Culture Battle
There has been a growing trend among the young and socially conscious, of occupying abandoned buildings to use as social centers. Centers where classes are held, small concerts, symposiums, book presentations, food and clothing collection for the needy, and other events that serve to intellectually uphold the community. Of course, those empty buildings still have owners. Most of those owners keep those buildings empty until they can sell them at a better price than they bought them, or to simply tear them down and build an expensive abomination on the site. The building is used simply as part of the real estate speculation that brought about the real estate bubble in the first place.
There is such a building in the historic center of Santiago de Compostela. This can't be torn down without express permission and much planning and approval of blueprints, because the city is a World Heritage Site and the center is very much protected. But it can be resold at a much higher price. So, the owner decided to denounce the intellectual "okupas" and the judge ordered them to be dislodged, since they were so obviously trespassing.
Early Tuesday morning, the Policía Nacional showed up and blocked off the narrow street. Whether or not they took out anything that was inside, I don't know, but there was no one inside at the time. What they did do, was cover all the windows and entrances with cinder blocks and cement. That was an attempt against the rules governing the city, which do not allow cinder blocks to be used in any construction or rehabilitation in the historic center, and the mayor has already presented a denouncement against them to the judge that handles those affairs.
Tuesday afternoon, however, things got hot. A protest was planned for that evening, in a square near the sealed-up cultural center. Policía Nacional also showed up, this time wearing riot gear. Granted, there were some extremists in the crowd. These are the ones the show up wearing ski masks, or have scarfs wound around their heads so no one can identify them. But, the police were the ones who began the charge against them. Once that happened, hell broke loose for everybody.
There were possibly a few hundred protestors. After the initial charge, the police didn't really care who they went after. Even innocent tourists were pushed and told to move along, and some ended up on the ground, covering their heads to avoid truncheons. True, the black sheep of the lot threw bottles at the police, and set fire to garbage dumpsters, but these were the extreme minority, and they began once the police decided to charge.
Wednesday morning there was another protest. This one was peaceful. My daughter joined it, soberly dressed. About three hundred people went marching through the streets of Santiago, closely followed by police trucks and riot police in full armor. Everything was peaceful, chants were loud, everybody with their heads uncovered and marching. But, at one point, due to the local geography, my daughter thought the police was herding them into a corner where they could start charging again, or at least identifying and detaining. That was when she and a few friends decided to abandon the protest and melt into the neighboring streets.
Such is the power of the police still in this country. Atavistic memories of the grises, the grey-uniformed political police of Franco's time, still resurface at moments like these. It's true, there are sometimes violent dissenters who will destroy, but these are well-known. That the police go after someone lighting up a garbage dumpster, or breaking a store window, is what the police are there for. But the police are not there to charge after protestors who have no more weapons than their hands and voices.
And all this over a cultural center that the neighbors were happy with. When asked, everyone said they had had no problems with those okupas. They were said to be responsible neighbors and never troublesome. Most of those asked couldn't understand why they were kicked out, when they were helping to keep the neighborhood a place that felt like a neighborhood, with people who looked after each other. But the owner apparently has other plans for the neighborhood. Who knows? Perhaps another hotel for the tourists, in a city that is quickly becoming saturated with outsiders, and the lifelong neighbors are being priced out of their old homes. Money, money, money.
There is such a building in the historic center of Santiago de Compostela. This can't be torn down without express permission and much planning and approval of blueprints, because the city is a World Heritage Site and the center is very much protected. But it can be resold at a much higher price. So, the owner decided to denounce the intellectual "okupas" and the judge ordered them to be dislodged, since they were so obviously trespassing.
Early Tuesday morning, the Policía Nacional showed up and blocked off the narrow street. Whether or not they took out anything that was inside, I don't know, but there was no one inside at the time. What they did do, was cover all the windows and entrances with cinder blocks and cement. That was an attempt against the rules governing the city, which do not allow cinder blocks to be used in any construction or rehabilitation in the historic center, and the mayor has already presented a denouncement against them to the judge that handles those affairs.
Tuesday afternoon, however, things got hot. A protest was planned for that evening, in a square near the sealed-up cultural center. Policía Nacional also showed up, this time wearing riot gear. Granted, there were some extremists in the crowd. These are the ones the show up wearing ski masks, or have scarfs wound around their heads so no one can identify them. But, the police were the ones who began the charge against them. Once that happened, hell broke loose for everybody.
There were possibly a few hundred protestors. After the initial charge, the police didn't really care who they went after. Even innocent tourists were pushed and told to move along, and some ended up on the ground, covering their heads to avoid truncheons. True, the black sheep of the lot threw bottles at the police, and set fire to garbage dumpsters, but these were the extreme minority, and they began once the police decided to charge.
Wednesday morning there was another protest. This one was peaceful. My daughter joined it, soberly dressed. About three hundred people went marching through the streets of Santiago, closely followed by police trucks and riot police in full armor. Everything was peaceful, chants were loud, everybody with their heads uncovered and marching. But, at one point, due to the local geography, my daughter thought the police was herding them into a corner where they could start charging again, or at least identifying and detaining. That was when she and a few friends decided to abandon the protest and melt into the neighboring streets.
Such is the power of the police still in this country. Atavistic memories of the grises, the grey-uniformed political police of Franco's time, still resurface at moments like these. It's true, there are sometimes violent dissenters who will destroy, but these are well-known. That the police go after someone lighting up a garbage dumpster, or breaking a store window, is what the police are there for. But the police are not there to charge after protestors who have no more weapons than their hands and voices.
And all this over a cultural center that the neighbors were happy with. When asked, everyone said they had had no problems with those okupas. They were said to be responsible neighbors and never troublesome. Most of those asked couldn't understand why they were kicked out, when they were helping to keep the neighborhood a place that felt like a neighborhood, with people who looked after each other. But the owner apparently has other plans for the neighborhood. Who knows? Perhaps another hotel for the tourists, in a city that is quickly becoming saturated with outsiders, and the lifelong neighbors are being priced out of their old homes. Money, money, money.
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