Aware of the importance of ideology in political behaviour, we Basques must pay particular attention to the issue of our ideology, since within the framework of a concrete ideological location it is always decided what to do, what not to do, how, with whom, against whom, etc. Being so fundamental what we are playing and knowing all the media machinery that has been set in between us to spread ideology in favor of dominators, we should be very careful, because one of the requirements of its success is to bind and hold ourselves.

On the basis of the ideology of the Basques, there should be an adequate reading of the conflict that we have, and on that, of course, the good use of terminology has a fundamental function. What happens to us is a symptom of what we call it, but it also influences the very configuration of that worldview, in a circular sense.

See how different it is, for example, to say that ours is a stateless nation, or to present ourselves as an occupied state. The first raises the issue as an internal problem for Spain and France, and puts it at the level of will or pretension. The second, on the contrary, gives an international qualification to the case, placing Euskal Herria in the place of the expropriated but who wants to recover the property. Isn't it?

In the same sense, it is not the same to call the Civil War as that of 1936, or to call it a war of conquest that for us it was. And there's also a difference between accepting the false nationalist/non-nationalist dichotomy and the Spanish/French/Basque dichotomy that it should. It goes without saying that it cannot be compared that the regime in force here is called democracy, deficit, but democratic, with a disguised imperialism.

On this occasion, I would like to focus on the use of the widespread Spanish word, which is the expression of our mistaken ideological location, and which particularly impedes our clarity in addressing the issue of language appropriately. We have to call the Spanish language and not the Spanish language, and that is because the Spaniards themselves give it to us, in addition, with the same argument that they use to justify their language being called Spanish. That among all those who are the Spanish language – including the Basque, the Galician and the Catalan language, of course – one should not prefer each other, because it would be to despise others. In other words, they use Spanish, for giving the Basque language the honour of being a Spanish language. Do you need more reasons?

Spanish, of course, is a term that is only used for the internal consumption of the imperial territory, as it is always considered Spanish facing the exterior, as it is logical. In dictionaries, that looks great, they put Spanish-Basque or Spanish-Catalan, but never Spanish-English, but Spanish-English. To say Spanish would be like accepting that the Basque is not Spanish, and that is not in their interest, because it would be contrary to that ideology that seeks our dependence.

The reasons why the Abertzales here want to use the Spanish word can be understood, at least in a human aspect, because it is understandable that they do not want to admit that you speak in the language of an empire. With the Spanish word, the account is softened, because our condition of dependent colonization is minimized and camouflaged. But is that not why we should change this habit at last?