país vasco.

Two weekends ago I took a trip to the Basque Country (País Vasco in Spanish) with my Peace and Conflict class. The Basque Country is an “autonomous community” in Spain, just like Madrid, Cataluña (where Barcelona is), Andalucia, Galicia, and others. When Spain was established as a democracy in the late 1970s, they chose to forgo the state system like we have in the United States and instead separated into autonomous communities. They essentially function as our states, with local governments as well as national representatives to the Spanish government. The only difference is that each autonomous community can choose what powers they want to have, and what powers the Spanish government can have. This means each community’s relationship with the state is different.

The Basque Country is an interesting case because of the history of the Basque peoples. Their culture and tradition dates back hundreds of years, and there are those that “feel Basque” rather than “feel Spanish”. Many of these people feel neglected because nobody asked them if they wanted to be a part of Spain, and now Spain’s laws are being forced upon them. (Part of the Basque Homeland is located in France, but in class we only referred to the area located in Spain). As a result of “not feeling Spanish”, the Basque Country has received almost total autonomy from the Spanish state in terms of laws and taxes.

However, there is still conflict. If you’ve heard of the terrorist group ETA, then you’ve heard of the Basque Country. ETA is a leftist-extremist group that wants to secede from Spain. While there are political parties that also support this secession, they do not condone violence from ETA. They would prefer to have a referendum and a country-wide vote to determine the fate of the Basque Country.

I could write about the arguments for and against this secession for days – in fact, we spent weeks on it in class. But instead of boring you with the details, I’ll let you read about it on Wikipedia instead.

On the trip, we got to speak to politicians from the Socialist party (PSOE) and the right wing party (PP, that is currently in power with Zapatero as president). The most interesting interview was definitely the last one, where we spoke to a man named Xavier who does not identify as Spanish at all – only as Basque. Although he speaks Spanish, he prefers the Basque language, Euskadi, and wants his children to speak it as well. Although he is not associated with ETA, he said that he understood how some people could feel as though violence was their only hope.

He was extremely clear in his explanation and his opinions, and was incredibly smart. But I couldn´t help but have the same feeling towards him that I had towards the two mainstream politicians – none of these people were willing to concede their point, or to even think about things in another manner. I take it for granted that, even in our tense and polarized political environment in the United States, Republicans and Democrats are still willing to work together on issues, and make compromises when necessary. Even though this sometimes leads to ineffective policy, they’re not ignorant to other opinions. I think we take our democracy for granted, complaining about partisan politics and bureaucracy and lobbyists, but compared to Spain we get a whole lot more accomplished by working together.

The rest of the trip was spent sightseeing and touring different Parliaments. We traveled to four different cities – Vitoria, Bilbao, Gernika, and San Sebastian. We went to the Guggenhem in Bilbao, saw the inspiration for Picasso’s Guernica painting, and walked along the beach in San Sebastian. (Sidenote: I highly recommend San Sebastian as a summer vacation – the beach was gorgeous, there was great shopping, the people were really friendly, and the food was AMAZING.)

First day in the Basque Country, overlooking the mountains

The path we walked to get to the mountain view - the fall colors were gorgeous

Loving the statue of Ken Follett - his book, Pillars of the Earth, brought a lot of tourism to Vittoria

We toured the ancient cathedral in Vittoria - the helmet is for security during the restoration

City center in Vittoria during the sunset

View outside of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao

Me, Haley, and Lineasha overlooking San Sebastian at night

Part of the conch shaped beach in San Sebastian

River view in San Sebastian

I was in Istanbul, Turkey this past weekend, so I’ll be updating about that with pictures soon. Thankfully the “Turkish toilet” that we had to deal with in Morocco has been replaced with Western toilets… I appreciated that.