A Christmas Carol in Badalona
The situation of the hundreds of people evicted from Badalona is terrible. Terrible for them, uprooted and homeless in the dead of winter, condemned to the underworld of crime and addiction, with a future as black as soot. But they are not the only ones who demand our attention: their presence is a headache for the residents of Badalona who arrived before them, who mostly live a precarious daily life, with inadequate public services, and who now only need to encounter bewildered and/or violent newcomers, who are of other races. This challenges some of us who try to subjugate them, and which the right and far right try to bring to the surface to become an ideology, a worldview and a vision of people.
García Albiol is a bold politician. Before Vox and Aliança Catalana, he boldly championed his "clean-up" policies, seasoning them with a populist and highly media-savvy approach, appearing before the cameras like a vigilante sheriff. In the last municipal elections, he won an overwhelming majority, so this isn't just about him (because he has never lied), but about the thousands of Badalona residents who voted for him. It's not Albiol we should try to understand, but those who voted for him. Not all of them are bad people, nor are they lacking in solidarity or racist. They are people who, because of populism, have turned their backs on complexity.
Many of those who applaud Mayor Albiol tend to repeat the same argument: "If you defend those who were evicted, then take a couple of them into your own home." But no. I don't believe these unfortunate people should be scattered among the homes of those who defend them. I think, instead, that our taxes should be used to improve social services and security, to create a housing policy worthy of the name. And, yes, also for a sensible immigration policy that prevents situations of hardship and conflict. But, above all, so that no one, wherever they're from, has to spend the winter outdoors.
And that debate is quite old. I grew up in Badalona in the seventies, and when I came home from school, if I heard someone on a street corner... palms I ran in the opposite direction because those who mugged us with knives were "charnegos" or "quinquis," whose parents lived in the suburbs or in shacks on the hills of Badalona or Santa Coloma. Fifty years ago, Badalona was a city with significant social conflict, just like it is now. There were locals who felt cornered by the newcomers (and by a regime that repressed Catalan identity). There were understanding people and unsupportive people, just like today. The adventure of those newcomers from southern Spain has been chronicled, with social epic flair, in the film The 47th. The Africans evicted from the B9 Institute may not generate any legends.
These kinds of comparisons irritate Albiol's party. Alejandro Fernández, leader of the Catalan PP and son of Asturian immigrants, wrote this on the X network:Trying to compare the honest and humble families who came to Catalonia from other parts of Spain with the jobs lost in Badalona is proof that the left has definitively lost its way..."I am astonished by his sincerity, but I also thank him. Fernández makes it clear that the important thing in this whole matter is whether the subjects are Spanish or not. Comparing an African immigrant to a Spanish one, for him, must be an insult. And that also applies to Albiol, whose father came fromto make a living", according to what I read in the newspaper The voice of Almería. Luckily for him, unlike today's hustlers, he had the correct ID.
