"Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind...The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory." - George Orwell
Introduction
Veneration for the past has always seemed to many reactionary. The right chooses to talk about the past because it prefers dead people; a pacified world. The powerful who legitimize their privileges by heredity cultivate nostalgia. History is studied as if we were visiting a museum. Spain and France lie to us about the past as they lie to us about the present: they mask the face of reality. Absolved from blame by their chief associate, the Church, the two forced the people of Navarre to absorb an alien, dessicated, sterile memory fabricated by them. Regrettably Basque nationalism separated itself from the political reality of Navarre as the state of the Basques, conquered and dismembered by Spain and France -reducing the Basque conflict to an ethnic dispute between two groups.
But history is a prophet who looks back: because of what was, and against what was, it announces what will be. The official story of the dominant powers is being challenged by a group of contemporary Navarrese historians and writers, Mikel Sorauren, Tomas Urzainki, Gaizka Aranguren and others whose work might dispel the fog from our past and contribute to a re-conduction of the Basque quest for sovereignty. Their contribution: to challenge the official story and to spread the idea through research and writings that the recovery of Basque sovereignty ought to be based on the sovereignty Navarre had; on the national sovereignty that recognized Navarre as a European kingdom well into the 19th century.
Euskal Herria Journal's history section seeks to portray the past as something always convoked by the present, a live memory of our own day. A search for keys in past history to help explain our time - a time that also makes history - on the basis that the first condition for changing reality is to understand it. These pages have their roots in reality and in books written by the unofficial historians, which has helped us recognize what we are so as to know what we can be, and see where we come from so as to reckon more clearly where we're going. That reality and those books show that the Basque conflict is a historic conflict of a political nature, a consequence of the aggression, conquest and domination of Navarre by France and Spain - that Navarre is a political fact.


Euskal Herria (Basque Country): A Cultural ConceptNabarra (Nafarroa, Navarra, Navarre): The Basque State
History
Introduction
The Vascons
Origins of Navarre, the Basque state
Basque Laws Limited King's Authority
Basque Political Unity Crumbles
Castile Conquers Navarre
Inquisition, University, Guarantors of Assimilation
Struggle Against French, Spanish Assimilation
Basque Nationalism
The Spanish Military Uprising of 1936
German Occupation of Basque Territories in France
Post-Francoism: Controlled Democracy and Regional Autonomy

Language and Culture
Pre-historic Art and Material Culture
Oral literature
The First Literary Movement
Bertsolaritza (the art of singing verse)
The Basque Language (Eskuara)
The Bourgeoisie Chooses Spanish Over Basque
Popular Support to Basque Language and Culture
Basque-speaking Areas
Use of the Basque Language
Learning in Basque
Official Policy on the Basque Language

Administrative/Territorial Division
Introduction
Political Framework
Electoral Landscape

Repression
Introduction
Anti-Terrorism Pacts
Spain's Dirty War
France's Campaign against Basque Resistance
Expulsion, Extradition, Deportation
Extrajudicial Executions
Torture
Basque Conflict Highlights
The Basque Conflict in Numbers

Peace Proposals/Proposals to change the political status of the Basque territories -- In chronological order.
Introduction
ETA's Democratic Alternative (1995)
ETA's Democratic Alternative (Video)
The Ardanza Plan (PNV, 1998)
The Lizarra-Garazi Accord (1998)eng eusk esp
ETA's Proposal for a National Parliament (1999)
EAJ/PNV Political & Peace Process (2000)Download (Euskera) Download (EspaÒol)
Euskal Herritarrok proposals:--Proposal for a National Accord (1998)eusk esp --Proposal for a Basque Democracy (1999) eusk esp
Batasuna's Peace Proposal (2002)eng eusk espl
Proposal by Spain's president of three Basque provinces, Juan Jose Ibarretxe (2002): eusk esp
"Towards peace and democracy in Euskal Herria". Udalbiltza's proposal to overcome the conflict. (2002)euskespfra
Udalbiltza's Basque Bill of Rights / Euskal Herriaren Eskubideen Karta. Udalbiltzaren proposamena. (2002)euskesp
AuB: "Ten points of reflection in relation to the Basque political conflict". (2003)