Free-D

Hearty congratulations go out to those who managed the daring and may I say  highly romantic and imaginative, theft of the plazas’ Christmas decorations last week. This could be the start of a dazzling criminal career: what’s next, menacing small children,  or perhaps the heady heights of vandalism? If you hadn’t noticed, my friends, those decorations belonged to everyone; you haven’t “stolen” them – you’ve simply “borrowed them illegally”. Well, at the other end of the scale, community spirit has been very much evident recently, what with the gatherings in the plaza and especially the five minutes silence in response to ETA’s latest murders. It’s only to be supposed that these community responses will, sadly, continue as ETA also continue banging their heads against the wall in the mistaken belief that we find them terrifying. “Terrifying”? – Certainly not, but “vile” and “tedious” beyond any doubt. What after all could lack imagination more than murder?   To judge by their known profiles it seems that the average terrorist is part nerd, part thug, with a large dash of emotional inadequacy. Yes, maybe that does sound frightening – but only if you’ve got to go to a dinner party with one of them. This image couldn’t be further away from the self image that all criminals have:  a sad romantic construct. Does anyone but the members of ETA themselves find those photos of men wearing hoods and boinas impressive? Don’t you actually find them a bit, well, juvenile? They smack so obviously of people (especially men), trapped in pathetic adolescent power fantasies. Unfortunately the results of these  inadequacies aren’t amusing. Lack of understanding and empathy is something all real criminals share: what else could enable someone to commit an act such as extinguishing a life, as if laying a deadening grey shroud on your own soul? The vast gulf separating petty theft from murder isn’t made up by little steps of worsening crime but by a single leap, a surrendering of everything that was once bright and hopeful within. The theft of a Christmas decoration from the plaza is obviously insignificant, but in context with the continued community spirit in the face of real crime,  seems  lacking any quality of consideration or imagination. Thankfully our petty criminal of the plaza can put right his tiny theft by simply replacing what he took. Somethings, however, cannot be so easily replaced and all that’s left to us is to mark their absence by standing together in respectful silence.