The neighborhood activist Andrés Naya has left to the rhythm of blues... and Labordeta

BarcelonaPeople kept arriving non-stop. Small groups of people who were meeting, or reuniting, to be there and bid farewell to Andrés Naya, a neighborhood activist and one of the main souls of the magazine Carrer, published by the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Barcelona (FAVB), in which he was always involved after being an active member of the Nou Barris one and that of his own neighborhood, La Prospe, the place from which many of those attending the ceremony that bid him farewell this Wednesday at the Sancho de Ávila funeral home came.

Andrés Naya, who was 80 years old and suffering from advanced cancer, passed away last Tuesday, a week after presenting at the Prosperitat Community Neighborhood Center two books that collect—with all the documents he had compiled—the history of the transformation of a neighborhood he had been one of the drivers of: La Prosperitat. Una lucha constante (Hacer publishing house) and La Prosperitat a Cops! Inventario vecinal muy personal (1970-2020) (Clariana Publishing House).

"That was the real farewell," recalls Nestor Bogajo, co-director of the magazine Carrer, which Naya had promoted. "It was known that he was unwell, and despite the downpour that fell, a great many people from all the spheres he had been involved with attended, from activism to journalism or also the more festive side, because he was in all the movements." This atmosphere seemed to hover over the ceremony held this Wednesday morning, which was nothing like a funeral but rather a composed and serene farewell. Long applause at the entry and exit of the coffin in an overflowing room.

At the beginning, his wife and partner in struggles, the also neighborhood, union, and feminist activist Lourdes Ponce—known to many as La Pitu–, explained that he did not want any ceremony, only music, the kind he liked, the blues. "Andrés had helped us from the Neighborhood Association to create the Nou Barris Blues Festival, which has been held for 24 years in La Prospe", explained later Güili Capibola and Chino Swingslide, the performers of the classic blues that played at the event. "He loved it and didn't miss the concerts, not even the ones we held at La Model. He was very much about socializing with people, and that is why he promoted the neighborhood parties to try to unite everyone. They were convinced that the best way to do it was through culture".

Neighborhood reference

Naya had arrived in La Prosperitat in 1974, after going for the first time to the neighborhood, one of the most associative and combative in Nou Barris, to participate in a demonstration for Puig Antich. When they left Huesca in 1972, where both he and Ponce had been born, he already had some years of social activism behind him, something not very easy in the middle of the Franco regime. In Barcelona, this accelerated and, even though he worked in a bank in the mornings –he was forced into early retirement at 52–, he dedicated his afternoons to activism and neighborhood advocacy in a neighborhood that, like many others that emerged or grew at the time, had almost no services and had to be fought for at the street level for every improvement.

But he had always carried, Bogajo recalls, the bug for journalism, and from the FAVB he was one of the promoters of the magazine La veu del carrer (now Carrer), which is quarterly and has been published since 1991. He was its director for thirty years with the idea that it should be "independent, critical, active in the city's debates, and above all that it should give a voice to the neighborhoods, talking to the neighbors and hitting the streets," says Bogajo. He had no qualms about criticizing the powers that be, both political and economic, and he gave them more than one headache. This was recalled by the deputy mayor of Barcelona, Albert Batlle, as he left the farewell ceremony: "Naya made history in the neighborhood movement in Barcelona and I have spent many years in the institutions; we had argued many times, but I had affection and respect for him".

There were also others at the event, in addition to many fellow fighters, younger generations who also saw him as a reference point. For example, David Fernández, who recalled how for his generation, marked by the occupation of the Cine Princesa, his support at that time from the FAVB was important, helping them organize events and supporting their demands. "Barcelona is a fought-for city, because it has been the concrete struggle that has made the city. And Andrés is a kind of anthropomorphic significance of this organized neighbor, in his case from La Prospe and Nou Barris", says Fernández.

Of this neighborhood movement in which there are many names, some known and others anonymous, as the film El 47 also recalled, Naya was a pillar of it. "In fact, we called him the 'mayor'", recalled Fernández. "Between Andrés, Maricarmen, and Beiras, today my head is a jumble of memories, of struggles, of resistances and above all of gratitude. We all would have liked the journey to be a little bit longer and to have been able to have him here for ten more years, so he could see how we topple fascism".

There were few speeches, and an emotional ending with a family friend singing a cappella the song Aragón by José Antonio Labordeta, but perhaps Joan López, founder of the circus school of the Ateneu Popular 9 Barris, summarized a bit the sentiment that was there. "He taught me that it is worth fighting to achieve things, that one must be alert and continue the fight". This is what the stamp that Naya used to sign his books referred to, and which was also printed on the memorial card: "Ha merecido la pena".