The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [112]
Opinion polls in Navarra indicate that only a minority of Navarrese consider themselves Spanish, but a somewhat smaller minority consider themselves Basque. The majority of modern Navarrese think of themselves as simply Navarrese. But the Navarrese speak Euskera and fit almost any definition of Basque—except theirs. If the seven provinces were to be united today, a separatist movement might emerge in Navarra.
The Basques and the Navarrese in their separate regions, the Autonomous Community of Euskadi and the Foral Community of Navarra, had the same reference point: the Fueros. They each wanted something as close to that ancient condition of semi-independence as they could get. This was far more than anyone else was asking for. Even the Catalans hesitated at the kind of fiscal autonomy the Basques demanded.
The Basques and Navarrese did not get the kind of separate Foral state they wanted, but they did get their own local governments, their own parliaments, their own school systems and highways, all of which were paid for by their own taxes. The only tax restriction was that the total tax package be the same as that in the rest of Spain. The statute of autonomy for the three provinces barely passed, getting an affirmative vote from only 54 percent of eligible voters. It is impossible to say how many Basques would want complete independence from Spain, since such a plebiscite would be unconstitutional and has never been held. But within the Autonomous Basque Community, a clear majority votes in every election for nationalist parties that proclaim as a goal more independence from the Spanish state.
Carlos Garaikoetxea became the first lehendakari since Aguirre. Like all of the subsequent ones, he was handpicked by the Basque Nationalist Party. The party, both conservative and nationalist, has been able to dominate elections and control the Basque government, making Xabier Arzalluz, the party boss, the single most powerful Basque in the Autonomous Basque Community. Part of Garaikoetxea’s appeal was that he was a Navarrese from Pamplona, and his leadership was supposed to bring the two Basques together. Ramón Labayen said, “We thought it would be a good gesture for the people of Navarra, but it turned out that the people of Navarra didn’t give a damn for the gesture.”
Still, for the Civil War generation, there was a sense of triumph in March 1980 when Garaikoetxea stood under the oak tree in Guernica and took the same oath as Aguirre: “Humble before God, standing on Basque soil, in remembrance of our ancestors, under the tree of Guernica . . . ”
For an instant, those who had been there in 1936 could almost feel that the terrible four decades that followed had never happened, had been reversed, somehow erased. Except that Garaikoetxea did not speak mother-tongue Euskera as Aguirre had. An entire generation had grown up under Franco not speaking Euskera, and the Basques were very aware that one of the great challenges before their government was to bring back the language of the Basque people. Garaikoetxea was an Euskaldunberri. He had grown up speaking only Spanish but was now learning Euskera. In his four years as lehendakari, he achieved fluency.
The first time the Spanish army was officially to meet the lehendakari, the officers initially said they would not salute him. They were persuaded that the salute was all in the name of upholding the constitution with its sworn loyalty to the king. But then Garaikoetxea had to be persuaded to salute in return.
TO BASQUES WHO wanted autonomy, the “autonomous regions” were a parody of their dream,