2007/XI/26 Basque Nationalist Action: "We will go to the Spanish parliament to claim independence".
Independentzia eta Sozialismorantz
EUSKAL HERRIA STEP by STEP
ASKAPENA's information service N.198
The Basque Left has often faced this dilemma: To take or not take part in the Spanish Parliament. Those who were in favour used an argument defended by Che Guevara: Revolutionary forces must take advantage of every gap offered by bourgeois democracies; we must not miss any space that could be useful for us to develop the popular fight. Those who were against argued that the Basque pro-independence presence in the Spanish Parliament would reinforce the idea of a Basque Country belonging to a Spanish State from which we want to be independent, and this presence would consolidate the validity of an institution that is the main expression of our lack of sovereignty.
The facts reflect this debate: The Basque Left has occasionally participated in the Parliament, whereas other times this presence has been just symbolic and punctual... In fact, since 1996 the Basque Left has not take part in the Spanish Parliament.
En el vídeo manifestación de ANV el 24 de Noviembre en Tafalla (Nafarroa)
Two important political proposals
The Basque Left, today grouped around the party Basque Nationalist Action (BNA), are repeatedly announcing that they will face up the State repression by intensifying their political activity.
This is the frame of their offer made to all nationalist forces to unite in a national council. So, the BNA's proposal is to create a Basque National Council, a national structure formed by the different Basque political tendencies that have the same hope of sovereignty. The model are the African National Council and the Palestine National. PNV Executive Committee has immediately rejected this proposal, because submission is the only relationship with the Spanish state that they admit.
The other BNA proposal is to take part in the 2008 Spanish general elections. This decision aims to strengthen their political activity.
The frame of this proposal: It was announced on October 12, at the end of a popular demonstration for self-determination.
· The backing of the proposal: BNA got 200,000 votes in the last (and anti-democratic) municipal elections that took place on may 2007. These votes were the main expression of the loyalty to a prosecuted political project, as well as a collective exercise of civil disobedience to a State that illegalised the pro-independence option.
· The aims: That this prosecuted and silenced clamor for independence arrives to the Spanish Parliament, and also, contrast this clamor with the message that other Basque members of the Spanish Parliament express there, the submissive message of the ones who have relinquished to our sovereignty claim.
· The symbol: The symbol chose is a mythological element deeply linked to our ancient culture, the "zanpantzar". These figures are always in a group marching vigorously moving their waists in order to make rhythmically sound the big bells that hugged their waist. The sound of these bells symbolically ward off bad spirits and epidemics; in a symbolic political sense, these "zanpantzar" would ward off all the political threats against us.
· The references: Several important figures of the history of the Basque people: Jon Idigoras (an important Basque left activist referential who died some years ago), Agustín Xaho (a XIX century writer from the North of the Basque Country), Tomás de Zumalakarregi (on the XIX century he headed the Basque uprising against the Spanish State to defend the Fueros, our ancient law), Dolores Ibarruri (she grew up in the Bizkaia mining environment, and she was one of the main workers leaders during the Spanish Republic toppled by the 1936 military punch)
· The announcement: A document issued on November, whose title and content we state below:
"We are the Basque independent nation"
"500 year after the Kingdom of the Basques was conquered, we have 500 reasons to end up with this subjection, and to open our doors to independence. We have confirmed the big damage an imposed dependence brings with it. Only being the owners of our present we will be able to develop our future. They deny us our identity in order to make us disappear. We are the Basque nation and we will not give up to be so.
We were independent until they take our own State off. The stripped us from our Fueros (our own Law), the last vestige of our freedom. They want us to be submissive and they want us just to manage the remains of regionalism they offer to us. They reject the historic opportunity to offer this people the political solution for an ancient conflict. In our hand we have the tomorrow that we will get without the permission of anybody.
Our ancestors knew that the structure of a State of our own is inherent to sovereignty, and this is the reason why they clung to independence. We face today the same dilemma, buy we have learnt the lessons, and this is the reason why we say a categorical YES to independence. We have to create our own State to give expression to the power of the Basque society. A State that will protect our language, our culture, and a social model from the Left.
Thanks to independence, we will left the humiliation of vassalage, we will open the doors to equality of justice regarding other peoples, and we will have our place in the world.
In the same way that we choose independence and to create a State, we claim equal opportunities for all the political projects, including the pro-independence one, and this is the reason why next general elections (2008) are so important. Only an united action of the ones who are pro-independence will guarantee the future of the Basque nation and its independence".
