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- guardian.co.uk, Sunday September 1 2002 11.38 BST
That is how the propagandists for republican and loyalist terror groups like to portray themselves in relation to their friends overseas - anti-imperialist radicals united in revolutionary struggle or the pro-Western frontiersmen standing alone while surrounded by a sea of native enemies. In Belfast's war of the flags the paramilitaries' crude, reductionist vision of themselves vis-à-vis other conflicts around the world leaves no room for complexity or contradiction. Never mind for instance that the overwhelming majority of people living in the Basque country oppose Eta terrorism; or that at least 50 per cent of the Israeli electorate, the secular urban Left, loath the fundamentalism of the West Bank settlers. What really counts here is the kitsch association, often with peoples much more embattled than your own.
We have come to expect this from terror's apologists; after all they both believe that it is they who are the Most Oppressed People Ever. More depressing, however, is the fact that sections of the media have succumbed to this reductionism as well.
Last week the Spanish conservative government supported by the socialists began the process of outlawing Batasuna, the political arm of Eta. Almost instantly local commentators rushed to draw parallels with the Irish peace process. They contrasted the ban on Batasuna with the way Sinn Fein and the IRA were brought in from the cold during the early 1990s. These scribes pointed out that the strategy of drawing the republican movement into the democratic fold and smothering its constituency with kindness delivered an enduring, albeit imperfect, cease-fire. Instead of bans and security crackdowns, the Madrid government should take note of the Irish example and open negotiations with Eta and its allies, the peace processors concluded.
At first sight the parallels are tempting, especially given the close ties between the IRA and Eta and their respective political wings. Repression and censorship failed to defeat the republican movement, the peace processors reminded us, ergo repression and censorship will not wipe out Eta. To a certain extent this is correct: a dedicated band of militants, let alone a movement that commands 10 per cent of the vote, can continue the struggle indefinitely even in the face of repressive measures.
This analysis, however, confuses, or perhaps more accurately decouples the military and the political. The reality is that the political project embarked upon by the Provisional IRA - the violent overthrow of the two states of Ireland - has been defeated, through a combination of grinding the armed struggle down militarily and the blunting of the revolutionary cutting edge of that struggle with constitutional kindness.
Sinn Fein became a willing partner in this process as its ideology became diluted and the army became sub-ordinate to the demands of the party. The critical difference between Ireland and Euskadi is that Sinn Fein eagerly embraced the chance to escape from the cul-de-sac of armed struggle even though they were and still are far away from the 32-county Republic. The present Eta/Batasuna movement on the other hand (so far) have spurned the opportunity to abandon terror. It is also worth remembering that Eta has been through more schisms and splits than the IRA since the 1960s. There have been at least five serious ruptures in the organisation, resulting each time as John Hooper points out in his book The New Spaniards with 'the more violent, less intellectual group surviving intact'. Contrast, therefore, the present unbending ideologues of Eta with the mature pragmatists running Sinn Fein and the IRA.
What the current controversy in the Basque country really teaches us is to be wary of comparative peace process studies. Even the leader of the moderate Basque nationalist party the PNV (which opposes the Batasuna ban) warned last week in the Euskadi regional parliament about the dangers of drawing parallels between their conflict and that of Northern Ireland. Those who make broad-brush parallels between Euskadi and the North think they are demonstrating their erudition. In fact, by making such absurdly generalised comparisons they are merely exposing the poverty of their thinking not only on the Basque country but also on the real reasons behind the Irish peace process.
