DECLARATION ON THE LANGUAGE, TERRITORIES, STATE AND SYMBOLS OF THE BASQUE POPLE / EUSKAL HERRIA

(Text initially published on 27-December-2019.)

          Declaration on the Language, Territories, State and Symbols of the Basque People/Euskal Herria

 

Many Peoples of Europe did not even exist, when the proto-European Euskarian People/Euskal Herria had already been living many millennia in its peri-Pyrenean refuge; and the official or unofficial dialects or sub-dialects of those new Peoples had not still appeared, while there had already lived from immemorial times the language of the Euskarians: the Euskara, to which they now deny the existence in “the Europe of the diversity of its peoples and of its cultures”.

Similarly, many States of the current European Imperialistic Union did not exist when there was constituted theconfederation of Vasconic republics, dukedoms and lordships that encompassed all its historical Territories, freely gathered around the Kingdom of Pamplona: the State of the Basques (or Vascones, as the Romans had called them), and the predecessor of the Kingdom of Nabarre. Not even when – as it was claimed by the panegyrists of the conquest themselves – “the Spaniards did invade, subjugate, confiscate and retain the Kingdom of Nabarre”: occupied, dismembered and annexed by means of the aggression, war, violence and Terrorism of its European neighbours and of their civil, military and ecclesiastical accomplices.

The Euskara (or Heuscara, Euskera, Uskara, Üskara…), self-glossonym of the Basque Language, is the sole national and own language of the Basque People/Euskal Herria. The persecution and banning of the Euskara: “the language of the Navarrese” (‘lingua navarrorum’, as it was named by their Monarchs), at the hands of the French-Spanish imperialistic nationalism and colonialism; and the crimes committed in order to tear out from us the language that constitutes our breath, soul and condition of People, are a crime of genocide which shall never be forgotten nor forgiven.

Dialects of Latin (there could possibly have occurred the same with those of the Punic, should perchance Rome had been definitively defeated in those Wars mainly by Hannibal in the year 216 BC; or with the Germanic languages of Franks and Goths), the current presence among us of the French and the Spanish (which the imperialistic agents do – when it suits them better – call “Castilian” so as to camouflage and thereby avoid the irreparable and insurmountable opposition Spanish–Euskara), is a consequence of historical contingencies alien and hostile to the Basque People. It is a trace of the alienation created during centuries through the imprescriptible and countless constitutive crimes involved in military aggression, dismemberment, annexation and colonization against our People and its State: the Kingdom of Nabarre. It is a result of thatimperialistic enterprise, undertaken and achieved by the States of Spain and of France by means of war-and-State Terrorism, and of permanent military occupation: all of which is their real and primary constitution; and through the enactment of a whole afferent imperialistic legislation: which is their formal and secondary “Constitution”, null and void, criminally imposed upon the violent abolition of our own legitimate laws and institutions:

“[...] one thing I find and draw as a very certain conclusion: that the Language was always a companion of the Empire; and in such a way the former did follow after the latter that they did together start, grow and flourish, and then joint was the fall of them both. [...], the Most Reverend Father Bishop of Avila snatched the answer from me; and answering for me he said that after your Highness had put under her yoke many barbarian Peoples and Nations of strange languages, and after their surrender, those ones would have the need of receiving the laws that the victor lays onto the defeated, and along with them our language; [...]. And it is also certain that not only the enemies of our faith, who have the need to know the Castilian language, but also the Biscayne, Navarrese, French, Italian, and all the others who have some relations and conversation in Spain and need of our language, if they do not come from childhood to learn it through use, they could more easily learn it through this my work.” Etc. (Antonio de Nebrija; the quotation is taken from the dedication of his ‘Grammatica Antonii Nebrissensis’to Queen Elizabeth I of Castile; 1492. Emphasis added.)

When these things were published, it was still twenty years before the Kingdom of Nabarre was once again attacked by the Hispanic imperialism: now that of the “composite State” (H. G. Koenigsberger) of the Hispanic-Catholic Monarchy composed by the Crowns of Aragon and of Castile. Thus, at that time it was politically and sociologically clear – and, as such, it was publicly expressed at the highest level – something that today remains equally clear but that it is not publicly expressed, not even by those who call themselves “Basque nationalists”, namely: the affirmation of the Basque People, of its Basque Language and of its State, the Kingdom of Nabarre, as being distinct and on an equal footing with the other European Peoples, Languages and States. “We the Basques are not Spaniards or French. The Spaniards and the French are not Basques.”

The full recovery of our national language: an inalienable right of every citizen, is a primary objective of our State; a goal whose achievement requires both material resources, flexibility and understanding (given the difficult situation which we start from), as well as the sincere commitment expected from those who must take the laudable effort to learn and use it, but that can only be universally achieved from the restoration of our national and State independence. The purported and impossible “bilingualism” that is being offered to us now: based on the national/State subjugation of our People, does not prevent but implies the humiliation and entails the liquidation of the “taught” Language. The “teaching” of these Languages, and other similar measures, are aimed to deceive and recuperate the subjugated Peoples. “The mission of the National Education is to put an end to the regional languages.” “Our mission is helping the minority languages to die sweetly.” (A. Morvan.)

Languages are always national, or they do not subsist. The “secondary, minority, local or regional” languages: such a thing does not and cannot exist; no more than their cultures and Peoples, of which those ones are inseparable. Imperialism does know it, sometimes it even does say it; yet its victims don’t always realize of it. As we’ve quite painfully verified throughout History, in the imperialistic ecosystem of Spain and of France there is not and there cannot be any place for the Basque People or for the Euskara.

Apart from this, it is clear that given – on the one hand – the Idiomatic handicaps created to our State as a result of the imposition of the Spanish and the French, and – on the other – the demands of inter-communication posed by today’s world, the operability of our State raises the inescapable need to adopt a single functional lingua francain line with criteria of effectiveness and usefulness, which may allow us the connection with the surrounding areas of democratic development; even though always maintaining and cultivating with tenacity our essence: our own Euskeric language and culture.

“The right of peoples and nations to self-determination. A – Whereasthe right of peoples and nations to self-determination is a prerequisite to the full enjoyment of all fundamental human rights, [...], Whereasevery Member of the United Nations, in conformity with the Charter, should respect the maintenance of the right of self-determination in other States, The General Assembly recommendsthat: 1. The States Members of the United Nations shall uphold the principle of self-determination of all peoples and nations;” etc. [UNGAR 637 A (1952)]

“1. In accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, article 1 of the ‘International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ [UNGAR 2200 (1966)] recognizes that all peoples have the right of self-determination. The right of self-determination is of particular importance because its realization is an essential condition for the effective guarantee and observance of individual human rights and for the promotion and strengthening of those rights. It is for that reason that States set forth the right of self-determination in a provision of positive law on both Covenants [the already mentioned, and the ‘International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’] and placed this provision as article 1 apart from and before all of the other rights in the two Covenants.” Etc. [General Comment No. 12, made by the Human Rights Committee (attached to the Office of the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights), on article 1 (The Right to self-determination of peoples) of both ‘International Covenants on Human Rights’,adopted in its Twenty-first session (March-1984). HRI/GEN/1/Rev. 9 (Vol. I).]

In exercise of the implications that entails the international right of independence, self-government, freedom, free disposition or self-determination of all Peoples: “first of fundamental human rights and a prerequisite to the full enjoyment of them all”, the unconditional and immediate withdrawal of all the occupying forces and the entire apparatus of subjugation and colonization installed on the Territories of the Basque People by the mentioned occupying States, France and Spain, constitutes the absolute pre-requisite for the democratic resolution of the problems created by their colonialist imperialism, and it is also the basic requirement for the restoration of the Euskara. In particular, the elimination of the French-Spanish imperialistic-separatist “border” that divides and separates our People, and makes of our Country and State “regions” of the imperialistic States of Spain and of France, is a primary requirement for the restoration of international legality that these States do criminally violate.

As long as that evacuation does not occur, the refusal and boycott to any collaboration and participation in the institutions of the occupying States, along with the permanent condemnation of them as imperialistic and criminal, is the first condition for any genuine opposition that intends to be truly democratic and that is not merely a camouflaged collaborationism and submission to the military occupation régimes of France and of Spain, presented on the contrary by the agents of treason and submission as if they were “our own ones, non-Nationalist, non-violent, legitimate and democratic”.

We also assert the validity, continuity, actuality and integrity of our State, the Kingdom of Nabarre. This implies that, in the face of the French-Spanish criminal imperialismand its domination and colonization of our People,we affirm the constant and unwavering permanence of the Basque People in its Historical Territories: maintained without interruption from the dawn of times, such as they have always been cited by our classical writers. That is to say, along with the rest of the Counties of the trans/cis-Pyrenean Kingdom of Nabarre, in Soule, Labourd, Biscay, Gipuzkoa, in the country of Alaba and in many other places [“Zuberoan, Laphurdin, Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, Alaba-herrian eta bertze anhitz lekhutan”].

The rest of its ‘disjecta membra’ that historically and voluntarily formed part of the Kingdom of Nabarre and that more or less early were torn apart from its bosom, do retain their entire right to return to the common homeland which is our present State and to its Institutions, from which they were violently separated. A return to which we fraternally do invite them, with the guarantee of preserving the fullness and integrity of their inalienable rights, in whose common defence we pledge our undying love and devotion to national freedom and fundamental human rights, constitutive and constituent of any genuine democracy and hence of the social-political system we advocate for. A con-federal and participatory system according to the immemorial assembly’s sovereignty of our Batzarrak, basis of our free municipal Assemblies and Institutions.

The flag and symbols of the Basque People/Euskal Herria and of its State, the Kingdom of Nabarre, are all those who have been historically used to symbolize its existence as a sovereign and independent People and State, as they have been handed down by the historiographical documentation. Together with them, since it was conceived and popularly adopted to represent the same political subject: the independent and sovereign Nation of the Basques, constituted in the fullness of its rights and seated in the wholeness of its historic Territories, the two-crossed flag designed by the Arana-Goiri Brothers – whose humiliation, reduction and recuperation by the imperialism have been disgracefully allowed by the collaborationists of the Spanish intra-totalitarian transition to the Second Francoism currently reigning – is also a part of the common heritage of symbols that express and have galvanized our People’s yearning for freedom, democracy and national independence against the aggressions and crimes of the imperialistic and fascist Colonialism and Nationalism of Spain and of France, as well as of theNazi-Fascism and National-Catholicismof their international partners of the Axis and The Vatican; keeping the pre-eminence, as it is natural, the flag of our historic State: the Kingdom of Nabarre.

The recuperation and falsification of the subjugated Peoples’ identity signs, carried out by the imperialism, are mechanisms that do contribute to confusing their social base; especially when it is being deceived, forlorn and betrayed by a purported intellectual and political class made up of incompetents and sold-outs in the service of the imperialistic enterprise, as it is currently the case in the Country of the Basques.

As for the choice of other symbols, such as national anthem or others, and as already indicated, only the restoration of the conditions of Self-Determination or National Independence: with the prior expulsion of all foreign armies occupying our Country, will allow us to make that choice with full guarantees of general participation, information and contribution; in particular, of those who are qualified to give advice on the most correct decision on such matters. Until that moment, all the elements belonging to the cultural acquis of our People must be jealously preserved.