There are some territories in North America where Indian people still can live somehow a kind of traditional way of life. I wrote ‘somehow’ because they live in reservations, with not very much power (political, cultural, religious, idiomatic, social and economic) on their own lives. This is why the American Indian Movement was created. American Indians know about that movement.
I would like to underline that some very interesting people came from the Northwest Territories to form the Northwest AIM, grassroots people. Some of them are still fighting, some of them are dead, and one of them has become very famous. Indeed, the American Justice and the FBI have made him ‘famous’.
Here some of these warriors: Joe Stuntz, killed at Oglala, June 26, 1975. His death has not ever been investigated. Robert (Bob) Robideau, who was at that fight and was indicted and freed from any guilt, because he was defending himself, and his people. Leonard Peltier, who also was at that fight, and is still in prison, because the FBI can’t stand him, and what he represented; and finally, among some others, Jim Robideau (Dakota Youth Project Parent Board President), Steve Robideau (co-founder of Leonard Peltier’s International Defense Committee and former director, recently dead), and Russell Redner (co-organizer of the first Peltier’s Defense Committee, and, since June 2005, the current national director of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee).
Indian people know these warriors, what they had done, what they are doing nowadays and their commitment to free Leonard Peltier from prison.
The Northwest AIM’s main struggle has been in favor of sovereignty, self-determination, territoriality and spirituality. The reader is aware of these common features to any Indian warrior.
Their spirituality is not to be confused with any fundamentalist approach. On the contrary, Indian people are related to all kinds of life and many traditional spiritual beliefs and practices. Their spiritual tradition is an important part of their culture and their history. They take very much into account the individual and collective rights. So, every single Native knows what self-determination means, at those two levels. At the collective level, this right of self-determination is related to the Earth, their historical territories, their treaties and their history.
Indian nations know that the right of self-determination is the key to sovereignty, the key to exercise their own control over their territories in many different expressions and contents (economic, cultural, political, social, and so on). Political sovereignty includes absolute independence from any other nation, people, or state.
Indian people know about democracy, about grassroots decision making processes, and about confederation and alliances among different people, tribes and nations to defend their common rights.
All this is very well known to any Indian warrior: Nothing new, up to now.
But there are other Northwest Territories in the Western Pyrenees (Europe), where the Basques live. They are called, sometimes in a contemptuous way, the last ‘Indians’ of Europe. Do they have anything in common with the Native Americans? If so what? What do you know about their fight for freedom?
Here you have some clues and information about them.
Basque Country (Euskal Herria in Basque):
The Basque Country spans both sides of the French-Spanish border, an area located on the French-Spanish border in the western Pyrenees. The Basque Country is divided, with provinces split between Spanish and French states: Araba, Bizkaia (Biskay), Gipuzkoa and Nafarroa (Navarre) are situated in the Spanish state; and Zuberoa, Lapurdi and Nafarroa Beherea are situated in the French state. Its whole population is around 2,900,000 inhabitants.
Basque language (or Euskara):
Basque – or Euskara – is spoken by a population of approximately 600,000 – 700,000 people. Of a total number of 632,000 Basque-speakers, some 566,000 live within the Spanish state, and some 66,000 in the French state. The word euskaldun means ‘Basque-speaker’ (‘one who has Basque’), and Basque people normally refer to themselves as euskaldunak.
Although scholars have tried to link Basque to other languages, it is generally considered to be a ‘language isolate’ – i.e. it is a natural language with no demonstrable genetic relationship with other languages. However, Basque has borrowed words from other languages, including Latin, Spanish, French, Celtic and Arabic, although its influence on neighbouring languages has been minimal. One example of a word in the English language which is Basque in origin, is ‘bilbo’, meaning ‘a sword of outstanding quality’, which appeared in Shakespeare’s day.
During the dictatorship which followed the Spanish Civil War, Basque was banned, and was not taught in schools. Attempts were made to allow for the provision of Basque-language teaching; today, some fruits of this are being seen, with Basque schools established. Nowadays Basque is used in our universities to teach any kind of subject.
Politics and political situation:
There is a historical conflict between the Basques and the Spanish and French states. The armed conflict related to ETA is only a part, a minimum part, of the Basque history. Before ETA started and after ETA will disappear the conflict was there and will be there, since the future of the Basques will be decided by the Basque civil society.
The Basque Country is divided by the two states in three different communities or regions: the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (Araba, Biscay and Gipuzkoa) and the Autonomous Community of Navarre within the Spanish state and the North Basque Country (Iparralde in Basque: Lapurdi, Nafarroa Behera and Zuberoa) in the French state.
So territoriality, sovereignty and the process of self-determination are the main points for any Basque patriot. The question is that, somehow, our country is acknowledged the right to decide its future. It is important to strengthen the idea of self-determination as a democratic right, even among those Basques who feel comfortable in Spain and France. However, it is unlikely that the seven provinces will unite in the short term within a Basque Republic. So, once this right will be acknowledged, pro-independent supporters will have our turn to keep the struggle for an independent state within the European Union, a state independent from both the Spanish and French states.
For us, self-determination is linked to real democracy and even with solidarity with all the other peoples around us. But, first of all, Euskal Herria, the Basque Country, as a whole, must be recognized as a nation with its rights by these two states.
Territory:
Territory means a lot to Basque people: the land is the nest of the many and varied resources of a nation and its personality. That is why the physical notion and the political notion of a territory are pooled together. Nation building, therefore, embraces the following basic pillars: political, economic, social and territorial. The construction of the nation, the territory, is strongly linked to the socio-economic activity of the natives.
Since we are divided in three different regions or communities, our future will make through some kind of Confederacy of these regions (the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, the Autonomous Community of Navarre and Iparralde).
Culture:
People are living beings with culture. And that culture also makes a human group into a People. Therefore it is fundamental to possess the necessary instruments to create, acquire and develop culture, in order to achieve personal and collective development.
Several times along its history, Euskal Herria has been devoid of the necessary means for its cultural development. Being a small and poor country, it was handicapped when, as modern nation states were born, other popular cultures had their rebirth and became national cultures. Different facts became threats for the Basque culture, although they could be opportunities for cultural development: extension of written culture; generalization of schooling; expansion of the media; settlement of immigrants and new cultural models. Basque culture could benefit from these phenomena as it has not the necessary means to face them.
Today, new challenges arise over all these difficulties. Social changes linked to globalization, as well as new digital technologies, bring intercultural contacts and high speed changes of cultural models, were never before known. All these facts can be threats to our culture, but can also bring new opportunities. New opportunities can rise for those who are in a position to make their own selection and integrate new elements in a constructive manner into their own culture. Those are the reasons why we need structures that will permit us to create, acquire and develop our culture: what we call a Basque cultural space or realm, and, on the other hand, a symbolic universe, from which we can enrich our culture with our own new contributions as well as those of others. Basque Culture would be the result of both elements
Basque language:
Basque speakers are a small group, both on absolute as on relative terms, and that means that, according to UNESCO, euskara is in danger of disappearing.
On absolute terms, the Basque speaking community is very small from the point of view of the market, precisely when the market is a privileged area for cultural activity. On relative terms, Basque speaking people represent around a quarter of total population of Euskal Herria, and even if the language loss has been stopped, the rhythm of recovery is very slow: Given present tendencies, the most optimistic previsions foresee that in 2050 the Basque speaking population would not reach half of the total population.
Self-determination, sovereignty and statehood:
At the beginning of this new century, the Basque People continues to look for its political place among the states and nations of the world.
Present-day states, especially France and Spain, do not admit the possibility that a people settled in its territories may advance towards a status different from the existing. They do not admit new forms of political relation and organization that may question the maps of the current nation-states.
Changes that took place in the final decades of the last century and that affected even other states and nations of the old Europe, as a whole enabling peaceful transitions to new political entities, are not accepted as patterns applicable to our people.
Those States try to put a brake on any debate or internal decision-making process regarding the recognition of political rights to Basques that is introduced. Because of that, and for that, they defend the existence of a right of self-determination inapplicable to occidental states.
Even so, the internal movement of the Basque people seriously conditions present-day politics of both States.
In the North of Euskal Herria (Iparralde), the voices that from the Basque Country claim for a common and differentiated place for this part of our people have growing individual and institutional support. The demand for a Basque Department gathers more and more backing, and it is seen as a necessary demand for political, social and economic development in Iparralde.
In the South of Euskal Herria the situation is more troubled. State apparatus has tried to transfer confrontation to the entrails of Basque society, trying to generate a division into two communities. Besides, the existence of two-way violence seriously conditions political debate.
The political means in effect over the last decades have not been able to integrate the aspirations of Basques, who, with growing strength, demand their own framework for decision-making.
The State’s reaction, almost exclusively centered on repressive measures coming from the Police, Legislative and Juridical areas, does little to open up ways for resolution. Its own action, especially that of the Courts of Justice as well as the passing of «chance regulations», is destroying the essential bases of Rule of Law States and democratic society, and leads to a situation of extreme confrontation.
On the extreme of the other positions, the Basque People is denied not only its right to have its own and differentiated political structures, but its very existence as a people.
Basque people are trying to overcome this situation of conflict and reach a new framework in which to live together that will permit the Basque people an existence in full liberty.
So, you can see that the fight of these Indian warriors (Joe, Bob, Leonard, Jim, Steve, Russ,…) in the Northwest Territories in their struggle for freedom, and our fight, (Basques, ‘the last Indians of Europe’, the ones who live in Northern Iberian Peninsula and in the Western Pyrenees, kind of Northwest Territory), is the same kind of struggle.
Here some web sites to know a little bit more about the Basques:
Newspapers, TV and Radio:
BERRIA: (In Basque language) http://www.berria.info/english/azala.php
GARA: (In Basque and Spanish) (weekly in English: http://www.gara.net/english/weekly/20050808/index.php)
EITB (In Basque language) http://www.eitb24.com/
General information:
http://www.buber.net/Basque/ (Inside you can see: Euskara-Language; History; Politics; Folklore and so on)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/basque.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Country
Some data:
http://www.datutalaia.net/
History:
http://nabarralde.com/anhistory.html
Political and administrative situation:
http://nabarralde.com/anadmin.html
Current political situation:
http://www.eztabaidagunea.org/diagnostikoa.php?hizkuntza=ING&aldaketa=1
Mi’kmaq and Basques (remember Annie Mae Pictou-Aquash):
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/mikmak.html
Basque Studies Center in Reno, Nevada:
http://basque.unr.edu/
Free information:
www.euskalinfo.org.uk (now this web site is under police control)
(See http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:DsxkzOeuxq0J:www.euskalinfo.org.uk/+euskalinfo&hl=eu and http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:TKlLFUB5kd8J:bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php%3Fstory_id%3D24078+euskalinfo&hl=eu)
Torture:
http://www.ehj-navarre.org/navarre/navarre_torture.html
Basque prisoners:
Behatokia:
http://www.behatokia.info/index.php?newlang=eng
Critical Studies:
http://ibs.lgu.ac.uk/forum/
Marcos and the Basque Country:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/2002/marcos/basqueDEC.html
National organizations (organizations which work in Basque in all our territory, namely, in the seven provinces):
Euskaltzaindia:
http://www.euskaltzaindia.net/index.asp?hizkuntza=en
AEK:
http://www.eke.org/euskara/erakaskuntza/helduentzako_erakaskuntza/helduentzako_erakaskuntza/aek
(In French: http://www.aeknet.net/index.php?newlang=fra&POSTNUKESID=16d829e1547bc09fdb0a9500269a426e )
Ikastolak (Basque School’s Federation):
http://www.ikastola.net/ongietor/ongi.html
UEU, Udako Euskal Unibertsitatea (Basque Summer University):
http://www.ueu.org/ueu/index
Euskal PEN Kluba:
http://www.euskalpen.org/default.cfm?atala=lanean
Euskal Idazleen Elkartea (Basque Writers’ Association):
http://www.idazleak.org/all.htm
Note: This small work is dedicated to Leonard Peltier in his 61st birthday. ZORIONAK (= happy birthday!).
