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On April 12th, we Basques will experience a very unusual Aberri Eguna (Basque Homeland Day). For the first time in many years, we will not be celebrating the Basque Country's national holiday on the street. The damned coronavirus will achieve what the Franco genocidal regime did not achieve, preventing Aberri Eguna (during the Dictatorship the Basque patriots – whilst...
Basque society, in general, does not esteem submissive postures (even less when they are the result of an unfair situation) and on numerous occasions has shown that it prefers insubmission, as when insubmission to Spanish military service was encouraged in the past. Nor do we like discriminatory attitudes. However at linguistic level, Basque speakers are discriminated against and we...
Abstract: Spanish election is near, so in this EDITORIAL we seize the opportunity to make clear our position in this respect. We do so because different sections of our nation show divergent views on the position Basque nationalist parties should take in the face of the Spanish elections; some nationalists are not happy with the idea of participating in the...
26 May is the date chosen to elect the seats of the European Parliament. Stateless nations like ours, it is understood, need to have a say in this parliament, not just because this forum decides many things that concern us in everyday matters, but also because strong allies in Europe are essential to launch a sovereignty process, as the...
Modern Basque nationalism celebrates its 125 anniversary this year. In that distant 1893, Sabin Arana delivered his renowned speech to a group of friends, which turned into the springboard for Basque nationalism. The nuts-and-bolts of that address, the subject-matter, which caught on greatly, was superb, namely, we the Basques are not Spanish, neither French, and gaining independence should be...
NAZIOGINTZA often emphasizes the importance of symbolic representations in shaping political and cultural sovereignty, as well as securing its permanence. Symbols are instrumental in bringing a people together, bolstering the psychological and affective links within a people or nation. Flags and anthems, a language—a language goes far beyond communication functions—ID or passports, or national teams in sports, play a...
The Basques have been inclined by inertia to follow the Spanish national calendar. We have traditionally accommodated to the bank holidays set by the Spanish, both in the religious and secular or political domain, without calling it into question. We are as a result familiar with Spanish events and history, but we hardly know our closer history. The same...
Ignorance pervades Europe, not less the Basque Country, when it comes to stateless nations across the continent. As our readers know, NAZIOGINTZA takes a special focus on this topic, given the fact that Basques, even nationalists, are not familiar at all with nations like ours, such as Wales, Corsica, Flanders, Catalonia, Galicia, Scotland, Faeroe Islands, or South Tirol. We...
Five years have gone by since the Catalonian society massively embraced the demand for national independence, spurred by the ANC, the Catalan National Assembly. The 2012 Diada’s turnout was the highest ever; one million-plus people crammed the streets of Barcelona, with the cry for ‘Independence’ far overpowering any other slogans. The shockwaves unleashed got far, with the main autonomist...
The participants in the discussion group NAZIOGINTZA share a common concern for the informative blackout we are going through on all nation building matters, as well as and the challenge Basque nationalism needs to address in the face of Basque nation building. We are determined to fill these gaps, for which we have opened our way through a new...