Nationalism and Democracy. Manuel Irujo Ollo: The Leadership of a Heterodox Basque Nationalist LUDGER MEES UPV/EHU, University of the Basque Country l Abstract Manuel Irujo Ollo was one of the most prominent leaders of moderate Basque nationalism. Irujo, who was born in 1891 and died in 1981 at the age of 89, had a Basque, Spanish, and European dimension to his political career, which was perhaps the most enduring and intensive of any leader to emerge during the entire history of this socio-political movement. Yet Irujo’s political life remains largely quite unknown: no comprehensive academic biography has been written on his political work. Obviously, this article does not pretend to fill this void. Instead, it aims to cast a light on the nationalist leader’s political life from the twofold perspective of his individual political activity and the lessons that can be learned for a broader understanding of Basque nationalism in particular and of the relationship between nationalism and democracy in general. Resumen Manuel Irujo Ollo fue uno de los más significativos líderes del nacionalismo vasco moderado. En la historia de este movimiento socio-político probablemente no existe otro líder con una trayectoria política tan duradera e intensa con una dimensión vasca, española y europea como la de Irujo, quien nació en 1891 y murió en 1981 a la edad de 89. Pese a ello, hoy día la vida política de Irujo sigue siendo en buena parte desconocida, puesto que hasta la fecha no existe una biografía completa escrita con rigor científico. Obviamente, este artículo no pretende subsanar este déficit, pero sí aspira a arrojar luz sobre la biografía política del líder nacionalista desde una doble perspectiva: no sólo se analizará su actividad política individual, sino que también se preguntará sobre las conclusiones que se pueden extraer de este análisis para la historia del nacionalismo vasco y, más en general, sobre la relación entre naciona- lismo y democracia. BHS 93.10 (2016) doi:10.3828/bhs.2016.67 1066 Ludger Mees bhs, 93 (2016) El suaviter in modo fortiter in re debe ser compañero de nuestras actividades […]. Guardemos nuestro puesto; creemos cada día; seamos tolerantes con las ideas de los demás, aunque ellos no lo sean con nosotros. Algún día nos encontraremos con el fruto sazonado de nuestra conducta. Manuel Irujo Ollo (1953) I The idea of the nation has probably been the most powerful agent of popular mobilization during the last two centuries.1 With the possible exception of religion, there is no other idea in history whose defence has provoked more deaths than that of the nation or the fatherland. In all crucial historical situa- tions it has proved to be more powerful than its most serious rival: the idea of class solidarity across national boundaries. One of the most fatal examples of this domination has been very recently highlighted once again by historians who attempted to recover the memory of World War I, a hundred years after its outbreak.2 In 1914, all European socialist parties, with very few individual exceptions, succumbed to nationalist euphoria, decided to back their govern- ments’ military strategies and completely abandoned the discourse of interna- tional class solidarity. The collapse of the Second International, the supranational organization of socialist and labour parties, was the logical consequence of the nationalist tsunami that devastated Europe between 1914 and 1918. Still, the idea of the nation not only nourished imperialist and, later, fascist discourses and policies but it would also appear on the opposite side of imperi- alism when acting as an ally of liberalism and democracy. More than this: the idea of the nation was born as a powerful weapon in the struggle against the absolutist elites of the ancien régime, because it rejected the traditional legiti- mation of power by heritage and divine mandate while demanding the establish- ment of a new political system according to the principle of national sovereignty, constitutional rights and parliamentary pluralism. Thus, historically nation- alism served for both the consolidation and the dismantling of democracy. This contradictory and Janus-faced reality of nationalism can be found in the history of nearly all nationalist movements. The history of Basque nationalism is no exception. It was born at the end of the nineteenth century as a petit- bourgeois radical protest movement for Basque self-determination and based on an ethnicist and racial concept of nation, which excluded all non-native immigrant workers from the Basque nation.3 Being initially anti-liberal and partly xenophobic, over time Basque nationalism evolved, abandoned its most controversial and radical characteristics and became a democratic movement 1 This article is a result of a broader research project carried out thanks to the support provided by the University of the Basque Country (GIU 14/30), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (HAR2015-64920-P) and the European Regional Develop- ment Fund. 2 See MacMillan 2013; Clark 2013; McMeekin 2013; Münckler 2013. 3 See Larronde 1977; Corcuera 2001; Elorza 2001; Pablo, Mees and Rodríguez Ranz 1999. bhs, 93 (2016) Nationalism and Democracy 1067 with an active participation in the struggle for the democratization of the corrupt political system of the Restoration Monarchy. Although it might seem a contradiction, it can be concluded that Basque nationalism, together with the other great new political movement of the end of the nineteenth century, Spanish socialism, was one of the most important democratic ‘modernizers’ in Spanish politics in so far as it helped to overcome the traditional understanding of politics as a realm of a small power elite and substitute this concept with the more democratic idea of politics as a concern of common people. As a consequence of this evolution, in 1936 the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV), decided to join the Spanish democrats in their fight against the (Spanish nationalist) rightist generals and their putsch against the Second Republic (Pablo, Mees and Rodríguez Ranz 2001; Granja 2007). After the collapse of the Republic and the establishment of the Francoist dictatorship, the Basque government in exile continued this fight for democracy in a new context. So did, at least initially, the radical nationalist underground organization ETA, which was founded in 1959 with the goal of overthrowing the Francoist regime and establishing Basque independence. Yet the organization’s evolution towards Marxism–Leninism and the armed struggle at the end of the 1960s supposed a radical break with the Basque government’s liberal concept of democracy and freedom. So once again, the history of ETA became another example of the inherent contradictions of the national idea. During the last years of Francoism, the group’s violent blows against the regime and its representatives gener- ated the aura of a courageous fight against the almighty dictatorship and for democracy, which was also, if not applauded, then at least accepted and legiti- mated by many Basque and Spanish non-nationalists. After Franco’s death in 1975, however, when the channels for legal political participation were opened and Basque autonomy restored, ETA ended up as a totalitarian and Mafia-like terrorist group waging a bloody war not against dictatorship, but against the national enemy: the Spanish state. Anybody who dared to oppose ETA’s discourse and military strategy towards national liberation was likely to be considered a collaborator with the enemy in its eyes and, in consequence, become another target to add to the long list of the group’s victims, which include more than 800 assassinated people and destroyed families (Jáuregui 1985; Elorza 2006). This was the end of a long historical cycle. Even though ETA’s idea of the nation never really was liberal, pluralistic and democratic, in the context of dictatorship people perceived it as a nationalist freedom fighter. During the Transition and the first years of democracy, which was the bloodiest period in ETA’s history, the underground group still benefited from this accumulated political capital and its image as a selfless rebel against the dictatorship and for Basque freedom. At the end, nothing of this political capital remained and the popular perception changed completely. In the eyes of most people it was now looked upon as a radical terrorist group that handled the idea of the nation not to fight for freedom but to undermine democracy and establish a new dictatorship based on violence and exclusion. 1068 Ludger Mees bhs, 93 (2016) This complexity of nationalism, with its inherent contradictions, is one of the reasons that has complicated – and continues to complicate – the schol- arly analysis of the phenomenon. This difficulty is also due to the fact that nationalism is far more than a historical fact. It is also a current political and social reality that continues generating news, passion and polemics. During the last few decades, historians have tried different methodological approaches to resolve this problem of complexity and the influence of passion when tackling the analysis of nationalism. One of those approaches, and the one chosen for this article, is the biographical one. The long political biography of the Basque nationalist leader Manuel Irujo Ollo forms an appropriate analytical field for the investigation of Basque nationalism, its relationship with democracy and its internal contradictions. Yet the biographical approach itself is not unques- tioned and presents several problems and risks that should be spelled out before continuing with a more detailed analysis of Manuel Irujo’s political biography. II First of all, it is no exaggeration to state that when a historian is asked to write or talk about an important historical personality and to analyse his or her political biography, that historian should be glad because, as is well known, the biographical approach has become the methodology with the most popular impact in the area of historiography (Burdiel 2000; Caine 2010; Rotberg 2010).