The relations of love and hate between countries are reflected in the admiration or rejection that certain political figures tend to acquire outside their borders. For example, President Vladimir Putin is viewed with respect in Belarus, where he is a friend and ally of the People of Russia. In Ukraine, on the other hand, he represents old Russian imperialism that wants to put an end to its national independence. When the relationship is between the colonizing countries and the colonized countries, the mutual and bidirectional feeling of hatred prevails: the colonizing country hates the characters who challenge its political superiority, and the colonized country does the same with those who represent the colonizer’s oppression.
There was a time when some Basque characters were in the ranking of the most hated by Spaniards. Those were times when Euskal Herria was fighting hard against its national assimilation. Xabier Arzallus, for example, was the bête noire of the Spanish talk shows in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century. Despite the fact that his political praxis was not Basque patriotic (we must remember that Arzallus was the main promoter of the pacts with the unionist PSOE-PSE, in the 80s), in Madrid they harshly criticized the nationalist claims he launched in the incendiary speeches of the Aberri Eguna or the Alderdi Eguna events of the PNV (criticisms that were even harsher after the Lizarra-Garazi pact, when Arzallus evolved towards clearer pro-independence positions). The Bishop of San Sebastian, J.M. Setien, was another target of the Spaniards in those years. The Basque Church in general, and Setién in particular, occupied first places in the ranking of characters or institutions most hated by the Spaniards. They were the personification of evil.
In the early years of the 21st century a new beast emerged for Spanish imperialism and its acolytes: Arnaldo Otegi. The leader of the Basque nationalist left was for years, without a doubt, the politician most demonized by Madrid. And he paid dearly for that, going to Spanish prisons several times. Fighting Spanish colonization and working for Basque national independence seemed to exceed the narrow limits of the shoddy Iberian democracy. In spite of proposing, and achieving, ETA’s total disappearance.
Things began to change from 2012 on, when the axis of national liberation shifted from the Basque Country to Catalonia. For the first time in 30 years, the Spanish ranking of hated people turned towards Catalonia. To tell the truth, there were already Catalan characters who were abhorred in Spain before (for example, the Catalan autonomist president, Jordi Pujol, who was insulted with the slogan: “Pujol, enano, habla castellano“). But since the Catalan independence process was launched, Artur Mas, Carles Puigdemont or Joaquim Torra became infamous and perverse human beings, deserving of the most insulting adjectives that can be found in any dictionary in Spanish. Once again, Spanish imperialism mercilessly whipped those who dared to face it.
It is very symptomatic to see that, with the loss of our national pulse, the Basque politicians who used to be the most hated are now well regarded in Madrid. And the fact is that there are many left-wing Spaniards who sympathize with Arnaldo Otegi in particular and with EH BILDU in general. On the contrary, the leader of the ranking of the most hated individuals, Carles Puigdemont, is abhorred by the sympathizers of both the Spanish right and left. The reason is simple: it has been Carles Puigdemont, and not Arnaldo Otegi, who has launched the most direct attack on the Spanish supremacist project, who has put the holy Spanish unity in serious difficulty. And it is the political project represented by Puigdemont -and not that of the Basque nationalist left, which has become more docile- that now directly threatens Spanish imperialism.
This being so, is anyone surprised that the person most hated by Spaniards is now Carles Puigdemont?
