Juan Antonio Garcia Ruiz, Babacar Diagne and Max Cantón, last Friday, at a concentration in Valencia.Mònica Torres
The entry into prison of Pablo Hasél for a nine-month sentence for exalting terrorism has been the trigger for the numerous protests that have taken place this week in Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid and other Spanish cities, and which have ended with violent clashes with police.
But the outbreak of the demonstrations, carried out mainly by young people, also reveals a deep malaise and an exhaustion that go beyond the arrest of the rapper, the defense of freedom of expression and the influence that the most groups may exert. radicals.
"There is a lot of accumulated anger," explains one of the ten protesters consulted by this newspaper in Barcelona, the epicenter of the altercations, and in Valencia, where there have been eight detainees.
Most of the young people come from groups and formations of nationalist, independence, anarchist, anti-fascist ideology and from a wide spectrum of the left.
The rhymes that got Hasél to jail
“There is a lot of anger and a host of injustices and problems that we young people suffer the most, but which extend to the rest of society.
We cannot access the labor market or we have very precarious jobs, although I don't think that a 50-year-old would have it easier, for example, ”says Alex Cantón, 24, a graduate in Political Science, Master in Cooperation, who earns the life as a Just Eat delivery person.
He has participated in the two concentrations in Valencia, along with his friends, Babacar Diagne and Juan Antonio García Ruiz, also a fellow student.
“I am 27 years old and have no prospect of being able to leave home and have a vital project.
I've worked as a waiter, in a clothing store, and even had a one-day contract.
There is a lot of exhaustion and not only because of the year of the pandemic, which also affects everyone, ”says Juan Antonio, along with a hundred young people who waited last Friday for the departure of the detainees in the demonstration on Thursday in the City of the Justice of Valencia.
Both are active in the youth groups of the Poble Valencià Initiative, the party of the Valencian vice president, Mónica Oltra, part of Compromís, who has publicly denounced the police charges as disproportionate.
Charges and altercations in Catalonia and Valencia in the protests to demand the freedom of rapper Pablo Hasél
“We come to the protest, but Hasél is one more excuse.
We protest for the evictions, for the defenseless and unprotected people, for the years of repression that we carry.
Incarceration has only been the straw that broke the camel's back ”, denounces Laura, 40, shortly before Friday's protest in Barcelona.
She is dedicated to the world of business communication.
Rubén, 36, to the field of technology.
He does not want to give more details: “It is the breeding ground in which we live and more so with the pandemic.
People have lost their jobs, for months no one has been able to demonstrate and express that this does not work and a boy comes and sings something that is true and they imprison him ”, says Rubén.
In Barcelona, many protesters decline to speak to EL PAÍS.
The independence protests have their own means.
And a certain objection has penetrated the state media that, demonstration after demonstration, are victims of a proclamation repeated by a chorus that usually surrounds those who, for example, enter to do a live: "Manipulative Spanish press."
Of the few who do speak, almost none give their last name.
They all justify this search for anonymity in the “fear” that the Mossos would associate them with the altercations, the numerous injuries, the destruction of ATMs and shops and the burning of containers and public furniture in the Catalan capital.
Anthony Corey Sànchez is a History student born in Honduras 23 years ago, but has lived a large part of his life in Sabadell.
He is proud to have occupied the 63rd position on the JxCAT list for Barcelona in the last elections.
“There are political prisoners jailed, activists, rappers ... On the other hand, nobody says anything about the ex-military who said in a WhatsApp chat that they want to shoot millions of people [the Defense Ministry has taken the case to the prosecution] or the outrages that journalists like Federico Jiménez Losantos say every day ”, laments Sànchez.
Between two crises
"
Estem fartes
" (we are fed up) was the banner of the concentration on Tuesday in Valencia.
It was summoned by Arran, among others.
Núria Martí, a 25-year-old historian, works as a waitress and is the national spokesperson for this “youth organization of the pro-independence left of the Catalan Countries”.
“Young people born after the 1990s, between the 2008 crisis and the pandemic, we have precarious jobs, if we do;
we live with evictions of neighbors and our reality has nothing to do with the promise of the welfare state that if you make an effort you will get where you want, the fallacy of meritocracy ”, he points out.
"We have no future and they have the audacity to ask us to be peaceful and not throw away containers," he adds.
"I prefer not to tell you my name because I am one of the nine from Lledoners," confesses a 28-year-old in Barcelona.
The nine are accused of placing objects on the road to prevent the transfer of the imprisoned independentistas from the Lledoners prison, near Manresa, to Madrid to attend the trial of the procés.
The prosecution requests sentences of up to seven years in prison for them.
“Hasél's arrest is just something else.
We are here every night for dignity.
It is the lack of democracy in which we live.
It cannot be that the political parties override the will of the people, ”he laments.
Oriol is from Cornellà, he is 24 years old and studies History.
"It will be useless to have independence if we create a Republic that replicates the lack of democracy in which we live," he warns.
His classmates Edu and Marc nod.
They believe that the pressure from the parties is not enough.
“Social changes are only achieved by fighting in the streets.
We have already held too many quiet demonstrations.
History shows us that changes are not achieved alone ”, admits Edu.
The two Valencian graduates in Political Science modulate their criticisms, although they point in the same direction.
They consider that representative Spanish democracy has many deficiencies, for example, in the field of justice and in the power of the elites, "and there should be no problem in talking about them to overcome them," says Álex.
"That we are better than other countries does not mean that we are well", adds Juan Antonio.
The current situation of satiety has also contributed "the tension in the media sphere, in addition to individualism, inequality and the conformity of society," they argue.
Both especially charge the inks against those who achieve a job, even in very precarious conditions and conform, without doing anything to defend their rights and, therefore, those of others.