Call
for unity amongst the political parties with regards to basic ethical and
political principles faced with the problem of the violence
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1.- Introduction
The Association for Peace in the Basque Country, Gesto por la Paz, has been working for almost 16 years in denouncing the terrorist violence, for the defence of everyone's Human Rights, for the solidarity with the victims and working to promote a culture of peace in our society.
Its vocation is not therefore to intervene in the ambit that corresponds to the political parties, but rather that of a plural movement, born out of the civilian society and whose work consists of concentrating on the defence of the ethical and democratic principles which precede the legitimate differences between the diverse projects which enrich our political spectrum.
We would like to expressly acknowledge the decisive importance that the undertaking of all those people that work in the different political parties, both as institutional citizen representatives as well as in the organisation of the parties, has for our society. This creates an obligation for those who choose the political undertaking as a job for them to carry it out with dedication and honesty. This recognition is especially important in those cases in which this undertaking also entails, unfortunately, serious threats to life, dignity, security and the basic freedoms to which we all have the right.
The existence in any society of different political parties is positive and enriching, providing that that there is a pacific confrontation between them and a constructive dialogue. However in our society, for approximately three years now, we worryingly witness the extreme tension and disagreement between the different political forces that represent the citizens. Although there have been periods that have been worse, we continue to suffer from a serious shortage of the necessary dialogue between the diverse political parties present in our country and we continue to sense that a significant number of important initiatives are being blocked as a result of the serious conflict between them. In any event this is not intended to be a criticism of the political class as such, but rather a matter of questioning some of the established ways of doing politics that we think are wrong.
Although previously, and on a number of occasions, we have publicly launched our message claiming a reconstruction of the basic consensus, both of an ethical and a political nature, which precedes the legitimate partisan confrontation, we believe that the present situation presents some characteristics that justify a new call in the same direction. However the political parties have begun to meet, both in Madrid and in Vitoria, in work committees with different specific aims. One recent positive result of one of these initiatives is the text recently agreed by Eudel to be debated in all of the Basque municipalities. Also, we can not forget the social protests to condemn the latest attacks by ETA in which the citizens and the political representatives have demonstrated together under common banners.
The aim is not to demand an impoverish political uniformity, but rather to demand the pre-partisan ethical and political consensus that are the basis for our society to head towards its political normalisation and, what is even more important, to more effectively defend the fundamental Human Rights of all of the citizens. A defence that must be done by democratic procedures and respectful of these same Human Rights. In all of these tasks the responsibility of the parties is all important, but the civilian society as a whole can and must collaborate in them. It is advisable that no citizen of our country forgets that in the freedom, the dignity and in the threatened life itself of so many of our society's citizens, the freedom, dignity and future of all of us is at play.
Lastly, we wish to finish this introduction by indicating that in this document we are trying to keep a propositive tone. It is not a stubborn criticism of the errors that may have been committed in the past, whether in the political or social ambit, but rather it aims offer some assistance which allows for the construction of a future in which terrorism is coming close to its end and, while this moment arrives, in which the victims feel more protected, in which the exercise of the fundamental rights of all people are guaranteed to the maximum, in which there is progress towards the end of the social legitimisation of the use of violence and in which, in this way, there is progress towards social normalisation and reconciliation.
2.- Attempt to diagnose the situation
In the Association for Peace in the Basque Country, Gesto por la Paz, we analyse the current situation with preoccupation. In the political ambit the disagreements and conflicts between the political parties on subjects that, due to their ethical nature, should be the object of basic consensus are for us particularly serious. This lack of agreement between the political parties on the subject of terrorism has negative effects, both in so far as it concerns the democratic society and with regards to the violent world. So:
a) With respect to the democratic society, the division between the politicians on this matter produces despondency and demoralisation. It transmits a message of impotence, as it leads to the conclusion that there is no solution. If this occurs in the democratic society as a whole the effect is even more intense for those who feel threatened. These people also feel neglected, they feel ignored and even used. On the other hand, the political division also tends to become social. If each political organisation has "its" diagnosis and "its" solution, the problem of the terrorism becomes partisan and each social collective forms groups with those parties with which they sympathise for other causes. The terrorism stops being a problem that affects democracy as such and becomes something that affects each party in a different way. It therefore "Politicises" the violence and also causes the people to divide as a result.
b) With respect to the violent people themselves, the disagreements between the democratic parties provides them with a feeling of fortitude and usefulness, every time that they are conferred a supposed capability to block agreements, institutions and meetings, which we can not allow. If the parties are divided as a result of the terrorism it is because the issues are not so clear, in other words, because there is not an ethical black and white on this subject, but rather a jumble of variations. In this way the violent people receive strength from the democrats. It gives strength to their conviction that their violence is not against democracy in itself but rather is connected to the confrontation between diverse political projects. The terrorism feeds on, amongst other things, the division between the democratic parties.
3.- Call for Unity
We are aware of the fact that the democratic unity is not going to defeat the terrorism by itself, but it is very difficult that the terrorism can be defeated without it. The unity that is needed must not be a unity based only on humanitarian and ethical convictions. It also has to have a strictly political, although pre-partisan, dimension.
Because unity in the face of the violence based only on humanitarian and ethical convictions is not what one expects from parties that define themselves as political. This adjective is their specificity and in that specificity they must base their unity. It has already been repeated ad nauseam that, if on this matter there is not a strictly political unity which comes before the legitimate political differences between the diverse political projects, the common convictions on the humane and ethical level - that which without doubt all of the political parties share - are not enough to maintain what we understand as democratic unity.
In order to achieve this unity it is not enough to call people to join the position that one political option defends; what is needed is that an effort is made to reach a consensus, to accept a tolerant dialogue, to put the propositions themselves into perspective, etc.
This unity must be based on the conviction that the terrorism has no legitimacy, not only not of the ethical and humanitarian type, but political neither. To kill, threaten, coerce, etc. is not only humanely barbaric and ethically reprehensible, but also, in this specific democratic system that we are dealing with, does not have the minimum political legitimacy. One has to be convinced that the violence is never either effective nor resolute. The absence of this is one of the causes of the current division of the parties in the diagnosis and in the treatment of the specific terrorism that affects us. At the end of the day we aim to appeal to the supposedly shared democratic convictions of all of the parties and of society in general. From this conviction one must accept the legitimacy of the present legal order, as it is a condition of the possibility of the daily exercise of the fundamental human rights and the framework which holds the institutions that govern us, as well as the possible changes that are democratically proposed.
There are also other ambits, like the legal one, which must play a relevant role in the persecution of all those crimes related to the terrorism and in which the political parties must not unduly interfere, respecting the separation of powers which is essential to all democratic states. Another different issue is the legitimate criticism that certain judicial acts may deserve.
It also seems to be necessary to ask of the political class the shared messages, undertakings and efforts that transmit illusion and hope of a future in peace to society as a whole.
It is also necessary to insist on the other hand that the unity of the parties gives significant fruit for the society and for the victory over terrorism: it produces social cohesion within the democratic adhesion of everyone, it banishes the danger of social fracture, offers support for the victims and those who are threatened, stops these from fracturing and from being used against each other, mobilises society as a whole, increases faith in the institutions and their adhesion, etc.
4.- Some proposals
For us it is not enough to issue calls for the unity of the democratic political forces, we also wish to offer some proposals or specific guidelines which can help to build this unity that we are calling for. Synthetically we gather it in a sentence which seems specially meaningful: Outside of the democracy nothing should be possible, within it everything can become possible. It is a synthesis that can explain and specify the present situation, at the same time as clarifying our plan with this statement.
a) Outside of the democracy nothing should be possible: With this we aim to insist in that political ideas or projects can only be defended by democratic means that respect the fundamental Human Rights, starting with the right to life. The specific translation to this principle stems from the following:
- That the greatest democratic deficit that our society has at this moment is that which is associated with the violence of persecution which is specified in those thousands of people which are, due to their ideas, political affiliations or professions, pointed out by ETA and its environment, threatened and even attacked or killed.- Nor is it ethically or politically acceptable nor is any instrument or procedure needed outside of the democratic framework to combat the violence. Besides, only those measures that respect the fundamental Human Rights and democracy are really effective, especially in the long term.
- What is needed is an ambitious process, especially in the formal education sector and other social ambits, which encourages the growth of citizen awareness about the absolute illegitimacy of the violence used to obtain any type of objective, whether it be political or other, and the mobilisation against this violent strategy, and to feel the victims and their suffering as something close.- That the victims of the violence are entitled to have their memory vindicated and due justice claimed for them by all of the society (which is not the same, under any circumstances, as revenge but does include the humanly possible compensation and that the perpetrators are tried with the guarantees of the democratic state and not on the other hand paid homage to)
b) Within the democracy everything can become possible: With this what we are trying to say is that, when democratic procedures are used which respect human rights, any idea or project can be defended and hope to obtain the maximum social support which in each case it manages to achieve. The main points of this principle in this situation are based on:- That the current legal political framework, fruit of more or less wide consensus reached in the past, and legitimised by the numerous occasions on which the citizens have exercised and exercise their political rights within it, must be acknowledged as the inevitable starting point. Also to be accepted is that for a part of the citizens this framework is currently the best option when it comes to combining the different feelings of belonging and the identificative plurality of our society.
- That the acknowledgement of this does not exclude the respect that the other part of the society deserves when they propose, from within the current framework, its transformation via democratic procedures, like for example that it is desirable to obtain another legal-political model for our society (a claim for a republican Spain, an independent Basque Country or social policies which are a lot more supportive).
- That in any event both in the day to day as well as in possible processes to modify the current legal framework, they must dedicatedly and creatively seek the widest consensus.
- That both those who support the current status quo as well as those who democratically seek its transformation can and must mutually acknowledge that the ethical undertaking against the terrorist violence and the defence of different political projects are totally compatible, with the only limitation being that these projects respect the fundamental Human Rights and are democratically expressed.
It is clear that when it comes to establishing priorities, the defence
of the right to life and the freedom of the people who are gravely threatened
appears as an urgent issue and the demand for the necessary resources
to be at their service is possible, always within the most refined respect
for the Democratic State. But this priority does not have to completely
block other social and political dynamics in our society. Without stating
the obvious that certain political forces currently have very significant
added difficulties when it comes to being able to carry out their functions
with normality, any society benefits when different future projects
are proposed and debated within it. In this proposal and discussion
process:
- Any historical manipulation is out of place.
- It is clear that the society in which these different projects are presented is a modern and plural society - which makes it richer and provides it with more elements with which to build its future.
- Numerous social debates about very different subjects should not have to be permanently mediated by the "meta-problem" of the violence (linguistic debates, budgetary debates or social policy, for example).
The Association for Peace in the Basque Country, Gesto por la Paz, also
considers it necessary for our society that:
· All of the political parties accept that they will not favour the strategy of the terrorist violence:
- Neither those who make self-determination proposals via democratic and pacific procedures, although it would be desirable that they make an effort to show that the country that they wish to pacifically construct with levels of sovereignty greater than those that presently exist, can not be the same as the one that ETA is trying to achieve with its violent strategy.
- Nor those who defend the present Constitution and the current Statute of Autonomy and the Improvement of the Jurisdiction because they are convinced that they are the most adequate frameworks to govern the coexistence in this group, although it would be desirable that they acknowledged that the possible coincidence with regards to some objectives of certain democratic political projects with those affirmed by ETA does not disqualify these projects.All of the political parties must also avoid short term, conflictive strategies or those which instead of facilitating an understanding between the different political forces deteriorate our coexistence.
· All of the political parties renounce the intention of giving extra legitimacy or effectiveness to their own political projects:
- In this way the Basque nationalist must renounce all more or less express, more or less implied manifestations which try to sell the advantages of sovereignty because it will end the violence or will at least allow a reduction of its social support. This could be true but the defence of the Basque nationalist projects must only be justified from the position that they are the most adequate solution for our society.
- Equally, those who defend the current Constitution, Statute and Improvements must do it from the posture of their virtues with regards to organising our coexistence, but must not try to add to these types of proposal the addition that the current legal framework must be defended with absolute authority because it is the only way to defeat ETA. Again it is possible that these postures can have positive effects on the fight against the terrorism, but the defence of these postures must be done by arguing why they are the most adequate for our society.
To pretend that more sovereignty or on the other hand more authoritarian methods of defending the current status quo will bring peace is to concede the persuasive capability of completely distorsioning the political debate to the terrorist strategy. Only by separating the violence from the discussion about the political future of our society will the capacity that the violent strategy aims to have to condition it be limited.
· All of the political parties accept that it is as legitimate to analyse the Basque political reality from the stance that there exists a special conflict, as to defend the point of view that the Basque society has the same type of conflicts as other modern plural societies in which the phenomenon of terrorism has not arisen:
- So the Basque reality can be analysed by understanding that the current political framework presents certain shortcomings (the right to self-determination for the historic nationalities for example).
- And/or defend that the problem resides in the fact that, at the end of the day, it is not accepted that the Basque society is made up of people with different feelings of belonging (from those who feel exclusively Basque to those who feel exclusively Spanish as well as all of the intermediate categories) and that the future must be constructed carefully together with all of these identities.· All the political parties never forget who is responsible for carrying out the violence:
- The end of this will arrive when those who persist in its execution give up.
- Nonetheless there are a series of measures that, not including the above, must be carried out, like for example:
o The coordination of the police and judicial measures within the strict framework of the democratic state.
o A growing process of social illegitimisation of the violence.
o The spreading of a culture of peace, especially amongst the younger generations.
o And a firm support for the construction of basic social and political consensus which suffocates the terrorist intolerance.
The Association for Peace in the Basque Country, Gesto por la Paz, presents this document from a position of preoccupation for the current situation, as well as to stress the importance, the responsibility and the difficulty of the work of the political parties involved in it. Together with this reflection and the proposals contained in this document, we wish to end it by offering our collaboration to society as a whole, and particularly to the political parties, to advance towards peace and the normalisation of our coexistence.
Association
for Peace in the Basque Country, Gesto por la Paz
May 2002
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