“In a rotten and unethical world, the only thing left to sensitive people is aesthetics” (“In a rotten and unethical world, people often have aesthetic left”). These weeks I have had the phrase that Makina has thrown at me, starting with the death of Rodríguez Galindo and continuing with the audio of Intxaurrondo.
Makina has just murdered a torturer and with that phrase explains his action. The comic book began with the arrest of Makina police, who has been arrested at the police station. Suddenly they hit an anarchist and continue to beat until the interrogation “leaves their hand” and they feel helpless. The police chief frees Maki, who has seen everything, in exchange for his silence. Once in the street, Maki follows the police to a club, dismisses and shoots. Ion Arretxe was arrested in 1985 along with Mikel Zabraise, who was "shocked". Once on the ethical floor of Intxaurrondo someone took the hood away, showing him his face with the pride that gives impunity. It was Galindo. “He grabbed me by the testicles and twisted me (...) ‘Let’s not waste time and let’s start talking… if not, I will return the testicles to you until it bursts.’”
I don't think Ivá was based on that during high school and with total impunity, first in Thursday magazine and then in the Maquavaja series the last chorious of La2, where I saw that story about ethics and aesthetics, because Galindo died 35 years later in his bed. What is certain is that his artistic sensitivity would lead him to prison. Ask Paul Hasella if not the last one on the list.
The debate on the police model took place at the same time, with the help of a large number of small hogueras: Police violence against young people, strikers, bars or racialized people; the mass media promotion of the Ertzaintza job offer and its initiatives; small incidents to denounce the imprisonment of Hasélen; denunciation of the police union ESAN against Ernai; of the Gasteiz PNV-PSE government against the authors of the poster All Pitufos are Bastard... And above all, the statements by Arnaldo Otegi, ensuring – in this context – that the members of the Abertzale left are considering the ertzaina tests, to open the door to what is not a reality today being tomorrow yes?
There has been a debate on the police model, but not on the police model, which it has roundly denied. With the police, the same thing happens to us as with patriarchy or capitalism: they're so embedded that we can't imagine a world without them. With a big difference: we have no problem claiming that our utopia is patriarchal and free from capitalism; the same is not true of the police. It reflects our inability to manage conflicts without punishment, militarism or delegationism.
In a corrupt and unethical world in the process of reputation, the only thing left to us sensitive people is ethics. An ethics that will continue to dream of another world. No police, torturing or not.