Terrorism in Spain
In my last post I wrote about the flag of Spain being taboo for many Spaniards because of the dictatorship legacy. Today I want to talk about another inheritance we got from that awful period: Terrorism.
When you say terrorism in Spain, they don't think about different religions as it is happening now internationally. Yes, it is true we have suffered terrorism attacks from Islamic terrorist groups, but in our history, the most regular attacks have come from ourselves.
Not so many years ago, there was a terrorist group called ETA attacking citizens regularly. They demanded the independency for the Vasque Country.
Their history is curious because, while they started as an organization against Franco, that had several branches for education, army, etc, with time only the army branch survived.
They said they fight for Vasque Country independency, but they usually ask for money to vasque businesses and entrepreneurs in which was a powerful extortion activity.
When Franco died, the problem became strongest. Happily, Spain started to apply rules as a democracy should do, and laws were less strict with out-law people, so they take advantage of it. This doesn't mean the terrorist were the only bad guys in this story. The truth is the Government was sued years ago because they used violence to fight against this group even murdering some of their members when they were already caught.
The favourite target of ETA were people from the army. But they put bombs in supermarket and public places too. In the end what they needed was notorioty.
I still remember how in some countries they were presented as a group of romantic liberators, while here in the country people lived in fear because you never know what could happen.
Now the orgnization is more or less over. They have become politicians, and some of them are in the European Union Parliament giving speeches about freedom and citizens rights. I think it is a good thing that if there is people that think Vasque Country should be independent, they try to achieve it in a democratic way, but I think it would be better if this people hasn't any relationship with terrorism. Sadly in Spain there are a lot of people that think that doesn't even want to say that all the murderes were bad. Actually, when families of people murdered by ETA make a public act, it is very common that people that liked ETA go there to who knows what.
Can you imagine looking face to face he killer of your husband? Here is possible and sadly supported by some political parties.
Today is an historic day, because ETA has announced that they will hand in their weapons next 8thh of April.
The world is evolving in a way in which we seem forgetting our closest history. I understand people that is not happy about how things are being managed right now, but please avoid populism and nationalism. It only benefits the ones in power, never the general population they preted to defend.
