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Basque Country: Armed struggle ends, mass struggle continues
Cool masks: ETA members on video. They don't wear balaclavas like the Zapatistas because that's what the cops wear in the Basque Country
Last weekend, the Basque armed group Euskadi Ta Azkatasuna, which has fought an armed struggle for Basque freedom for decades, released a video declaring that several months ago they decided to stop armed actions, and announced a ceasefire.
In their statement, ETA said:
“In recent times, the Basque country has been at an important crossroads. The political struggle has opened up new conditions . . . The time has come to build a democratic framework for the Basque country respecting the wishes of the majority of the Basque people . . . The Spanish state is aware that the Basque country is at a crossroads. That the Basque country can now take the road of independence. They want to create conditions in which everything is blocked, to avoid political dialogue and to drown out the aspirations of the people . . . Basque activists and Basque citizens need to respond to this responsibly and urgently.
It is time to take responsibility and take firm measures . . . in the articulation of the independence project, in the process of creating democratic conditions, to respond to repression and the firm defence of civil and political liberties. Political change is possible. But there is no shortcut along the way.”
The road to freedom must be walked a step at a time, perhaps flexibly, but the effort and struggle towards this goal is necessary.
ETA’s decision is part of a wider re-alignment amongst the Basque pro-independence left, a process which I was able to witness during my visit there earlier this year. The mass movement of the left is trying to build maximum unity among the different forces demanding Basque independence, in order to force the Spanish government back the negotiating table from a position of strength. At a major rally I attended while I was there to mark this process, a declaration was signed that committed the participants to “exclusively peaceful and political means” to achieving change.
As one Basque activist put it to me: “We always understood we could not achieve independence and socialism through armed struggle, it was always defensive to protect our people and community from the attacks of the Spanish state. We always knew that mass struggle was the way to achieve our aims, and now we are entering a new phase of that struggle.”
The process of agreeing the new peaceful mass strategy has involved thousands of activists from the youth, trade unions, women’s movement, ecological movements and more.
The pro-independence left responded warmly to the announcement, saying in a statement:
“The Abertzale [pro-independence] Left considers that the public statement done by ETA is a contribution of unquestionable value to the establishment of peace and the consolidation of a democratic process. Therefore, we appeal to all political, trade union and social agents, to the Governments of Madrid and Paris and to the international community, to respond constructively to the desire of the majority of the Basque society.”
Predictably enough, the Spanish government has attempted to dismiss the historic announcement. The pro-independence left has for years been seeking a negotiated way to end the political in the Basque Country, but the Spanish government is only interested in crushing them. Basque political parties are banned, as is the youth organisation, newspapers are shut down, and over 800 political prisoners are held far from their families and subjected to torture by a supposedly “democratic” government. When released they are often subjected to incredibly harsh bail conditions that ban people from taking part in any kind of political activity on pain of return to prison.
Spot the difference: Mr Bean could do a better job than lookalike PM Zapatero
The Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, bizarrely said he was “disappointed” by the ceasefire announcement, adding that “statements are worth nothing, only decisions matter.” Presumably he has missed the fact that ETA has carried out no armed actions while the pro-independence left has been discussing and implementing its new strategy. Meanwhile his own government continues the brutal repression of anyone from the Basque Country who dares to stand up to them. His “disappointment” perhaps stems from the fact that ETA’s ceasefire will make it harder for them to brand innocent activists who have never used a weapon in their lives as “terrorists” and lock them up in brutal conditions.
An example of the kind of mass struggles that are taking place in the Basque Country is the demonstration that took place yesterday in the historic Basque capital of Iruñea as part of an international day of action around the capitalist crisis. The Basque trade union federation LAB, which is the biggest representative of organised workers in the Basque Country and fights for workers’ rights, independence and socialism, organised a mass demonstration outside the parliament. Then several activists went on to occupy a branch of the Santander bank. They wanted to highlight how the attacks facing Basque workers (much the same as the ones we face in Scotland at the hands of the ConDem government) were a result of the crisis caused by the banks. Check out the video below of the action:
The occupation went on for two hours, and led to seven activists being arrested, who were later released.
Demonstrating against the capitalist crisis in Iruñea
As a common Basque citizen I want to thank you for the well informed article and would like to let you know that in the long march of the Basques, Europe`s most ancient culture, towards independence we will need the help of those people who even if they live in distant places believe in the meaning of the words justice and democracy. Justice and democracy for Euskal Herria!!
The Basque separatists are nationalists aren’t they? The BNP are nationalists. I am a BNP official who likes much of Islam and call myself a socialist. I admire Fidel Castro too. I don’t want slave labour imported into this country. Why don’t you oppose that as well FOR THE SAKE OF ALL WORKERS? Stop supporting the capitalists. Why break our campaign to stop the war and charge Tony Blair for warcrimes? Support the socialist faction of the BNP – we don’t like the fascists. Learn the world is not what you think it is and you are helping the globalist capitalist fascists unwittingly.
Interesting comment, Jane.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a BNP member call themself a socialist before – probably because it’s a giant oxymoron that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
A fundamental part of socialism is recognising that our land and natural resources belong to us – not to the capitalists who buy, sell and exploit them. The world belongs to all of us, and that means that the UK belongs to immigrants and people of colour just as much as it belongs to you.
A socialist society will be one with no borders and no such thing as illegal immigration, because we will all be free to move, live, travel and work wherever we choose, regardless of skin colour, religion or where our ancestors called home.
Jane, you do get that the Basque comrades are ‘nationalist’ in the sense that they support independence for their small nation which was undemocratically swallowed up by a neighbouring imperialist, colonialist state.
Sound similar to any other parts of Europe?
Hating muslims has nothing to do with nationalism. It has everything to do with racism.
Not to be a bore but National socialism os the correct term for fascism the socialism is im portant. Their was Nazis that were killed because they were too socialist and also in Spain a catholic traditionalist actually believed in helping the people and was done in it is not some myth a man can be racist and a socialist. The very fact is socialism was made by two Germans who thought little of black people or Asian people so it is not a shock that others hold these believes you are in fact liberal socialist people that go with anything.
You can’t really be a socialist and a racist. You can certainly claim to be, but you’re not really one.
What does the statement that we “go with anything” even mean?
Go with anything means you do not disagree with a vast majority of things because you would then be racist sexist, bigot or a homophobe hence you can’t attack any one based on these factors.
Original socialism was for Europe the mindset of Karl Marx and others was not about Africans, Native Amercians or asians. Of course there is the whole we’re all workers together and all race is merely an excuse for the private companies abuse us.
But saying that you can be racist adhering to national socuialism in its propaganidsed form is near to socialism of course only for your nation because others are not as good as you. This is trtue of all things of a revolutionary stature the French called for liberty but ten years later they were controlling the whole of Europe through physical force.
National socialism was absolutely nothing like socialism. Leaving aside all the horrors of repression and the holocaust, if you look into their economic policies, they’re better described as “military Keynesianism”, i.e. yes they stimulated the economy with lots of public spending (mostly on the military, but also on things like building the autobahns), and big business was left pretty much untouched, which is why a lot of capitalists supported the rise of Hitler. I think you’re letting their rhetoric confuse you about what they actually did. They did tbf make some chat about taking on the capitalists to attract working class support, but when they were in power pretty much none of these policies were carried out. The Nazis were idealists, that is they believed that material things were unimportant and history was made by a small group of heroic individuals leading the world and changing it (unlike socialists, who are materialists and think that history is a result of the material conditions, the economic base and the class struggle etc.) As a result, they were all over the place on the economy, because Hitler fundamentally didn’t really care about it or think that economics was important. But the working class had NO power under the Nazis, trade unions and strikes were completely banned, the state controlled everything and worked hand in hand with big business. That’s got fuck all to do with socialism. I recommend the wiki article on the economy of the Third Reich, it deals with all this stuff quite well and the debates of historians around it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany)
As for Karl Marx, he was a product of his time, a time when social darwinism was one of the most accepted ideas in European society, and it was taken as a given that different races exist (which they don’t, as 20th century science has shown us), and that people had inherent characteristics as a result of their “race”. As a result some of the stuff Marx and Engels said was a bit dodgy, even if the underlying ideas are fundamentally sound and still useful today. However, they were also relatively progressive for their time once they had properly studied colonialism, slavery etc., and it’s not true to say they saw socialism as being confined to Europe, they were always in favour of an advanced socialist society for the entire world. Read what they had to say on the American Civil War and how they were absolutely opposed to slavery for example (“Labour cannot emancipate itself in a white skin while in a black skin it is branded”), or what they thought about British colonialism in India or Ireland (“”-it is in the direct and absolute interest of the English working class to get rid of the their present connection with Ireland. The English working class will never accomplish anything until it has got rid of Ireland. The English reaction has its roots in the subjugation of Ireland.”)
I’m still confused by what you mean about “go with anything”. Do you think it’s wrong that we refuse to attack people based on their “race” or sexual orientation?I know lots of people do that, but that doesn’t make it right, and we exist to stop that kind of thing from happening. I’ll ask you again what I asked you elsewhere, is your solution to the problems of the left really that we should laugh at racist and sexist jokes? Should we get people to support us by ignoring it if they’re a bit racist? Or should we challenge racism, sexism, homophobia and bigotry everywhere we encounter it?