History shows that if you give the Basques peace and freedom, they prosper in their Basqueness.
The Basques have never cared about having their own currency or tariff borders of any kind.
Kurlansky: The Basques' story is really an examination of the idea of a nation.
Anybody who has a culture they are worried about preserving should study the Basques.
Basques and Catalans think themselves distinct nations, as, to a lesser extent, do Galicians.
Mr Ibarretxe wants to hold a referendum on the right of Basques to self-determination.
The great lesson of the Basques is that if you preserve your culture, you are a people.
In any event, the scale of the attack has shaken and angered Spaniards, including Basques, as never before.
Many Basques would prefer a grand alliance between the Socialists and the PNV, but that looks unlikely to work.
So if they don't want to be separate, what do the Basques want?
If they were to widen, an election to the Basques' regional parliament, earlier than scheduled, would become more likely.
He has been trying to create a standard curriculum for Spanish history throughout Spain, even among Catalans and Basques.
In Georgia, for example, there are regular attempts at proving a link between Georgians and the Basques in northern Spain.
For Catalans, Aragonese, Galicians and Basques, it was an amalgam of which Castile, the imperial centre, was just one part.
And would it really be the end of Spain if the Basques, like the Welsh, had their own national football team?
Mr Aurrekoetxea argues that ETA should not have a veto over whether Basques can peacefully express a view on the future.
It is true that the Basques have very wide autonomy: more than any other region in Spain, particularly in tax matters.
The revival has been equally impressive in Boise, which is home to 7, 000-10, 000 Basques, more than any other city in America.
Such divisions could undermine the anti-terrorism pact which all the country's main parties, including Basques and Catalans, have upheld for a decade.
The Basques may yet be persuaded to stay within those bounds too.
But, he says, the Catalans (and Basques) want more, not less, autonomy.
What herding work now exists usually goes to Peruvians, and except for scattered ranch owners, few Basques have remained in the sheep business.
Spain, since General Franco died in 1975, has boldly devolved, giving more power to 17 new regions, and extra power still to Basques and Catalans.
Other Silesian regionalists have been getting advice from Catalans and Basques.
Basques gravitated to those states because of the unclaimed public land.
The Basques have no such worries: each Basque province and Navarre collect their own taxes and hand over less than 10% to the central government in Madrid.
Today's third- and fourth-generation American Basques are reclaiming their roots.
The Basques, he argues with reason, already have wide autonomy.
If the Kurds had autonomy, their urge to break off completely from Turkey would be scarcely stronger than that of the Basques or Scots wanting to abandon Spain or Britain.
Yet, Basques and Navarrese apart, nearly all their cash comes from the centre: on top of specific grants, 30% of the income tax collected in the region goes back to it.
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