January has often been a black month in events. This 2021 has come in strong because in just 15 days we have already had everything. As a gift from Kings he brought us the assault on the Washington Capitol by a mob of Trumpists, without giving us hardly any respite he brought us “Filomena” and the collapse of half of Spain, now comes the realization that what the experts warned us about is has complied and the third wave has arrived with the appearance of a tsunami.
All of this accompanied by a pandemic economic crisis, plus a political tension that does not cease, with the FBI warnings in the US of the danger of serious riots, even armed ones, ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration on the 20th.
Just that same day, but in 1969, 51 years ago, the student Enrique Ruano died in Madrid. Death or murder? Even many years later it is not clear what really happened.
He was arrested by the Social Political Brigade, the feared BPS, three days before, on the 17th, for the “serious crime” of distributing propaganda from Workers' Commissions.
He was then taken to the General Directorate of Security in Puerta del Sol, until that day on the 20th, three police officers took him to search his home on the seventh floor of 70 General Mola Street, from where he fell into silence.
The official theory of the police was that he tried to escape by jumping from that seventh floor, adding the insult that they had already detected suicidal reactions in him.
But the position in which he was lying on the sidewalk, supine with his arms and legs drawn up, raised suspicions that were confirmed when the autopsy discovered that his collarbone had been sawed off, where the bullet that killed him was probably embedded.
The truth may never be known, but the social reaction of the opposition to the regime was immediate, which in turn led to the establishment of the State of Exception.
That date, January 20, was forever recorded in the collective memory.
As well as those that years later, in 1977, gave rise to what was called “Black Week.”
That January began on Sunday the 23rd, when a far-right group murdered the young anti-fascist Arturo Ruiz, in a pro-amnesty demonstration in the intersection of Silva and Estrella streets, at the back of Gran Vía (then José Antonio Avenue) in Madrid.
The next day go dead the sociology student María Luz Nájera, due to the impact of the smoke canister that he receives in the demonstration protesting Arturo's death.
Receives the blow in the corner of the Gran Via with the street Booksellers, also near where I was at that time also participating in the demonstration. Shocked by both events, the entire anti-Franco left is shocked.
I experienced those events intensely in first person, from my active militancy in the PCE and CC.OO. of Graphic Arts and just that day we had a meeting scheduled at the law office on Atocha Street, which was suspended.
That circumstance saved us, because at that time a group of extreme right-wing gunmen, perhaps with the logistical and ideological direction of the BPS, burst into the office shooting and murdering Javier. Sauquillo, Luis Javier Benavides, Serafín Holgado, Ángel Rodríguez and Enrique Valdevira, five in total and seriously injured Lola, Alejandro…
I thought it could have been us. Then a whirlwind of meetings, assemblies, contacts, and above all a clear message: we must remain calm, not respond to provocation.
Despite the suppressed rage for our murdered comrades, we gritted our teeth and swallowed the toad. We were communists and therefore we had a greater responsibility, even more so in the complex moments that we had to live through.
Then the impressive funeral in which I actively participated in the “service of order”, with the feeling of living historical moments.
Even the never-clarified anecdote of that helicopter that flew over it, the black legend was responsible for ensuring that it was King Juan Carlos I himself who piloted it.
Then, over time, I understood that that call for calm from my party was key to achieving democracy.
January sometimes brings those dark events. Let's hope that this 2021 that has just begun will remain only in those mentioned at the beginning, although the truth is that it looks very bad.
We will see….
Signed: José Luis Úriz Iglesias (Former parliamentarian and councilor of the PSN-PSOE)
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