Tuesday, March 27, 2012

10 lies on the end of armed struggle in the Basque Country

The excellent critical political blog Borroka garaia da! (It's time of struggle!) has today a quite interesting read (in Spanish language) on how all the lies and wishful thoughts issued on the, once-hypothetical and now quite real, end of the armed struggle by ETA were and are all false. My own version (rather than a literal translation):
  1. Without ETA's armed struggle there would be no more pretexts for the state: pretexts are that: pretexts and therefore are not the real causes. The state keeps denying the Basque-Spanish conflict or making any effort to solve it constructively.
  2. Without ETA's armed struggle all Basque nationalists would rally together: the reality is in fact largely the opposite, with the Basque Nationalist Party each time more and more leaning towards unionist positions.
  3. Without ETA's armed struggle everything would be possible (meaning self-determination, independence and what not): not in your wildest dreams, much less in reality.
  4. Without ETA's armed struggle repression would cease: in fact it has increased in many aspects and, in any case, no meaningful decrease, never mind a total cessation, of political repression has happened at all.
  5. Without ETA's armed struggle the main obstacle for popular struggle would vanish: no significant increase of popular struggle can be reported. In fact demobilization can become an issue in the mid-run.
  6. Without ETA's armed struggle the internationalism in Spain and France towards the Basque struggle for freedom would increase: on the contrary: it seems that the rule is that if they look weak, hit them harder. Spanish and French "class" organizations are also obviously puppets of their national bourgeoisies.
  7. Without ETA's armed struggle the economy of the Basque Country would improve: it's worsening fast and never ETA's activity seem to have damaged the real economy in the past either. 
  8. Without ETA's armed struggle the political debate would come to the forefront: actually all political parties are immersed in some sort of via crucis, demanding repentance and what not. I'd add that, as lack of democratic institutions and media are so consolidated, the "political debate" is totally one-sided and Spanish unionists just repeat their clichés like parrots in a public TV that nobody watches anymore.
  9. Without ETA's armed struggle the reaction would not have a pretext: same as in point 2: pretexts are just pretexts. In fact they seem to feel ratified in their previous intolerance, fundamentalism and right-wing extremism.
  10. Without ETA's armed struggle there would be peace: what peace. You need two to dance tango, peace with the Spanish occupation forces still all around? Peace with all the exception laws and ad-hoc measures still all around? Peace when you can be arbitrarily arrested at any time just because?
The conflict has not ended: all wounds remain open and bleeding. You don't heal any conflict that way: you just perpetuate it. 

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