Spanish nationalism
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Spanish nationalism is the nationalism that asserts that the Spaniards are a nation, and promotes the cultural unity of the Spanish. In a general sense, it comprises political and social movements inspired by a love for Spanish culture, language, history, and a sense of pride in Spain and its people. Spanish nationalists often reject other nationalist movements within Spain, specifically Catalan and Basque nationalism. Other forms of Spanish nationalism have included pan-Iberianism and pan-Hispanism.[3]
Spanish nationalism has its origins in Castilian-based culture.[3] Its development runs parallel to that of the state-building process carried out by the Spanish monarchy, and to the surge in patriotic sentiment in the landlocked territories galvanized by the Reconquista — a period that began in what would eventually become the Kingdom of Castile and ended in the final conquest of Granada in 1492. This explains why the Castilian language became known universally as the Spanish language. Hence, Spanish nationalism is a historical corollary or synecdochal evolution of an expansionist phase in Castilian nationalism[3], much like the process by which early English nationalism came to define all of British nationalism, or by which Latin and Sabine political identity came to successfully assimilate all other ethnicities in the Italian Peninsula, sometimes forcefully, into becoming a single national entity.
In spite of the early Castilian genesis of Spanish nationalism, it must be emphasized that more recent stages of Castilian nationalism are sometimes indifferent or even inimical to Spanish unionism.
History
In many Western European nation-states (Portugal and England), the shaping of an authoritarian monarchy, like those of the late Middle Ages, prompted a parallel secular development of the state and nation. This occurred in Spain under the Spanish Monarchy's successive territorial conformations.[4] Like many nations before it, Spanish national identity and territorial dynamic gave rise to different outcomes. As a result of how the institutions responded to the changing economic and social dynamic, the idea of nationalism did not fully flourish into its contemporary frame until the Old Regime[clarify] had succumbed. At the time, the clearest identification factor that existed throughout this ethnic-religious period in Spain was the form of "Old Christian" status. By the end of this period at the 18th century, the linguistic identification factor had gradually revolved around the Castilian with new institutions such as the Spanish Royal Academy.
Historically, Spanish nationalism specifically emerged with liberalism, during the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon I of France.[5]
Since 1808 we speak of nationalism in Spain: ethnic patriotism became fully national, at least among the elite. This was unmistakably the work of liberals. The modernized elites used the occasion to try to impose a program of social and political changes. Their method was to launch the revolutionary idea of the nation as the holder of sovereignty. This idea of sovereignty is believed to have mobilized the Spanish victoriously against a foreign army and against collaborators of José Bonaparte, regarded as non-Spanish (afrancesados). The Spanish liberals turned their victory on the battlefield to an feverish identity of patriotism and the defense of liberty: as the Asturian deputy Agustín Argüelles when he presented the Constitution of 1812, "Spaniards, you now have a homeland."[6]
Since then, Spanish nationalism has often changed in meaning and its ideological and political proposals; specifically doceañista, esparterista, even briefly iberista (advocating union with Portugal in the dynastic crisis of 1868). The Carlism, which was a defensive movement of the Old Regime, did not regard the adjective "national" with any esteem (national sovereignty, national militia, or national properties) and considered it a term used only by liberals (who were becoming more and more progresistas).
However, what truly shaped Spanish nationalism came in the twentieth century from the frustration of the disaster of 1898, that has been called regenerationism. It assimilated from movements very opposite one another such as the ruling bourbon-family dynasty (Francisco Silvela, Eduardo Dato, Antonio Maura), the republican opposition (that only had a brief stay in power) and even the military influence of the 1917 crisis and dictatorships of Miguel Primo de Rivera and Francisco Franco. Under the movement of panhispanism, which refers to the movement focused on the unity of Hispanic-American nations, whose origins are rooted during the period of Spanish colonization and imperialism, refers in this case to the movement that emerged after the crisis of 1898. Panhispanism was influenced by the regenerationism movement and the Generation of '98, whose authors came from the Spanish periphery and agreed to consider Castile the representation of "Spanish". These philosophers, ideologues and authors, like Ramiro de Maeztu, Ramiro Ledesma and Onésimo Redondo, founders of the JONS, and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of Falange, expressed a generation frustrated with Spanish society and politics at the time. During this period, this form of nationalism incorporated a traditionalist component (with the notable exceptions of the vanguardism of Ernesto Giménez Caballero) that could be traced back to a century old belief of traditional monarchy or Catholic monarchy. It is not lay nor secular, but Roman Catholic, which would define in Francoist Spain the term, National Catholicism.
Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist José Ortega y Gasset defined Spain as an "enthusing project for a life in common (proyecto sugestivo de vida en común). Meanwhile, the Fascist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera preferred the definition of a "unity of destiny in the universal" and defended a return to the traditional and spiritual values of Imperial Spain. The idea of empire makes it universalist rather than localist, this is what makes it singular among other forms of nationalisms, but closer to others (Italian fascism).
Modern
The political transition which occurred in Spain, together with social and economic changes rooted in a detailed sense of modernization, began at the end of Franco's time in power and lasted until the creation of current institutions (Spanish Constitution of 1978 and Statutes of Autonomy). This also produced a strong reversal of the social uses for Spanish symbols of national identification.[7]
Peripheral nationalisms have acquired a significant presence and territorial power, especially in Catalonia (Convergence and Union Republican Left of Catalonia) and the Basque Country (Basque Nationalist Party, as well as among EA and so-called abertzale left). The numbers are substantially lower in comparison to Catalonia and Basque country, but these nationalisms are still present in Navarre (Nabai) and Galicia (Galician National Bloc) too. The Canary Islands (Coalición Canaria), Andalusia (Partido Andalucista) and other autonomous communities also have less obvious nationalism and are often grouped as regionalisms, based on linguistic or historical differential facts no less distinct than the previous ones.
In comparison to other nationalisms, "Spanish nationalism" is often referred to as [8] españolismo,[9] an equivalent to centralism. Usually with a controversial political purpose, it may be identified with conservative nostalgia for Franco's regime [10] or with alleged state oppression in those territories, which in extreme cases (particularly ETA in the Basque Country and Navarre) is used as justification for terrorism that sees itself as armed struggle for national liberation.[11] By contrast, none of the major political parties affected by such designation of españolistas or "Spanish nationalists", self-identify as such. Instead, they use the phrase non-nationalist to separate themselves from the nationalist, which is how they usually designate the so-called "periphery" or outliers.[12]
From the majority point of view, in social, territorial and electoral terms,[13] the identification with Spain, its symbols, and its institutions have become more characteristic of constitutional patriotism or civic nationalism.[14] It seeks to respect the different visions of Spain and fit it into a pluralistic framework, inclusive and non-exclusive. Concepts which often coincide the majority's political parties, Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and People's Party, the minority's, United Left, Union, Progress and Democracy,and other regional or nationalist parties sometimes called moderate, despite maintaining deep political differences.[15]
Since 2017 constitutional crisis over the Catalan issue, it is seen that Spanish Nationalism is growing.[16]
Parties
Current
- National Democracy (Spain) (1995–present)
- Alternativa Española,AES (2003-present)
- Falange Española de las JONS (FE de las JONS) (1976) (1976–present)
- La Falange (1999) (1999–present)
- España 2000 (2002–present)
- Party for Freedom (Spain) (2013–present)
- Ciudadanos (2006–present)
- Vox (2013–present)
Former
- Movimiento Social Republicano (1999–2018)
See also
- Nationalisms and regionalisms of Spain
- Spanish unionism
- Spanish republicanism
- Spanish irredentism
- Iberian federalism (Iberism)
- The two Spains
- Hispanophobia
References
- ^ Wendy Parkins. Fashioning the Body Politic: Dress, Gender, Citizenship. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Berg, 2002. Pp. 178
- ^ Helen Graham. The Spanish Republic at War, 1936–1939. Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. 31.
- ^ a b c Motyl 2001, pp. 506.
- ^ The centralist pretension of monarchy was part of their seeking to gain authority, however it was continuously tensioned. Since the late Middle Ages through the Modern Era, noticeably different formulations of the idea of Empire from Charles V (War of the Communities of Castile, religious wars in Germany) and from hispanization of monarchy with Philip II of Spain (capitality of Madrid, Rebellion of the Alpujarras, Revolt in Flanders, Portuguese succession crisis (1580), Alterations of Aragon) were propagated. The desire or decision to increase the capacity of king to intervene in each kingdom, however, was significantly lower among the Habsburgs that among the Bourbons, but it always occurred on some level and became explicit in documents among which the Great Memorial by Count-Duke of Olivares to Philip IV of Spain in 1624:
Tenga Vuestra Majestad por el negocio más importante de su monarquía el hacerse rey de España; quiero decir, Señor, que no se contente Vuestra Majestad con ser rey de Portugal, de Aragón, de Valencia, Conde de Barcelona, sino que trabaje y piense con consejo mudado y secreto por reducir estos reinos de que se compone España al estilo y las leyes de Castilla sin ninguna diferencia, que si Vuestra Majestad lo alcanza, será el Príncipe más poderoso del mundo.
Be V.M. the most important business of their monarchy, the King of Spain made, I mean, Lord, that VM is not content with being king of Portugal, Aragon, Valencia, Count of Barcelona, but work and think with mature advice secret, to reduce these kingdoms of which Spain is composed in the style and laws of Castile, with no difference in everything that looks to break boundaries, dry ports, the power to hold courts of Castile, Aragon and Portugal in the party desires, VM able to enter here and there promiscuously ministers of nations and temperament necessary that the hand of authority and the municipal councilors, judges, councils and boards of the same provinces, as were injurious to the government and the authority indecent real, which means there might be provided for all, that if VM it reaches will be the world's most powerful prince.
The concept of natio (nation) used since the Renaissance, will subordinate to a semantic field chaired by the concept of Monarchy (José María Jover Zamora, as a comment to the memorial of Olivares and others' contemporary texts, such as Juan de Palafox y Mendoza Historia y civilización: escritos seleccionados Volumen 13, pg. 78 Universitat de València, 1997 ISBN 978-84-370-2692-3). The claim control of the monarchy (both authoritarian and absolute) of the subjects had very different causes and objectives for the later nationalism.
The character irreducibly feudal of absolutism remained ... Army, bureaucracy, diplomacy and dynasty formed an uncompromising feudal complex that ruled entire state machine and guided their destinies. The domination of the absolutist state was the domination of the feudal nobility in the era of the transition to capitalism. His final signaled the crisis of power of that class: the arrival of the bourgeois revolutions and the emergence of the capitalist state.
— Perry Anderson Lineages of absolutist state, pg. 37 (translated from spanish translation -El Estado Absolutista-) - ^ The label nationalist has not succeeded in Spain as an auto-denomination, but the existence of a similar phenomenon to the contemporary European nationalisms has been broadly studied. The fact is related in these article: Joan B. Culla i Clarà Nacionalistas sin espejo, El País, 16 de marzo de 2007.
- ^ José Álvarez Junco (2001) Mater dolorosa. La idea de España en el siglo XIX Madrid: Taurus. Cited in José Uría, Página Abierta, 157, marzo de 2005 [1].
- ^ Antonia Maria Jimenez Ruiz "¿Y tú de quién eres? Identidad europea y lealtad a la nación" "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-05-09. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
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suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "El Parlament rechaza el «nacionalismo español»", El Mundo, June 1, 2001
- ^ Francesc de Carreras, criterio/archivos/000620.html "Catalanismo y españolismo", La Vanguardia, July 14, 2005
- ^ Edurne Uriarte reply to Gregorio Peces Barba Los nacionalistas españoles, ABC, January 28, 2005.
- ^ It is a constant of their documents, to name one, "zutabe"—communication—on September 26, 2007, in 20minutos: ETA announced that it will continue with the armed struggle until achieving "freedom"
- ^ Joan Romero:"La tensión entre nacionalismos en España", El Pais, 16 January 2008
- ^ surveys commissioned by the Ministry of Defence on "Pride of being Spanish" and "Emotion at symbols" Archived 2007-10-09 at the Wayback Machine. Survey CIS on the Spanish identity versus European identity.
- ^ The prospect of People's Party is reflected in this article Cesar Alcala: The "constitutional patriotism" (66) cesa.htm. An article from Fernando Savater "Vivere libero" (El Pais, December 6, 2001) available at: C3% ADas / Topics 20de%%% C3% 20Autonom ADas / Patriotism 20constitucional.htm%.
- ^ José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the last phase of his first legislature, intensified the references to Spain: "Today to speak about the Spanish flag and our fatherland is talking about freedom, rights and citizenship, which is the best way to express themselves with patriotism." Quoted by Luis Ayllón: Zapatero se arropa con la bandera en sus mítines de Uruguay y Argentina en ABC, November 12, 2007. It has been included in advertising the words "Government of Spain", which had not been used before to refer to the central government or the State.
- ^ Encarnación, Omar G. (2018-02-05). "Why Spanish Nationalism Is on the Rise". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2018-05-22.