Daavon's Blog
ETA: Separatist Terrorism in SpainArchive for Personal Statment
The End is Near
As this will be my last post, I have a lot to reflect on. I have learned entirely too much on the subject of ETA, but there truly is a lot to learn about the topic. I came to this blog only with the knowledge I’d acquired in High School and with the little bit I’d learned in Spain (Viva España!). My first impressions were that it was just a petty group without my reasoning for their cause but to wage war and terrorize. But behind every terrorist group, it seems, there is an underlying meaning that they don’t believe can be solved in any other manner but to terrorize a country’s citizens and fight against a country’ government. So what is ETA’s main reasoning for this battle that in the beginning seemed completely unable to be one? The simple truth of it all is supremacism.
In the beginning it was a way to rebel and say, “Hey, we’re not part of Spain. We are vascos.” But what is a vasco? According to a statistic I found on Wikipedia, 60 percent of the population of the Basque Region understand and speak well Euskera, the language of indigenous Basque people. It is a language with no relation to any other language, completely original to them, so of course they should take pride in it, but what is the legacy worth? Terrorizing thousands—maybe even hundreds of thousands—of people, killing over 800 in their forty years of terror… What will appease their hunger for recognition?
They have actually already successfully gotten most of what they wanted. The Basque Region is the most independent of all the autonomies of the Central Government in Spain. They have their own governing body and are affected almost minimally by some of the legislation passed for the country. They say they want to insure that their Race and language will live on, and, in order to do so, they need to be fully independent, making the other 40% of the Basque region without any concrete knowledge of this language only spoken in one true geographical region alienated: left to the dogs. Supremacy in our day and age has no true place. We have been able to see through the centuries that the degradation of people who are not an elite race is not a good thing: slavery, the Holocaust, Holy wars. Where and when will it end?
I understand the importance of maintaining a legacy, but as the Basque people, the true Basque people do have most of what they requested already, why continue fighting against the government that has already given you so much? Is it because the terror industry, and yes I say industry, is a very lucrative one and they are afraid of stopping because they make so much money from it? I’m sure that has something to do with it. I will give them that it is honorable to fight for something you strongly believe in, but if it is at the price of the welfare of others, how can it be worth it?
Things are changing. Luckily with the new leadership of lehendakari Patxi López, there is hope for a more peaceful Spain. A Spain without violence from ETA. His leadership is taking the steps needed to end this reign of terror. For, although it is not reported in the United States to thoroughly, this group has a pretty powerful grip on the autonomous government of the Basque region, and a pretty big influence in national government for a terrorist group. There are other autonomies in Spain that request the same independence or semi-independence: Catalonia and Andalusia; but they don’t have such a stigma for complete terrorist violence!
World, I leave you with this.
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
-Mohandas Gandhi
What will you choose? To make the lives of others work to keep on your tradition that isn’t even impeded by a nation that is actually trying to help you? There is great progress in the war against ETA, but will it ever end? It is up to them and to the citizens and leaders of Spain. Only time will tell, but we must all wish for the best.
Comments on Other’s Blogs
I was just looking through a few of the blogs of the other GVers and left comments on three, whose links are posted below. It seems like most people are tackling some pretty serious issues that don’t always seem to put one in the best of moods, but it is really important to think about them and try to do something about them.
http://claireronner.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/25/
http://scwager.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/the-copenhagen-protocol/
Introduction
In Spain there has always been a great tension among certain autonomies and the country as whole. In America we occasionally hear about a few bombings here and there, but we never really hear the true and extended story behind these happenings. There is more than just one autonomy that would like to “separate” from Spain, but only one, País Vasco or the Basque Country, that has a terrorist group eager enough for such independence, that it is willing to wreak havoc on the country by performing terrorist acts of bombing and the like. In this blog I will explore the main organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, also known as ETA or la ETA, which translates to Basque Homeland and Freedom in English. I will also explore the political aspect of this separation, with its dealings with the Spanish government, perhaps local parties, and the ruler of the Basque Country, the Lehendakari.
