The legacy of Fascism in Spain
These days I hardly write about Catalan politics. It is far too depressing and it only serves to highlight the absolute mediocrity of Catalan politicians, and their treacherous cowardice falsely disguised as pragmatism and prudence. Even those with a mandate to pursue more sovereignty have betrayed their electorate and opted for the gravy train instead of sticking to their principles. Shame on them.
But every now and then, there is an event that defines the ideological framework of Spanish democracy and reveals the extent of the sub-standard democratic nature of the Spanish post-Franco politics. I have wrote about it before. [Spain]
This time, the issue is again the asymmetric application of the law in Spain.
If you are familiar with Spanish politics, you will know that the Spanish state has banned the political wing of the Basque radical movement. This party used to be known as Herri Batasuna, Batasuna, etc… it has changed name and organisational structure a few times but it does not matter: Spain keeps banning the political wing of the radical Basque pro-independence movement so about 10-20% of the electorate, depending on the area, are unable for vote for the political party of their choice. Talk about democracy. This is done under the pretence of a law called “Ley de Partidos”.
There is a problem with this law however. It has only been applied to one side: those pursuing Basque self-determination.
In Spain, there is a fringe party called Falange Española de las JONS [wiki]. Falange is perhaps one of the first Fascists parties in Europe. They were Franco’s party. A Fascist party that was the only party allowed during 40 years. Nowadays, there are many other parties with a similar ideology to this one and they are perfectly legal. They advocate racist policies, a return to Fascist Spain, abolition of self-government, suppression of official recognition of other languages like Catalan or Basque, etc.
Next month, a town north of Barcelona is going to organise a non-binding referendum where the question to be asked is whether Catalonia should be an independent state in Europe or continue as part of Spain. The referendum has been approved by the local council by a majority of elected representatives.
But a Spanish Fascist party, Falange Española de las JONS, has called for a rally against this popular vote. A party with no representation whatsoever in the town, and with fringe representation in Catalonia, has made a call to supporters to demonstrate against the referendum. Fascists thugs and skinheads will be bussed from other areas of Spain to descend into Arenys de Munt, near Barcelona, with the declared intention of preventing local residents from expressing their view on the constitutional future of Catalonia.
At the same time, the Spanish judiciary has prohibited any rallies organised by radical Basque pro-independence movement in Bilbao during the local fiestas, as it has been happening since the end of Franco’s dictatorship. The local comparsas (similar to brass bands, local groups who participate in the festivities), fed up with the interference of the Spanish state in their local fiesta have called for a demonstration in favour of freedom of expression and democracy. These people have no operational link to Batasuna so we will have to wait and see if this one will also be banned or not.
So here we have it:
1) Basque separatists which command about 10-20% of support in the Basque Country are not allowed to exercise their freedom of association and expression through the orchestrated actions of the Spanish government and the judiciary. They are illegalised and unable to get political representation;
2) Spanish Fascists, with sub-marginal representation in Catalonia are allowed to march through the streets of a small town to intimidate their residents into not taking part in a non-binding consultation about the future of Catalonia and Spain.
As I have written before, it is blatantly obvious that the Spanish state condones and allows the development and activities of some radical groups and prohibits the activities of others. It all depends whether you are a Spanish radical nationalist or a Basque radical nationalist. Another example of the asymmetric nature of Spanish democracy.
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16 comments:
I'm planning to go to Arenys de Munt on the 13th as a kind of independent observer (equipped with camera and notebook). If my wife lets me, that it.
I reckon/hope that the whole thing will pass off peacefully, with the Falange breathing their last fetid breath as a political party.
Watch out, I am sure that neo-nazi pro-Spanish thugs will come from Barcelona (BB.BB) and outside Catalonia to create havoc.
Get yourself an "press" card or yellow jacket and you will be fine. Hopefully, the Conselleria will stop the Fascist demo before it is too late.
I was thinking of posing as a tourist... "I'm terribly sorry but could you tell me where the nearest all day breakfast café is?" sort of thing.
The truth is that I thought your blog and you have some sense until I saw you define Batasuna as the wing of the Basque radical movement.
Sorry to disturb, but stop saying that. Herri Batasuna is forbien because of being the wing of ETA and ETA is not a radical movemente but a Terrorist Group. Do you get the difference?
I hope you publish the post and maybe if you see somebody kill near you you will notice the difference for the future.
Just to clarify a few points,
Rab:
[They] are unable to vote for the political party of their choice. Talk about democracy. This is done under the
pretence of a law called “Ley de Partidos”.
That pro-independence party is actually a terrorist group included in the list of European Union's list of terrorist groups and organizations.
The banning of that group from political activity has been supported by the European Court of Human Rights as a lawful, necessary and proportionate measure and an absolute social need to face a threat to democracy and to preserve fundamental rights and freedoms.
Rab:
At the same time, the Spanish judiciary has prohibited any rallies organised by radical Basque pro-independence movement in Bilbao during the local fiestas, as it has been happening since the end of Franco’s dictatorship.
The Basque Autonomous Government, elected by the basques, is the one entitled to allow or prohibit a rally, not the Spanish judiciary. In this case, after being prohibited by the Basque Autonomous Government, the promoters appealed to the court.
Regarding the asymmetric democracy, the law called “Ley de Partidos” is focused on defending society from terrorism and organized violence, not from dangerous ideologies like fascism.
The urgent problem is the actual terrorism, just look at how many people are threatened with death by the basque terrorist mafia and need bodyguard services 24h (3000 people just in the Basque Community and Navarra) and other people in the same situation threatened by the Falange (0 people as far as I know).
Anyway, I agree this is also a threat to democracy, at least a potential one, as well as Islamic extremists, and nothing has been done in terms of political banning (while Germany or Turkey do) perhaps because its level of support in the elections is extremely low and these groups don't have the capacity to promote terrorism (yet).
Regards,
Javier
Anonymous, 21/08 at 23:03
Your infantile comment does not address the issue and is merely a repetition of the dogmatic statements sprouted by the Spanish state and its main parties.
Sinn Fein was and is the political wing of the IRA, but it was never banned. It was allowed to participate in the electoral process.
That is the difference between a democracy trying to achieve a sustainable peace and a state where illegalization of (some) political parties, newspapers, community associations, etc is justified under the pretence of a law which is not conducive to any resolution of a deeply-rooted political conflict.
Anonymous (Javier), 22/08 at 22:50
I am afraid your clarification is a more elaborate follow-up of the previous comment by another anon: same old arguments, same old dogmatic approach.
1) To claim that Batasuna is a terrorist group is to fall at the first hurdle. Batasuna is not a terrorist group. Batasuna is a political party. The second chamber of the ECHR (in which a Spanish judge is a member of) upheld the illegalisation of Batasuna, so what? It does not make it right, unless we now believe that the ECHR is somehow infallible, like the Pope. Judges get it wrong too, as in this case.
The levers of power of Spanish diplomacy are well known, and the political pressure has worked at the ECHR B chamber. Has it occurred to you that Batasuna has not been illegalised in France where it is still a legal political party? How is that possible?
If people belonging to Batasuna committed crimes of co-operation with ETA (providing addresses, securing funds, etc), then these people should be arrested, and judged based on the evidence provided.
If there is an operational link between individuals’ actions and ETA’s activity, then that is a crime already defined in the law. Many people have been found guilty of such crimes in the past.
However, the Spanish state has taken a rather gung-ho approach: instead of identifying individuals members of a political party acting in concert with members of an armed group, it has decided to illegalise an entire political entity at once -and any of its renewed structures or legal forms. Let’s not forget that Spain has also closed newspapers, even though, as in the case of Egunkaria, no evidence whatsoever has been provided for the claim that Egunkaria was “part of ETA”.
No matter how Spanish politicians and the media dress it up, the wholesale illegalisation of Batasuna is nothing more than the criminalisation of an ideology. By leaving about 10-20% of the electorate unable to vote for their party of choice, Spain hopes the problem will go away. In the short term, this has had the key result it was hoped for: by leaving Batasuna out of the electoral contest, the democratic balance of Euskadi has been artificially manipulated in favour of the Spanish parties, for the main objective of the Ley de Partidos was to ensure that 10-20% of Basques would not be able to vote for their party. In short, if it was not for the illegalisation of Batasuna, PP and PSOE would not hold a majority in the Basque Parliament and the referendum proposed by the PNV and Ibarretxe would have been presented to the Basque people so they could decide on the best way forward. Alas, this has not happened, and we will always wonder what-if.
As it is, Patxi Lopez of the PSOE is Lehendekari with the votes of the PP, but his is a hollow victory and one that does not carry much democratic legitimacy outside Spanish nationalism. And worse of all, the Basque people still cannot decide how to resolve this conflict and the same rhetoric of the last 30 years is being banded about.
[cont...]
2) You write “The Basque Autonomous Government, elected by the Basques”
Well, as we all know, not all the Basques were allowed to vote for their political party, were they? So your claim is false. This government was voted in by all the Basques whose political party was allowed to participate in the electoral process. A significant minority were excluded. Democracy is the loser.
3) You write: ““Ley de Partidos” is focused on defending society from terrorism and organized violence, not from dangerous ideologies like fascism.”
That is not what the preambul of the law says:
In Spanish: "...impidiendo que un partido político pueda, de forma reiterada y grave, atentar contra ese régimen democrático de libertades, justificar el racismo y la xenofobia o apoyar políticamente la violencia y las actividades de las bandas terroristas".
According to this law, any party that justifies racism and xenophobia could be banned.
In Spain, there are many parties, mainly Spanish radical or ultra nationalist parties, (Falange, E2000, etc) that would fit that description. But in its application, the Spanish state ignores all the fascist and racist parties and focuses, exclusively, on the political wing of ETA.
(I will leave for another day what is violence and if "justification" of violence should be outlawed as an ideological crime).
I agree that terrorism is a problem, and that many people in the Basque Country live under the threat of the car bomb and the gun. I feel sorry for them and their families. However, banning political parties is not the solution.
This is, whether Spanish people like or not, a political problem. And like 9/10 political conflicts around the world, it will require a political solution of some kind.
In almost 50 years (30 in the post-Franco era), neither Spain nor ETA has been able to achieve its objectives.
It is plausible to think that if the current policies continue, the problem will not be resolved in the next 20 or 40 years. I am 34 and all my life I can remember Spanish politicians saying that ETA’s end is near, that they are a bunch of cowardly murderers, merciless killers, etc, etc. Every time ETA’s end was announced, they regrouped, rearmed and came back with more violence. And the same emotional language would reappear in the media. Nothing has been achieved this way.
[cont ...]
Anybody thinking that ETA will be finished off by the Guardia Civil and the police is living in a cloud. Franco could not do it. Suarez and Gonzalez (remember GAL and the paramilitaries?) tried the dodgy tactics and did not work, Aznar tried the legal/judicial route and it did not work.
Then Zapatero arrives and a peace process starts. But Zapatero, with the fanatics of the PP barking mad and showing that they really need ETA to keep going for their own political ends, did not have the political and media support in Spain to have a proper negotiation. He also lacked the “political balls” to have a negotiation with ETA under PP's and the Spanish nationalist media outcry. After a year or so of dithering and non-decision making, ETA broke the ceasefire as a revenge for the arrests of some members of the negotiating team in France. A sure way of sabotaging a political resolution, and it worked. The PP was happy, the [Spanish] nationalist press was happy, many in the PSOE were happy: the “talks” ended. Back to the old days. And the same language.
I repeat again before anyones regurgitates the old bullshit. I am no supporter of ETA (or even Batasuna) and I abhor their violence. But I can see the approach taken by Spain for what it is: head firmly stuck in the sand.
One of the key problems of the Ley de Partidos is that it gives ETA a political grievance that they did not have before. The wholesale illegalization of a political party, the closure of newspapers, the defacto criminalization of a whole section of society gives ETA and the hard-line supporters of violence political oxygen at precisely the time they were running out of it. You could not make it up. In political terms, this law has been a godsend for ETA, for it vindicates the hardliners who argue that only further violence will bring Spain to the negotiating table in a meaningful way. They say to the “political wing”: “see, there is no way forward within the framework set by Spain, politics does not work, we need to push further”.
Given that the electoral route has been closed, if you are in that kind of environment (for example traveling hundreds of miles away to see a relative), it must be pretty difficult to argue against that logic.
More worryingly, it gives some young people in the Basque Country and excuse to get involved with ETA, whereas in the past they might have chosen the “political” route.
I refer you and other readers of a similar persuasion to read the thorough analysis of Victor Alexandre about this problem.
ETA i Espanya. Translators available in my front page (scroll down).
Finally, in our last paragraph, you confirm one of the claims I often make about Spanish democracy: it is almost as bad as Turkey.
So I am afraid Javier that you have not clarified anything at all.
PS: in Germany, the NPD is still a legal party.
Rab said...
I agree that terrorism is a problem, and that many people in the Basque Country live under the threat of the car bomb and the gun. I feel sorry for them and their families. However, banning political parties is not the solution.
People living under the threat of Basque terrorism, the car bomb and the gun, and people forced into exile to escape from these threats, from the lack of freedom, are actually banned from political, civil and social life. Not to mention the ones living in hiding and silence, without enough courage to face death threats and therefore not being able to normally exercise their basic rights. How can a proper democracy exist without freedom of speech? Is it not a disruption of democracy? Are not these people a significant majority excluded?
There are other things that can be done apart from feeling sorry for them. We can try to suppress this threat to human rights and the rule of law, and do so by banning the conditions, the criminal behaviour and also the political support.
So the key thing is the “political support” to terrorism, as a different thing from being involved in specific criminal activities. There is no Basque terrorism in France, so a similar problem could not arise for Batasuna in France. As for the UK, remember that Sinn Fein was a separate thing from IRA and asked the IRA to disarm. In Spain, according to the Ley de Partidos and the related judgements, a hypothetical Batasuna with a similar clear position against ETA would be legal.
Javier,
Your argument is devalued by the current political and legal framework in the Basque Country. You resort to the usual rhetoric and the claim that “… lack of freedom, are actually banned from political, civil and social life”. Yet Patxi Lopez is lehendakari only because about 10-20% of Basques were unable to vote for their political party.
The fact of the matter is that the PSOE-PP coalition is in power, already implementing regressive policies against Basque language and culture, and that the only political movement that is actually banned and illegal is Batasuna. In answer to your own question, is this not a disruption of democracy and is it not a significant minority excluded from political life?
Your proposed solution is a self-centred fallacy, the result of a circular logic that instead of looking outside the current dogmatic ideological framework for a solution, merely tries to suppress the rights of one minority to uphold the rights of another. Your last point, “the political support” is the confirmation that this is first and foremost a political problem that the Spanish state is unwilling to acknowledge.
You write: “there is no Basque terrorism in France so…”.
This is absolute nonsense, and the news these days are pretty conclusive evidence. There might not be victims of terrorism in France, but we all know that ETA conducts criminal activity in France (hence the zulos found in the last few days) which enables the group to carry out attacks inside Spain. Once again, a case of not wanting to see the facts that are inconvenient. Batasuna is a legal political party in France.
Your last claim that SF was a “separate thing from the IRA” is simply laughable: Gerry Adams was the chief IRA commander, as much has been acknowledged within the British state and media. You seem to know very little about the Irish situation: the IRA did not disband because Sinn Fein asked them to do so, but because Sinn Fein, the Loyalist community and crucially the honest commitment from the British and Irish states to a meaningful peace process AND A POLITICAL RESOLUTION to the conflict had created the necessary conditions to persuade the IRA to try the political route.
These conditions do not currently exist in Spain because there is no will to find a politically negotiated settlement that will create the conditions for peace.
You claim that “according to the Ley de Partidos, a hypothetical Batasuna with a similar clear position against ETA would be legal.”
Your argument once again starts from false premises since Sinn Fein has not set a position “against” the IRA, ever, and it has not ever or will not condemn any activity carried out by the Provisional IRA. If anything, a lot of former P-IRA militants are now councillors and involved in the business of politics rather than the car bomb.
Besides, according to press reports in Spain, some officials of Batasuna (Otegui for example) have asked ETA to cease violence and ETA has responded that it will follow its own strategy and that it is independent of other organisations in the political sphere.
So we have a political group claiming to be independent from ETA, and ETA claiming to be independent from a political party. But the political party is banned and the route to peace is thus kept firmly closed. I guess it suits Spanish nationalism to keep this conflict alive for their own purposes.
I repeat: banning political parties is not the solution and marginalising a significant minority of the population only aggravates the underlying problem. Creating the conditions for peace and a proper negotiation, like in Northern Ireland, is the solution.
The Falange is utterly ridiculous. Marching into Arenys de Munt to prevent the referendum from happening? Are they worried that people might vote yes? As a matter of fact, perhaps they should go ahead and march into Arenys de Munt -- that would make a lot of undecided voters lean towards the "yes" side!
And I don't understand why these nasty, rabid right-wing Spanish nacionalistas want to keep Catalunya in Spain at all cost. I mean, they hate Catalans, they hate Catalunya -- just let it go and show the world what you can do without it! (That it, probably not much.)
Rab said...
Your argument is devalued by the current political and legal framework in the Basque Country. You resort to the usual rhetoric and the claim that “… lack of freedom, are actually banned from political, civil and social life”. Yet Patxi Lopez is lehendakari only because about 10-20% of Basques were unable to vote for their political party.
So let's speculate: if we had counted the votes from the people forced into exile by terrorism perhaps Patxi would have won with a crushing majority. And how do we know how many “Batasuna votes” were to Aralar? How can we speculate with individual votes with two minorities excluded? So then let's converge to British standards and suspend the Basque Assembly like Tony Blair did.
Rab said...
The fact of the matter is that the PSOE-PP coalition is in power, already implementing regressive policies against Basque language and culture...
regressive policies against Basque language and culture?? Which ones?
Rab said...
Your argument once again starts from false premises since Sinn Fein has not set a position “against” the IRA, ever, and it has not ever or will not condemn any activity carried out by the Provisional IRA. If anything, a lot of former P-IRA militants are now councillors and involved in the business of politics rather than the car bomb.
At the time of the settlement and from then on Sinn Fein came out against “Real IRA”, “Continuity IRA” or whatever name they use. Sinn Fein has condemned their attacks and Sinn Fein members are threatened by IRA Dissidents:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/09/2510576.htm
You see, that’s the thing: we don’t need to speculate because we have the facts.
The facts are that the socalled forced exiles are, albeit a personal tragedy, a very small number of families. In the big scheme of things, not big enough to make a statistical difference. How many indeed? A handful? Dozens? Hundreds? If it was that big, I am pretty sure we would heard more about them than the TeleMadrid/Tele5 documentaries featuring the same 7 families all the time.
However, we do know that a party that until know had a political representation of between 10% and 20% of the Basque electorate, depending on the area, has been made illegal and is unable to concur in the elections. The individual rights of a significant number of people have been infringed.
So there are not two minorities excluded but one. One group is anecdotal evidence. The other is a political movement involving tens of thousands of people. One group has the overwhelming power of the state behind them. The other now leave in political limbo.
Again, you betray your ignorance about the situation in Northern Ireland. The Assembly was suspended because the Unionist members did not want home rule. Nothing to do with anybody excluded from the electoral process. Tony Blair did not suspend the Assembly, the Unionist community refused to participate in self-government and then the Westminster government took the only measure available to them.
Regressive policy: Link
This and other policies to be implemented by the new [Spanish] nationalist government of PSOE-PP will ensure that Basque language remains a folkloric, second-class language in its own land, always subordinated to Spanish. So much for bilingualism.
Your last paragraph about the IRA, once again belies your ignorance about Irish matters. The Real IRA or the Continuity IRA are splinter organisations from the Provisional IRA. Sinn Fein was/is the political wing of the P-IRA. Neither the Real IRA or the C-IRA have had any kind of serious operational capabilities (Omagh excepted) and they do not have the support of the overwhelming majority of the P-IRA. The peace process involved the P-IRA and the P-IRA agreed a ceasefire to start the process and then disarmament. The splinter groups have no political support, no significant operational capabilities and cannot be compared with the P-IRA either operationally, or support-wise in any way.
The P-IRA killed hundreds of people and SF has never come out or will not come out to condemn any action by the P-IRA. During The Troubles, SF was never illegalised by the British state.
This is completely different to the situation with ETA and Spain: Spain has not had the guts to have a meaningful peace process with ETA via a serious negotiation and instead has recurred to a flawed law to ban an entire section of society and prohibiting them from participating in the electoral process.
I suggest you have a read at the different articles in the Wikipedia about Irish Republicanism for a start before you write more nonsense.
Rab said...
Regressive policy: Link.
This and other policies to be implemented by the new [Spanish] nationalist government of PSOE-PP will ensure that Basque language remains a folkloric, second-class language in its own land, always subordinated to Spanish. So much for bilingualism.
Avui's article is about a judgement pronounced by a court, not by the Basque government. I'd like to know of a single measure taken by the new Basque government which is against or by any means reduce the legal status of the Basque language, as you claimed initially.
Rab said...
I suggest you have a read at the different articles in the Wikipedia about Irish Republicanism for a start before you write more nonsense.
I don't know much about Ireland, never been there, and I suspect these are not comparable cases, though I don't see much contradiction between us but a slight terminology issue.
Sinn Fein is now clearly against the remaining terrorism of the IRA dissidents, what Batasuna is not doing against current Basque terrorism. So there's a big difference in their attitude towards the terrorism which is still active in their sides.
And according to your view, if I'm not wrong, the reason for such difference would be that the Spanish government did not make enough concessions to ETA in the last ceasefire, while the UK government did.
I wonder which specific concessions have been made by the UK in Northern Ireland that Spain has not done in the last 30 years related to the Basque country.
Javier,
Whether a policy is implemented by the legislative or the Spanish judiciary, it is still a regressive policy by the state which is designed to keep Basque language as a secondary, folkloric language with no significant social usage.
Público
When you describe the P-IRA, c-IRA or Real IRA as a terminology issue you clearly show how little you know. The Real IRA and the c-IRA are different military organisations to the P-IRA.
Once again, like an ostrich with her head stuck in the sand, you are ignoring the process of political negotiation that is taking place in Ireland.
SF may now be against the “remaining” IRA splinter groups BUT ONLY BECAUSE there has been a proper peace process and an outcome-based negotiation between the British and Irish states, and the IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries and their respective political representatives.
There has been a politically-focused approach to resolving the underlying political conflict which has not set out to exclude any of stakeholders in Northern Ireland.
The big difference, the crucial and sad difference, is that whereas the British state understood that the conflict would only be resolved through a political negotiation without any silly demands for an unconditional surrender, the Spanish state has become involved in a legal cul-de-sac which will achieve nothing except the worsening of the underlying political conflict.
The Ley de Partidos has been like adding petrol to a fire: now the conflict has been made entirely political with the political illegalisation of an entire section of society. Nothing good will come out of it.
I do state that the Zapatero-led peace process was not a serious attempt at negotiation. There are two reasons for this:
First, the PP in opposition made any attempt at a peace process impossible with their dogmatic refusal to any negotiated end to the conflict. This contrasts with the pragmatic and courageous approach taken by the Conservatives and the Labour party: when each was in opposition, they were supportive of the Government attempts to achieve peace. The PP has proven that they are against a feasible settlement that will achieve peace in the Basque Country. Given the permanent attacks by the PP and its [Spanish] nationalistic media outlets, Zapatero then lacked the political will and “balls” to empower the negotiating team to achieve anything of substance.
Second, when some members of ETA’s (allegedly members of the negotiating team) were arrested while the “indecisive” negotiations were still taking place, it was the last straw. ETA’s hardliners forced their hand and planted the bomb in Madrid’s airport car park. The peace process was in tatters and El Mundo, ABC, COPE, La Razón and, above all, Partido Popular, were delighted.
Do you want to know what “concession” the UK gave to the Republican movement?
You can find it in the internet easily, but I will tell you.
The UK government (both Conservative and Labour) assured the IRA and SF that the British state does not have a long term strategic interest in Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom against the will of the people of Northern Ireland.
This in layman terms means that the UK government will accept whatever the people of Northern Ireland decide their constitutional future should be. Some people call this self-determination. I call it the natural course of democracy.
(There were other issues like release of prisoners, institutional reform, etc, but they are not as crucial as this one).
When previous Lehendakari tried to set up a framework to decide *how* to deal with the situation, (it was not an independence referendum) the Spanish state tried to sent him to prison.
And this my friend, is the big difference between the UK and Spanish governments and why there is (relative) peace in Northern Ireland.
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