Five years after the dissolution of the terrorist group ETA, institutions and associations of victims fight against the “rapid process of forgetting” in the society of the Spanish Basque Country, eager to turn such a “harmful” page of history.
“Terrorism has disappeared, but the memory of terrorism is still present. But it continues to be more present in the media and in certain social circles than in ordinary society”, says José Luis Zubizarreta, born in the Basque Country in 1938, with a degree in Philosophy and Letters. He wrote at the universities of Granada and Oxford and today is a columnist and political analyst in the regional press.
“The truth is that there is a general tendency to forget because it was a very, very important issue, but at the same time it was such a dark time, so harmful in all terms that, in the end, as we are in a very comfortable society -in Spain, the Basque Country has the best indicators in terms of quality of life, life expectancy, education, healthcare and wages- we prefer to stay with that, with the good, and say: ‘terrorism is a thing of the past'”, he also considers the historian Raúl López Romo, also born in the Basque Country, in 1982, and today responsible for the education and exhibition area of the Memorial Center for the Victims of Terrorism, inaugurated in July 2021, in Vitoria.
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Country and Freedom, in Portuguese) announced its dissolution on May 3, 2018, but had already announced that it would cease violence in 2011.
In more than 40 years of activity, ETA, which justified the attacks with the fight for the independence of the Basque Country, killed 853 people.
“The main pending issue after more than 40 years of murders, or in this case, five years after the disappearance of ETA, is that of the victims,” says Raúl López Romo, who in addition to working at the Victims Memorial Center of Terrorism, has dedicated his academic career to the history of terrorism, the Spanish transition to democracy and “social movements” in the Basque Country. The last book he wrote, published a few weeks ago, is entitled “On forgotten Basque terrorism.”
The memorial where he works, a public foundation that includes the Spanish State, the Basque Government and associations of victims, has received 51,000 visitors in almost two years, some of them students, and has trained more than 500 teachers from all over Spain along the way. . to address terrorism in the classroom.
“We are working on the issue of terrorism, putting the victims at the center of the story, which I think is what we have to do now, in this post-terrorist time. The victims are still with us, the survivors, the wounded. , the relatives of those murdered”, says Raúl López Romo.
The historian draws attention to a “worrying fact”: according to recent studies, one in four or one in five young people from the Basque Country and neighboring Navarra think that the use of violence in politics may be justified, as ETA claims.
“We have to continue working on the delegitimization of terrorism that is still pending in certain sectors because, among other things, [os elementos da ETA] They did not leave their weapons for ethical or moral reasons, but for an instrumental calculation, because they thought that it was no longer useful to them, they had very few members left at large and they arrested them even before they began to attack”, he defends. .
For Raúl López Romo, “the educational dimension” is fundamental and he stresses that the memorial for the victims of terrorism in Vitoria is less frequented by students than the Holocaust memorials, for example.
“In Germany, Belgium, France they have it more integrated into the education system and here, however, it is still difficult,” he says.
“We also notice that [os jovens] they are quite ‘green’, they know very little about this subject despite having been so important to their parents and grandparents. They know so little because they are not treated sufficiently in schools and, furthermore, because no one has told them at home either,” he adds, always insisting on the need to “delegitimize terrorism” in all sectors where this idea is maintained.
Raúl López Romo says that “terrorism is not going to return in the short term, they have neither the strength nor the organization for that”, but “another thing is the hate speech that fed, at a given moment, ETA and that has not disappeared “, an “anti-Spanish fanaticism, very installed in certain very nationalist sectors, especially in the Basque Country and Navarra”.
“The memory of terrorism, and well, instead of revolving around terrorism, now revolves around the victims”, emphasizes the analyst José Luis Zubizarreta.
Terrorism, adds the analyst, is still present in the political debate, but around “the policy that the parties must follow” in relation to the Basque pro-independence left considered heir to ETA’s civilian arms.
At stake is the EH Bildu coalition, which made possible the current regional government of Navarro and the Spanish Executive of Pedro Sánchez, both socialists.
This “nationalist left”, as it is called in Spain, today condemns violence for political purposes, but it has not yet condemned ETA’s violence nor has it recognized, in the words of José Luis Zubizarreta, “the support it provided” to the band terrorist.
“What policies should the political parties follow in relation to the heirs of Bildu? That is what has become the subject of controversy,” explains José Luis Zubizarreta, who in the 1980s was an adviser to the president of the regional government, José Antonio Ardanza. (in office between 1985 and 1999, for the Basque Nationalist Party).
“Bildu has not yet reached a state of absolute normality, it is a party that still needs something so that its presence in the institutions is no longer the subject of debate. He lacks recognition of his past, deep down,” says Zubizarreta.
For the analyst, however, “in Spain, in Euskadi [País Basco] and in Navarra arithmetic will be stronger than political ethics” and as long as coming to power depends on deputies and pacts with EH Bildu, whatever the political option, “all ethical scruples will go to the background” and he will win ” the arithmetic of power”.
In addition, he adds, Basque society “is not in the mood to raise this issue in a cause that makes coexistence difficult, oblivion prevails, memory efforts are all institutional, with very minority social groups, who try to maintain the flame that the ‘ abertzale left’ has not yet done what it should”.
“They were very tense years in the Basque Country, with a lot of division, a lot of anguish, even feeling a lot of shame that something so persistent had emerged between us, that exported our image abroad, that divided us within the family and between groups of friends. And of course, when it disappeared, it was a relief.”
Source: TSF
