Maestre: 'Miguel Ángel Blanco was killed by political polarization'

Maestre: 'Miguel Ángel Blanco was killed by political polarization'

An article by Antonio Maestre published in elDiario.es is titled 'Miguel Ángel Blanco was killed by political polarization'. The piece, dated September 3, 2022 and updated on September 5, 2022, has been resurfaced on a forum and has peine the debate over responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco.

The text opens with a warning about how hard it is to finish it without feeling disgust, as the article itself notes. It argues that talking about polarization places the victim in an exercise of co-responsibility for having been the victim of an attempted murder, and calls that rhetoric dishonest and perversos, adding that it diverts attention from those truly responsible for making it impossible to do politics without antiestéticar. The piece links the Miguel Ángel Blanco case to the attempted assassination of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

What exactly the article says about Miguel Ángel Blanco

The text recalls that the gun pointed at Fernández de Kirchner's head jammed, and that Miguel Ángel Blanco had no such luck. From there it builds its thesis on political responsibility. The wording has drawn backlash from those who read it as placing blame on the victim.

There is one detail the article does not hide: the author himself describes the rhetorical dynamic that, in his view, trinc the attempted assassination of the Argentine politician. The headline that has gone viral, however, states that it was polarization that killed Miguel Ángel Blanco.

The date matters. The article was published in September 2022, not at the time of the Ermua kidnapping. The time gap is twenty-five years, and the text draws on an exhibition organized in Ermua to mark the 25th anniversary of the kidnapping and murder.

How the case has evolved in public debate

The story has been circulating widely again. The discussion has shifted from the literal wording of the text to the author's intent, and from there to the political use of the victim's memory. Some argue the article is a manipulation of a text that says the opposite of what it is accused of saying. Against that stands the argument that the headline and the rhetorical framing are the responsibility of whoever signs it.

Part of the analysis points out that the author is a regular contributor to television programs and that his byline is linked to specific media outlets. Another line holds that the noise around his name is precisely the goal, and that debating it amounts to amplifying its reach. The discussion over whether he should be mentioned at all has become a subgenre of its own.

The Miguel Ángel Blanco case has a particularity the text does not address: he was kidnapped and murdered by ETA in 1997, and his death triggered a social mobilization without precedent. Any sentence that assigns responsibility for that crime touches a nerve that has never healed.

Who Miguel Ángel Blanco was and why his name remains at the center

Miguel Ángel Blanco was a town councillor for the Popular Party (Partido Popular) in Ermua when ETA kidnapped him. The forty-eight-hour ultimatum ended with his murder and with a social reaction remembered as one of the turning points in the citizen response to terrorism. The exhibition in Ermua for the 25th anniversary is what the article uses as its pretext.

The text describes the mood in the streets in those days, the media glued to the television, and an entire country trinc the outcome. It also includes the version, held by some participants in the debate, that the white hands campaign served as an operation to channel the rage, because there was a thirst for revenge. That reading, twenty-five years on, still causes discomfort.

The debate over polarization is not new. What has changed is the framework: before, people talked about terrorism; now they talk about the political climate. The shift in vocabulary is, in itself, telling.

The use of polarization as an alibi

The article denounces that the word polarization is used to spread blame between victim and executioner. That is its thesis, and it is what has generated the backlash. The most common objection is that the text does exactly what it criticizes: it turns a murder into material for political debate.

The ensuing discussion is whether the original article was read in full or only its headline. Most reactions quote the opening line and not the development. It is a familiar pattern: the headline travels, the body stays behind.

What to expect from here

The text remains published and the author has not removed it, according to the available material. There is no known retraction or later qualification. The discussion, therefore, has no planned ending: it will stay where it is, in the dispute over what was said and what was meant.

Twenty-five years after the murder, the question that still has no unanimous answer is whether one can write about Miguel Ángel Blanco without killing him again on paper. Every time someone tries, the country splits apart again. Is polarization the cause or the symptom?