Spanish snapshots (IV) - Terrorism

Greetz,

2 weeks ago, in an (obviously) wedding conversation, a Dutch frien who actually works as a lawyer in an anti-terrorism task-force asked me: "How does it feel to live in Madrid? Are you afraid?"

This question brought back some memories, of the March bombs in the suburban trains, of receiving a call from my mum here in Madrid, to see if I was ok, to see first hand the effect of a major terrorist attack in people close to me... Still, the truth is that a year and a half later, no one here thinks about it, no one is influenced, that the spanish people have the correct and brave attitude of moving on normally with their lives...

Last Saturday, coming out of a metro station, I saw myself in the middle of a anti-terrorism protest, from the ETA victims organization. People from all over Spain converged, a number according to different media sources in between 120 000 and 1 300 000 (which can tell you quite a bit about the quality and bias of media in this country.......) in a protest against the current back-office negotiations happening in between the Government and ETA. The story is simple... ETA declared a cease-fire before the summer... They started negotiating behind the stage... During the summer continuous news came out about extorsions, gun robberies, etc etc in the Basque country, perpetrated by ETA cells obviously.

Bottom line... Iraq, Gaza, Darfur, Somalia, news from war and terrorism enter our living rooms every day from far far away. Although for sure this issue is much smaller in dimension and doesn't affect our day to day life here, it is definitely an issue that every now and then pops up in the media and that really affects people, for all it's implications. Lets hope the leaders of this country and of this movement have the wisdom to successfully close this peace process.

Carpe Diem!