Solidarity with the demonstrators of Mallorca

What is the National Police in Mallorca afraid of? Of thousands of peaceful and organized citizens? Of people who suffer for the land and for the future of their children? Of seeing them wave the four bars and hear them demonstrate in Catalan? What interests does this police force protect when it raises its batons against demonstrators? Will the head of the police operation be dismissed, even if only for incompetence?

The questions about the unleashed police violence on Sunday in Mallorca could continue, but beyond the charges lies the aggravating factor of the painful contrast between the civic concern expressed by the demonstrators and the abuse of power with which they were met. We often lament the individualism of people who live distracted by football and social media. And it turns out that when they organize to make a profound amendment to a state of affairs, they are treated with beatings. This is not right.

Because Mallorca is an island saturated by land, sea, and air, and thousands of Mallorcans have long been saying enough to living on a piece of land for sale with them inside. There is an increasingly explicit and less subdued social anguish regarding the tourist collapse, the exclusion of the right to housing, the instagrammer overcrowding, the destruction of the territory. It is a multifactorial problem — in which tourism is not the only disruptive nor entirely negative element — that must be addressed, even if it touches deeply infiltrated political interests.

instagrammer overcrowding, the destruction of the territory. It is a multifactorial problem — in which tourism is not the only disruptive nor entirely negative element — that must be addressed, even if it touches deeply infiltrated political interests.

It is a very bad situation when the response to societal unease is police violence, because it generates even more unease and can degenerate into more violence. In a democratic society, what happened on Sunday is inadmissible.