Housing priority
The pro-Trump Spanish patriotic party has done it again: it has slipped a new racist and exclusionary proposal onto the media and political agenda, which takes advantage of the diverse discontents of society to attack the most vulnerable people. At other times, women have been victims of male violence that, according to them, does not exist. Minors have also been turned into beasts whose teeth we must check. Now, it has targeted one of the groups they most often attack: migrants. With the typical and hackneyed propaganda of fascisms past and present: Spaniards, first. 'Ours', first.
They also do it from the comfort of those who do not dare to govern, but who do dare to drag an increasingly less moderate institutional right with them to the precipice of indecency. We have seen this with the regularization process, where even those of Feijóo and Prohens have swallowed the contradiction of going against not only human rights, but also the position of the Catholic Church and even the interests of businessmen who usually guide their government action at any level.
The worst thing about this latest mantra of the far-right, 'national priority', is its normalization by the political and media class. We have ended up accepting that it is a legitimate debate, just another topic on the table of the usual pundits, ignoring that it is the first step towards resuming the darkest episodes of the 20th century, those that have allowed the segregation without scruples of those groups that the dictator of the moment has considered undesirable: gypsies, Jews, Muslims, foreigners in general. What will be next, besides denying aid to those who need it most, regardless of the convenient condition determined by power: making those who are not 'from here' sit at the back of the bus? Separate queues to enter the hospital? Will this apply, for example, to hospitality staff who have to fight with tourists to get on the same bus to go to work? And will there be any limit placed on rich foreigners who ally themselves with 'locals' to make our lives impossible and turn the wheel that makes the majority of us increasingly poorer?
The ‘national priority’ operates, in reality, as an instrument of oppression for the majority of the population, because it postpones again the priority of priorities, especially in a context like ours: the housing priority. In fact, just this week the first Horizontes report has been presented, which collects the perception of the Spanish population on a multitude of issues and underlines the feeling of fear and uncertainty that permeates public debate. The report shows a society concerned at all levels, where most people perceive reality as more unstable and more insecure than a decade ago, and view with fear the increase in power of technological multinationals.
In the case of Spain, good macroeconomic indicators are unable to hide growing unease, which manifests in the form of incipient distrust in democracy. Because democracy is not only threatened by an extreme right that does not believe in it, but by the inability of democratic leaders to solve citizens' problems. If the economy, which permeates our lives – for example, with the undeniable loss of purchasing power in recent years –, remains on the sidelines of democratic decision-making, we have a problem, and many of the social discontents refer us to this key issue.
The housing priority also emerges in the aforementioned report, which places the issue of housing as one of the population's main problems, far above immigration, but politics – this research points out – undervalues its importance. If everyone, regardless of their ideology, agrees that access to housing is a major problem, why is no measure approved to protect homeless people or those at risk of losing their homes, as has just happened in the Congress of Deputies? Why are housing prices not limited? What is the Spanishness card of speculation that threatens a human and constitutional right and the possibility of building a life, a family, freedom…?
The housing priority is the counterpoint to the ‘national priority’. Not only because it highlights the hypocrisy of a patriotism based on lies and propagandistic appeals to a pure national identity that has never existed, and to privileges that are actually class-based. The housing priority is the counterpoint, above all, because the defense of the right to decent housing has the potential to go from being the great problem of this society to the great unifier that brings us together. Even our anthem, which we will soon celebrate with the help of Obra Cultural, was clear about it: the Balanguera weaves the future, but without a home there can be no tomorrow.