There’s an area in Spain that is officially called the Basque Autonomous Region. We’ve almost finished the story of how such a thing came to be. Let’s finish it now.
A thousand years ago there was a Basque Kingdom located where most Basques still live today. Over the years, this region at the northern end of the Pyrenees mountains has been a prized possession for one conquering army after another.
Through it all, the Basques have managed to maintain their own customs, language, heritage, and lifestyle. We made our way through much of their history in the past few posts. Let’s pick it up where we left off last time and work our way up to the present.
Dark Days for Spain
The year is 1939. Francisco Franco came into power in Spain after a nasty civil war.
He set himself up as dictator, eliminated any political opposition, and established a fascist government.
The overall view of Franco is mixed, at least in some circles. His economics were conservative, and after a long down period, Spain’s economy and prosperity took off. With that exception, everything else about him was bad. Very bad.
Franco was a brutal dictator. He counted Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as his friends – or in Hitler’s case, wanna-be friend.
Franco’s favorite way to get things done was to use violence. He formed his own version of secret police, modeled after Hitler’s Gestapo, to get the violence done.
Franco had a lot of enemies or perceived enemies. To Franco, just about any minority group was an enemy. And enemies, political or or otherwise had to be eliminated.
The Basques were a minority for which Franco seemed to have a special hatred. While the Basques in Bilbao and San Sebastián were prospering from industry and trade, the rest of Spain stagnated. That really stuck in Franco’s craw.
What’s a Dictator to Do?
The Basques had to go, but if they went, much of Spain’s wealth-producing capability went with them. What’s a dictator to do?
He decided to not eliminate the Basques. He’d just eliminate their Basqueness. All self-governance, laws, and independence were taken away. Basque traditions were outlawed.
The Basque language, euskara, was banned. School textbooks written in euskara were destroyed and replaced with books written in spanish. If you got caught having a chat with your neighbor in euskara – even if that was the only language you knew – you would be arrested, put in prison, probably tortured, and possibly killed. Firing squads had full-time employment in the Franco era.
Franco managed to stay in power for 36 years. When a leader remains in charge for that long, it’s never good. For the Basques, it was a 36-year nightmare. The nightmare ended when Franco was too old and sick to go on.
Basque Autonomous Region
When Franco died, Spain transitioned from a fascist dictatorship to a democratic republic. Spain is made up of diverse groups of people who, in many cases wanted to maintain some degree of independence.
But they wanted to be part of “Spain,” too. It must have been a messy process, but they managed to come up with a constitution that came close to satisfying everyone.
Spain’s constitution calls for the establishment of certain “Autonomous Regions” where people can be partially independent and “Spanish” at the same time.
The Basques, for example, have their own parliament of elected officials, their own president, and laws. They have their own police force independent from Spanish police. And they have two official languages, Spanish and Euskara.
The system seems complicated, but apparently it works. At least most Basques today seem to be satisfied with it.
To be continued…
