Last Sunday, the conversation in the media, at home and in swimming pools was about the murder of a child in a town in Toledo. Mateo, 11 years old, from Mocejón. Mateo was playing football with his friends when a masked man with a knife stabbed the boy to death. The other children ran to ask for help. From then on, facts and legends diverged. Few voices were heard – outside the town – lamenting Mateo’s death. It was a matter of speculation. The most desired information was the nationality (and above all race) of the aggressor. The motivation did not seem to matter either, and much less the pain of family and friends. In some corner there will be the boy who shouted “They have killed my best friend”, trying to put those images in his head in some drawer that he can close. The relatives will be around, wondering what to do with the bed in which Mateo will never sleep again. The thought of “a week ago he was alive.” Then it will be two, then a month, then years… and at some point that child will be so far from the present that it will be difficult to recall him. For death, when it is not natural, there is no consolation that is worth it.
The killer turned out to be Spanish, young, and not even partially aware of his actions. I suspect there is a backstory that we will never know. Rumours from the town that remain for them. For us, who have nothing to do with it, there remains this legend that is already growing by word of mouth and in the gossip mills of mystery: that the shirt was not found, that no one saw the killer leave, that he was not in his element, that at first he was blond and then not anymore… loose ends that, if you read two news items, are tied together. Jihadist crime, initiation rite of Latin gangs, role-playing game. Anything but the plain and direct explanation: bad luck (of Mateo) and the social abandonment of the mentally ill. In fact, as soon as I heard on television about the role-playing game I knew we were entering a tailspin into another shameful moment of disinformation.
In case you are not understanding me correctly: there is already a parallel version (constructed by the extreme right and unconsciously fuelled by the commentators) in which the murderer is an immigrant, and where the socialist government has asked someone else to take the blame. Isn’t this a tragic enough case without now having to add the ridiculous conspiracy theory to it?
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