Jacinto Vives Ferré He had a hairdresser on Santa Engracia street in Barcelona, which was collectivized in 1936. Angel Eyelash he was one of his clients. One of his sons -Jacinto- commented that Pestaña’s woman spoke with her mother, after her death, and told her “They have killed him.” She considered, according to Vives, that his death was due to a betrayal, they wanted to get rid of him. Faced with these statements we must ask ourselves: Was the eyelash woman right thinking like this? This is one of the questions that Cesar Alcala is done in the book: ‘Angel Eyelash. The Knight of the Sad figure’.
Angel Eyelash, is one of the most prominent figures of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism and one of the most forgotten politicians. Names such as Joaquín Costa, Federica Montseny, Salvador Seguí, Anselmo Lorenzo, Francisco Ascaso or Joan García Oliver have endured within the collective memory. However, Ángel Pestaña has been forgotten. Why? This is another question the author asks himself. It has been, according to Alcalá, without a doubt, one of the fundamental figures of Spanish trade unionism.
If Salvador Seguí, his teacher and friend, was the prototype of the charismatic leader, Pestaña embodies the mystical and austere type. In the Soviet Union, he had the opportunity to meet Lenin, Trotski, Zinoviev, Radek, Luzovsky. As I continued, Eyelash condemned gunfighting emerged in Barcelona in the early twenties, distancing itself from crime and terror as means of struggle.
Tab was a trade unionist of great honesty and dedicated to the workers’ cause. He did not agree with the evolution of the Civil War. He did not consider that mass murder helped to conquer the ideals for which they had taken up arms.
He faced the world alone at 14 years old, with the death of his father and the flight of his mother and sister. As he wrote: “Then I understood human ingratitude and the harshness of feelings that poverty creates.” That sadness that took possession of him, from his childhood, marked his face. Salvador Seguí affectionately called him the Knight of the Sad figure.
The FAI was created to marginalize him. They expelled him from the CNT. His companions abandoned him. Despite entering the CNT again, he was an annoying character because he thought. So that, although they did not end his life, a whole series of circumstances were concatenated to separate him from Spanish union life.
Pestaña lived as he died, in absolute austerity. He was a complete anarchist. He was judged with prejudice. He was mistreated. He did not get the recognition he deserved, despite the positions he held. Now, he never changed his postulates. He knew that the people, for whom he always fought, loved him. With this I had enough. His talent, insight, and intuition were above perks and charges. The Knight of the Sad figure he was that throughout his life, a gentleman. That is why many have honored him with oblivion.
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