There are around 45 million people living in that sort of country called Spain and having Spanish nationality. Many of them consider themselves Asturians, Galicians, Basques... rather than Spanish, other consider themselves deeply Spanish. Regardless of which is your feeling of belonging to any of those territories (if you have any), the thing is that having a Spanish passport makes you feel ashamed in too many occasions. There are obvious reasons, like those acts of brutality called bullfighting performed all over the country and supported by the Government with money from everyone taxes (yes, money from vegetarians like me), the rampant corruption, the monarchy, the monuments to fascism and dictatorship that are still on display on too many places, the "picaresca", the drug consumption, the pervasive crap TV, the conservative media (most newspapers would be considered just as far-right pamphlets in most of Europe), the fear fuelled transition to a 2 parties democracy that allowed key players of the dictatorship to enter the democratic parody rather than prison... and the list could go on for too long...
But the population is more or less like in any of our close European neighbours. There are nice people and disgusting ones, educated types and almost illiterate ones, open and tolerant people and greedy shitheads... more or less in a similar percentage to France, UK, Portugal, Italy (well, except for teenagers, I think generally speaking Spanish teenagers are the scum of the Earth: superficial, illiterate, lacking interest in almost any real thing... ) So the thing is that Spaniards do not deserve the crap governments that we have suffered since the end of the the Civil War. First the dictatorship and then the alternation of conservative (with ex-members or nostalgics of the previous dictatorship in their higher ranks) and the so called "socialists" (that allowed those others enter "the game" rather than the tribunals).
The Spanish government is without any doubt the most repressive in Western Europe. There's a "magic word" that can be used to destroy anyone's life, "terrorism". It doesn't matter if there is not any solid evidence, by means of the "anti-terrorist" law people can be put into preventive prison awaiting trial for years. The other big problem is that the "terrorist" term has been applied in many occasions to people that were just separatists or antifascists.
This week we've witnessed one more flagrant case of senseless State repression. Eight persons have been arrested for collaborating with the pro-Russian rebels in Novorossiya (Eastern Ukraine). You can read about it in English here or here. I've been about to write about the conflict in Ukraine on several occasions, but have not done it probably cause it does not touch me that much. I'm not emotionally linked to it, contrary to what happens with the fight against ISIS, cause I don't like any of both sides. I have quite a distaste for both Ukraine and Russia. Sure there are some nice people on both countries and some just normal people, but it's quite accurate to say that those are 2 of the most racist, xenophobic, homophobic and ultra-nationalist societies in the world. This said, Ukraine is clearly for me the worst of the 2 in this conflict. First the far-right led a coup d'etat, gaining high positions in the government and giving carte blanche to their paramilitary units to attack any left-leaning person in the country. Then when the population in the East, terrified before the prospect of the grandchildren of Stepan Bandera attacking and repressing anyone suspect of not being a "true Ukrainian Patriot" decided to organise their own government and self-defense units, the Ukrainian government started a crazy and brutal campaign of bombardments against the civil population, performing a real attempt of ethnic cleansing (kill or expel all the population with links to Russia so that the area can be repopulated with true Ukrainians). While the Ukrainian side is infected with neonazis, the pro-Russian side has used an antifascist rhetoric that probably is not much real, but at least they are playing to look like good guys, while the others are demonstrating to be scum. So yes, even when I think that some of the pro-Russians are brainless thugs and bandits, I'm more on that side than on the nazi-ridden Ukrainian side.
This antifascist rhetoric has been quite successful among part of the Spanish far-left, that has seen in this conflict a revival of the Spanish Civil War. Groups of "support to the Antifascist Ukraine" have appeared in different places (Asturies among them), and a bunch of idealist communist guys have even decided to risk their lives joining the rebel forces. Some of them have had an important role in the media, trying to bring to the main public a new (and more real though probably also a bit distorted) version of the conflict, very different from the pro-Ukrainian version given by the main media and governments, that denies the nazi component in the Ukrainian government, hides the murders of civilians and legitimises a government coming out of a putsch.
Now the Spanish government has decided to show off its most repressive face again by arresting these 8 Spanish guys that risked their lives in eastern Ukraine. They've done nothing to arrest the Ukrainian fascists that the Ukrainian embassy sent to crash different acts of support to the Donbass (demonstrations, talks...) in different points of Spain. Somehow, even when Ukraine is a bankrupted country, I guess Spanish big companies plan to do big business there (well, yes, poor country = low cost silent hard workers), so the Spanish government needs to pay homage to a government that is bombing and massacring its own people. The charges they are planning against these guys are senseless, but one of them has particularly puzzled me (and much more cause they say it could involve the biggest punishment): "putting at risk the neutrality of Spain in the conflict".
So, the actions of Spanish citizens in their private lives are considered as the will of the whole country? So, if tomorrow, let's say that I burn a flag of Saudi Arabia, Qatar or any other country sponsoring crimes against Humanity, would this create a conflict between Spain and these to IslamoFascist states? Wow, this is purely demented...
I think these guys did not act wisely. First I think they could have chosen a more clear cause to risk their lives for, because as I've said I have doubts about these pro-Russian rebels, I'm not sure how many of them are really antifascists (though these people that have been there do not seem disappointed at all with them, just the contrary, so maybe they are not so dubious as I thought). Then they should have kept a low profile (at least 5 of them could be identified just by taking a look into youtube... so well, those hard months of investigations carried out by the "intelligence services" that the media claims are quite a joke...), but as part of their aim was to show the world what was happening, this was not so easy. I find the International Brigades that are being formed to fight in Rojava against the ISIS monster, a much more secure bet in terms of being for sure helping the righteous ones. Anyway, it's easy to give advice to others about their revolutions while sitting in front of my computer and eating a delicious French "Craquant Chocolat".. so I better close this post expressing my support for these Spanish guys and prompting people to take part in any demonstrations or gatherings in their support. Bon courage! NO PASARAN
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