Basque nationalism is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or, chiefly, full independence of the Basque Country in the wider sense. As a whole, support for Basque nationalism is stronger in the Spanish Basque Autonomous Community and north-west Navarre, whereas in the French Basque Country support is low.

Basque nationalism, spanning three different regions in two states (the autonomous communities of Basque Country and Navarre in Spain, and the French Basque Country in France) is "irredentist in nature" as it favors political unification of all the Basque-speaking provinces (now divided in those three regions).

Basque nationalism is rooted in Carlism and the loss, by the laws of 1839 and 1876, of the Ancien Régime relationship between the Spanish Basque provinces and the crown of Spain. During this time, the reactionary Fuerista movement pleaded for the maintenance of the fueros system and territorial autonomy against the centralizing pressures from liberal governments in Madrid. The Spanish government revoked part of the fueros after the Third Carlist War. The fueros were charters granted by the successive kings of Castile and acted as part of the Basque legal system dealing with matters regarding the political ties of the Basque Provinces with the crown. The Fueros gave Basque subjects a privileged position in Spain with special tax and political status; basically, Basques were not subject to direct levee to the Castilian army, although many volunteered, especially in the Spanish navy, which was led, among others, by Basque sailors like Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. He was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).

Tutu has been active in the defense of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed. He has campaigned to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1986; the Pacem in Terris Award in 1987; the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999; the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2005; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Tutu has also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal, the second of the three children of Zacheriah Zililo Tutu and his wife, Aletta, and the only son. Tutu's family moved to Johannesburg when he was twelve. His father was a teacher and his mother was a cleaner and cook at a school for the blind. Here he met Trevor Huddleston who was a parish priest in the black slum of Sophiatown. "One day," said Tutu, "I was standing in the street with my mother when a white man in a priest's clothing walked past. As he passed us he took off his hat to my mother. I couldn't believe my eyes – a white man who greeted a black working class woman!"