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Looking forward into the past: Partido Nacionalista Vasco and the immigrant question in the Basque Country

ABSTRACT This article examines the discursive and political response to immigrant-generated diversity by Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV) in the Basque Country of Spain. A much-ballyhooed fact about PNV is that its founder, Sabino Arana, articulated a racist nationalist doctrine in the late nineteenth century. Alarm bells were raised in the early 2000s when the Basque Country became a destination for foreign immigrants arriving in Spain from Latin America and North Africa: do foreign immigrants pose a threat to Basque national identity? The PNV's answer to this question has been a clear ‘no’. Rather than distance itself from its past, however, party elites legitimate the inclusive and compassionate attitude towards foreign immigrants through selective discovery of the Basque national narrative. While sceptics of ideational variables are quick to suggest that nationalist elites manipulate the past to serve current purposes, this article suggests that such an interpretation does not do justice to the subtle ways in which symbols, myths, and images of the past have shaped the worldviews of PNV elites in the realm of immigration.