The mantra of “who does it, pays for it”

These are images from this morning in the city center of Barcelona. Graffiti on Passeig de Gràcia on the facades of shops and banks. At the Apple store, right at the corner of Passeig de Gràcia and Plaça Catalunya, with the main door burned, broken glass with stones still on the ground, a smell of charred remains, displaced workers, graffiti, and the first workers trying to clean up after a violent night that ended up being washed away, because it has rained. There were burned traffic lights, like these at Plaça Universitat, and burning of dumpsters, which have already been removed this morning.

These acts of vandalism were perpetrated by various groups of five or six people, who went about placing barricades by stacking trash bags, bicycles, trash cans, and street planters, doing so with skill and composure, playing cat and mouse with the Mossos, who ultimately carried out 55 arrests. There were a good thirty or so officers injured.

Yes, it was a violent night, but despite its importance, the most important thing was the strike and the demonstration. Regarding the strike, I will say that the pickets and the shutdown of public transport left many people at home or unable to get to work. That other people who wanted to go on strike did not do so because they cannot afford a day without pay. That, from my personal observation, Barcelona looked like a Saturday morning, with shops closed, others open, and others open but with a worker at the door and the shutter half-lowered in case pickets came.

And the evening demonstration was very large, with people of all ages, small children included.

Yesterday it was confirmed what we have been saying: the strike responds to a real unrest, which has been going on for a long time, which is spread among people of all ages, which is also international, and it is an unrest caused by the difficulties in accessing an apartment or a house and by the cost of living, which for people is becoming unaffordable, and spreads hopelessness of no-future among the youth, who see the promise increasingly broken that, if they work hard, they will succeed. Now it is already sending warnings, like this one from one of the spokespersons of the Tenants' Union, Enric Aragonès i Jové.

Enric Aragonès i Jové: “A warning to politicians, on the right and on the left. Our patience has run out, and it has never gone well, this waiting to see what governments do. We do not wait. Today we have put a program on the table, and if this program is not obeyed, the strikes will continue. And even, if some dare to dismantle any conquest that we have already achieved, to put our lives even more into the hands of economic power, they must know that they would be fanning the fire and not putting it out”.

The state of awareness of suffering a vital grievance is a fact in society, and it is necessary for the PP and Vox, if they end up governing, to take note of it, at least so as not to worsen the state of things with incendiary speeches, as if the strike were the work of a few violent scumbags, which is what people like Ayuso say and think, who yesterday, before the incidents, already spoke of “getting rid of the union trash”.

And finally, regarding the police charges, a note.

Since the destruction three weeks ago fueled by Blocus, President Illa, Minister Parlon and Mayor Collboni have subscribed to the set phrase “you do the crime, you do the time”. But we already know that. It is called the Penal Code. It is called the law. That yesterday's violent people answer before justice is not a favor from a government making a demonstration of authority, but rather it is the law. “You do the crime, you do the time” is an obvious statement, or it should be.

Likewise, strikes and demonstrations must be separated from barricades and bonfires, but in the end, violence means votes for the authoritarianism flaunted by the right wing.

A question: if the security device was “at its maximum”, why were groups of hooded people or people with covered faces able to vandalize the city center with such ease? A political official I spoke with this morning told me that the problem is that they already saw them arriving, the violent ones, but they stayed among the mass of protesters and there the Mossos could not go in at full throttle, that it was necessary to wait for the people to leave. And, by the way, the center of Barcelona will be in the news again, sooner or later, because the City Council wants to recover the center of Plaça Catalunya and for the pitching of tents to end. And it does not seem that the end of the encampment is possible through dialogue.

Good morning.