The same day Libya gets its desired freedom, Spain wins the war against 43 years of terrorism.

Celebrations in Libya after Gadhafi's death.

I don't feel comfortable rejoicing in the death of a person, but facts make me believe Muammar Gadhafi wasn't much of a person himself, if ever was he close to being human at all. Although joy should come from the liberation of Libya more than it should come from the disappearance of one single individual, it is hard not to smirk when reading the newspapers. Libya has now the oportunity to become a country of free and happy citizens. 

Only a couple of hours after Gadhafi was shot to death, a different collective tyrant gave its death throes in the most Western part of Europe,. After 43 years of murdering and horror, the Spanish terrorist band ETA ("Euskadi Ta Askatasuna", Basque Country And Freedom) has announced cessation of any violent act, a call that has been affirmed by the band itself to be "clear, firm and definitive". On a different level, Spain and its people have also gained freedom today: freedom from decades of fear and hatred, but also freedom from its own history. ETA was the last bit left from a haunting past that seemed to plague any thought and action taken in the Iberian country, that feeling that would get the word "fascist" out in the street anytime a Spanish flag was waved. 

To put us into perspective, ETA was conceived in the year 1959 as a revolutionary movement for the independence of the Basque Country (Northern Spain) and against Franco's regime. Nine years after, the murder of a Spanish member of the "guardia civil" (one of the two national police forces in the country) set the spark for 43 years of insanity and murdering that would leave a trail of over 800 dead people. Police members, politicians and civilians, plus hundreds of lives and families destroyed by terrorism and horror, are the victims of a completely misunderstood way of thinking. Shooting their victims from the back or planting sticky bombs on their cars, ETA flashed horror on its every action, reaching its highest point with the bombings at the parking basement of a hypermarket –21 people dead, 45 severely wounded–, claiming violence was the only way to achieve "freedom" and independence. ETA fought a senseless war against itself and its tremendously outdated ideology, and also against Spanish civil society. A civil society that stood up for peace and rallied on the streets with thousands of souls chanting for freedom and the end of violence and which has now finally been liberated from the enormous scourge ETA supposed. 

The end of ETA is not a mere coincidence. Surrounded both politically and by police forces, the last breath of ETA represents the end of one of Europe's bloodiest one-way armed campaigns. It's the end of mindless armed action, and it's the acceptance of the fact that only dialogue and human behavior can gain liberty for the people. Today I joy in Libya's freedom, but I also smile knowing my own children won't need to know what ETA is, knowing they will be free to show their opinion about independence without people in white hoods threatening their lives. This is the day when Spain –with big help from France– leaves behind decades of dictatorship and anti-regime forces and moves on to build a country of rational and happy individuals.

Humanitarians, stand up for freedom around the world and join your hands to work for peace, be it in Libya and its exciting/difficult future, Spain and its recently improved democracy, or in your very own families. Our lives and our daily actions are the base for other people to understand what being a humanitarian means. Make the best out of them.