Abstract
Obviously, since human beings are not mere functional, passive derivations of existing circumstances, a favourable context does not necessarily bring forth favourable results. The history of peace processes is a good example for how a favourable context might change, because the human agency which is engaged in the process commits errors with negative consequences, or certain actors change their mind and end up opposing a process by withdrawing their initial cooperation. The comparison of this frustrated Basque experience with other — for the moment successful — peace processes, especially the Northern Irish one, provides us with interesting data and ideas for the final step of our analysis, in which I shall look for the reasons for the fateful collapse of the Basque attempt at conflict transformation. However, before entering this theoretical debate concerning the causes of the breakdown of what might have become a Basque peace process, we should briefly analyse how this dream for peace became a nightmare of absorbing fear and increasing violence, and how the return of violence impacted on the political system.
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Notes
Founding document and statements of the politicians in El Diario Vasco, 19 September 1999; figures concerning the regional origin of the delegates in J. L. De La Granja and S. De Pablo, ‘La encrucijada vasca: entre Ermua y Estella’, in: J. Tusell, El gobierno de Aznar: Balance de una gestión, 1996–2000 (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000), pp. 153–79, figures p. 175.
W. Zartman (ed.), Elusive Peace: Negotiations and End to Civil Wars (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1995), p. 333.
See these declarations made by the PNV deputy and spokesman in the Spanish Cortes, Iñaki Anasagasti, the Lehendakari Ibarretxe and the PNV president Arzallus in El País, 28 July, 13 and 14 August 2000.
See the text of the document published in El País, 14 January 2000. See also the interesting comment by Alberto Surio in El Diario Vasco, 16 January 2000 (‘El guión de Quebec’), comparing the programmes of 1977 and 2000. Surio traces the origin of the latter back to the book published by the PNV leader Ollora, Una vía para la paz, which I have commented on above as the first important and effective theoretical essay written by a leading nationalist favouring Basque sovereignty. According to this usually well–informed journalist, both Ollara’s and the programme’s principal ideas are rooted in the Québecois example of a democratic and negotiated struggle for self–determination including a referendum (or successive referenda).
Aznar’s statements in El Mundo, 5 and 7 December 1999.
J. I. Ruiz Olabuenaga, Opinión sin tregua: Visos y denuestos del nacionalismo vasco 1998–1999 (Bilbao: Fundación Sabino Arana, 2001), p. 27.
A. Elorza, ‘El lehendakari y la muerte’, El Diario Vasco, 5 June 2000.
Aznar’s statement in La Vanguardia, 11 June 2000.
J. Linz, Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Equilibration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1978), p. 20.
I had the opportunity to discuss some of the issues raised here in two previous articles. See L. Mees, ‘Between Votes and Bullets. Conflicting Ethnic Identities in the Basque Country’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, XXIV, 5 (2001), pp. 798–827.
‘Nacionalismo y secularización en la Espana de entre siglos’, in: M. Suárez Cortina (ed.), Secularización y laicismo en la España contemporánea (III Encuentro de Historia de la Restauración), (Santander: Sociedad Menéndez Pelayo, 2001), pp. 223–53. I am grateful to Santiago de Pablo and José Luis de la Granja for their extensive comments and criticisms on these articles.
J. Navarro, Buenos días Euskadi (Madrid: Foca, 2000), p. 150.
See the text of the document in J. Darby, Scorpions in a Bottle: Conflicting Cultures in Northern Ireland (London: Minority Rights Publications, 1997), pp. 206–9.
J. Villanueva, Nacionalismos y conflicto nacional en la sociedad vasco—navarra 1997–2000 (San Sebastián: Tercera Prensa, 2000), pp. 170–1. Unlike Watson, I am completely unable to see in the Lizarra Agreement any kind of ‘process of a move toward a postnational model of interdependence’ nor a ‘move toward postnational political identities’.
C. Watson, ‘Imagining ETA’, in W. Douglass et al. (eds), Basque Politics and Nationalism on the Eve of the Millennium (Reno: University of Nevada, 1999), pp. 94–114, especially pp. 110–11.
A. D. Smith, Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), pp. 40–1.
Since Ted W. Gurr’s classic study Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), the list of publications on the issue of violence has become very large and complex. Comprehensive overviews on the different theoretical and conceptual approaches can be found in Zimmermann, Political Violence;.
A. P. Schmid, Political Terrorism: A Research Guide to Concepts, Theories, Data Bases and Literature (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1983).
P. H. Merkl (ed.), Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and Motivations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), especially pp. 17–59.
A. Rapoport, The Origins of Violence: Approaches to the Study of Conflict (New York: Paragon House, 1989).
J. S. Holmes, Terrorism and Democratic Stability (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2001), pp. 148 and 159.
E. Moxon–Browne, Spain and the ETA: The Bid for Basque Autonomy (London: Centre for Security and Conflict Studies, 1987), p. 52. This publication is nearly identical with the chapter ‘The Basque Country’ in Moxon–Browne’s book Political Change in Spain (London and New York: Routledge 1989), pp. 50–63.
H. Van Amersfoort and J. Mansvelt Beck, ‘Institutional Plurality: a Way Out of the Basque Conflict?’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, XXVI, 3, 2000, pp. 449–67, quotation pp. 458, 461.
On the contrary, we know that most of the Nazi officials who organized and executed the Holocaust were loving husbands and fathers, in short, very normal people. This is also one of the conclusions in a recent book on the biographies of ETA prisoners. See F. Reinares, Patriotas de la muerte: Quiénes han militado en ETA y por qué (Madrid: Taurus, 2001).
J. Arregi, La nación vasca posible: El nacionalismo democrático en la sociedad vasca (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000).
P. Heywood, The Government and Politics of Spain (London: Macmillan Press — now Palgrave Macmillan, 1995), p. 39.
M. Crenshaw, ‘The Causes of Terrorism’, in E. Moxon–Browne (ed.), European Terrorism (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1993), pp. 379–99, quotation p. 394.
A. Guelke, The Age of Terrorism and the International Political System (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1985).
E. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (London: George Allen, 1982) first edn.: 1915.
The pioneer was R. Aron, L’âge des empires et l’avenir de la France (Paris: Ed. Défense de la France, 1946), pp. 287–380.
J. P. Sironneau, Sécularisation et religions politiques (Le Haye: Mouton, 1982).
R. J. Wuthnow, ‘Sociology of Religion’, in: N. S. Smelser (ed.), Handbook of Sociology (London: Sage Publications, 1988), pp. 473–509.
Th. Hanf (ed.), Dealing with Difference: Religion, Ethnicity, and Politics: Comparing Cases and Concepts (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1999).
St Grosby, ‘Nationality and Religion’, in: M. Guibernau and J. Hutchinson (eds), Understanding Nationalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), pp. 97–119.
I do not agree with the thesis that the roots of violent nationalism as a political religion should be traced back to the ideology of the PNV founder Sabino Arana. See A. Elorza, La religión política: ‘El nacionalismo sabiniano’ y otros ensayos sobre nacionalismo e integrismo (San Sebastian: R & B Ediciones, 1995), pp. 29–56.
A. Elorza, Un pueblo escogido: Génesis y desarrollo del nacionalismo vasco (Barcelona: Crética, 2001), pp. 179–89. For a discussion of Elorza’s arguments, see L. Mees, ‘Nacionalismo y secularización’.
I. Sáez de la Fuente Aldama, El Movimiento de Liberación National Vasco, una religión de sustitución (Bilbao: Institute Diocesano de Teología y Pastoral, 2002).
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© 2003 Ludger Mees
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Mees, L. (2003). The End of a Dream. In: Nationalism, Violence and Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403943897_9
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