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From Letters, Socialist Worker, No. 90, 28 September 1968, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
THE ARTICLE by your Spanish correspondent (14 September) shows the danger of using a Spanish correspondent to comment on Basque affairs.
The article, although containing some useful information, is vitiated by the presence of snide remarks aimed against the conception of Basque nationhood. With regard to the language, is your correspondent aware that the Irish Proclamation of Independence in 1916 was written in English? This did not stop the Easter Rising being the first blow in the destruction of the British prison-house of nations.
The inability of Basque guerrillas to speak the Basque language will hinder them just as little as ignorance of Irish hindered the Irish Citizen Army.
Your correspondent finds the idea of an independent Basqueland joining the Common Market simply fantastic; we consider equally fantastic the idea of the perpetuation of the Spanish prison-house of nations.
Revolutionary socialists do not make their support for national liberation movements conditional on their having the right programme, but just to set the record straight the militant section of ETA (the people responsible for the guerrilla activity, not, be it noted, "terrorism”) are also left-wingers and have declared that they stand for the socialist revolution.
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Chris Gray, Gery Lawless, |
Last updated: 22 October 2020