Unity against ETA: Spain deserves better

Spaniards don’t deserve ETA. Who could deserve such a mindless gang of murderers? There was a time, perhaps, when ETA fought Franco in the name of Basque independence it was also doing so partly in the name of the other Spain - the one that was squashed in the Civil War and the dictatorship. But the transition to democracy brought a whole raft of political freedoms and the open-ended system of regional autonomy, eventually allowing Euskera to be taught in schools and Basques’ taxes to be spent in the wealthy region, among many other dramatic changes.

ETA should have changed. By continuing to assassinate and bomb it was now against all Spain and guilty of the worse kind of bigotry - the kind of prejudice the terrorists thought they were themselves opposing. Murdering under democracy was no longer even arguably a case of killing a certain kind of Spaniard to benefit the whole of Spain, but rather killing any Spaniard (a person in a supermarket or in a seaside resort) in order to advance the Basque cause – the cause of the Basque Country for the Basques, regardless of who else might live there. 

 

It took some time for Spaniards to come together in rejection of this disgraceful violence. Among the elements of the hangover from the Franco era were mistrust of other groups in society and the ferocity of political divisions, something which ETA was able to exploit until the 21^st century brought with it the antiterrorist pact between the Popular Party (PP) and the Socialists. In July 1997 the kidnapping and murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco, a small-town PP councilor, played a key part in actively uniting Spaniards against the terrorist scourge. Fear was finally overcome by indignation. I remember a seaside street full of people, perfect strangers who had interrupted their beach holidays to march in protest at the ETA ultimatum: Blanco would be executed if all ETA prisoners were not moved to Basque jails within 48 hours. I felt better about the Spain I lived in during that silent protest and no doubt millions of Spaniards did too. I remember vividly seeing on television Basque Ertzaintza policemen present at a demonstration symbolically pulling off their balaclavas so their faces could be seen – by the terrorists. The time to huddle in fear and be tempted to seek protection in political rivalries had long passed.

Now the group is weaker, and even, it seems, destined to disappear in the near future. This is something all Spaniards should celebrate, so to see the PP again play political hardball with the scraps left over from the peace process embarked on by Zapatero five years ago seems offensively unscrupulous. Particularly when, since that failed initiative which naturally contained some difficult compromises and a touch of skulduggery in order to actually get ETA to sit down and talk, the Socialist government has overseen an unprecedented persecution of ETA, both in terms of the hundreds of arrests made and also in the legal struggle to keep the terrorists’ political allies out of state institutions.

Crime should not mix with politics. True. Judges should be completely independent from politicians. That would be nice. But in the here and now of today’s Spain, it is far from the case, as is demonstrated week in week out by controversies over the selection (by politicians) of judges to occupy the panels of the leading courts and squabbles between magistrates of differing associations. Politically motivated violence, however, cannot be truly defused by police work, and the antiterrorist pact recognized this by stating that the government of the day should be supported in its full control of policy in this area. The PP should be silent. Spain deserves better.

Comments

[Publicado por: Skippy]

@Tapia.
Methinks you choose to ignore historical facts in your attempts to justify what is, I don't deny it, the 21st century status quo of the Spanish State as such. Socioeconomic divides are more blatantly obvious than cultural differences (please note I do not use the term 'divide'; I'd rather see a global multiculture emerging) anywhere you go, from Bangkok to Apia, from San Francisco to Kuala Lumpur, to name a few places I've recently visited. In Mexico City, they're starkly more noticeable than in Madrid.

I'd be very wary of using the term 'periphery'; it might be merely spatial terminology, but it can be easily interpreted as 'non-essential'.

Anyhow, the point I was trying to make is that what I term 'Spanish patriots' almost invariably reject what some call 'peripheries' as fully-defined cultural entities. Why your typical Castilian refuses to order their coffee in Catalan when they are in Barcelona while they demand a Catalan orders theirs in Spanish when they visit Toledo, for example.
I hope you can see what I'm getting at.

[Publicado por: Tapia]

@Skippy. "Vastly" different...For me it would be, say, Japanese vs. Bantu. And even then, I am sure that they share many more similarities than members of either culture will surely suspect.
As an outside observer, here in the Iberian peninsula I do not see cultural differences of real importance. And I've lived both in the "center" and the "periphery", and speak and use daily more than one of the tongues used in this smallish geographical corner of the World, and thus I believe that I understand each subculture quite well. On the other hand, I do see strong and distinctive class and economic divides.

[Publicado por: Skippy]

@Tapia.
And vastly different linguistic and cultural views of what teh concept of State should be from that held by most 'Spanish patriots'; they always choose to omit those. Why would that be?

[Publicado por: Jaun]

You don't mention one important fact. The PSOE proposed the Antiterrorist Pact to the PP, and when it was signed, they broke it starting secret contacts with political spokesmen of ETA. Spain deserves better: A trustworthy PSOE who does not manipulate have of this country's population.

[Publicado por: Tapia]

I have been hearing for the past 30 years or so that the end of ETA is imminent. I don't really know what will take to fulfill that promise or wishful thinking, but the leniency shown by the Spanish society as a whole towards this scourge has always surprised me. And "this scourge" is much more than just gangs of killers. It refers mainly to the acceptance by a significant segment of the Basque population of violence and intimidation as legitimate political instruments. These people carry normal lives, have jobs and families and form a tight social network that, in their view, is the only and authentic basis for the Basque fatherland. My gut feeling is that whoever is in power needs to thoroughly understand this hardcore base of Basque society just to begin to think of policies that could eventually lead to the end of ETA.
By the way, "other Spain" has mostly social and economic, more than simply territorial, connotations.

[Publicado por: Skippy]

While I do not disagree with the gist of your piece, the opening paragraph contains a self-contradictory argument. You talk about 'the other Spain' while arguing for a united state or nation. Well, if there were (or are still?) 'two' Spains (implicit in your use of 'other'), so much for your idea of 'unity'.

[Publicado por: Luis]

Amen to the article. This is what is happening and this is how this period will be remembered historically.

It somehow seems more obvious when stated in English by outsiders than when said in Spanish in the heat of the Spanish political debate

[Publicado por: Lucía P.]

Only PP fights against ETA

http://www.ingenioconsaboralaca.com/2011/04/yo-soy-apolitico-pepe.html