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# Basque = Pan-European
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/18624/
- Published: 2006-10-02T09:10:45.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:35:18.000Z
- Author: openDemocracy Supporters
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:23

**by Kanishk Tharoor** 

For Basque separatists, who earlier this week [vowed](http://rawstory.com/news/2006/ETA%5Fsays%5Fit%5Fwill%5Fnot%5Flay%5Fdown%5Farms%5F%5F09242006.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) to persist with their armed struggle for full independence from Spain and the creation of a Basque socialist state, playing up the supposed ancient national [authenticity ](http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1354-5078.1996.00017.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=nana&ref=opendemocracy.net)of "Basqueness" has always been important. We, they say puffing out their chests, are the oldest surviving people of Europe. How pleased our ski-masked friends at [ETA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA?ref=opendemocracy.net) would be to learn that a famous Oxford historian and geneticist now supports their claims. 

Famous for his synthesis of DNA studies and archaeology, Stephen Oppenheimer has made a discipline (read: vocation) out of excavating/decoding ancient migrations. His recent [article](http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article%5Fdetails.php?id=7817&sent=1&ref=opendemocracy.net) in *Prospect* (essentially a plug for the represented [book](http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/stephenoppenheimer/reading.html?ref=opendemocracy.net)) enters a new salvo into a war fought for decades in classrooms, archives, laboratories and peat bogs. Who (what/when/how/why) are the British?

 According to Oppenheimer, prevailing views on the history of British identity are dead wrong. The [Vikings](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/?ref=opendemocracy.net), "[Anglo-Saxons](http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?ref=opendemocracy.net)", even the [Celts](http://www.ibiblio.org/gaelic/celts.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) were only marginal players, "minority elites" in the creation of British peoplehood (Oppenheimer also questions the very clarity of categories such as "Anglo-Saxon" and Celt, which has been done [before](http://www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/reviews/celts.shtml?ref=opendemocracy.net)). It was an older people that form the bulk of the British mass, the Basques.

Such notions have been whispered in the shadowy regions of academia for a while now, fantasies of a common pan-European tongue and people that predate the [arrival of the Indo-Europeans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European%5Fpeople?ref=opendemocracy.net). But never have they been pushed so far into the light of public discourse.

 Oppenheimer has already managed to irk the hardcore anglosaxonist [cadres](http://www.tha-engliscan-gesithas.org.uk/gegaderung/topic.asp?TOPIC%5FID=4171&FORUM%5FID=4&CAT%5FID=1&Forum%5FTitle=Karl%27s+Tidunga&Topic%5FTitle=We%27re+all+Basques&ref=opendemocracy.net) of the net. Doubtless the [fighting ](http://celticengland.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/index.jhtml?ref=opendemocracy.net)celticists will join the rumble next.

 He may also have moved a step closer to solving the [thorny problem](http://www.cd.sc.ehu.es/DOCS/book.SS-G/v2/Euskara.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) of the Basque language, not clearly part of any family of modern languages (though this probably won't stop scholars from churning out [fantastical](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1160355/posts?ref=opendemocracy.net) theories, because, well, it can be fun). And perhaps historians may be pressed to stop using [kitchen terminology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker%5Fpeople?ref=opendemocracy.net) to describe the elusive peoples of ancient Europe.

More interestingly, we may see our ski-masked friends in *Donostia*, *Bilbo*, *Gasteiz* and the rest of *Vizcaya* issue a victorious grunt, and say: "You see, we told you all along. Our regionalism is not out-dated in the era of the European Union. There is nothing more European than being Basque. Oxford says so."