This has been a heated summer with multiple racist arsons. Protests and even attacks against centers for minors and migrants have multiplied throughout Spain. The most notable was the incident in Torre Pacheco, but there have also been attacks against centers for minors in Vallirana (with Molotov cocktails), in Marcilla (Navarra), riots in Piera (where incendiary devices were also thrown in May), in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), and in Sabadell, and persecutions in Hernani (Guipúzcoa). In San Sebastián, "hunts" for North African and African people have been organized through a Telegram group. These are just a few of the cases. We thus find ourselves following in the wake of Europe, which has been mired for some time in a crisis of vigilantism where the rise in violence against migrants, and especially North African minors, seems unstoppable.
Despite what the government says, these acts are not the first in Catalonia, nor in the rest of the country. In fact, like an insidious trickle, they have been occurring since the beginning of the 2000s, although they have escalated since the end of the first decade, coinciding with the electoral and media emergence of the far right. In 2019 alone, there were attacks on juvenile centers in Canet de Mar, Rubí, Castelldefels, and El Masnou—where there were injuries. In the latter case, one of the defendants is Jordi de la Fuente, who heads the Vox union, Solidaridad, and is currently a member of the Barcelona Provincial Council. De la Fuente comes from the neo-Nazi group Movimiento Social Republicano (Republican Social Movement) and serves as confirmation that, although some media outlets attempt to portray these mobilizations as "citizen-based," many are driven by extremists emboldened by the general climate of growth and legitimization of racist rhetoric. The far-right movement is beginning to organize and has a growing presence in Catalonia.
In addition to these racist arsonists, these attacks are driven by rhetoric that criminalizes migrants, especially North African minors, who have now become the focus of a confrontation between communities trying to shirk their duty to welcome them. Nobody wants them. We good citizens quicken our pace when we see them on the street.
The narratives that cement these fears flood our screens. They speak of occupation, multiple offenders, or even portray them as sexual aggressors and threats to "our way of life" or our culture—the preservation of the Catalan language is beginning to be used as an excuse to legitimize a "progressive" racism. The housing crisis is thus deflected as a crisis of occupation, for which foreigners are blamed. "Multiple offenders" serve to associate migration and crime: the incorrigible North African, unwilling to work, incapable of "integrating," and therefore having to be expelled to preserve the purity of society. The moment there is a rumor of a sexual assault or a robbery caused by a "Moor," the mechanism set in motion by all this rhetoric of exclusion and blaming entire groups is activated. All it takes is someone to light the fuse. And there are many willing to do so.
These eruptions of racist violence are not isolated episodes or spontaneous outbreaks of "citizen outrage." They are the crudest expression of a system that needs to manufacture internal enemies to deflect the unrest generated by the multiple crises we are experiencing. The "Moor" has become the perfect scapegoat. This figure represents the criminal, the migrant who "doesn't integrate," the one who, ultimately, does not want to peacefully subordinate himself to his position tied to the most exploitative jobs. Thus, racist outbursts serve to subdue all migrants, where, perhaps, they could ignite a very different kind of social protest. Thus, hatred of the "Moor" functions as a general warning to discipline the migrant workforce, while offering the rest a sense of national belonging as symbolic compensation. Therefore, as long as this racism is useful for reinforcing social hierarchies and managing social tensions in a time of latent crisis, racist attacks will continue. Racist fires will continue to burn, and there will always be someone willing to fan the flames.
