2007/X/22 "¡No pasarán!, The will not pass through!... And they did not
Independentzia eta Sozialismorantz, EUSKAL HERRIA, STEP by STEP
ASKAPENA's information service, Nº 194
Even the more insignificant fact projects several underlying messages. If the fact is a relevant one, the content and the messages are more illustrative. We are going to talk about the antifascist reaction that happened on October 12 in Donosti (San Sebastián), and our interpretation of what happened.
The facts
As every year, the fascist movement linked to Falange Española had prepared an act in the Basque Country for October 12. As in the previous years, the aims were: to claim in the very hearth of our land that the Basque Country belongs to Spain, to provoke us, the people who are pro-sovereignty, and, at the same time, to hurt our feelings by claiming the death penalty for our prisoners. Their methods too were similar to the ones used the previous years: To ask and to announce long time ago the act in order to get the permissions, and the protections of the police (for this group, the right to demonstrate is guarantee by the judiciary as well as by the public administration); to send buses from different points of Spain; to show all the fascist and unconstitutional symbols that identify the falangistas; to shout against the Basque Country and to claim the death penalty for the political prisoners... all of it protected by the different police (national police, Basque-Spanish police belonging to the self-government..); once the act finished, to leave the place insulting (protected by the police) the citizens who repudiate their presence.
The place they chose this year was de center of Donosti. Some days before, different political, union and social organisms organized an antifascist festival on the same day, time and place where the fascist demonstration would take place. Some hours before the beginning of the feast, the place, the Boulevard, was crowded with young people who attended the festival. Several musical groups were playing. At the same time, and some kilometers away from Donosti, the Basque-Spanish police kept the falangistas' buses while a police contingent stated to clear the Boulevar where the intruders were going to march.
At the beginning, the Basque-Spanish police got their aim, and with their riot material dispersed the people who attended the festival. Everything was ready so that he falangistas could march through the center of Donosti. But nobody foresaw what was going to happen, the reaction of the antifascist youth; little by little they were reappearing in the place. The police charged against them, but the young peopled were determined to recover the space: They clashed with the police until the police moved back, the youth regained the space, and they prevent the fascist from marching on it. Meanwhile, the police escorted the falangistas till Donosti, and proposed them another route for their march, as there was taking place a pitched battle in the planned one. The intruders rejected it. After very friendly saying goodbye to the police, the intruders went back to their nation promising that they would come back with the Spanish army tanks.
Our interpretation of waht happened
· The existence of the Falange, and their acts, prove once again that in Spain there was no a break with Franco dictatorship; this fascist groups are not "neo" ones, they are just a continuation of the dictatorship. The same State that persecutes the Basque pro-independence, and illegalizes parties, is understanding and permissive with the extreme right: the State guarantees them their existence as organized groups, their right to organize and to attend demonstrations, the protection of the police...
· The Falange is the most ostentatious expression of the fascism that ruled the Spanish State for 40 years. But this Franco ideology (from a sociological and politic point of view) is still alive in the so-called Spanish transition: it is more masked, but is very extended. Even if they do not share their paraphernalia, a part of the Spanish society share the aims and the methods of the fascist who went to Donisti: "Spain is one, and is not 51": The unity of Spain must be guarantee by all means; in case it is in danger, the Basque self-govern must be suspend, and the army must be send to the Basque Country; ETA prisoners must rot in jail; the only right the Basque people have is the one to remain a part of Spain; due to the ongoing situation in the Basque Country, the only thing to do is to declare the state of emergency in this area; every pro-independence organization must be illegalized, and their activist must be send to prison. An extraordinary justice must be applied to them in order to deny their right of expression, to seize the places where they meet ... Were not these methods the ones used by the people who executed the coup in 1936? Are not these methods the ones claimed by the falangistas who went to Donosti? Are not these methods the ones used now by the Spanish rulers with the collaboration of the Basque sepoys? If we analyze the underlying ideology, where is the difference between the falangistas and a Spanish majority nowadays?
· The Spanish society pretends to be different from the falangistas, but they coincide. The Basque society pro Spanish self-govern statute pretend to reject fascism, but they protect it: the Basque self-govern and their police escorted the falangistas until the very center of Donosti, where they were ready to protect their demonstration; as we can see in a picture, they cordially greet each others: it would be inconceivable to see a picture of a Basque police cordially greeting a leftist young pro-independence... At the end, as always happens, all these Basque forces, supposedly "neutral", insulted and criticize the only ones who were coherent against fascism.
· The Basque youth wrote a brilliant page of our history. The wanted to defend with music and feast a space the fascist wanted to use. It was the Basque police who introduce the violence to clear this space and to get it ready for the fascists. Crying "No pasarán!, They will not pass through!", the Basque youth defended Donosti from the fascist aggression, and from the cowardice of the Basque self-govern unable to face up to this outrage. It was a victory of the Basque popular front, and, as usual, official politicians and journalists condemn it. They do nothing against the fascism that is imprisoning the Basque Left, and they are against the antifascist uprising of the Basque youth. This little popular victory on October is already registered in the annals of our little history.
Euskal Herria, Octubre 22, 2007.
