Sir, – Terrific analysis by Fintan O'Toole, noting and annotating Basque nationalists' genuine repudiation of their recent violent past (Opinion, December 7th). Above all, I'm in awe of Ortegi, the Basque leader, and his determination that his movement's dead volunteers/ terrorists should be commemorated privately so as not to rub the noses of their victims and victims' families in it. Just imagine: there's a paradigm out there, a national movement relatively recently converted to exclusively political means, which doesn't indulge itself by parading en masse at the drop of a hat for a dead comrade, and whose leadership doesn't conflate expiation with self-righteousness. If only! – Yours, etc,
PAT NOLAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.