Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the macro-trial currently underway in Spain against Basque civil disobedience organisations accused of belonging to ETA’s infrastructure. I examine the rationale guiding these arrests and protests organised against it.

Paper long abstract:

This paper proposes to examine the "macro-trial" currently underway in Spain against Basque civil disobedience organizations for insights into some of the consequences that can be engendered by the war on Terror. This macro trial, popularly known as 18/98, is an unprecedented development in the Spanish state's war on Basque political violence. Under the auspices of a wide ranging investigation initiated by Spain's National Tribunal, over two hundred people, many of whom are well-known scholars, teachers, lawyers, and journalists, have been arrested since 1999 and accused of belonging to the infrastructure of the terrorist organization, ETA. This paper will examine the rationale that has guided these arrests, some of the ways in which the trial has unfolded, and some of the protests that have formed against the trial. I draw on the analysis of anti-terrorist discourse offered by Zulaika and Douglass (Terror and Taboo) to explore some of the key conflations that have made the line between legitimate political dissent and terrorism increasingly fuzzy. Discourse analysis is one potent tool for not only analyzing but intervening upon the war on terror. Another key anthropological tool is ethnographic knowledge of processes and perspectives that are ignored in the mainstream media. As scholars we can help to broaden the range of perspectives available on these complex political conflicts. My analysis broadens out from this specific case to synthesize what some of the anthropological work on Basque political violence-- Zulaika and Aretxaga in particular -- has contributed methodologically to the study of terrorism and what some of the risks that this study can pose for anthropologists.