Basque solidarity group refused use of alternative space in Dublin

Basque solidarity group refused use of Seomra Spraoi. Dublin Basque Solidarity Committee accuses Seomra of allying itself with repression

Seomra Spraoi collective took the decision on political grounds to refuse Basque solidarity group the use of their space for a Basque festival. Dublin Basque Solidarity Committee accuses Seomra of breaking a previous undertaking to allow them a right to reply to objections raised against them and states that they are aligning themselves with the oppressors of the Basque people.

The following is the text of the letter or protest about their decision sent to Seomra Spraoi by the DIBSC. No reply has been received in the month since this was sent.

To: Seomra Spraoi Collective Irish Basque Solidarity Committees (Dublin)

10ú Meitheamh (June) 2009.

Dear Seomra Spraoi Collective,

We acknowledge receipt of your letter setting out the reasons why the Collective was unable to reach consensus on our application and therefore rejected it. Of course the method by which you reach decisions is your choice but we would point out that a very small minority can frustrate the wishes of many people if a consensus is to be achieved in all circumstances; indeed it can lead to an injustice being carried out or condoned by the organisation.

We have now discussed your reply to our application to stage a Basque festival at Seomra Spraoi and feel that we have been treated very badly by the Collective, that it has reached its decision in a profoundly unjust way and that the final decision was also profoundly unjust.

According to your letter, one of the reasons for the refusal was that we support self-determination for the Basque Country and that some of your membership do not support this. We feel that this is a fundamentally wrong position and fails to recognise the popular and democratic desire of the Basque people and the repression and torture with which their struggle is met.

You also stated that some of your members are opposed to the actions of an armed Basque group, ETA, and that was also a factor. We feel this is fundamentally unfair and not least because we have no connection whatsoever to this group.

We also feel that we were given no opportunity to reply to these objections before the final decision was taken, which was fundamentally unfair, despite assurances that we were given a number of times at our initial meeting with some of your members.

You state that while some of the membership feel that national liberation can be an exercise in self-determination which they would support, others do not. We would reply that this is an issue of fundamental importance and one upon which no progressive organisation can equivocate. We live in an era of imperialism and also during which some nations built states at the expense of others, suppressing the rights to self-determination of a number of other nations in the process. It is the duty of progressives to give solidarity to those struggles except in cases where they are led with the intention of attacking ethnic minorities or the workers, etc.

The French and Spanish states were built by their capitalist classes at the expense of the rights to self-determination of a number of other nations and, in fact, both of those states participated in suppressing the rights of the Basques and continue to do so to this day. The resistance to this takes many diverse forms such as in the areas of promotion of the right to national self-determination, native language, international solidarity and anti-imperialism, civil and political rights, sexual freedom; struggles against racism, fascism, exploitation of workers and especially of youth, violence against women, state suppression, state violence, torture, imprisonment, abuse of the environment, unemployment, bullfighting.

Forms of struggle are also very diverse: demonstrations, pickets, sponsored runs and walks, festivals, street battles, taking over of empty buildings for use as youth centres, strikes, prison protests, street posters, leaflets, newspapers, pirate radio stations, banners, graffiti, films, videos, songs, poetry, music, plays, ceremonies, visual art, schools and classes, sport, DVDs, pins and badges, and armed struggle (more about this particular one later). Many organisations, including many people of a variety of political opinions but united under the desire for Basque self-determination, organise these activities. The movement has a strong social base, particularly among the youth and, when they have been permitted to stand, an electoral showing of between 10% and 20% at different times.

Had we been given permission to hold our event, it was our intention to show examples of much of the above, as well of course as much of the ethnic cultural expression of the Basques, for the instruction and enjoyment of your members and of visitors to the event. We were deprived of the opportunity to do so and your members and users were deprived of an opportunity to witness them and to engage in discussion with us.

The Basque people are facing repression to a degree unprecedented since the days of Franco's rule. Six political organisations have been banned in recent years. In the same period hundreds of activists in political, cultural or social areas have been arrested and tried under unjust laws, many of them having first been tortured. The Basque anti-torture organisation TAT (itself temporarily closed down by the state for a period) presented the testimonies of over 60 separate victims in its report for 2008 and every year Amnesty International condemns the Spanish state for torture. During the same period also a newspaper and a radio station were closed down by the Spanish state while the activities of many cultural, political and social organisations have been severely disrupted. 765 convicted political Basque prisoners are serving long sentences dispersed over the territories of the French and Spanish states, far away from their families in the Basque country. Many more activists are awaiting trial and many of those are remanded in custody. Your decision means that Seomra will not be any part of offering solidarity to those people on any of the afore-mentioned fronts of struggle .

Some of your members apparently objected to the armed actions (or some of them) of ETA. Why that should have been held against us is a puzzle to us, since our committee has nothing to do with that organisation and does not have a position on its activities. It was totally unjust of your members to infer a relationship between our Committees and ETA and to use that inference in order to refuse us permission to use your premises. In fact, those who did so used exactly the same rationale as that used by the Spanish state to ban many kinds of Basque organisations without a shred of proof for their accusations. It is a matter of deep regret to us that the Seomra collective facilitated such unjust speculation and allowed it to play a part in the decisions of the collective.

We would further comment that should solidarity organisations be barred because some Seomra members disagree with the armed actions taken by some supporters of resistance movements, Seomra could not have allowed entry to organisations in solidarity with the struggles against South African apartheid, nor against colonialism and imperialism in Latin America, North Africa, Africa in general, Asia and Indochina, Israeli Zionism, nor in solidarity with movements of resistance to the US internally, such as for example those of the Black Panthers or of Native Americans.

Seomra had seemed to us to have very similar intentions to those who manage the occupied buildings of the Basque Country and of many others in Germany, Italy, Holland etc. But Seomra has diverged significantly from the solidarity ethos of those liberated spaces, most of which would not refuse access to a group such as ours and many of which would actively support the Basque resistance. Indeed, in this instance, Seomra has aligned itself with the oppressors of the Basque people, the French and Spanish states, rather than with progressive radical and democratic opinion.

Although our main objection is to the actual decision taken by Seomra in our case, we wish also to relate the process by which Seomra dealt with our application. We applied verbally and were informed that the request would be taken to a meeting of the Collective in a fortnight's time. That meeting either did not take place or the Collective required a written application. We filled that in and two weeks later we were informed that we had been accepted. Two days before the advertised event, we were told that it was being cancelled due to police repression of Seomra. We sought another date and were informed that now we would be required to make an application where not only the nature of the event but also the type of organisation would come under scrutiny. We attended the meeting of the Collective, answering all questions put to us and were told that our request would be forwarded to another meeting of the Collective. We sought and were given assurances that in the event of objections, we would be given the opportunity to respond to them before any final decisions had been made. Two weeks later the decision was made against us but we were not informed. A week later, after an enquiry of ours, we were informed (on May 1st!) that the decision had gone against us and that it was final, in breach of the previous assurances. It was another three weeks and after some correspondence before we received a letter outlining the nature of the objections.

When we first learned of the existence of Seomra Spraoi we were glad to hear of it, perceiving a similar spirit to that prevalent among many of the Basque youth centre squats. One of our members gave practical assistance on some occasions to the development of the new building and we promoted its existence to a degree within our circles. We are sorry to find that we were mistaken. While some progressive actions may continue now within Seomra there is a cancer eating away at its heart, the cancer of injustice. We have been treated unjustly and not even granted due bourgeois democratic process. We have not been granted the right to face those objecting to us or even to reply to the objections in writing before a decision was taken. The Seomra Spraoi collective should hang its head in shame.

We hope that you will bring this reply to the attention of as many of your members as possible and you have our permission to post it on all internal means of communication and on walls, notice boards etc. of Seomra Spraoi. For our part, we consider that this matter is no longer within the realms of confidential correspondence and we are free to refer to it publicly as we may wish.

Diarmuid Breatnach,
Coordinator,
Dublin Basque Solidarity Campaign.