Les Jones

When I was in high school we had an exchange student from the Basque area named Igor Dequattra. He was a quiet, contemplative guy with a creative bent and eye for books. As his English improved he became much more outgoing. Until I met him (age 18) I had no knowledge of Basque culture, let alone separatist politics or terrorism in Spain.

The way he described the situation - separatism was not monolithic in Basque culture. Similar to border areas of our own Civil War, he described families being split on the issue, perhaps with one brother for and another against. But he did not describe families as being evenly split. Igor indicated that he had relatives who had been involved in ETA and his father and family strongly disapproved. I got the impression that if you joined ETA, it was a bit like someone's family finding out you'd gotten up with Jim Jones and were headed for French Guayana.

Social pressure from within their own culture and political pressure from Spain do not seem to be enough to stop ETA terrorism. Appeasement hasn't worked for them when dealing with foriegn terrorists. And perhaps due to the isolated and uncomprimising radical attitudes of ETA; negotiations with domestic terrorists in Spain have been to no effect as well.

Politics in Spain is very convoluted, perhaps moreso than in France. In the last 60 years -- in addition to WW II coming to their doorstep they've had a civil war with communists, flirted with both fascism and social1sm, and at least in name are still a constitutional monarchy with a king. It may be that this complicated and violent past (peppered with liberal guilt over colonialism) makes them reticent to use force against terrorists.

Hand-wringing over past wrongs does not solve contemporary problems however.