Ethnic Protest and Social Planning: A Look at Basque Language Revival

Abstract

In last 25 years cultural landscape of Europe has been undergoing radical reconstruction. At same time that possibility of a federated Europe seems closer than ever, mobilization of ethnic minorities has brought about an increasing visibility and acknowledgment of internal cultural diversity. At issue for regional minorities is not simply political and economic autonomy. They, as much as anyone else, perceive illusory nature of autonomy in today's world of global politics and multinational corporations. What is perhaps all too often underexamined is battle that minorities are waging for cultural sovereigntycontrol over mechanisms of cultural reproduction. In many instances, though not all, language has been at center of these battles for cultural rights. This is especially true in Spanish Basque Country' where sense of urgency accompanying language revival is very pronounced. In 1963, shortly before they began their campaign of armed struggle against state, radical Basque nationalist organization, E.T.A. (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, Basqueland and Freedom), declared that the day that Basque ceases to be a spoken language, Basque nation will have died, and in a few years, descendants of today's Basques will be simply Spanish or French (Jauregui 1981:160). In somewhat less dramatic terms, first official political program of newly formed, autonomous Basque government proclaimed in 1980 that recuperation of Basque was necessary to avoid cultural extinction, and therefore of primary importance to Basque political agenda. While Basques remain bitterly divided over most political issues, there is an overwhelming consensus that preservation of their language, spoken by about 30% of population, is absolutely essential for continuity of their identity as Basques. Linguistic minorities in Spain, and in many other parts of Europe, have made substantial gains in their attempts to protect their languages. After death of Franco in 1975, national languages of Galicians, Basques, and Catalans were declared co-official with Spanish.2 Nevertheless, activists have continued to protest, arguing that official recognition is not enough: they demand language planning, by which they mean deliberate regulation and promotion of minority language use through legislation, educational programs, and media campaigns. Ethnographic research3 and recent opinion surveys4 show overwhelming support