The 2017 attacks and the distribution of guilt

During the promotion of the film Cronos, about the August 2017 attacks, the actor Enric Auquer asked himself what we did wrong "if there are some Catalan boys who commit attacks speaking Catalan among themselves against other Catalans and an imam from Ripoll who is capable of radicalizing these kids".I was in Ripoll those days, walking the streets and talking with teachers, social mediators, entrepreneurs, politicians, members of the Catholic and Muslim communities, former classmates and football teammates of those who, incredibly, had become terrorists. The conviction was unanimous: if there were any children of North African emigration on their way to a future life in Catalonia, it was them. They had studied and some had good salaries. Those who could help them did help them, and knew them by their first and last names, them and their families.In Ripoll, many things were done well. But in Ripoll, I was also told what a police officer in the film comments: these boys, who were no longer from there, still did not quite feel from here. And Western values are not transmitted solely by place of birth or language. Islamist radicalization can occur in any country. And these young, disoriented, and half-formed personalities are susceptible to believing someone who lectures them, making them feel important and transcendent, talking to them about infidels and paradises. This is what happened, and this harm was not caused by the Ripoll society but by the imam, previously contacted and known by the Spanish secret services and not sufficiently monitored.That cannot be fixed anymore. What should worry us is what we might be doing wrong now, especially so that it does not happen again. Let us watch out for radicalization. And surely the path of hatred that begins against a religion and always ends up turning against anyone who disagrees is a tragic and proven path to failure as a country.