HeAbc dedicates its Sunday front page to stirring up a dangerous hornet's nest. "Immigration enters the electoral debate," reads a headline that is merely a pretext for calling for a series of concrete measures. Migrants have long been a source of political warfare. Otherwise, what would Vox's current penetration be? Or the Catalan Alliance? In reality, the conservative daily pursues two objectives. The first is to normalize the iron fist. "Many European countries are opting for drastic measures while Spain remains undefined," asserts a subheading that, while not inaccurate, is more ideological than strictly informative. But the thrust of the story lies in the editorial, which establishes a deceptive dichotomy between the good and the bad immigrant.
The newspaper says: "Spain needs orderly and safe immigration, and we must foster it by choosing the most suitable human and professional profiles for the general interest and coexistence. Immigrants are mostly peaceful and hardworking, but we must act with the full force of the law against those who commit crimes." Put this way, it all comes down to a question of the gut. The submissive immigrant who smiles, lowering his head in exchange for a miserable salary for cleaning up our grandparents' fluids versus the perfidious criminal who is essentially evil. It's the typical Manichean vision of banal racism. The border between these two alleged typologies of immigrants is much more porous than they would like and has to do, in large part, with the job and social expectations they encounter, especially among young people. But reducing it to "some are bad people" soothes a guilty conscience and avoids considering the extent to which we are agents of the consequences of the poverty tolerated in others. An honest debate about immigration isn't about good and bad, but about a social, humanitarian, and economic model.
