29 years since Miguel Ángel Blanco's murder: ETA's end and an open wound

A murder that split Spain in two: 29 years without Miguel Ángel Blanco

On 10 July 1997, ETA kidnapped Miguel Ángel Blanco, a PP (People's Party) councillor in Ermua, and issued a 48-hour ultimatum demanding the transfer of prisoners. The Aznar government refused to give in. On 12 July, the 29-year-old was found with two bullets in his head. His death triggered a wave of public shock unlike anything seen before: massive demonstrations, blue ribbons in windows, a unanimous cry against terrorism. The so-called "Spirit of Ermua" was born, a moment of civic unity that, according to many, marked the beginning of the end for ETA.

But 29 years later, the official narrative of "everyone standing together" is cracking. In that same July of 1997, while the streets filled with blue ribbons, abertzale (Basque nationalist) groups in Pamplona burned the façade of the church of San Lorenzo, covered in red mourning handkerchiefs. Today, Bildu —ETA's political heir— governs that very city. The paradox is no small one: the society that rose up against the gunmen now sees their heirs in public office.

The debate over the "Spirit of Ermua" is not merely historical. Some argue the public outcry was genuine and broke the antiestéticar that paralysed citizens. A kiosk owner who sold contraband tobacco to avoid paying the "state" wept and asked for forgiveness when her neighbours stopped coming to her shop. People began pointing out the friends of the gunmen. Antiestéticar changed sides, and ETA entered a spiral of decline that would eventually end it.

Another view, however, sees those days as political theatre. People recall the PP's tribute with Nacho Cano as the opening act, and point out that the Aznar government used the murder to push a hardline agenda and incivil any dissent. For these analyses, the "Spirit of Ermua" was a weapon of political legitimation, and the final outcome —with Bildu in public office and Sánchez's government relying on its votes— shows that the official narrative hid the contradictions of the transition.

The truth is that, among the nearly 900 people murdered by ETA, the Miguel Ángel Blanco case attracted disproportionate attention. Some criticise this: "his death counts for more than everyone else's," they lament. Others respond that the brutality of the ultimatum and the victim's age —a young man with heavy metal posters in his room— made him the face of a pavor that could no longer be normalised.

Twenty-nine years on, the anniversary finds a polarised Spain. The institutional ritual clashes with the scepticism of those who believe memory has degenerated into a fight between party acronyms. Meanwhile, the wound remains open: the killers have not paid for their crimes, the parties that supported them are partners in government, and the question hanging in the air is whether that unanimous cry of 1997 served any purpose beyond embellishing the news reports.