Both Ceuta and housing

When you travel through Morocco these days, sooner or later the conversation turns to Spain. To Ceuta, to the border, to the people who crossed it, to those who try to cross it and also, and especially, to the politicians who turn it into a motive for confrontation for a battle in which, like all others, the goal is to finish off the adversary. It is curious to note that Moroccans are aware of the political war. And surely they do not all have the same opinions about immigration or about Spain. But you do hear one thing there that does not need many explanations: people want to live peacefully and have a better life. Some achieve this in their own country; others do not find the conditions to stay there and risk their lives to seek opportunities abroad. It is a human aspiration, not an exoticism.

This reality is often buried by political noise. Ceuta ceases to be a place where people arrive in difficult circumstances and becomes a stage from which to dispute power in Madrid. The right and the far-right have made immigration a recurring tool to wear down Pedro Sánchez's government. The debate over what the State should do is contaminated by the much more prosaic question of who the conflict benefits electorally.

This does not exempt the socialist government from its responsibilities. Governing also means managing borders, guaranteeing human rights, coordinating with Morocco and offering responses that are not limited to reacting when a crisis erupts. Scrutinizing the executive is necessary, but taking advantage of any situation to feed fear and obtain partisan gain is something else.

Now, however, in Spain, housing is challenging immigration for the leading role in political confrontation. It is understandable because not being able to pay rent or not having a house directly affects daily life. For some time now, it has been an anguish that crosses generations and ideological positions. Now, the right and the far-right, which had even brought Ceuta to the Balearic Parliament, have in housing a battleground that can wear down their adversary more, and they have turned the cannon.

In any case, the housing crisis did not appear suddenly. For years, alarm signals have been accumulating, and the Sánchez government also deserves criticism for not having acted with more determination. The fact that it is now promoting measures does not erase the lost time. And the fact that the opposition is fighting them does not prove that it has an alternative capable of guaranteeing access to decent housing. In the Balearic Islands, the right wing has done nothing in this regard.

Perhaps Ceuta and housing have more in common than it seems: both raise issues of rights and the possibilities of building a stable life. But too often, politics treats them as instruments to bring down the adversary. Perhaps that is why, when you are in Morocco and you think or talk to someone about Spain, you are sure that it is better to listen more and shout less. People do not live to feed the headlines of the parties. They live to get ahead.