argia.eus
INPRIMATU
The Basque Nationality: Podemos and others
  • Although I was thrown out of my hometown (San Sebastián) by the giant house price fraud, until now, I have always been registered and worked in Gipuzkoa. I still miss the area. Pais Vasco; EAE; Comunidad Autónoma... I don’t like all of them.
Patxi Azparren @fraixku 2018ko abuztuaren 09a

When I read the Basque Country along with the map of that College in some of Eroski’s white label products, I remember Erkoreka. I wonder if I am a foreigner when I go to the hometown of our two grandparents (Hozueta and Morentin); when I see the map of the last human chain of Our Hands Is, I thought it would be the new Y-route of the AVE; when I read the article of a former Patriotic Left poet Vascos y Navarros I thought I needed glasses.

The negotiations over the last few months to change the legal status in this area known as CAPV have not motivated me. I can understand, understand, the position of the political actors, but as many compatriots do, I am not very excited about what can come out of this negotiation.

My mind asks me to address other proposals that can revive enthusiasm, profound transformation and passion for work. For this reason, I have not followed in depth the discussions that have taken place during these negotiations. In fact, I would also have difficulty getting to know him in depth, as he is having a conversation among the political elites.

One day, during one of the debates, I was disturbed by an astonishing attitude: Podemos would not accept the "Basque nationality" that could be accepted in this possible new statute.

The new legal status that Podemos could agree with the PNV-EAJ and the EH Bila would hardly satisfy the aspirations of the Left Independentistas, but because this issue touches me personally (as well as thousands of compatriots), I have become particularly angry, since it has been confirmed that I am discriminated against by the Moro group.

As is well known, the right to nationality is protected by Article 15 of the UN. No one may be denied nationality. In addition to this, we have the previously recognized right of the Spanish State Constitution to have Basque citizenship, even if it has not been developed. In this sense, it is as surprising as it is shameful that Podemos has denied Basque nationality.

The Podemos party, which is said to have been created to crush the bipartisanship of the Spanish state, showed in Catalonia who it owes its loyalty to; now it has also shown in three western countries of the Basque Country that it accepts Spanish supremacism. In other words, Podemos has no problem accepting Spanish nationality. I would say more, it has no problem in imposing the Spanish nationality and the status of subdito mandatory, but it would not regulate the Basque nationality.

I just said that this topic touches me personally. On the one hand, because I consider myself a left-wing activist and because I expected solidarity from a left-wing party, but mainly because in 2,000 years I renounced Spanish nationality together with 200 other people claiming Basque nationality (other friends, of course, renounced French). This action led me to prison and the leftist groups of the Spanish state of the time did nothing and as I see it, there is no change of attitude in the future.

For 2,000 years I have no DNI; my passport has also become obsolete, I am thinking of keeping my word, I do not intend to accept a nationality that is not mine. This is our human right, what does Podemos propose? Discrimination, submission, being a second-class citizen?

As in Catalonia, in the Basque Country Podemos has shown where its borders are. It is just another political party of the Spanish State, a political offer that does not have the capacity to free itself from Jacobinism. In adopting this position, Podemos-"Euskadi" has shown that it does not intend to cross certain lines and we must write this data in red on all possible roadmaps.

The right to a Basque nationality is a democratic proclamation that is independent of all the majority/minority dynamics as a human right and, in my opinion, one of the axes of a liberating, transformative Basque process, as it is a method of empowerment that transforms all citizens into active political subjects and rights that allow us to break with the Spanish and French states.

* Patxi Azparren is part of the Lizargorri team