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National cohesion and unity within Spain are tenuous today; they are challenged by various non-Spanish indigenous peoples (also known as "ethnic groups" and "nationalities") within the territorial boundaries of the state. Since the momentous 1977 transition from the Franco dictatorship to the current "socialist democracy," the question of achieving stability as a unified nation has become particularly acute. The Spanish government has created state institutions which provide a very limited autonomy for non-Spanish peoples, but a substantive devolution of power to those peoples remains incomplete, narrow in its scope, and trammeled by numerous competing pressures.
Several indigenous nationsmost importantly, the Catalans, Basques and Galicianscontinue to proclaim their rights to separate realities, based on their existence as autonomous and self-determining socio-political entities prior to the formation of the Spanish Kingdom as a modern state. After decades of struggle to achieve such rights, they are still seeking to recover the freedom and independence they at one time enjoyed but subsequently lost in the statist processes of centralizing coercive power and legal authority and attempting to homogenize Spanish society. Their nationalist ideologies are currently expressed in terms of "regionalism;" the rights of Euskadi (the Basque homeland), Catalonia and Galicia, as regions, are at issue.
New opportunities were presented to regional nationalists in elections which were held in early June 1993. As a result of the election, Basque and Catalan nationalists could become the brokers of a new government coalition, unless Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez prefers to lead a minority government rather than make the concessions such a coalition would require. Regional success in the electoral process could make it possible to achieve some of the regionalists' long-standing objectives and to restructure Spain as an authentically ethno-federalist state. However, the three regionalist agendas have little in the way of uniformity in their respective approaches to the issue of autonomy and the ideal structure of the envisioned new state.
Catalan nationalists view the possibility of ruling the Spanish government or substantial power-sharing within the government as paths toward implementation of their own nationalist agenda. Although Catalonia seeks autonomy, its ambitions also include achieving a position of control within the greater Spanish political and economic arenas. More than any other non-state nation within the country, Catalonia is likely to benefit from the Spanish elections.
Catalans demonstrated their national capabilities by hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics, which took place in their capital city of Barcelona. They played their own national anthem before the Spanish anthem and displayed their flag prominently, which, in addition to their widespread use of Catalan as the primary language of the region, indelibly impressed their national identity (not to be mistaken with mere "ethnicity") upon an international visiting public. Many athletes from abroad must have been surprised to find that Castillian Spanish was of little use in Barcelona.
Recently, a Catalan representative in the European Parliament, publicly addressing a British colleague, chose to speak in English in order to avoid the use of Spanish, the language of his oppressors. The Britisher, very impressed by the Catalan's politeness in using English, and totally unaware of Spanish-Catalan animosities, responded that he would answer in Spanish to return the politeness. Such is the nature of global ignorance regarding Catalan national identity.
Basques, by way of comparison, have demonstrated for over 30 years that they are Spain's most aggressively separatist people. The prominent nationalist movement known as ETA (which stands for Euskadi Ta Azkatasuna"Basque Homeland and Freedom") has conducted a sometimes violent campaign for liberation since its inception in 1959, most of it in the past two decades. Currently, ETA may be experiencing a weakening of its power base, due largely to statist attempts to dismantle the organization. Throughout 1992 and continuing in 1993, both the French and Spanish governments have arrested many key figures within ETA, claiming with some justification that those individuals are violent extremists and terrorists. On the other hand, Spain and France do not acknowledge their own capacity as states for violence and terror in suppression of Basque national aspirations.
As exclusivist nationalism, the Basque political movement has generally rejected the option of coalition within a Spanish government and integration within Spanish society. The ETA agenda has consistently called for liberation. Now, with support for ETA possibly diminished, Basque nationalism as an electoral agenda, represented by the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), has grown stronger and less exclusivist. The electoral route has appeared to its proponents as an option which will not alienate those who have rejected violence and who have decided that total independence is not a realistic goal, at present.
Basques have been in positions of regional authority for some 10 years now, largely due to the work of PNV politicians and members of parliament. The institutionalization of their participation within Spanish national politics has led to an aging and rationalizing membership within the autonomy movement, which now finds expediency in occasionally voting for the interests of the ruling party, in exchange for political favors. However, the ETA still has much support. In a recent demonstration in Bayonne, France, Basque nationalists demanded the release of some 600 prisoners held there by the French government.
Fourth World Bulletin • July 1993
Copyright © 1996 by the Fourth World Center
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