Nave B9, Badalona: Eviction, violence and racism

«Not even homeless people, nor houses without people»

The images of the police charging against migrant workers in Badalona crudely condense the functioning of capitalism at its most putrid point. While institutions invoke the “Christmas spirit” and coexistence, The daily reality for large sectors of the racialized working class is the truncheon, forced eviction and the total absence of alternatives. The violent operation carried out on the B9 ship is not an isolated event: It is a direct offensive against those who survive on the margins of the system.

Capital against life

For years, The warehouse located on Guifré Street – known as B9 – has been a space of refuge and sustenance for dozens of workers, mostly of sub-Saharan origin, who survive from scrap metal collection. Last Wednesday 17 from December, the Mossos d'Esquadra, in coordination with the Urban Guard, carried out an eviction marked by violence. blows, batons and destruction of livelihoods were the State's response, as documented by different independent media.

The supposed “unhealthiness” is just the alibi. What is being carried out is a policy of institutional racism that criminalizes poverty. Mayor Xavier García Albiol (PP) has turned Badalona into a laboratory for far-right policies: precariousness is not combated, those who suffer from it are expelled. They do not clean spaces; they remove the poor from public view, but people do not disappear for this reason and social disasters persist by not giving them a concrete solution to their sufferings..

Social polarization

Far from the official story spread by the mainstream media, What happened on B9 was a day of resistance. The workers did not agree to leave in silence or with their heads down. They defended their right to exist in the face of a disproportionate police deployment. There were injuries, But an uncomfortable truth was also revealed: The so-called “social peace” is sustained through systematic violence against those who have the least..

After the eviction, the horizon is the street, an open field or a bridge, In this case, most of the people took shelter as best they could under the C-31 bridge that connects Badalona with Barcelona.. Mayor Albiol thought that with violence he would solve everything, but until now it has not been like that, because tensions have also worsened, a reactionary neighborhood sector is frontally opposed to any attempt to relocate migrants in their neighborhood, especially in areas such as Sant Crist and Montigalà-Bufalà and a large number of activists and social associations demand decent accommodation solutions and support evicted people. There have been concentrations of neighbors on both sides separated by the police, bringing together hundreds of people for and against relocations.

A system with those responsible

The responsibility does not fall only on Albiol (PP). The justice that authorizes the eviction and the Government of the Generalitat, Salavador Illia (PSC) that orders police deployment are part of the same mechanism. A system that prioritizes the private ownership of an abandoned ship over the life and dignity of sixty workers is a deeply unjust system.. It should be remembered that in the meantime, In Badalona and in the entire metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona, ​​thousands of homes remain empty in the hands of banks and vulture funds, held solely for speculation.

What happened on B9 is also connected with the episodes of harassment experienced in the Parish of San Roque last weekend, where sectors encouraged by hatred tried to prevent evicted people from finding refuge. It is the classic strategy of the right: pit poor against poor to divert attention from those truly responsible for the social crisis.

a single class, a single fight

We express our solidarity with the workers of ship B9 and with the groups that, such as the Platform Sant Roc Som Badalona, They have been on the front lines facing repression and xenophobia.

We demand:

• Not one more eviction. Immediate relocation to decent housing for all affected people.
  
  
• Expropriation of empty homes in the hands of banks and large holders for social use.
  
  
• Papers for everyone. Repeal of the Immigration Law, that condemns thousands of workers to exploitation and housing exclusion.
  
  
• Out Albiol. For a political alternative for the working class that confronts racism and precariousness.
  
  

The fight for housing does not understand borders. It's a class struggle, internationalist and anticapitalist.