The second type of mobilization comprises the areas of high electoral support for non-radical Basque nationalism, where a high proportion of the support is for PNV, particularly in Vizcaya, or its EA splinter group which attracts relatively more votes in Guipúzcoa and Navarra. On the right bank of the Nervión, the urban middle and upper classes reside in municipalities like Getxo. These well-todo suburbs have become fertile mobilization ground for PNV-linked nationalism as most of the rest of the Vizcaya territory. The PNV areas include many Spanish-

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Radical Basque Basque Weak Commons or Enclaves

Figure 6.3 Basque nationalist voting patterns in Hegoalde, European elections, 1999. ‘Radical Basque’ = votes for EH and PNV-EA greater than or equal to 50% of votes for PP, PSOE/ PSE/PSN, PNV-EA and EH, and EH vote greater than or equal to PNV-EA. ‘Basque’ = As ‘Radical Basque’ but with EH vote smaller than PNV-EA vote. ‘Weak’ = PSOE/PSE/PSN vote over 50% of the vote for PP, PSOE/PSE/PSN, PNV-EA and EH.

speaking ones (see next section). Official manifestations of nationalism can be observed in many towns of Euskadi such as Guernica with the ‘temple complex’ around the legendary oak and the new buildings of the Basque government in the Lakua District in the suburban area of Vitoria. In contrast to Iparralde with its high concentration, institutions connected with Basque nationalism are not exclusively concentrated in one agglomeration, but are ubiquitous in the towns of Euskadi and the Basque-speaking areas of Navarra and Pamplona. Although downtown Pamplona does not exude an air of official nationalism, it has a Basque flavour with its omnipresent graffiti, bookstands, associations, demonstrations, etc. The third type of mobilization concerns radical nationalism. Most of the Basque-speaking areas of Guipúzcoa and Navarra have a significant occurrence of radical nationalism. To these areas, most of the suburbs of San Sebastián and some bordering municipalities of Pamplona can be added. These suburbs represent a classical contact zone between different cultural domains, namely Spanishspeaking central cities and their Basque-speaking surroundings. These zones host the most conflictive form of nationalist mobilization and are the most torn areas

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within a torn region. There, the manipulation of fear and communication of hate are simply the ingredients of daily life (Chapter 7). The image provided by plotting election data on the linguistic map suggests a strong relationship between language and voting. The pattern of relationship behind the patterning of nationalism, however, is more complex than a simple covariation between Euskera-speaking and Basque nationalist voting. The latter will be shown by an analysis of nationalist voting, language and some variables that reflect modernization and change. Municipalities have been used as units of analysis. The database containing 522 municipalities has been reduced to 502 because of aggregation procedures. These municipalities have experienced annexation or de-annexation during the last 40 years. In contrast to the French Basque Country, Hegoalde’s electoral geography has substantially more to offer in terms of ecological analysis. Voting proportions are higher, as well as the availability of data at municipal level. Moreover, Basque nationalism in Hegoalde has mainly provided the basis for offering explanations and theorizing. Geographical patterns of voting may reflect theoretical interpretations of Basque nationalism and subsequently emphasize the role of culture, socio-economic conditions and the locale. I will now discuss the role of these facets and concomitant variables that enter into my analysis. Culture is a facet encompassing many dimensions of life, but here the concept is reduced to language, perhaps the most essential attribute of Basque culture. Here Basque-speakers are those who have a good command of the language, categorized as euskaldunes in the statistical reports of the regional governments of Euskadi and Navarra (EUSTAT 1994, 1996; IEN 1996). Due to castilianization and immigration Euskera has been marginalizing over centuries. In an ecological analysis of radical Basque nationalism in Euskadi based on voting for HB and EH, language turned out to be the most important variable in the explanation of spatial concentrations of radical nationalism (Mansvelt Beck 1999b). Deviations from this pattern were explained by the formation of local groups of believers in alternative political ideologies. Those groups were particularly able to develop in place, thus enabling a high degree of social control, particularly in the smaller localities. The interpretation of covariance of language and nationalism, however, is complex. Tejerina Montaña (1992) and Conversi (1997) both found a causal relationship between the menace of assimilation to Spanish and the rise of nationalist conscience. Conversi’s view underlines the fear of cultural extinction as an important factor in nationalist mobilization. One would therefore expect Basque speakers to mobilize more strongly than Castilian speakers, in particular in those places where they live in linguistically mixed populations and in those places where the language ensures institutional protection. Therefore, one may expect the latter to occur relatively more in Navarra than in Euskadi, as revealed by the stronger official status in the latter region and the repeated accusations by the Basque nationalist press – the PNV’s newspaper Deia and Batasuna’s newspaper Gara – against the Navarra government for not providing sufficient protection of the old language. Tejerina Montaña’s survey revealed a complex relationship between nationalism and language. His study was conducted in the Basque-speaking area of

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Arratia-Nervion, south-east of Bilbao, a mixed zone south of San Sebastián, and Castilian-speaking greater Bilbao. He described a certain pressure suffered by Castilian speakers to adopt the Basque language. On the other hand many Euskera speakers, in particular in the mixed area, had a negative perception of rebasquization policies that were considered as too noncommittal. These Basque speakers were politically more radicalized than in the Spanish- and Basquespeaking zones. Birthplace is the second variable. Díez Medrano (1995: 119–21) erroneously assumes an ethnic divide between those born locally and immigrants. The divide is doubtful because in many areas of Euskadi locally born ‘Basques’ exhibit hardly any cultural differences to ‘Spanish’ migrants: they use the same language, have similar social habits and may identify themselves as Spaniards. Birth, here operationalized as the proportion of the municipal population born in the same region (Navarre or Euskadi) may, however, be relevant to another phenomenon that may help to explain nationalist voting. In this respect an alternative hypothesis based on birth may concern locally rooted clientelism based on the opportunity structure created by the Autonomous Communities. Díez Medrano (1994) observed a relationship between Basque nationalist voting and occupational characteristics with Euskadi-born self-employed white-collar workers, hardly influenced by contextual variables. He did not, however, specify whether the latter worked in public institutions of the regional administration. The over-representation of Basque surnames in the higher echelons of the Euskadi administration reflects certain privileges on the institutional job market for those persons bearing Basque names. The latter would encourage autochthonous inhabitants to vote for nationalist parties responsible for the job machine. Consequently, more native-born residents of Euskadi are expected to cast a nationalist vote than Navarra natives because the Navarra job machine, given that its regional competencies are less important, has exclusively been operated by ‘Spanish’ parties. The contextual variables of Díez Medrano, linked to municipalities as the unit of analysis can again be tested at an aggregated level of scale, namely the level of distinct administrative regions. Socio-economic conditions may be an important contextual variable to explain the distribution of nationalist voting. Rapid economic growth expressed in accelerated urbanization and migration may increase the appeal of nationalism, romanticizing Basque rural society and mythifying ‘Basque’ society based on social equality. On the other hand social deprivation expressed in high unemployment as a consequence of deindustrialization may reinforce feelings of resentment and increase the attraction of anti-system parties. However, a contesting interpretation of a ‘socio-economic shock’ effect may also be either a decreasing political participation or an orientation towards the Spanish left and non-Basque anti-system parties. Although the change indicators used differ from those used in Iparralde, rapidly changing population mixes may similarly be expected in contact zones where ‘Spanish-speaking’ economic and urban expansion meets ‘Basque-speaking’ micro-society. The variables used in the data set concern the percentage of the workforce employed in agriculture, the 1960–91 intercensus population change as a direct and indirect indicator for, respectively, population and economic

152 Territory and Terror dynamics and the proportion of unemployed on the total municipal workforce in 1995. Finally, scale, measured by the number of inhabitants per municipality, may not be important as a general explanation for the geographical distribution of nationalism. Conversely, it may be a factor for explaining the diffusion of specific nationalist orientations, as has been demonstrated in the case of radical nationalism in Euskadi (Mansvelt Beck 1999b). All variables dealt with above have been subjected to statistical tests. At first sight the results seem to confirm the main hypothesis of a high correlation between language and nationalist voting. Statistically the proportion of Basque speakers per municipality has the strongest correlation out of all the variables with nationalist voting: 0.82 (1999 European elections) and 0.79 (2000 Spanish Parliament elections). Similar results are obtained by multiple regression. The stepwise entering of the independent variables other than language hardly increases the explained variance. Greater insight into the electoral geography of Hegoalde is provided by the analysis of the residuals, which have been selected if the municipal scores have at least 1.5 times the standard deviation. In ‘normal’ English this means that if municipalities show positive residuals in the regression equation, they have higher scores on nationalist voting than predicted by the statistical relationship (the regression equation). Obviously, municipalities with negative residuals have lower nationalist voting results than the percentage of Basque-speakers assumes. For the 1999 elections, 50 residuals have been calculated of which 41 are positive and nine negative. The positive residuals all consist of municipalities located in Euskadi, 24 in Álava, 17 in Vizcaya and none in Guipúzcoa. The nine negative residuals are all in Navarra. Municipalities with positive residuals are relatively more urban, have less population decline and a low degree of autochthonous population (Table 6.2). Concerning the negative residuals all situated in Navarra, relatively weak nationalism seems to be a phenomenon related to rural backwardness because these municipalities have higher median scores with regard to Table 6.2 Positive and negative residuals, European elections, 1999 Positive residuals Nationalist voting Basque speaking Autochthonous population Workforce in agriculture Unemployed Population number Population change 1960–91 Number of municipalities

67.1% 8.8% 83.3% 6.8% 11.5% 805 –24.8% 41

Negative residuals

All municipalities

43.4% 87.0% 91.7% 22.0% 9.3% 268 –42.6% 9

47.4% 8.5% 88.9% 9.8% 11.9% 646 –27.1% 502

Sources: EUSTAT (1994, 1996), Instituto de Estadística (1996), Gobierno Vasco (2004), Comunidad Foral de Navarra (2002). Note Median values have been taken within each class.

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the proportion of workforce working in agriculture, depopulation and percentage of native-born. Conversely, it is not possible to connect a relatively strong local nationalist orientation with modernization and growth. The positive residuals displayed in Table 6.2 hide municipalities characterized by severe depopulation, long-term stable growth and continuous population growth. Their population numbers vary from 88 in Arakaldo to 27,366 in Durango, and the workforce in agriculture ranges from near zero in Sondika, the site of Bilbao airport, to 42 per cent in Iruraiz-Gauntza in Álava. Similar observations can be made concerning unemployment (4 per cent in San Millán, 21 per cent in Salvatierra) and population change (-79 per cent in San Millán, 44 per cent in Amurrio). The municipalities encompass industrial growth centres like Durango or, to a lesser degree, Salvatierra, quite stable small towns and villages as in the Encartaciones District west of Bilbao and declining rural areas suffering from severe depopulation in Álava. Explaining the pattern of residuals based on demographic and economic characteristics or dynamics as suggested in Table 6.2 is thus premature. Conversely, the geographical concentration is linked with the historical diffusion patterns of nationalism as, for instance, in the northern districts of Álava and Encartaciones (Gurruchaga Abad et al. 1984: 159–62, 266–75). Given the historical diffusion of Basque nationalism, the only surprising residuals concern the villages south of Vitoria. There are four of these villages in the Rioja Alavesa, paradoxically the most ‘Spanish’ district of Euskadi, four in the Valles Alaveses and three in the Montaña Alavesa, where neither the historical diffusion of nationalism nor socio-economic contexts and intercultural contact may explain their position. The Navarra negative residuals are concentrated in the north and often concern a few groups of adjacent municipalities. The valley of Baztán with the municipality of the same name is the best-known area outside Navarra, not only because of its historical links with Spain (see Chapter 3), but also because of its present position as a tourist area attracting many tourists from all over Spain. The location of the municipalities showing negative residuals, which are in fact in the Foral Community of Navarra, is not in line with Conversi’s cultural extinction thesis. The unexpected political Spanishness of these Basque-speaking villages again emphasizes the role of the locale in the explanation of voting patterns in Hegoalde. The weaker Basque nationalist mobilization in the linguistically most Basque municipalities of Hegoalde is also reflected in other municipal data. Among the top 100 nationalist-voting municipalities (100 to 87 per cent nationalist votes) there is only one Navarrese municipality, while 78 out of the most Basque-speaking municipalities are located in Navarra. Similarly, in the second 100 (87–63 per cent nationalist votes) there are 19 municipalities of Navarra while 73 Navarrese municipalities are in the second group with respect to language. The different identity profiles of Navarra and Euskadi have been dealt with in Chapter 4. The discrepancy observed between speech and politicized identity in Euskadi is here confirmed with municipal data, which confines the phenomenon of identity incongruence to Spanish-speaking parts of Vizcaya and Álava. On the other hand, the Navarra pattern again reflects the observations made earlier. Language, though statistically important as an explanatory variable, cannot explain why parts of Euskadi are so highly

154 Territory and Terror mobilized for the Basque cause and why parts of Navarra are not. The historical diffusion of the nationalist belief across villages and small towns in castilianized parts of Vizcaya and Álava, together with a newly created autonomous administration dominated by nationalists and responding positively to political proselytism, may help to explain the success of nationalist mobilization. So far, European and legislative elections have been used to update the social ecology of nationalist mobilization, which shows continuity when comparing the electoral patterns described at earlier stages by Llera (1984, 1994) and Loyer (1997). The pattern of nationalist mobilization clearly demonstrates the incongruence between the imagined territory of Euskal Herria and the territory of political support. In particular, the claim related to incorporating Navarra into Euskal Herria is incompatible with the support base of Basque nationalism in that region. The Autonomous Communities of Navarra and the Basque Country have remained separated according to the wishes of the majority of the Navarrese electorate and contrary to the claims of the small nationalist majority of Euskadi. These Communities have, however, developed their own electoral arenas in which Basque nationalism has had to compete with Spanish constitutionalism and federalism. The Autonomous Communities have become a new setting in which to develop alternative politics and policies. The relative success of Basque nationalism in Euskadi and its failure in Navarra during Spanish and European elections indicates a differential impact of sub-state nationalism in the two areas. The question is whether this differential impact is related to the way Basque nationalism has performed within the new opportunity structure. The accommodation to regionalist claims has created mesogovernments having the potential to develop their own infrastructural power. In the next two sections, the development of Basque nationalism within the two Autonomous Communities will be explored. I will demonstrate that the limited success of Basque nationalist policies in Euskadi has brought Basque nationalism in Euskadi into a position that is similar to – and probably even worse than – Spanish nationalism in Spain.

Accommodation and the regionalization of infrastructural power in Euskadi The status of the Autonomy Statute for the Basque Country is still under debate. There is controversy between soberanistas and constitutionalists about the legitimacy of the Statute. Only in the case of izquierda abertzale, the patriotic left, has the Statute always been illegitimate. For the mainstream nationalists of PNV the interpretation is more complex. De Pablo et al. (2001: 325–79) described the internal quarrels within the PNV concerning the positions to be taken during the negotiation about the Constitution and the draft of the Autonomy Statute. The existence of competing views within the party and from time to time ambiguous political stances makes it difficult to qualify the Statute as legitimate. The Constitution, which provides the frame for the Autonomy Statute, was written without the final consent of the PNV. HB, the main political anti-system force, had abstained from any previous negotiations. The half-hearted position of the PNV before the

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final version of the text which became subject to referendum was due to claims to restore the fueros according to the situation in which they were abolished in 1839 and the incorporation of Navarra into the Basque Country. While, during the negotiations, the PNV was able to introduce many amendments in accordance with their claims, the party rejected the final text. The resulting position during the 1978 referendum was, however, ambiguous because the PNV advocated abstention instead of rejection. The high abstention rates in the nationalist heartland of Vizcaya (56 per cent) and Guipúzcoa (57 per cent) indicate that the voters followed the advice of the nationalists. However, the majority of those who voted in the two nationalist provinces did so in favour of the new Constitution. In Álava and Navarra, which had lower abstention rates of 41 and 33 per cent, respectively, and a majority vote for the new Constitution, the new democratic Spain turned out to be the winner (De Azaola 1988: 343–6). The controversial issue of Navarra remained a bone of contention between Basque nationalists and the Spanish politicians that mobilized the majority of the Navarra electorate. The open-ended character of the Constitution was the basis for the dispute. Although a plebiscite could take place subject to certain conditions in order to realize the incorporation of Navarra into the Basque Country, Article 152 did not specify whether a referendum consisted of a separate consultation of the population of Navarra and the three provinces of Euskadi, or the joint vote of the entire electorate of Navarra and Euskadi (Fusi 1984: 182–3; Andrés-Gallego 1995: 119–20). Though no official consent about the territorial reforms was laid down in the Constitution, the manifold concessions made by the Spanish government during the negotiation process opened a new attractive area for political entrepreneurs. The Autonomy Statute, which was officially sealed in Guernica by the PNV and the Spanish parties, was formulated ‘in accordance with the Constitution’ (Article 1) and provides a high level of powers in the fields of language and culture, tax collection, internal territorial administration, economic policy, town and country planning and public order (Gobierno Vasco 1983: 167–90). The new political arenas of Euskadi provide opportunities to mobilize the constituencies behind the nationalist message. This mobilization pattern will now be analysed with the initial focus on the electoral geography, followed by an evaluation of Basque nation building. The analysis centres on the most recent elections for the Euskadi Parliament, which were referred to officially as ‘autonomous elections’ and which took place in 2001. The interpretation of the resulting voting patterns should take account of the following preliminary comments. The elections took place in a climate of extreme tension and polarization. The PNV-EA minority coalition that had governed Euskadi with the consent of EH with the Spanish Basque socialists and PP as the opposition had to call the elections. This was because the end of the ETA truce and the resumption of killings made the position of the coalition government untenable. The 1998 cease-fire agreement was based on consensus between the Basque nationalists about playing the sovereignty card. The adoption of the soberanista line implied an alienation of the nationalist parties from the two big Spanish parties. In Spain, the unique phenomenon occurred of PP and PSOE competing

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for power at state level and forming a common front against sub-state nationalists within an Autonomous Community. On the other hand, the PNV and EA ran a slate reducing the nationalist factions to two (EH and PNV-EA) instead of three. Some of the electorate that voted for EH during the cease-fire with the idea of supporting a peace process were disappointed by the return to political violence. The vote for the patriotic left (EH) should therefore not be compared with the 1998 ones when the radicals were rewarded for their truce initiative with 18 per cent of the votes, but instead with the votes for HB prior to the cease-fire when they obtained 16 per cent of the valid votes (see also Chapter 7). Finally, though it has often been suggested that the lower turnout at autonomous elections favoured the nationalists, in 2001 the turnout was exceptionally high, with 79 per cent of the voters participating as opposed to a usual rate of approximately 60 per cent. The election results should be interpreted with these special circumstances in mind. The map (Fig. 6.4) displays nationalist voting percentages and the proportion of Basque speakers per municipality. At first glance there is a relationship, albeit that the bars indicating nationalist votes are relatively high in many non-Basquespeaking municipalities. The latter, located particularly in the Encartaciones District west of Bilbao and in the north of Álava, confirms the pattern for Hegoalde based on the European elections. Statistically, correlations between the total nationalist vote and Basque speaking are high. They vary from 0.82 to 0.85 depending on the way language is measured (0.82 if the percentage of persons speaking exclusively Basque at home are taken into account, 0.83 if proportion of persons speaking both Basque and Spanish at home are taken into account and 0.85 if only the share of the population having a good command of the language is entered). Taking the negative and positive residuals analogous to the analysis on the Hegoalde European elections, the map shows a similar pattern concerning Encartaciones and reveals some enclaves with a mixed population such as the cities of Irún on the French border and on the border of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa Eibar and Ermua where the nationalist vote is lower than predicted by language. The municipalities in the extreme south of Álava now have negative residuals that coincide with their ‘Spanish’ reputation (Hendry 1997). Vitoria, the capital of Euskadi, also displays a lower nationalist vote than predicted, which is surprising because the job machine of the Euskadi government worked particularly well in Vitoria due to its nomination as its capital. Because there is more data available on Euskadi than on other parts of Euskal Herria, a more complex set of variables can be used in multiple regression. The first independent variable is the proportion of people with a good command of Euskera. As a variable reflecting contact with the outside world, a ‘hubbel coefficient’ indicating accessibility through the road transport system can be used (for details about the method see Wessels and Mansvelt Beck, 1994). The proportions of migrants and autochthonous populations have been removed because of a high collinearity with the language variable. The same applies to the unemployment rate, which correlates too strongly with the percentage of the labour force in agriculture. Multiple regression analysis demonstrates the overwhelming explanatory power of the language variable (r2 = 0.72). Only ‘scale’ (logarithm of the number of inhabitants) produces a

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% Nationalist vote 100% 0%

% Basque-speaking 80 –100 40 – 80 10 – 40 5 – 10 0–5

Figure 6.4 Language and nationalist voting patterns, Euskadi, 2001.

negligible increase in the explained variance. The proportion of labour force in agriculture and the hubbel coefficients do not help to explain the variance. The graph plotting nationalist voting against language visualizes the strong relationship, particularly when Basque-speaking crosses the threshold of 40 per cent (Fig. 6.5). In municipalities below a threshold of 40 per cent Basque speakers, nationalism has more to do with autochthonous populations rather than with language (r2 = 0.5 and 0.3, respectively), although the geographical pattern of the nationalist vote reflects the salience of location as factor. In Spanish-speaking areas nationalist voting is an expression of symbolic ethnicity hardly supported by a linguistic seedbed. Therefore it is no wonder that in these areas the PNV-EA has been more attractive than the radical option of EH, which is far more demanding in the field of language, as is reflected in the least-Basque-speaking class of municipalities (lower than 10 per cent) where the median of the PNV-EA vote attains 45 per cent as opposed to 6 per cent for EH. The ambiguous political messages of PNV obviously correspond better to the identity profile of their environment – culturally Spanish but politically and symbolically Basque – than the pronounced ethno-linguistic activism of EH (see further Chapter 7). Billig’s book (1995) on banal nationalism highlights unnoticed forms of daily life

158 Territory and Terror %

80

Votes

60

40

20

0 0

20

40

60

80

%

Speakers

Figure 6.5 Basque speakers and nationalist vote, Euskadi, 2001.

that symbolize nationalism. Flags, hymns, addresses by politicians and other public persons, reporting of sports events and even street names may all have a nationalist content which is hardly perceived by citizens. In Catalonia the ‘hot nationalism’ of the transition period has now cooled down and has become more banal in appearance (Crameri 2000). Catalan flags, politicians, the use of Catalan in the public domain have lost much of their symbolic meaning in the struggle for more autonomy. Today most Catalan symbols coexist peacefully with symbols of Spanishness or cosmopolitanism. The diffusion of nationalist symbols and the loss of their salience have appeased different nationalisms in accordance with the hybrid identity possessed by so many Catalans. In Euskadi, although naïve visitors might think that Basque nationalism has now been banalized as the Ikurriña, the flag is practically ubiquitous, street names bear the name of Basque nationalists from history and TV and radio broadcasts about Euskadi in Euskera. However, the superficial unifying appearance of omnipresent nationalist paraphernalia masks the controversial content of nationalism and its divisive role in Euskadi. Basque nationalism has its official and alternative symbols. Guernica is perhaps the most symbolic place of Basque nationalism. There, where under the leaves of a big oak the Spanish king once swore an oath to the fueros of Vizcaya, the nationalist governments built a small complex of buildings containing the remnants of the

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original tree and its ‘clones’, a congress hall in nationalist design which is used for political celebrations and as a museum. The complex, as well as the town, the latter notorious after the bombing during the Civil War and the Picasso painting inspired by that event, have become a symbolic place for Basque nationalism of all brands (Raento and Watson 2000). The oak leaf has been used by nationalist parties (EA) and radical groups (KAS abertzale, the political initiative of the transition period) and in the badges of the Basque police, the Ertzaintza, while the place itself combines references to prestigious political events and a nationalist pilgrimage to the temple of the imagined Euskal Herria. The suggestion that Guernica has increasingly become a symbol of growing harmony in Basque politics may be true for nationalists themselves, although some of them view a visit to the place as a kind of boring ritual (Raento and Watson 2000: 730). However, this observation is highly disputable for those who have Spanish or mixed identities. A similar observation can be made regarding the flag. Flagging is widespread in Euskadi, as it is in Iparralde. However, in Iparralde the Ikurriña is often waved together with the French tricolor to symbolize coexistence and celebrate hybrid identity. In Euskadi, the Spanish flag is practically banned from the public domain. The traditional coats of arms of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa have been redesigned. The wolves symbolizing the lords of Vizcaya, and the king who featured in the coat of arms of Guipúzcoa, were removed because they were regarded as symbols of Spain (Onaindía 2000: 60). Flag incidents on town halls during the transition removed this vulgar expression of Spanish identity from public life, alienating citizens with a Spanish identity from the nation-building project. The naming of so many public places and institutions after Sabino Arana, the founding father of the Basque nationalist message with a high anti-immigrant content, may imply banal nationalism for many PNV and EA members, but means at the same time a negation of the rich Basque history of liberalism and socialism. Only a few streets are named after important socialist leaders in Basque history like Facundo Perezagua, Pablo Iglesias, Indalecio Prieto or Toribio Echevarría, or the liberal protagonist Gregorio de Balparda. Thus these Basque umbrella symbols serve to unite Basque nationalism and exclude other political identities. Onaindía (2000) fulminates against the choice of other even more exclusionary symbols, which he denounces as inventions of Arana and core symbols of the PNV imposed by the same party (p. 65). The potentially most unifying Basque anthem has been ‘Gernikako arbola’ (‘The Guernica tree’), historically even popular among socialists and acceptable to the UCD politicians of the transition. However, the most popular PNV song ‘Gora ta Gora’, composed by Arana, and named ‘Hymn to the Basque Race’ by its author, became the anthem of Euskadi and offended both socialists and abertzales (Onaindía 2000: 62). Although the content of these PNV symbols is based on exclusion and boundary creation, the use of such symbolic language is not necessarily problematic for the vulgarization of nationalism. This is because the meaning of symbols is subject to change and may lose its original significance. In Euskadi it is the elimination of Spanish symbols and the public negation of Spanish identity that impedes a normalization of Basque nationalism into a form of banal nationalism. Conversely, in those parts of Euskadi where fear reigns as a consequence of violence, people

160 Territory and Terror who feel Spanish often hide their sentiments (Chapter 7). The content of certain schoolbooks also alienates Spaniards from Basque nation-building because they stimulate hatred of all that is Spanish (see below). However, statements made by nationalist politicians often seem reasonable, conciliatory and integrative. Here I will demonstrate that there is indeed a communitarian rhetoric, which, however, does not coincide with the divisive practice. In Euskadi there are tremendous differences between nationalist discourse and daily life experiences. In general these differences concern the ideology of common claims vis-à-vis a reality of opposed views on what is or should be Euskadi. More concretely they apply to public representations of Basque civil society, which sharply contrast with serious shortcomings in the quality of democratic life. Moreover, the representation of the conflict caused and sustained by Spanish centralism does not fit in with Euskadi’s daily reality of fear and tension. Finally the imagery of European consent with a Basque nationalist project is increasingly de-legitimized in the European political arena itself. In the midst of deep political fractures, the image provided by the nationalist parties in power is one of an Autonomous Community in which life is normal, where business can make profitable investments and where the only obstacle to complete freedom and happiness is a Madrid that does not recognize the rights of the Basque nation. Many public statements of nationalist leaders can illustrate the representation of the Basque conflict. Here I will mention just a few. Javier Arzalluz, who has been the leader of the PNV from 1980 to 2004, usually simplifies the Basque conflict as an external contradiction between centralism and the Basques: ‘In contrast to the patriotic game of Aznar [Spain’s prime Minister, JMB] the Basque nation offers resistance via their game of national construction and of independence in Europe’ (Arzalluz, in Deia 8 July 2000). Gara (3 October 2001), the daily that supports ETA’s Juan José Ibarretxe, the President of the Basque Country, who was committed to ‘use all the legal, political and democratic instruments within our reach to carry out the will of the Basque society’. These two typical quotations show both the conflict as an external dispute and the Basques as one society with a common will. Although this message of conflict externalization and internal unity may be shared by the nationalist believers, the perception of the conflict by the non-believers may be precisely one of a conflict that is internal, or in other words between Basques, and not between Madrid and ‘the’ Basques. The communitarian rhetoric based on a mythical common will of all Basques thus masks the deep contradictions within Euskadi. There is an absence of a minimum of a social substratum in which a common identification with Basque identity and political institutions exists that is able to bridge ethnic, class and intra-regional contradictions (Jáuregui 1996: 104–5). The lack of unifying appeal is however not due to divisive or exclusionary discourse. All nationalist parties provide an image of tolerance and acceptance to the other. As if it were a kind of national sport they all prominently include the respect for the plural nature of Basque society in their propaganda. The following are some more examples: Ibarretxe, after assuming the Presidency of the new Euskadi administration, stated that the Government is ‘of all and for all Basques’

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and ‘wanted by the Basques’ while he presented his new cabinet as ‘plural and inclusive’ (Deia 16 September 2001). The izquierda abertzale, the patriotic left, also do all they can to flirt with plurality. A manifesto for freedom of speech signed by more than 30 associations close to ETA emphasized the ‘plural character’ of the signatories; among these are AEK, Gestoras pro-Amnestía (from January 2001 on the European list of terrorist organizations), Gaztetxe, the youth clubs (bars) linked with ETA, LAB, and Segi (organizers of street vandalism) (Gara 19 September 2001). The same journal insisted that respect had to be established for ‘the plurality of [Basque] society’ (Gara 25 May 2001). Apart from plurality, ‘dialogue’ is an overworked word in Basque politics. Ibarretxe demanded a dialogue between the parties given that ‘projects of coexistence can only be built on free approval and mutual respect’ (Gara 3 October 2001). On 15 May 2001, the Basque government to be led by PNV and EA declared that absolute priority was to be given to a ‘political dialogue’ in search of peace (El Mundo). At first sight, the quest for recognition of the plural nature of the society and a dialogue between the diverse political orientations seems to reflect a civil society of the type that would suit the Netherlands or one of the Scandinavian countries. Reality, however, is diametrically opposed to this civic discourse. At all levels within Hegoalde, daily practice, not only in politics but also on the streets, is characterized by polarization, a lack of respect for the other, and a shocking lack of democratic liberties when compared to democratic practice in other EU countries and the rest of Spain. After the Lizarra pact in 1998 (Chapter 8), in which all nationalist parties and associations participated, the common front against terrorism became practically invalid. The result has been polarization between the different parties and a poisoned political climate. The nationalists were now committed to their hegemonic and soberanista project, though officially propagating dialogue and plurality, while Spanish parties became more and more excluded from the public domain. During the 1998–9 truce, the threats to PP and PSOE politicians continued, not in their original form of physical liquidation but as other forms of intimidation. For the ‘normality’ of democratic politics the truce did not have any impact. The return to violence perhaps only worsened the prospect for normality. In many towns and smaller settlements the right of assembly for Spanish party members was seriously undercut by continuous attacks on local party offices and intimidation of PP and PSE politicians. ETA’s ‘official’ return to violence is now driving PSE and PP politicians out of the political arena. In several municipalities councilmen withdrew from politics because they were afraid. In the town of Zumárraga in Guipúzcoa, between April 2001 and January 2002 nine out of a total of 17 councilmen abandoned politics (El País 15 January 2002). In the Spanish press, other cases of politicians resigning from their councils have been presented as the tip of the iceberg of manipulation of fear, which is having a disastrous influence on the recruitment of politicians. In smaller settlements dominated by the izquierda abertzale, political cleansing has often been the result (Mansvelt Beck 1999; see also next chapter). The

162 Territory and Terror quarrels about one-sided nationalist views shown on Basque TV and the threatening of journalists of the ‘Spanish’ press by ETA throw serious doubts on the ‘pluralist’ pretensions of the nationalists and their institutions (Onaindía 2000; Calleja 2001). The freedom of speech is particularly limited for those who are not in the camp of Basque nationalism and who are poorly protected or not by the Basque police. The call for plurality and dialogue is part of an official rhetoric with inclusion contrasting sharply with a generalized practice of exclusion and a division in the context of a weak civil society and a mediocre democracy. Víctor Pérez-Díaz (1993), who interpreted the restoration of Spanish democracy as a learning process, observed that this process is still unfinished. In this respect, he has blamed a public discourse of the political parties, which does not accord with their actual behaviour (1993: 43–6). Whereas in the rest of Spain, institutions and actors have shown at least some Pérez-Díaz learning capacity, the Basque Country institutions and actors increasingly reveal their unlearning capacity. One of the noteworthy exceptions in the nationalist camp is ex-PNV Minister of Euskadi, Joseba Arregi, who recently criticized the content of the plurality discourse used by the PNV (2000). He blames the PNV for excluding people with identities other than Basque from the nationalist project. His book is a call to conceptualize plurality as a given and valued feature of Basque society instead of a problem to be solved. This civic and integrative content of nationalism accompanied by practical policies guaranteeing civil liberties is one of the proposals Arregi makes to harmonize discourse, politics and daily reality. The legitimacy of the political class of Euskadi – which those involved really believe in – is reproduced at the level of the European Union. All Basque nationalist parties have a European Chapter in their programmes. Politicians often display visions of an independent Euskal Herria in Europe, or at least see a role similar to the other member states. In particular, after the launching of the Lizarra Pact (see Chapter 8) in which international mediation was called for, Basque nationalists have tried to internationalize the conflict. Internationalization took place not only through a demand for mediation, but also via efforts to diffuse the image of a future Euskal Herria in particular in Europe. However, the legitimacy of the Basque nationalist project within the European Union is decreasing. Several tendencies indicate the loss of credibility of Basque nationalism. First, after the 1999 European elections, the PNV moved away from the European People’s Party – the European coalition of Christian Democrats – towards the GRN/Green Group-European Free Alliance, a heterogeneous coalition ranging from ethno-regionalist parties, environmentalist parties to parties with a neotrotskyist inspiration and ‘reformed’ former communist parties. The integration into this colourful collection of system and anti-system parties and the inherent abandoning of the Christian Democrat faction delegitimized the PNV among the European mainstream parties. Second, on 10 October 2000, the PNV was expelled from the Christian Democratic International during their XIII Congress in Santiago de Chile with an overwhelming majority of votes (60 in favour, four against) (El País, 10 October 2000). The PNV’s isolation from European mainstream politics has been sharpened by

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increasing criticism from the EU of the situation concerning human rights in Euskadi. Two events have emphasized the increasing discontent of the European political class with the way the Basque nationalists administrate their Autonomous Community. On 26 October 2000, ¡Basta Ya!, the human rights organization that struggles against political violence and fosters tolerance and civic liberties, was awarded the Andrei Sakharov Human Rights Prize, the most prestigious European Union award for human rights associations. Nicole Fontaine, the president of the European Parliament, stated: ‘The awarding of the Sakharov prize to ¡Basta Ya! must be seen as encouragement to Basque civil society – and to all Spanish democrats – in their democratic quest to say “no” to those who kill freedom.’ The other sign of European discontent came from the European Commissioner for Human Rights, Alvaro Gil-Robles, who visited Spain in February 2001 to report on the human rights situation in the Basque Country. The report was highly critical of the Basque authorities responsible for civil liberties. By way of a response, leading PNV politicians downplayed its significance and emphasized the alleged role of the PP and the ‘Spanish’ politician Gil-Robles, while also dismissing it as a political trick. The report, written for the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly, contains several sections that severely criticize the Basque authorities (Council of Europe 2002). The following is a quotation from Chapter 3, ‘On the practical causes of human rights violations in the Basque Country’, Section 5: I heard intellectuals, teachers, journalists, non-governmental organizations which defend human rights and others which represent victims of terrorism, municipal councilors and other elected representatives from various parties alleging that such acts of violence go virtually unpunished, as the autonomous Basque police force (the Ertzaintza) usually takes action belatedly or intervenes only when the violence has already finished. They allegedly make virtually no significant arrests and carry out no thorough investigations into the origins, membership and operation of these violent groups which clearly complement the activities of ETA, which seems to control or inspire their violence. In Section 3.7, the Basque politicians responsible are even blamed by their own police force: ERNE, the trade union which represents the majority of Ertzaintza members, remains highly critical of the force’s leaders, whom it accuses of failing to order action against kale borroka [street violence, JMB], and … practically no time is spent on investigative action. The union representatives claim to be demoralized by receiving instructions (never in writing) not to play an active part in the action taken against kale borroka and say that many members of the force have been disheartened by hearing their superiors saying, over the past few months, that the important thing is to negotiate. They cite as an example of police inaction the fact that, although an excellent mobile brigade exists with

164 Territory and Terror specific training to deal with urban violence, it is allowed to intervene only on direct orders from the Deputy Regional Minister for Internal Affairs, inevitably delaying its action. In the concluding section the report also accuses the Basque educational authorities: Although the Basque government’s Regional Minister for Education personally informed me of the efforts being made and campaigns being conducted in schools to promote values such as equality, it is nonetheless the case that the content of certain textbooks which are not exactly in line with the aim of promoting mutual understanding and conviviality ought to be examined, and certain programmes shown on Basque public television on which children are allowed to sing songs heaping scorn onto people who are pro-Spain should be dropped. Third, the international prestige of the Basque administration is vanishing as a result of the activities of some NGOs. On 2 June 2000, the international secretariat of Amnesty International (AI) in London showed much concern in a press release under the heading of ‘Spain, ETA’s new killing campaign must end’. The lack of civil liberties in Euskadi due to ETA’s activities was AI’s main concern. In their annual reports on human rights in Spain, the attention of AI has shifted from structural repression by the Spanish state – a key topic, up to the GAL affair, to initiatives, the lack of civil liberties and personal security in Euskadi. I could also refer to initiatives by the Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum that organized a meeting on 14 September 2001 in Bilbao where 260 journalists and media representatives from 25 countries met in order to denounce the lack of freedom for the media and to encourage all democratic parties in the Basque Country to ‘denounce intimidation of the press’ (El País 14 September 2001). Finally, the demand of the Euskadi government made during 2002 to have its European representation, similar to the EU member states, internally sold as a realistic option, has remained a castle in the air, used to provoke Madrid, but hardly noticed in Strasbourg and Brussels. These examples illustrate a tendency of international isolation and de-legitimization of Basque nationalism that does not fit in with the internationalist and European rhetoric of Basque nationalism. In spite of international ostracism, the nationalist imagery still includes cosmopolitan allusions. Moreno (2000: 144), who has used the concept of cosmopolitan localism in the case of Spanish mesogovernments, defined it as a combination of an ‘active opposition against the centralized model of the unitary state’ and ‘a mobilization of sub-state identities coupled with an active supranational participation’. The above examples show, however, that in the Basque case ‘active supranational participation’ is paramount in rhetoric and moribund in practice. When symbols and discourse fail to build a nation, there is still a possibility of creating a public sector with the attributes of a strong proto-state, potentially paving the way for a strong state based on infrastructural power. In this respect, the Basque administration has been successful in parts of the public sector. On the other hand,

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Table 6.3 The Basque language in primary education and kindergarten, Euskadi, 2001

Euskadi Álava Vizcaya Guipúzcoa

Basque taught as subject (%)

Bilingual (%)

Monolingual Basque (%)

Monolingual Castilian (%)

Total

17.5 29.8 23.3 3.4

29.1 38.5 26.3 29.6

52.6 31.7 48.8 67.0

0.8 0.0 1.6 0.0

100 100 100 100

Source: Calculations based on EUSTAT (2002).

serious doubts can be cast on performance in other parts. Linguistic normalization – as basquization is officially called – has certainly made an impression in Euskadi. Euskadi is the only part of Euskal Herria where the command of Euskera has significantly increased. Particularly in education, the reintroduction of the Basque language has been considerably successful. Before the granting of autonomy to Euskadi in 1979, the only way of receiving schooling in Basque was through the ikastolas, where 61,000 children learned the language on a voluntary basis (Tejerina Montaña 1992: 174). Nowadays, practically all children in Euskadi are confronted with the old language at an early age (Table 6.3). About 82,000 children, or half the children in primary and nursery schools, follow a curriculum taught entirely in Basque. Figures of enrolment in education with Basque-taught curricula are impressively high, taking into account that most children speak Castilian at home. Even in the most Spanish-speaking territory of Álava, 70 per cent of the children are taught at least partially in Euskera. The Euskera success story is conspicuous given the late introduction of corpus planning in 1968 together with other attributes of ‘low culture’ such as a lack of a literary tradition or formal status. Mezo (1996), who has compared the roles of Irish and Basque in their respective societies after the granting of autonomy, explains the far greater success of language revitalization in the Basque Country as compared to Ireland as follows: first, language policies were shaped in a way which neither offended Basque-speakers, of whom most were in favour of monolingual teaching in Euskera, nor Castilian speakers who had no interest in a total language shift. The free choice of parents to choose the language model varying from Spanish-taught curricula to entirely Basque education offered an in-between way that could cope with strong demands for re-basquization in Guipúzcoa and the detached attitude of many Spanish speakers in greater Bilbao and Álava. Second, the PNV, in coalition governments with the socialists, saw their ambitions tempered by the latter. Moreover, their linguistically mixed support base was too weak to pursue universal immersion in education (Mezo 1996: 555–66). However, Mezo is aware of the limitations of the success. This is because of the lack of legitimacy for a multilingual system among radical nationalists – mostly Basque speakers – and people holding a Spanish identity, in particular those close to the centre right. The role of language in education and in society has grown significantly. The enormous forward leap is reflected in book production, mandatory knowledge of the language for part of the employees in the public sector and use of the language on TV and radio. Nevertheless, Spanish has remained the most important language in areas of life not

166 Territory and Terror controlled by the public sector (Chapter 3). The main problem about language is not its slow diffusion into the private sector and Castilian-speaking areas. Instead, it is its use as a political weapon (Van Amersfoort and Mansvelt Beck 2000: 458, 461). The use of Euskera in public life is often seen as a political statement not related with normalization but associated with radical nationalism (Jáuregui 1996: 126–7 MacClancy 1996: 317). Institution-building also reflects the politicization of language. While AEK tries to monopolize the literacy programmes for adults in the Basque-speaking areas, HABE does the same in the areas with Euskera-speaking minorities. ‘Normalization’ is a political and not a scientific term, used by politicians and their supporters to label policies of language recuperation. As regards the nationalist politicians themselves there is a discrepancy between the ‘normalization’ discourse and their own behaviour. Leading politicians like Arzalluz of the PNV hardly speak any Basque in public. It is even questionable whether they speak their beloved language among themselves. When, on 18 May 1999, the three Basque nationalist parties agreed upon cooperation in the Parliament they had to wait for about three hours before the translation into Euskera was ready (El País 19 May 1999: 19). The fact that the ETA members who attacked an explosives warehouse near Grenoble in March 2001 spoke in Spanish is illustrative for the high symbolic content of language claims. Apart from fragmenting Basque nationalism into a monolingual option and a more permissive orientation towards bilingualism, the language issue also has a fragmenting influence on identification. Cobarrubias (1999: 80–2) erroneously suggests a sort of happy end of normalization in which new forms of Basque identity emerge. In his view these forms are linked to the rise of a Basque identity connected to language instead of primordialism. Language training in Basque favours upward social mobility in a mesosociety now dominated by a new ethno-nationalist elite. However, the optimism of Cobarrubias has a dark side. First, people with Spanish identity who are not interested in contributing to basquization themselves or through the education of their children remain outside the linguistic domain of the nation-building project. These are the people living in the workers’ districts of greater Bilbao and in the south. Second, a numerically less important group consists of people involved in forced assimilation. In the smaller mixed language areas of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa, social control obliges Castilian speakers with Spanish or hybrid identities to comply with the socially controlled norms. Apart from hiding their ethnic identification, the social cost of sending their children to bilingual or Spanishspeaking schools is too high. As potential subjects of collective hate they become involved in forced assimilation. The provision of collective goods by the Euskadi administration has led to the rise of a huge public sector. Concerning the general quality and efficiency of this sector, its performance in the Basque Country is neither better nor worse than in other Autonomous Communities. Like the Autonomous Communities with a high level of powers, the regional administration became responsible for education, health, planning, TV and radio, etc. The fact that the new gamut of activities particularly favoured clientelism – many newly appointed officials were favourites of PNV politicians – does not distinguish Euskadi from other Autonomous

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Communities. The Euskadi administration suffers from the same evils as the central and regional administrations after the transition. For instance geographical fragmentation of resource allocation is quite common in all Autonomous Communities. In the Basque Country this fragmentation is reflected in the proliferation of facilities for higher education, the maintenance of three small airports, and the establishment of too many technology parks. Occasionally some industries have a more efficient record than state institutions, such as Basque TV and radio, which work with a relatively low budget compared to the expensive Spanish TV and radio system. On the other hand, the media controlled by the public sector are repeatedly criticized by the Spanish media for their negation of Spain and Spanish events, displaying ‘endogamy and autism’ according to Onaindía (2000: 57). Calleja (2001: 355) complains that public TV and radio do not pay any attention to mass manifestations against ETA with tens of thousands of participants. The word ‘Spain’ is taboo on Euskaltelebista. Conversely, the politically correct nationalist idiom exclusively refers to ‘the Spanish state’. Euskaltel, the public enterprise originally established to compete with the Spanish public telephone company Telefónica, which itself has now been privatized, has become important in telecommunications in the Basque Country. Euskaltel which employs some 500 persons and is now led by Jose Antonio Ardanza, a former President of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, has conquered an important share of the Basque telephone and internet market. However, Euskaltel has not remained free from the troubles in the telecommunications branch either. In 2000, the company lost €48 million. The worst perceived service is that provided by the autonomous police. In the Spanish press and in books by Calleja (2000), Onaindía (2000), and Díaz Herrero and Durán (2001) the Ertzaintza is accused of uniquely protecting nationalist interests and deliberately leaving people and institutions connected with Spain unprotected. The kale borroka intensified dramatically during the 1998–9 cease-fire without efficient measures to contain it. Over 7,000 policemen have not been able to prevent the destruction of offices of ‘Spanish’ parties. They have often been conspicuously absent during street violence and intimidation of ‘Spaniards’. Many high-ranking Ertzaintza officers, appointed by PNV politicians, have been recruited from the party’s security apparatus. Their political preferences, which are inclined towards nationalism, together with a lack of professional skills and preparation, have resulted in an extended list of incidents, accidents and failures (Calleja: 248–70). The most notorious cases concerned deliberate non-intervention due to politically inspired instructions. Youngsters active in street violence were not arrested because they were children of PNV politicians or relatives of Ertzaintza officers. Politically active people who asked for protection were advised to change their political ideas instead of being provided with a bodyguard. While in other parts of Spain the Spanish Civil Guards and the National Police have learned to act in a proactive mode and have gained prestige, the Ertzaintza is perceived as a party militia, there to serve Basque nationalism. While for many ‘Spanish’ Basques the autonomous police have become a symbol of weakness of the Basque proto-state, the radical brand of nationalists perceive them as a product of PNV corruption and

168 Territory and Terror as collaborators with the Spanish police forces (Ramírez 1992). The PNV, whose clientelism was at the origins of the politically loyal Ertzaintza, was initially able to control them as most of the police were organized in the PNV’s labour union ELA. Due to a growing discontent with working conditions ELA lost control of their members. Many ELA affiliates have become members of ERNE, a non-nationalist union trying to improve the quality of work. Recently, the ELA recovered slightly from its losses with 38 per cent of the votes for the election of trade unions’ representatives against 36 per cent for ERNE (Deia 11 November 2002). While violence is perceived as the main problem in Euskadi, the Ertzaintza has probably become the symbol par excellence of weak administration (Chapter 7). Mobilization from below in Euskadi has lost its momentum. Martínez-Herrera (2002a: 437) has observed a ‘reduction in levels of polarization around … regional and national [Spanish, JMB] identity’. The mobilization process has now reached saturation level as the diffusion of nationalism among the constituencies has virtually stopped. Basque nationalism as it has developed in Euskadi has contributed to internal fragmentation and has not been able to create all-encompassing Basque identification, neither by its discourse, nor by its policies. The evolution of Basque nationalism in the heartland has therefore severely limited the prospect for export to Iparralde and Navarra. In Navarra, accommodation has not led to a firm rooting of nationalism. Given the dominance of regionalists and Spanish parties in Navarra it is even surprising that some accommodation occurred.

Accommodation in Navarra: real or cosmetic? In 1986, Linz portrayed Navarra as the most divided and conflict-prone region of the Greater Basque Country ‘with a high degree of fragmentation and a great potential for polarization’(Linz 1986: 446). By that time his comment made sense because there were no direct signs of accommodation of nationalist pressure. Navarra, with its privileged régimen foral (fuero regime) during the Franco period, had a kind of fiscal autonomy with a strong position internally of the merindades, ancient town districts whose powers were laid down in an arrangement negotiated between Navarra and Madrid in 1841. Soon after the transition it became obvious that Basque nationalism was too weak as an electoral force to impose its claims on the Navarra administration. With some 20 per cent of the votes and the UCD Christian Democrats in the office in Madrid and Pamplona there was no chance to put effective pressure on both governments. Whereas the new territorial legislation led to an inspiration of regionalism and nationalism in several autonomous regions, Navarra remained rather passive in demanding reforms. In 1982, the régimen foral was legally updated under the name of Amejoramiento (improvement), or in the complete phrasing Ley Orgánica de Reintegración y Amejoramiento del Régimen Foral de Navarra. The new law gave Navarra a more representative democracy while the privileged position of the merindades came to an end. Within this context of a strong fiscal position vis-à-vis the Spanish state and having its own legislative power, from 1986 expressed in foral laws, Navarra became a new arena in which Basque nationalism had to cope with Navarrese regionalists, Spanish centralist parties and

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169

socialists. From the beginning, the institutional setting for the nationalists, who were eager to defend and promote their language, was weak in comparison with the Euskadi Autonomy Statute. While Euskera became the official language in Euskadi, Navarra’s ‘improved’ fuero nominated Castilian as the official language (Article 9). However, the Basque language acquired an official status in the Basque-speaking zones of Navarra. In the last foral elections of 1999, the combined votes for EH and the EA–PNV slate totalled 21 per cent of the valid votes. The combined nationalist vote has a 0.84 correlation with language, similar to the European elections. Surprisingly EH, with its radical discourse on Euskera, has a lower correlation of votes with language than the EA–PNV votes (0.69 and 0.82 respectively). After testing the database, no evidence was found that the lower correlation is due to higher abstention rates for Basque-speaking municipalities during the foral elections. Abstention rates among the more Euskera-speaking municipalities do not show significant differences for respective European and foral elections. The cloud resulting from a two-dimensional plotting of municipalities on the nationalist voting and language has a more diffuse pattern with increasing proportions of Basque speakers (Fig. 6.6). Using the same method as above (over 1.5 times the standard deviation) the residuals of the regression equation entering nationalist voting and language equals 25. Out of these 25, eight residuals concern negative scoring municipalities, of which six coincide with the residuals of the European elections. As regards the 17 positive residuals, there were no positive ones in the above section because the analysis encompassed all Hegoalde municipalities while here only Navarra is considered and there are two concentrations of municipalities. One, which includes seven municipalities, is situated near to the border of the Goerri District of Guipúzcoa, in an area where important highways to San Sebastián, Vitoria and Pamplona trifurcate. In this area, which is so well connected with Euskadi, one might expect a diffusion of nationalism from the Basque Country. Such a pattern, however, cannot be observed on the main road from Irún to Pamplona, nor from the Tolosa-Pamplona road. A rough test of the fairly unreliable data of 1936 presented by Erize Etxegarai (1999: 293–6) reveals a strong decrease in Euskera-speaking, from levels of 40–80 per cent in 1936 to between 10 and 50 per cent nowadays. The Basque-speaking populations of all the municipalities involved decreased by between 30 and 40 percentage points between 1936 and 1996. The second concentration area consists of seven small villages in the area of Roncesvalles, where the legendary pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela enters Spain, with Roncesvalles itself being a negative residual. Here the decrease in percentage points is less dramatic, with the exception of Esparza with slightly over 100 inhabitants. Relations with Guipúzcoa and/or a decrease of the old language may perhaps help to explain the strong voting for Basque nationalism in these areas. These factors do not, however, provide a good explanatory framework for the whole of Navarra. Why, for instance, is nationalist voting not higher than predicted in the valley of the river Bidasoa, where influences from Guipúzcoa easily enter through the main road to Pamplona and where Euskera is also in decline? Moreover, the areas north of Pamplona, where Basque is in decline, do not show similar high scores.

170 Territory and Terror %

80

Votes

60

40

20

0 0

20

40

60

80

%

Speakers

Figure 6.6 Basque speakers and nationalist vote, Navarra Foral elections, 1999.

Navarra’s language policies, which, after the slow legislative process acquired its foral laws in 1986, protected Euskera according to the classification of the zones, may have influenced mobilization. Are the zones where Basque is protected, classified as zonas vascófonas, less mobilized than those half-protected, or zonas mixtas? The answer based on the analysis of positive residuals is no: the western concentration zone is a protected one, the north-eastern one a mixed zone and there are even two Spanish ‘unprotected’ municipal areas. At the same time, all the negative scores on the residuals consist of municipalities in the protected area. Thus language zoning is not related to the occurrence of mobilization outliers. Therefore it is likely that the geographical variation of nationalism within the Basque-speaking areas is instead attributed to the degree of success of proselytism. The latter can hardly be explained through its social ecology, but instead the roots of this success may be in the quality of the apostles who once started to spread the nationalist message. In the case of Navarra there is a lot of controversy about the accommodation of language and territorial claims. Language was given a special treatment in the areas classified as Basque-speaking and mixed (Fig. 6.7). Although one might complain about the relatively slow reaction of the foral authorities concerning the formulation of the legal framework, they have been remarkably successful in introducing Euskera into education. The 1999 figures provided by the Navarra

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171

Basque Mixed Spanish

Figure 6.7 Language zones, Navarra and Euskadi.

statistical office reveal that 22 per cent of Navarra children at primary schools are enrolled in the entirely Basque-taught D model, an incredible success given the 12 per cent of Euskera speakers, also because sociolinguists consider this model as the only way to secure language survival (Comunidad Foral de Navarra (2002). The renewed efforts of the Navarra authorities have contributed to a modest recuperation of the Basque language. Compared to 16 per cent of the children being immersed in Basque education during the 1993–4 school year (Zabaleta 1995: 222), the 22 per cent of 1999 suggests progression. The problem for Euskera is not therefore the delayed introduction, not formalized until 1988 in the foral decree 159 to be implemented in 1989, but instead there is a demographic and a political background. The long-term demographic change in Navarra has shifted the weight of Basque- and Spanish-speaking areas to the mixed zones where, due to the dominance of Castilian, diglossia has worked against Euskera. However, as in the case of the contact zones of Iparralde, linguistic consciousness is substantially higher than the proportion of Basque speakers would predict (Table 6.4). Similarly to Iparralde, those who have learned Basque at school are quite frequently children of non-Basque speakers. In Navarra as well, a substantial number (44 per cent) have a Castilian language background and originate from families with higher levels of formal education (Jimeno Jurío 1997: 241). The latter suggests the existence of a castilianized cultural elite whose language activism in the sphere of

172 Territory and Terror Table 6.4 Basque immersion in primary schools in Navarra and language zones, 1991–8 Zone

Basque-speaking Mixed Castilian Pamplona Navarra

Children 1991 (%) 1998 (%)

Basque-speaking 1991 (%)

Population 1900–91 (%)

Population 1991 (×1000)

64 16 2 13 16

61 6 1 6 10

–13 +288 +8 +546 +70

55.4 283.5 184.6 191.2 523.6

78 22 2 nd 21

Sources: Zabaleta (1995) pp. 30, 33, 35, 63, 79, 222–6; Comunidad Foral de Navarra (2002).

education is a symbolic statement of Basqueness, a cultural attribute they lost or even never possessed, but which is projected onto their children. Given the active involvement of the regional authorities in language revitalization and its concomitant success in education, the persistent scapegoating of Navarra’s leading politicians by Basque nationalist parties in language issues is amazing. The nationalist newspapers Gara and – to a lesser degree – Deia used to portray Navarra as part of Euskal Herria where the Basque language is discriminated against and where accommodation has at best cosmetic features. The nationalist campaign against the Navarra authorities intensified in March 2001, after the notification in the Boletín Oficial that in the appointment of civil servants knowledge of English, French or German would be an asset while Euskera would only be so on an ad hoc basis (Gara 1 March 2001). When in 2001 the Navarra government abolished the practice of putting bilingual announcements on the building of the Court of Justice in Pamplona, a practice established since its inauguration in 1996, the nationalists were able to add another hot issue to their list of grievances (Gara 18 September 2001). The latter, the consequence of a decree issued in January 2001, became part of the package of grievances. These grievances ranged from the lack of new jobs for Basque-speaking civil servants, official communication of the Foral Community with Basque cultural entities, the restoring of monolingual Spanish signposting in the mixed zones, budget cuts affecting the use of the Basque language, a shortage of Basque-taught curricula at the public university of Navarra and in agricultural training centres and the issuing of radio frequencies for local radio transmitters to the ‘Spanish’ contents of the history books used in the Basque-taught curriculum in elementary schools. The background of the campaign consists of changing language politics by the UPN-led government leading to a dilution of language ‘normalization’ in general and to a diminishing of public visibility of the language in the mixed zone. Nationalist politicians see the decreased effort of the government in language issues as harassment of Euskera speakers. On 29 January 2002 Gara reported that the action committee Oinarriak was urging resistance to ‘the principal aim of the politics of the Navarra Government to eliminate whatever presence of Euskera from public life’. In the same article the government is accused for ‘its persecution of Euskera’. Indeed, some of the arguments are well founded. Out of the 13,000 civil servants in the foral administration, excluding teachers, only 248

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173

required command of Euskera in the 2000 budget, whereas this number was reduced to 153 in the 2001 budget, leading to a reduction of personnel in public health and administration (Gara 3 July 2001). The budget for the ‘basic programme for the promotion and development of Euskera’, the Programa Básico de Promoción y Desarrollo del Euskara, decreased from 306 million pesetas in 2000 to 298 million in 2001 (Gara 15 November 2001). The accusation received some support from the PNV newspaper Deia, and critical comments have even occasionally been published in Spanish newspapers. On 6 May 2001, Deia quoted the Secretary General of the Navarra branch of the Spanish PSOE, Juan José Lizarbe, as saying that ‘UPN will not have support by removing bilingual signposts and bringing us back to a situation in which we lived in Spain of the 1970s’. The same newspaper published reports of protest meetings against the distribution of radio frequencies and language policies at the university (Deia 25 May 2001). The Spanish newspaper El País of 18 March 2001 qualified the withdrawal of Basque signposts in the mixed zone as ‘an alarming precedent’ and a ‘hostile and unfair’ act. The same journal condemns monolingual communication of the Navarra Government with ikastolas in Pamplona (El País 26 October 2001). The court of justice honoured claims of language activists of Euskara Kultur Elkargoa against decrees of the Navarra government, which pretended to lower the status of Euskera (Deia 27 November 2002). Sometimes the grounding for accusations, however, is not that solid. The claim for a university ‘with its own Basque identity’ (Gara 29 September 2001) is perhaps exaggerated. Applying the criteria of the University of Iceland with 6000 students to a population of 270,000, this would result in a Basque-Navarrese University of some 1000 students, not exactly a number that justifies a complete gamut of disciplines. The criticism by Gara on 8 September of the contents of the history programme is obviously of an ideological brand and does not contain linguistic grievances. The step back by the government as regards language promotion should, however, be seen from the perspective of political opportunism within a context of ongoing language revival. First there is political opportunism involved. By teasing language activists, organized protest is countered by electoral gains by the UPN and PP. Former UPN president Juan Cruz Alli, now speaker of the split-off Convergencia de Democrátas de Navarra, has stated: ‘Today there are more pupils learning Euskera than ever before. Nevertheless Basque nationalism is on the way back … each time when Xabier Arzalluz [PNV’s leader, JMB] refers to Navarra, those [people of] UPN puff out their chests and acquire more votes. The same thing happens with Batasuna when ETA commits an atrocity and they do not condemn it – they also lose votes [to UPN, JMB]’ (Deia 27 November 2001). Moreover, PP politicians praise the Spanish police for maintaining public order in Navarra, more than their Ertzaintza colleagues in Euskadi. Mayor Oreja, when he was still Minister of Interior, alluded in Estella in Navarra to the inefficiency of Ertzaintza and the superior maintaining of order by the Spanish security forces in Navarra (El País 5 April 2000). Against the backdrop of quarrelling politicians, the important ongoing revival of

174 Territory and Terror Euskera is easily pushed to the background. In a candid interview, Iñaki Agirreazkuenaga, professor of the Basque Public University, admitted that Euskera has made progress in Navarra. Despite his criticism of UPN he emphasized the freedom of municipalities to use Euskera in communication, though ‘the ideal would be that Euskera develop according to the linguistic reality of each zone’ (Deia 27 March 2001). His moderately positive opinion about language policies in practice corresponds to the data on schooling (Table 6.4). The data confirms that accommodation has been real instead of cosmetic. Evaluating the nationalist claims in the context of Navarra, I have observed that the new regional arena dominated by ‘Spanish’ and regionalist parties has surprisingly accommodated language claims ardently defended by a highly mobilized minority of nationalists. The result can be interpreted as a compromise between nationalist claims to impose Basque as an official language in the whole of Navarra and the majority of the Navarrese holding a Spanish-Navarrese identity. A similar in-between accommodation has taken place with the territorial claims of including Navarra in a greater Basque Country. These territorial aspirations, supported by a minority in Navarra, have been cooled down in legal texts and theoretically leave open the possibility to join Euskadi. However, in practice, the Navarrese voters would not support this. In Navarra, the new territorial administration and its new political arena have witnessed a substantial language revival realized through the consent and enthusiasm of the population in the Basque-speaking and mixed zones. The stagnation of mobilization from below in Navarra is thus a consequence of appeasing accommodation, which is in dissonance with the discourse of Basque nationalism that blames the foral administration for not accommodating to language claims.

Conclusion Since the Sabino Arana era, Basque nationalism has persisted in Hegoalde. Although nationalism was rather invisible during autocratic rule, it has still survived. The content of the nationalist message has changed over time from a racist, clerical and territorially poorly specified ideology to a number of interpretations varying from inclusive and constitutionalist conceptualizations to exclusive and independentist views. Paradoxically, today’s Basque nationalism shows the same flaws as Spanish nationalism has suffered from in history. These flaws relate to a lack of continuity of the discourse in time and the existence of a variety of nationalist competing narratives in the present democratic period. However, mobilization from below has been impressive, particularly in Euskadi where nationalism now appears to be firmly rooted in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa while it has also conquered important areas of Álava. Only in Navarra has the spread of the nationalist belief stagnated, and it remains mainly confined to the Basque-speaking areas. Mobilization from below has, however, reached its maximum level of saturation and geographical patterns of mobilization are now frozen. From a geographical diffusion perspective, the fundamental weakness remains the bleak establishment of nationalist support in the bigger cities, where Spanish parties dominate the electoral landscape. As in the

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175

French Basque Country, the cities – as a location of many nationalist institutions – provide a false image of their constituencies. In contact zones between urban agglomerations and a Basque-speaking hinterland, mobilization from below is strong as in Iparralde but differs according to party orientation. Such differences cannot be explained by economic, linguistic or demographic variables. The opportunity structure offered to the nationalists by the high degree of competencies laid down in the Constitution and the Autonomy Statute has been used to pursue Basque nation-building policies. Basque nation-building in Euskadi has involved a tremendous reallocation of resources and an enormous effort in creating own institutions and organizations that in many other countries are part of the State’s apparatus. Identification with a proto-nation-state, however, remains far from complete. One of the root causes is the discrepancy between communitarian discourse and exclusionary political practice. Basque nation-building has failed to involve the whole population by choosing exclusive symbols and diffusing hegemonic anti-Spanish messages. Therefore, within Euskadi, almost half the population with a Spanish or hybrid identity have stayed mentally outside the nationalist project. Again, Basque nationalism paradoxically shows ‘Spanish’ features, not only in the gap between pluralist discourse and segregationist daily life experiences, but also in the establishment of infrastructural power. The Spanishness of Basque administration is revealed by weak democracy, neocaciquismo and the weak performance of some public services. Regarding the quality of Euskadi’s democracy, the lack of civic values and civil liberties and the feeble record of its security forces, infrastructural power is even less developed than in other parts of Spain. The fragmented nature of Basque nationalism, which has also been emphasized by scholars such as Jaúregui (1996) and Conversi (1997), obviously hampers its diffusion. In addition the weak-state characteristics of the Euskadi proto-state have significantly reduced the potential for expansion in Navarra. Moreover the continuous projection by the Euskadi authorities of Euskal Herria with Navarra as an integral part demonstrates that the political basis of the imagined territory is geographically much smaller than its conceived borders prescribe. The discrepancy between the nationalist message and its social ecology, the social basis of imagined territory, has become salient in Navarra where the regional administration is involved in a less ambitious cultural project to revitalize Basque language, reducing the potential of polarization – one of Linz’ major concerns two decades ago. The weaker position of Basque nationalism in Navarra is not only due to its strong regionalist legacy and the dominance of Castilian, but may also be related to the rural and small-scale character of the Basque-speaking communities and the lack of nationalism in the foral institutions. Nationalist fragmentation and competition between mobilization from below and above in Hegoalde are linked with political violence. Violence has persisted up to the present day. Neither substantial and generous accommodation to nationalist claims, nor the restoring and deepening of democracy in Spain has pacified the Spanish Basque Country. The next chapter traces the root causes of the continuity of political violence.

7

The spatial dimension of violence Beyond the fracture lines

The traffic policeman José Pardines, who was killed on 7 June 1968, is generally seen as ETA’s first political killing. In the Spanish Basque newspaper El Correo of 19 September 2000 Ernest Lluch – a former socialist Minister who himself was killed by ETA on 21 November 2000 – wrote that the first victim was not Pardines, but Begoña Urroz Ibarrola. Begoña was a baby of 22 months who was accidentally killed by the explosion of an object on the railway station of Amara in San Sebastián on 27 June 1960. Neither the Spanish authorities nor ETA have officially acknowledged her death as a result of ETA’s violence. ETA’s death toll since 1960 is claimed to be more than 800, plus over 25 battle-related deaths. This would qualify the conflict as a ‘minor armed conflict’ (Wallensteen and Sonnenberg 2000: 542, 648). Although, from a military perspective, the conflict is limited and contained, there is widespread concern about violence in Euskadi. Violence, in this respect, should not only be understood to be direct bodily injury, but also includes the threat of harm to people and objects (Chapter 1). The longitudinal surveys conducted by Euskobarómetro reveal that violence and terrorism are seen as today’s main problem. In November 2001 39 per cent of the respondents referred to violence and terrorism as their main concern, while unemployment was rated the most worrying problem by 26 per cent of the respondents (Euskal Herriko Unibersitatea 2002). The fact that the violence has continued for more than 40 long years qualifies the conflict as ‘protracted’ and perhaps even ‘intractable’. Protracted and intractable conflicts have in common that they last for at least one generation. In contrast to protracted conflicts, the adversary groups in intractable conflicts consider their goals to be irreconcilable (Kriesberg 1998: 161). According to this definition, the irreconcilability of goals is applicable to one set of adversaries, namely ETA and Iparretarrak on one side and the states of Spain and France on the other. To the other set of adversaries, namely both states versus the PNV, EA, or AB, the irreconcilability of goals has varied over time. Historically, Francoism has been incompatible with peripheral nationalism, while post-Franco administrations have always showed varying degrees of sensitivity towards ethnoregionalism. In addition, PNV, EA, and AB have demonstrated alternating views on independence and strategies to obtain sovereignty. Before analysing why Basque political violence has been so persistent, I will first describe the diverse expressions of violence. I will show that violence in Spain takes many forms, which have a specific time-bounded intensity. These violent

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177

manifestations of the conflict are mainly confined to Hegoalde and, in particular, Euskadi. This makes the conflict predominantly one between the inhabitants of Hegoalde instead of a struggle between a pan-Basque alliance and the two states. The sections accompanying the description will provide some answers to the question of why terrorism has lasted so long. I will show that the protracted nature of violent struggle is subsequently related to :

• • • • •

a spiral of violence followed by street violence; ideological and organizational features of the adversaries in the conflict; the existence of locally rooted support bases of violence-condoning nationalism; a supportive economy; anti-system features of violence-rejecting nationalist parties.

Manifestations of political violence Killings and assaults are the most blatant manifestations of nationalist-inspired violence. Violent separatism is mirrored by legal and illegal counter-violence by state institutions (see Chapter 3). The violent struggle for independence is tangible through violent events. These events concern measurable indicators of conflict intensity such as assaults, kidnappings, street vandalism and less quantifiable indicators such as extortion, intimidation, discrimination or social isolation that only partially appear in statistics. Coercive events connected with separatism can be seen as the hardware of violence, whereas the actors and institutions who are actively or passively involved in violent actions can be regarded as its software. Killings and kidnappings show similar variations over time (Fig. 7.1). ETA violence peaked in 1980, with 100 killed and 15 kidnapped respectively. The peak followed the democratic transition of 1977 (first elections) and 1978 (new Constitution) and suggests evidence for the thesis that democratization and violence escalation are related (Gurr 1993; Snyder 1994). The graph also shows that the intensity of this type of violence gradually decreases after 1980. With regard to killing rates one can discern a high concentration in Euskadi compared to Navarra (Table 7.1). The proportion of kidnappings – at 77 per cent in Euskadi – also reveals a similar concentration pattern. In the case of diverging spatial identities between dominant and minority groups, Kaplan has postulated the following typology of potential zones of conflict: (1) the cultural border between dominant and minority groups; (2) the [culturally] mixed area; (3) the state border (relevant to cases of irredentism concerning the dominant groups); (4) the symbolic heart of a group; (5) a resource-rich area; and (6) sites contested by the separate peoples (Kaplan 1994: 558). The third type of situation can be eliminated from this hypothetical outline because the dominant group, the Spaniards, do not have cross-border concentrations of compatriots. Kaplan considers (4), (5), and (6) as context-specific. Historically, the bombing of Guernica at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1937 can be considered as an attack on the symbolic heart of Basqueness. At present, Madrid, as Spain’s core, and Guernica, as a symbolic Basque place (or would it be Euskadi’s capital Vitoria, or Pamplona, or Estella-Lizarra?), are potential candidates for high conflict intensity. However, the

178 Territory and Terror 120

16 14

100

Killings

10 8

60

6

40

Kidnappings

12 80

4 20 0 1960

2 0 1965

1970

1975

1980

Killings

1985

1990

1995

2000

Kidnappings

Figure 7.1 ETA victims, 1960–2003 (Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo 2002; Guardia Civil 2004).

geography of killing rates does not support the fourth ideal-type of situation. The latter is obviously also true for (5) and (6), as no specific resource-rich areas can be distinguished, nor sites contested by separate peoples. The main candidates therefore remain types (1) and (2) because the death toll is by far the highest within Euskadi. The cultural border between dominant and minority groups, Spanish and Basques, does not coincide with the administrative borders of Euskadi but is situated within the Basque Country, while the mixed areas are also to be found within the Basque Country. Once again, the killing figures in Table 7.1 confirm that the Basque conflict is predominantly an internal conflict within Euskadi. Perhaps the second oldest type of violence practised by ETA is the extortion of businessmen, professionals, and other persons eligible to pay impuesto revolucionario Table 7.1 ETA killings per region, 1960–2001 Number

% of total (a)

% Population of Spain (b)

Concentration rate (a)/(b)

Euskadi Navarra Madrid Catalonia Other regions, Spain

575 39 124 57 58

68 5 15 7 6

5 1 13 15 66

13.6 5.0 1.2 0.5 0.1

Total Spain

848

100

100

1.0

Source: Asociación Victimas del Terrorismo (2004).

The spatial dimension of violence

179

‘revolutionary tax’ to ETA. The phenomenon of revolutionary tax has spread beyond the circles of wealthy entrepreneurs and professionals. Nowadays, it is common practice among small shopkeepers, bars, travel agencies, insurance companies, medical doctors and lawyers (Calleja 2001: 185). The threat no longer consists of being kidnapped or killed but instead an assault on the home or business establishment using Molotov cocktails. Below I will deal with extortion as part of the ETA economy (see section on the supportive economy). Street violence, kale borroka, was initiated as part of a deliberate ETA strategy. Kale borroka started in 1974 when ETA joined a popular protest movement against the building of the Lemoniz (Lemoiz) nuclear plant near Bilbao. Dozens of assaults and several deaths, in particular during the early 1980s, led to the abandoning of nuclear energy projects in Hegoalde. The follow-up to Lemoniz consisted of protests against the plotted highway from San Sebastián to Pamplona between 1990 and 1992 (Domínguez Iribarren 2000: 404). From late Francoism onwards, solidarity with anti-system movements, ecologists, squatters, radical feminists, etc., has been part of the ideological package of the violent organization. Until 1995 street violence could be seen as a spin-off of anti-system organizations, of which ETA was perhaps the most prominent. After 1995, up to the present, kale borroka became a deliberate strategy of the terrorist organization. The idea for such a strategy originated in the 1980s when one of ETA’s leaders, José Luis Álvarez Santacristina, nicknamed ‘Txelis’, developed a strategy to expand violent actions beyond the direct sphere of their members. He designed X, Y and Z groups, the X groups in charge of political agitation, the Y groups sabotaging public and private interests and the Z groups consisting of ETA’s own commandos. From 1995 onwards, the Y groups, reappearing under the umbrella of cover organizations that changed their names (subsequently Jarrai, Haika, Segi), became increasingly active in street vandalism and ‘spontaneous’ popular outbursts of anger. The integration of kale borroka into a new strategy of ETA can be explained by the weakening of its operational military force, in particular after the arrest of the main leaders in March 1992 in Bidart, just across the French border. Street violence was often inspired by the situation in Palestine and by IRA-linked actions in Northern Ireland. The outfits worn, Palestinian shawls or marine-blue IRA provisional sweaters, reflected this inspiration. During the self-declared truce in 1998 street violence substantially increased hatred among radical nationalists and fed feelings of fear among their adversaries. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Interior, street violence gained momentum during the truce of 1998–9, in particular after the celebration of the autonomous elections of 25 October 1998. The number of borroka actions increased to 390 in 1999 and to 581 in 2000 and 552 in 2001 and then decreased to 448 in 2002 and 150 in 2003 (Ministerio del Interior 2002, 2004). The Spanish news media generally see the sharp decline as a result of more stringent policy and judicial measures that considerably increased the cost of participating in the kale borroka. When, in 2002, the Ministry of Interior legally reclassified the actions of ‘street violence’ as ‘urban terrorism’ the message to the Basque street gangs was clear: any participation in this type of violence was from now on a serious crime, heavily sanctioned by law.

180 Territory and Terror The geography of street violence (Table 7.2) again reveals an almost exclusive confinement to Hegoalde. In Hegoalde the highest number, and particularly the highest rate of street violence, is recorded within Guipúzcoa with a per capita rate that is significantly higher than the rates of each of the other Basque territories. Raento (1997: 195), who has mapped the police actions against all types of protest (1988–94), has discerned a high concentration in the cities of Bilbao, San Sebastián and Pamplona and to a lesser degree Vitoria, thereby confirming the urban-biased pattern of radical protest of the previous period (1978–88) (Mata López 1993: 90). The orchestrated rise of street violence accompanied by a decline of killing and kidnapping intensities demonstrates that the intensities of each kind of violence changed over time. In the next section, I will argue that these variations are mainly due to successful anti-terror measures that prompted ETA to change its own strategy. The decline in the numbers of people killed or kidnapped and targeted assaults, though measurable in a quantitative sense, has been compensated for by other types of violence whose qualitative impact on fear creation may even be stronger. Apart from the kale borroka and continuing extortion, ETA’s sympathizers increasingly used techniques of intimidation. In 2001, abertzales organized mail campaigns in which 18,000 letters were sent to private persons who were asked to contribute ‘voluntarily’ to the association of families of ETA prisoners (El Mundo 11 December 2001). In several municipalities, where abertzale-controlled councils issued a ‘Basque identity card’, ID-supporters went from house to house in order to assess whether they would be interested in applying for a Basque ID-card. The card, not recognized by any legal authority, would facilitate access to certain municipal facilities. Journalists’ reports provide much information about various forms of intimidation, such as shopkeepers who feel forced to display posters in their windows and proprietors of newspaper stands who are forced to give a prominent place to ETAlinked newspapers, booklets and pamphlets. Apart from intimidation to show solidarity with abertzale issues, there is intimidation aimed at supposed adversaries and people who try to find a third way between abertzale goals and policies of the central government. Occasionally, intimidation has taken place beyond the borders of Hegoalde. In December 1999, many PP municipal councillors on the Spanish costas, who are politically responsible for tourism, received threatening Table 7.2 Street violence related to Basque nationalism, 1999–2002 Province

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003 Inhabitants Total Incidents per (× 000) incidents ’000 inh.

Álava Guipuzcoa Vizcaya Navarra Other

42 123 145 78 2

54 205 220 99 3

43 257 169 84 0

36 214 160 38 0

12 64 53 21 0

286 679 1139 538 37,028

187 863 747 320 5

0.66 1.27 0.66 0.95 0.00

Total

390

581

552

448

150

39,670

2121

0.04

Source: Vicepresidencia Primera del Gobierno, Ministerio del Interior (2002, 2004), INE (inh.) (2004).

The spatial dimension of violence

181

letters from ETA. However, while the orchestration of fear has an irregular and incidental character outside the Basque Country, it has been institutionalized as a part of daily life inside Euskadi and in parts of Navarra. Although most of the victims of violence are in the Basque Country it still does not say very much about who were the victims, or in other words against which kind of people and institutions the violence has been directed. Nowadays, not only the representatives of the Spanish military and police forces are targeted but also journalists of the ‘Spanish’ media, the regional police, PP and PSOE politicians, judges and even people sympathetic to the ETA cause. Table 7.3 reveals the high share of the death toll suffered by Spanish police forces and the army. Among the targeted civilians are prison staff, judges, industrialists who do not want to pay their extorted ‘tax’ or who represent ‘capitalism’ (banks) or pollution (nuclear plants). Since the mid-1990s in particular the number of politicians killed by ETA has significantly increased. The abertzales usually condemn institutions and persons holding opposite ideas to theirs, in other words everything and everybody somehow related to the ‘Spanish state’, as well as sympathizers who try to improve communication with state institutions in order to obtain concessions through negotiations. ETA therefore kill bridge-builders like prison psychologist Francisco Gómez Elósegui (killed in 1997), who tried to mitigate the conditions for ETA prisoners, or former socialist minister Ernest Lluch (killed in 2000), a bascophile and champion of a ‘third way’ political solution for the Basque conflict. There is also a difference between the politicians of today who have been killed and the small number killed under late Francoism or during the transition. While the former, in particular, have personal records of protest against Francoism and the championing of democracy, the latter were representatives of the old Francoist administration. Legitimizing violence against people empathetic to the cause can only be explained by strict boundary maintenance towards the out-group by an ingroup of sectarian features. It is therefore, not surprising that some authors stress the closed nature of the territory in which ETA sympathizers exclusively Table 7.3 Targets of ETA killings, 1960–2003 Institution

Killed

Spanish security forces Spanish army Other security forces Civilians Politicians of Spanish parties

341 97 38 344 33

Total

830

Sources: Ministry of Interior (2004), Asociatión Víctimas del Terrorismo (2004). Notes Spanish security forces concern Guardia Civil and Policía Nacional, other security forces refer to local police, Ertzaintza, Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police); politicians Spanish parties belong to respectively PP, PSOE, UCD, UA, UPN, Francoist Movimiento.

182 Territory and Terror communicate with fellow believers (Gurrutxaga Abad 1996: 175–80). Table 7.4 reveals a rough indication of the present targets of violence. The category ‘other’ is large due to annual variations in the presentation of the statistics of the Spanish Ministry of Interior. In 2001 it was not possible to distinguish buildings belonging to state institutions, while the total number of specified reported cases for 2001 of 381 is significantly lower than the total number of non-specified cases. Despite these imperfections, the most important group obviously consists of attacks on private firms, with attacks on banks scoring highest with 418 out of 577 events in 1999–2003. Most bank attacks consist of cash machines burned by masked youngsters. In the Basque and Spanish newspapers, the destruction of cash machines is small daily routine news, in the same category as traffic accidents and petty crime. The cash machine war can be explained by ETA’s radical anti-capitalism, together with the relative ease with which the target can be hit. Despite its lower proportion in the total range of targets, the qualitative impact of attacks on ‘Spanish’ parties is more serious. These parties, the PP, PSE-PSOE, UA and UPN, suffer from harassment, intimidation and violence directed towards their members and assaults on their offices. Violence against Spanish parties seriously curtails civil liberties and forms an important obstacle to conflict de-escalation (see next sections). The transport and communications targets consist of burning municipal buses, sabotaging railways and damaging telephone and electricity networks which are often claimed to be part of the infrastructure of the ‘Spanish state’ and therefore eligible for destruction. Compared to ETA’s assaults during the 1980s and early 1990s, the kale borroka has a far lower record with regard to the personnel and materiel of Spanish security forces. The assaults on garrisons of the army, the Civil Guards, the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía, or their personnel obviously require more preparation and involve higher risks, which may explain the ‘low profile’ with respect to the other categories. The Basque security forces, the Ertzaintza, nowadays suffer a similar attack rate as the Spanish forces. So far, I have dealt with the shape and intensity of violence with a focus on the direct targets, human victims, buildings and equipment. I have not yet analysed the perpetrators of violent acts and their helpers. Who are they, what is their social Table 7.4 Targets of street violence Objective

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 1999– 1999– 2003 N 2001%

Spanish parties Spanish security forces Basque parties Basque security forces Private enterprise Communications and transport Other

89 25 5 8 67 75 121

66 23 11 20 184 73 204

34 14 16 36 205 40 207

10 1 24 19 107 20 267

15 0 18 5 14 8 90

214 63 74 88 577 216 889

10.1 3.0 3.5 4.1 26.3 10.2 41.9

Total

390

581

552

448

150

2121

100.0

Source: Ministerio del Interior (2002, 2004).

The spatial dimension of violence

183

background and are certain areas more likely to produce etarras or borroka gangs than other places? To answer these questions I will distinguish several levels of personal involvement (Mansvelt Beck 1999b: 109–10). The first and highest one concerns direct commitment to ETA. Evidently, kidnappers, bombers and gunmen belong to this level, as do those who are actively involved in the organization and the direct support of violent actions like, for instance, the collection of ‘revolutionary tax’. This level of involvement is least visible and, consequently, hardly appropriate for measurement. The second, intermediate level of involvement consists of persons who engage in street violence. These days, youth divisions of ETA’s political wing organize street gangs. In a chronological order, ETA’s youth branch has used the following names: Grupos Y, Jarrai, Haika and Segi. The name changes have been tactical reactions to actions by the Spanish legal authorities. The third and weakest level of involvement relates to popular support for violent separatism reflected in voting for HB or EH. These parties can be considered as ETA’s political wings for two reasons. First, the political discourse glorifies etarras (ETA members) as patriots, freedom fighters, idealists, etc. This has been shown on many occasions, for example in March 1997 when HB used a propaganda video of masked etarras during the election campaign for the Spanish Parliament. Likewise, HB and EH have put imprisoned ETA members on the list of candidates for the Euskadi Parliament and some municipal councils. Second, the HB-EH political comments on violent ETA actions reflect understanding or indulgence. The most common practice is to abstain from public disapproval of violent events, whereas the other political parties openly reject them. Like other violent movements, such as IRA, Shining Path, PKK, and neo-Nazi groups, the combatants are usually young males. Reinares’ sample (2001: 189– 200), albeit incomplete due to the limited availability of documents in the administration of justice, indicates that during the 1970–95 period 88 per cent of the militants started activities when they were younger than 27, with 66 per cent in the age bracket of 18–23 years. The same author observes a slight increase in the share of female perpetrators from 4 per cent during the 1970s to 11 per cent during 1983–95, though a more substantial shift applies to the age of recruitment, which has dropped over time. During the latter period, 85 per cent joined the organization when aged 24 or less, whereas during the period 1970–7 only 37 per cent of the starters were in this age group. The increase in young starters is also reflected in the absence of married persons, at present contrasting with one-fifth of married members during the 1970s. The extra risk of escalation from a radical movement to terrorism through the involvement of many young people between the ages of 18 and 25 suggested by Post et al. (2002a: 76) correlates with the increase in street violence but not killings and kidnappings. The potential loss of control of the youngsters by radical organizations often leads to engagement in high-risk operations because of the absence of serious responsibilities (Post et al. 2002a: 91). However, the ETA case shows that rejuvenation in existing terrorist organizations does not necessarily lead to an increase in the intensity of killings and kidnappings. Obviously, Guipúzcoa is the most fertile breeding ground for ETA with almost

184 Territory and Terror half of their imprisoned members born or having their last residence in that province (Table 7.5). The geography of ETA’s recruitment has shifted from small and medium-sized settlements in the industrializing interior of Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya during the 1970–85 period to the metropolitan areas of Bilbao and particularly San Sebastián (Reinares 2001: 41–9), Whereas the etarras of the early period were predominantly Basque-speaking and had Basque surnames, the present generations are no more predominantly linguistic Basques, while 60 per cent do not have two Basque surnames (Reinares 2001: 42). The rise as a recruitment base of San Sebastián’s suburban municipalities also reflects the emergence of what Reinares has called the new middle class of secondary school students, often dropouts, brought up in a context of increasing anomy in conflictive municipalities like Rentería, Hernani or Oyartzun. The role of the district of Goierri south of San Sebastián is often somewhat overexposed in a quantitative sense. Qualitatively, however, it has been an important seedbed for ETA’s leadership (Loyer 1997: 341–2; Domínguez Iribarren, 1998: 54–5; Reinares, 2001: 39). The places where young men socialize with ETA are increasingly located in the suburban contact zone of castilianized San Sebastián and the Basque-speaking hinterland. In this contact zone, where the Basque language is spoken far less than in the cradle of ETA, radical Basque nationalism competes with non-violent Basque nationalism, Spanish socialism and the Spanish centre-right. In this conflictive and confusing environment, youngsters become more easily engaged in drug abuse, street violence or terrorism. According to Calleja (2001), ETA increasingly recruits its members from the most brutal rioters. Assuming, therefore, that the geography of recruitment for kale borroka coincides with ETA’s recruitment patterns, the share of militants from the suburban municipalities participating in street violence in the old downtown areas can be estimated as disproportionately high. How different is the French Basque Country? If one looks at the heyday of terrorism during the 1975–87 period there were 58 violent actions by Iparretarrak (‘those of the North’ or ‘those of the ETA of the North’) and 39 actions by nine other minuscule ephemeral organizations (Moruzzi and Boulaert 1988: 20, 73–5). With four policemen killed and five Iparretarrak members shot, violence has been contained and has faded away to only a few actions per year targeted against Table 7.5 Profiles of ETA militants Province

A % of population

Álava Guipúzcoa Navarra Vizcaya Other n

10.8 25.7 20.4 43.1 — —

B % born 4.4 46.4 7.7 34.8 6.7 431

Source: Taken from INE (2003) and Reinares (2001).

C % last residence 3.5 48.2 8.6 38.7 1.0 313

B/A

C/A

0.4 1.8 0.4 0.8 — —

0.3 1.9 0.4 0.9 — —

The spatial dimension of violence

185

property. To my knowledge, there are almost no other manifestations of violence in Iparralde. The French authorities aborted potential extortion when, in 2001, the Prefect of the Département stated that he would not tolerate any pressure concerning fundraising by Gureak, an association for Basque prisoners that sent thousands of letters to local businessmen (L’Express 8 March 2001). Street violence occurs sporadically, particularly after special events like music festivals or mass manifestations with a high media exposure, and is usually a joint effort by French and Spanish-Basque youngsters, the latter more experienced in the kale borroka. In contrast to Hegoalde, violence in Iparralde therefore has an incidental character whose impact on society is no more than skin-deep. I have just shown that manifestations of violence have changed from a focus on killing and kidnapping culminating in the early 1980s to street violence at present. This shift has not opened a way out of the conflict but has been prolonged by the manipulation of fear and hate within Hegoalde. Consequently, the intractable features are thus not linked to a simple spiralling of violence.

From spiral of violence to ‘pain socialization’ Manifestations of violence are a direct result of ETA’s conflict strategy. When ETA engaged in violent actions during the mid-1960s they did so with the expectation that action would be responded to by repression, which in turn would provoke more action. During the late Francoist period, the ETA strategists’ expected spiral of action–repression became a fact. The Spanish authorities answered the first assaults with severe repression such as the proclamation of a state of emergency, first in Guipúzcoa and then in the rest of Spain. Severe penalties for arrested etarras fuelled sympathy for the organization and swelled its ranks. Most authors agree that the early period of an action–repression strategy began in 1968 and ended somewhere between 1974 and 1978 (Sánchez-Cuenca 2001: 65). The next phase was the ‘war of attrition’ with its high death toll among military and Spanish police forces during the early 1980s. Most authors see the war of attrition as continuing up to today. This ‘war’ is grounded on ideas of total war and concomitant Verelendung, by which ETA strategists expected to force the Spanish authorities to accept their demands and negotiate. During the GAL period, the legitimacy of ETA could be maintained by emphasizing the counter-terror of the state. However, the organization suffered serious losses because the Spanish anti-terror units became more and more efficient. Moreover, support for ETA eroded within Euskadi during the 1990s. The kidnapping and subsequent killing of the young councillor of Ermua, Miguel Ángel Blanco, in 1997, and the liberation of prison official José Antonio Ortega Lara by the civil guards, made a deep impression on public opinion. Ortega had been held by ETA in an underground hole in degrading conditions for more than one and a half years and was a physical wreck when freed. Blanco’s killing caused mass demonstrations against ETA in the Basque Country. ETA’s strategic reaction was to establish links with the PNV and EA, by some observers labelled as a nationalist front strategy (Domínguez Iribarren 2000; Sánchez-Cuenca 2001). The nationalist front strategy was a

186 Territory and Terror change from war strategy to a political strategy. During the truce of 1998–9, it became clear that the nationalist front strategy was increasingly accompanied by kale borroka methods. According to ETA’s discourse, the kale borroka now ‘socialized’ the pain suffered by the Basque warriors in prison among the Basque population (Onaindía 2000: 223). The pre- and post-truce phases (1995–7 and 1999 to this day) consist of a high level of street violence and a strategy of low-intensity killing directed against a more widely defined set of targets. The growing emphasis on street violence is, however, not a simple result of a shift in strategy. Instead the logistic weakness of ETA due to effective counter-actions by the Spanish government and the active collaboration of French authorities that began during the 1980s have forced the organization to opt for lower-risk operations. The greater emphasis on street violence has geographical implications: whereas during the 1980s assaults the use of car bombs particularly targeted Madrid, Barcelona and the tourist resorts on the Mediterranean, today’s violence is located more and more within the Basque Country itself. Hence several authors have observed that violence has become a Basque phenomenon with its highest concentration in the provincial capitals (Mata López 1993: 345; Raento 1997, 1999). The shift from direct elimination of supposed enemies during the early 1980s to kale borroka tactics of pain socialization in the 1990s does not automatically imply conflict deescalation. At first sight, the lower loss of life may seem beneficial both to ETA and the Spanish institutions and too burdensome to sustain the conflict at a lower intensity level. However, it is uncertain whether street violence will be less costly because assessing costs is difficult. In Kriesberg’s words: ‘Objective indicators may fail to capture the subjective experience of costs’ (1998: 162). In practice the continuity of political violence under the banner of kale borroka illustrates the persistent nature of the Basque conflict. In the French Basque Country the conflict did not escalate as in Spain. Although occasional violent incidents did disturb daily routine they did not have a deep impact on daily life. The adversaries of Iparretarrak are both the French public institutions and the great majority of French Basques who identify with these institutions. However, in Hegoalde, the intractability of the conflict is related to the features of the adversaries, both in an ideological and organizational sense. I will argue that the dynamic development of these features has impeded a transition from a destructive into a constructive conflict.

Ideological and organizational features of the adversaries in the conflict I have borrowed the terms destructive and constructive conflicts from Kriesberg (1998: 21–3). His definition of destructive conflicts encompasses the following dimensions: 1 2 3 4

harm suffered by many participants; expansion of the scale of the conflict with increasing numbers of participants; self-perpetuation of the struggle; unilateral imposition of one of the adversaries.

The spatial dimension of violence

187

Constructive conflicts are characterized by: 1 2 3

persuasive efforts instead of coercive threats or actions by the adversaries; recognition of the adversaries as legitimate while not threatening each other’s existence; interaction between the adversaries in order to find mutually acceptable solutions to the problem.

To what extent are these conflict features applicable to political violence in the Basque Country? Concerning the harm suffered, victims are predominantly to be found in Hegoalde, where during the 1990s fear was generalized and where 3,000 bodyguards were added to the police forces in order to protect the lives of ETA targets. These targets were policemen, military, politicians of ‘Spanish’ parties, judges, journalists, businessmen, and labour unionists’ relatives and friends. Intimidation, insults and graffiti indeed ‘socialize’ suffering in Hegoalde. The spread of fear has done much psychological harm and has therefore involved a lot of people in the conflict. As a consequence, according to Kriesberg’s first definition dimension, the conflict is to be considered as destructive. Expansion, the second conceptual criterion to qualify the conflict as destructive, is difficult to assess. The scale of the conflict has not expanded in terms of ETA’s logistics or coercive capacity due to policy actions. In this respect, and according to the second criterion, the conflict is not destructive. On the other hand, the high density of the forces deployed to maintain public order would designate the struggle as destructive. Moral support for ETA’s violence in terms of the number of participants has weakened the destructive side of the conflict, as reflected in the disastrous voting results for EH in the 2001 regional elections of Euskadi. With respect to the third criterion, the conflict is self-perpetuating, while a similar observation can be made about the fourth, expressed in a unilateral imposition of ETA’s goals. Constructive features have been rather unilateral as concessions mainly came from the Spanish authorities. This particularly concerns the application of persuasion instead of coercion and the recognition of HB as a political party in Spain. Interaction between ETA and its political wings and Spanish institutions has been troublesome from its beginnings and has never led to mutually acceptable solutions to the problem being sought. The ideological and organizational features of the adversaries have contributed to the protracted character of violence. First, I will briefly summarize the ideological evolution of the adversaries. Although more parties are involved in the conflict than only ETA and ‘the Spanish state’ I will simplify it into a two-party conflict. Simplification is justified because ETA and the Spanish state are the only parties involved that have been using physical violence. ETA’s issues started around the idea that Euskadi was an occupied territory that had to be freed from Spain and capitalism. Liberation from France as an issue, though part of the ideological discourse, was not given the highest priority because in France many etarras found shelter, while ETA’s operational capacity in Spain was dependent on its logistical infrastructure north of the Pyrenees. The anti-Spain and anti-capitalism issues

188 Territory and Terror persisted over time. The issues in contention, however, expanded. During the early periods of violence, repressive countermeasures by the state followed by the dirty war of the GAL death squads fitted in with the spiral theory. ETA soon had its martyrs: imprisoned militants who were to be protected from high penalties, abuse by prison personnel and dispersal. When, in 1988, the Spanish Ministries of Interior and Justice decided to give up the policy to concentrate prisoners in selected high-security jails and disperse them over many jails throughout Spain other issues of ‘bringing the prisoners back to Euskal Herria’ were born. This gave a new impetus to ETA-related organizations such as Gestoras Pro-Amnestía and Senideak. Similarly, LAB (ETA’s labour union) and local protest movements against bad working conditions or unemployment added other issues in the anti-capitalist struggle, and the contention of issues at stake so far fitted in with the anti-state, anti-capitalism ideology that new issues were added according to the conjuncture of popular protest against other phenomena. Wherever popular protest arose ETA and its political organizations HB or MLNV (Movimiento para la Liberación Nacionalista Vasca) were ready to encapsulate it into its organizational frame and add the ideological message to the radical nationalist discourse. Environmental movements, squatters’ actions, radical feminism and anti-discrimination activism had the honour of seeing their issues adopted by ETA and its organizational spin-off. ETA thus penetrated anti-system organizations in Hegoalde. The culmination of issue expansion was the declaration of the Ertzaintza as the Basque public enemy, as collaborators with the occupiers or invaders (Mata López 1993: 258). In 1992 ETA’s publisher Txalaparta edited a book about the Basque police whose back cover announces the Ertzaintza as ‘a political police against whatever type of dissidence’ (Ramirez 1992). In many conflicts, the expansion of issues in contention is a feature of escalation (Kriesberg 1998: 157–9). In the Basque case, however, straightforward escalation has not taken place. Instead there has been a shift from direct killing to a more or less stable level of street violence. Therefore, the role of issue expansion should be interpreted as the survival tactics of the proper ETA. This is because the organization has weakened from the mid-1980s onwards and has tried to compensate for losses in combative capacity by keeping the radical fire burning. Evidently, the ideological or strategic positions of ETA alone cannot explain the intransigence of the organization. Interaction with the Spanish institutions concerning the goals of both parties has produced new issues in contention and new strategies. There have been efforts to start negotiations in which both sides showed some willingness to de-escalate. As far as ETA was concerned, its political stance continued to be called the KAS Alternative (Alternativa Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista) for several decades (1975–95). The five-point programme summarized by Clark (1990: 82) included an amnesty for all ETA prisoners, the legalization of all political parties, expulsion from Euskadi of the Spanish security forces, improvement in the conditions of the working class and sovereignty. The Spanish government has made some concessions to these claims. During various truces prisoners have been released or brought closer to the Basque Country. During the transition HB was recognized and was allowed to participate in all elections, although the party was banned in 1997. ETA’s reaction to the ban was to re-establish the

The spatial dimension of violence

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‘coalition platform’ party under other names (EH and Batasuna). Similarly, the ETA newspaper Egin, prohibited in the same year, immediately reappeared as Gara. Even the authorization to build up an autonomous Basque police can be interpreted as a concession. The sovereignty claim, or nowadays ‘the right of selfdetermination’, has never been honoured by the Spanish authorities (Chapter 8). Nevertheless the granting of the autonomy status to the Basque Country is a substantial concession. Meanwhile the ETA goal of independence and the Madrid goal of maintaining the Constitution remain incompatible. The unilateral imposition of ETA’s political goals seems to be a feature of destructive conflict. In practice, however, imposition has not served to make the conflict more destructive but has helped to make it intractable. During the short periods of negotiations, interaction has repeatedly been frustrated by violence. ETA’s position changed from establishing a truce after agreement on the KAS Alternative in 1978 to a truce and talks while Madrid’s position has always been that a truce has to precede talks (Clark 1990: 234). All the attempts to bargain have, however, been frustrated by the violence. Even during the most recent cease-fire in 1998–9 the increase in intensity of street violence aimed at ‘Spanish’ interests has been an obstacle to rapprochement. The climate of harassment of persons and institutions representing Spain in one way or another has impeded even the most embryonic relaxation on the few known occasions that representatives of the two adversaries met each other. Clark’s observation based on the situation prior to 1990 that ‘so long as ETA exists the threat of violence will always loom over the bargaining table’ is still valid in the twenty-first century (1985: 233). Intransigency in political claims and the continuing threat of violence on the part of ETA have often been the result of an overrating of its support abroad and of their own coactive capacity (Domínguez Iribarren 2000). Returning to Kriesberg’s features of constructive conflicts, I can summarize by stating that the first condition of persuasion instead of coercive threats by the adversaries has not been fulfilled in the Basque case, nor the third one of a solution-oriented interaction between them. The second condition of recognition of the conflicting parties, has been valid up to the banning by the Spanish government of HB in 1997. From then on, this condition has seriously been worsened through the prohibition of EH, GestorasPro-Amnistía and Batasuna, the latter on 27 August 2002. ETA and its sister organizations have persisted in their violent strategy aimed at an independent Euskal Herria. While in other situations radical militant movements may change their orientation from violence to political participation in existing or newly created institutions, ETA’s position has stayed immovable. The rigidity is not a question of a lack of communication channels between the adversaries, the availability of substantial support from outside, or a public opinion hostile to negotiation: ‘ETA’s struggle is almost completely self-contained and independent of outside assistance’ (Clark 1985: 224). According to Irvin (1999: 25–31), radical nationalist organizations consist of three categories of militant activists – ‘ideologues’, ‘radicals’ and ‘politicos’– of whom the ‘ideologues’ are the most intransigent, oriented towards armed struggle and abstaining from whatever participation in existing institutions. In opposition to

190 Territory and Terror these are the politicos, in favour of non-violent methods and seeking their goals by full institutional participation. The radicals are the in-between category, combining violence with a limited institutional and electoral participation. The MLNV has been dominated by a coalition of hawks and radicals with politicos holding subordinated positions. According to the hypothesis forwarded by Irvin (1999: 38–47), it depends on regime responsiveness, organizational resources and a competitive environment as to which categories of activists will tend to dominate insurgent groups. Semi-repressive regimes will attract violent rebels, favouring the recruitment of ideologues. Ideologues and radicals are also attracted when resources like weapons and skilled personnel are available. Finally, a strong position of leadership of a radical nationalist organization, in competition with other parties, will favour the dominance of ideologues and radicals. Reviewing the Basque conflict, regime responsiveness increased in a constructive way and created new arenas with a high potential for politicos. In this respect I assess the opportunity structure created by the Statute of Autonomy for Euskadi as more positive than Irvin, who has accentuated more the coercive action by the Spanish state institutions, for which she has been criticized by Mees (2001). No doubt the civil (rather than, as Irvin postulates, the military) arena has been competitive due to the actuation of PNV and EA in the Basque arena. Rabushka and Shepsle (1972), who argued that outbidding between ethnic parties whose elites compete for support from the same ethnic community, increases the propensity to violent conflict in democratic states and is therefore more applicable to the Basque Country. In contrast to Irvin’s focus on context, a more valid explanation for the continuity of the ideologue-radical leadership in the MLNV is in the internal characteristics of the organization. ETA has an incredible history of internal purification following internal division and splits that created new organizations varying from short-lived splinters to real political parties such as Euskadido Ezkerra. Some diagrams displaying the history of schisms from ETA resemble the technical drawings that accompany radio construction kits. The way hard-liners have persisted in the leadership is linked with the internal dynamics of the organization. I will now explain how the hardliners’ core could be maintained as a result of cognitive dissonance, maintaining boundaries and purging politicos. In social psychology, cognitive dissonance concerns a discrepancy between beliefs and behaviour (Festinger 1957). According to this approach, people who exhibit behaviour that is not in accordance with their attitudes experience tension. Adopting beliefs that are more consistent with behaviour can solve this tension. Accommodation to claims of ETA by the Spanish institutions has often created a discrepancy between the radical discourse about the Spanish enemy and the reality of promotion of Euskera, freedom of speech through own nationalist media and increasing living standards. At the level of groups of believers in radical nationalism this discrepancy can be interpreted as cognitive dissonance. Such cognitive dissonance is easily visible among many recently recruited etarras who are from Spanish-speaking families and suburban districts, who usually converse in Spanish, but who are ardent defenders of the Basque language. It is not unusual to hear Castilian-speaking radicals complaining

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about the persecution of the language by the ‘Spanish state’ and the suffering they have experienced. In contrast to what cognitive dissonance theory would predict, ETA’s history has demonstrated that with increasing age many gudaris (a pet name for combatants) become politicos or dissidents and start believing in violence as the method par excellence to obtain an independent Basque-speaking state. The second way in which ETA has been able to persist in its ideology and methods can be attributed to the sectarian character of the organization. The ETA groups form closed mental communities with symbols and rituals akin to sectarian communities (Zulaika 1988; Zulaika and Douglass 1996). Internal group cohesion is fostered by a lifestyle that isolates members from mainstream society, glorifies ekintza (action) and destroys communication and understanding with non-violent factions of society. In the previous chapter I explained how Basque radical rock and organized street violence are the breeding grounds from which young ETA members are recruited. A dedication to political violence implies a lifestyle separating etarras from their environment. This separation involves total commitment to the group’s goals and activities and is orchestrated by socializing rituals concerning bravery and bridgeburning behaviour (Mees 2001: 218–19). Dissidents are demonized, put into social quarantine and threatened. Former ETA members like Mario Onaindía, who died in 2003, and Teo Uriarte, prosecuted in the notorious Burgos trial of 1970, left ETA to become members of the Basque branch of the Spanish socialist party and are now hounded by the ETA organization they used to belong to. They obviously crossed the sectarian border back to society and have to be permanently accompanied by bodyguards (El País 4 February 2001). ETA occasionally puts pressure on its members by sending warning signals to potential deserters. In this respect the most blatant sanction has been the liquidation of ‘Yoyes’, the nickname for Dolores González Catarain, who was murdered by ETA after having been warned a number of times. After forming part of the ETA leadership Yoyes dropped out and entered into a special government programme for social re-integration for ex-terrorists. In her diary on 28 October 1985, she wrote: ‘In my village I saw a painting displaying Yoyes chivata [squealer] and another one Yoyes traidora [traitor], I imagine there will be more [paintings]’ (Antolín 2002: 95). Meanwhile Egin, ETA’s newspaper, called her a coward (Antolín 2002: 66). On 10 September 1986 Yoyes was shot. Her murder can be understood as a symbolic act of ETA in order to prevent interaction with a state that had lost its harsh features of repression and introduced new methods of appeasement. The message was clear: abandoning the sectarian movement to enter into Spanish civil society was subject to heavy sanctions. As Crenshaw (1993), Conversi (1997), Mees (2001) and many other scholars have observed, organizations using violence have a tendency to become self-perpetuating. The third way to continue the leadership of ‘ideologues’ is to force groups of politicos to move out from the political wing or ETA itself. The last schism from Batasuna concerned the Aralar group, led by former etarra Patxi Zabaleta, which wanted to abandon support for violent actions. Zabaleta now envisages a peaceful struggle for independence in collaboration with EA, AB and Batzarra, another HB split-off (El

192 Territory and Terror País 4 December 2001). Although HB and its successor parties used to present themselves as a coalition or a platform of the izquierda abertzale with a lively internal debate and therefore a higher risk of dissidence, they are in reality a continuation of ETA. Consequently, schisms from the political branch of ETA can be interpreted as the result of purges within the organization. Within ETA, divisions on the political line to be followed have always resulted in measures being imposed by the hawks on the politicos. Domínguez Iribarren (2000: 256) recalls that the hard-core leadership overruled ETA negotiators delegated by their organization during negotiations with Spanish authorities in Algeria. The same author provided examples of repeated purges of politicos conducted by the leaders. In Iparralde political violence remained contained and in terms of scale and damage the conflict never became destructive. Armed struggle never became selfsustained because of the small size of the terrorist organization and its weak potential to mobilize the Basques. Moreover, while the experienced French democracy tolerated a non-violent protest repertoire of mass manifestations, church occupations, blockades and so forth, it imposed strict limits when Iparretarrak started to use violence. In particular, those who made propaganda in the media in whatever form were persecuted using draconian measures. One example is the director of the Basque monthly Abil, Hervé Thépaut, who in 1988 was found guilty of apologia of crime and was sentenced to a 20-month suspended prison sentence and a F30,000 fine (Moruzzi and Boulaert, 1988: 205). Moreover, most Iparretarrak members were soon in jail facing lifelong imprisonment. This deterred potential members from joining them. People who were suspected of helping wanted terrorists were discouraged from becoming more involved with Iparretarrak since the police tormented them with frequent interrogations and this contributed to their social isolation. In terms of violence, the conflict never became destructive. The only destructive feature was the unilateral imposition of measures by one of the adversaries, initially Iparretarrak and later the French security and legal forces. This was the way in which the biggest nationalist party AB, which had an anti-system ideology, was forced to refrain from violence as an anti-system strategy. Ideological, political and social isolation from the adversary through the deliberate strategies of a small group of leaders has led to an immunization against state efforts for accommodation, appeasement or rapprochement. Immunization by sectarian practice is a common phenomenon among violent political groups. In the case of ETA, however, sectarianism has proliferated and created a support base, which has contributed to their survival as an organization using violence. I will now show that this support base is spatially patterned and that this patterning does not correlate perfectly either with the geography of ETA or with the social ecology of Euskal Herria.

A geography of support for violence According to Laitin (1995), the origin of support for violence in Hegoalde can mainly be attributed to social organization at a micro-scale and to the rational choice of language activists and their followers. Concerning the former, he

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perceives a dense rural structure with localized social groups as an ‘ideal nesting ground for guerrilla action’ (Laitin 1995: 15). Indeed, the Basque Country has a history of associative life institutionalized in mountaineer groups, Mendigoixales and cuadrillas (Chapters 4 and 6). Besides his allusion to a dense rural structure – given the very low proportion of the workforce in agriculture, small-scale social life would be a more appropriate designation – I will provide evidence for his proposition that a dense social structure in environments that enable social control is a necessary condition to mobilize people behind violent methods. However, I will deal more critically with Laitin’s second point, which I will now summarize. Increased status and prestige for those who shift from using Basque to Spanish induces Basque-language activists or ‘vigilantes’ to adopt a terrorist strategy (Laitin 1995: 16–18) Although the proportions of people who choose both languages are mentioned, the proposition cannot be tested because Laitin does not mention any time span. In other words, over how many years or decades should a language shift take place in order for there to be resort to violence? Later in this chapter, I will also refute Laitin’s rational choice option by comparing similar local environments. The lowest level of involvement in violence takes the form of voting for ETA’s political party, originally HB and then EH during the last regional elections held on 13 May 2001. Evidently not anybody who votes for this party is a direct supporter of political violence. Voters may include sympathizers with a socialist, Basque-speaking state who do not agree with ETA’s coactive strategy. Conversely, people who underline the correctness of the use of anti-state violence do not necessarily vote for HB or EH. The interrelations between HB/EH and ETA become obvious when etarras are included on the candidate lists and perform symbolic acts, which present ETA militants as brave patriots. In a previous publication I demonstrated that language and the scale of local society roughly explain the geographical concentration of HB/EH voting in Euskadi (Mansvelt Beck 1999b). Although the proportion of votes for EH in the 2001 elections compared to the last regional elections of 1998 nearly halved from 18 per cent to 10 per cent of the valid votes, the regional patterns remained almost the same. Taking the proportion of valid EH votes per municipality, the correlation between the 1998 and 2001 elections remains extremely high (0.95). The patterning is thus analogous to the previous Euskadi elections while only the intensity of ETA support has faded. Using the same variables, the analysis at the level of Euskadi for 1998 can thus be replicated for 2001. For Euskadi and Navarra together the EH vote for the 1999 European elections can be used. Assuming a similar patterning as in previous elections, the analysis shows similar results as at the level of Euskadi. First, there is a correlation between Basque-speaking and radical nationalist voting of 0.78. The scale variable of municipal population size that correlated negatively on the level of Euskadi in my earlier analysis now hardly discerns any statistical relationships. Doubling the number of municipalities by the integration of Navarra with so many small Spanish-speaking rural municipalities has resulted in the disappearance of the correlation with scale observed within Euskadi. As far as Hegoalde is concerned in 1999, I have used a different variable set in the multiple regression analysis to that used for Euskadi in 1998. First, the

194 Territory and Terror accessibility variable has been left out due to its time-consuming construction. Moreover, the expectation on the basis of my previous analysis is that accessibility will not contribute to the explanation of the observed variance. Due to collinearity, the scale variable has been substituted by the variable of rurality, expressed in the proportion of the municipal labour force working in agriculture. For Hegoalde, the results of the regression analysis only reveal the language factor. The results displayed on the map speak almost for themselves (Fig. 7.2). Interestingly, the residuals, taking the outliers at more than 1.5 times the standard deviation, show a peculiar geographical concentration. Within Euskadi EH voting is higher than expected in the contact zone between San Sebastián and the Basque hinterland, and further south of San Sebastián in the Districts of Goierri and Tolosa. In Navarra, where Euskera is less protected than in Euskadi, there are 17 positive residuals and surprisingly 12 negative residuals. In areas classified as ‘mixed’ Euskera is less well protected than in the zones classified as Basque-speaking. Of the municipalities with positive residuals – more radical votes than expected according to the equation – nine are located in the Basque zone, six in the mixed zone and two in the non-Basque zone. The municipalities with negative residuals are all in the Basque zone. A closer look on the map reveals that within the Basque language zone of Navarra there are two concentrations of municipalities, one along the highway connecting Pamplona with Vitoria, near to the junction that links with the ETA core areas of Goierri and Tolosa and another located in the north-eastern part of Navarra, south and east of the point where the famous pilgrim route of Santiago de Compostella enters Spain. The municipalities near to the highway junction, to which San Millán in Álava should be added, are far less rural (about 5 per cent of the workforce in agriculture) than the villages of the north-east. The latter area of ETA support has some extension into the mixed zone. The other mixed zone of suburban municipalities around Pamplona is similar to the crescent of San Sebastián where Basque and Castilian speakers mix and form an environment that has become a breeding ground for radical nationalism. The negative residuals are situated in parts of the Basque-speaking areas of Navarra, in particular around the midcourse of the River Bidasoa and in the tourist valley of Baztán. In Vizcaya, there is a concentration in the area of Guernica where voters prefer PNV instead of EH. This analysis and my earlier study (Mansvelt Beck 1999b) have revealed that Basque-speaking environments in general are a better breeding ground for violence legitimization than non-Basque-speaking locales. However, the fact that some Basque-speaking environments are more inclined to mobilize behind radical nationalism than others can only be explained by the relatively small scale of the settlements and concomitant social control. These small and medium-sized settlements of Hegoalde offer a context of social control in which a socially and politically closed interaction system can flourish. The occurrence of sectarian-like communities in Basque-speaking areas cannot be explained by variables concerning economic transformation, accessibility, or discrimination against Euskera. Mixed areas are prone to producing a support base in Guipúzcoa and Navarra, and not in Vizcaya where mobilization and social

The spatial dimension of violence tt 5 t t t tt t t t tt t t

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t t tt t tt

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t

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San Sebastián hinterland Navarra Highway junction North-East Navarra Baztán-Bidasoa belt Guernica belt

Residuals Positive t Negative

Figure 7.2 Basque radical nationalist votes and residuals, European elections, 1999.

control worked in favour of non-violent nationalism. Therefore, Laitin’s argument that rational choice drives Basque speakers in partially Basque-speaking environments to terrorism is questionable. Assuming that pay-offs for language shifts in and around Guernica are similar to those in the municipalities south from San Sebastián and in Baztán, mobilization behind violence south of San Sebastián would then be a more rational choice than mobilization for non-violent nationalist organizations in Guernica and Baztán. Thus, following his logic, people from Baztán and Guernica are irrational and from Andoain south of San Sebastián are not. Recalling the recruitment areas of ETA, there is congruence with respect to contact zones. Violence legitimization in the Basque-speaking areas is, however, stronger in parts of Navarra and further south of San Sebastián than may be expected according to the areas of recruitment, despite Goierri having historically been a prominent breeding ground for ETA leadership. Finally, according to their surnames, the great majority of HB/EH politicians are onomastic Basques, while a significant number of ETA members are onomastically mixed or even Spanish. This suggests that the cultural backgrounds of Basque radical leadership are not identical to the backgrounds of the militant activists. On 26 April 2001 the Spanish newspaper El Mundo published a number of journalistic descriptions of the ‘Basque Gulag’ in which a number of towns and villages

196 Territory and Terror were presented as strongholds of ETA, controlled by the manipulation of fear. The localities dealt with partially coincide with the positive residuals in the regression analysis, in particular those in the areas of Goierri and Tolosa Districts and the urban fringe of San Sebastián. One observation is perfectly in line with ours, however, namely the occurrence of violence-condoning socially controlled localities not belonging to the urban fields of big cities, where violence is condoned but hardly practised. On Goeirri and Tolosa the daily wrote: ‘Their villages are peaceful because there is no political opposition. Their “national liberation war” is fought in another part. The absence of “españolistas” converts them into enclaves of ethnic and ideological purity.’ (El Mundo 26 April 2001). Thus, the geography of violence legitimization differs from the geography of violence perpetration, which in itself differs from the geographies of manifestations of violence. These three levels of involvement with violence each have their own geographical configuration. This has been simplified in Table 7.6.

Supportive economy No protracted conflict can exist without the availability of economic resources. Assaults, kidnappings, hiding places, means of transportation, propaganda, the purchase and theft of arms or explosives, the falsification of documents and the collection of information about the adversary all require resources. Therefore, a condition to remaining operative as a coactive organization is the existence of a supportive economy. Obviously the clandestine nature of the organization impedes a detailed account of ETA’s economic infrastructure and a cost–benefit analysis of its operations. According to El País (3 December 2001) – based on ETA documents seized by the police in France in 1986 during the so-called ‘Sokoa operation’ – the total yearly budget for violent actions has been estimated at 300 million pesetas (about two million US$ ). The budget for the whole politico-military organization is far above the violence budget. The problem of making educated guesses is not only that it is difficult to establish what the direct cost of armed actions is, but also and in particular what should be taken as a basis of cost estimation. Is it the whole politico-military organization? If so, to what extent are sister organizations considered part of ETA? In the case of firms or associations that exist legally, how can the expenses be estimated which are channelled to ETA? Moreover, if the entire supportive economy is taken into consideration, is it the turnover of these supportive companies that should be integrated into the figures or only that part Table 7.6 Geographies of violence Dimension of violence

Geographical concentration

Legitimization

Urban fringes of San Sebastián and Pamplona; scattered industrialized small and medium-size localities in Goierri and Tolosa districts Urban fringe of San Sebastián and to a lesser degree Goierri and Tolosa districts Bilbao, San Sebastián, Vitoria, Pamplona

Recruitment Demonstrations

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connected with ETA? These difficulties help to explain the huge variety of estimates on costs. These range from the two million US$ mentioned above for 1986 to an annual expenditure of 5,000 million pesetas (40 million US$) in 1996 to maintain its strike power and to support some 2,000 persons who depended economically on ETA (El País 10 November 1998). According to the Spanish National Police mentioned in the same source, the 1996 figure based on Ertzaintza was ‘exaggerated’. Other estimates of ETA’s annual needs refer to US $30,000,000 (Reuters 28 May 1998). Etarras who are on the paying list of ETA, so-called liberados, can expect a monthly ‘salary’ of between US$ 750 and US$ 1,000 (El Mundo 15 June 1998). This amount is in line with the 1000 dollars mentioned for ETA militants residing in Cuba, and amounts mentioned as payments for the 200– 50 etarras directly committed to military operations (El País 3 December 2001). This number of ETA members may include a few commandos legales who are members leading a normal life and generating their own legal incomes. In recent years, the operational apparatus has no longer been expanded while the political, international, economical and logistical branches in Spain have grown (El País 3 December 2001). With a more encompassing definition of ETA membership, the same daily provides an estimate of 2,000 people all over the world who are dependent on ETA ‘salaries’ and support (El País 10 November 1998). Maintaining public order in Euskadi implies a high cost as it has the highest police density per capita of Europe while the 3,000 bodyguards are paid wages which are several times higher than the ‘salaries’ of the estimated 250 liberados. Hence the maintenance of underground violence is much cheaper than the implementation of the violence monopoly of the state. Despite the ‘low-cost’ character of terror, maintaining a minimum level of violence requires a permanent resource base. Flows on the benefit side take the following shapes:

• • • •

expropriation; self-financing; controlling economic activities; rerouting white and black money.

Expropriation is the oldest form of obtaining resources. The more spectacular forms involve the kidnapping of wealthy people and raids on explosives warehouses in France. The former occasionally resulted in high ransoms of 1,200 million pesetas (approximately 10 million US$) from industrialist Emiliano Revilla in 1988, while the latter resulted in a considerable increase of the ETA arsenal with the Grenoble assault in 2001, which yielded 1.6 tons of explosives and 20,000 detonators. Extortion by kidnapping, however, is probably on its way out. The Basque businessman Cosme Delclaux, who was taken hostage in 1997, was the last victim. Domínguez Iribarren (1998: 139; 2000: 360) has estimated the total amount of money made by kidnappings between 1973 and 1997 at 6,700 million pesetas (US$ 40 million according to 1986 exchange rates). Today, revolutionary tax and ‘voluntary’ contributions for prisoners have replaced extortion from wealthy people. Apart from extortion, unforced donations are also made. In this respect, ETA’s

198 Territory and Terror indirect support base of more than 140,000 EH voters in 2001 is important as it presumably overlaps with the base for economic support. Self-financing mainly takes the form of voluntary contributions from sympathizers who donate money for prisoners in the herrikotabernas, people who are really convinced that they should pay ‘revolutionary tax’, funds raised during festivals, raffles, the selling of radical nationalist paraphernalia like t-shirts, flags, stickers, badges, etc. The production and marketing of these items has become part of ETA’s resource base. From 1992, it has been a deliberate strategy of ETA to create a continuous cash flow by means of infiltration of etarras into public services and private firms, or the creation of ETA-linked companies. Control of public or private economic activities in order to tap money for violence has been the objective of ETA’s ‘Udaletxe’ project, discovered during the Bidart police action of 1992. Since the mid-1990s, Spain’s highest prosecutor Baltasar Garzón has been trying to dismantle ETA’s economic network, which has grown as a consequence of udaletxe (Urbano 2001, last chapter). The most direct links with the world of radical nationalism consist of associations and firms that are publicly known for their radical nationalism. Suspicions rose that AEK (see also Chapter 6) had financial links with ETA. In October 2000 AEK members were accused of using resources destined for AEK to fund ETA. However, Garzón – who jailed some members – had to release them because of a lack of evidence. The media reacted according to their audience. Gara, the radical nationalist newspaper, saw AEK as a victim of a campaign against education of Euskera in line with the 30-year persecution of the language. In AEK’s view, Euskera had always been used as an ‘integrative and communicative element’ according to criteria of ‘linguistic and cultural plurality’ (Gara 13 December 2000). On 24 November 2000 Deia, the PNV newspaper, was particularly upset by the suggestion that the Basque Autonomous Government, whose PNV consejero (regional minister) was responsible for the allocation of funds, was implicated while the same thing occurred under the auspices of the españolista Foral Government of Navarra that subsidized AEK from 1991. The Spanish newspapers El País, El Mundo and ABC supported the accusation emphasizing ideological and financial links between the two organizations. Other organizations, which have been on the target list of Spanish judicial authorities, are Gestoras-Pro-Amnestia (for the release of prisoners; banned in December 2001), the herrikotabernas (prohibited in August 2002), and the media. The 120 herrikotabernas were suspected of not paying social security fees, evading taxes and rerouting the dirty money to ETA by employing double-entry bookkeeping (El Mundo 5 May 2002). According to the same issue of this newspaper the network of financial connections of AEK, herrikotabernas and Gestoras-Pro-Amnestia extends to ETAminded publishing houses and periodicals including the following firms and associations: the daily newspapers Egunkaria and Egin; AEK, Askapena (Basque international solidarity organization); Eguzki (environmental activists); Ikasle Abertzaleak (Basque education); Gazteria (youth organization); Askagintza (against drugs abuse); Egizan (feminist association); the publisher Txalaparta; Esan Ozenki (nationalist music record company); Argia (digital publications); EKB (Congress for Basque Culture); Zabaltzen

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(marketing of Basque books); LAB (trade union); and Jarrai (also known as Haika and Segí; a youth organization banned in January 2002). The newspapers El País (3 December 2001) and El Mundo (5 May 2002) reported on the ways that the ETA networks have established phantom firms to launder money. Banaka SA, the firm that coordinated finances obtained by herrikotabernas, sent money to fiscal paradises and firms in Venezuela, Uruguay, Cuba and Mexico. Banaka probably received money from revolutionary tax paid by small businessmen in these ETA bars. For money laundering ETA used a fish export firm in Cuba, a travel agency and publishing companies. Although the structure resembles Mafia organizations, including phantom firms and links to the formal economy and omertà, the constituents do not live in opulence as is sometimes suggested (for instance by Calleja 2001). Instead, most of the etarras are devoted to their ideals and live a rather austere life. About Iparretarrak I can be brief. Their economic base has always been far smaller than ETA’s resources. During the 1980s, they never became involved in kidnappings that were among the more financially rewarding ETA activities. In addition, their organization could never form dense networks that collected money through extortion or fund-raising.

Anti-system features of violence-rejecting nationalist parties In spring 2002, Spanish and Basque politicians quarrelled about who was responsible for ETA’s survival. PSOE and PP argued that secret underground contacts with ETA and open political contacts with HB and its successor parties had been one of the causes of the persistence of violence. In particular, the political agreement of Lizarra-Garazi, named after the places (Estella and SaintJean-Pied-de-Port) where it was signed was regarded as having played a major role in the organization’s survival. On the other hand, the Basque nationalists blamed PP and PSOE because of more intense policing, sharper judicial measures and the banning of Batasuna, which generated new issues of contention to radical nationalism. As far as a conflict theory is concerned, these arguments, though of a different brand, help to explain the intractability of the conflict. Banning Batasuna, Segí, Gestoras-pro-Amnestía and imposing strict controls on organizations like AEK may have revitalized old accusations of the ‘repressive’ and ‘undemocratic’ Spanish state. Within the framework of conflict theory these measures would first expand the issues in contention and second destroy crucial conditions for conflict resolution. These conditions concern recognizing the adversary and the concomitant guarantee that none of the parties in the conflict need fear extinction (Kriesberg 1998: 206–9). However, the reactive measures taken by the state did not change the incompatibility of the basic issues in contention: separation vis-à-vis autonomy. Conversely, the position of the PNV and EA helped to convince ETA-HB that their struggle could be won on the issue of independence and that one day the ‘construction of an own Basque decision space’ would be rewarded with an independent state. From within the

200 Territory and Terror PNV, critical voices blamed the way the party had been dealing with the terrorist organization. The most authoritative criticism came from former regional PNV minister Joseba Arregi, who accused the party of a negation of internal pluralism, under-reaction towards political violence and of playing a supportive role with regard to ETA’s political wings (Arregi 1996: 111–36). Arregi’s books (1996, 2000) make a strong plea for an ideological shift within PNV from ethnic to civic nationalism and from constructing a pure Basque nation state through assimilation to a plural society departing from the Autonomy Statute. Arregi’s criticism was oriented mainly to the ideological role ‘moderate democratic’ nationalism has played in keeping ETA alive. The Spanish media have been more concrete in their apportioning of blame visà-vis the PNV and ETA. The accusations concern previous and present contacts between PNV politicians and ETA and statements by PNV politicians who help the organization to prolong ETA’s economic, political, and military life. I will now summarize and comment on the criticism and review the issues in contention, PNV-EA policies and the ‘unofficial’ behaviour of PNV politicians. I will show that the role of PNV-EA has given hope to ETA of winning the conflict and justifying their case and has further alienated the two important Spanish parties from whatever short- or long-term strategy there was for constructive de-escalation. In the short term, such a strategy would involve policies which send conciliatory signals and reassure the adversary, whereas long-term strategies of gradually closing gaps can hardly be expected if short-term de-escalation policies have not been implemented (Kriesberg 1998: 206–17). With respect to the issues in contention, the soberanista line also criticized by Arregi, gave the radical nationalists new expectations to build their Euskal Herria, particularly after the Lizarra-Garazi agreement of 1998 (see next chapter). In the text of the agreement, the aim of the PNV-EA, EH and other organizations was self-determination. A new spirit among radical nationalists grew due to the support of anti-constitutional claims by PNV and EA. In the Basque parliament, anti-constitutional laws on the establishment of Basque national sports teams, claims to integrate the Castilian enclave of the Condado de Treviño into Euskadi and the reform of the standing orders of the parliament were commonly supported by the newly created nationalist bloc (Onaindía 2000: 229–30). Moreover, political PNV-EA support for udalbiltza as the forerunner of the ‘own Basque decision space’ was another anti-system issue. Even after the end of the cease-fire, the PNV-EA have continued to defend anti-system issues. A recent issue in contention, which is shared with ETA, has been the claim to have an own Basque representation in the European Union Council of Ministers. This issue has been part of the package of demands brought forward in the Spanish–Euskadi negotiations about the budget of the Basque Autonomous Community in December 2001. These common issues symbolizing the soberanista line claiming self-determination had a two-fold impact. First, radical nationalists saw their ideas legitimized by their moderate brothers and reinforced their perception that the claim for a Basque state was realistic. Second, the gap between Basque nationalists and the constitutional parties PP and PSE was widened by the new anti-system alliance of the nationalists. The old 1988 Ajuria Enea agreement between PNV, PP and PSOE, in which these

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parties agreed to isolate parties politically linked with violence, was no longer valid in the eyes of the constitutionalists (see next chapter). Apart from the usual declarations about the need to concentrate ETA prisoners in the Basque Country, the PNV has occasionally had common causes with ETA. The PNV sometimes agreed to ETA’s demands, as for instance in the case of activism against the construction of the Leizaran highway section. In 1992 secret negations between HB-ETA and PNV violated a previous consensus between all the parties except HB (Díaz Herrera and Durán 2001: 288–96). Although the general way to interpret the Leizaran case is to blame the PNV for its unreliability and to provide a lifeline for a nigh-decimated ETA, small steps of reconciliation in conflict theory may also be seen as short-term policies for constructive de-escalation. However, those steps gain in relevance when taken by an outright adversary instead of a vague ally. Statements made by the PNV’s leader Arzalluz justified ETA’s existence and increased suspicion among constitution-abiding parties. In 1994, he stated that he did not know ‘any nation that had obtained its liberation without some who plough and others who quarrel; some move the tree, but without breaking it so that the nuts drop and others collect them in order to redistribute them’ (El País 3 April 1994). In Spanish public opinion, this statement was soon interpreted as a reinforcement of PNV’s position by ETA’s violence. On the other hand the allusion to the beneficial outcome of violence implied some form of legitimization. His statement about assaults with Molotov cocktails by the ‘boys of the gasoline’ (los chicos de la gasolina) had a similar effect in that it was a sort of glossingover of the actions of naughty children who do not know what they are doing. Policy weaknesses relate to the Ertzaintza and clientelism of the new political class. The weak control by the regional police gave room to ETA to continue its actions within Euskadi. In particular, the lack of police sanctions for undermining the civil liberties of Spanish institutions and personalities might have given the impression of tolerance by the PNV-led regional authority. The weak performance of regional police forces can be understood as an under-reaction. The following quotation by Kriesberg (1998: 172) is appropriate in this respect: ‘The risk of an under-reaction is that it appears to signal weakness and whets the appetite of the adversary.’ Indeed ETA’s appetite has grown and now includes Ertzaintza personnel as targets. Passivity on the part of the PNV-EA also occurred when ETA members stood as candidates for seats in the parliament or the municipal councils, or when, during the fiestas, former prisoners were elected as favourite sons of the village. Clientelism, which focuses mainly on the PNV’s own political rank and file has probably contributed to the continuation of grievances among ETA-HB members who were excluded from jobs in the public sector. Although there are indications that PNV-EA clientele have colonized most branches of the public sector and ETA-HB presence is strong in TV, radio and the domain of language, further research is needed to provide more empirical evidence on the relationship between clientelism and radicalism. Finally, PNV politicians are heavily criticized due to their off-the-record behaviour in the form of cordial contacts with MLNV patriots, dubious practices related to the payment of ransoms of kidnapped Spaniards or the release without ransom

202 Territory and Terror of PNV-related hostages. Recently several books have been published in which these practices have been made responsible for the economic, political, military and moral survival of ETA (Gurruchaga and San Sebastián 2000; Calleja 2001; Díaz Herrera and Durán 2001). As I have just demonstrated it is not only a problem of the laxity of the nationalist parties that reject violence. The anti-system features of these parties at rhetoric, policy and informal levels have certainly contributed to the persistence of violence in the Basque Country.

Conclusion Ethnonationalist terrorism can roughly be analysed in line with its phases, which consist of its origin, growth, continuity and decline. Laitin has rightly suggested that each stage needs its own explication. Comparing Hegoalde and Iparralde, I have shown that terrorist organizations devoted to ethnoregionalist struggle can emerge under both autocratic and democratic regimes. However, the transition towards a second phase of sustained terrorism which is socially embedded in local society has only occurred south of the Pyrenees. Conversely, in the French Basque Country containment of political violence has been the result of a widely felt loyalty towards the French state, and the strict confinement by law and order of rebellious actions to an institutionalized non-violent protest repertoire encompassing whatever type of civil disobedience. Basque nationalism in Iparralde remained ideologically divided though predominantly against violence and has never had a significant mobilizing capacity. The role of successful mobilization from above has been crucial as Izquierdo (2001: 196) noted: ‘The wanderings of Basque nationalism are thus more a sign of the success of the French nation-state rather than the proper failure of a peripheral mobilization on its territory.’ Whereas terror has never become an institutionalized phenomenon in Iparralde, in part of the Spanish Basque territories it has become integrated into the local social and political routine. Political violence in Hegoalde has changed over time. The observed changes are related to a transformation of the context and the autonomous dynamics of the organization. Violence began under the autocratic regime with targeted assaults against people and institutions linked to the Spanish state and related in particular to the repressive apparatus. Until the early 1980s violence escalated according to classical spiral model of action–reaction, a process initially triggered by the coercive overreaction of the Francoist regime taking draconian measures to restore public order. The anti-regime actions under the dictatorship were not only supported by Basques, but generally enjoyed a wider sympathy outside the Basque Country. Harsh judicial measures with the notorious Burgos trial of 1975 culminated in international political pressure against the weakening regime. After the democratic transition the intensity of violence through targeted assaults and kidnappings decreased, although counter-terror by the state via the GAL death squads helped to keep the action–reaction strategy alive. The emergence of violent sub-state nationalism under democratization fits in the empirical findings of Gurr (1993) on a global scale (see Chapter 1). The historical-contextual analysis of Snyder (1994) also related political violence to democratization. He attributes a lot of

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importance to the role of political elites under democratization. With increasing political participation and democratic institutions remaining weak, Snyder has remarked that ‘these elites have the motive and opportunity both to sow myths that exaggerate the need for nationalist mobilization against threatening opponents … . Once this process builds momentum, the elites that set it in motion may be unable to control mass enthusiasm’ (1994: 314). Indeed, myth formation and exaggeration of the need for nationalist mobilization have occurred in the Basque Country, both by violent and non-violent groups. On the basis of my appraisal, however, mass enthusiasm for radical nationalism is on the way back as it initially reached some 20 per cent of the electorate and then decreased to its current level of about 10 per cent. The inability to control mass enthusiasms in Euskadi can hardly be confirmed by the officially illegal demonstration against the banning of Batasuna on 15 September 2002, when the emotions of 30,000 protesters were kept under control as a result of previous contacts between the organizers and the Basque police. Snyder is aware that specific conditions in democratizing multinational countries help to trigger nationalist conflict. Three conditions may contribute to conflict: 1 2 3

a low level of social and economic development; the weakness of democratic political institutions; the interests of the groups leading the nationalist mobilization, in particular when they consist of inflexible elites (Snyder 1994: 314–15).

The rise of violence can neither be explained by low standards of living nor by a general inflexibility of Basque elites except, that is, in the case of the inflexibility of the MLNV leadership. In Hegoalde, and more precisely in Euskadi, the weakness of its autonomous political institutions in the democratic period has created a context in which the MLNV is allowed to survive as a movement and a military organization. The internal dynamics of the MLNV have had consequences for the strategic moves of ETA and for the composition of its membership. Both strategic choices and internal composition help the organization to persist as a violent group. Strategic choices to focus on street violence instead of targeted commando attacks on political goals have finally transformed Basque violence from an internal Spanish phenomenon into an internal Basque one. Those who act and react in the conflict, and those who suffer from it, are increasingly inhabitants of the Spanish Basque Country. I have shown that violence is concentrated in the provincial capitals and that the geographical patterning of violence only partially corresponds with its support base. In this sense, the fracture lines caused by violent manifestations only partially overlap with fracture lines in the geographical support base. The MLNV maintains itself geographically in its strongholds south of San Sebastián where social control prevents people from expressing alternative views. Political sectarianism is spatially confined to areas dominated by radical nationalism. These areas consist of a closed communication system where the radical nationalist myth is continuously reproduced. ETA itself has a remarkable persistence in maintaining its violent nature. By constantly eliminating emerging

204 Territory and Terror politicos from the organization, the dominance of hawks is guaranteed. At present, contextual factors are turning against nationalist violence. After 11 September the little tolerance that might have existed towards ETA outside Spain practically disappeared. Apart from ETA, Segí and Gestoras-pro-Amnestía were put on the EU list of terrorist organizations. International moral support had already vanished before due to Spain’s positive image as a new democratic country. The regional elections of 13 May 2001 showed that its sectarian support base is also subject to severe erosion. ETA has increasingly become a socially isolated phenomenon, as Martínez-Herrera (2002b) has emphasized. It is therefore no surprise that Domínguez Iribarren (2000: 419) summarized ETA’s history as follows: ‘it is the history of a progressively weakening organization, which has harvested a growing social rejection whose only success … is its mere survival’. Finally, the assaults of 11 March 2004 in Madrid shocked many Basques and may increase the erosion of the legitimacy of ETA and their political wings. Terror in terms of violence seems to be at the end of its life cycle. The harm done to Basque democracy, however, has been traumatic. In his recent book, Domínguez Iribarren (2003) argues that, as a consequence of terror, a counter-society has developed in Euskadi around the ideology of the patriotic left and that the nearly non-existent killings and street violence are now being followed by a new and more subtle stage in which intimidation will keep half the population silent. In this chapter, I have criticized the weak development of democracy in Euskadi. This does not, however, imply a total absence of democracy. The other side of the picture consists of political initiatives to find political or institutional solutions to the conflict, civic movements within the Basque Country itself and efforts by the international community to bring about pacification. In the next chapter I will analyse why such initiatives have not worked so far.

8 Conflict solutions Past and future scenarios

Under Spanish democracy many people, associations and institutions have sought a sustainable solution to the Basque conflict. Their efforts have included truces and conversations aimed at creating a setting for a durable peace process; political coalitions to isolate parties defending the use of violence or to promote a dialogue between the adversaries; the creation of new administrative institutions to accommodate grievances; and civic initiatives to initiate debate or protect human rights and civic liberties. The objectives of policies and strategies have sometimes been to isolate radical nationalism politically and on other occasions to bring about overt integration into the various political arenas. The Ajuria Enea agreement of 1987, by which the Basque and Spanish parties decided to isolate ETA’s political wing, is an example of the former, while the LizarraGarazi agreement of 1998 concerning a common programme of the Basque nationalists supported by IE is an example of the latter. Neither isolation nor integration of radical nationalism has had any impact on violence. The same thing applies to small ad hoc steps to create a kind of embryonic understanding between the adversaries or huge institutional reforms aimed at accommodation and pacification. None of these efforts has resulted in appeasement. Both short- and long-term policies can be applied to solve conflicts, and both may have intended and unintended effects. Intervening events, awkward contexts and the behaviour of actors or agencies may frustrate the desired outcome of deescalation policies (Kriesberg 1998). I will briefly discuss the initiatives and measures taken by parties directly involved in the conflict and by third parties; these initiatives are summarized in Table 8.1. First, I will show that short-term policies have not resulted in sustainable de-escalation because of ideological and strategic inflexibility, enduring ideologues’ dominance of the MLNV and a lack of building public support for small de-escalating steps by the PNV-EA. For longterm policies and strategies I shall focus on the role of the accommodation of Basque claims through institutional plurality, the failure of a civic movement to induce a peace process, the destructive outcome of the 1998–9 truce and the limited impact of international mediation. From this rather sad historical review I shall finally distil the remaining scenarios which might be the most feasible ones with regard to turning the conflict from a destructive into a constructive one.

206 Territory and Terror Table 8.1 Policies for peace-seeking in the Basque conflict Initiatives by direct adversaries ETA/MLNV State Short Truces; Appeasing term conversations statements; release of prisoners Long term

Alternativa KAS

Third party interventions Political alliances

From civic movements

Mediations from external forces

Political, diplomatic, civic initiatives on adversaries to mitigate or negotiate Institutionalized Associations Federalization; PNV-PSE encouragement whose aim is to legalization of coalitions; to de-escalation Ajuria Enea find a peaceful Herri solution (elkarri, or democratic agreement; Batasuna Gesto por la Paz, development LizarraBasta Ya, Foro de (resp. Amnesty Garazi Eruma, Gernika International agreement; and EU) co-sovereignty Peace Centre, Victims plan 2002 Association) Ardanza plan Spontaneous manifestations for peace

The failure of short-term rapprochement Short-term gestures of understanding, friendliness towards adversaries or ad hoc measures to show some good will are often indispensable for the creation of a climate of rapprochement. Such conciliatory signals may foster empathy between adversaries, may be a first step to future institutionalization of interaction between the conflicting parties and may pave the way to a reformulation of the goals that formerly seemed incompatible. Meanwhile, short-term initiatives by third parties may reduce repression or cut back violence. Most of Clark’s observations on why occasional interaction between the adversaries in the Basque conflict failed during the 1975–88 period still hold true (Clark 1990: 223–39). Spanish and ETA representatives have been in touch on numerous events. Most of the contacts were frustrated by a total absence of trust and confidence. Sometimes representatives were killed by ETA, while on other occasions peace initiatives started by delegating reputed torturers to be confronted across the bargaining table by former victims (Clark 1990: 229). Moreover, the continuous threat by ETA of resorting to violent actions if certain conditions were not fulfilled was sometimes matched by the Spanish authorities arresting or killing ETA negotiators. Clark attributed the lack of short-term relaxation to the involvement of a great many parties that wanted to end the conflict on their terms. Clark stressed that each party aimed to find a solution that would only yield party benefits. Indeed, under democracy, an unconditional amnesty for ETA prisoners could harm the party government in Madrid for the next elections, while issue containment by ETA might weaken the position of their hawks.

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There was often no response to conciliatory signals transmitted to the adversary. During the 1998–9 truce, 135 ETA prisoners were brought to prisons closer to the Basque Country while the Government tried to convince 304 etarras in exile in Mexico and Venezuela to return to Spain without penitentiary sanctions. However, the radical Basque media and politicians (El País 29 November 1999) did not react to these signals. Instead of interpreting the measures as a small conciliatory signal, radical propaganda for total amnesty continued. Before the truce, assaults on PSOE and PP politicians obviously handicapped the return of conciliatory behaviour on the side of the Spanish politicians. In government circles in Madrid the successful round-up of the ETA leadership during the 1992 Bidart police action had caused the belief to grow that police action would be the appropriate strategy to put an end to terrorism. This belief, known as la vía policial on the Spanish side, was almost irreconcilable with the conviction of MLNV that independence for Euskal Herria was a feasible and viable goal due to ETA’s military strength and popular support. During the last truce of 1998–9, the few occasions of personal contact – only one meeting in a Swiss hotel – produced not even an embryonic level of understanding (Domínguez Iribarren 2000: 412–16). The strategic inflexibility reflected in the Spanish vía policial and ETA’s selfperception as undefeatable has blocked the way for low-profile signals. ETA’s violence during tentative contacts with Spanish institutions often frustrated any further progress. The few efforts made during peace talks by ETA delegates to implement concessions were often undone. During the Algeria peace talks of 1988 the ETA leadership was more radical than their negotiators and soon annulled the concessions (Domínguez Iribarren 2000: 364). The endured dominance of ideologues in the MLNV has been an obstacle towards the implementation of short-term steps up to today. ETA’s slogan ‘Jotake irabazi arte’ ( ‘Hit them hard until victory’) has not yet lost its salience. Obviously the insurgents never took any responsibility for small de-escalating moves, neither off the record nor publicly. ETA’s political wing never took a stance of building public support for tiny steps towards de-escalation. On the contrary, they were often strengthened in their obstinate attitude by PNV-EA, who did remarkably little to welcome these signals publicly. Therefore short-term goals of policies for constructive de-escalation by transmitting conciliatory messages and accepting responsibility vis-à-vis political supporters for these steps and reassuring the adversary to recognize the positive value of these signals have been notoriously absent. How did third-party short-term initiatives work out? The first type of initiatives were civic protests against the violation of human rights while the second encompassed non-institutionalized efforts by individual actors or agencies to persuade the conflicting parties of the benefits of containment and conflict control. In ETA’s heyday, a lot of demonstrations were counteracted by state institutions. The severe repression of the late Franco dictatorship gave rise to mass demonstrations in and outside Spain. Spontaneous mass protest reached a climax during the Burgos trial of 1970 when fifteen people were accused of military rebellion. Some of them were initially sentenced to death. Mass demonstrations accompanied by political and democratic pressure had the direct effect of having the penalties reduced (Sullivan

208 Territory and Terror 1988b: Chapter 4). The indirect effect was a de-brutalization of a part of the public security forces (Payne 1975: 247–8). According to Sullivan (1988b), the government’s goal of economic integration into Europe could only be accomplished if Spain were to have a regime acceptable to the European partner states. Spain’s image as an autocratic regime in which the torture of detainees was tolerated and rebels could be sentenced to the garrote was indeed unacceptable. French and Italian trade unions, the Vatican press and Dutch student demonstrations all had a corrective impact on the democratic and civic content of Spanish state institutions. However, the democratic transition diminished spontaneous protest outside the sphere of influence of radical Basque nationalism. Particularly after the end of GAL state terrorism, the only voices still protesting against torture are those linked with the MLNV, although incidents still occasionally occur. For example, rumours about torture against the director of the Egunkaria, Martxelo Otamendi after his detention at the end of February 2003 were taken seriously by the PNV, socialist politicians and Spanish newspapers (El Mundo 1 March 2003). During the 1980s popular outbursts of discontent increasingly turned against ETA instead of the Spanish police, prisons, or judges. Atrocities like the bombing of the underground car park of the Hipercor shopping mall in Barcelona in 1987, which caused the death of many customers, and the killing of politicians with an anti-Francoist reputation and unimpeachable conduct resulted in mass outbursts of anger. The protests against ETA climaxed in 1997 when Miguel Ángel Blanco, a young PP municipal councillor, was kidnapped and killed two days later. The effect of spontaneous mass actions on ETA was totally different from the impact of popular protest on Spanish institutions. Whereas for Spanish institutions they were an incentive in the civil and democratic learning process, ETA’s reaction was a further purging of politicos from its organization accompanied by a strategic change towards street violence (Funes Rivas 1998a: 129–42). Third parties who demanded that the violence be stopped encountered growing MLNV sectarianism, hampering fruitful interaction with the adversaries. As one knows from conflict theory, intensifying interaction is a prerequisite for constructive de-escalation. As I will show in the next section, popular outbursts of resistance against terrorism are increasingly taking place in a context of institutionalized peace movements within Hegoalde.

Institutionalization of conflict resolution and its impact on violence The first institutionalization of conflict resolution concerns Spain’s federalization. Basque nationalist politicians in Euskadi often complain about the reluctance of Madrid to transfer competencies to their Autonomous Community. In practice, however, a lot of powers are nowadays decentralized from Madrid to Vitoria. Some of the demands, for instance linguistic claims, have been satisfied while concessions have also been made with respect to other claims. In a territorial sense, the demand for the administrative unification of Euskadi and Navarra has not been honoured, but the legal possibility of joining after a referendum in Navarra can be

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seen as a concession from Madrid. In a similar way, Madrid has given in with regard to the creation of the Ertzaintza, but remains opposed to a withdrawal of the state’s security forces. The legalization of HB, the creation of independent political institutions in Euskadi and the potential of a proto-state are the result of gradual concessions made by Madrid. In Chapter 6, I outlined the limitations of the new opportunity structure with regard to building a proto-state offering a collective sense of belonging to a future Euskadi. I have emphasized the weak development of democratic institutions. Here I wish to analyse why the players in the new political arena of Euskadi have not been able to bring terrorism to an end. According to Kriesberg (1998: 210–14), a long-term process of pacification offers more chance of success if two conditions are fulfilled. The first condition is that none of the adversaries should fear for its extinction. The second one concerns the process itself and refers to a gradual increase in cooperation between the adversaries by small reciprocal steps. The first requirement was operational from 1979 to 1997 when HB was able to participate in any political arena of Spain. The second condition has never become a reality between the MLNV and the Spanish parties. When, in the 1997 election campaign, HB glorified hooded ETA members as patriots, the party was banned and the leaders were put in jail. From that moment onwards the successor parties EH and Batasuna were faced with an increasing threat of political and legal exclusion. Before 1997 HB was under pressure from all the democratic parties to stop the promotion of undemocratic practice. The pacto de Madrid, the agreement of Madrid of 5 November 1987, followed by the Ajuria Enea agreement of 12 January 1988, signed in the Ajuria Enea palace of the lehendakari, involved all the parties except HB. The agreement had an institutional follow-up in periodic consultations between the parties under the name of Mesa de Ajuria Enea chaired by the lehendakari. Although the Spanish media often regarded the Ajuria Enea as an agreement that would exclude HB from decision-making in the political arenas, the bulky report of over 3,000 words is an outstanding example of an effort of constructive de-escalation. The influential document does not mention any negative sanction towards HB, nor does it constitute a threat to the extinction of any party involved in the conflict. The phrasing sounds like an invitation to all those involved in politics, the media and education to promote civil society in Euskadi and is based on persuasion rather than on sanctioning. Moreover, the Ajuria Enea agreement is a fine example of concessions typical for a gradual reciprocation policy. These concessions were made by the PNV and EA nationalists who publicly showed respect to the Autonomy Statute, the legal position of Navarra and the role of the system of justice. They reflected a new vision of the relationship between Spanish and Basque nationalist parties, but evidently with the exception of HB. Such a reformulation of policies is part of the success formula in sustainable peace processes (Kriesberg 1998: 217). On 17 March 1998, José Antonio Ardanza, lehendakari and prominent PNV member, submitted a peace proposal to the Mesa de Ajuria Enea (Ardanza 1998). His personal effort aimed at a final dialogado of the conflict, a solution based on dialogue, and was an innovation in both an ideological and a practical sense (Onaindía 2000: 99–108). Ideologically, his report stripped Basque nationalism of

210 Territory and Terror its ethnic content and focused on the need to deepen the development of democracy in Euskadi. Ardanza honestly recognized that the Basque conflict was predominantly an internal conflict within Euskadi instead of a struggle between ‘the Spanish state and Euskal Herria’. One of the premises of his proposal is that ‘the deep political and social division that exist in Basque society’ be coped with by a ‘major political integration and social reconciliation’ (Ardanza 1998: 5). He broke with the PNV tradition of being the sole political voice of the Basque nation and opted for a process in which all parties of Euskadi were involved. In a territorial sense, the recognition of the Basqueness of the conflict goes even further. This is because Iparralde and Spanish Navarra are not mentioned as potential players in a future peace process. Given the weak nationalist support base in these regions and the concentration of violence and fragmentation in Euskadi the focus of the proposal mirrored the geography of the conflict. In a pragmatic sense the content of the proposal was also realistic as it recognized the failure of combating violence through policing while political extinction by persuasion was rejected beforehand. From a perspective of conflict theory the latter was important for the MNLV, as they did not have to worry about extinction. The proposal was an open-ended invitation and did not impose conditions on participation – except for the abandoning of violent actions – nor put limits on the outcome of the peace process (Ardanza 1998: 8). Conversely, by recognizing – at least temporarily – the existing legal framework of the Constitution and the Autonomy Statute, the proposal was acceptable to the Spanish parties. Another way to tranquilize the Spanish parties was that only elected representatives of ETA (read HB/EH) could participate in a dialogue. Thus, the fear of extinction on both the Basque radical and the Spanish side was neutralized in the proposal. Why then did the proposal fail? Three reasons can be given. First of all, no party was involved in engineering the text. It was a personal initiative of Ardanza. The absence of involvement, however, may at the same time have been advantageous as the piece was original and by its unconventional phrasing it had the potential to attract factions beyond the direct support base of the PNV. Ardanza initially gained support from the PNV, EA, IU, and UA and, to a lesser degree, from HB and PSOE-PSE. Immediately after its presentation, PP rejected the report and even refused to enter the debate. PP’s stance had become transparent during the 1990s when, in the Mesa meetings, dialogue with ETA was seen as totally unacceptable while they presented the punishing of perpetrators as the only solution to the problem (Ortiz 2002: 234–5). The socialists were prepared to enter the debate without giving total support to the proposal. Personal contacts between Ardanza and Almunia, by that time opposition leader in the Cortes, revealed their worry about the open-ended character of the proposal, which could lead to a separatist position of PNV. During an honest conversation, Ardanza was not able to clarify the future position of his party (Ortiz 2002: 237). This leads to the second reason of failure, namely PNV’s ambiguity. Onaindía’s bitter comments focus particularly on PNV’s dualistic orientation because he blames them for being two-faced, with both a constitutional and a separatist orientation. For PP and PSOE-PSE, these contrasting orientations make

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PNV an unreliable partner in peace talks. Indeed, distrust by PP and PSOE-PSE with regard to the PNV’s intention frustrated the original initiative. Should the Spanish parties have considered the PNV as a potential ally in democratization or as a future soberanista enemy? Soon a Basque nationalist alliance, complemented by the former communists of IU, confirmed PNV’s swing from constitutionalism to separatism. The third reason is ETA itself. Their political wing started to delegitimize the document because it was a product of the lehendakari, the highest official representative of the Autonomous Community that the MLNV never recognized. Although the proposal was not totally rejected – ETA declared that some parts were seen as useful but did not indicate which parts – no concrete steps were taken to de-escalate. A reaction in the form of temporarily abandoning violence could have convinced the Spanish parties of the sincere intentions of the organization to turn itself into a normal political organization. The total lack of small conciliatory steps and therefore gradual reciprocation on the part of ETA converted Ardanza’s plan into a stillborn de-escalation. The non-responsiveness to the creative peace initiative of the most separatist and the most centralist party in play paved the way for the nationalist agreement of Lizarra. While the Ardanza proposal can be seen as the end of a period of institutionalization of a common non-violent democratic bloc under the Mesa de Ajuria Enea, the Lizarra agreement marked a new era of Basque nationalist peace seeking. The agreement, officially the Declaration of Lizarra-Garazi named after the Navarrese town of Lizarra (Estella) and the French Basque town of Donibane Garazi (Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port), was made on 12 September 1998 by 23 organizations, among these all Basque nationalist parties, nationalist associations and groups, with IU as the only non-nationalist partner. The Lizarra agreement was far away from Ardanza’s open-ended invitation. The agreement was based on the example of the Northern Irish peace process which was to be reproduced in the Basque case. HB was the driving force of the Foro de Irlanda in which Basque pacification was to follow the Irish steps towards peace. A few days later ETA announced a truce which lasted fourteen months. From the beginning it was clear that a replication of the Irish model would be illusionary. First, the geopolitical context was fundamentally different from the Basque Country, with the Irish Republic as the politico-institutional mother and model for the nationalists and as a crucial part of the state system. The position of the proto-state of Euskadi was internally and externally much weaker than the Irish Republic. Moreover, the last out of seven ‘conciliating factors’ preceding the chapter about the application highlighted international mediation, in particular by the US. Compared to the Irish question, no realistic expectation of international mediation, however, could be expected either from the US or from the EU. The US kept itself aloof from the Basque conflict, although two years after the truce Governor Cenarrusa of Idaho vainly proposed that the Bush administration adopt a mediating role. The only (abortive) attempt to mediate came from former Italian Prime Minister Cossiga, who was invited by the PNV to become involved but was not recognized by the Aznar Government. Mario Soares,

212 Territory and Terror Portugal’s former President, who was invited by HB to mediate, was also ignored by Aznar’s government. At first sight the mediation potential of the EU appeared high. In the fall of 1998 Moraiz propagated an active role of the EU in a peace process because the Basque Country was a hypothetically independent member state of the EU, although he had noticed the hostile attitude of the PP (Moraiz 1998). Moreover, he firmly underestimated the increasing political isolation of the democratic Basque parties PNV and EA from the European political mainstream (Chapter 6). Another design error of the Lizarra agreement was the third allusion to the Irish situation, namely the non-exclusion of all parties. Although inclusion of all parties involved seemed a keyword, the PP and PSOE-PSE were neither included in the pre-negotiations nor in the signing of the Lizarra declaration. In addition, the Spanish parties, though attracted by rhetoric such as an ‘open dialogue’ not limited by any conditions or excluding any agents, were suspicious about the openness of the dialogue. This was because, in the sixth conciliating factor, the right to self-determination was mentioned as a requirement to open peace conversations. However, the right to self-determination was and is precisely the cornerstone of the territorial claims of all Basque parties who never explained whether the votes of a referendum would be counted on the basis of Euskal Herria on a one-man-one-vote principle, or that malapportionment would occur in the spirit of udalbiltza. The promotion of udalbiltza and the extreme malapportionment favouring the nationalists did not have a positive effect on confidencebuilding between the adversaries. Mees (2001: 815) also noticed the lack of political will on the part of the central government vis-à-vis rapprochement, which was personalized by Aznar: ‘Instead of pushing the process, he blocked it, leaking the name of the mediator in the government’s contacts with ETA, capturing and imprisoning one of the two ETA interlocutors in the government’s only secret meeting with the terrorists (19 May 1999 in Zurich), and failed to develop any remarkable measure of confidence-building.’ On the basis of my appraisal, however, the small conciliatory steps related to prisoners and etarras in exile were not responded to by comparatively small signals of reconciliation by MLNV. Despite their considerable shift towards an unconditional cease-fire, street violence oriented towards Spanish institutions and people representing them intensified. PP and PSOE-PSE politicians who used to be the targets of ETA paramilitaries now became unprotected victims of street violence organized by radical nationalists and tolerated by PNV-EA led institutions. It is therefore understandable that the PP and PSOE politicians regarded kale borroka as being terrorism as well. This obviously did not favour a climate of relaxation (Benegas 2000: 147–8). Moreover, it was not only the other manifestation of violence that frightened the Spanish interests. Under the influence of HB, the PNV and EA made nationalist policy concessions and started to play the anti-system card by adopting non-constitutional positions. Udalbiltza, the absorption of the Treviño enclave in Euskadi and the formation of Basque national sports teams were now being promoted, to the horror of PP and the Spanish socialists. Compared with Northern Ireland, the position of the main parties evolved in the opposite direction. In Ulster, the law-abiding nationalist parties persuaded Sinn

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Fein to accept the prevailing legal framework. This helped to make the position of politicos in Sinn Fein more dominant. In contrast, in the Basque Country the soberanista line adopted by the PNV and EA was the result of pressure from the MLNV and finally led to a radicalization and deconstitutionalization of the two former system parties. Instead of a greater role for politicos in HB, the role of radicals became more important to the detriment of politicos in the PNV-EA. The final effect was more acute polarization in the Basque Country. On 27 September 2002, the Lehendakari launched a proposal for coexistence (Ibarretxe 2002). The proposal, better known in the Spanish media as the Ibarretxe plan for co-sovereignty, has deficiencies similar to those of the Lizarra peace initiative. First, neither of the Spanish mainstream parties have been involved in the preparation of the proposal, nor the MLNV. Second, some of its contents are incompatible with the Spanish Constitution, such as for instance the quest for own legislative power and separate powers in foreign relations. Apart from anti-constitutional elements which alienate Spanish parties, other elements, such as the possibility for the Basque Autonomous Community to establish relations freely with Navarra and Iparralde (Ibarretxe 2002: 9) alienate the radical nationalists. Finally, and as usual, practical ideas are missing about the exact voting procedures in a referendum foreseen in the Basque Country. The Ibarretxe plan can, therefore, be regarded as the culmination of the soberanista line (Chapter 6), which has introduced a destructive element into the conflict because institutions recognized by non-radical nationalists and mainstream Spanish parties no longer function in a way that would institutionalize the conflict in a peaceful way. In Northern Ireland, non-governmental organizations have made a positive contribution to peace building. Associations of peace activists, ‘integrated schooling’, and organizations for civil and political rights have increased inter-community contacts and are helping to breach sectarian walls (Byrne 2001: 338–41). Institution-building at grass-roots level is thus helping to construct a new discourse based on civic values and develops new practices aimed at common goals no longer framed in old antagonisms. Since the early 1980s, when terrorism in terms of casualties was most intensive, civil protest started against the violence. After a number of harsh atrocities, it became gradually clear that voices silenced by terror could erupt during mass demonstrations. Peace activities were increasingly organized on an institutional basis consisting of associations. What are these organizations, what are their goals, what is their support base and why has their impact been so limited compared to the Ulster example? The oldest association is the AVT (Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo), which aims to provide all kinds of support and solidarity with the victims of terrorism (Table 8.2). Since its inception AVT has had considerable influence in the media in mobilizing public opinion against terrorism. Repeated media coverage of victims personified in mutilated children, widows of those killed and those threatened by ETA supporters and victims of kidnapping have helped to build up a negative image of ETA and foster empathy with the victims. From the end of the twentieth century onwards, AVT has gained political influence reflected in legal measures to support terrorism victims. The critical comments on the ‘solidarity law with the victims of

214 Territory and Terror Table 8.2 Peace initiatives in the Basque conflict Founding year

Aims

Main handicaps in peace promotion

Asociación de Victimas contra el Terrorismo (AVT)

1981

‘Spanish’ support base, no attention for suffering on Basque nationalist side

¡BASTA YA!

1999

Provision of moral, medical and financial support to victims of terror Promotion of civil and political liberties

Elkarri

1992

Promotion of space initiatives and plurality

Foro de Ermua

1998

Gernika Gogoratuz

1987

Gesto por la Paz

1985

Promotion of civil and political liberties Reconciliation and conflict mediation Promotion of peace initiatives, plurality, civil and political liberties

Constitutionalists blocking alternative solution; link with ‘Spanish’ mainstream parties Support base: bias towards Guipúzcoa; often associated with Basque nationalism; limited street presence Basque elite associated with Españolistas Global pretensions but small-scale operations Support base biased towards Vincaya

terrorism’ (La Ley de Solidaridad con las Víctimas del Terrorismo) of 8 October 1999 have revealed the limitations of the association. The law’s primary intention is to provide support to ETA victims and victims of state repression and terror and has therefore been supported by the PNV. However, the association is often perceived as an instrument of Spanish politics which neglects the rights of former etarras and their relatives who have been victims of GAL, torture or other misconduct by the security forces. As a consequence, the AVT is rather disconnected from the Basque nationalist sphere as mirrored in its steering committee on which no GAL victims sit and which instead is dominated by people linked with the Spanish army or security forces (Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo 2002). The same source shows the organization to have a Spanish bias with regard to the distribution of the clients with only 15 per cent out of the 6000 people residing in Hegoalde. The second oldest civic movement, Gesto por la Paz, cannot be blamed for a Spanish bias in its political orientation or in its support base. The movement has a universalist and all-embracing programme aimed at reconciliation, the promotion of mutual understanding, non-violence, civil and political liberties and has an inclusive attitude towards all ideologies, institutions or people applying non-violent methods. Gesto por la Paz has been responsible for the introduction of symbolic actions for peace in Euskadi. During the mid-1980s, it introduced silent 15-minute gatherings on the day after a killing caused by political violence. In more than 160 places, cities, villages, university campuses, schools in the Basque Country and

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Navarra such silent meetings still take place. The blue bow-tie introduced in 1993 as a reaction to the kidnapping of Julio Iglesias Zamora has become a symbol of freedom and peace. In a quantitative sense, the organization totalling 160 groups and 1,500 members paying each at least US$ 30 is less important than in a qualitative sense. Their impact is, however, important because their message has the capacity to attract both victims of terrorism and prisoners that have committed violent actions. Gesto fosters support for victims and helps to bring prisoners nearer to Euskadi. Obviously, the former may reconcile victims while the latter may do the same in the case of Basque nationalists. The association recognizes the need for education in civic values: ‘There is a need to educate ourselves and to educate the whole of society with regard to a new culture of peace based on concepts such as equity, solidarity, plurality, non-violence, non-conformism, respect for the others, antimilitarism, tolerance’ (Gesto por la Paz 2002). The promotion of universal human rights and democratic principles without excluding any ideological tendencies on the basis of respect for existing Spanish and Basque democratic institutions is the discursive banner under which many manifestations have taken place. By means of mass demonstrations that occasionally attract up to 40,000 participants, Gesto has made it clear that mass mobilization against violent actions is a civic response with a legitimization far beyond the highly mobilized support base of radical nationalism. The first mass mobilization took place in 1993 when thousands demonstrated in Bilbao against the kidnapping of Julio Iglesias Zamora, a Basque businessman. The last mass protest against violence occurred in 1997 with the kidnapping and subsequent killing of Miguel Ángel Blanco, against which protests arose all over Spain. In the Basque Country, mass demonstrations were the result of spontaneous popular anger for which Gesto had prepared part of the breeding ground. Despite the importance of civic consciousness-raising and ‘cognitive liberation’ from the disturbing bonds with ETA (Funes Rivas 1998b: 506–8) Gesto has never been the all-embracing umbrella of Basque civism. Although it is a Euskadi-based organization, its support base is mainly in Vizcaya where 122 of the 160 groups are concentrated (Funes 1998a: 36). Gesto’s stronghold is the Bilbao agglomeration, in particular the surrounding workers’ districts on the left bank of the Nervión. The immediate reactions of ETA towards mass demonstration were often contrary to what was intended by Gesto. The 1993 demonstrations led to an intensification of violence and the inclusion of politicians in the targets of the organization accompanied by intense intimidation campaigns (Domínguez Iribarren 2000: 404–5). In the longer term, however, mass mobilization has helped to isolate the MLNV from Basque society. Funes Rivas (1998a: 129–42) has shown that while devolution of state power put external pressure on the MLNV, mass mobilization resulted in a second phase of MLNV entrenchment in the mid-1990s, followed by a process of expulsion. These phases reflect the increasing isolation of the MLNV from the prevailing systems of norms and values in the Basque Country, in which it has become a sectarian enclave. A small but qualitatively interesting organization is Gernika Gogoratuz, a ‘Peace Research and Conflict Transformation Centre’ as they call themselves

216 Territory and Terror (Gernika Gogoratuz 2002). The Centre was founded in 1987, as a result of a unanimous decision by the Basque parliament, dominated at the time by a PNV-PSE coalition government. Its symbolic location in Guernica, which was bombed during the Civil War and which is an outstanding place to reconcile adversaries, and its embedding in Basque political and academic institutions, have helped it become the locus of peace initiatives relating to conflicts all over the world. It offers support for reconciliation processes, education and training in conflict transformation and conflict intervention. Its strength is its Basque-based political legitimacy as it has the support of all political parties. Their modest building in Gernika has occasionally been the scene of unofficial contact between representatives of the conflicting parties (personal communication in situ, June 1998). In the area of consciousness-raising they pursue a role in teaching educators about conflict mediation and solution. In short, the institution is important both as an interaction channel between politicians and as a diffusion point of civic values but, due to its small scale of operations and its global pretensions (a handful of people permanently employed), its impact on grass-roots mobilization is limited. Elkarri has become one of the prominent institutional players seeking peace in the Basque Country. The association, founded in 1992, has a pluralist approach and pretends to seek peace through dialogue and political negotiation while improving social relations within Hegoalde. The organization emerged from the Leizarán highway-construction protest, paradoxically the same protest that was at the origin of the kale borroka. Some of the militants joined leftist nationalist associations connected with the church to propagate a third way out of the Basque conflict. The alternative approach is clear in its recognition of HB as the political representative of the izquierda abertzale and its implicit criticism of democratic institutions such as the Spanish and Basque parliaments. Their constituency is more ‘intellectual’ than Gesto’s members (Funes Rivas 1998a: 54). Elkarri is a plural organization with 3,000 members and 100 local workshops concentrated particularly in Guipúzcoa (Funes Rivas 1998a,b: 36). Eight hundred active voluntary members work in elkarri. Their militants differ from the Gesto activists because they do not operate on the street (Funes Rivas 1998a: 50). They have been successful in organizing a long-lasting peace conference that started in 2001 and ended on 26 October 2002. The conference, held in various provincial capitals of Euskal Herria, has gained the support of a group of Nobel Prize winners. The final document of the conference is a sound proposal which can perfectly fulfil the requirements for conflict de-escalation because all the issues are negotiable, all the parties involved have been invited to take part in the negotiations and because it acknowledges the fact that mutual respect in both a political and human sense is seen as indispensable while violence in whatever form has to be avoided and international mediation and civic participation encouraged (Elkarri 2003). The fact that much of elkarri’s support base consists of dissidents of the izquierda abertzale, together with the signing of the Lizarra agreement by elkarri, has deterred PP from participating in the peace conference. Whereas Gesto has abided and even promoted the Ajuria Enea agreement, elkarri’s critical attitude towards constitutional institutions has the consequence that ‘Spanish’ parties in the conflict

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associate it with Basque nationalism. Despite elkarri’s limited support base in geographical and ideological terms, it is an important new sanctuary for politicos expelled from the MLNV who are eager to build bridges with their adversary. The death of municipal councillor Blanco in the small industrial town of Ermua unleashed a wide range of emotions all over Spain. The demonstrations featuring vociferous crowds yelling slogans against ETA and HB in Ermua and in bigger Basque cities were a clear turning point between the silent protest by Gesto por la Paz and concrete demands for peace. In February 1998, some of the Spanish and Basque personalities of the academic, art and media world established the Foro de Ermua (Forum of Ermua) based on the spirit of Ermua as the voiced mass protest against terror was called. The Foro started with 300 members, but soon they had over 1,000 signatures. Their activities are centred on voicing discontent with violence and the lack of democracy in Euskadi by means of press releases, a periodical, an award named after a recently killed journalist and Foro member supported by artistic expressions (Foro de Ermua 2002). Immediately after its foundation, leading PNV and EA politicians discredited Foro because it was presented as a creation of the PP or PSOE or even the Spanish intelligence service CESID. Although many members are Basques living in the Basque Country and the founding took place in a Bilbao hotel, Basque nationalists associate the Foro with ‘Spanish’ political interests. The Foro is therefore regarded by the nationalist microcosm as the voice of the local counter-elite. A similar observation can be made concerning less institutionalized protests by specific groups like Basque journalists or Basque university teachers. The journalists protested against the lack of freedom of speech in the Basque Country (El Mundo 14 September 2001) where 260 journalists from 25 countries all over the world met in the Euskalduna Palace of Bilbao. The meeting could be seen as an effort to support the work of the Basque press by improving the repressive circumstances and as a way to denounce the climate of fear to the World Association of Newspapers. In a dramatic manifesto, 42 teachers of the Basque Public University (UPV) explained their worries about the aggression suffered by teachers. They stated that several had felt forced to leave the Basque Country and others had to request long periods of sabbatical leave (El Mundo 27 February 2002). The common link between the Foro de Ermua and the protest of journalists and teachers is that they are no longer trying to connect with the sphere of Basque nationalism. Instead they are determined to struggle for a new democratic transition in Euskadi. The most recent influential institution is ¡Basta Ya! (It’s enough now!), named after an often heard anti-ETA slogan. ¡Basta Ya! is an association that wants to translate civic mobilization against ETA into political influence. Intellectuals, artists, and politicians, the most prominent ones being the Basque philosopher Fernando Savater and the Basque painter-sculptor Agustín Ibarrola, are among the founders of the association established by the end of 1999. The active defence of civil and political liberties within the frame of the democratic institutions in force is their basic mission (¡Basta Ya! 2002). Like the Foro de Ermua, ¡Basta Ya! is an innovative movement. In contrast to its predecessors it openly confronts radical nationalism with a counter-discourse defending democratic and civil rights and

218 Territory and Terror condemning terror and intimidation. One of the members, Basque political scientist Edurne Uriarte has therefore qualified them as a new rebellious movement (Uriarte 2003: 234–47). They champion the Constitution and the Autonomy Statute and openly contest other orientations. The slate run by PP and PSOE-PSE during the Basque Autonomous elections of 2001 was supported by ¡Basta Ya!. Obviously, the soberanistas downplayed the claims by associating them with españolista and anti-Basque sentiments. Despite confirming and perhaps reinforcing the antagonism between separatism and constitutionalism during the election campaign, the association’s influence may be significant in the long run because of the international role. The granting of the Sakharov Award by the European Union to ¡Basta Ya! reflected EU concern about Basque democracy (Chapter 6). Consequently, Basque nationalist politicians, co-responsible for the quality of civil and political liberties and eager to flirt with the EU, nowadays feel more and more closely monitored by Brussels and Strasbourg. Pressure on Basque politics has resulted in two recent developments. One is the creation in 2001 of an institution to monitor human rights and liberties (Observatorio Vasco de Derechos Humanos y Libertades) and the other is the Eudel initiative. Former UNESCO President, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, designed the Observatory financed by the Basque Autonomous Community (Deia 4 December 2001). The aim of the Observatory, which has an annual budget of one million euro, is to ensure universal acceptance and protection of human rights in Euskadi, with particular attention being paid to victims. In addition, the new institution will report violations to the Basque authorities and forward policy proposals for improvements. Mary Robinson, president of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, has praised the originality of the project as it ‘rarely occurs that a President of a community initiates a forum of this type to voluntarily submit himself to its control’ (El Mundo 6 December 2001). Eudel is the Association of the Euskadi municipalities. On 3 May 2002 they issued a ‘civic declaration in defence of democracy and freedom and respect for plurality in the Basque society’ (Eudel 2002). In the declaration the municipalities agreed that a local forum had to be established in each of them in order to promote respect for the rule of law, democracy, freedom and plurality. The forums had to be open to common initiatives of citizens and openly work to ensure the protection of people threatened with violence. The Spanish media has interpreted the declaration as a protective measure relating to PP and PSOE-PSE councillors and the potential exclusion of parties that condone violence from local politics, including the removal of Mayors sympathetic to the MLNV cause. The steps to be taken, e.g. every municipality is committed to sending periodic reports about the progress of the local forum to Eudel, are looked upon with some suspicion by PSOE-PSE and PP because the proposal is associated with the lehendakari. In an interview with a Basque newspaper, PP politician Jaime Mayor Oreja denounced the Eudel declaration as ‘merely smoke and without any authenticity’ (El Diario Vasco 26 May 2002). The new observatory and the Eudel declaration relate to institutions created by the Basque-nationalist dominated administration with a view to improving the quality of regional and local democracy. However, one should keep in mind that these

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administrative innovations have been taking place against a background of the MLNV being faced by the serious threat of extinction by new legislation and a fine of €24 million imposed on Batasuna by High Court prosecutor Baltasar Garzón in July 2002. The Supreme Court finally banned Batasuna on 17 March 2003. The disappearance of ETA’s political wing as a result of legal and police action may therefore limit the viability of some of the scenarios, which I will now discuss.

Scenarios for peace Any scenario for a peaceful settlement with a terrorist movement should take account of 11 September 2001 and its impact. The Spanish government has been eager to join the ‘war on terrorism’ by putting ETA, Segi and Gestoras pro Amnistía on the EU list of terrorist organizations and by demanding support in its struggle with ETA from the USA. To my knowledge, all de-escalation scenarios developed for the Basque Country date from before 11 September. Most scenarios that have been developed are based on a settlement to be reached by political parties representing Basque nationalism and state nationalism (Benegas 2000; Jaúregui 1996; Moreno 2000; Sánchez-Cuenca 2001). They often question which parties should be involved in possible negotiations, the conditions governing a peace process and how territoriality is to be made operational before and after a settlement. Obviously, the authors are aware of conditions that enable short- and long-term de-escalation policies. Most of these conditions are in line with the prerequisites developed by conflict theory (Kriesberg 1998). They usually recognize the importance of small reconciliatory steps in the short term, the containment of the conflict by reduction of issues in contention, the avoidance of the fear of extinction of one of the adversaries and so on. Politico-institutional engineering by political parties is usually at the heart of these scenarios where both the engineering process and the outcome are discussed. I refer to the relevance of political engineering because it may help to provide a context for peaceful political relations. I will, therefore, discuss this type of engineering first. However, I will add another scenario after discussing the previous ones, which I will call the democratic scenario. Such a democratic scenario sees the politico-institutional solution as part of the solution. This is because a real way out of the conflict not only requires new types of political relations but also demands a radical change in human relations within the Basque Country. Such relations require a deep transformation in thinking about ‘the other’, an internalization of a new system of civic norms and values and a set of conditions enabling the development of a new belief system. Whatever scenario is chosen, one should keep in mind the following words of Kriesberg (1998: 215): ‘De-escalation strategies, even constructive ones, are not implemented smoothly, since no party is wholly in charge and none gets all that it wants.’ Being aware of his wise words I will first discuss the politico-institutional scenarios departing from a territorial angle. These scenarios are subsequently labelled as nationalist, Spanish and European. The nationalist scenario propagated by the Basque nationalists aims at secession. Most nationalists imagine Euskal Herria to be a confederation consisting of

220 Territory and Terror seven ‘historical territories’, though from 2001 the radical nationalists refer to six territories, as they perceive Lower Navarra in France and Spanish Navarra as one entity. Usually, two reasons for establishing a confederation are given. The first one is a historical one because each territorial unit should firmly reflect the fueros, while the second one is based on the recognition of plurality, which sees each territory as a culturally, politically, institutionally and historically unique entity incompatible with a federation or a unitary state. Evidently the former vision is dominant within the PNV and EA and the latter among radical nationalists. There are transient and structural causes why secession will remain a nationalist illusion. From 1996 to 2004, a PP-majority government not willing to make any concessions to ethnonationalist interests characterized the political situation after the truce and in particular after 11 September. The Ministries of Interior and Justice were over-confident that applying legal measures and police actions would solve the conflict. They felt supported by the USA and the EU in their ‘war on terrorism’ while the recent banning of Batasuna in March 2003, helped by the new law on the banning of political parties, reinforced their extinction-oriented approach. On the other hand, the Euskadi regional elections of 13 May 2001 have instilled self-confidence in the PNV-EA coalition which has continued to play the soberanista card. Yet the vagaries of politics may change. The general elections of 13 March 2004 have ended PP dominance in favour of the socialists who are more empathetic to devolutionist claims. In addition, PNV may continue its historical pendulum movement and shift from sovereignty towards constitutionalism. A structural obstacle to the implementation of the nationalist scenario concerns the territorial claims vis-à-vis the geopolitical situation. The demand to include the French Basque Country in a future Euskal Herria will not only be unacceptable to Paris but also to most countries of the European Union. This is because many countries have border areas that historically and often culturally have been part of neighbouring states. A recognition by the EU of the outer border of Euskal Herria as a distinct ‘decision space’ as it is claimed by the Basque nationalists is highly improbable because of its potential to trigger off irredentism or separatism in other EU border regions. Within Spain, Navarra’s geopolitical status as an administrative region separate from Euskadi impedes integration into an imagined Greater Basque Country. In Navarra the position of Basque nationalism remains too weak to reinforce nationalist claims. The chances for any nationalist scenario in the long term and obviously in a different political context may improve with a return to Ardanza’s recognition that the Basque conflict is mainly a conflict of and within Euskadi, which leaves Navarra and Iparralde outside a settlement. Containment of the conflict as a necessary ingredient for de-escalation therefore has an important territorial dimension. Territoriality also has a practical side. The quest for self-determination of Euskal Herria, accompanied by claims for nation-building and the construction of a national decision space, has always shown a shocking lack of transparency with regard to how the right of self-determination should be exercised. Although the nationalists opt, from time to time, for a referendum as a means of deciding on

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Basque independence, they have always avoided proposing a concrete electoral procedure. Benegas, a former socialist minister, therefore blames the nationalists for discussing the issue of self-determination only at ‘a very abstract level’ and only ‘among themselves’ (Benegas 2000: 141). Sánchez-Cuenca (2001: 249), who has the most sophisticated scenario approach based on game theory, makes a plea for a clarification about who is and who is not entitled to vote in a plebiscite. The question is not only who may vote – the inhabitants of Euskal Herria, of Hegoalde or of Euskadi – but also what will be the possible implications of a rejection of independence in Navarra or Álava. Spanish reluctance with regard to selfdetermination is not a simple consequence of fear of secession due to popular support in Hegoalde. Surveys indicate that a minority of Hegoalde’s population would vote for independence during a referendum. The nationalists never made clear whether the voting procedure during such a referendum would be based on a one-man-one-vote principle, a district system in which each ‘Historical Territory’ would vote, or an extreme malapportionment as in the case of udalbiltza. Given the propaganda made for udalbiltza, the Spanish authorities have serious grounds to fear that the Assembly of Municipalities will be used for a referendum on independence. The Spanish government and the Basque nationalists are in a certain sense entrapped in the conflict because of political violence. The Government is convinced that it will win the struggle through a final military defeat of ETA. The nationalists are convinced that victory is in sight and have placed their hopes on MLNV continuing its patriotic fight. Sánchez-Cuenca (2001) has shown that the stalemate reflected in the incompatibility of goals of Madrid and the nationalists can only be solved by a common anti-violence policy of both Basque and Spanish administrations. He therefore adopts the self-determination demand of the nationalists in a future peace process by offering them a way out by a referendum. After such a referendum, independence could be obtained if the majority of the voters within the territory to be agreed upon in advance were to support secession. Obviously, this scenario would probably result in an amputated imagined territory finally consisting of Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya and perhaps Álava, which may cause the nationalists not to accept such a path. Conversely, this pathway has the advantage that the violence–civic and the statist–nationalist divisions are regarded as distinct conflict dimensions in which a firm PNV-EA policy against ETA can be rewarded with self-determination. The Spanish scenario may be orchestrated in three ways: re-centralization, maintaining the status quo or constitutional reform. Given that the Basque conflict is mainly confined to the Spanish Basque Country this scenario seems realistic. The reverse is true, however. Re-centralization based on removing powers from the autonomous communities would offend the new political class and their clientele in the regions. Apart from the regionalists, PP and PSOE politicians have now vested interests in their respective communities, which they would never return to Madrid without wanting something in return. According to article 167.1, the Constitution can only be amended by at least a three-fifths majority in the Parliament and Senate. The alternative method (167.2) requires a majority in the Senate and a

222 Territory and Terror two-thirds majority in the Cortes. In contrast to the transition period, it has – since the 1990s – not been realistic to expect party-wide consensus because of the ‘tense climate of party political confrontation’ (Moreno 2000: 135). The constitutional reform to empower the Senate in regional questions and give the Basque, Catalan and Galician governments a preferential position as proposed by Moreno (2000: 134–43) as the best way to accommodate the claims of sub-state nationalists will therefore remain a castle in the air. Moreover, a de jure federalized Spain with veto rights for minority nations may appease Catalan and Galician aspirations, but will be beyond the scope of Basque nationalism. A status quo approach in which the Constitution and the Basque and Navarra Autonomy Statutes form the legal frame of departure is the backbone of the Spanish scenario propagated from Madrid. It is within this frame that the two dimensions of the Basque conflict, namely nationalism and violence are being combated, the former by competition in the political arenas, the latter by elimination. Although at first sight a status quo scenario is not attractive to the Basque nationalists because they see the present institutions as illegitimate, most scenario builders take the existing constitutional framework as a base from which negotiated reform should develop. According to Jáuregui, a future scenario can be developed even beyond the narrow limitations of Spain or Euskal Herria. Instead of Spain or an independent Basque Country his hope is founded on a ‘Europe of the Regions’ (Jáuregui 1996: 147–55; 1997: 121–80). The European scenario would be a reflection of the general tendency of empowerment of the regions in Europe. EU institution-building has a strong regional component which recognizes the legal and financial autonomy of regions. The state administrations that are at the origin of regional institution-building in the EU thus legitimize the empowerment of regional administrations, often embodied in the allocation of resources to many sorts of regional associations and individual regions eligible for specific European funds. The acceptance of the principle of subsidiarity allows for asymmetries in the powers of regional administrations, though on the other hand this has not produced any direct treaty-making power of regions in the EU. Some federalized countries like Belgium have coped with the regional European aspirations by using the central administration as a messenger of regional claims. At first sight empowering the Basque Country can be attractive to Madrid and Vitoria. Spain is strongly committed to European integration and has championed the transfer of parts of her sovereignty to Brussels as well as the EU support to regional associations and regional subsidies. In this respect, European financial support to Spanish regions has helped the political class to legitimize itself. Moreover, the political rhetoric of Spanish parties and the Basque nationalists glorifies Europe and has placed its hope in its construction. However, the present political climate impedes any concession towards an empowerment of Euskadi in European issues. During the discussions of December 2001 between the central and Basque governments about the concierto económico, Basque claims for a representation in the EU at the level of state ministers were immediately rejected by Madrid because they were subject to a common European decision-

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making process. Moreover, within the European arena, the PNV and EA have lost their credibility and badly need allies. The construction of a Europe of regions is hardly supported by popular identification. While Europe occupies a prominent place in the political discourse of Spanish and Basque parties, citizens identify predominantly with their regions or Spain. As my investigations have shown, all the politico-institutional scenarios discussed so far overlook the fact that real pacification takes place in people’s minds. This is because final reconciliation is reflected in the behaviour of ordinary people. How can ordinary people be stimulated to respect civil liberties and to reject uncivil behaviour? I will show that such an incentive to create a civil society in the Basque Country can only take place through a democratic scenario, a scenario equivalent to a second democratic transition. The democratic scenario is crucial to a successful pacification of the Basque Country because it is a prerequisite for a settlement based on politico-institutional engineering and at the same time it is the final section in a de-escalation process. I will first argue why the development of democratic institutions is so important for a final settlement. Before a political settlement the parties involved in the conflict will have to negotiate. People and institutions that enter into a bargaining process can do so successfully if they are assured that the adversary will not impose its conditions and that there is no fear for their own existence. When the MLNV started to promote street violence directed against ‘Spanish’ interests, those who voiced them were put into peril. Bodyguards often accompany politicians, journalists, and intellectuals in the Basque Country. Meanwhile the media controlled by nationalists offer a biased view of the conflict. The lack of freedom of speech and personal security for potential negotiators from the ‘Spanish’ side is an important obstacle to relaxation. Therefore, a truce combined with kale borroka, has not created a climate for détente. Benegas (2000: 146) bluntly states that kale borroka actions against PP councillors explain the inflexible attitude of Aznar’s administration during the truce. The Basque Country therefore needs a new type of mobilization from below, a mobilization at grass-roots level against violence and in favour of democracy. According to Jáuregui (1996: 95) ‘the best ally of those involved in violence and the culture of violence is perhaps the passivity of the citizens’. Citizens however do not operate in isolation from society. To mobilize themselves for peace and democracy they need a context guaranteeing them protection, freedom of expression and freedom of association. These guarantees can be fostered by establishing a rule of law and by bringing the idea of plurality into practice. The PNV-led Ertzaintza has so far performed questionably in guaranteeing the rule of law. Violations of civil liberties have too often gone unsanctioned. Nationalist reactions to the penalties imposed by courts on perpetrators of political violence have often been dismissive. The establishment of the rule of law may have some potential gains for all the parties involved, except ETA. The two big democratic nationalist parties, the PNV and EA, may build infrastructural power in the Euskadi proto-state and create legitimacy among non-nationalist forces. The Spanish sentiments can then openly be communicated without any harm for the transmitters and this may have a moderating influence on potential negotiators

224 Territory and Terror defending Spanish interests. The main obstacle to full collaboration by the nationalists with regard to imposing the rule of law is that they do not formally recognize the institutions of the Spanish state in which the principles of the rule of law are laid down. The Constitution, Spanish laws and the Spanish courts of justice are institutions which embody the rule of law. As I have shown in the nationalist scenario, an approach that would allow more active involvement by the PNV and EA in at least a temporary collaboration within a constitutional framework would permit recognition of the right to self-determination. I have demonstrated that points of hope are concrete actions by the Basque administration to protect human rights through the observatory and political rights by Eudel. Civic associations promoting peace, humanistic values and interaction with ‘the other’ are gaining important qualitative weight. The growing commitment of the EU to civic movement and human rights is another positive development in the depolarization of human relations. Such a depolarization also requires plurality being put into practice. Grassroots plurality implies the development of new inclusive attitudes and actions in which the imposition of ideas at the cost of social exclusion is substituted by peaceful coexistence and crosscutting ties. It implies the introduction of what Americans call ‘political correctness’ in daily life. The abandonment of pursuing hegemony based on one national identity will open the perspective for new ways of thinking. New unifying messages can be developed in the Basque Country, which instead of exalting being Basque or being Spanish, will recognize multiple identities and applaud cultural hybridity. This democratic scenario has to do with a deep change mainly confined to the Basque Country. Whereas Spain can continue deepening and developing democratic institutions that emerged from the transition, the Basque Country needs a second democratic transition.

Conclusion

Territory and terror are important conflict markers in the Basque issue. Terror is used under the flag of territorial claims, while terrorists have control over a bounded territory through the manipulation of fear. The aim of this study was to bring territoriality into the debate on the Basque conflict. Territoriality can be seen as an attempt by actors and agencies to control objects, people and relations by delimiting and asserting control over a geographic area: the territory (Sack 1983: 56, 1986). In political geography, territoriality has been centred on the state as container of power, wealth and culture (Taylor 1994). Taylor attributes three tendencies concerning this ‘container’, namely a pressure for a status quo regarding the power role in terms of military force and sovereignty, a bypassing of the state system to create supra-state entities in order to sustain wealth and an orientation towards state fragmentation in order to obtain more successful cultural containers. At first sight the Spanish Basque case might fit in with the Taylor scenario and, as Johnston (2001: 687) has noticed, the outcome may be a ‘much more complex political map than today’s, with multiple layers and scales and, perhaps, multiple identities’. Indeed, the creation of a federal structure in Spain made the political map more complex while, as far as both Spain and France are concerned, the EU has become another layer playing its role in the Basque realm. A closer look at the Basque question, however, makes it necessary to specify the comments of Taylor and Johnston. First, the salience of multi-layering in the French Basque Country is less obvious, in particular concerning state fragmentation, since decentralization is merely cosmetic and political identification predominantly French. The pressure for a status quo is thus effective as far as the position of the French Basque territory within France is considered. Second, the Basque conflict has sometimes been denoted as a labyrinth (Onaindía 2000). The labyrinth metaphor expresses a complexity that goes beyond Taylor’s expectation. This is because the Basque conflict is not a simple conflict between a state or states and a ‘nation without a state’ as Guibernau (1996: 100–27) erroneously qualified it. Paasi (1986; 1997: 41–3) has rightly argued that territoriality on various geographical scales can be understood as the ‘institutionalization of territories’. He considers the nation and nationalism in terms of discourse and practice, as I have done in terms of message and mobilization. In the Basque conflict, nation and nationalism are a clear illustration of what they are in Paasi’s words, namely

226 Territory and Terror ‘contested and contextual categories’ (Passi 1997: 41–2). The institutionalization of territories implies the assumption of territorial awareness and shape, symbolic shaping, institutional shaping and the establishment of the territory. The Basque conflict reveals that Spanish and Basque narratives on their national territories change over time and are constantly being created and reformulated by elites and ordinary people. Conversely, the French nationalist message based on civic values and universal citizenship has shown a remarkable continuity over time and is institutionalized in Iparralde. However, the conflict cannot only be described in discursive terms because political narratives are often incongruent with political practice and popular mobilization. I have therefore distinguished respectively discursive, practice and mobilization dimensions. The French mainstream discourse still embodies universalism though the creation of regions can be interpreted as lip service to claims for power devolution from the centre. The French Basques do not have their own territorial administration but have been given a rather powerless council as a mere symbolic sign of accommodating to their cultural and economic claims. In the French national discourse there is no Basque conflict, and at best it is one of the state’s minor security problems. In contrast, the Spanish post-Francoist narrative openly recognizes the existence of other than Spanish identifications, which in practice has led to a de facto federalization. Here the conflict is seen not only as a state security problem but also as a struggle to maintain the Constitution with clearly defined political adversaries. These were ETA and its political wings from the beginning and the radicalized nationalist parties PNV and EA from the 1998–9 truce to today. Although the political adversaries have been identified in the conflict under the denominator of ‘Basque nationalism’, the conflict itself is seen as both an external Spanish–Basque and an internal Basque–Basque conflict. On the basis of my appraisal from Madrid, the conflict is perceived as external in terms of party politics and as an internal Basque problem in terms of violence. In the Basque nationalist rhetoric the conflict is mainly external as it consists of an all-Basque confrontation with the Spanish and French states. The Basque nation-state aspiration is laid down in the Ibarretxe Plan, which considers becoming a full EU member as a first step towards independence. The contested nature of territorial awareness becomes transparent in the imagined territory of Euskal Herria, not identified as a distinct territorial unit by other entities of the territorial system. Neither supra-state entities like the EU nor sub-state territorial units have shown any sense of awareness of the existence of a Basque proto-state bearing this name. Apart from some activities in the field of language activism, the only panBasque political institution is udalbiltza, the Basque Assembly of Municipalities. Here again the political narrative representing udalbiltza as the embodiment of an own Basque decision space clashes with the practice of an institution without power, authority or resources. In practice, therefore, the establishment of a Basque territory is confined to Euskadi, which has become the only territory where Basque nation-building is massively taking place. Euskadi is an outstanding example of how a mesogovernment wants to attain cultural homogenization. The rather successful Basquization policies seem to illustrate Taylor’s point that smaller units

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than the existing states can be more successful cultural containers than the old states (Taylor 1994: 160). However, in reality, the success of Euskadi as a protostate in the sense of a cultural container is limited to a minority of Basque speakers who live in the smaller settlements of Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya. The political practice of Basque nationalism is thus coloured by the diverse territorial contexts in which it operates. In fact the adversaries are to be found outside and within the imagined territory of the Basques. Within that territory, nationalism has crumbled, with non-radical nationalists who try to create a protonation state in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country on one hand. On the other hand, radical nationalists with all-Basque pretensions supporting violent methods are in conflict with the former brand of Basque nationalists and with Spanish nationalism. It is only during the last five years that terrorist pressure has culminated in a general anti-system practice of all Basque nationalisms. The question is now whether the abandoning of Realpolitik by PNV-EA through collaboration with Spanish politics in the framework of the Constitution will be real and deep or whether it will be just another historical pendulum movement as described by De Pablo et al. (1999). Should the change be interpreted as deeply ideological or is it electoral opportunism born from the banning of Batasuna and the wish to capture their votes? Regarding mobilization and institutionalization, Basque nationalism is weakly established in the French Basque Country, Navarra and Álava. In the French Basque Country, mobilization is predominantly French, whereas Basque nationalism is weakly represented and mutually divided. Anti-system features of Basque nationalism in Iparralde are contained. This is because violence was banned before terrorism could gain momentum while the French authorities have maintained the rule of law through a zero-tolerance policy towards anti-democratic actions. In Álava, and particularly in Navarra, Basque nationalism has a weak basis, and an identification with Spanish messages dominates the identity landscape. Vizcaya is the territory where Basque and Spanish nationalism are mostly confronted as if it were a battlefield between Spanish and Basque nationalisms. Guipúzcoa, or perhaps Guipúzcoa without the bigger cities, is another battlefield, but one where Basque nationalism has won and where the battle is now mainly fought between the nationalists themselves. The location of violence is thus precisely the territory where conflicting nationalisms, one Spanish and two Basque nationalisms, meet. This is also why, in contrast to political representations and popular imagination, I would qualify the Basque conflict as an internal conflict, a diagnosis also made by Díez Medrano (1995) and Jáuregui (1996). In this internal conflict ‘Spanish’ Basques are opposed to Basque nationalists and radical Basque nationalists struggle with their less radical peers. Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa have therefore become the territory of terror, where persons and institutions connected with Spain and symbols of autonomist pride and institutions are the targets of terror. In Guipúzcoa in particular terrorism is now controlling part of the territory, imposing a way of life on those mobilized behind its objectives and those manipulated by fear. I have conceptualized the problem from a perspective of nationalist mobilization. The most conflictive territory is precisely the area where political mobilization

228 Territory and Trror from above and below has been equally successful or, perhaps more accurately, equally unsuccessful. The lack of full success for the distinct nationalist doctrines has led to a mutually hurting stalemate in which official and sub-state nationalisms each perceive their final victory over the other. Euskadi is the diffusion environment where nationalization from above and nationalization from below have fragmented society and compartmentalized territory. In the French Basque Country, fragmentation and territorial compartmentalization are hardly visible. In a symbolic way, the French and Basque flags wave in a brotherly fashion during the village festivals in the summer. The small groups of radicals who support violence are isolated from local society and have not been able to create viable institutions or take over existing ones at local level as Izquierdo (2001) observed. I have shown that the local level is relevant to the conflict since it is at this very level that the construction and reproduction of identities by ordinary people takes place. The situation in Hegoalde illustrates that the practice of territoriality is place-bound. Many scholars, except geographers and some sociologists, show a lack of awareness of the territorial crumbling of national and political identities in Euskal Herria. The existence of micro-societies as observed by the sociologist Tejerina Montaña (1992) can be interpreted as contextual answers to supra-national forces connected with market integration and state formation. In theorizing the role of place as an explanatory variable of political behaviour, a lot of attention has been paid to processes of economic change that affect the social division of labour whereas local interaction with state institutions is often ignored. Indeed local contexts may become breeding grounds for ethnonationalism when they are affected by abrupt changes in their social and demographic structure. A more intense economic interaction with the outside world generates nostalgic feelings of the life of past generations. The creation of ethnonationalist doctrines fits in with this kind of nostalgia. Hroch’s model of nationalist diffusion, in which early incubation among urban elites is followed by mass mobilization outside the cities, can easily be applied to Basque nationalism in Spain (Hroch 2000). From this geographical approach, doubts may arise on the thesis developed by Díez Medrano of a specific patterning of industrialization that explains the peculiar constellation of Basque nationalism. His thesis concerning the origin of nationalist mobilization may be valid, particularly with respect to external ‘Spanish’ alliances of the Basque industrial elite, but also exhibits shortcomings when it comes to explaining the continuity and transformations in nationalist mobilization. There are suggestions that a place-specific socio-economic history with political parties and trade unions as important agencies have influenced the spread of Basque and Spanish nationalism (Onaindía 2000: 175–86). One of the tasks for future research, which may be inspired empirically by Onaindía and theoretically by Agnew (1987: 45–8), is to study the historical constitution of political behaviour in places using historical case studies. One of Agnew’s other suggestions is to study the place-based structuring of new political movements. His suggestion that some political movements with statewide pretensions started in reality as local responses to socio-economic change in situ needs further study in the Basque Country. I have

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suggested that Spanish Basque culture outside the cities facilitates social and political control within the locale. Social control has helped to freeze nationalist mobilization patterns. Basque nationalism itself is not only ideologically fragmented by diverging views on the use of violence but is also territorially fragmented. In the French Basque Country, the role of social control has features that fundamentally differ from Hegoalde. Despite the cultural revival in music, dance and language learning, which often takes the shape of folklorization, social control lacks the typical Spanish Basque institutions, such as the cuadrillas, mendigoitzales, political bars and bar-like party seats. Parallel to state-linked institutions that enforce law associations of the private domain (like rugby clubs), folkloric groups and pelota associations are hardly influenced by the mutually divided and fragmented nationalists. The above summary of the Basque conflict is instructive in the search for theoretical explanations of ethnonationalist phenomena for the following reasons. First, I think that approaches to explaining the origin of ethnonationalist mobilization may differ from approaches that try to understand the diffusion, transformation and sustainability of mobilization. Such awareness is shown from different angles in the work of Hroch (2000) and Laitin (1995). Basque nationalism was invented and spread in the specific socio-economic and political context of nineteenthcentury Bilbao where it competed with liberalism and socialism that were similarly invented and spread in Vizcaya. Not only has Basque nationalist rhetoric changed over time as Conversi (1997) and Bidart (2001) have argued, but also views about the Spanish nation. In the second place, by comparing the French and Spanish Basque cases, I have shown that the nation-state as a contextual category helps to explain the rise, transformation and continuity of ethnonationalism. The early incorporation of Iparralde into France, external warfare and the long democratic tradition of a state with increasing distributive functions, have contributed to the widespread loyalty of French Basques to ‘their’ state. The Spanish context shows a different picture with civil wars in which Basques fought each other and a weak symbolic shaping of Spanishness. Paradoxically, the symbolic shaping of Basque and Spanish identities shows similar flaws. In both cases, discourse and practice have varied over time and have been accompanied by a lack of legitimacy caused by weak-state features at the level of the Spanish state paralleled by the ‘weakterritory’ characteristics of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. Even after the democratic transition, weak-state phenomena undermined the loyalty of many Basques to the state. Under the socialist administration, state terror by the GAL death squads, corruption and clientelism did not generate much confidence in the state. The follow-up by the centre-right PP governments that were in power during the period 1996–2004 has hardly changed people’s confidence in the state. Symbolic actions glorifying Francoist collective memory, bad management of the Prestige oil catastrophe that caused a great deal of harm to the Basque coasts and shameless media control have contributed to a weak and contested legitimacy of the state in Hegoalde. The collective memory of a repressive state, often mythified by Basque nationalism, contributes to a lack of state legitimacy. In today’s most conflictive provinces of Guipúzcoa and Bilbao, where

230 Territory and Terror Francoist repression was harshest, the legitimacy of the state has never recovered after the democratic transition. This may help to explain why so many Spanishspeaking Basques in Vizcaya have become Basque nationalists and so few Spanishspeaking people from Navarra and Álava have become supporters for Euskal Herria. Third, I have shown that regional contexts are relevant to the understanding of both state nationalist and ethnonationalist mobilization. In France, the identification with Aquitaine is weak, whereas the identification with the existing Département is contested by the demand for a separate Département. The claim for a new Basque administrative unit is, however, contested within Iparralde, while business interests and non-nationalist bascophiles dispute its ethnonationalist contents. The regional context in today’s Hegoalde displays some remarkable parallels with Spain. In particular in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country nationalist discourse has shown the same lack of continuity as in the case of Spanish nationalism. A remarkable discrepancy has grown between an inclusive pluralist nationalist discourse and a practice based on exclusion and hegemony. Basque nationalist rhetoric of the Foral Community of Navarra as an administration, which is extremely harmful to Basque culture, differs from political practice that has effectively contributed to linguistic revival in the Basque and mixed language zones. Paradoxically, the polarizing anti-Basquist discourse applied by the Navarrese politicians in power differs from their generous language policies. Spanish weak-state figures are replicated at the level of Navarrese and Basque autonomies. Apart from corruption and clientelism, that affected both autonomous regions, the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country has a questionable standing concerning civil and political rights. This has reduced the diffusion and establishment of Basque ‘banal nationalism’ within the territory of nation building while also deterring many Navarrese. In these three points I have argued that territorial contexts matter in the explanation of mobilization from both above and below. A comparison of territorial contexts can, however, also shed new light on existing interpretation of the Basque question. I will now discuss some views taken from scholarly works on the Basque issue today. The first view is still based on primordialism and suggests that the Basques are an old people who aspire to have their own state. This view is reflected in the work of Jacob (1994), Letamendía (1997a), Douglass (1998) and Leizaola (2000). Given the weak mobilization from below in the French Basque Country, this view can easily be refuted. An alternative view is that economic integration in terms of specific capitalist development has led to alliances of the Basque economic elite with Spain or social deprivation, with nationalism leading to internal class struggles in the Basque Country (Díez Medrano 1995). This view is also questionable because it does not explain why some rural areas are heavily mobilized from below, for instance many areas of Basque-speaking Navarra, and other areas are not, like for example the Rioja area of Álava. Given this allusion to linguistic context, Conversi’s thesis on cultural extinction seems attractive. Indeed, within Spain, there is a statistical relationship between language and radicalism. The more Basque-speaking the nationalist localities are, the more radical they are.

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However, I think that Conversi’s interpretation should be qualified for two reasons. First, the extinction thesis is only applicable to Spain and not to France, for which he is not to be blamed because his pretensions were confined to the Spanish Basque Country. Nevertheless, the Basque language is in peril in France, and consequently one would expect a high intensity of mobilization from below, which obviously contrasts with the observed intense mobilization from above. Second, the geography of violence-supporting nationalism in Hegoalde is not congruent with language geography, let alone a geography language loss. According to the cultural extinction thesis, in Basque-speaking areas people mobilize behind violence-supporting nationalism. Although the Basque-speaking areas of Guipúzcoa and Navarra confirm this thesis because radical nationalism is firmly rooted, similar areas of Vizcaya refute it as they are controlled by the PNV. Again, in this respect, the place-bound success of mobilization agents and institutions may explain the spatial impact of conflicting nationalisms. Terror has its own territory and territoriality. In France, violence is real but relatively unimportant as is its territoriality, though most violent actions by Iparretarrak and Gal have taken place in the most frenchified and densely populated area of the French Basque Country. In Hegoalde, the geographies of perpetrators’ origins and violent actions show an unexpected incongruence. In the territories with a strong representation of radical nationalism, terror often takes the form of orchestrations of hate and manipulations of fear against ‘the other’, or more bluntly stated against the supposed supporters of ‘Spain’. This territory of hate and fear is situated around the cities of San Sebastián and Pamplona and in the Basquespeaking settlements of Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya. In the old city centres of Euskal Herria, violence-legitimizing institutions have a strong symbolic presence without notable consequences in terms of mobilizing the inhabitants. There is a high geographic concentration of damage to goods and persons in symbolic city centres. People participating in street violence, at present the most widely applied terrorist method, are increasingly young secondary school dropouts from the suburbs of San Sebastián who often do not, or only partially, have Basque origins. They have become part of a sectarian movement of Basque nationalists having an extremely inclusive discourse embracing ‘native Basques’ and migrants as future citizens of a pluralist Euskal Herria. On the other hand, their practice is extremely exclusive towards those who do not believe in the same type of nationalist values. In the introduction to this book I posed a question about the location of violence, namely whether it mainly occurred along ethnic fracture lines, within the ethnic community itself or outside the community. Now it has become clear that this question can only be answered satisfactorily if the type of violence is taken into consideration. I therefore propose making a distinction between direct physical terror, intimidation by manipulation of fear and legitimization of terror. The patterning of physical terror shows a bias towards the hispanified cities within Hegoalde. Paradoxically, these urban environments are the least fearful environments because of a lack of social control and a certain degree of anonymity that enable people to escape from horrifying social control. However this refers to ‘ordinary people’, but not to institutions and persons overtly connected to institutions

232 Territory and Terror that are threatened by terrorism. Fearful environments are on the fringe of the big cities, particularly where Castilian and Basque culture meet each other and where a significant part of the population is mobilized behind radical nationalism. Finally, the third type of terror territory consists of mainly ethnic and linguistic homogeneous areas, where radical nationalism is totally institutionalized. Similarly to the territorial fragmentation of nationalism and violence, the peace movement reflects a divided landscape. In the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Vizcaya is dominated by Gesto por la Paz while Guipúzcoa displays a high concentration of elkarri support. New movements add new ingredients to polarization as Uriarte (2003) has observed in the case of ¡Basta Ya!. The territorial implications of these innovative movements are not yet clear. Their aim, however, is far from obscure, namely to democratize the Basque Country. Pérez-Díaz (1997) has argued that the democratization of Spain has been a long learning process by persons and institutions. In the Basque Country this learning process has been blocked by political violence of an increasingly sectarian movement condoned by newly created territorial institutions with a weak democratic tradition and few ambitions to learn how democracy works in practice. One should not forget that in human terms, the losers in the Basque conflict live in Euskadi, in a local environment in which they are marginalized by hate and fear, and where the process of learning democracy is blocked. Of course it is important to seek solutions for pacification at the level of high politics, law and institutions. I have brought forward some ideas of how to institutionalize peace at supra-local levels. However, these levels are often far removed from daily experiences. I am therefore convinced that the real conflict can only be solved at a grassroots level through new discourses and above all by practices with pluralism and hybrid identity as universal values. These practices are not simply a mobilization from below but imply socialization from the very grass-roots.

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Newspapers and periodicals

El País ABC Bulletin Municipal, year report of Saint- Gara Het Volkskrant Magazine Etienne-de-Baïgorry L’ Express 8 March 2001 Deia Le Figaro Egin Le Monde Enbata Les Echos El Correo Libération El Diario Vasco Sud-Ouest El Mundo

Index

Page numbers in italics indicate tables and figures. AB (Abertzaleen Batasuna) 89, 97, 104 abertzale culture 142–5 abertzale nationalists 141–3 abstention rates 33 action–repression strategy 185 administrations: castilianization 60; Spain 69 administrative homogenization: nationalist diffusion 14 AEK (Alfabetatze Euskalduntze Koordinakundea) 93, 140, 166; ETA links 198 agents: of the state 24–5, 51–2 Agirreazkuenaga, Iñaki 173 Agnew, J.A. 10–11, 228 agotes 22, 47 agricultural modernization: Hegoalde 51; Iparralde 105–7 agriculture 23, 51, 105–7, 133–4 Aintzina 99, 100 airports: Biarritz 87; Euskadi 86 Aitzol (Ariztimuño, José) 132, 139 Aizpurua, X. 38, 40, 70, 82 Ajuria Enea agreement (1988) 200–1, 205, 206, 209 Alfabetatze Euskalduntze Koordinakundea (AEK) see AEK alkartetxes 88, 89, 137 Alliot-Marie, Michèle 38, 39 Almunia, Joaquin 210 Alternativa Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista (KAS Alternative) 188–9 Álva 3, 16, 46, 50, 51, 54, 71, 78, 227 Amaia group 101 Amejoramiento 168 Amnesty International 164 Anderson, B. 2 Anderson, J. 1, 5

Andrej Sakharov Human Rights Prize 163, 218 Anglet 112 anti-system institutions 88–9, 179 Aquitaine: parliament of 38, 39 Aralar 89, 191 Arana, Sabino 78, 87, 127, 128, 129–30 Ardanza, Jose Antonio 167, 209–11 Ardanza plan 206 Ardour valley 25 Argia 198 Arguiñano, Carlos 57 Arizmediarrieta, Jose Maria 141 Ariztimuño, José (Aitzol) 132, 139 army: Spanish 64, 66 Arrast (1893 elections) 26 Arregi, Joseba 162, 200 Arzalluz, Javier 61, 136, 160, 201 Askagintza 198 Askapena 198 Asociación Euskara 128 Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo (AV) 213–14 Assemblée Nationale 38 assimilation 5, 10, 74–5 Association des Élus pour un Département Pays Basque (1980) 122 Association pour un Nouveau Département (1975) 122 Astrain, Núñez 65 Asturias 54 Ateneo de Madrid 44 Autonomous Communities 2, 16–17, 54, 61, 68, 70, 79, 154 Autonomy Statue: legitimacy of 154–5 AVT (Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo) 213–14

254 Index Aznar government 211, 212 Aznar, José María 212 Bachoc, Erramun 116, 119 Baguenard, J. 37 Baïgorry 24, 107 Balparda, Gregorio de 50 banal nationalism 157–9; France 20; Spain 45 banking: Spain 55 Barcelona 54, 67; bombing (1987) 186, 208 Barcus 112, 115 Barrionuevo, José 65 Basque conflict: studies of 6–7 Basque Country (Euskadi): as part of Euskal Herria see Euskadi Basque Cultural Institute 119 ‘Basque culture’ 94 Basque département: quest for 121–4 Basque elites: Spain 46–50, 52–3 Basque gastronomy 57 ‘Basque Gulag’ 145, 196 Basque language (Euskera) see Euskera Basque nationalism 94–6, 127, 227; credibility 162–4; Iparralde (Northern Basque Country) 97–125; press 54–5 Basque nationalist ideologues 127–31 Basque nationalists: culture differences 89; identity 80–4; political parties 88; symbols 87 Basque peace process (1998-99) 12 Basque region: history of 21–8 Basque singularity: notions of 77–8 Basque socialists 50 ‘Basque society’ 126–7 Basque speakers 16, 170; Hegoalde 72; and nationalist voting 110; Navarra primary schools 174 see also Euskera Basque-speaking areas: ETA support 194–5 ‘Basque urban system’ 86 Basquifying Assembly 98–9 Basse Navarre: as part of Euskal Herria 2 ¡Basta Ya! 163, 217–18 Batasuna 89, 142, 146, 191, 203, 209, 219 batzokis 88, 89, 133, 137 batzokis (PNV party offices) 54 Bayonne 3, 24–6, 112; literacy 29–30 Bayrou, François 119 Baztán Valley 52 Belmonte, Juan 58 Benegas, T. 221, 223 Benítez Peréz, Manuel (El Cordobés) 58 BERTAN 140

Biarritz 26–7, 112 Bidart (resort) 26, 29, 112; ETA leaders’ arrest 179, 198 Bidart, P. 24, 77, 118 Bilbao 3, 48–9, 67, 215, 229; Arana 129–30; ETA 184; football 56–7; Guggenheim Museum 72; late nineteenth century 131–2; nationalist mobilization 148; strikes 53–4 bilingual education 114, 116; Iparralde 118–19 Billig, M. 45, 157–8 birthplace: and nationalist voting 151 Blanco, Miguel Ángel 185, 208, 215, 217 border: role of 84–7 Borotra, Franck 39 Borotra, Jean 23, 28 bossism 62–3 Braudel, F. 9 brigandage 34 broadcasting 167 see also media Brubaker, R. 11, 121 bullfighting 57–8 Burgos trial 191, 207 caciquismo 62–3 cagots 22 Calleja, J.M. 144 Cambo-les-Bains 114–15 Campión, Arturo 89–90, 98, 128–9 candidates: electoral 33 cantonal elections: analysis of voting patterns 109–12 Carcassonne, Guy 120 Carlism 46–7, 48, 63 Carlist war, third 63 Castells, M. 12–13 Castilian 70–1 castilianization 58–61 Catalan 58 Catalonia 63, 158 catedrátos 43 Catholicism 42–3, 80 CCOO (Comisiones Obreras) 137, 138 cease-fires 189 see also truces Centre Cantonal des Jeunes Agriculteurs (Cantonal Centre of Young Farmers) 106 Centro de Estudios Históricos 44 Chaho, Joseph-Augustine 98 Chambre de commerce et d’Industrie 121–2 Charter of Itxassou 101, 122 Chávarri, Victor 49

Index children: bilingual education 114 church, the: and radical nationalism 105 Ciboure 112–13 civic nationalism: Spain 44 Civil Guards 52, 64–6 civil liberties 163–4, 223 civil rights 208 Clark, R.P. 7, 84, 189, 206 class conflicts: PNV 130 clergy: influence of 22–3 clientelism 70, 201 clothes: ETA 179 CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) 53 coastal elite 26–7 Cobarrubias, J. 166 Code civil 24 cognitive dissonance: ETA 190–1 combatants 182–4 Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) 137, 138 communications: global 12–13; Spain 67 communists 53–4 Comunidades Autónomos see Autonomous Communities Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) 53 conflicts: central and regional administrations 69; definition 187; protracted 176 conflict solutions 205–24 Congress for Basque Culture (EKB) 198 conscription 35; Spain 66 Conseil de Développement du Pays Basque (1996) 123–4 Constitution (1978): Spain 45, 68, 145 constructive conflicts: definition 187 consumption 51 contacts: cross-border 84–7, 90–3 contagion: effect on nationalist diffusion 12–13 continuity: of nationalist message 12 Conversi, D. 6, 7, 16, 74–5, 78, 230 cooperation: cross-border 90–3 cooperative movement 107–8, 140–1 Corcuera Atienza, J. 5 corruption 63; Civil Guards 64 cosmopolitan localism 164 Cossiga, Francesco 211 Council for the Basque Language 119–20 CPNT (Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Tradition) 39 creational nationalisms 4–5 cross-border interaction 84–7, 90–3 Cruz Alli, Juan 173

255

cuadrillas 142 cultural division of labour 5 cultural exchanges 90–3 cultural hybridity 224 cultural hybridization 143–4 culturalist approaches: state development theories 5–6 cultural organizations: early twentieth century 134 cultural revival 229 culture: ‘Basque’ 94 customs officers 24 Davant, J.L 101 death toll: ETA 176 De Azaola, J.M. 63 decentralization: France 37–8; Spain 68–70 Declaration of Lizarra-Garazi (1998) see Lizarra-Garazi pact (1998) decolonization 12 de-escalation policies 219 Deia 61, 140 deindustrialization 136 Deixonne Law (1951) 118 Delclaux, Cosme 197 delegates: labour union 138 demarcation 78–9 democracy: Spain 62 democratic scenario 219, 223–4 democratization 32–4; Spain 62–8 demonstrations 124, 203, 207–8, 215 département: quest for 121–4 depopulation 153 desertion 34, 35 destructive conflicts: definition 186 dialects 81 ‘dialogue’ 161 Diario Vasco 61 diasporas: support from 13 dictatorship 62 Díez Medrano, J. 5, 151, 228 diffusion environments 11 Domínguez Iribarran, F. 2 Douglass, W.A. 7 EA (Eusko Alkartasuna) 88, 103, 136, 137, 142, 199, 212, 213 EAB (Emakume Abertzale Batza) 134 EB (Euskal Batasuna) 103 école libres 23 economic resources: ETA 196–9 economic transformation theories 5, 74 education: France 29, 30, 37;

256 Index secularization of 23; French ministry of 119; role of 15; Spain 43, 59 education authorities: bilingual education 118–19 Egin 65, 189, 198 Egizan 198 Egunkaria 140, 198 Eguzki 198 EH (Euskal Herritarrok) 88, 89, 157, 193–5, 209 EHAS (Euskal Herriko Alderdi Sozialista) 101, 102 EKB (Congress for Basque Culture) 198 ELA (Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna) 139; Ertzaintza 168 ELA-SOV (Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna, Solidaridad de Obreros Vascos) 133, 137–8 ELB (Euskal Laborarien Batasuna) 106–7 El Cordobés (Manuel Benítez Peréz) 58 El Correo Español 61 elections 32–3, 147–8; analysis of voting patterns 109–15; Euskadi Parliament 155–7 electoral developments: nationalization thesis 10–11 electoral geography 150 electoral participation 33 electrification 36 Elgeta 144 elites: Basque 46–50; business 53 Elkarri 216–17 El Liberal 50 El Mundo 198 El País 198 EMA (Eskerreko Mugimendu Abertzalea) 103, 135 Emakume Abertzale Batza (EAB: Women’s Patriotic Association) 134 ENB (Eusko Nekazariwn Bazkuna) 133–4 Enbata 100–1, 122 Entreprise, Territoires et Développement website 90–1 environment: role of 6–7 ERNE 163, 168 Eroski 55, 87 Ertzaintza 65, 163–4, 167–8, 188, 201, 223 Esan Ozenki 198 escalation: of violence 188 Eskerreko Mugimendu Abertzalea (EMA: Movement of the Patriotic Left) 103, 135 ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna): areas of

support 192–6; clothes 179; cognitive dissonance 190–1; death toll 176; deindustrialization 136–7; diaspora support 13; economic resources 196–9; effect of international events on 2; EU list 219; Euskal Herria 79; fragmentation 126; and France 94; Gallastegui 130; ideology 187–8; institutionalization 104; international tolerance 204; intimidation 180–1; kale borroka see kale borroka; martyrs 102, 188; militants 182–4; negotiations 188–9; and peacemaking initiatives 206–8, 211; prisoners 94, 188, 207; ‘revolutionary tax’ 178–9; schisms 191–2; sectarianism 191, 192; strategies 185–6; survival of 199–202, 203–4; targets 180–2; victims of 181–2 ETApm 139 Etchalus, Christiane 103 ethnic self-perception 38 ethnoregionalists 13; Spain: voting patterns 69 EU (European Union) see European Union Eudel declaration 218 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 120 European elections 147–8 European integration 79, 208 European Union (EU) 13, 137, 162, 212; INTERREG programme 13, 88, 89, 90 European Union award: Andrej Sakharov Human Rights Prize 163, 218 Euskadi (Basque Country): administration 166–7; Autonomous Communities 145–6; Basque nationalism 168; cultural homogenization 226; electoral space 71; Euskera 61, 70; language 82; status planning 81; language zones 171; linguistic normalization 165–6; map 3; nationalist parties 88; as part of Euskal Herria 2; peace proposal 209–11; political identification 83–4; political legitimacy 162; repression 65; selfidentification 82–3, 83; Spanishness 74; violence 177–8 Euskadiko Ezkerra 136, 146 Euskadi Parliament elections (2001): voting patterns 155–7 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) see ETA Euskal Batasuna (EB: Basque Unity) 103 Euskaldunon Egunkaria 61 Euskalerriacos 130

Index Euskal Herria (Greater Basque Country): administrative structure 87; Basque nationalists 77; Catholicism 80; crossborder contacts 84–7, 89–92; culture and language 79–80; ETA 94; Korrika 93; language and identity 80–4; legal status 79; map 3; nationalism 94–6; nationalist diffusion 15–16; nationalist parties 88–9; territorial awareness 226; territorial boundary 78–9; Udalbiltza 91–3 Euskal Herriko Alderdi Sozialista (EHAS: Basque Socialist Party) 101, 102 Euskal Laborarien Batasuna (ELB: Union of the Workers of the Basque Country) 106–7 Euskal Rock’n’Roll 108–9 Euskaltzainda 119 Euskatel 167 Euskera (Basque language): ban: in France 22; in Spain 60–1; Basque identity 81–2; and the church 22; constraints 120–1; decline 58–9; and French 30–2; Korrika 93; marginalization 136; Navarra 170–4; promotion 70–1, 105, 139; rural areas 51; in schools 37, 118–20, 165–6; survey 38 Eusko Alkartasuna (EA) see EA Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna (ELA) 139; Ertzaintza 168 Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna, Solidaridad de Obreros Vascos (ELA-SOV) 133, 137–8 Eusko Nekazariwn Bazkuna (ENB: Basque Farmers Association) 133–4 Euskual-Ikasleen Biltzarra 99 Euskualzaleen Biltzarra 98–9, 105 ‘expanding-state’ approaches: state development theories 5–6 expropriation 197 extortion 178–9, 197; Iparralde 185 Falangists 45, 53 Falloux Law: France 59 farmers’ cooperatives 107 farmer unionism 105–7, 133–4 federalization: Spain 68–70 female militancy 134, 183 festivals 109, 144 fiestas 57–8, 94 First World War: French Basques 33–4 fiscal pressure: Spain 66–7 flagging 159 flags see Ikurriña

257

flower games 98 Fontaine, Nicole 163 football 55–6, 72 forced assimilation 166 forced labour 34 Foro de Ermua 217 fragmentation 228–9 Franco, Francisco 47, 53, 135 Francoism 44, 175 freedom of speech 162 French Basque Country see Iparralde French language 28–32 French nationalism 8, 9; history of 19–21 fueros 46, 127 GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación) 65, 136; victims of 214 Galant, Jean-Michel 115 Gallastegui, Elías 130, 134 Gallego 58 Gara 61, 126, 140, 189, 198 Garaikoetxea, Carlos 136 Garat, Dominique and Joseph 97 Garibay, Esteban de 127 Garzón, Baltasar 198, 219 gastronomy 57; societies 72 Gazteria 198 Gellner, E. 5 gendarmes 24 geographical dimensions 3–4; of violence 196; voting patterns 150 Gernika Gogoratuz 215–16 Gesto por la Paz 214–15 Gestoras Pro-Amnestia 188, 198, 219 Getxo 148 Gil-Robles, Alvaro 163 global communication 12–13 Gómez Elósegui, Francisco 181 Gómez-Ibáñez, D.A. 72, 73 Gómez Piñeiro, Javier 86 González Caterain, Dolores (Yoyes) 191 Goyhenetche, M. 31, 98, 99 grazing rights 84–5 Greater Basque Country (Euskal Herria) see Euskal Herria Grenet, Jean 39 grievances 9, 15, 63, 68, 100, 172 groupism 11, 121 Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL) see GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación) Guardia Civil 52, 64–6 Guernica 149, 158–9, 216 Guéthary 112

258 Index Guggenheim Museum 72 Guilbeau, M. 98 Guipúzcoa: agriculture 51; Arana’s claims 78; castilianization 60; economic development 15, 16; ETA 183–4; Euskera 71; fueros 46; industrialists 53; legitimacy of the state 229; loss of autonomy 47; map 3; PNV 132–3; radical nationalism 149; repression 54; strikes 54; terrorism 227; tourism 49 Gureak 185 Guridi, Jesús 57 HABE (Helduen Alfabetatze eta Berreuskalduntzerako Erakundea) 140, 166 Haika 198 Hasparren 115 HB (Herri Batasuna) 136, 188, 199, 209, 212; Autonomy Statue 154; voting patterns 193 Hechter, M. 5 Hegoalde 3; agricultural modernization 51; AVT clients 214; Basque speakers 72; castilianization 58–61; civic national community 61; cooperatives 140–1; democratic liberties 161; election abstention rates 63; elections 147–8; electoral geography 150–4; elite 47–50; independence referendum 221; language 139–40; literacy level 59; media 140; migration 85; nationalism 174–5; nationalist fragmentation 141–2; nationalist parties 135–6; nationalization 74–6; peace movements 208; political mobilization 131–5; rock bands 108; socio-economic change 136–7; street violence 180; terrorism targets 187; trade unions 94, 137–9; violent conflict 177, 186, 192–3, 202–4, 231; voting patterns 149; youth culture 142–4 Heiberg, M. 7, 17, 65 Hendaye 112, 113 Herri Batasuna (HB: People’s Unity) see HB herrikotabernas 89, 137, 198 holiday resorts 26–7 Hroch, M. 117, 131, 228, 229 human rights 163–4, 218 hybrid identities 121, 125, 224 Ibarretxe, Juan José 126, 160, 161 Ibarretxe plan 213, 226

Ibarrola, Augustín 217 identities: hybrid 121; multiple 11 identity: Basque–French 40; and language 166; politicized 83–4; Spanish 42, 45–6; studies on 72–3, 80–1 ideological fragmentation 126–31 ideology: ETA 187–8 Idígoras, Jon 139 Ignatieff, M. 142 IKA 140 Ikas 119 Ikas-bi 105, 120 Ikasle Abertzaleak 198 ikastola school movement 102, 104–5, 106, 109, 118–19, 139–40 Ikurriña 87, 129, 158 illiteracy 29–30, 59, 60; Spain 45 Inchauspe, Michel 38 independentists: Spain 63–4 industrial cooperative 67, 102 industrialization 49 Institución de Libre Enseñanza 44 Institut Culturel Basque 119 insurrection (1851) 32 integration: European 79, 208 internal colonialism 5 international influences 2 international mediation 162, 211–12 internet: effect on national diffusion 12–13 INTERREG programme 13, 88, 89; European Union 90 intimidation 180–1, 204, 215 investments: cross-border 86 Iparralde (Northern Basque Country) 19–41; anti-system organizations 88; Basque nationalism 97–125, 227; bilingual education 118–19; compared with Hegoalde 74–6; identification 19; language 82; status planning 81; map 3; nationalist parties 88; political identification 83–4; self-identification 82–3; social control 229; trade unions 94; violence 184–5, 192 Iparretarrak 94, 101, 104, 123, 176, 184–5, 192, 199 Iraola, Victoriano 57 IRA sweaters 143, 179 Irazusta, Richard 89 Iribarren, Domínguez 192, 204, 207 Irish model: peace process 211 Irish nationalists 12, 13 Irvin, C.L. 7, 189–90 issue expansion 188 Iturralde, Juan 89–90

Index Itxassou congress (1963) 101, 122 Izquierda Unida 71 Jacob, J.E. 99 James, P. 11 Jarrai 198 Jauffret, François Antoine 23 Jáuregui, G. 7 Jáuregui Beciartu, G. 7 jeux floraux (flower games) 98 Johnston, R. 225 journalists 217 Junco, Álvarez 62 kale borroka (street violence) 143, 163, 167, 179–80, 182, 186, 212, 223 Kaplan, D.H. 4 KAS Alternative (Alternativa Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista) 188–9 Kellas, J.C. 8, 10 kidnappings 177, 178, 197 killing rates 177, 178 killings: targets 181 Korrika 93, 142 Kriesberg, L. 186, 219 LAB (Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak) 137, 139, 188, 198 Labéguerie, Michel 100 Laborde, P. 23–4 Labourd: Bayonne 25; language 120–1; map 3; as part of Euskal Herria 2; population 28 labour unions 94, 133, 137–9 Lafargue, Marie 33 Lafitte, Pierre 99 Laitin, D.D. 192–3, 195, 229 Lakua District 149 land ownership 24 Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak (LAB: Patriotic Workers Committee) see LAB language: bilingual education 114; corpus and status planning 81; education 116, 170–2; and identity 80–4, 95, 139–40, 166; politicization of 166; role of education 15; standardization 82 language activism 104–5, 140; response of French government 118–21 language revival 61, 121 language surveys: Aizpurua 38 language zones 171 Larramendi, Manuel de 127, 128 Larzabal, Pierre 100 Lasuén, J.R. 5

259

L’Avenir (newspaper) 26 Lefebvre, T. 26–7 Légasse, Marc 100 legislative elections 147 legitimacy 230; Basque nationalism 162–4; Spain 65 legitimization: of the nation-state 14; Spanish state 62; of violence 4 L’Eskualduna 99 liberalism: Spain 42–3 lifestyles: Spanish 71–2; traditional 39–40 Liga de Acción Monárquica 46 linguistic diversity 15 linguistic homogenization 28–32 linguistic normalization 165–6 linguistic revival 61, 121 Linz, Albeit 82, 168 Linz, J.J. 1 literacy 59 Lizarbe, Juan José 172 Lizarra-Garazi pact (1998) 138, 161, 199, 205, 206, 211–12 Lluch, Ernest 181 locale: role of 6–7 localism 41, 45–6, 142, 148 Lower Navarre: Euskera 38; map 3; population 28; redistribution 35 Loyer, B. 1, 2, 4, 13 MacClancy, J. 17 Madariaga, Ramón de 50 Madrid assaults (2004) 204 malapportionment 146 Manjón, Father 44 Manolete 58 Manzanas, Melitón 66 map: Euskal Herria 3 Martínez de Zaldibia, Juan 127 Martínez-Herrera, E. 72 martyrs 102, 188 mass consumption 51 mass culture 51, 55 mass demonstrations 215 mass education 20–1 mass media 31, 54 mass mobilization 9–10, 32 mass protests 32 Mauléon 115–16 Mayor Oreja, Jaime 218 Mayor Zaragoza, Federico 218 mechanization: of agriculture 51 media 55, 140, 167 mediation: international 162, 211–12 Mees, L. 138, 190, 212

260 Index Mende Berri 105 Mendigoixales (mountaineers’ organization) 134 Mesa de Ajuria Enea 209 mesogovernments 68–70 Mezo, J. 165 migrants 15, 85–6 migration 22, 28, 59–60, 136 militants 65, 102, 182–4, 189–90 military conscription 35, 66 Ministry of Education: French 119 minority cultures 37–8 minority languages 15, 58–61, 118–21 Mitterand Government: decentralization 37 MLNV (Movimiento para la Liberación Nacionalista Vasca) 188, 190, 203, 213, 215, 219 mobilization 3–4, 9–10, 75, 100, 102, 104, 124–5, 131–5, 135–45, 148–50, 227 modernization 13–14 Mondragón Corporacíon Cooperativa 67, 107, 140–1; EROSKI 87 money laundering 199 Moraiz, K. 212 Movimiento para la Liberación Nacionalista Vasca (MLNV) see MLNV Moyano Law 59 multiculturalism 143–4 multiple identities 11, 224 Nairn, T. 5, 74 narcissism: of minor difference 142 National Assembly 38 nationalism: approaches to 4–8; association with terrorism 2; Basque 50–1; concept of 8–11; French: history of 19–21; and language 150–1; Spanish 44, 47, 49, 50, 54 nationalist discourse 160–1 nationalist ideology: diffusion of 12–17 nationalist media 140 nationalist mobilization 227; non-radical 148–9; radical 149–50; weak 148 nationalist unions 137–8 nationalist voting behaviour 109–15, 152–4, 169–70 nationalization 74–6; process of 3–4 nationalization thesis 10–11 national symbols: Spain 45 nation-state building 74–6; political 10; studies of 6–7 Navarra: agriculture 51; anti-system organizations 88; Arana’s claims 78;

Autonomous Communities 145; Basque nationalism 168–74, 227; decentralization 61; fuero 46; language 71, 82; status planning 81; map 3; negative residuals 153; as part of Euskal Herria 2; political identification 83–4; political parties 71, 88, 147; positive discrimination 54; radical nationalism 149; self-identification 82–3, 83; Spanish nationalism 50; tourism 72; voting patterns 73 negotiations 188–9 see also peacemaking efforts neocaciquismo 70 newspapers 25–6, 31, 54–5, 56, 61, 103–4, 140 Northern Basque Country (Iparralde) see Iparralde Northern Ireland: NGOs 213; peace process 211, 212–13 Observatorio Vasco de Derechos Humanos y Libertades 218 official languages: role of education 15 Olzak, S. 5, 6 Onaindía, Mario 191, 210 opera 57 Ormaza, Antton 136 Ortega Lara, José Antonio 185 Otamendi, Martxelo 208 Otegi, Arnaldo 126 outfits 179 overdevelopment theory 5, 74 Oyharçabal, B. 118, 120 Ozouf, M. 20–1 pacto de Madrid (1987) 209 Pagola, Manex 115 Palestinian shawls 143, 179 Pamplona: map 3; nationalist mobilization 148; population 48; radical nationalism 149 pan-Basque nationalism: political parties 88 Pardines, José 176 pariente mayores 47 Parliament for the Region of Aquitaine 38, 39 Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV) see PNV Partido Popular (PP) see PP Partido Socialista de Euskadi (PSE) 54 Partido Socialista de Navarra (PSN) 54 Partido Socialista Obrera de España (PSOE) 54, 71, 147, 199, 212 Pasajes 67

Index Pau 116 Payne, S.G. 5 peace activists 213–18 peacemaking efforts 205–24; Ardanza’s proposal 209–11; policies 206; studies of 7–8 peace movement 232 peace talks 207 peasant society 22 pelota 72 Pérez-Agote, A. 65 Pérez-Díaz, V.M. 127, 162, 232 perpetrators: of violence 182–4 Perry, Nicole 38 ‘Petit-Bayonne’ 112 Piat, Edouard 115 plurality 160–1, 224 PNB 88 see also PNV PNB-EAJ 103 PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco): 1960s–70s 135; Arana 127, 128; Ardanza 210; Autonomy Statue 154–5; credibility 162–3; deindustrialization 137; development of 131–3; Ertzaintza 168; and ETA 199–202; and Europe 79; ideological dualism 130; localism 148–9; Navarra 88, 136; soberanista orientation 146–7, 210–11, 212–13; sub-cultures 142 PNV-EA coalition 155, 157 poetry festivals 98 police action: la vía policial 207 police forces 163–4, 167–8, 173 Policía Nacional 52, 65 policies: for conflict resolution 206 political behaviour: Spanish Basques 146 political mobilization 227–8; post-Franco period 135–45; pre-Franco period 131–5 political parties 88, 103, 136 political representation 38–9, 146 politicians: resignation of 161 politicized identity 83–4 politico-institutional scenarios: European 222–3; nationalist 219–21; Spanish 221–2 pop music 108–9, 142–4 population: size 28, 48–9 postmodernism 11 postwar period 53–4, 135; castilianization 61 poverty 22, 53 Poza, Andrés de 127 PP (Partido Popular) 50, 54, 71, 147, 148, 199, 210–11, 212 press: Basque nationalist 54–5; castilianization 61; influence of 25–6

261

Prieto, Indalecio 49 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio 45 Primo de Rivera period 42, 43, 44, 51, 53, 62 primordial nationalisms 4 prisoners: ETA 94, 188; Iparretarrak 94 protectionism 85; Spain 67–8 protests 32, 53, 207–8, 215 protest songs 108 PSE (Partido Socialista de Euskadi) 54 PSN (Partido Socialista de Navarra) 54 PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrera de España) 54, 71, 147, 199, 212 public expenditure: control of 37–8 public order 34; Spain 64–6 publishing houses 198 Pujol, Jordi 64, 65 punk bands 142–4 Pyrenees programme 90 radical nationalism 88–9, 144; voting patterns 192–5 radical nationalists 93, 100–2 radio 31, 167 Raento, P. 1, 2, 148 railways 36, 67 Rally for the Republic (RPR) 38, 39 ransoms 197, 201–2 Ravail, Jean 123 recruitment: ETA militants 184 redistribution: of resources 35–7 Redondo, Nicolás 126 refugees 102 regional identity 90 regionalism: French 39 regionalists 13; Spain 63–4 regional languages 118–21 religious unity: Spain 42–3 representation 38–9 representatives, political: France 38–9; Spain 71 repression 34, 54, 60–1, 65, 135, 136, 207, 230 Republicans 49–50 residuals: analysis of 152–3 resignation: of politicians 161 resources: economic 196–9 Revilla, Emiliano 197 ‘revolutionary tax’ 178–9, 197–8 Rioja region 57, 72 Rivas, Funas 215 roads 35–6, 67 Robinson, Mary 218 Roessingh, M.A. 14

262 Index Roldán, Luis 65 RPR (Rally for the Republic) 38, 39 rugby 27–8, 39, 72 rugby club: Ustaritz 121 rule of law 223–4 rural exodus 28 Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry 112, 115, 117 Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port 115, 117 Saint-Martin-d’Arrossa festival 109 Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle 114–15 Sakharov Award 218 Sánchez-Cuenca, I. 7, 221 Sancristóbal, Julián 65 Sangrador García, J.L. 46 San Sebastián: castilianization 60; ETA 184; harbour 67; map 3; nationalist mobilization 148; population 48; radical nationalism 149; zarzuela 57 Santacristina, José Luis Álvarez (Txelis) 179 Savater, Fernando 93, 142, 217 scenarios: peacemaking 209–24 schools 23, 44 Seaska 105, 119 secession 219–20 Second World War: effect on national diffusion 12 sectarianism 142, 191, 192 secularism 130–1 secularization 23, 42–3 Segi (Carry On) 144, 198, 219 self-determination 219–21 self-identification 83 self-perception 38, 82, 83 Senideak 188 separatists 63–4 settlement size: and innovation 117–18 shopping: cross-border 86–7 short-term initiatives: peacemaking 206–8 signposts 118, 172–3 Sinn Fein 212–13 smuggling 34, 51, 85 Snyder, J. 202–3 Soares, Mario 211–12 soccer 55–6, 72 social control 229 Social Democrats (PSOE: Partido Socialista Obrera de España) see PSOE socialism 49 socialists: French 39, 122 Sociedad Euskalerría 130 socio-economic conditions: nationalist voting patterns 151–2

Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos (STV) 53 Sorozábal, Pablo 57 Sota y Llano, Ramón de la 128, 130 Soule 2, 3, 28, 35, 38, 115, 116 Soulice, L.M. 29–30 sources 17 Spain: development of nation state 41–6; education 43, 44; identity 42, 45–6; influence of the church 44; liberalism 42–3; mid-nineteenth century 41; nationalism 44; religious unity 42–3; secularization 42–3; socialism 49 Spanish army 64, 66 Spanish nationalism 8, 54 Spanishness 70–4; contempt for 145 splinter groups 126, 139 sports 27–8, 39, 55–6, 91 sports organizations: early twentieth century 134 standardization: language 82 state agents 24–5, 51–2 state development theories 5–6 ‘State flaw’ 1 state intervention 67–8 state nationalism 8–9 state strength: development of 32–7 stock exchange 67 street violence 143, 163, 167, 179–80, 212, 223; Iparralde 185; targets 182 strikes 53–4 strong-state features 32 structuralist approaches 5–6 studies: of Basque conflict 6–7; identity 80–1 see also surveys STV (Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos) 53 subcultures 142 sub-state nationalism 5, 8–9 Sudupe, Roman 87 suffrage 32–3 superstores 55, 107–8 support, logistic: effect on nationalist diffusion 13 surveys: Basque identity 40; language and identity 70; national identity 72–4; nationalism and language 150–1; selfidentification 82; Spanish identity 46 see also studies symbols: Basque 87, 158–9; Catalonia 158; diffusion of nationalism 8–9; France 20; of peace 215; Spain 45 Tardets-Sorhulus 117 targets: of violence 181–2

Index taxpaying 35; Spain 66–7 Taylor, P.J. 225 teachers 24, 51–2, 59, 217 Tejerina Montaña, B. 2, 7, 61, 134, 139, 150, 228 telecommunications 167 television 31, 45, 55, 167 territorial administration 37–8, 68–70 territorial considerations: and nationalism 2; publications on 1 territoriality 78–80, 225–6 terrorist organizations: EU list of 219 Thépaut, Hervé 104, 192 Thiesse, A.M. 19 threats 161–2 Tilly, C. 10, 12, 14 top-down nationalization 3–4 torture 208 tourism 26–7, 49, 72, 87, 102, 107 town twinning 91 trade unions 94, 133, 137–9 transport infrastructure 35–6, 67 Treviño 78–9 truces: (1998-99) 161, 207 see also cease-fires Tucholsky, Kurt 27 twinning: of towns 91 Txalaparta 198 Txelis (Santacristina, José Luis Álvarez) 179 Txokos 57, 72 Udalbiltza 91–3, 95, 200, 212, 226 udaletxe 198 udel initiative 218 UDF (Union for French Democracy) 39 UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores) 53, 137, 138 UK (United Kingdom) 49 Ulster see Northern Ireland Unidad Alavesa 54, 71, 146 uniformity: of nationalist message 12 Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) see UPN Union for French Democracy (UDF) 39 Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) see UGT unions 94, 133–4, 137–9; farmers 105–7 United Kingdom (UK) 49 UPN (Unión del Pueblo Navarro) 54, 71, 147, 148 urban system 86 urban terrorism 179 Uriarte, Edurne 218

263

Uriarte, Teo 191 Ustaritz: rugby club 121 Vera, Rafael 65 victims: of violence 181–2, 213–14, 215 Villaverde de Trucios 78–9 Vincent, Mgr 105 Vinson, J. 98 violence: Enbata 101; ETA militants 182–4; ETA strategies 185–6; extortion 178–9; Hegoalde 202–3; intimidation 180–1; Iparralde 184, 186, 202; kale borroka 179–80; killings 178; legitimization 104; manifestations 177; notion of 17, 176; patterns 4; perpetrators 182–4; post 1998-99 truce 161; studies 7; support for 192–6; targets 181–2; types 231–2; zones of conflict 177–8 Vitoria 3, 48, 148, 156 Vizcaya: agriculture 51; Arana’s claims 78; Basque speakers 227; castilianization 59–60; economic development 15, 16; ETA 184; Euskera 71; Gesto 215; Liga de Acción Monárquica 46; loss of autonomy 47; map 3; nationalist mobilization 148; PNV 132; repression 54; strikes 54; and UK 49 voluntary contributions 197–8 voting patterns: analysis of 109–15; Basque nationalist 148–50; ethnoregionalist parties, Spain 69; Euskadi Parliament elections 155–7 Vrignon, B. 100, 101 ‘war of attrition’ 185 ‘war on terrorism’ 219 wars: effect on nationalist diffusion 12; mobilization: Spain 63 Weber, E. 6, 9, 35 welfare state: and traditional lifestyles 37 Woodworth, Paddy 65 Ybarnégaray, Jean 23, 34 youth culture 108–9, 142–4 Yoyes (Dolores González Caterain) 191 Zabaleta, Patxi 191–2 Zabaltzen 198 Zamora, Julio Iglesias 215 zarzuela 57 Zulaika, J. 7, 17, 65 Zumárraga 161