"Human behaviour cannot be separated into watertight departments"

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I won't say your name

A few days ago, before the start of a Spanish football league match at the Athletic Club stadium in the city of Bilbao, an elderly Basque mountaineer, who once achieved great success in this sporting discipline, took to the pitch. The aim was to pay tribute to him and to remember that at the beginning of the 80s of the last century he reached the summit of Everest. This act could be considered normal if it were not for one important detail: the honoree, on reaching the summit of Everest, planted a flag with the emblem of a band of murderers as a tribute to them, to the terrorists.

To justify this tribute, someone has said that what is being remembered is the mountaineer's sporting success and that other acts of the sportsman's conduct are not being valued. In short, as if human behaviour could be separated into watertight compartments. Thus, we could pay tribute to Hitler on the basis of his promotion of the European automobile industry, without going into other assessments of his conduct.

I will not mention his name, but a father went with his son to the football match in Bilbao that afternoon. He was surprised by the tribute he received from the man who in turn paid tribute to his father's murderers, which turned him into an orphaned teenager. That father, whose name I will not say, swallowed saliva, seeing his son excitedly waiting for the start of the match. He raised his eyes to the sky and smiled at his son, predicting an Athletic victory. I will not name the person who organised this act of homage, but many of us will ask him to think what he would do if he were in the situation of the father whose name I will not mention. I will say the name of the person who bravely ensured that the images of the tribute were not reproduced in the Spanish league media: Javier Tebas.