8 - Terrorism in the Basque Country

Summary

History matters, very much so. For years, it has been common practice to understand the phenomenon that journalists and academics coined as the ‘Basque problem’ in terms of a violent conflict provoked by the activity of an underground terrorist group that was carrying out ‘armed struggle’ in their fight for Basque sovereignty and independence from the Spanish and French states. This simplistic and reductionist interpretation failed to grasp the complex nature of the ‘Basque problem’ and its long historical roots. A more realistic and historically informed approach to the problem must substitute any unilateral understanding with a tridimensional perspective that focuses on the three elements inherent to the ‘Basque problem’. Violence is only one of these three, the other two being, on the one hand, the century-old political conflict regarding the political and administrative relation between the Basque Country and the states; and on the other, the dispute between the various sectors of what is a pluralistic and heterogeneous society over the exact scope of Basque self-government.