Political Violence and Devolved Autonomy
In 1959, young nationalists (abertzaleak) founded the separatist group ETA, which soon adopted a Marxist revolutionary policy in the 1960s. Inspired by movements like those of Castro in Cuba and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, the group aimed to establish an independent socialist Basque country through violence and extortion. ETA's first confirmed assassinations occurred in 1968, thereafter adopting violence, killing included, as a policy (theory of action-repression-action). At an ideological level, instead of race, the organization stressed the importance of language and customs.
When Spain re-emerged as a democracy in 1978, autonomy was restored to the Basques, who achieved a degree of self-government without precedent in modern Basque history. Thus, based on the fueros and their Statute of Autonomy, Basques have their own police body and manage their own public finances with virtually no intervention from the central government of Spain. The Basque Autonomous Community has been led by the nationalist Christian democratic PNV since it was reinstated in the early 1980s until 2009 when PSE got into office. In Navarre, Basque nationalism has failed to gain control of the Autonomous Community's government, ruled by UPN often with the support of PSN, but Basque nationalist parties run many small and medium size councils.
Although France is a centralized State, Abertzaleen Batasuna, a Basque nationalist party, maintains a presence in some municipalities through local elections.
Read more about this topic: Basque Nationalism
Famous quotes containing the words political, violence, devolved and/or autonomy:
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“It was the first female-style revolution: no violence and we all went shopping.”
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“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.”
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“Unless we include a job as part of every citizen’s right to autonomy and personal fulfillment, women will continue to be vulnerable to someone else’s idea of what “need” is.”
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