The President of the Basque Autonomous Community will discuss his "Road Map to bring an end to the Basque Conflict," including his offer of a political agreement already made to Madrid, based on a rejection of violence and an embrace of democratic principles and a Basque society plebiscite.

Synopsis

In a visit marked by controversy and protesting, President Ibarretxe clearly delivers his view on how the Basque country can establish sustainable human development. President Ibarretxe quickly stresses, however, that two challenges stand in the way of this goal. The first is securing peace from the violence of ETA, and the second is attaining political normalization through agreement with Spain. Citing dialogue as key, he explains that this conflict, lasting since the 19th century, must be resolved through political and democratic means based on the principle of self-determination. President Ibarretxe sets out the history of the Basque people, possibly the oldest in Europe, while revealing its openness to universal art and culture, as well as the Basque region’s top level social welfare. The Basque country, which has been ranked third in the UN’s Human Development Index, places emphasis on identity and innovation in striving forward. President Ibarretxe explains that 30 years after the 1979 Basque statute of autonomy, a clear majority demand a new framework for relations with Spain.

Therefore, President Ibarretxe reveals the “roadmap” he has formulated for the Basque country to achieve political normalization, as he puts it. His approach begins with four preliminary considerations. The first consideration is that the problems of the violence of ETA should not be confused with the political conflict between the Basque government and Spain. Secondly, President Ibarretxe argues that a key prerequisite to any solution is that the violence of ETA ceases immediately regardless of the state of the political conflict. Thirdly, stressing the importance of a necessary maxim to be used as a point of reference in the struggle for justice, President Ibarretxe emphasizes the defense of human rights without exception as fundamental to success. The fourth consideration that President Ibarretxe puts forward is that the right to self-determination is central to adopting a solution.

However, President Ibarretxe’s “roadmap” also offers concrete action through five specific steps. The five-step process begins with an offer of a political agreement based on ethics and democracy to Spain, something which President Ibarretxe has already extended to the Spanish government. Subsequently, President Ibarretxe offers a plenary session of the Basque parliament to either ratify any agreement reached with the Spanish government and call for a popular vote for Basque society to ratify the agreement as well or call for a popular vote to break a deadlock in the negotiation process. After the popular vote, President Ibarretxe reveals further negotiations will follow to end the violence of ETA and establish a new framework for Basque political parties to work under. Finally, President Ibarretxe offers a referendum in 2010 for the Basque people to vote on the result of this process. In concluding his talk, President Ibarretxe calls for any steps forward to be centered around “dialogue, democratic respect, and the liberty to decide.”

President Ibarretxe kindly takes the time to answer numerous questions on a variety of challenging issues. This question-and-answer session, where the questions are asked in English and President Ibarretxe replies in Spanish, is included in the recording. Unfortunately however, the translation of President Ibarretxe's responses cannot really be heard.

Selma Leydesdorff will speak on the results of her interviews with the women who survived the worst massacre in Europe since World War II. She will discuss these women as individuals and as a group, explain why they are today labelled 'difficult' and what such a label means, and will take a closer look at the memory of the trauma of the genocide and the years of the violent siege of Srebrenica.

Professor Leydesdorff received a MA (1972) and Ph.D. (1987) in modern history from the University of Amsterdam. She has served as a member of the Women’s Studies Research Council at the University of Amsterdam (1985-88), a member of the National Science Committee (1985-91), Chair of the National Oral History Association (1986-96), Secretary of the International Oral History Association (1990-96), Secretary of l’Association de Development de l’Approche Biographique (1990-97), and she currently chairs the Commission on the History of Culture of Jews of the Dutch Royal Academy. She is also the principle editor of Memory and Narrative (Transaction Publishers Inc, 2005). She has been a visiting scholar at European University in Florence and at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and has held visiting professorships at Dickinson College, Anton de Kom University in Suriname, Sabanci University in Istanbul, Xiamen University in China, and most recently at New York University. Professor Leydesdorff is currently a fellow at the Remarque Institute at NYU.

Event Synopsis:

Dr. Leydesdorff recounts the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica in which 7,749 Muslims were killed by Bosnian Serb troops as Dutch peacekeeping forces stood by. Leydesdorff asserts that official inquiries ignored voices of the survivors - many of them women who had lost sons and husbands. Today, the survivors continue their campaign to have their stories heard, to find out what happened and why, to uncover information on victims yet to be identified, and to improve their economic conditions. They also believe the Dutch should apologize for failing to prevent the genocide.

Dr. Leydesdorff describes her own research project in which she interviewed women survivors. She conveys the chaos and despair resulting not just from the genocide of men and boys but of the simultaneous rape of women and girls by the Serbian soldiers. She explains why so many survivors have remained silent, and discusses the complexity of relationships between neighbors who once lived in peaceful coexistence but who now live with memories of betrayal and grief. 

Finally, Leydesdorff described ongoing efforts of the group, including monthly marches on Sarajevo and a funeral for hundreds of newly identified victims that was attended by 60,000 people.

Secondly, the presentation uses multidisciplinary approach, relying not only on contemporary history, but also on social psychology and political science.  

Based on the seminal distinction between massacre and genocide, this study identifies the main steps of a general process of destruction, both rational and irrational, made of a "delusional rationality". It describes a dynamic structural model with, at its core, the matrix of an imaginary construct which, according to its fears, resentments and utopias, shapes the social body, razing and eliminating “the enemy”. The presentation argues for a model with multiple variables, the act of massacre being determined both by local parameters and the international context, identifying the main stages that can lead to a genocidal process, without presupposing any historical fatality, and explaining how ordinary people can become perpetrators.

Professor Rathkolb is the co-founder of a scientific quarterly, "Medien und Zeit" (Media and Time), focusing on interdisciplinary questions of contemporary history and communications/media history, and is managing editor of "Zeitgeschichte" (Contemporary History). Since 1980, Professor Rathkolb has regularly presented papers at conferences and universities in the U.S. and Europe, including the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, American Political Science Association, German Studies Association, UC Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford University, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. He has published more than 100 articles on Austrian, European contemporary political, and cultural history, as well as international affairs and business history.

This presentation will analyze the most important changes in historical political terms that have taken place in the Austrian debate on the causes and consequences of the National Socialist takeover of power in 1938. At the same time, the results, which take into account recent research on communicative and cultural memory, will be enriched and widened in scope through a consideration of how the Anschluss is perceived by the international community of historians.