basques in spain

Basques in SpainBy Tess, Jeremy, Doug, and CJ

IntroductionThe Basques are a single people who live in two countries

—northwest Spain and southwest France(by the Pyrenees mountains). It is believed that the Basque are the oldest ethnic group in Europe.

Language and CultureThe Basque have their own language called Euskara,

which is Europe’s oldest living language, thus it’s unrelated to French and Spanish. They also have their own culture.

Video Most if not all Basques areRoman Catholic.

With some 3 million inhabitants (2.5 million in Spain and half 0.5 million in France), the land of the Basques is a densely populated area.

Where do they come from?No one knows exactly where the Basques came from.

Some say they have lived in that area since Cro-Magnon man first roamed Europe.

Estimates of how long they have lived there vary from 10,000 to 75,000 years.

ConflictIn 1873, the Spanish government revoked the Basque

region's autonomy by abolishing traditional Basque law.

In 1882, the first modern Basque nationalist, Sabino Arana, sought to move the Basques away from their loyalty to the Spanish monarchy to a more overt nationalism.

Sabino Arana An statue of Sabino Arana in Jardines Albia, in Biscay.

ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna)During the regime of General Francisco Franco(1939–75) the Basque language and culture in the Spanish provinces wereruthlessly suppressed (prohibited).

By the 1950s, resistance groups had formed, most notably the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA)—Basque Homeland and Liberty. The ETA committed terrorist acts throughout the 1970s and 1980s, even after Spanish rule over the Basques was liberalized following Franco's death in 1975.

More conflictThree of the four Spanish Basque provinces—

Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, and Navarra—were unified in 1980 as the Basque Autonomous Community. Its inhabitants were granted limited autonomy, recognition of their language and culture, and control over their schools and police force.

The official flag of the Basque Autonomous Community.

However, the ETA—although representative of only a small minority—has continued to fight for full Basque independence.

With its attacks against what they consider "enemies of the Basque people", ETA has killed over 820 people since 1968 to date, including more than 340 civilians. It has maimed hundreds more and kidnapped dozens.

The ETA continues to perform acts of terrorism and they will not stop until an agreement is made by both the Spanish government and them.

SuggestionsWe, as a tribe, decided that granting the Basques full

independence from the Spanish government would definitely put the conflict to an end.

That is the purpose for the acts of terrorism so if they gain independence, they would stop the attacks.

Long term-Short termSpain would benefit in the short term because the ETA

would stop the attacks to the people in the country. But in the long term the Spanish government does not

benefit at all because they would loose all the money that they could have gotten from the taxes that the people pay in that region.

Thank You..