Spain has cancelled campaigning ahead of Sunday’s general election after the murder of a former councillor from the ruling Socialist Party.
Can someone with more political insight than me please comment below on how this is likely to affect election results?
Edith
9 Mar 08 at 12:29 pm
@ Olentxero,
RE: ‘one could argue they are forcing the hand of those who shoot and kill’
Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi did not respond by shooting and killing… and they gained the world’s sympathy. In the end, this helped them achieve their goals and they are remembered for their actions to this day. Remember the Montgomery bus boycotts, the protest marches, the sit-ins? That was resistance, too!
Nelson Mandela advocated armed resistance in his younger years, but in the end it was his moral superiority and strong personality which helped bring about a peaceful transition in South Africa.
The Basque people do not suffer under any kind of apartheid or colonial rule, and in my opinion, they have got ample opportunity to express their nationalist aspirations in a non-violent way.
Apart from that, how many people does ETA truly represent? Surely, the majority of Basques are sick and tired of them.
Yet, you seem to suggest that the Basque people are in some sort of plight which ‘explains’ the existence of ETA. With all due respect, did’t that situation end with the death of Franco?
Olentxero
9 Mar 08 at 6:15 pm
Martin Luther King also had the spectre of armed resistance behind him in the shape of the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers. Gandhi was not operating in an entirely peaceful Raj. The violence of Indian nationalism was present too. Nelson Mandela, it could be argued, achieved a peaceful transition merely by representing no threat whatsoever to the corporations that were busy exploiting S. Africa.
I think it is for the Basque people to say whether or not they suffer under any kind of apartheid or colonial rule. For what it’s worth, I think that the answer will vary depending on which member of “the Basque people” you are speaking to. Some will say that everything is just fine as it is; others will say that they are not free to express their political aims in the press or in the street.
In my experience, very few people join movements of national liberation such as ETA or the IRA purely because of political ideologies. Many are reacting to some sort of personal plight, whether that be eternal unemployment, police harassment or political bias. I doubt that many -or any- of ETA’s volunteers are in it for personal gain.
I can’t say that I know any etarras, so I don’t want to speak for them. I do regard Basque nationalism as valid as Spanish nationalism (and, to be honest, have next to no time for either).
My main point wasn’t to excuse the existence of ETA., simply to say that I think that the only way out of this miserable situation is to accept them as important players in the Basque conflict and to ensure that they have plenty of room to express themselves in manners which do not involve violence. ETA exists. It needs no justification – as we have seen, it operates perfectly well when there is minimal support (to answer your question, I would be surprised if ETA represented more than a couple of thousand of Basque people).
Edith
17 Mar 08 at 1:33 pm
Yesterday, I read a post by some anonymous sicko who called the Dalai Lama a ‘terrorist’. Used in this way, the word becomes an empty epithet and an insult rather than a description of people who use random violence against passers-by to achieve their goals.