25 years without Aitor Zabaleta, working the antifaxism
A day when the Real played against the Atlético de Madrid in Vicente Calderón, on December 8, 1998, the life of the realist Aitor Zabaleta broke. Ricardo Guerra, a Nazi from the Athletic Front Bastion Group, gave him a knife in his heart and died a few hours after 28 years.
It has been 25 years since the murder and fascism has had a spectacular boom worldwide. The heads of government of several countries are far-right, and in the Spanish State it is foreseeable that they may have strength and power on the street to threaten the environment. The rise of the tip of the right since the 1990s may be due to various reasons.
First, conditioned by the capitalist system, a social majority has the thought of the so-called middle class. At the top of the pyramid there are a few rich and at the bottom some marginal sectors, almost invisible. The crises experienced during these decades (economic crisis in 2008, COVID-19 pandemic in 2020) have led to the spread of a feeling of fear that is easily internalized between middle classes. The inability of the left to respond to the impotence of the middle and popular classes that has plunged several crises in a context of increasing labor uncertainty has made way for the growth of the right tip in the world.
The classical right has been radical in devastating economic policies, but prudent in public discourse. The tip of the right, with no shame in raising the voice, has led to the anger of many sectors and has managed to condition much of the classical right — even the left in some cases — to make the political agenda.
It has been 25 years since the murder of Aitor Zabaleta and fascism has had a great boom worldwide. In the Spanish state it is foreseeable that it can have strength and power to threaten the environment on the street.
On the other hand, all the topics of extreme right discourse have spread in society: anti-Europeanism, local prioritization, rejection of cultural diversity... Jihadist attacks have strengthened the rejection of immigration and put Muslims at risk. The ideological complement of the extreme right is a discourse against elites that can appear as something different: as an alternative to the system.
In the Spanish state Vox is still not politically directing the right as a whole, but culturally it is winning the battle of the ideas of this political spectrum: The attitude towards the history of Spain against feminism and migration, the economy and symbolic themes, such as the use of the flag.
The right end is not highlighted by the offer of concrete economic solutions. But he's very skilled at introducing his ideologies and slogans as a story. Historical and heroic meanings, such as the Spanish reconquest or the Spanish Empire, are used to fight against "programmed dictatorship, feminism, the left and independence", and emotions about the structural problems the State suffers to channel the feelings of many citizens such as unemployment, lack of opportunities for young people, low birth rate, eviction of rural areas or territorial tensions.
According to some experts, these have been issues that the Left has neglected. Therefore, in order to deal with the populist and ultranationalist slogans of terror and insecurity driven over these decades with the support of some media, the Left and anti-fascism must do an effective job of tackling those speeches.
Aritza Urrengoetxea Cordovilla, Professor
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