Two videos have been circulating through thousands of social media accounts in recent hours. One shows Esperanza Aguirre, president of the Community of Madrid for a decade, affirming that the start of the fateful Civil War in Spain was a coup [sic] that the left gave in 1934 for not assuming a right-wing victory in the elections a year earlier. “The PSOE will now accept the alternation in power”, says a former leader still with some predicament in some sector of the central PP and who was one of the first people to cut off Carrer Ferraz on the autumn holidays, around the federal headquarters of the Socialists.
The other video is an interview with Pello Otxandiano, the candidate for lehendakari by EH Bildu. Asked by Aimar Bretos about whether ETA was a terrorist group, the leader of the Abertzale candidacy says that “it is possible to discuss the considerations of what is terrorism and what is not” and refuses to tell the murderous organization what to be.
The words of Aguirre and Otxandiano will probably have no effect on the electorate of their political parties. But they should make anyone get out of their seat: those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it.
The most worrying thing about the two statements is the effect it can have on the younger generations. Aguirre spoke to a group of young PP militants, and EH Bildu has strong appeal among the new Basque generations.
Let’s go to Pams. ETA no longer exists and the Basque Country enjoys peace. But not long ago the day-to-day life of society was marked by a terrorist gang that killed almost a thousand people, destroyed thousands of families and forced others to leave. Some young people don’t know this happened. Few explain it to them. There are those who even want it to go unnoticed. They don’t know who Miguel Ángel Blanco was. This is why memory is so important.
This by Esperanza Aguirre is an attempt at textbook revisionism. His words could confuse some brains. Javier Durán took it with humor in X by publishing a photo of Franco and Mussolini: “Now it will turn out that everything was a coup except mine. I stay dead, Benito”, said the comment. This is why memory is so important.
Machado said that “out of ten heads, nine invest and one thinks”. The goal is for this thinking mind to tell the truth.
