It's a norm that seldom fails: a reprehensible action may be greeted with indifference by the masses, and yet, when they are on the receiving end, suddenly a legion of upstanding citizens will spontaneously respond with outrage. This is brought to mind by the incivic behaviour of a group of extreme right-wingers who, on New Year's Eve, gave a thrashing to an effigy that bore a likeness to the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. One of the most prominent objectors - also because of his position, as spokesperson of the Socialist (PSOE) group in Congress - Patxi López - demanded an end to what the party considers to be violent actions, announcing that he will take the case to justice because he considers that their behaviour has the context of a hate crime and adding that, in these cases, there can be no equidistance or half-tones.
Just so that there is no doubt: these are intolerable actions, stoked with anger by the political groups that benefit most in situations of intolerance and fanaticism. I don't think there is a democrat who can be comfortable with these images. Having said that, since it happened once before, and back then, many remained silent with a pettiness that today makes their faces turn red with shame, it must be remembered that in Holy Week 2019, at the traditional feast for the Burning of Judas, the town of Coripe, in Sevilla province, found itself on a lot of front pages after being inspired by president Carles Puigdemont when it created its annual effigy of the disciple who betrayed Christ.
Memory is selective and so we only remember what has great meaning to us. But the newspaper library does not discriminate the same way
Thus, an effigy made in the image of Puigdemont, wearing a large pro-independence yellow ribbon and cape, in flames, was the target for locals to take pot-shots at. That was the moment of the execution in a town governed by the PSOE, whose mayor, Antonio Pérez, described the celebration as satire and parody. Back in 2019, there was a lot of silence on the matter from both the PSOE and the People's Party (PP), since at that time it seemed that no holds were barred and dehumanizing the Catalan president in exile had a special attraction. Memory is selective and that's why we only remember what has great meaning to us, but the newspaper library does not discriminate the same way.
It is obvious that we are now in a situation of intense political tension, with its epicentre in Madrid, where the right is best positioned to try to destabilize the Pedro Sánchez government because of its agreements with the pro-independence parties. So far, the noise has much more to do with making deals than with results. At least, in the case of the mayoral change to EH Bildu in the city of Pamplona, it was related to the outcome that took the mayoral office out of the hands of the right so that the Basque pro-independence party acceded to power in the the capital of Navarra in exchange for the votes that enabled Pedro Sánchez to become Spanish PM. In the end, results are always the only thing that measures what the balance of a negotiation is.