"I have lost 29 family members in Gaza": the refugee casteller who will close ranks in the Catalunya-Palestina match

BarcelonaThe significance of Catalonia-Palestine match next TuesdayDestined to become a cry against the genocide in Gaza, it also has a historical thread that links it to the People's Olympiad of 1936The spirit of those anti-fascist games, thwarted by the outbreak of the Civil War, will resonate in the very arena where the competition was to be held: the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium. And the parallel between the two initiatives will also take shape off the field: one of the popular culture groups participating in the pre-match festivities, the Joves Xiquets de Valls, will symbolically complete the performance that bombs stopped almost ninety years ago. Moreover, they will do so with a Palestinian casteller (human tower builder).

His name is Ramsis Hijazi, thirty-two years old. He is a computer engineer, activist, and refugee. He has been living in Valls for four years, having fled repression in the West Bank, and says he already feels "Catalan-Palestinian." During this time, he has learned Catalan, which he speaks fluently, and two and a half years ago he joined the Joves de Valls. "While the Israeli army destroys lives in one part of the world, I want to build things, and with the group we build castles with our bodies and emotions," he explains. His arms will join Montjuïc to support one of the five pillars that will be erected when the players come out onto the field Before the match. An event that stirs emotions in him for two reasons: "I've lost 29 of my 32 family members in Gaza," he laments.

Hijazi, who a few months ago also lost his father in an Israeli attack on his hometown of Nablus, is at a loss for words to describe the "pain" he has felt during these two years of massacre in the Gaza Strip. "I have no tears left in my eyes," he says. And that's why he hopes the football match will serve, at the very least, to send a message of "solidarity" to the Palestinians. "That they see that there are many people supporting them, that they are not alone," he pleads. He believes that the match's connection to the People's Olympiad, organized in opposition to the Berlin Games of the Nazi regime, unites Catalonia and Palestine in a "common struggle and objective." And he celebrates being able to participate in an initiative that, for the Joves de Valls (Youth of Valls), will be especially symbolic.

The castellers group, which in 1936 was called Colla Nova dels Xiquets de Valls, was scheduled to participate on July 19th of that year in the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics, alongside a whole host of elements of popular culture, most notably the Patum de Berga. "They had left that same day in two buses, but on the Sants road they heard gunfire," recounts Francesc Montserrat, a sixty-four-year-old member of the group. According to the oral testimony preserved over the years, the first bus even reached Plaça Espanya, but encountered shelling and ended up turning around.

"The idea is to resume what fascism stopped."

Nearly ninety years later, the heirs of those castellers will return to the same stage to finish the job and "close a chapter," says Marc París, president of Joves de Valls. "In the end, the group will have reached the Olympic Stadium," summarizes Montserrat. The castellers who will form the human tower will wear shirts like those of their ancestors, also red but with some white trim. "It will be a tribute to those people who, despite knowing what was happening, tried to participate in acts in favor of freedom," concludes the veteran casteller.

The initiative has motivated more than 200 members of the group, who this time will travel to Barcelona in three buses and several private cars. There they will join some twenty other popular culture groups also performing before the Catalonia-Palestine match: "The idea is to resume what fascism stopped. And to once again position Catalan popular culture as an element committed to the anti-fascist struggle and international solidarity," explains Eulàlia Reguant, a member of Act x Palesti.

"When we were invited, there was no debate; both aspects of the party are important to us," says París. She's referring both to the commemoration of the 1936 uprising and to the denunciation of the genocide, with which they feel "directly challenged" by the testimony they have within the group. Hijazi told them her story a few months ago, after some time away from rehearsals due to her father's death. When she finally returned, they presented her with the shirt that officially recognized her as a member of Joves de Valls. "For me, it's more than just a shirt," she acknowledges. And she refers to the group, with whom she will close ranks in Montjuïc, as a second family.