Mallorca at the limit, more than ever

Mallorcans have, or we have, as a society, a certain reputation for being apathetic and conformist. I won't say it's not a somewhat deserved reputation, but it has a more interesting flip side. This same society also forms a country of sensible and elegant people, with a deep allergy to bad manners, rudeness, exaggerated gestures, and violence in any form. For the citizens of this country called Mallorca, there are few things less interesting than losing one's composure and irony, losing one's temper, becoming solemn or intransigent. And let's not even mention becoming aggressive: all of this, in Mallorca, is frankly frowned upon.This country, despite what some say, exists, and it manifested itself again on Sunday in a massive and exemplary way through the streets of Palma. More than 70,000 people came out to demand that good sense be applied to tourism and real estate policies. The current model is extractive and parasitic, with large profits concentrated in a few hands and a very long list of social problems that citizens/taxpayers suffer. Speculation, the impossibility for a large part of the population to access housing, the expulsion of people who literally cannot afford to live here, growing inequalities, job insecurity, premature abandonment of studies, overpopulation, coexistence difficulties, and social fracture. It was against all this that the Majorcans demonstrated this Sunday.The success of the call – by the platform Menys Turisme, Més Vida, with the support of 145 entities – materialized in a true human wave (as you can read inAra Balears) that marched through the center of Palma without insults, without tension, with a cheerful tone and impeccable civic attitude. The protest was truly historic, comparable to few in Mallorca's recent history. Faced with a mobilization of this magnitude, business owners and politicians can only do one sensible thing: get to work on the corrections they are being asked for.On the other hand, what they did was send the National Police to beat citizens. Provocations, impediments and, finally, police charges with batons and rubber bullet shots, resulting in several minor injuries and a photojournalist seriously injured in the head. An absolute and intolerable disgrace, the primary responsibility for which lies with the delegate of the Spanish government, Alfonso Rodríguez, who should indeed resign, as is demanded from all sides. The PP and Vox government should not think, however, that they benefit from this: they wanted exactly this, to be able to accuse the demonstration of being “violent”. They had been trying for weeks to disqualify and criminalize the protests, and Vice President Antoni Costa went as far as to invite those who request a reduction in tourism to “pack their bags”. On Sunday, the Majorcans set an example of dignity, and their rulers, of indignity and ineptitude. Sunday, too, something broke between the Majorcans and their institutional representatives.

Disproportionate police violence at the end of a peaceful demonstration