"Let's see if you all get raped"

The ‘in solidarity with Ceuta’ demonstrations this week have heated up our days a little more, if that were even possible. To the intense humidity of this September has been added the acidic stench of the rancid mold of outdated Spanish nationalism. We Catalans have always had to receive, and still receive, lessons on how we must face our national liberation. Meanwhile, when Spain takes off the mask of the slaughtered lamb, the wolf of fascism soon peeks out.

But let's talk about Ceuta. The human deluge of 80,000 people that fell upon this town has once again put this Spanish colony in Africa on the map, which the metropolis, as kind as it is cynical, calls an “autonomous city”.

Now it turns out that all these deeply caring patriots are worried about the people of Ceuta… “which is as much Spain as the rest of Spain,” they say. But Ceuta, like Melilla, is nothing more than a colony. How many do you know who were sent there to submit to that torture they called ‘military service’? Ceuta, and Melilla, are militarized cities, a den of civil servants and soldiers who flock there to preserve good colonial health. Since 1979, only during the socialist heyday of Felipe González have there been mayors who were not from the Spanish right. Although more than 40% of the population is of the Muslim religion, it was not until 1995 that the first Muslim councilor was elected in Ceuta, and the situation is so colonial that they have never, ever had a mayor of the religion of Muhammad.

Meanwhile, the fascists (calling them Spanish nationalists, intolerant, aggressive, violent, or supremacists would be whitewashing them) who have gone to do fascist tourism in Ceuta are so solidaristically Spanish that, when it came to beating, insulting, and spitting, they made no distinction between Moroccans from Morocco and Moroccans with a Spanish ID. After all, to them, they were all of the same kind.

The impact of this tumultuous movement is undeniable. The paralysis of the Spanish government, too. They have been incapable of satisfying the most basic needs of the displaced people and also of guaranteeing the safety of the residents of Ceuta. Pedro Sánchez needed a month to come out and say a few words about the matter. Perhaps because he did not know what to say. Perhaps, also, because deep down, they were still talking about a colony… and it is well known that for the metropolises, colonies are the last word in the creed.

Morocco, Israel, the United States, Russia… it does not matter what great geopolitical secret is hidden behind the mob of 80,000. The fact is that it has happened and now people who do not even know the name of the town next to their own home are coming out to say that “Ceuta is ours, that Ceuta is Spain,” in an implausible patriotic turn of flags and Roman salutes. These same people are the ones who endorse the persecution of the migrants who have entered Ceuta these days. Those who openly promote “the hunt for the Moor,” those who burn their improvised tents and take the few belongings they have to get through these days. A full-blown dehumanization. Does it ring a bell?

“Let's see if you all get raped”, “we hope that in the future what you have done today will be considered a crime of treason”, “it is high time to dig ditches to put you all in them”, “you are violent and only sow hatred”. These are some of the unpunished slogans that Manacor fascism has spat at the counter-protesters who last Wednesday read a manifesto demanding the guarantee of human rights for all people affected by this tumultuous movement of people in Ceuta.

One does not know how a brain can be configured to contain so much irrational resentment, so much hatred and so much disgust towards the other. One does not know, either, what capacity for reflection there can be, within this football-like dynamic of insulting the opponent just because they are the opponent and of deceiving the referee to win even if it means using tricks, instead of thinking that in the dispute of the match you can enjoy playing, debating and improving competitiveness in the opponent to be able to enjoy the moment of the game more and build a better sport or coexistence.

But no. Neither reason nor noble political debate are used nowadays. The lie goes first and is followed by the humiliation of the adversary, the treacherous trip and the harmful kick. The exalted Spain has taken to the streets. They are a decadent and rabid empire. A pack of wolves with their muzzles soaked in drool, starving for territories they will never visit and which they only defend on the day they feel threatened a territoriality they conceive as millenary and untouchable. It is the same thing that happened to them when a part of our country wanted to vote. Blows, kicks, batons and rubber bullets. The perfect staging of the "Go get them’ (let's go back to football) of the Bourbon king, who now also says he wants to jump over to Ceuta. It had been twenty years since any Spanish monarch had set foot there.

It would be better if he did like his father with the Sahara in 1975 and did not go poking a beehive in Africa anymore.