February

"And February was the name of an epidemic"
Erri De Luca

February isn't over yet, and January's economic surge has already left several gaping holes, fallen trees, and collapsed embankments. All the pillars of the country are teetering. And not just from the effects of the winds: farmers are in revolt, education is struggling, doctors are protesting, goods are at a standstill, commuter rail is running at full capacity, and the Rental Companies' Union is poised for another mobilization. In fact, it's not January that's knocking them down: the primary sector is struggling, public services are stretched to the limit, housing is impossible, and the right to mobility has been in turmoil for far too long. In a discordant note, or perhaps as a direct consequence, February has also begun with the stark data from the latest Living Conditions Survey, published by Idescat. It's as if it were yesterday, when we woke up, the dinosaur was still there. A chronic and structural fact: 24.8% of Catalan society is at risk of social exclusion, regardless of the number of pigs we export to China and the number of Seats manufactured there and passed off as European cars. The official survey, worse than last year's, paints a consolidated picture: 47.3% struggle to make ends meet, and only 3.8%—an absolute minority—manage "very easily." 29.4% cannot afford a single week's vacation. And the faces, traces, and remnants of the risk of poverty vary by neighborhood and social class: women (26%), children (36%), migrants (49%), and the unemployed (55%). Against this backdrop, a significant counterpoint exists: in reality, the risk of poverty affects 40% of the Catalan population. This figure is only halved after all public social transfers, especially pensions, are taken into account. Rights born after years of hard democratic struggle and constantly challenged by the same old players: the repeat offenders in power. Locked away in a Belgian fortress, the EU is currently debating whether to expand the general deregulation that has brought us to this very point.

Contractions and contradictions abound; there are other parallel accounting systems and other glaring incompatibilities where nothing ever changes. For example: 34 billion euros in net profits for Spanish banks, a new and historic record, at a rate of 93 million euros daily, 4 million euros per hour, 65,000 euros per minute. Electricity companies, despite the massive blackout, have accumulated 11 billion euros in pure profits, at an absurd rate of 30 million euros daily, 1.25 million euros per hour, 21,000 euros per minute. The rest is already known. Eggs have risen by 30%, the purchase price of housing has increased by 6.4%, and the price of rent by 11% during 2025. Seemingly distant and with Italian echoes, judicial intervention against the subsidiary of [unclear - possibly "the company"] has arrived from Milan. start-up Catalan Glovo, accused of labor exploitation Nineteenth-century practices with twelve-hour workdays. Squeezing the poor: in some cases, according to the prosecution, they were paying their delivery drivers 82% less than the collective bargaining agreement stipulates. I don't find a Catalan detail insignificant, as it directly connects the two: eight months ago, during the tenth anniversary of the Catalan company, Salvador Illa congratulated the company—still embroiled in legal proceedings and with millions in outstanding fines—at an event attended by employers' associations and major unions. But the repeated offenses always persist.

The start of February also saw two demonstrations regarding the commuter rail system—and both should be celebrated, given the current situation—that failed to find common ground, which didn't seem far off. It was enough to avoid both exclusion and exclusivity: no pro-independence supporter should have to abandon their activism to protest the railway debacle; no angry commuter should have to stop using the service so that the pro-independence movement can fully embrace and dedicate itself to the cause.

Another winter disagreement harks back to the stone thrown into the stagnant waters of the existing left by Gabriel Rufián. Without fear of debate, at least three weaknesses are evident: the debate is being initiated from the top down, it is being excessively and hastily shaped by the next electoral cycle—when the challenge is not solely electoral—and the territorially asymmetrical nature of the issues. Based on the polls, it seems entirely predictable that the Catalan, Basque, and Galician pro-independence left will do their job in the next Spanish general elections. The gap, the weak link, is all too familiar: there won't be 71 Podemos deputies or 31 Sumar deputies to the left of the PSOE. And here, too, we find interconnected reflections: anyone who believes that a future government of 200 PP and Vox deputies won't affect us is taking off into oblivion; anyone who believes that everything must be sacrificed on the altar of unity will land nowhere. And what's more: anyone who believes that—without profound changes, new mobilizing cycles, and solid alliances—a new Sánchez extension until 2030 is enough to save us from the onslaught is sorely mistaken. On the contrary, two other facts are clear: there is no worse defeat than that which occurs through mere non-showing, and there is no worse reductionism than the cold, electoral kind. As Xavier Domènech warned last December: "At a time of political incapacity to establish an effective strategy against the reactionary wave, the initiative will probably have to come from the social and cultural sphere."

In a strict and concise conclusion, one final, almost epiphanic, piece of evidence emerges. I find it utterly eloquent, and dazzlingly in its burning impact. It could explain why we are where we are and dismantle the three preceding paragraphs. Because between evicting 400 people, with military fanfare and great fanfare, without any housing alternatives in Badalona on the eve of Christmas, and evicting 200 people in the Zona Franca this week, without offering them any shelter, there is no difference, only a single distinction and a systemic pattern of repeated offenses. No difference; a distinction—one carried out by the PP; the other by the PSC—and a pattern of repeated offenses: the same aporophobia. The distinction lies in how the poorest people are sent into greater vulnerability. Albiol makes a lot of classist and racist noise, and Pere Navarro, president of the Zona Franca Consortium and the highest-paid official in the Catalan public sector, evicts the most vulnerable while talking about rodent controlAnd yet, the human impact and the political impulse are identical. If the effect and the cause are the same, wrapped in seemingly antagonistic colors, where exactly are we? What framework is being fostered? What can we expect? What is so frightening? Deep down, it's the spirit of the times: we fortify borders, erect walls, and electrify fences to tell those who come after us that they will never be able to live as we do. We deny them what we want for ourselves. Give it a name.