tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/basque-country-10230/articlesBasque Country – The Conversation2023-07-20T08:46:54Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2090522023-07-20T08:46:54Z2023-07-20T08:46:54ZDoes Spanish nationalism exist?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535483/original/file-20230704-25-5q2shi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C8%2C1911%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/spanish-flags-sky-confetti-1496384390">Negro Elkha/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the last two decades, the Spanish political scene has been characterised by <a href="https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/analisis/la-resiliencia-democratica-espanola-tras-una-decada-convulsa/">convulsion</a>. Among the many variables that shape this reality, one of them is the confrontation between the centre – Madrid – and the peripheral areas, some of which have their own distinct identity.</p>
<p>In Spain there are <a href="https://gredos.usal.es/bitstream/handle/10366/80052/Aproximacion_al_nacionalismo_espanol_con.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">different nationalisms</a>, including Catalan or Basque nationalism. There is also a Spanish nationalism of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castilian_nationalism">Castilian origin</a>. This nationalism has been deeply rooted in Spanish politics from the time of the Restoration in the second half of the 19th century.</p>
<p>In fact, allusions to peripheral nationalisms and their claims are constant, while there is hardly any reference to Spanish nationalism.</p>
<p>Does this “invisibility” mean that in Spain there is no feeling of identity to the whole nation that opposes regional nationalisms? To discover the answer to that question, we just need to review a little history.</p>
<p>In the fifteenth century, the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile had been unified and the process of expansion to America, led by the Crown of Castile, had begun. At that time, we can only identify a certain “pre-national” identity that is more related to loyalty to the Spanish Monarchy and to the Spanish Empire than to a line of thought having to do with a national concept of Spain.</p>
<h2>When did the idea of Spain as a single nation arise?</h2>
<p>It was in the nineteenth century when a school of thought that promoted the unity and identity of Spain as a single and indivisible nation really emerged. This came about in a context of social unrest after the domestic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsular_War">Peninsular war</a> and the traumatic loss of the American colonies. It was put forward by figures such as Spanish politicians <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_C%C3%A1novas_del_Castillo">Antonio Cánovas del Castillo</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Donoso_Cort%C3%A9s">Juan Donoso</a>, among others.</p>
<p>Ideas of centralism and the territorial unity of Spain were a significant part of this ideology. Patriotism and the defence of the nation were also central, as was Catholicism and traditionalism, reinforced by an opposition to more liberal currents that promoted the modernisation of Spain. These were perceived as a threat to Spanish identity and traditionalism.</p>
<p>This feeling of Spanish identity was reinforced <a href="https://e-revistas.uc3m.es/index.php/hispnov/article/view/1874">during the Franco dictatorship</a> of 1939-1975. Francoism used the ideological concepts of Spanish nationalism to justify its authoritarian and centralist regime, as well as harsh repression against any form of political dissent or claim for regional autonomy.</p>
<p>As was to be expected, during the transition to democracy (1976-1982), there was a strong resurgence of regional identity in Catalonia and the Basque Country. This demanded greater amounts of autonomy and self-government. In opposition to this, there wasn’t a significant reaction by Spanish nationalism, which had been weakened by its ideological proximity to Franco’s regime. </p>
<p>However, the consolidation of democracy and the overcoming of the Franco dictatorship – starting in the 1980s – entailed the strengthening of new political currents. These began to claim the national identity and territorial unity of Spain more vehemently, doing so in opposition to the peripheral nationalist movements.</p>
<h2>Is nationalist sentiment always right wing?</h2>
<p>Among the political parties that defend Spanish nationalism with great intensity is the People’s Party of Jose María Aznar, as well as several extreme right-wing groups. </p>
<p>But it is important to point out that Spanish nationalism is not an exclusive phenomenon of the political right. <a href="https://letraslibres.com/politica/izquierda-y-nacionalismo-teoria-historia-y-estrategia/">There are nationalist lines of thought on the left</a> that also defend the identity and unity of Spain. However, they do it from a broader perspective of dialogue.</p>
<p>Aznar’s tenure (1996-2004) was characterised by placing Spanish nationalism at the centre of the political scene. His government implemented initiatives that entailed a substantial change in the Spanish political context. </p>
<p>Among the most noteworthy is the breaking, by the Spanish government, of the balance established by <a href="https://app.congreso.es/consti/constitucion/indice/titulos/articulos.jsp?ini=137&fin=158&tipo=2">Title VIII of the Constitution</a>, which set <a href="https://app.congreso.es/consti/constitucion/indice/sinopsis/sinopsis.jsp?art=151&tipo=2">different levels of competence</a>
between historical autonomous communities (Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country) and <a href="https://app.congreso.es/consti/constitucion/indice/titulos/articulos.jsp?ini=143&tipo=2">the rest of the Spanish autonomous communities</a>. The Constitution of 1978 differentiated between those communities that had a statute of autonomy prior to the Spanish Civil War and those that did not. And gave these three more power to decide over their territories.</p>
<p>But the application of <a href="https://app.congreso.es/consti/constitucion/indice/titulos/articulos.jsp?ini=152&tipo=2">article 152</a> culminated in a policy of transfer of power that practically equated the competences of all communities.</p>
<p>Likewise, some other political initiatives have brought about a feeling of unfair treatment and contributed to a spiral of demands by the Catalan and Basque governments, which wish to maintain special status within the Spanish autonomous framework. These initiatives include the consolidation of a Spain that spreads in a radial manner out from Madrid, the tax policy of the Community of Madrid – more lax than in other communities – and the lack of investments in the Mediterranean region.</p>
<p>Finally, starting in 2010 and coinciding with the <a href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencia_del_Tribunal_Constitucional_sobre_el_Estatuto_de_Autonom%C3%ADa_de_Catalu%C3%B1a_de_2006">Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Catalan Statute</a>, a very turbulent stage of Spanish politics began, characterised by strong political confrontation between the various nationalisms.</p>
<h2>The feeling of identity of recent years</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RdsKh0N9Rc">The “Procès”</a> (Catalan Process for Sovereignty; 2010-2017) became a spiral of confrontation between Catalan nationalism and Spanish nationalism. The first one wanted to be recognised as a political player with the right to self-determination. Whereas the second one denied any possibility of negotiation, using all the State’s mechanisms available to prevent the referendum being held on October 1 2017.</p>
<p>It is within this context of “response to the Catalan independence movement” that we must note the significant growth of a feeling of Spanish identity in recent years. The implementation – from Spain’s right-wing conservative, liberal, and radical parties (PP, Cs, and Vox) – of policies and campaigns aimed at confrontation with peripheral nationalisms were also born after that event.</p>
<p>They intend to reinforce the principles of centralisation, national identity, and territorial unity – principles so typical of <a href="https://aragondigital.es/politica/2019/11/03/vox-considera-a-aragon-un-muro-de-contencion-de-los-nacionalismos-vasco-y-catalan/">Spain’s sense of identity</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Víctor Climent Sanjuán no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.</span></em></p>Spanish history recounts the existence of various peripheral nationalisms (Catalan and Basque), while, in many cases, the existence of a Spanish nationalism of Castilian origin is ignored.Víctor Climent Sanjuán, Profesor Titular de Sociología, Universitat de BarcelonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1981982023-02-06T21:00:48Z2023-02-06T21:00:48ZNewport ship: after 20 years’ work, experts are ready to reassemble medieval vessel found in the mud<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508112/original/file-20230203-16-3271x0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C13%2C4426%2C3301&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An artistic impression of how the Newport Medieval ship may have looked . </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Jordan/Newport Museums and Heritage Service</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When construction work began on a new arts centre in Newport, south Wales, in 2002, the builders on site could scarcely have imagined what they would dig up. While excavating the foundations on the banks of the River Usk, a section of a medieval wooden ship was uncovered which had been perfectly preserved by the river’s waterlogged silt. Archaeologists were called in and it soon became clear the vessel was extraordinary. </p>
<p>This was not a coastal sailing boat that would have plied the Severn estuary up to the 19th century. Rather, it was a “great ship” by medieval standards, one that would have worked the long-distance routes of the Atlantic and Mediterranean. And yet, there it was, or at least a part of it, lying in an old slipway in what would have been a small Welsh port with a population of about 500 people during the Middle Ages.</p>
<p>The ship’s remains quickly caught the public’s imagination, with large numbers of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2195072.stm">local people visiting the wreck</a>. It was a reminder that while Newport is best known historically as a 19th-century iron town, the city has a long history intimately connected to the sea. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507861/original/file-20230202-7334-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people wearing hard hats and high-visibility vests stand within a construction site on timber planks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507861/original/file-20230202-7334-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507861/original/file-20230202-7334-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507861/original/file-20230202-7334-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507861/original/file-20230202-7334-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507861/original/file-20230202-7334-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507861/original/file-20230202-7334-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507861/original/file-20230202-7334-wj9b1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Newport medieval ship as it looked in September 2002, months after construction workers made the discovery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Newport_ship.jpg">Owain</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>So it was perhaps inevitable that <a href="https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/15479544.15-years-on-how-newports-medieval-ship-was-found-and-how-it-was-saved/">locals were outraged</a> when they learned “their” ship was simply going to be recorded where it sat, before being sampled and then bulldozed. The price tag just seemed too great; preserving the remains would take decades and cost millions. </p>
<p>Excavations of other ships, such as <a href="https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/site-attractions/attractions/the-mary-rose">Henry VIII’s Mary Rose</a>, had shown how expensive it would be. But <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2191881.stm">local passion and campaigning</a> outweighed such considerations and plans eventually changed. The ship would be saved. </p>
<p>Twenty years later and the task of excavating, preserving and recording all the timbers and artefacts is nearly complete. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64151535">Attention is now turning to the reconstruction of the remains</a> and consideration of how best to display the ship in the future.</p>
<p>Since its discovery, we have found out so much more about the Newport ship. It is not like the <a href="https://maryrose.org/">Mary Rose</a> or the <a href="https://www.vasamuseet.se/en">Vasa</a>, a 17th-century Swedish warship recovered in 1961. Both are complete vessels, full of artefacts. The Newport ship is the surviving part of a vessel that was wrecked while undergoing maintenance in a dry dock. </p>
<p>Most of the contents, and almost all of the upper parts of the structure, were salvaged and removed before a medieval slipway was built on top. So, only part of the hull remains intact. However, that fragment is important both because it is wonderfully preserved and because is the largest and most complete section of a 15th-century European ship discovered to date. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507869/original/file-20230202-7395-ymlash.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Planks of wood lie in water within large but shallow yellow baths inside a big warehouse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507869/original/file-20230202-7395-ymlash.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507869/original/file-20230202-7395-ymlash.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507869/original/file-20230202-7395-ymlash.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507869/original/file-20230202-7395-ymlash.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507869/original/file-20230202-7395-ymlash.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507869/original/file-20230202-7395-ymlash.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507869/original/file-20230202-7395-ymlash.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The timbers of the Newport medieval ship undergo conservation in April 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/15303">Robin Drayton/Geograph</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Also, dendrochronology (the scientific method of dating tree rings to the year they were formed), has made it possible to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1095-9270.12052">pinpoint that the ship was built in 1450 in the Basque country</a>. The same techniques, when applied to the collapsed scaffolding used to hold the ship in place, can tell us when it was wrecked to within a year (1468). This has made it possible to situate the vessel within an eventful period, at the dawn of Europe’s age of discovery and the Wars of the Roses.</p>
<p>The Newport Medieval ship represents the final flourish of a shipbuilding tradition that stretched back centuries. This involved the construction of a shell, made from overlapping planks, into which a relatively light frame was fitted to provide stability. </p>
<p>It has more in common with Viking longships than it has with the skeleton-built ships of the early modern period. But the Newport ship is far bigger than Viking vessels. In its heyday it was capable of carrying 160 tuns (about 320,000 pints) of wine in its hold, on a voyage from Bordeaux.</p>
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<img alt="Very old, silver coin lodged within a piece of timber" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508303/original/file-20230206-25-ecp2yc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508303/original/file-20230206-25-ecp2yc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508303/original/file-20230206-25-ecp2yc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508303/original/file-20230206-25-ecp2yc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508303/original/file-20230206-25-ecp2yc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508303/original/file-20230206-25-ecp2yc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508303/original/file-20230206-25-ecp2yc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A ‘petit blanc’ small French coin was found within the keel of the Newport Ship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Newport Museums and Heritage Service</span></span>
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<p>One of the most positive aspects of the project has been the way archaeologists, curators, scientists and other experts have collaborated. A team of historians I gathered <a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/the-world-of-the-newport-medieval-ship/">examined the context of the ship</a> to better understand the world it came from. </p>
<p>New recording techniques were pioneered too, including the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/newport-medieval-ship-timber-recording-manual-digital-recording-of-ship-timbers-using-a-faroarm-3d-digitiser-faro-arm-laser-line-probe-and-rhinoceros-3d-software-with-sections-on-modelling-and-metrical-data/oclc/759825236">3D scanning of every timber</a>. This made it possible to digitally reconstruct (and even 3D print at scale) the whole vessel. In many ways, it was fitted back together long before the real timbers even touched each other. </p>
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<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/746482760" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A digital reconstruction of the final journey made by the Newport Ship.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Most recently, the project curator, Toby Jones, has worked with the <a href="https://www.newportship.org">Friends of the Newport Ship</a> charity to produce complex visual reconstructions of the vessel. 3D animated films are being used to communicate the nature of the vessel to the public, as well as providing experts with fresh avenues of research to explore.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evan Jones received £2000 from Newport City Council / The Friends of the Newport Ship to cover part of the costs for holding a conference on 'The World of the Newport Medieval Ship' in 2014. Both bodies also made contributions (totaling £3,114) towards the publication costs of the subsequent book 'The World of the Newport Medieval Ship' (University of Wales Press, 2018). </span></em></p>The Newport medieval ship is the most complete section of a 15th-century European vessel discovered to date.Evan Jones, Associate professor, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/985102018-06-29T13:44:38Z2018-06-29T13:44:38ZBoogie noches: how erotic cinema boom in 1970s helped shape modern Spain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225315/original/file-20180628-117374-1e88z9n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From poster of The Marvellous World of Sex. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>Madrid, June 1978. A sweltering heatwave is matched by the tensions bubbling through newspaper headlines. Nearly three years since the death of dictator Francisco Franco, politicians are intensely debating the new constitution at the Palacio de las Cortes. Will the Left accept the monarchy or demand a republic? Will the Right accept abolishing the death penalty and omitting any reference to the Catholic church? Will regions such as the Basque Country and Catalonia receive the sovereignty they demand? </p>
<p>Around the corner, people queue for the latest hit film. Is it Grease, newly premiered in New York and on its way to becoming a global colossus? No. Spanish audiences won’t be introduced to Danny, Sandy and the gang until September. Today’s crowd awaits a much more explicit celebration of cinematic sexuality: <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077513/">Las eróticas vacaciones de Stela</a> (Stela’s Erotic Vacations).</p>
<p>Played by Azucena Hernández, the reigning Miss Catalonia, Stela has returned from her strict Catholic boarding school and is set on disrupting this peaceful Castilian town. Unlike the negotiators in the congress, Stela is not diplomatic towards the guardians of Catholic morality. She sexualises everything – even a banister becomes an erotic toy as she slides down in ecstasy. She seduces a priest, a maid and her stepfather – she even flashes her own mother.</p>
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<p>Such films became possible after Spain <a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2013/12/30/inenglish/1388413211_320751.html">abolished censorship</a> in December 1977. This was monumental – it is hard to convey how much censorship shaped public consciousness during the dictatorship. It created such hunger for erotic images that many made pilgrimages to France to see <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070849/">Last Tango in Paris</a> (1972), among other films. Group tours of x-rated cinemas were even organised.</p>
<h2>Rated ‘S’ for sexual</h2>
<p>In Franco’s day, some Spaniards believed the world outside was freer than it was. When audiences saw Rita Hayworth’s famous scene in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038559/">Gilda</a> (1946), where she provocatively removes a long white glove onstage, many in Spain assumed she did a full striptease in the uncut version. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225296/original/file-20180628-112598-2v8eqm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225296/original/file-20180628-112598-2v8eqm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225296/original/file-20180628-112598-2v8eqm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225296/original/file-20180628-112598-2v8eqm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225296/original/file-20180628-112598-2v8eqm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225296/original/file-20180628-112598-2v8eqm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225296/original/file-20180628-112598-2v8eqm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225296/original/file-20180628-112598-2v8eqm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Occasionally censorship even made things more lurid. In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046085/trivia">Mogambo</a> (1953), Spanish censors changed the script to conceal the adulterous relationship between Grace Kelly and Clark Gable’s characters, turning Kelly’s husband into her brother. When she later shares a bed with him, they appear to be committing a much greater sin. </p>
<p>Ending censorship gave free rein to what was known as the <em>destape</em>, literally “the undressing”. The “S” rating was created, allowing films with soft porn elements to infiltrate the mainstream. </p>
<p>S-rated films were generally cheap and big money makers. Stela’s Erotic Variations alone sold 600,000 tickets, and was followed by other great successes such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077910/">El mundo maravilloso del sexo</a> (The Marvellous World of Sex), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078414/">Trampa sexual</a> (Sexual Trap) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076505/">La orgía</a> (The Orgy). The 17 S-rated films screened in 1978 probably attracted more customers than the four million people that went to see Grease. </p>
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<p>Neither was the <em>destape</em> limited to cinema. The magazine Interviú, formed in 1976, was creating waves with revealing covers of famous actresses, including a nude photo of Franco-era child star Marisol – sadly without her permission. </p>
<p>In February 1978 another iconic photograph appeared. It shows future Madrid mayor Enrique Tierno Galván giving actress/stripper Susana Estrada – star of El mundo maravilloso del sexo – a prize for being the most popular actress of the year. Her jacket has moved, revealing a breast, while she smiles unconcerned. The picture became an emblem of Spain’s transition to democracy, showing it was much more than a political process. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225298/original/file-20180628-112604-1ynqfoo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225298/original/file-20180628-112604-1ynqfoo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225298/original/file-20180628-112604-1ynqfoo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225298/original/file-20180628-112604-1ynqfoo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225298/original/file-20180628-112604-1ynqfoo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225298/original/file-20180628-112604-1ynqfoo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225298/original/file-20180628-112604-1ynqfoo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225298/original/file-20180628-112604-1ynqfoo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Susana Estrada (right) and Enrique Tierno Galván (left)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marisa Flórez</span></span>
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<p>The S rating endured until 1983, when it was replaced by the more permissive but more marginalised X rating. Where the 1970s releases often included good scripts and serious social commentary, the <em>destape</em> was becoming more purely gratuitous by the early 1980s. </p>
<p>Since then the genre has often been considered an embarrassing footnote in Spanish cinema. But that risks missing something important. As one writer has <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719062834/">put it</a>, Stela, like other young S-rated protagonists, “embodies the myriad ironies of the transition to democracy, for she does not merely awaken the village sexually, but reveals what was always simmering under the surface of franquista repression”. </p>
<p>Sex and nudity have been especially pervasive in the nation’s cinema over the past four decades. A recent book, <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-spanish-erotic-cinema.html">Spanish Erotic Cinema</a>, argues convincingly that sensual pleasure on Spanish screens is bound up with historical, political and social issues.</p>
<h2>Priests and politics</h2>
<p>A good example is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078192/">El sacerdote</a> (The Priest), another S-rated success during that sultry summer of ‘78. It shows a priest torn between conservative ideology and sexual desires, awakened by a billboard of a woman in a bikini and the steamy confessions of an unhappy housewife. His inner turmoil reaches such a frenzy that he eventually castrates himself. </p>
<p>Director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0407061/">Eloy de la Iglesia’s</a> films are often criticised for being heavily didactic. Yet some <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-spanish-erotic-cinema.html">argue that</a> movies such as El sacerdote helped broaden the moral horizons of the audience. In October 1978, de la Iglesia premiered <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077438/">El diputado</a> (Confessions of a Congressman), one of many films that featured gay characters and arguably contributed to Spain’s widespread acceptance of homosexuality.</p>
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<p>The same summer also saw <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077236/">Bilbao</a>, a landmark in the genre by director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000940/">Bigas Luna</a>. His work over the next two decades would blur erotic and art-house cinema. Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem were launched to stardom in his 1992 send-up of Spanish stereotypes, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104545/">Jamón jamon</a> (Ham Ham), where they famously make love under one of the country’s emblematic bull-shaped highway billboards.</p>
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<p>More recently, the popular films <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339806/">Torremolinos 73</a> (2004), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1129422/">Los años desnudos</a> (The Naked Years, 2008) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4922692/">Kiki, el amor se hace</a> (Quickie, Love is So, 2016) all pay homage to the genre. In this #MeToo era, many might prefer it was buried instead. Yet in contrast with the female sexual objects of the original <em>destape</em>, it has been <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-spanish-erotic-cinema.html">argued that</a> the women in Kiki, for example, are “utterly in control of their sexuality, well informed about various practices, open-minded and confident in their pursuit of their preferences and desires”. </p>
<p>The Spanish people <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402387908424239?journalCode=fwep20">approved</a> today’s constitution in the referendum of December 1978, founding a political order that now appears in disarray. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-new-government-in-spain-means-for-catalonia-97724">Catalan conflict</a> is rooted in that constitution’s negation of the right of Spanish regions to self-determination. The former president, Mariano Rajoy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/spains-prime-minister-loses-no-confidence-vote-what-next-97564">was recently forced out</a> of office over party corruption. </p>
<p>Many now question the entire political culture that was forged in the transition years after dictatorship. If we consider the conscientious undressing of old morals and sexual hang-ups another of the founding acts of democratic Spain, this parallel process is arguably in much better health. To give just one example, Spain was one of the first countries <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/30/gayrights.spain">to legalise</a> same-sex marriage, preceded only by Holland and Belgium. While the difficulties with the <em>destape</em> are obvious, we should concede it has played an important role in creating the culture we see today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jesse Barker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Soon after the death of Franco, Spain began an experiment with censorship that brought graphic sex and nudity to mainstream cinemas.Jesse Barker, Lecturer in Hispanic Studies, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/866692017-11-03T16:51:04Z2017-11-03T16:51:04ZWhy independence movements in Scotland and elsewhere are tongue-tied over Catalonia<p>Catalonia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/catalonia-declares-independence-and-spain-enters-uncharted-territory-86489">unilateral declaration of independence</a> already seems so long ago. It’s hard to believe it is only a week since the provocative move by Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont unleashed a chain of events including Madrid resuming direct rule of the region, Puigdemont retreating to Belgium and Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy <a href="https://theconversation.com/catalonia-the-prospect-of-an-election-has-everyone-nervous-86631">calling</a> snap Catalan elections for December. </p>
<p>Whether the ringleaders of the UDI will be allowed to stand is unclear at the time of writing: eight <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/02/spanish-court-question-catalonia-separatists-except-puigdemont">have been jailed</a> by a Madrid court pending an investigation over charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds. An international arrest warrant has been issued against Puigdemont to extradite him from Brussels. </p>
<p>Leaders of Europe’s other independence and autonomy movements, particularly in Scotland but also in Corsica, Flanders and the Basque Country, are doubtless following every twist and turn. So how are these events likely to impact on their ambitions? </p>
<p>At the outset, it is worth remembering these separatist surges tend to have roots in common. They are often less about nationalism for its own sake than part of the anti-establishment insurgency following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-charts-that-show-how-much-the-world-has-changed-since-the-2007-08-financial-crisis-83477">financial crash of 2007/08</a>. Even though Spain has been caught in a perfect storm that included the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17549970">eurozone crisis</a>, radical and populist parties on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/31/podemos-revolution-radical-academics-changed-european-politics">left</a> and <a href="http://www.euronews.com/2017/05/15/meet-ciudadanos-the-party-dreaming-of-a-spanish-remake-of-macrons-success">right</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-corruption-pp-rajoy-never-ending-problem-graft-ignacio-gonzalez/">corruption scandals</a> and high youth unemployment, there are sufficient parallels with movements elsewhere to make events in Catalonia seem of much broader importance. </p>
<p>In Scotland, there’s an additional similarity. The rise of the Ciudadanos party in Catalonia was partly due to its anti-independence stance – much like the revival of the Scottish Conservatives under Ruth Davidson. On the other hand, the Basque Country may share all the Spanish context but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/28/world/europe/spain-catalonia-basque-independence.html">was weary</a> of separatism at the time of the crash after decades of division over the issue. In that part of Spain it was the anti-establishment pro-Madrid Podemos that won the most votes in the last national election.</p>
<h2>Bullets or ballots?</h2>
<p>The non-violent tactics of the Catalan separatists are among the most notable characteristics of the crisis. They contrast sharply, of course, with the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11183574">separatist terrorism</a> in the Basque Country before ETA gave up arms <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/basque-separatist-eta-historic-weapons-mariano-rajoy">in 2014</a>. This has probably helped the Catalan separatists to win more sympathetic coverage in the international media. </p>
<p>Puigdemont, a former journalist, is generally considered to have played a subtler and more reasonable game than Rajoy – particularly after the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/03/catalonia-tensions-rise-as-strikes-held-over-police-violence-during-referendum">obstructive actions and violence shown by</a> the Guardia Civil on October 1, the day of the independence referendum. Appealing over the heads of EU leaders, repeatedly making statements in English to the international media, has not been a bad strategy when trust in the political establishment is at an all-time low.</p>
<p>If this is <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/catalan-threat-to-unleash-mass-civil-disobedience-8vgf9w65b">followed by</a> successful use of peaceful mass civil <a href="https://theconversation.com/catalonia-civil-disobedience-and-where-the-secession-movement-goes-now-86425">disobedience</a> in the wake of Spain revoking Catalonia’s autonomy, it could inspire other independence movements. Such tactics were famously effective in the US against racial discrimination <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/nonviolencekey-to-civil-rights-movement/1737280.html">in the 1960s</a>, albeit Catalans neither appear to have the law on their side nor the ability to shame the government to intervene on their behalf. Whether this ultimately means such disobedience would fail, however, is far from certain. </p>
<h2>Europe snub</h2>
<p>The EU presents opportunities and challenges for its minority nations. Like the Catalans, Scotland’s SNP is deeply wedded as a party to the EU – even if some of its supporters <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14950013.36__of_SNP_and_Labour_supporters_backed_Brexit__finds_survey/">are not</a>. But with the EU broadly seen to be siding with Spain against the Catalans, it could be increasingly difficult for the party to maintain its current policy. </p>
<p>If the price of independence is for Catalans to be ejected from the EU, for example, where does this leave the SNP strategy of pursuing independence inside the EU? And where does it leave the Flemish nationalists’ aim of increasing the powers of Flanders within Belgium until it is independent?</p>
<p>These fault lines have already been visible since the Catalan UDI. Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon and her government have been <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/nicola-sturgeon-snp-catalonia-the-scottish-nationalists-catalan-dilemma/">careful to</a> call for dialogue rather than for the declaration of independence to be recognised. Perhaps fearful of Spain blocking a potential bid for EU membership by an independent Scotland in years to come, the Scottish government has left it to a group of members of the parliament <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/msps-call-for-independent-republic-of-catalonia-to-be-recognised-1-4601309">to welcome</a> the declaration instead. Contrast this with the president of the Corsican assembly <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-28/corsican-assembly-president-hails-birth-of-catalan-republic">welcoming</a> the birth of a new republic, for instance. </p>
<p>Meanwhile in Belgium the Flemish nationalist party N-VA, which is part of the ruling coalition, has been put in an awkward position with the arrest warrant. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-28/belgium-s-nationalists-keep-their-distance-from-catalan-campaign">So far</a>, at a national level, the party line <a href="https://sceptr.net/2017/11/catalaanse-ministers-gevangenis-vlaamse-n-va-ministers-ontzet/">has been that</a> this is a legal, not a political, matter and that it is inappropriate to intervene. In contrast, at a regional level Geert Bourgeois, minister-president of Flanders, has <a href="https://sceptr.net/2017/11/catalaanse-ministers-gevangenis-vlaamse-n-va-ministers-ontzet/">condemned</a> the Spanish government and has been tweeting in opposition to the latest moves by the Spanish courts. </p>
<h2>Events, dear boy</h2>
<p>Overall, the Catalonia crisis may lead to a rise in minority nationalism around Europe in the short-term. But what happens in the longer term is likely to depend on how events in Spain play out. A peaceful and prosperous Republic of Catalonia within the EU would greatly encourage other minority nations to assert themselves – just like the independence of the Baltic states did in the early 1990s. </p>
<p>Equally a descent into chaos would have the opposite effect, as would a decisive victory by pro-Spanish parties in the Catalan election on December 21. In this scenario, the analogy would be the break-up of the former Yugoslavia <a href="https://www.petergeoghegan.com/2014/09/02/what-scotland-can-learn-from-balkanisation/">putting independence movements</a> on the defensive about the dangers of nationalism. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193203/original/file-20171103-1032-1jv3538.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193203/original/file-20171103-1032-1jv3538.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193203/original/file-20171103-1032-1jv3538.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193203/original/file-20171103-1032-1jv3538.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193203/original/file-20171103-1032-1jv3538.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193203/original/file-20171103-1032-1jv3538.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193203/original/file-20171103-1032-1jv3538.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193203/original/file-20171103-1032-1jv3538.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Forward march!</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/madrid-spain-october-7-2017-manifestation-731383261?src=1wNqzlk6wRxCRjH390l0TQ-1-45">Lord Kuernyus</a></span>
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<p>A sobering and crushing defeat for Catalan separatists would reinforce the view in the SNP that they should tread carefully. It would perhaps convince the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/happened-catalonia-happen-scotland-171030134957987.html">Flemish</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/28/world/europe/spain-catalonia-basque-independence.html">Basque</a> separatists that their gradualist approaches are the right ones. </p>
<p>Despite this uncertainty around the lessons from Catalonia, central governments in London, Paris and Madrid will be in no doubt about the challenge facing them. They have to find a way of rebuilding support for their centralised countries while continuing to retrench their welfare states. Whatever happens in Catalonia, that looks like being one of the key conundrums for decades to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William McDougall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barcelona has become the test case for separatists Europe over.William McDougall, Lecturer in Politics, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830472017-08-25T11:42:51Z2017-08-25T11:42:51ZHow a remarkable novel is helping Spain come to terms with the Basque Country’s violent past<p>Western Europe’s last remaining home-grown terrorist organisation finally ceased operations in 2011 when Basque separatist group <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/10/eta-declares-permanent-ceasefire">ETA declared a permanent ceasefire</a>. And yet the decades of violence continue to cast a long shadow over Basque society and political life. As politicians on both sides remain as antagonistic as ever, novelists and other writers are taking on the challenge of tackling the subject with far more eloquence and nuance, telling stories that could provide a much-needed form of remembrance, catharsis and understanding.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31842429-patria">Fernando Aramburu’s novel Patria</a> (“Fatherland”) is a stellar example – and sets the bar high for others to follow. First published in Spanish in September 2016, it has reached a wider audience than novels on the subject written in Basque, and it has topped the bestseller lists – not only in the Basque region, but also in Spain every month so far this year. This is the novel that Spaniards are reading on the metro or bus on their way to work and packing in their suitcases to take on holiday. Translations into several other languages are now underway, including an English edition set for publication in 2019, the author told me.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183421/original/file-20170825-1005-7hw15s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183421/original/file-20170825-1005-7hw15s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183421/original/file-20170825-1005-7hw15s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183421/original/file-20170825-1005-7hw15s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183421/original/file-20170825-1005-7hw15s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183421/original/file-20170825-1005-7hw15s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183421/original/file-20170825-1005-7hw15s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Patria.</span>
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<p>In the past decade, Spain has been coming to terms with its 20th-century history of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/roadwar/spancivil/revision/1/">civil war</a> and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/general-franco-forty-years-after-his-death-spain-is-still-coming-to-terms-with-the-painful-legacy-of-a6741191.html">dictatorship</a>, ever since the <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/9989965">historical memory law of 2007</a> put an end to the unwritten agreement known as the “pact of forgetting” that had facilitated the transition to democracy. </p>
<p>Now, Aramburu has recognised that in the wake of ETA’s permanent ceasefire, there is another story that needs to be told and remembered in a sensitive and reconciliatory fashion. This cannot be achieved by politicians fighting over how best to facilitate ETA’s disbandment and address the legacy it leaves. It must be writers and other cultural practitioners who do that.</p>
<h2>A history of violence</h2>
<p>Originally founded in 1959 in opposition to Spanish dictator Franco’s suppression of regional identities, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11183574">ETA persisted</a> with its campaign of violence well into the 21st century, long after Spain’s transition to democracy. The separatist group has not killed since 2010, but its disarmament was protracted until April this year and its full disbandment remains pending. Moreover, politicians and society remain divided over controversial issues such as the treatment of ETA prisoners, who under Spanish law have their rights reduced and are subject to policies such as dispersion.</p>
<p>For too long, the Basque “conflict” was primarily portrayed, in a misleadingly simplistic fashion, as pitting Spain (or “the Spanish state”, as Basque nationalists put it) against the Basques. ETA itself, and the wider social and political movement linked to it, was responsible for propounding this vision to justify its existence. But sectors of the Spanish right then compounded the error by associating all Basque nationalism with ETA for their own political motives. In reality, however, one of the biggest tragedies caused by ETA is that it also pitted Basques against Basques.</p>
<p>Patria eloquently draws attention to this through its depiction of the impact on a typical small Basque village (which could be any one of many), focusing in particular on two once closely knit families that are torn apart when the father of one family ends up an ETA target while the eldest son of the other joins the terrorists. It is not only the relationship between the two families that suffers, but relations among parents and siblings within each individual family, too.</p>
<p>Aramburu is sensitive and sympathetic towards ETA’s victims and their families, and he conveys their suffering with tremendous poignancy. His real achievement, however, is to do so without descending into facile moralising or politicising. He shows the full complexity of the tragedy by seeing things from different perspectives. </p>
<p>This includes reflecting the way in which many naïve young Basques, brought up in pro-ETA towns and villages and subject to intense peer pressure, ended up buying into ETA’s ideology and somewhat unthinkingly obeying its orders.</p>
<p>Terrorism is unacceptable in any circumstances, but Spain’s way of dealing with it has not always been appropriate either – and Aramburu does not shy away from depicting the torture used on ETA prisoners or the violence wrought by the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/141720.stm">GAL, Spain’s covert paramilitary death squads</a> back in the 1980s.</p>
<h2>Family tragedies</h2>
<p>This is first and foremost a novel of excellent literary quality that the reader is compelled to keep reading to find out what happens to the two families and whether there is any hope of reconciliation after ETA’s reign of devastation. The novel starts with ETA’s ceasefire and then darts back and forth to different periods of time in each chapter, telling snippets of the story in a non-chronological and non-linear fashion, keeping the reader waiting until the very end to get the complete picture.</p>
<p>Aramburu never intended for the novel to be political or didactic, but precisely for that reason, the end result can actually serve a much better purpose than most intentionally didactic novels. Propagandistic Basque novels portraying ETA terrorists as heroes or martyrs have tended to be intensely bad literature. But a brilliantly written novel such as Patria provokes the reader to think and reflect without him or her necessarily realising it.</p>
<p>For Basque citizens, the novel provides a sensitive portrayal of their community and its recent history. Perhaps even more significant, however, is the way in which the novel can contribute to an understanding in wider Spanish society of the complex social situation in the Basque Country prior to, and in the wake of, ETA’s ceasefire – something which is often quite misunderstood, due in part to Spanish politicians’ simplification of issues for electoral purposes. Once translations of the novel start to appear they will promote understanding even beyond Spain’s borders, while also providing a compelling read.</p>
<p>Through its popularity, Patria has far surpassed the author’s own expectations. Aramburu himself has aptly <a href="https://www.canarias7.es/hemeroteca/aramburu_y-8216-patriay-8217-_se_ha_convertido_en_algo_no_previsto_un_fenomeno_social-ADCSN458190">described</a> this work as escaping his creative control as it becomes a social phenomenon with a life of its own. </p>
<p>Spain may have been rather late in confronting the ghosts of the civil war and Franco period after years of attempting to brush them under the carpet, but lessons have been learned. Patria provides a healthy dose of understanding and remembrance about the Basque Country’s violent past by a writer who is well aware of the need to talk of the past sensitively, all the more so when politicians remain at loggerheads.</p>
<p><em>This article was first published before Patria was translated into English under the title</em> Homeland.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83047/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Gray has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the BritishSpanish Society.</span></em></p>While politicians remain at loggerheads, the arts bring resolution to the Basque Country’s long history of violence.Caroline Gray, Lecturer in Politics and Spanish, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/776762017-05-22T11:46:19Z2017-05-22T11:46:19ZThe blockade-running British women at the forefront of Basque evacuations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170295/original/file-20170522-25060-2aeni3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Basque children, refugees from the Spanish Civil War, Aldridge Lodge, 1937.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(C) Walsall Local History Centre</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was the first time nurse Aileen Moore had flown. But at noon on May 11, 1937, she took off in a tiny 25kg monoplane from a daisy-speckled airfield under the Pyrenees, near Biarritz. As the plane flew south, Moore saw below her, “on the corrugated gleaming blue surface” of the sea, a fleet of destroyers. Inland from the long yellow line of coast, she could also spot the fighting units of nationalist troops and the Basque armies. As the plane lurched sickeningly, she admitted to feeling “just a little qualm” at willingly catapulting herself into a war zone.</p>
<p>Moore had volunteered to help the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Joint_Committee_for_Spanish_Relief">National Joint Spanish Relief Committee</a> bring thousands of Basque children out of Bilbao, the besieged city at imminent risk of falling to Franco’s encircling troops during the Spanish Civil War. And May 23, 2017 marks the 80th anniversary of the arrival <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/11/forgotten-children-spain-civil-war">of the nearly 4,000 children</a> in Southampton, snatched out from under Franco’s nose just days before Bilbao was taken by his rebels.</p>
<p>I came across Moore as part of my ongoing research into unsung women activists and humanitarians during the interwar years. She recorded eating donkey and cat as bombs rained down on starving Bilbao while she waited for official permission for the children to leave. </p>
<p>Moore spoke fluent Spanish, and was tasked with inspecting the children for signs of infectious disease before they were allowed to leave Spain. She was one of dozens of women – humanitarians, medics and politicians – who volunteered to help civilians caught up in the war. She reported her adventures in the Nursing Mirror and Midwives’ Journal. This weekly specialist newspaper took great interest in Spain both because so many British nurses had volunteered to go, and also because of the innovative field hospital techniques being pioneered there, such as the use of canned blood for transfusions. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169810/original/file-20170517-24325-j48chr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169810/original/file-20170517-24325-j48chr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169810/original/file-20170517-24325-j48chr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169810/original/file-20170517-24325-j48chr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169810/original/file-20170517-24325-j48chr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169810/original/file-20170517-24325-j48chr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169810/original/file-20170517-24325-j48chr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canteen at Basque Camp, Eastleigh, 1937.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/explorefurther/digital/scw/more/northstoneham/">Eleanor Hickman, North Stoneham Camp (Modern Records Centre, Warwick University)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the interwar years, the journal invited nurses to write about the unusual situations they found themselves in as part of their job. Consequently, it provided a rare public space where women’s professional work and engagement with the world could be celebrated.</p>
<h2>‘Home and duty’</h2>
<p>There were huge pressures on women to return to “home and duty” after their widespread involvement in work outside the domestic sphere during World War I. The war had been a moment of social anarchy when women burst out of the home, schoolhouse, hospital and nursery and worked in munitions factories, on underground trains, and abroad in field hospitals and mobile canteens.</p>
<p>So many women volunteered to work abroad that one exasperated Quaker relief unit reported from Salonika (Thessaloniki) in 1915 that there were 70 British women doctors and nurses in the port city waiting to be transported out to hospitals in Serbia, but there was no space for them.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169951/original/file-20170518-12217-12f35xw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169951/original/file-20170518-12217-12f35xw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169951/original/file-20170518-12217-12f35xw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169951/original/file-20170518-12217-12f35xw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169951/original/file-20170518-12217-12f35xw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169951/original/file-20170518-12217-12f35xw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169951/original/file-20170518-12217-12f35xw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Katherine S Macphail.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282461938_Chronicle_of_the_Anglo-Yugoslav_Children%27s_Hospital_in_Sremska_Kamenica">Chronicle of the Anglo-Yugoslav Children’s Hospital in Sremska Kamenica</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was a literary era and many middle-class women wrote poems, stories and articles, mostly as enthusiastic amateurs. When Katherine MacPhail, a doctor who spent most of the years 1915-1941 working for refugees abroad, left a Quaker-run orphanage in France, her leaving party consisted of the other volunteers writing, and reading out, sonnets composed in her honour. </p>
<p>But women’s access to writing pages for mainstream newspapers was still highly contested and often records of their activism are in obscure journals, or unpublished diaries and letters. Even the well-connected journalist and activist Shiela Grant Duff, on asking the editor of The Times in 1934 to be sent to Europe to cover rising German aggression, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Parting-Ways-Personal-Account-Thirties/dp/0720605865">was told</a> she would only be good for contributing “fashion notes” to the paper. </p>
<p>When the Spanish Civil War broke out, women nurses, humanitarians and journalists packed uniforms, notebooks and typewriters and headed south. Twenty-year-old Florence “Fifi” Roberts <a href="http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/2024904/photography_ProvidedCHO_TopFoto_co_uk_EU047940.html">sailed</a> with her father Captain William Roberts past the fascist rebels’ blockade of Bilbao in April 1937. Their ship, the Seven Seas Spray, was the first British ship to do so, and delivered a 4,000-ton cargo of olive oil, honey, beans, peas, salt, almonds and barrels of cognac to the starving Basques. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AicMA5ymixU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Roberts talking in a 1983 documentary about Guernica.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The British government, following <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9781107431751">its non-interventionist policy</a>, had warned British shipping not to attempt to break the rebel blockade. Nonetheless, at 10pm on the night of April 19, the Seven Seas Spray, her lights extinguished, slipped out of St Jean de Luz in France, past a nationalist Franco cruiser and into the inky waters of the Bay of Biscay.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169796/original/file-20170517-24350-1sut89j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169796/original/file-20170517-24350-1sut89j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169796/original/file-20170517-24350-1sut89j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169796/original/file-20170517-24350-1sut89j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169796/original/file-20170517-24350-1sut89j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169796/original/file-20170517-24350-1sut89j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169796/original/file-20170517-24350-1sut89j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169796/original/file-20170517-24350-1sut89j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Fifi’ Roberts, aka ‘food girl’ , gets stuck in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After ten hours’ sailing, the ship’s arrival in Bilbao was feted by the Basque authorities and Fifi became an overnight celebrity. The News Chronicle signed up the newly famous “food ship girl” as a special correspondent – and in her first dispatch she wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have seen children and even women run after lorries leaving one ship with loads of salt and snatch a handful of it … despite their hardships they would rather starve than surrender.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a deliberate dig at the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, she added: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If only those in authority in Britain could see these starving, homeless women and children – the sight of whom brings a lump into my throat, there would not long be a shortage of food in Bilbao.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later, she was one of the first correspondents to report from Guernica, which had just been bombed by German planes sympathetic to Franco, and wrote in a front page story: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Amid the ruins mothers are still seeking children and children their parents. No cattle remain. They were machine-gunned in the fields as were their fleeing owners. Two unexploded bombs bearing German marks of identification help to place the responsibility for this inhuman massacre.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169777/original/file-20170517-24350-abkyna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169777/original/file-20170517-24350-abkyna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169777/original/file-20170517-24350-abkyna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169777/original/file-20170517-24350-abkyna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169777/original/file-20170517-24350-abkyna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169777/original/file-20170517-24350-abkyna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169777/original/file-20170517-24350-abkyna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guernica in ruins, 1937.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H25224,_Guernica,_Ruinen.jpg">German Federal Archive</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fifi and her father ran the blockade a further four times, landing foodstuffs in Santander and Gijon, as well as removing Basque refugees to Bordeaux before being captured by Italian troops in Santona. She spent two months in captivity, celebrating her 21st birthday on the impounded ship and playing cricket on deck. After her release, she wrote in the Daily Mail: “I would do it all again.”</p>
<h2>Light-footed subterfuge</h2>
<p>The evacuation of the Basque children to Britain was effected by the teacher and former Labour MP Leah Manning, who had promised the Basque authorities she could persuade Baldwin’s reluctant government to accept the children. She had to engage in some light-footed subterfuge while the British Consul, Ralph Stevenson, was out of Bilbao to celebrate the Coronation of George VI on May 12, sending a “cod” telegram to London pretending to be from him assenting to the evacuation. </p>
<p>“Stevenson never knew what hit him,” Manning wrote in her memoir. On May 21, the yacht Habana, with a capacity of 800, began loading nearly 4,000 young passengers from the bomb-cratered pier. They arrived in Southampton Water on the evening of May 22 and were finally allowed to disembark the following day, after all the children’s hair had been cut short to limit the spread of head lice.</p>
<p>“I do not think the full story of the evacuations from Bilbao has ever been told … Perhaps, many years hence, in happier times, they will erect a statue of me, with children, in the Park in Bilbao,” Manning wrote.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169814/original/file-20170517-6030-1pfadjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169814/original/file-20170517-6030-1pfadjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169814/original/file-20170517-6030-1pfadjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169814/original/file-20170517-6030-1pfadjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169814/original/file-20170517-6030-1pfadjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169814/original/file-20170517-6030-1pfadjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169814/original/file-20170517-6030-1pfadjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169814/original/file-20170517-6030-1pfadjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children perform traditional Basque dancing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/explorefurther/digital/scw/more/northstoneham/">Eleanor Hickman, North Stoneham Camp (Modern Records Centre, Warwick University)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Manning’s reports for National Joint Committee bulletins helped generate the £2m in donations made by British citizens to the victims of the civil war. A leafy square in Bilbao, named Jardines de Mrs Leah Manning in 2002, now commemorates her work. Another brilliant writer, she skilfully contrasted the bucolic peace of rural England – “a country flaming with orange and red, madder and bronze, a country of warm scented airs and soft blue skies … a country plenteous with cider and cheese, honey and clotted cream” – with the plight of war-torn Spain to arouse pity and action. And it was thanks in part to the work of all these women that the 4,000 children were able to find refuge in Britain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Lonsdale is the author of The Journalist in British Fiction and Film, Bloomsbury, 2016.</span></em></p>During the Spanish Civil War, 4,000 Basque child refugees arrived in Britain – here’s the story of the women who helped rescue them.Sarah Lonsdale, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/320622014-09-25T09:01:23Z2014-09-25T09:01:23ZSpain offers a lesson in how not to deal with devolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59928/original/8dszpp8b-1411568590.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spain has unfinished business thanks to an ambiguous settlement.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Way#mediaviewer/File:Catalan_National_Day.png">Ivan McClellan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the UK heads towards its next phase of devolution, it should look to Spain for an example of how to do it badly. In its attempt to please everyone as it drew up its 1978 constitution, Spain ended up pleasing no one and decades of animosity have followed. The debacle shows that a piecemeal approach may appear to be the easiest option when a deal is being struck but can, in the end, serve to frustrate tensions. It’s a story that should act as a warning to British politicians.</p>
<p>In 1978, Spain was caught in fierce debate about the <a href="http://dcpis.upf.edu/%7Eraimundo-viejo/docencia/pehe/SPS_session_9.pdf">state of the autonomies</a>. In the end, the constitution that emerged from that debate failed to address the grievances of Catalonia and the Basque Country. It created a dysfunctional and expensive system that serves no one fully.</p>
<p>Rather than a failure of design, the fall-out from the deal was a consequence of a lack of agreement between the negotiating parties. Because they couldn’t reach consensus on important issues, they could only produce ambiguous statements for the document that was supposed to set out the rights of their citizens.</p>
<p>During the redrafting of the constitution in 1977-78, the question of territory was the most contentious. The parties in parliament also strongly disagreed over the shape of the agreement, with the ex-Francoist Allianza Popular refusing to concede legitimacy to the national demands of Catalonia and the Basque Country. The left-wing, meanwhile, was allied with the Catalans and argued for an asymmetrical federation in which the “historical regions” could establish their sovereignty within a federal state.</p>
<p>A wave of terrorist violence by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11183574">Basque separatist group ETA</a> in 1977 had already served to polarise both political groups and the general public over the demands of the Basque and Catalan nationalists. And when it came to actually putting the constitution together, the committee in charge was sharply divided.</p>
<p>To reach a compromise between separatists and federalists, the constitutional committee forged an ambiguous position on the matter and codified it as <a href="http://www.congreso.es/portal/page/portal/Congreso/Congreso/Hist_Normas/Norm/const_espa_texto_ingles_0.pdf">section 2 of the constitution</a>, which notes both the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation” and the right of its regions to self-governance.</p>
<p>Section two even refers to the “nationalities” governed by the constitution. However, because the constitution makes no distinction between Catalonia, the Basque Country and the other regions of Spain, even though the former have a far stronger sense of national identity, the ambiguity is fuel for separatist arguments.</p>
<p>The final version of the constitution also leaves an open interpretation on the form and powers of Spain’s institutions and the mechanisms to be used to govern Spanish regional autonomies. The committee that was supposed to draft these provisions failed to find agreement and the section of the constitution that was supposed to deal with the issue said nothing about the territorial borders of the different regions or the scope and content of their powers. The committee wasn’t even able to clarify the distinction between the rights of “nationalities” as opposed to those of “regions”.</p>
<p>From these ambiguities emerged a territorial arrangement that sits somewhere between a federal and a unitary state. Ever since 1978, the regions of Spain have competed for power and resources. These arguments play out between regions and with the central state. For example, many Catalans believe they subsidise poorer regions of Spain with their taxes. And even though these regions lack an independent identity, they enjoy about as much autonomy as Catalonia. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the constitutional arrangements in Spain were the result of the right wing’s reluctance to accept the national reality in Catalonia and the Basque Country. It saw their claims as antagonistic to the development of Spain and sought to thwart their claims for instituting a federal system of government. But both movements have continued – and Catalonia is planning its own independence referendum on November 9. It’s clear that deficient institutional solutions to the claims of peripheral nationalism can serve to foster, rather than prevent, the disintegration of existing states.</p>
<p>As the UK enters its own constitutional debates, the various leaders will need to find a territorial system that provides England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales with an asymmetrical federation. Each is to share sovereign powers within the framework of the British state.</p>
<p>Everyone needs to agree on a narrative that puts nations in a co-operative rather than competitive position. They need to all agree on shared interests and identities. Even when nationalism was a powerful force in Europe – such as in the 19th century – some of these movements showed benevolent attitudes to their neighbours and reconciled the defence of national interests and the sharing of sovereignty with other nations and nationalities within the same state.</p>
<p>More recently, in post-war Europe, centrist political elites adapted their national discourses to the supranational institutions created to consolidate peace on the devastated continent. The UK should look to both movements for inspiration as it draws up its future – and to Spain as an example of how not to do it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madalena Resende does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the UK heads towards its next phase of devolution, it should look to Spain for an example of how to do it badly. In its attempt to please everyone as it drew up its 1978 constitution, Spain ended up…Madalena Resende, Lecturer in European Politics, Universidade Nova de LisboaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/261152014-05-06T05:11:32Z2014-05-06T05:11:32ZBasque separatists inch along, watching Catalonia closely<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47673/original/vfpz4vdf-1399050037.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will the Basque flag ever make it to the United Nations?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chanzi/3178303789/in/photolist-5QRCZc-88utkD-88yd7y-9FJSFw-88uHWF-efSKW2-88ttJ4-88wwDq-88tRAM-88wpsG-88wyYu-88xExo-88x93S-88ws1o-55PPtY-55PPSJ-88wuaL-z9zRC-eqF2x-88xJs7-88x4sL-f2B1h-88xUAY-88xsJU-88tmST-88ybru-88tX3a-88tZui-88wUXy-88uvCT-88uCSe-88wYxW-88tVSZ-88wRnJ-88txYD-88tGmt-88y5Fy-88wPvd-88umoc-88ugvZ-88wFfS-88xymS-88wDe7-88tCTB-88u5AP-88uKXk-88xrdE-88uNMB-88wZLU-88u9ST">Chanzi</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There was a time when Catalan separatists looked at the Basque country enviously. Its independence movement seemed to have a strength and determination that the Catalans lacked. </p>
<p>Not anymore. The Catalan regional government and parliament have called a referendum on independence for November, two months after the <a href="http://www.scotreferendum.com/">Scottish referendum</a>. It <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-07/catalans-take-independence-bid-to-face-rajoy-s-refusal-in-madrid.html">has been rejected by Madrid</a> for being constitutionally illegal, but the Catalan separatists have not backed down. Basque nationalists are far from doing anything similar in the short-term.</p>
<p>Yet the Basque nationalists in general and the pro-independence movement in particular have been notably strengthened since armed separatist group ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/20/eta-spain">renounced violence in October 2011</a>. </p>
<p>Almost two-thirds of the members of the parliament of the <a href="http://www.spainwise.net/region/basque-country">Basque community</a> are nationalist. The moderate <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/55380/Basque-Nationalist-Party">PNV (Basque Nationalist Party)</a> runs the regional government in Vitoria-Gasteiz with 27 out of the 75 members of parliament; and left-wing separatist coalition <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildu">Bildu</a> has 21 seats.</p>
<h2>The new left coalition</h2>
<p>The emergence of Bildu as a strong political force in Basque politics is one of the key consequences of the end of ETA’s campaign. In 2012 the left-wing separatist movement, which had been banned from politics since the early 2000s because of its alleged support for ETA, finally achieved a legal political party, <a href="http://www.organizedrage.com/2013/03/sortu-after-etas-cessation-of-armed.html">Sortu</a>. More importantly, the continuing absence of ETA violence enabled Sortu to become the driving force behind Bildu, a broader pro-independence coalition born after the end of ETA’s armed activity. </p>
<p>The Basque separatist movement is not yet in a position to follow the path opened by the Catalans, though. The Basques are still licking the wounds from their very recent violent past. ETA’s unilateral and definitive abandonment of the armed campaign might be two-and-a-half years old, but issues such as disarmament and prisoners have not been settled yet. </p>
<p>The Spanish government led by Mariano Rajoy has refused any dialogue with ETA, even though it <a href="http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/europe/140221-basque-group-eta-starts-decommissioning-arms">has this year</a> shown a willingness to disarm through a video-taped symbolic act of decommissioning of a few arms, witnessed by international verifiers. </p>
<p>Almost 500 imprisoned members of ETA (and other Basque civil organisations) are serving their sentences in Spanish and French jails, waiting for talks that will deal with their situation. Many regard the Spanish government’s inflexibility and non-dialogue a strategy to maintain a neverending scenario of conflict, thus obstructing a nationalist evolution towards a viable strategy for independence.</p>
<h2>Co-sovereignty instead of independence</h2>
<p>At the same time the Basque regional government led by the PNV main leader <a href="http://www.lehendakaritza.ejgv.euskadi.net/r48-contlapl/es/contenidos/informacion/v2_lehendakari_urkullu/es_urkullu/inigo_urkullu.html">Iñigo Urkullu</a> is clearly showing that it prefers to follow a pragmatic strategy of gradually progressive self-rule, leaving behind the more radical stances of the recent past. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47671/original/w2w52qrc-1399049719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47671/original/w2w52qrc-1399049719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47671/original/w2w52qrc-1399049719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47671/original/w2w52qrc-1399049719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47671/original/w2w52qrc-1399049719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47671/original/w2w52qrc-1399049719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47671/original/w2w52qrc-1399049719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47671/original/w2w52qrc-1399049719.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Softly softly: Basque leader Inigo Urkullu with Spanish leader Mariano Rajoy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lamoncloa_gob_es/8486625566/in/photolist-dVWb7s-dhAKLt-dhzuQk-dhAKYp-dhAM4f-dhzuYH-dhALc8-dhzv9r-dhARzp-dhAybB-dhAQ25-dhAX73-dhAQFy-dhAEBN-dhAAr3-dhAPoj-dhAPov-dhAAap-dhAT5C-dhAF5m-dhAKR7-dhAGBy-dhAHi5-dhARDY-dhAPvZ-dhARpx-dhABGq-dhAQxu-dhABvp-dhASu5-dhAPf5-dhALfm-dhAR7f-dhAH4a-dhARWs-dhASDe-dhAMWr-dhARkG-dhAFKG-dhAE1p-dhATMQ-dhAzZN-dhANdV-dhARvE-dhAXBo-dhALCH-dhARW2-dhAV6J-dhAFxM-dhADyk">La Moncloa Gobierno</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is a change from the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the PNV led by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Jos%C3%A9_Ibarretxe">Juan Jose Ibarretxe</a> had been committed to a strategy widely regarded as separatist. The Basque parliament approved a statute recognising the right to self-determination <a href="http://www.iafor.org/offprints/ecss2013-offprints/ECSS2013_Offprint_0252.pdf">in 2004</a>, but it was rejected by Madrid the following year on the grounds that the Spanish constitution forbade it. </p>
<p>In 2008 the Basque parliament <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7477303.stm">approved a law</a> proposed by Ibarretxe to hold a referendum about a new legal framework, but the Spanish constitutional court prevented it on similar grounds. </p>
<p>In contrast the PNV of today has distanced itself from both the past strategy of Ibarretxe and the current strategy of its counterparts in Catalonia. On Easter Sunday, the annual Basque homeland day, a common occasion for radical claims to nationhood, <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/04/21/inenglish/1398065727_322576.html">Urkullu declared</a> that his government’s goal is not independence but a new relationship with the Spanish state based on co-sovereignty and bilateralism.</p>
<p>Bildu aims to move quicker and go further, but the coalition is aware that nationalists’ lack of political control elsewhere in the greater Basque country is making separation difficult in the short term.</p>
<h2>The Basque divide</h2>
<p>The Basque territories are divided into three political bodies: the Basque territories under Spanish sovereignty are separated into two autonomous communities – the Basque community and <a href="http://www.turismo.navarra.es/eng/home/">Navarre</a>. Then there are <a href="http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/exploring-frances-basque-country">three small Basque territories</a> under French sovereignty that are part of a bigger administrative region, the Atlantic Pyrenees. </p>
<p>Unlike the nationalist majority in the Basque community, they are minorities in the other territories. Nationalism is gradually growing stronger in Navarre, but not so in the French territories, where such parties usually get no more than 15% of the vote and not all of them support independence in any case. This means that the idea of a Basque independent state that would include the French territories is a utopian objective with no feasible prospect on the horizon. </p>
<p>The prospects for change in Navarre are not so unrealistic. The definitive end of ETA’s campaign, among other factors, has improved the political chances for Basque nationalists. It has become easier for Basque nationalist parties to find allies to team up and replace the region’s long-time ruler, the anti-Basque-nationalist right-wing <a href="http://www.upn.es/">UPN (the Navarrese People’s Union)</a>. </p>
<p>One option open to nationalists in the Basque community would be to sacrifice Navarre and push for independence only for their area. But Bildu have taken the view that a state border dividing Basques is already too much, and a national border would be too high a price to pay.</p>
<p>Instead the short-term strategy is to provoke a change in the Navarre government by forming an alliance with other progressive forces, which might include the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/558200/Spanish-Socialist-Workers-Party">Spanish socialists</a>. </p>
<p>In the mid-term, the nationalists hope that such a shift could facilitate persuading a majority to support sharing a political project with the western Basque territories. In the 2011 regional elections, Basque nationalists <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navarrese_parliamentary_election,_2011">received 28.7% of the vote</a> in Navarre. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Navarrese_parliamentary_election">Recent polls show</a> that prospects for the 2015 elections are better still.</p>
<h2>The chain gang</h2>
<p>Meanwhile a collective of grass roots Basque nationalist activists has been organising a non-partisan campaign seeking recognition of the right to self-determination. Fuelled to a great extent by events in Catalonia and Scotland, the so-called <a href="http://gizakatea.gureeskudago.net/">Gure Esku Dago</a> (“it’s in our hands”) has been gaining momentum. </p>
<p>In an initiative that echoes last September’s <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/11/us-spain-catalonia-idUSBRE98A0FR20130911">400km human chain</a> in favour of Catalan independence, Zure Esku Dago <a href="http://www.euskalkultura.com/news/the-201cgure-esku-dago201d-initiative-comes-to-the-diaspora-and-invites-everyone-to-participate-in-a-human-chain-on-june-8th/view?set_language=en">intend to</a> form their own human chain on June 8. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47672/original/hgjmkm4b-1399049881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47672/original/hgjmkm4b-1399049881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47672/original/hgjmkm4b-1399049881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47672/original/hgjmkm4b-1399049881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47672/original/hgjmkm4b-1399049881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47672/original/hgjmkm4b-1399049881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47672/original/hgjmkm4b-1399049881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47672/original/hgjmkm4b-1399049881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Catalan 400km human chain for independence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/assemblea/9673867022/in/photolist-fPiEFg-fJyF6P-fPFY4Q-fQxkT9-fQxm7E-g3gtpF-fPikSk-fPzShA-fQfKAz-fQfKt4-fJykG6-fJR6CJ-fJysbr-fJRqZf-fJyudt-fJywAn-fJyHzT-fJypM4-fJynH4-fJyMYM-fJyPH8-fJyAGD-fJyKNt-fJyS4Z-fJRaWf-fQxmk7-fFen7S-fQg5Ae-fQxuS5-fQxxYN-fQxFmC-fQfUTp-fQxupL-fQfWki-fQfUjT-fQg8Bv-fQxEjw-fQfPnX-fQfTWM-fQg5H8-fQfSbR-fQxAh7-fQxyWC-fQg41k-fQxrH1-fQxG9s-fQg5Zx-fQxtQE-fQxC1s-fQxs21">Assemblea.cat</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The object is to connect the 123km between the Basque towns of Durango and Iruñea-Pamplona. The movement is working with no official support from the main nationalist parties but seems to be attracting increasing support.</p>
<p>In sum, the prospects for Basque secession are still in the early stages. The major Spanish political parties have repeatedly showed that they are not prepared to reform the current legal framework to enable secessionist processes similar to the Scottish referendum.</p>
<p>Nationalists will need to be prepared for an uncertain political confrontation in which the rules of the game are clearly unfavourable to them. They know that in Catalonia, this has been countered at least to some extent by control of the regional parliament and a strong social movement pushing for secession. </p>
<p>Much will depend on the nationalists’ ability to persuade Navarre to more strongly support their cause. For now they can only look to Scotland and Catalonia and learn from their experiences for when the situation is ripe enough for Basque separatism. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This piece is part of the Breaking Nations series spotlighting independence movements around the world. The other instalments can be found <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/breaking-nations">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Imanol Murua does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There was a time when Catalan separatists looked at the Basque country enviously. Its independence movement seemed to have a strength and determination that the Catalans lacked. Not anymore. The Catalan…Imanol Murua, PhD Candidate, University of Nevada, RenoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.