A CRITICAL RESPONSE ESSAY ON THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE ETHNO-NATIONALIST TERRORISM OF THE ETA

Kıvanç Sağır - 2005

‘Terror harbors evil intentions against our ability to live in ease with democracy.’ Ana Palacio, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain

Terrorism is destruction of people or property by people not acting on behalf of an established government for the purpose of redressing a real or imaginary injustice attributed to an established government and aimed directly or indirectly at an established government (Hill). Most official definitions of terrorism also contain the word "unlawful" or "criminal" as part of the definition. As Daniel Byman (1998) puts it, the most dangerous kind of terrorism is ethno-nationalist terrorism. In this essay we are going to make a criticism of ethno-nationalist terrorism taking the Basque Fatherland and Liberty, the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) as the example, and try to prove that it can never be justified. We will also support this thesis by making some references to the novel The Lone Woman by the Basque author, Bernardo Atxaga.

Ethno-nationalist terrorism, which can have very bad effects for governments and their citizens, may espouse ideological concerns which are closely held beliefs. However, the primary reason for their existence is their identity with an ethnic or national group. These groups are most often minorities and they usually perceive themselves as oppressed or threatened by dominant majority groups (Spencer). They mostly want to establish their own states with the understanding of self-determination. Self-determination is the decision by the people of a nation as to what form of government they shall have, independently, without reference to the wishes of any other nation (IMUNA).

The ETA and its objective is probably the best example for self-determination. It uses terrorism in hopes of forming an independent Basque state in parts of northern Spain and southwest France as seen in the picture on the left. The Basques are a linguistically and culturally distinct Christian group that has lived since the Stone Age in the mountainous region that straddles the border between modern-day Spain and France and have managed to preserve their culture until the present times. The ETA was formed in 1959 by young activists angered by the Spanish dictator Franco’s suppression, which lasted between 1937 and 1975, of the Basque people, in order to replace the regime of Franco with a socialist system. Under Franco, the Spanish government had often met the ETA violence with violence, and terror suspects were sometimes tortured. These increased the attacks of the ETA (Narváez). Later on, especially after the death of Franco in 1975, their objective has become to separate Basque from Spain and to establish a free state. This is because, the Basques, who have enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy over the centuries under Spanish and French rule, but who have never had an own independent state, has no longer wanted to live under the rule of any other state (Narváez). With this objective, the ETA has been in a terrorist struggle against Spain and rarely France.

Like all ethno-nationalist and separatist terrorist groups, the ETA uses demonstratively symbolic acts of violence to generate publicity and rally support by calling attention to the weakness of the government to withstand the nationalist expression they defend and thus embarrass and force it into acceding to the group’s demands (Hoffman). At the revolutionary extreme the ETA wishes to take over the government from the Spanish and control the state for their own benefit. This understanding is what we call “self-determination”, and the Basques can be right for this. This is because they have their own culture, for instance their literature, music style, cloth style, drinking style are different from the Spanish, own language, Euskera, an ancient one meaning the expression of Basque “essence” and the mythical bearer of Basque national culture, and even own genetic features (Narváez). However, they are not right when making violent acts against the Spanish. Such violent acts do not make them gain anything. By terrorism, the ETA can only end the lives of its enemies by murdering them.

Besides its enemies, The ETA also destroys the lives of its own members by forcing them to carry out all the wild duties they are given. If a member does not carry out a duty, behaves in a way contrary to the rules of the organization or wants to leave it, he/she is punished being dismissed from the organization and the relation with his/her is cut off; shortly that member is left alone. We see such a situation in the novel The Lone Woman. In the novel, the dramatic story of a former ethno-nationalist terrorist, who is condemned to be left alone by the people around her, of the ETA is impressively presented by the author, Atxaga. When presenting this, Atxaga makes a penetrating look into the meanings of the words freedom, nation, oppression and servitude in the ETA.

In this part, we are going to talk about the loneliness of the hero of the novel, Irene. Irene is a 37-year-old Basque woman imprisoned in Barcelona four years ago for terrorist activities on behalf of the ETA. She has just got out of prison and wants to, but there is no one to meet her, because her lover is dead, her husband divorced, her family has disowned her, she has no children. She cannot expect the organization to meet her, either, because just before being jailed she wants to leave the organization, and because of this behavior she is seen as traitor and is consequently left alone by the people in the organization and around her. Atxaga says: “She knew that many of them despised her for leaving the organization and taking on the role of reformed terrorist, but she found it hard to believe that everyone felt like that, without exception” (21). She even calls her family, and on the phone, she tells her father about her suffering that none of her relatives or friends comes to meet her. The author describes her feelings:

Years ago, whenever she came back from a school trip or from a holiday, she would find her parents and brothers at the station, and if her family couldn’t be there, then her friends would meet her. Now, after four years in prison, she had no one… She knew that many of them despised her for leaving the organization and taking on the role of reformed terrorist, but she found it hard to believe that everyone felt like that, that all her friends from before felt like that, without exception. This made her furious. (21)

Nevertheless, she still retains her hope and decides to return her home town of Bilbao in the Basque country.

Other than Irene’s loneliness, the novel also tells of her panic, anxiety, suspicion of others as she faces the world again. She is just out of prison, and now she is back in the world in which, in the past, she was a murderer as a terrorist. This situation makes her feel very anxious. For instance, in the bus taking her to Bilbao, there is a large lady in the next seat, a couple of nuns and two men, and she tries to abstract herself from these people, because it is as if these people know that she is fresh out of prison, an amnestied terrorist, her reputation compromised. She also feels that people are watching her and the police are tracking her. She even remembers a poem in which a man is in the similar situation with her: “The mind of an ex-prisoner... Always returns to prison... In the street, he passes judges, prosecutors and lawyers, and the police, though they don’t know him, look at him more than at anyone else, because his step is not calm or assured, because his step is far too assured... Inside him lives a man condemned for life” (Atxaga 25). Irene is so restless that she cannot prevent, throughout the story, from feeling as if she is tracked by the police and, she always remembers this poem.

After the routine life in prison, she comes face to face with the hardship of life outside. She is often confused about the lifestyle outside. It is even very complex for her how to get to Bilbao, where to buy the bus ticket, how to interpret the timetable. As Atxaga states, “She was used to the rigid prison timetable, to a life that passed, not like a river or a current in the sea, but like the little wheels in a clock, always turning on the same axis, never changing speed, so anything unusual, any uncertainty ,made her feel uneasy” (Atxaga 5). Also, in the jail, she has good friends, such as Margarita, “who is an intelligent, slightly eccentric woman and who intimately tells her stories she lived before the prison to her cellmates” (Atxaga 38), and Antonia, who “looks older than her age as a consequence of the life she leads before she is sent to prison” (Atxaga 13) while she almost has no one outside. That is why, for Irene, the prison is a safer and friendlier, at least easier, place than outside.

This novel also gives us some clues about how the Spanish government deals with the ETA. The hero of the novel, Irene, is not imprisoned somewhere inside the borders of the Basque region, but in Barcelona. Such a proceeding is probably to separate the terrorists from each other and destroy their co-ordination while staying in the jail. Other than this process expressed in the novel, the Spanish government has also outlawed the organizations that provide support to families of jailed ETA members. Since September 11, more than 50 suspected ETA members have been arrested. Spain currently holds 572 ETA members in prison, while France holds 124. (Narváez). Spain has successfully prosecuted hundreds of ETA members in open courtroom proceedings. From 1983 to 1987, the paramilitary Antiterrorist Liberation Groups, which enjoyed covert government support, killed 27 suspected Basque separatists. Also a couple of years ago, the Spanish Supreme Court banned the ETA-linked Batasuna political party (ETA FACT). These are some of the ways that the Spanish officials have handled this problem.

Dealing with ethno-nationalist terrorism requires the kind of engagement, capacity building and cooperative problem solving that conflict resolution practitioners and theorists have been working on for more than generation. When faced with a terrorist attack, national security policy makers invariably have to think about how they should respond in the days, weeks and months that follow. Given the pressing decisions they have to make, their timeframes have to be short. The Spanish government should not meet the ETA’s acts in a violent way, as done under the Franco regime, if they are not compelled, because it will most probably incite the terrorists. On the other hand, the ETA, which has been blamed for murdering, since 1960s, more than 800 victims including politicians, journalists, businessmen, soldiers, judges, policemen, academics and also tourists, must immediately stop terrorizing Spain. The ETA must also take into account that Basque nationalists support its aim but not its terrorist methods (Nash & Auerbach). Consequently, both the ETA and the Spanish government must approach each other with peaceful negotiations.

Ethno-nationalist terrorism, the most dangerous one for a country among the other kinds terrorism, spread by the ETA is totally unacceptable, although its objective can be acceptable. It is an outrageous and unjustifiable disaster on the Spanish and French people and democracy. Every democratic person, in not only Spain or France but also elsewhere in the world, has to condemn these people who want to interfere with the lives of innocent people, producing suffering for hundreds of people, leaving families broken, with or without any objective. The ETA members cannot justify atrocities by claiming that they are not terrorists because they are freedom fighters. If they want to achieve their goals, they have to move in a more democratic and humanistic way. Otherwise, neither the Basques nor the Spanish and the French will gain anything from these murders.