Session 12: Spanish Nationalism

► Catalan Nationalism in Comparative

Perspective

► IESBarcelona
► FALL 2007 PROGRAM

► Instructor: Andrew Davis

► e-mail: ad374@iesbarcelona.org
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 Spanish Nationalism
► Today we will explore Spanish
nationalism, particularly as it relates to
the peripheral nationalisms of
Catalonia and the Basque Country,
both historically and at present.

2
 Spanish Nationalism
► First and foremost – does it exist?

► In fact, historically it has been debated

as to whether or not Spanish
nationalism exists.
► Compared with the massive amount
written on Catalan and Basque
Nationalism, comparatively little exists
on Spanish nationalism – why do you 3

think that is?

 Spanish Nationalism
► It does indeed exist.

► Any construction of a ‘national’

identity is nationalism. In everyday
parlance, it can get confusing,
however, because the state tends to
give certain ‘types’ of nationalism
legitimacy.
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 Spanish Nationalism
► Spanish nationalism has gone through
many changes and developments
since the 19th century.

► There are many ways to distinguish

the ‘types’ of nationalism which have
emerged, but we will focus on two:
 The difference between civic and ethnic
 It’s position on
centralization/decentralization
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 Spanish Nationalism –
Ethnic or Civic?
► Meinecke defined ‘cultural nations’
based on ‘some jointly experienced
cultural heritage’.

► He defined ‘political nations’ as based

on a ‘unifying force of a common
political history and constitution’.

► Which is ethnic and which is civic? 6

Ethnic and Civic Nationalism
► Civic nationalism - considers the
nation as a community of destiny
defined by a common body of law,
which applies to all citizens and is in
turn the origin of all legislation.
► Ethnic nationalism – nations can be
created out of pre-existing ethnies. It
emphasizes the distinctive racial,
linguistic, religious or cultural factors
of the original ethnie and aims to
return to its ‘Golden Age’. 7
 Ethnie
► Ethnie - a named human population
with myths of common ancestry,
shared historical memories, one or
more elements of common culture, a
link with a homeland, and a sense of
solidarity among at least some of its
members'

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Is any nationalism 100% ethnic
or civic?
► Tobe clear – we often use typologies
to describe nationalisms:
 Catalan nationalism is ‘civic’
 Basque nationalism is ‘ethnic’

► While they can be generally true, or at

least carry more traits of one than the
other, they often carry characteristics
of both.
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 Nationalism rooted in War of
Independence
► Monuments to celebrate the defeat of
the French
► May 2nd becomes a national holiday.

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 Liberal Spanish Nationalism

► Takes its roots in the 1812

Constitution, the revolution was to
defend liberal values.
► Church and clergy disease; education
and science the cure
► Redemptive ideal: freedom,
democracy
► Broadly civic discourse 11
 Regenerationists
► The Spanish regenerationists arise at
the turn of the century parallel to the
peripheral nationalisms.
► Rather than creating autonomy and
decentralization to save Spain, they
sought to a ‘regeneration’ of Spain.
► What did they advocate?

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 Regenerationists
► 1. Nation as an organic whole that had
evolved into a national character.
► 2. Highlights Castile as central to the
historical formation of the nation in the
Middle Ages and Castilian as the national
language
► 3. Criticizes the corrupt and inefficient
restoration monarchy system
► 4. Criticizes peripheral nationalism as
artificial, bourgeois and backward looking.
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 Regenerationism as
Nationalism
► Itwas a nationalism which sought to
modernize Spain via industrialization, social
reform and democratization.
► But while they attempted to criticize both
the restoration monarchy and peripheral
nationalism, their criticism of peripheral
nationalism helped (however inadvertently)
both liberals AND conservatives could use
their arguments to support their versions of
Spanish nationalism.
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 Two versions of liberal Spanish
nationalism

► 1)
Moderate liberal Spanish
nationalism defended a uniform
centralize state as the best way to
cement the liberal order, while
maintaining an ethnic identification
between Catholicism and Spanish
national identity.

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 Two versions of liberalism
version of Spanish nationalism

► 2) Progressive liberal Spanish

Nationalism created a more civic
alternative, and came from
progressive liberals and republicans.
► They celebrated a decentralization
state, historical fueros, protecting
liberal freedoms.
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 Two versions of liberalism
version of Spanish nationalism
► Progressives attempted to solve the
national ‘problem’ in the 1st and 2nd
Republic via decentralization.
► Attempted to integrate, rather than
excluse, the different nations through
institutional reform.
► Moderate progressives believe in
strong democracy and liberalism, but
via a centralized state which
guaranteed individual freedoms.
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 Conservative Spanish
Nationalism
► Two versions of Conservative Spanish
Nationalism:
► 1) Conservative Traditionalist
► 2) Historicist-Romanticist

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 Conservative Traditionalist
► Nation that the Visigoths started and
Catholic Kings consolidated.
Celebrated Counter-reformation and
anti-Islamic wars.
► War of independence celebrated
expelling the ‘alien invader’, an ethnic
approach
► Considered liberalism ‘anti-Spanish’
► Redemptive ideal – community
politically and religiously united, 19

strong Crown and Catholic Church.

 Conservative Spanish
Nationalism transition
► Aswith liberal Spanish nationalism, a
break will develop over
decentralization.

► The ‘original’ conservative

traditionalist nationalist supports a
decentralized Spain based on
medieval privileges, defense of fueros
and close ties to Vatican (linked to
Carlism).
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 Historicist-Romanticist
Conservative Nationalism
► Later, 1) Conservative Traditionalist
version of Conservative Nationalism
has to compete with 2) Historicist-
Romanticist Conservative Nationalism
► Spanish nation as biological organism
with its own ‘national character’.
► Support a strongly unitarian,
centralized state, and were against the
fueros. Wanted to unify state, nation,
culture and language.
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 Historicist-Romanticist
Nationalism grows
► In contrast to regenerationists and
Conservative Traditionalists,
Historicist-Romanticists saw a new
authoritarian, anti-liberal, Catholic,
and centralist Spanish nationalism as
the key to Spanish regeneration.
► Professional army officers very
involved, also the monarchy and
radical sectors of Conservative
thinking.
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 Historicist-Romanticist
Nationalism
► Itwas this group that dominates 20th
century, from Primo to Franco.
► Postulated a monarchist ultra-Catholic
idea of the nation, in which religion,
the Castilian language, and the
common imperial past represented the
essence of the Spanish people.
► Remember the context - fascism

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 Franco adopts Historicist-
Romanticist Nationalism
► History of the Civil War explained as a
‘crusade’, elaborated the image of the
anti-Spain, a mythological figure which
incorporated liberals, republicans,
leftists and peripheral nationalists –
the ‘cancer’ of the nation.
► Disease had to be cured through
‘purifying violence’

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 Contemporary Spanish
Nationalism
► One way of measuring contemporary
Spanish nationalism is via parties’
positions on decentralization
► During the transition, most parties
support it, although the ‘bunker’ and
parts of the army (remember the coup
attempt in 1981) did not.

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 Contemporary Spanish
Nationalism
► Socialistsrediscovered the
‘regionerationalists’. They supported
federalism but continuously spoke
about solidarity.
► The Conservatives put away their
more radical interpretations, also
taking their cue from
regenerationalists, and but still defined
Spain as the only nation in the Spanish
state.
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 Spanish Nationalism as Civic
Nationalism

► Spanish nationalism exists on both left

AND right in Spain.
► There have been attempts on the left
and the right to defend Spanish
nationalism from a more acceptable
‘perspective’.
► Most recently, politicians have
borrowed a phrase from philospher
Jürgen Habermas’ ‘constitutional 27

patriotism’.
 Constitutional Patriotism
► The problem was the stigma of
Germany’s relationship to Nazism, and
the question was, in essence – how
could Germany as a nation celebrate
its history with the stain of Nazism so
prominent in its recent past? The
answer, according to Habermas, was
that it couldn’t. Instead, he develops
the idea to shift popular allegiance
from traditions and history to 28
 Constitutional Patriotism
► Constitutional Patriotism defends the
idea of citizenship-based universal
civic principles rather than a shared
culture.

► ForHabermas, it was the notion of a

political culture and a ‘political identity
based on a commitment to democratic
procedures and principles’ which were
to be celebrated in Germany
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 Constitutional Patriotism?
► Has Constitutional Patriotism replaced
Spanish nationalism in Spain?
► The short answer, is no.

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 Contemporary Conservative
Spanish nationalism
► Forexample, the leader of the PPC in
the early 1990s, Aleix Vidal Quadras,
fought continuously with the Catalan
executive over Catalan language
policy, and was eventually removed by
the PP as leader of the Catalan branch
in 1996 for his overly aggressive
stance towards Catalan language and
cultural policy.
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 Conservative Spanish
nationalism
► InSeptember 2000, as PP member of
the European parliament, he made an
attempt to have the European
Parliament formally denounce the
Generalitat’s linguistic policies, which
was rejected as too general and
political by the EP.

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 Conservative Spanish
nationalism
► His complaints about the repression of
the Spanish language in Catalonia
does not stand up against actual
public concerns in Catalonia.
► A study done in 2003 placed ‘linguistic
problems’ as the 12th most important
problem concerning Catalans,
mentioned by only 3.6 per cent of
those interviewed.
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 Conservative Spanish
nationalism
► Four of the five parties (minus the
PPC) in Catalonia also supported the
return of the Generalitat’s historical
papers from the 2nd Republic era, now
resident the Spanish National Archives
in Salamanca.
► The archives were removed from the
Catalan government records (and from
Catalonia) after the end of the Spanish
Civil War by Francoist forces.
34
 Conservative Spanish
nationalism
►A commission was established by Pilar del
Castillo, PP Minister of Culture and
Education, to look into the matter. In July
2002, the Patronato del Archivo announced
that the return of the Generalitat’s
documentation was ‘incompatible with the
unity of the archive’, and the records
remained in Salamanca.
► While the incoming Socialist central
government supported their return, it has
backtracked recently and the issue is still 35

being fought over.

 Conservative Spanish
nationalism
► InSeptember 2000, parliament
approved changes to the Spanish
license plate. While they had
traditionally marked the provincial
registry of the car, (B for Barcelona or
M for Madrid, for example) the new
plates would no longer carry these,
marking only the blue and yellow EU
emblem with an ‘E’ for España or
Spain. 36
37
 Conservative Spanish
nationalism
► InOctober 2002, in a symbolic gesture, the
Defense Minister, Federico Trillo, the Mayor
of Madrid, and three of the four top military
officers in Spain unveiled a 294 square
meter Spanish flag in the plaza de Colón,
meant as an homage to Spain and the
national flag – a move which sparked
controversy in the periphery as it carried
with it reminders to some of the military’s
intimate role in Spain’s past, and resurrects
the controversial historical weight of a
‘Castile-centered’ Spain.
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39
 Conservative Spanish
nationalism
► Lastly,
in 2003, at the Cervantes
awards, King Juan Carlos made a
speech which claimed that Spanish
had never been an ‘imposed’ language
on anyone (either in Europe or
elsewhere). The King’s speeches are
created and approved by the Ministry
of Culture. The statement prompted
an apology later by the King to Jordi
Pujol. 40
 Shades of the Past?
► On January 7, 2006 - Lieutenant-General
Jose Mena Aguado, the commander of
Spain’s 50,000 ground troops, threatened
military intervention should the Socialist
Party (PSOE) government pass a statute
giving the Catalan autonomous government
status as a “nation,” together with control
over the region’s taxes and the judicial
system. Mena denounced the Catalan
Statute as a threat to Spain’s territorial
integrity. 41
 Liberal Spanish Nationalism
► Thereare 2 strands within the Socialist
party at the moment, and they fit
neatly into the 2 versions of liberal
Spanish nationalism.

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 Modern version of progressive
liberal Spanish nationalism
► The first camp, which believes in
decentralization and ‘respect’ for a multi-
national Spain, is headed by Prime Minister
Zapatero
► This group has been behind renegotiating
the statutes of autonomy to EXTEND
autonomy to the regions. They are more
comfortable referring to Spain as
‘multinational’.
► They are linked to what we referred to in the
historical section as the progressive liberal
Spanish nationalist stance. 43
 Modern version of
moderate liberal Spanish
Nationalism
► The other is headed by groups from the
‘heartland’, most symbolically by Jose Bono
(former Defense minister and former
President of Castilla-La Mancha) and Juan
Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, President of
Extremadura (western Spain).
► Ibarra, has told the relatively wealthy
Catalans to "shove the cash wherever it fits"
if they think their taxes are unfairly funding
his poorer region on the western side of
Spain.
► Jose Bono resigned as Defense Minister in
April over his disagreement about creating a
new Catalan Statute. 44
 Modern version of
moderate liberal Spanish
Nationalism
► The roots of this modern strand are
attached to former Prime Minister Felipe
Gonzalez (1982-1996).
► While a major player in the transition, and a
strong supporter of the ‘estado de las
autonomias’, he nevertheless was firm in his
conviction that solidarity needed to be
maintained, and halted decentralization
short of full federalism.
► They are much more ‘traditional’ socialists,
in the sense that they believe in solidarity
and equality between all people in the state,
rather than equality between groups.
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