He arrives on July 16 at the Plaza de la Vila Of, a municipality of Barcelona of 20,000 inhabitants surrounded by a wall of industrial ships, when the sun still falls to lead on the asphalt. It is too fixed for this heat (white shirt, jeans tight, dark brown leather moccasins), but it is true that it will not be there for a long time. Before greeting local militants and undergoing a round of selfies With a smile as impeccable as his clothes, he applauds the courage of the people of Polinyà, stood in front of the “terror.” They listen to less than a hundred people.
Garriga lands in Polinyà three days after some incidents that occurred during the main party. What happened, according to police reports, is that half a hundred people increased and tried to attack some young people who had committed robberies with violence. It happened on Friday night, after the humor show, by David Fernández and José Corbacho, and also that of Sunday; In both cases, the police arrested the thieves and held, although with difficulties, the revenge impetus of the neighbors. For the deputy of, what happened was a kind of popular uprising to stop “a group of Moroccans who sowed terror in the streets.” The detainees, although of Maghreb origin, are Spanish.
In Catalonia, Vox launched in 2021 the “Seguros” Campaign. The party has been stirring (low economic level, neighborhood conflicts, high immigration rates) as a fuse in search of flame. In the last year, the outbursts of indignation and discomfort have happened in different parts of Catalan geography. The analyzes of the phenomenon agree that these episodes are produced in “humble, tension” neighborhoods, with a storage of social discontent, where it calls it on easily. “You can start with anything: a personal encounter, a robbery …”, explain police sources. From there, the incidents climb and expand, sometimes with third parties “that join the party”, until the capitalization by extreme right parties arrives; In the case of Catalonia, Vox but also.
Polinyà is a small sample of that behavior. With the fire already suffocated, Garriga Caldea the spirits. Exaggerates or falsify facts. Police, he says, “” (there were two) and prevented “an attempt to sexual aggression to a young woman” (the City Council does not know that this will happen). (Murcia), rather. “What happened in Torre Pacheco, in Sabadell, in Salt, in Mataró, here in Polinyà, and what will happen in many neighborhoods, is that the Spaniards are fed up that politicians have imported criminals.” Applause. Shouts of ‘President, President’. And goodbye.
“There are fire and there are people who throw gasoline”
“Well, we have had less incidents than other years … Luckily, nothing never happens,” says Javi Silva, for 10 years. “They wanted to magnify what happened and here they will not get it, because there is no place, but they will try all summer,” says Silva, who, like many mayors, tries to combat Vox’s strategy to heat the neighborhoods going down to the streets to talk to the neighbors, also with those who have come to applaud Garriga.
Davinia (42 years old) says that he lives “crowded.” His 16 -year -old daughter has asked him to accompany him at parties for fear. “There are more robberies, more violations, more drugs,” he says. He attributes it to the Moroccans, like Salvador (46 years, truck driver), who asks for his expulsion and regrets that there will be, and that they end up “paying fair for sinners.” Five minutes of conversation with them and other neighbors, however, deeper reasons for the grievance emerge: work more hours, collect the same, pay taxes, live worse.
The discomfort is there. And Vox points to an scapegoat (the offender) on a common front with other ultra -right groups. (‘Sport Aahora’), led by Christian Lupiáñez, who called “hunting immigrants” in Torre Pacheco. , Lupiáñez, 29, participated in May in a demonstration convened by a Vox councilor.
“There are fire, there are people who pull gasoline and we don’t have water to turn it off,” adds another police source on a culture broth that converts those places into potential Torrepachecos. The “spark” is unpredictable and keeps the police on alert. A while ago, this type of conflicts “could go unnoticed”, but there is a “mimetic” effect that ends up causing a dripping of cases, such as Vox. “This is going to be reproduced in many neighborhoods. And it is not the fault of the victims, but from politicians,” Garriga proclaims.
After Torre Pacheco, and the succession of conflicts in Catalonia, they are on maximum alert. For years, the Catalan police have been studying the reasons that underlie the discomfort that can end in conflict in the street. His analysis cross police incidents with socio -economic indicators, to refine the gaze and be able to intervene before the conflict explodes. With the added element that summer and heat leads more people to socialize on the street, especially in those neighborhoods where its residents cannot afford a vacation outside. The possibility of rifirrafes that become the dreaded “spark” increases.
THE OKUPACIÓN, SOURCE OF MADE
Seven kilometers from Polinyà, in the industrial belt of Vallès, there (216,000 inhabitants). On July 2 and 3, the ghost of a Pacheco tower before Torre Pacheco survived. The wick was, in this case ,. After being summoned by social networks, a hundred neighbors concentrated on the street against the squatting of two stores, in Les Termes and Creu de Barberà, neighborhoods with a high percentage of foreign population and coexistence tensions. The riots, in which they tried to attack the squatters, resulted in a minor injured, a serious injured by white weapon and two other injured. Some participants filmed those nights in the neighborhood by launching slogans against foreigners: “The nationals say enough.”
Eloi Cortés is the first deputy mayor and housing councilor of Sabadell. He confirms, through police identifications, that many of those who participated were not residents of the municipality. And denounce, in view of what has happened next, “.” There is a feeling of insecurity or a problem of coexistence. Mobilizations are produced through networks, spontaneous or not so much. And at a given time, they appear ”, alluding to Vox, which on Friday, after the second night of disturbances, organized a demonstration (“ neighborhood concentration out kupas ”) in Sabadell.
Cortés assures that the Consistory (who threatened the mayor, the socialist Marta Farrés, and her family) but also to the squatters. “The local Les Termes were burst a few days before. One of the squatters threatened a minor with a razor. We had already achieved an eviction order for the day after the first incidents,” says the mayor, who also bets on pedagogy. “We are talking to neighbors even to confront them, to deny bulos …”
Incivism problems, often linked to squatting, are a risk factor. “Until not so long, demanding legality and avoiding outposations was, in a certain way, to go against the countercurrent,” explain police sources, who admit that more and more municipalities have taken a drastic turn to that approach. Like the neighbor, which more than a year ago approved an antiokupations protocol. Now more than 90% of hot squatting attempts and explore legal ways (press the owner to drive the procedure, look for unhealthiness reports) to expel the squatters already installed, especially if they commit crimes, explains Lluïsa Melgares, housing and immigration councilor.
“Always look for an incident”
Perhaps that is why, in Terrassa, it awakens fear pointing in another direction: the violations, which attributes again to the Maghreb collective. After the aggression to a woman in April, she associated with, to light the networks and the street. Esteve came to spread alleged photos and identities of the authors with a phrase reminiscent of the messages that moved hatred in Torre Pacheco: “One of the alleged rapists is still released and there is order to hunt them.” He promised 3,000 euros in cash to whom he gave clues of his whereabouts.
From the hand, Tomás and Esteve, Vox and, led a concentration on the 10th in front of the City Council to end “the privileges of the rapists” (sic) and stop “importing criminals.” The event was attended by half a thousand people. Some called the president of the Government “son”. He ultra Esteve was photographed with the victim, crying on his shoulder. Beyond that protest, in Terrassa it has not set the fuse. And it has not been due to lack of desire. “He is always looking for an incident. And only a wick is missing, that an unfortunate commits a serious crime,” Melgares laments.
Although it runs through the most degraded neighborhoods (La Maurina, Can Palet, Sant Pere Nord), the fuse, for whatever reason, has not set as it happened in the disturbances of Torre Pacheco, which Tomás applaud without reservations. “It is the Spanish people who are dealing with the Islamist invasion. Honor,” he said after the dissemination of young people from young people out of “hunting” through the streets of the Murcian town. In Tomás, the other common ingredient that travels numerous Catalan neighborhoods is concentrated: the old rejection of moro. “The Moors are gone to our grandparents and violate our young people,” says Tomás, who only competes in Islamophobia with the leader of Aliança Catalan, Sílvia Orriols, which affects smaller villages in Girona and Lleida.
Against Moroccans and Muslims in general go a good part of the rejection. In Piera (Barcelona), strangers burned, allegedly intentionally and in the early morning, the town’s mosque, which the community had not yet released. The collective. Said Aluchi, vice president of the Islamic community of Piera, has lived in a few days the worst and best of society. “It has been exciting to see people go out to give us their support. Here we meet, we get along, we have appreciation. They will not divide us.”
