Umm, Wolf, it seems as if you are reading the propaganda of a staunch basque nationalist party. They are your opinions, but let me disagree:
You're right. The elected government in 1936 holds no sway today. The rule applied to the Basques is that of a dictator, and the people of Spain are continuing that dictatorial rule over the Basques because it's convenient to keep it that way.
Incomplete and unfair. The elected government was kicked out by a coalition of socialists and other forces by undemocratic means (after 5 tries of coup d'etat in the years between 1930 and 1932, of which 4 of them were of leftist parties which tried to impose a sovietic regime). The rule that apply over basques nowadays is that of 1978, a Constitution voted in democratic and free elections.
In 1936 both sides of the Civil War were burning churches and shooting Priests because of their politics.
Incorrect. Only leftist parties were anti-clerical and anti-catholic. Anarchists, communists, socialists and radical republicans praised and organized burnings of churches, universities and schools.
In 1931, after the revolution, and election, that brought an elected party to office, the people lashed out at their largest oppressor in Spain, which was actually the Catholic Church that kept them in abject poverty while they became fat off the labor of the people. In essence, they asked for it.
Incorrect. Socialists organized a strike in order to ruin the crops of that year as a means to rise the unrest and achieve the dictatorship of the proletaries in a sovietic way. Only 2,000 of 9,000 councils supported the strike. Churches and clerics were attacked because leftist parties were absolutely anti-clerical. Spain was then majorly a traditional and ultra-catholic country.
You say that over half the Basques don't want independence, but let's face facts. The Madrid government is afraid that may not be true, or they would allow the referendum.
According our Constitution a referendum can only be organized by the Government (the spanish one).
You'd think they'd be happy to allow it, since they systematically moved non-Basques into Basque Country for decades to "dilute" the Basque influence over the region.
This was a calculated move by Franco to essentially "occupy" the region with non-Basques, who also were granted positions of authority, supported by the military, and given every feasible support to succeed, while the Basques themselves were held down, and the government tried to force them into submission.
That is simply untrue. Franco heavily industrialized the Basque Country and Catalonia in order to ease the unrest. As the employment was created in these two regions, people from other regions migrated to them.
What's happened in the region is in a great part the responsibility of the government in Madrid, no matter how you look at the issue.
What has happened in the region is in the greatest part, in my opinion, responsibility of nationalists. The lack of culture and education ar the extreme.
Like I've said repeatedly, and CaliBasco has said as well, ETA will continue to function as a force until such time as the people of Spain live up to the agreements reached by the Cortes in 1936, or at least grant them a referendum that will allow them to determine which direction they want to pursue.
ETA will continue to function as a force as long as there is people who think that terrorism can be justified by grievances happened a century ago and as long as some people think they can impose the rest their ideas by putting bombs or shooting in the head to those who dare speak in loud voice.
As for the majority of those who say they have left Basque Country for other climes in Spain because of the unrest, the majority of them seem to come from families that were transplanted to Basque Country by Franco in the first place. The ones that were sent there to dilute the Basque legacy.
I think that some friends of mine and 200,000 basques would want to say something about that statement. It sounds to me like "they are jews, they are not germans" issue.
Even if it was true (which it isn't) it would be unmoral and really undemocratic. Are black americans true americans or africans? Are germans of turkish parents germans or turkish?
Wolf I really don't see your point. We live in a democracy agreed by the majority of spaniards (and the majority of basques) peacefully (for the longest period in centuries). Now the basque government, supported by ETA via its political partys' votes, try to get independent by illegal means (that is, breaking the laws)... and you say that it is fair because in 1936 there were a revolutionary pro-sovietic government which stated that the Basque Country was independent???? I can barely believe it...
Fernando
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