1.- TERRORISM .

Objectives of terrorism : over recent years, there have been many objectives attributed to abertzale (radical left-wing Basque nationalist) terrorism.
The core objective of terrorism is to deny and prevent pluralism from existing in Basque society, as terrorism constitutes a decision taken conscientiously as a reaction to pluralism in modern societies: to do away with pluralism by exterminating dissenters of nationalism or by keeping down the role of citizens by according them fewer rights - that is, weakening and ultimately doing away with the freedoms and guarantees of the rights of citizens and setting up a totalitarian regime.
To achieve the core objective of doing away with pluralism, terrorism aims at intensifying divisions in society in such a way that the different positions become irreconcilable, consensus is abandoned and enemy fronts are created. In this way, the nationalist community may be reconstructed so as to conquer political power (independence), achieve social hegemony and power in addition to imposing a nationalist regime forever without any type of interference.
The use of violence is conscientious and from the very beginning an attempt was made to use it as one more instrument in the struggle for "national liberation," since it is considered very effective due to the coercive effects it has, which enables it to obtain certain specific results and is thus deemed both necessary and useful. For some years, the objective of terrorism was to negotiate with the state but, since 1993, since the Oldartzen motion, ETA has not sought negotiation but rather ethnic cleansing, the extermination of the enemy.

Explanations and interpretations of terrorist acts: every time ETA murders, there is a politician, a journalist or political analyst who attempts to explain the reasons for doing so. On most occasions, this involves doing the theoretical work on behalf of the terrorists.
The explanations and interpretations given have been numerous; it is even said that terrorist acts have no explanation, no sense, are senseless, are irrational, incomprehensible, inhuman, etc. Notwithstanding, the most common explanation is that of interpreting them in the context of the situation: if ETA murders a socialist, for instance, it is to prevent the rapprochement of socialists with nationalism, so that the PSE does not form a pact with the PNV, so that it does not assume whatever happens to be the trend most inclined to accept certain nationalist proposals or, quite on the contrary, because it was not resistant to change and did not desire any such rapprochement.
Terrorist attacks are also explained in the context of the moment, the date, of coinciding with an international sports event, an anniversary, or of constituting a response to an international political event.
Other explanations focus on the way in which such an act has been carried out and the victim chosen; in this case, it is said that a qualitative jump has taken place because said victim has been killed indiscriminately, without warning that they would kill, etc., or that perhaps it was a question of a political mistake, when in reality what has been committed is a crime.
A very common interpretation is that of playing down "what has happened"; the facts are related aseptically, are taken out of context and compared with the incomparable and it is accepted as being normal that "accidents" occur, in the same way that many more people die on the roads and nobody gets shocked.
Yet the most widespread interpretations are those which ask who benefits and who does not benefit from terrorist acts. The nationalists interpret them as being against Euskal Herria, that these acts do not benefit Euskal Herria, or go against the return of political prisoners, etc., and therefore on the contrary benefit the PP and immobilists, etc.
Terrorist attacks are also explained by the characteristics of the victim, that he or she was intransigent, an immobilist, the flagship of oppression of Euskal Herria, because he or she spoke too much, was "pro-Spanish" or a foreigner, etc.
However, democrats' interpretations underline civic aspects. Thus, if they murder someone it is so as to warn the rest that they have to remain silent, it is to kidnap the will of the people, it is to prevent others from thinking or being able to think in the future, it is the tangible evidence of ETA's totalitarian approach, of non-acceptance of the fact that Euskadi is plural, etc.

Origin of the violence : it is repeatedly said that the origin of terrorism dates back to the Carlist wars 160 years ago, when the right of the Basque people to their self-determination started to be denied. This argument is true historical nonsense, given that ETA terrorism was born in the 1960s of the twentieth century.
It is also argued that terrorism is a product of the years Franco was in power, since it came into being during that time. However, after Franco's regime there was a change in the political regime and a democratic system was established with extensive autonomy, including a total amnesty - in other words, Franco has died out but terrorism continues.
On certain occasions, Arzalluz has said that the "origin of violence in Euskadi lies in Spanish nationalism." Others have specified something more and argue that the origin of violence lies in the conflict existing between Euskadi and Spain, in the "pro-Spanish occupation" of Euskadi, who seek to resolve the matter by setting up an independent state in which Spain's claims as regards a policy of integration should have no place. Nonetheless, still nobody has provided the starting date of this supposed occupation.
On some other occasion, one of the leaders of HB (Carmelo Landa) said: "the armed struggle of ETA is a response to that state violence (that of GAL), which is why it is totally legitimate." However, ETA started to murder in 1968 and GAL in 1983, meaning that it cannot be the reason; in any event, it would be the other way round, that GAL would be - and was - an anti-democratic and illegitimate response to ETA violence.
For democrats, the origin of the use of terrorist violence lies in the non-acceptance of pluralism by one part of the Basque population. In the years 1955-60, the so-called second period of industrialization commenced, with a great number of immigrants, which entailed a doubling in the population of the Basque Country from 1 to 2 million between 1940 and 1973. Faced with all this, there was a reaction which involved taking the voluntary and conscious decision to use violence as a coercive weapon in order to achieve political power and thus be able to impose the ideological homogenisation of the population.

Assessment of terrorist attacks: terrorist attacks are not senseless, but rather acts of aggression against human rights.
Murders are not irrational, are not based on irrationality or on madness, because even if they are morally abominable, they have a perverse logic.
Murders are not carried out by those suffering from brain damage, or by madmen or by people who are ill, but rather are the work of those who have decided to impose their ideas by force, the work of ultra-nationalists who want everybody to think like they do, and should anyone try to resist and be free, he or she must be aware of the fact that they may be killed.
Murders are not carried out to benefit and give more votes to non-nationalists, as the nationalist democrats and Izquierda Unida absurdly argue, but rather are carried out in the name of nationalism, since nobody kills in order to benefit the victims, but to benefit from him or herself.
In short, the murders are not against Euskal Herria (the Basque Country) but rather favour essentialist, anti-democratic nationalism whose aims it shares, and are against freedom and democracy.

Those responsible for murders: terrorists always put responsibility for all murders carried out and which are to be carried out on external agents. They aseptically assume and claim responsibility for their acts (the murders), although they distance themselves from such conduct or, rather, do so by blaming the victim, those who are around him or her, those who get in the way of their objectives (resistance to change on the part of the state, the intransigent ones, etc.) or those who drive them to do so (the moderate nationalists) or, rather, by assuming a moral value (the struggle for just peace, for the freedom of the people, etc).
Notwithstanding, Basque democrats are of the conviction that criminal responsibility, which is backed up by the courts of justice, corresponds to ETA and to those who help, support and indicate their objectives. Terrorists are not judged because of their political ideas, but rather because of their acts. It is for this reason that terrorist prisoners who have been tried and sentenced are not political prisoners.
And there is the conviction that political responsibility, which is backed up only by citizens, corresponds today to nationalism as a whole. This is because it has a great political responsibility with regard to the continued current existence of terrorism, due to the agreement signed with ETA which was given expression in the Estella Agreement.

Justification for murders : terrorists of all persuasion justify violence as a means to obtain "good" or "useful" results. This entails a justification for violence and the rejection of non-violent means.
In order to justify their existence, they say that they have been fighting for independence for 160 years, although in reality it is a political movement which has always shown itself to be against democracy. It has or has had the ideological, social and political coverage of Basque nationalism, whereby it coincides with the aims of the latter - that is to say, the aim of undermining democratic coexistence, as nationalism boasts of not having supported the Constitution, which is the basic set of democratic rules governing coexistence.
The worst thing about murders are the understanding and interested voices of the different politicians, above all nationalist ones, who play down and condemn the blinkered attitude of the state, favouring the notion that, deep-down, blame for the murder lies not on the shoulders of the authors, but rather on immobilism on the part of the state for not having granted them what they asked for. Even the victim him or herself was the intransigent one, making it seem that the one who remains firm is intolerant and the coward is tolerant. However, most of us Basques find these stances morally abhorrent, as we have learnt that if one single murder is justified, we are thereby justifying all the others.

The struggle against terrorism: the struggle against terrorism is a struggle in favour of the progress of democracy, in which shortcuts are not acceptable, let alone measures against freedoms and rights which threaten terrorists, as this is one of the aims of the terrorists, to weaken the essential freedoms and guarantees of the rights of citizens.

Response to terrorist attacks: after the time of the protests against the kidnapping of Julio Iglesias Zamora, a cultural and ideological process was set in motion in Euskadi which was qualified by non-violent nationalism. Months later after another kidnapping, that of Mr. Aldaya, the behaviour of moderate nationalism started to become reticent in accompanying the society which had been mobilized. This is the moment when counter-protests by terrorist sympathizers against citizens who were protesting at the kidnapping took place, with the passiveness of the Ertzaintza (Basque police force) being the norm.
Yet the toning down of the contradiction between the so-called democratic nationalists and the radicals came about as a result of the protests against the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Miguel Angel Blanco, as they calculated that the reaction against ETA terrorism would go against nationalism. The "pro-sovereign path" set in motion by the PNV dates back to this time, which would culminate in the Estella-Lizarra Agreement and the setting-up of the nationalist front, with the inexplicable presence of IU, with the aim of excluding constitutionalists from political life.
It is evident that, instead of combating and isolating ETA totalitarianism, Basque nationalism has joined forces with it by signing the Estella Agreement (1998), which indicates that totalitarianism currently runs and conditions nationalist ideology.
In order to do away with terrorism, a strengthening of democracy and an acceptance of pluralism will be necessary, and not the opportunism involving flattering and understanding the anti-democratic demands of the terrorist and their accomplices.

Regretting, reproaching, condemning and combating terrorism: the terrorists' accomplices on some occasions regret the loss of human lives, since the suffering they do not desire will be prolonged due to their demands not being addressed. People from HB regret the kidnapping, which in their language is an arrest, as one more expression of the dispute between Euskal Herria and the State.
Reproaching violent actions is what Elkarri does; although reproaching is the same as condemning, it attempted not to use the same word as that used by the constitutionalists.
Condemning is disapproving and reproaching a doctrine or opinion, by declaring it to be pernicious or evil. Barbarism is unanimously condemned because it cuts short human lives and brings pain to certain families. And nationalists also condemn it because it goes against the will of the majority of Basques and, on the one hand, they tell ETA to stop killing, because from the nationalist point of view the conflict is not resolved in this way and, on the other hand, they tell the constitutionalists that they should move and accept the terrorists' proposals. Condemnation of ETA is to criticize the fact that they are not doing things the right way, that they are not listening to the voice of the people or of Basque society, but it is not a condemnation either of their totalitarian methods or aims. Notwithstanding, the constitutionalists condemn the violence because they do not accept the political conflict as being legitimate and because they fully reject the terrorists' proposals.
Combating terrorism with the will to defeat it means that public administration should defend the rights and freedoms of all citizens, be a credit to the institutions, apply the law and carry out actions to politically and socially isolate the terrorists and their accomplices.

Legitimisation of violence : the fact that terrorism is anti-democratic is known by even those who directly practise it.
However, its legitimisation is carried out by expressing the notion that there exists no democracy in Basque society or that there exists a democratic deficit, etc., and an attempt is made to deny that Spain is a democratic state, which is the key in attempting to legitimise terrorism. To this end, nationalism as a whole makes an effort to deny the normalization of Spanish democratic life: torture, GAL, that in the constitution there exists no right to self-determination, etc.
Likewise, an attempt is made to legitimise terrorist violence by trying to put it on the same level as that exerted by the rule of law in defence of individual freedoms and rights, which they refer to as state terrorism.
Yet what we do know is that the use of terrorism is inversely proportional in relation to the degree of acceptance of democracy on the part of society - that is to say, that terrorism may evolve in a society such as the Basque one because in said society the most anti-democratic approaches have triumphed in a very major part of Basque life. Or, in other words, terrorism needs the delegitimisation of democratic laws, values and institutions in order to survive, and in the Basque Country it has achieved this, by legitimising its survival. An example of this is the French Basque Country, where there exists no autonomy or anything like it, yet conversely there is no terrorism because the democratic laws, values and institutions are strongly legitimised.
On the other hand, terrorism also needs a divided society, a society which does not share a broad consensus, in which there exists a major social and political division. This is a division which terrorism tries to deepen to the extent of transforming adversaries in enemies who threaten their own essence and identity, and thus terrorism shall be legitimised because it shall entail an act whose purpose is to free us of such evils and threats (the Basque language and identity are in danger of extinction, are persecuted, cannot freely evolve, etc.).

Violence and political claims : one of the key questions in the survival of violence is that it comes disguised in political claims in order to be legitimised. In this way, murder is justified based on the political claims of nationalism.
The relationship between violence and political claims has always existed. Thus, Arzalluz has always been especially scared of the fact that violence draws all nationalism, which is why a careful "administration of violence" has been necessary. As was said in the era of negotiation of transfers of power - "some shake the tree, and others gather the walnuts." Today, on the other hand, the violence exerted against the political adversaries of nationalism, together with the passiveness of the Basque Government in defending the democratic freedoms of all citizens and the legitimisation of institutions, enables nationalism to make opportunist proposals and ultimatums, etc. of the type which are more associated with a violent organization than a Government that is supposed to be the guarantor of lawfulness and citizens' freedoms.
From a moral point of view, the union of violence and political claims has resulted in many Basques reaching the situation of even losing the dignity inherent in all humans in rebelling against murder.
To this end, the conquering of dignity by citizens proves necessary, by expressing the condemnation and rejection of everything deriving from violence or, otherwise, the alternative would be a matter of perpetuating it and morally erasing the memory of the victims.

Tolerance towards political violence : several types of behaviour and stance in Euskadi may be distinguished with regard to tolerance towards violence:
a) those who resign themselves to coexisting with terrorism and its milieu as if it were a natural misfortune and who therefore react against their hardships by simply expressing their annoyance or regretting the misfortune of those affected, of the victims;
b) others, on the other hand, stress their ethical reproach of the use of violence, underline their "human" (not political) solidarity with the victims or point out the mistake on the part of those who carry out or support terrorist actions;
c) lastly, those who think that resorting to violence is not only a moral evil or a mistake, but rather that it is first and foremost a political crime which destroys the conditions of political competition and requires an active response in terms of democratic self-defence.

Passiveness; looking the other way: the institutions governed by nationalists display an infuriating passiveness towards the criminal harassment suffered by thousands of Basque citizens who are persecuted because of their ideas, because of which by freely expressing themselves and by defending the legislation in force have been murdered or are threatened, while the Basque Government fails to show its willingness to ensure the rights and freedoms of all Basque citizens in a practical way. Doing away with this passiveness entails publicly acknowledging the legitimacy and dignity of these people and of the political role they play - that is, that the Basque Government once and for all gives priority to its responsibilities as regards public safety and freedoms.

Understanding towards terrorism : ETA's crimes are assessed as something negative, but understandable, due to the social support they have. This understanding attitude towards terrorism generates silence, perversion, embarrassment and complicity, and does not stress the defence of people's essential rights, of the basic principles of collective behaviour, nor the out-and-out defence of the democratic system, which all civilized communities possess. In short, dignity as a person and democratic existence is not put before any other ideology, however much support it may have.

Equidistance : a stance based on an absolute ethical relativism, which places victims and executioners, justice and injustice, life and death, democratically legitimised institutions and political projects which may even be opposed to democracy, etc, on the same level. Equidistance understands that defending victims and defending murderers constitute the expression of different sensibilities which must be equally respected. Between victim and executioner there is no halfway point because there is none in ethics.
Nationalists have settled on the theory of equidistance, and say that they are independent both of ETA and state terror by putting them on the same level. And as they think that terrorism does not pitch democratic Basques against totalitarian Basques, but rather is a question of conflict between the Spanish State and ETA, they say that both are responsible and that they then have to negotiate and, as they have the same goals as ETA, in the end will jointly achieve peace and nationalist goals at the same time.
Equidistance expresses the notion that virtue and peace is in the middle of things, at the same distance from ETA as from the PP. Thus, Ibarretxe reiterates that he is neither with ETA nor with the PP, neither with Madrid nor with ETA, putting them on the same level. He has even compared bombs to laws, when he said that "this people are not going to be stopped either by ETA's bombs or by decrees, either by laws or by lies."
From the theory of equidistance, whose main defender is Elkarri, the Manichaeism of dividing Basques between good and bad, between democrats and totalitarians, is criticized, as the proper thing to do is to condemn all expressions of violence and claim collective rights by recognizing them on the level of the individual.
In this way, like citizens such as Aldaya, Delclaux, etc., Euskadi has been kidnapped, its economy, its youth, its women, its unemployed workers and a long etcetera have been kidnapped. The difference lies in the fact that the people might and can go into the street and demonstrate, etc., while neither Aldaya nor Delclaux would be able to do so.
The mindless point about equidistance was expressed by Juan María Ollora when he said that "a peace process entails the sharing of reason among the protagonists of the conflict" or, in other words, admitting that both the murderer and the victim are equally right, which makes no difference any more to the victim.
Equidistance goes to the extreme of comparing innocent victims with executioners, although not all deaths are the same - this is where equidistance is broken because "he was one of us" (Korta, Uribe, etc. were businessmen or ertzainas, and also nationalists, although they were murdered for being the former).
Equidistance is used to not face up to those who sustain the cultural networks and clientele of terrorism, and their effects are evidenced in the destruction of the social fabric of democratic civic-mindedness.

Everything is worth the same : according to this line of thought, leaving murder and justification for it to one side, everything is worth the same, and so the intolerable becomes honourable.
Thus, all parties have the right to maintain and defend their proposals, and that any political option is legitimately defendable like any other, even if this should happen to be against citizens, such as the defending of privileges, supremacies (Basques and Germans in Majorca, etc.) against individual rights and freedoms, etc. In this way, it is a question of, among other things, putting terrorist violence on the same level as that exerted by the rule of law for the defence of individual freedoms and rights.

Equality of conditions for all political projects: this is a very widespread idea; notwithstanding, dictatorial, totalitarian, xenophobic and genocidal projects, etc. cannot have the same conditions as democratic projects.. On the contrary, they must be combated with strength, as democracy cannot provide the facilities for it to be destroyed. In defending this approach, Basque citizens are being asked to consider totalitarian and anti-democratic political projects of the type advocated by ethnic nationalism as being acceptable.

All political approaches are legitimate: only if we put ourselves on an abstract level is this idea correct. However, democratically-speaking, political approaches which specifically combat and make democracy impossible cannot be legitimate, because political approaches are legitimised as they defend democratic principles and values, given that there exists no democratic legitimisation deriving from history, origin, nature, will, etc.

Nobody is surplus to requirements here : Elkarri explain that "in this land there is no councillor who is surplus to requirements, no sensibility which is surplus to requirements and no political force which is surplus to requirements. If this is not clear, the appeal for pluralism is pure rhetoric." However, in a democratic society, those who are intolerant, the totalitarians, those guilty of acts of genocide, etc. are surplus to requirements, and there cannot be room for totalitarian political forces which cover up for or help murderers. Democratic society must make an effort to combat those with murderous sensibilities and make them relinquish their approaches and integrate them into the system, using the procedures and laws designed for such purpose.
Defending pluralism does not mean accepting those who wish to do away with it, because then what is being done is doing away with pluralism in the name of pluralism itself, which is a contradiction in terms. Or put in a better way, pluralism is used in such a broad sense of the word that the enemies of pluralism are being legitimised so that they may do away with it.

All ideas are legitimate: this is a very widespread stance in Euskadi, among others put forward by the Lehendakari Ibarretxe, according to which the ideas of a totalitarian, genocidal, unfair, exclusivist and oppressive Euskadi of half of the population, limiter of the rights of part of its inhabitants, etc., are as legitimate as the democratic, fair and integrating ideas respectful of the rights of its citizens, etc. This stance goes to the extremes of understanding threat as freedom of expression and not as a crime.
All people must be respected, but not all ideas. All people are respectable and thus must not be threatened, persecuted, killed, etc., but not all ideas are respectable, given that it is a democratic duty to combat racism and totalitarianism, etc.
Ideas do not constitute an offence in themselves, but some help to commit an offence and justify crime, while others contribute towards civil peace.

There does not have to be any loser: this is an idea put forward so that terrorism does not lose; however, ETA and its totalitarianism must lose, must be defeated and democracy must win, democratic coexistence must win, it must become strengthened.

Providing oxygen : this is the accusation made by constitutionalists to nationalists who, at times when the terrorist operating capacity is able to be put in a precarious situation due to police activity, lend them a hand, so that they can reorganize themselves, as occurred following the arrest of the ETA leadership in Bidart (1992) and following the 1998 uprising resulting from the murder of Miguel Angel Blanco, and in the last three months following the precautionary banning of Batasuna. Some social organizations and in particular Basque public television are the ones in charge of carrying out this work.

That the enemy should not benefit : when politics is considered in terms of not accepting pluralism, the adversary and the dissenter become the enemy embodying all evils which serve to hide the most anti-democratic desires. Thus, in Euskadi, firstly certain people define the irreconcilable enemy (made up of those who defend democracy), then later others act violently against this enemy, and finally some others criticize the violent action because it benefits the enemy, in a attempt to conceal the reality - that violence favours anti-democratic nationalism. For instance, it has been frequently said that kale borroka (street violence) is not good because it benefits and strengthens the resolve of Mayor Oreja, that the Spanish national team loses in order not to benefit Aznar's victory, that the murder of PP and PSE councillors benefits these parties and does not benefit Euskal Herria, that ETA violence politically benefits the PP due to the partisan use of Spanishness in the activity of the MNLV, etc.
Among these justifications there exists not a single of reference to human rights, to the defence of democratic values, or to human dignity; responsibilities are turned around and it ends up being the victims who benefit from the terrorism carried out against them.

Monopoly of the use of violence : in democratic societies, the use of violence is reserved, with the limitations of the constitutional protection of individual rights and freedoms, to public institutions, the state in its institutional sense.
One speaks of state violence when it is said in the Estella Agreement, signed by the PNV, EA, IU and EH (the latter formerly known as Herri Batasuna and now Batasuna), that "the resolutive stage of the conflict shall be tackled under conditions of permanent absence of all expressions of violence in the conflict." The Ertzantza is also a police force repository of that legal monopoly of the use of state violence. The signing in Estella means asking for the relinquishment of this monopoly, which does not seem very appropriate in a democratic society in which it is precisely only this that can be used to defend it from attacks on democratic coexistence - that is to say, to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens.
Yet also, there exists in Basque nationalism the tendency to constantly put the legitimate, assessed violence which must be exerted by the state on the same level as the murderous violence committed by ETA. Thus, the absence of all expressions of violence is referred to, as is the cessation of all expressions of violence or even that ETA violence is a response to state violence.
For democratic citizens, it is the public authorities which should guarantee their rights, but this fact has given them the monopoly under conditions of the use of force. Order among citizens is demanded because a way of coexisting has become accepted which makes individuals back-ups to democracy. Order which is no other than the "law and order"; said order limits everyone, but our institutions are not duly fulfilling their duties to strengthen law and order. Recently, demonstrations by citizens against the weaknesses shown in the defence of democracy have been taking place.

Functioning of terrorism : in order for terrorism to function, it is necessary for many elements which are coordinated with each other to function. They have to recruit and find people who are willing to fulfil their objectives, which is why it is necessary to see how such recruitment takes place and how people are found with the will to fulfil the objectives which their superiors outline, these objectives being that of murdering neighbours who are considered enemies.
Establishing different levels of collaboration, functioning like a socio-political movement which provides the scope needed to bring about impunity and ideological cohesion. Seeking the financing required by means of voluntary contributions and through blackmail
Carrying out terrorist acts such as murders, bombs, threats, coercion and havoc which have great impact in the media.
Seeking impunity and the possibility of establishing diverse fronts requires a certain passiveness or institutional connivance, and exploitation of the benefits of the democratic system.

Moral conscience : moral conscience, together with positive law, truly regulates human behaviour by preventing transgression from the standards of coexistence. With the transgression of said standards, there comes a feeling of guilt or shame about what has happened. Guilt or shame implies recognition of having done something wrong and the desire to overcome this, or it is often decided not to do it again by avoiding the situations that generate it, or there is a move to repair the damage.
It is important to see where and how the distortion of moral conscience occurs in order for guilt, remorse and embarrassment not to take over, given that different explanations of this moral phenomenon are used in Basque politics.
According to some, ETA murderers undergo "a process involving their own dehumanisation in order for them to put their life at the service of a cause they consider greater." That is to say, that there exists an over-assessment of the ideas that are accepted as just and greater causes (the rights of Euskal Herria).
Notwithstanding, others consider that this cause fails to explain this phenomenon because by putting oneself at the service of a greater cause involves becoming human and being full of a sense of life and one's own existence and that of others.
Other explanations follow the notion that limitations to the moral autonomy of the individual imposed by moral standards and the social coercion of the group, of "our" group, make the individual stop respecting him or herself and therefore also stop respecting those outside the group.
Thus, the attribution of the evils possessed by enemies outside the group (the others, Spain), the emotional ties of the group resulting from both shutting itself off from the outside (the world itself without contrast or ideological contamination), the internal social pressure (group control), and the feeling of impunity due to the lack of recrimination, make the pain of others undervalued. It is even understood as being not only a necessary evil (an expression of conflict) but also even as liberation (one enemy less), which makes it insensitive to social rejection which fails to morally condemn it, because such condemnation is not situated in the context of human dignity (it is insisted that the violence does not benefit Euskal Herria, etc.).

Hatred to kill : the question must be asked as to where such a hatred comes from that is capable of wiping out the customary inhibitions we have as regards at least respecting the physical integrity of our neighbours from a large part of the population. A hatred which drives some to kill, many more others to understand and celebrate these crimes, to encourage them, to blame the victims, to turn the murderers into heroes or martyrs and put them forward as patriotic examples to be followed by young people. A hatred which leads to the creation of the foundations of a moral system of misery, decadence and indignity.
It is a hatred which doe not originate from poverty, or from desperate need, or from political tyranny which fails to allow any freedom; it is an ideological, contrived, elaborate, sown and cultivated hatred; a hatred which is not at all a chance one
It is a hatred which starts in the very heart of many families, when the parents demonstrate to protest against the trials of young people accused of unrest, arson and aggression, against the police who arrest them, against the judges who try them and against the journalists who report what has happened. And it continues in education, condescending at least with the manipulation of history, the distortion of geography, etc,. and in the role played by the most of the Basque church.
To overcome the strategy of hatred, many Basque citizens have carried out and doubtless will continue to carry out acts of courage, of ideological coherence, of commitment and honesty - that is, pointing out the truth, calling things by their real name.