Publication: Reflexiones sobre las raíces del nacionalismo étnico vasco y su influencia en el proceso político
Loading...
Identifiers
Publication date
2008
Defense date
Authors
Advisors
Tutors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The objective of the working paper is to establish a
relationship between the Basque nationalist ideology in its two
principal manifestations (the nonterrorist
approach of the PNV and
the terrorist movement of ETA) and the influence that it exerts on the
general political activity of Spain’s democracy as well as on the daytoday
lives of the people in the country.
The main reason for the role played by this phenomenon is
not the weight of the nationalist ideology itself (which Spain’s
population sees as antiquated), but rather the “pro domo sua” use
which nonterrorist
nationalism makes of the acts of violence and the
threats against democracy by the terrorists.
Following an analysis of the main characteristics defining the
Basque nationalist ideology, the conclusion is that the PNV consists
of a bourgeois machinery designed at the end of the 19th century in
order to attain and hold power with a scarcely democratic ideological
base, which uses the support of the terrorist movement (even though
it may not share all of its objectives, which ETA defines ambiguously
as independence and socialism) but rather because the terrorist
activity facilitates the line of argumentation that the terrible violence
inflicted upon the Basque people can only be resolved by means of
political concessions which should lead to independence under the
guidance of the PNV.
This is nothing more than a fallacy, ignoring the fact that
Basque society is not a homogeneous society, but rather is terribly
divided into two halves, to which a democratic decisionmaking
mechanism of a simple majority cannot be applied, as the situation
calls for a consociationbased
democracy. Even a number of
outstanding nonterrorist
nationalists believe that it is neither
possible nor acceptable to carry out a reform of the Statute that
would involve the supplanting of the political subject constituted on
the basis of a covenant by another political subject constituted
simply by the decision of a relative majority.
Description
Keywords
Nacionalismo, País Vasco, Sistema político, Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV), Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA), España, Conflicto político