Basque Families

For more than a century, tension has existed between the Basque country and the central government of Spain. As a result of the radical Basque nationalist activities of the middle and late twentieth centuries, most families in the Basque country either know someone who is in prison or have had a family member incarcerated. These prisoners are often housed far from the Basque country, and families must make special efforts to stay in touch. A simple visit may require a lengthy trip across Spain or north to Paris. Even if they have no personal experience of the situation of political prisoners, Basques write much graffiti and put up many posters declaring support for these individuals, especially in the cities. Even in a family-oriented event such as the Korrika, a long-distance walk/run fundraiser for Basque-language literacy efforts, the absent prisoners are represented by participants who carry their photographs on posters as they run their leg of the course (del Valle 1994). The question of whether or not to become involved in activities that support the movement to free these prisoners, or to take part in political activities that could result in such imprisonment, has the potential to tear a family apart. To make matters more complex, not all Basques see these prisoners as different from criminals. The question of the Basque prisoners is one of the issues that affect Basque families every day.

Although living in the Basque country ensures that a Basque family must think about the issue of nationalism and what it means to their lives, not all Basques are nationalists, and even among those who demonstrate pronationalist sentiment, there exists a sliding scale that extends from lip service to radical activism. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a conservative political movement began gaining strength in Euskadi, and in the Basque context "conservative" usually translates as antinationalist.