Aporophobia is old
The mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, has managed to pass himself off, in the eyes of many, as a man of order, a zealous guardian of civility and courtesy. He is right-wing and Catholic, as proclaimed by the leaders of his party, Feijóo and Ayuso, in their renewed crusade for Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Spain, against the Moorish influence brought to us by the woke And the left-wing bondholders, who, as we know, are always around. To demonstrate that his devotion is true and profound, Mayor García Albiol erects a Christmas tree every year that is the largest in Catalonia, or in Spain, or in the solar system.
This year, Albiol decided to fully unleash his Christmas spirit by carrying out the announced eviction of the former high school in Badalona: four hundred homeless people who are now on the street, without care, hope, alternatives, or anything. During the eviction, there were numerous police charges, despite their unnecessary nature, given the orderly behavior of those being evicted, and therefore their abuse of power. But what is an eviction of immigrants and the homeless without its fair share of police charges and blows to the head, legs, or ribs?
Albiol, and those who follow him, justify their actions by claiming they are responding to a pressing social problem: illegal immigration and rising crime, two phenomena between which the right wing establishes a cause-and-effect relationship. In reality, all they are doing is exacerbating the problem of social inequality and the number of people living in poverty or on the brink of poverty. However, the right wing and capitalism in its most ruthless and increasingly hegemonic forms have a recipe for combating poverty: blaming the poor. From this worldview, the poor are infected individuals who can mutate into criminals at any moment, making it legitimate, even necessary, to single them out and persecute them. To prevent future harm.
Aporophobia is hatred of the poor, and it is perfectly compatible with racism and supremacism. In fact, these hatreds feed off each other. Albiol, like so many others, could be a supporter of that Francoist campaign whose slogan was... A poor person sits at your table, and which Berlanga satirized in his film PlacidBut one thing is a poor person, and another is four hundred homeless Black people, where we'll all end up. We said at the beginning that Albiol is now seen by many as a man of order, something old-fashioned: in reality, he's what he's always been, a xenophobe who makes a living politically by exploiting fear and hatred of immigrants. A few years ago (ten, fifteen?) he was considered an extreme right-wing figure. However, with time, the winds have shifted in his direction, and now, compared to the appalling leaders we're forced to see and hear every day, an individual like Albiol is just average. Politics has certainly become polarized, but it's also true that many people like having leaders who mistreat the poor. This must relieve them of their misery.
