Abstract:
Professor Julen Zabalo wrote this article in the newspaper GARA, under the title “Naziogintza berriaz”:
https://www.naiz.eus/eu/iritzia/articulos/naziogintza-berriaz
In our article we answer some of the questions raised by Professor Zabalo in his press article.
Julen Zabalo claims that the procedure to reach the Basque state must be changed and we must renounce our nationhood. We do not agree. If the two states that oppress us do not renounce being a nation, why should we renounce ours? We remember very well the Spanish motto: “Spain one and indivisible”. On the other hand, he also says that nationalism is no longer important and that we must flee from an essentialist interpretation of the nation. Well, a colony commits suicide if it renounces its language, its culture and its national recognition. Why do all European states require immigrants to know their own language and culture in order to obtain the National (not “state”) Identity Card?
Professor Zabalo wants to create the Basque state without conflict, and we believe that behind this idea lies the acceptance of our subordination and an obvious autonomism. The state is a system of violence and coercion, which is established by force, and to reverse it we have to create another system of coercion. Without weapons, of course, but seeking confrontation, as in Catalonia.
He also says that national recognition is of little use, and mentions the United Nations Right of Self-Determination. Well, the name of the Organisation he cites is the United NATIONS (UN), so to be a member you have to be a Nation. The UN “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” (1966) refers in its first article of its first part to the Peoples. This article reads as follows: “All Peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”. Professor Zabalo states that in order to achieve the right to self-determination, one has to be a colony. Therefore, according to him, we are not a colony; the Spanish and French will be happy to know that. We remember this brief definition of colony: “If the police and the army of your People do not speak your language, you live in a colonised People“. Well, the military, police, civil guards and judges who control us do not speak Basque, and what is more, they punish us if we speak to them in our language.
