Suppression of ideas (XXXI)

EUSKAL HERRIA AND THE KINGDOM OF NABARRE, OR THE BASQUE PEOPLE AND ITS STATE, AGAINST FRENCH-SPANISH IMPERIALISM

XXXI – Suppression of ideas

 

Iñaki Aginaga and Felipe Campo

 

In the Resistance to Imperialism and Fascism, a People that is not able to make sure an internal space for theoretical and ideological construction and participation, and for criticism, reflection and communication (minimum or clandestine though it may be), is doomed. The consequences of such a lack are always suffered by the subjugated Peoples, which pay the price of cultural and political underdevelopment. Censorship, cultural obscurantism, internal and external indoctrination, authoritarian and sectarian dogmatism, as well as demagogy and bureaucratic “discretion” and secrecy, do prevent the renewal of the political consciousness, the dissemination of the social-political knowledge, and the popular access to it, in a culturally and politically underdeveloped Country.

In our Country, centuries of French-Spanish military occupation, despotism, absolutism, reaction, clericalism, Counter-Reformation, obscurantism, Inquisition and Fascism have marginalized our People from the great currents and contributions that constitute the positive side of Western culture, and have brought about the lack of communication, and the regression and ruin of the political culture to this day. And half a century of collaborationist and pseudo-activist rubbish Pnv-Eta, with the hope – always frustrated by them – in the victory of the PsoE and the French-Spanish imperialistic and fascist “republican and leftist democracy”, has left this Country knocked out, exhausted, on the verge of collapse and at the tail end of the list and strategic Atlas corresponding to the scenario of the current struggle for national independence of the subjugated Peoples. All this has been hidden from the eyes of the Basque People thanks to the monopolies of mass indoctrination and ideological intoxication of the French-Spanish imperialistic and fascist régime of military occupation, camouflaged as democratic by the action of its local agents who in our Country present themselves as the “Basque political class”, namely: the liquidationist bureaucracy Pnv-Eta and its satellites Ea-Ehbildu-Sortu-Geroa bai etc.

The contemporary Monopoly of criminal Violence imposes censorship, repression and also the complete Monopoly of mass-media: producer, key and prison of ideology. Consequently, freedom of information, expression and criticism is impossible in a régime constituted by the denial of the fundamental human rights in general. In these conditions there is not any place for freedom, nor human rights, nor for democracy.

A political power that, in full possession of the Monopolies of criminal Violence and mass communication, does even so fear the criticism from an unarmed and discriminated opposition, does thereby evidence its formal weakness and its totalitarian character. Fear to freedom of thought, expression, information and criticism does unequivocally reveal the totalitarian domination or tendency of a political organization.

Indeed, if the imperialists and fascists repress freedom of expression, and if they impose their own ideology by means of criminal Violence, they do not do so because perverse impulses and inclinations lead them to prefer such procedures to “persuasion and dialogue” they so much talk about; quite differently, it is so because they have no other choice or alternative. In short, the ideologists of a domination such as that established by French-Spanish imperialism upon the Basque People: which for centuries has needed to kill, imprison, torture and systematically use the threat and Terrorism of war and State so as to establish itself, did not have and do not have other “arguments” to oppose against the aspirations of our People for freedom.

No one, equipped with the Monopolies of criminal Violence and the media of communication and conditioning of masses (in addition to having an overwhelming demographic and economic superiority), would have interest in preventing freedom of expression, and in confining the opposition into clandestinity or under a plot of silence, were it not for the fact that he is aware that his ideologists – irremediably unscrupulous – are completely unable of facing anything that resembles the slightest criticism or the most primary debate in conditions of real freedom for all. In fact, the agents of French-Spanish imperialism and fascism can only face the servile, prepared, rigged, programmed and prefabricated “reply” that is addressed to them by their gagged, flabby, stupefied, corrupted or terrified “moderate and radical” Pnv-Eta puppets: prepared and always ready to fulfil their sad and abject role.

The monopoly of “information”, repression and censorship have never ceased to be exercised in an absolute and revealing way during all the Second Francoism. In forty-five years now of “transition” and precarious clandestinity, there has not been possible to even put forward publicly the fundamental issues of a real policy of critical opposition. The existence of clandestine propaganda is the absolute proof of the existence of ideological oppression and of who its victims are: where there is ideological freedom there is no clandestine press; where there is clandestine press there is no ideological freedom. The determination and complicity of “the Western democracies” with the task of persecution of freedom of expression that is carried out by French-Spanish imperialism and fascism are as radical as they are revealing: only what is absolutely feared is absolutely pursued.

However, the ideologists of the French-Spanish imperialistic Nationalism claim that the fear prevents the production and dissemination of their “ideas”. But never in this Country the Spanish and French Nationalism has had the least difficulty for the production and dissemination of its fabrications, which have at their service the absolute monopolistic control of all means of violence and conditioning of the public opinion.

Against those lies spread by these ideologists and agents of French-Spanish imperialism, the illegal or clandestine propaganda shows no trace of their “so much persecuted ideology”. Quite on the contrary, it is the defence of democracy, freedom and right of self-determination of Peoples that is invariably confined in the illegal and clandestine dissemination, since all regular channels of expression are permanently closed to it. The forced resource to so limited and problematic a way of expression certifies the reality of the oppression, and reveals its true patient: nobody chooses for pleasure the ideological and political marginalization or clandestinity. The persecution, the illegality and the fear because of criminal Violence do always hit in our Country on the same side, and determine the precarious, individual and confidential nature of the democratic ideological underground. When the mere theoretical defence of fundamental human rights must take refuge in it as a condition of possibility, the régime that makes it necessary is thus qualified by itself.

It is eminently understandable the need in which French-Spanish imperialism finds itself so as to prevent, by all means, the slightest freedom of elaboration and expression of the ideas of others. Given the theoretical-formal level of the dominant ideology, no one could believe that such a rubbish can be socially imposed unless it be through the repression and fear that the Monopolies of Criminal Violence and State Terrorism instil in their victims, and counting on the support of the media of diffusion and intoxication of masses that the corresponding monopolies put at its exclusive service. At the same time, nobody can believe that it is needed to resort to fear so as to stand out against that ideology, wherever there is the most basic freedom of thought, expression, criticism, information and communication.

The free persons and Peoples, the democrats, do not fear freedom: even for the imperialistic and fascist ideas, where freedom of thought, opinion, expression, information, communication and criticism exists for all. They only fear the totalitarian monopoly and repression of all ideological, cultural, artistic and scientific life, wielded by imperialism and fascism. Instead, the imperialists and fascists, and their collaborators and accomplices, fear all ideas: even those of their own kind, if they escape from the absolute control of the political and ideological class “happily” prevailing.

They are, in fact, afraid; but afraid of every free thought and form of expression. In an effective democratic régime, the freedom of expression – even for its enemies – is the most effective way to expose the ideological misery of imperialistic Nationalism and Fascism. Allowing them to talk on an equal basis is, practically, the worse treatment that they can be given; provided that they are faced with a genuine anti-imperialistic ideology and not an incapable ersatz and simulacrum for it.

After long centuries of wars of aggression and despotism, of absolutist or fascist power, of collective brainwashing and ideological intoxication of masses, behold that the imperialism and its ideologists note their inability to enforce their unpresentable “ideas”, unless it be by speaking alone and under the shelter of the fascist monopolies of violence, terror, propaganda and mass ideological intoxication; an inability that prevents them from facing the slightest freedom of expression and the lightest criticism, other than that of their previously conditioned puppets. This is how they understand the right to freedom of speech, and the way in which according to them the “freedom of expression” is produced, namely: when the auxiliary services of the local “opposition” – filtered, permeated, impregnated, controlled, manipulated and directed by the established power – take in charge of saying what to the power itself suits them to, and of answering what there has beforehand been scheduled them to answer.

With their attitude jointly repressive of this fundamental right, all the official political Parties of the Spanish fascist régime of military occupation: from the traditional Francoism to the Eta, have shown only too well for half a century – and show daily – their clear awareness that only by speaking alone theycan continue cheating a resigned (and shrinking) part of their followers, and subjugating the Peoples, reduced by them to both ideological and political defencelessness.

The traditional despotism could not prevent the existence of limited – albeit fertile – spaces where the communication, criticism, information and creation circulated under repression and censorship. Unfortunately, modern neo-Francoist fascism has finished with them and incorporated them into its own circuits, where it itself creates and spreads the ideology of supposed opposition fabricated by it. But, before that, the “Basque” moderate and radical bureaucrats, opportunists, collaborationists and accomplices in exile, and the auxiliary services of the Spanish imperialism, had prepared the ground in advance, putting an end to all independent and free thought through obscurantism, fanaticism, slander and denunciation against those who sought to maintain it; all this under the shelter of the fascist monopolies of repression and propaganda. Internal division and lack of communication, suppression of ideas and cultural obscurantism were the inevitable corollary to the strategic ruin.

Unable to cope with the slightest opposition in freedom, the traditional Francoism used its monopoly of criminal Violence and propaganda in order to openly impose its ideology and destroy that of its adversaries. Instead, the Second Francoism camouflages the same ideology and does in addition manufacture the ideology of its opposition, just as it manufactures that “opposition” itself, in charge of saying what the power wants to. And in this way it does also produce the “public opinion” through a gigantic system of monopolistic indoctrination, which in a continuous session keeps harping its propaganda on the defenceless population.

The forced adhesion to the Spanish positive law, to its “Constitution” and to the “Basque statute” is the new form of the “adherence to the Principles of the National Movement”: compulsory and required during decades under the First Fracoism, for everyone who in this Country cherished the expectation to continue eating. Currently, the “Education for citizenship” and “Education for peace”: new wrapping of traditional Spanish imperialism and fascism and included in the “school curriculum” of the “autonomous” services, are the new form of the brainwashing and ideological intoxication, corresponding to the ancient “Formation of the National Spirit”.

The single Party of the Spanish National Movement has been ideologically enriched, diversified and enhanced with multiple contributions, gradually incorporated in the long process of collapse of the Spanish opposition and its integration into the Spanish imperialistic fascism that won the war. In this way, the old homages and monuments “to the glorious fallen for God and for Spain and to the martyrs of the Crusade” have been advantageously updated by the memorials and tributes to the new Spanish Nationalists “non-violent, defenders of freedom and victims of the terrorism of attempts and the violence of persecution” (sic); memorials that are erected in children’s parks and squares of this Country.

The imperialism has already realized that the family – the person’s traditional house-castle – is still the first and the last bulwark of freedom, in today’s world of the Internet and the mass media; thus, it seeks ways to penetrate, weaken and destroy the family sanctuary of Freedom and Resistance, by separating childhood from the filial safeguards and rendering it defenceless to the monopolistic brainwashing and intoxication of the French-Spanish occupying State.

Bureaucratic corruption and secrecy nourish and condition the information. The armed and unarmed institutionalists: from the official Pnv to the Eta, have always coincided with the official propaganda in hiding the reality of criminal Violence that constitutes the French-Spanish imperialistic régime, “although sometimes it exceeds a little in its mission, because no political régime is perfect”, as they say about fascism. Brainwashing and mass ideological intoxication have made much of the colonized society a helpless and inert victim of propaganda and psychological warfare, unable to perceive and process the most obvious political reality. Social alienation has become mental alienation of individuals.

The agents of the traditional Pnv through its centennial history, and those of the Eta since its foundation, being also themselves aware of their incapability to face the most basic political criticism, have therefore always been natural adversaries of freedom of expression and information. They know very well that freedom of criticism and the slightest theoretical-ideological debate would be lethal to their enterprise of confusion and mystification of masses, would make it impossible the ideological domination based on dogmatism and obscurantism that they have always counted on, and would expose their theoretical and practical inability to legally and illegally face the ideological and political conflict against French-Spanish imperialism; a conflict that they have brought to its most advanced point of putrefaction. That is why they need to continue deceiving their unwary followers, as they have always done; followers who, to a large extent, do no longer ask for anything else. And if it is possible, also deceiving themselves, which is the best way to deceive others.

If, after forty-five years of purported democracy under Spanish imperialism (and after two hundred and thirty years under the French one), the fundamental ideas about the political reality remain still ignored in our Country, this is certainly the work of the armed and unarmed institutionalists Pnv-Eta and their satellites, who have associated themselves with the exogenous fascism of our occupiers so as to ensure substantial participation in the monopolies of propaganda, and to prevent the irruption of all free thought.

As it is evident, the freedom of expression, information and criticism: of which these Pnv-Eta bureaucratic agents are consistent adversaries, would reveal and make it impossible their enterprise of quackery and swindling, complementary of the French-Spanish imperialism. Thus, with the decisive assistance of these local “Basque” auxiliary agents, the totalitarian monopolies of the French-Spanish fascist régime of military occupation – that the former have admitted as legitimate and democratic – do repress the productionand reproduction of ideas, the freedom of expression, communication and information, and the formulation of the fundamental social contradictions in our Country; thus closing the way to all critical and creative forces. Thanks to them, all opposition, all criticism and all debate not fabricated beforehand by the totalitarian power are impossible. The bureaucratic repression, censorship, secrecy and “discretion” of the Pnv-Eta group, along with its sectarianism and corruption, do feed and condition the information in our Country, under the shelter of the fascist monopolies of criminal Violence and communication.

A hypocritical form of censorship of the information is the secrecy, that is: the demand of “discretion, silence and obscurity” in their imaginary political processes; the work of the swarm of chatterboxes, pedants and exhibitionist who are only seeking thereby to hide the reality and the consequences of their enterprise of political liquidation of our People. “Discretion and secrecy” have always been an exigency of all policy made behind the back and at the expense of the democratic opinion and information. The Collaborationists and the Accomplices of the French-Spanish imperialistic totalitarianism try to hide behind those screens the unpresentable and shameful reality of their alleged political action, behind which there is nothing. The official “Basque opposition” is naked; but no one dares to say it or is capable to say it. The policy of secret procedures, agreements and diplomacy: constantly denounced by the democratic and revolutionary forces, has always been inseparable from national and international reaction, a source of conflicts, and a constant obstacle to peace and democracy within and without the Peoples.

The Pnv-Eta armed and unarmed Collaborationists and their satellites: Accomplices of French-Spanish imperialism that they have admitted as democracy, are contrary to all freedom of ideas, including those that would themselves proclaim and exploit should they occur to them; an impossible thing because the cork-oak, a species common in the colonies, will never produce pears. At some point, they too have had to lament the repression against freedom of expression and information: theirs. Yet, before that, they have always cooperated actively and do participate: with all the means of diffusion and confusion of masses that the fascist monopolies of propaganda of the occupation régime put to their relative disposal, in the task of denying it to others in the conditions laid down by the monopolies of criminal Violence and propaganda; including lying, slander, defamation and denunciation applied against those who made any revelation of their abandonment and liquidation of all policy of liberation of our Country from imperialism, in order to keep our People in the ignorance of the political reality. It is the only way they have to disguise their self-serving incompetence and corruption in ideological and political issues.

It is enough to note the tribunes that the “autonomous” mass-media – in particular the local Spanish television that they call ‘euskal irrati-telebista’ – offer to the most reactionary spokespersons of the Spanish fascist propaganda; or the “free and democratic electoral debates” that the spokespersons of Pnv-Eta bureaucracy and its satellites Ea-Ehbildu-Sortu-Geroa bai etc. admit to maintain in those media together with the fascists from “the left and the right” of French-Spanish imperialism (who start from the affirmation of the non-existence of our Country and the right that Spain and France have to occupy it and annex it as their own: ideological positions that they all admit as “legitimate and democratic”), to understand that all this propaganda is aimed so as to make believe in the existence of freedom of expression and criticism under French-Spanish imperialism and in the non-existence of this one, as well as in order to conceal its monstruous and uncountable crimes against the Basque People and, in particular, its totalitarian repression of ideas.

It is enough to point out the consequences of the imperialistic and fascist “rules of the game” imposed on our Country through military occupation, namely, “universal suffrage” within the “universe” of Francespain imposed on our People and State by blood and fire: “rules of the game” that those both corrupt and cretinous “Basque” agents Pnv-Eta have accepted, advocated for and helped to impose as if ithey were democratic, to highlight the role of puppets and ideological auxiliaries of imperialism that these agents carry out, at the service of the French-Spanish imperialistic and fascist régime of military occupation and of their own bureaucratic and corporate interests, at the expense of the strategic liquidation of our People and Country through the denial of the Basque People’s right of self-determination or independece, and through the denial of its own occupied State: the Kingdom of Nabarre.

The bureaucratic-liquidationist mafia Pnv-Eta and its satellites: Ea-Ehbildu-Sortu-Geroa bai etc. is a cancer for the Basque People, which feeds and prospers on the exploitation and destruction of the political potentiality and vitality of our People, in favour of the criminal and fascist French-Spanish imperialism that they admit as legitimate and democratic. Without getting rid of that lethal bureaucracy of incompetent and corrupt traitors, and of their disastrous ideological positions, to affirm on the contrary the international right of self-determination or independence of the Basque People and the continuity, validity and timeliness of its own State, the Kingdom of Nabarre, our People is doomed. The eviction of that bureaucracy: to begin with by refusing to support it in its divisive “electoral” appeals, is the first condition for the political regeneration that our Country does urgently need.

(From ‘Euskal Herria and the Kingdom of Nabarre, or the Basque People and its State, against French-Spanish imperialism’.)