Miguel Ángel Blanco

Those last hours of Miguel Ángel Blanco still hurt. As if the pain had been stored forever in some part of the memory. It doesn't matter that 25 years have passed. Forgetting never comes when it is difficult to forget, when you don't want to forget. Even if it hurts that yesterday that will always be today. For what it meant, for what was learned, for what it should mean: freedom and peace. Necessary words in such convulsive times, these times we live in with unrest and uncertainty, where extremes and populisms stir the waters so that dirt can rise, so that confusion can spread like a plague, so that understanding can be lost in a dark night, so that the ghosts of the past reappear with their hatred and vengeance. Not everything goes, NO, with capital letters, but some politicians have unlearned the lesson. Do you want? Then give it to me.

The kidnapping and cold-blooded murder of the young PP politician, after two interminable days of agony, brought together disgust and rage with weariness. It was time to live in a country where no more innocents had to be buried, where people did not have to look at the underside of their car, where children did not have to be told that their father had been blown up or shot at point-blank range. Terrorism was not just a problem for the Basque Country, it was everyone's problem. They had gone too far and Spain painted its hands white and stood up.

The memory weighs as heavy as a huge rock about to fall; the fear is reborn only by feeling that presentiment that in the end was a reality. The stone was going to fall, death was getting closer and closer, and it fell.  And then, yes, the scream was unanimous. A silenced scream capable of piercing the ears, of pronouncing the best of speeches. It was the beginning of a longed-for end; hitting rock bottom to reach the surface again with the strength and courage to say no more, this far.

That inhuman countdown announced drops of blood on an hourglass. It was known how ETA handled the word cruelty, but not to that limit where it showed that there were no red lines. Cowards. He was only 29 years old. His crime? Wanting to live in a free land, fighting for his principles, challenging fear. He was a simple town councillor, from Ermua, in the province of Vizcaya with 15,000 inhabitants.

Never had the streets of all Spanish cities been so crowded at the same time, never before. Never. 25 years have passed since that terrible day and the memory still hurts. Miguel Ángel Blanco managed to unite a people. Now, on this anniversary, even the king has called for that unity that generated the spirit of Ermua. I want to believe..., but I don't know if these are times to be optimistic.