By Rubén Tzanoff SOL Spanish State
The pandemic continues to expose social differences, favoritism for the privileged and the rottenness of the capitalist system.
“Son of a… you don´t do this in the Salamanca neighborhood.” This was the phrase with which an outraged woman rebuked the National Police that was charging against protesters in Madrid. What was she referring to?
Given the uncontrolled advance of Covid-19 infectinos, the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso (PP) restricted mobility in the working-class and popular neighborhoods and of immigrants located in the south of the capital, which generated a strong rejection. Last Thursday, the Neighborhood Associations mobilized to different health centers, among them Angela Uriarte, located in the Puente de Vallecas district. They did so to demand quality public healthcare, to repudiate “ineffective” and “segregationist” selective confinements and to demand Ayuso’s resignation; then there was a rally in front of the Madrid Assembly. What was the response? Violent police charges that caused clashes, injuries and arrests. On Friday there was another mobilization of neighbors and young people for the freedom of the prisoners and against repression.
The same did not happen in the central Madrid neighborhood of Salamanca, where, in mid-May, an upper-class group held a “cacerolada” protest on Calle Núñez de Balboa. Despite the fact that fines were applied and protests repressed throughout the country, in the context of the authoritarian state of alarm, in Salamanca the “posh” moved freely, encouraged by the right and the extreme right of the PP and Vox. The police protected them and fraternized with them. These were outrageous images.
These facts starkly expressed the social gap and the differentiated treatment of the institutions according to social class. In Salamanca, Ayuso defended the rich men who could not go out “for a little while in the afternoons” and the government delegate in Madrid, José Manuel Franco, presented the deployment of the police to “not to repress any type of demonstration and cacerolada.” In Vallecas Ayuso, they designed discriminatory measures and the police, under Franco’s political responsibility, imposed them violently.
Although the government delegate promised to gather information to “act accordingly” and Podemos described what happened as “a shame,” they cannot avoid that the coverage for the repression was provided by their “progressive coalition” government. Previously, President Pedro Sánchez (PSOE) and Díaz Ayuso met and agreed on a “space for reinforced cooperation” based on the Military Emergency Unit, the National Police and the Civil Guard. To avoid any doubt, the Ministry of the Interior endorsed the police action.
You can´t blame the neighbor who insulted the police and appeared on social networks. With few words, she expressed the feeling of anger that exists at the government’s measures in the face of the pandemic that, as in the first wave, are still insufficient and ineffective in health terms, socially unjust and unequal. This is what we have been denouncing for a long time and now it has become more evident. It´s not just us who say so.
Daniel López Acuña, epidemiologist and former WHO crisis director, declared: “The measures announced today by the Madrid government are insufficient, incoherent and will be ineffective. They do not have a solid epidemiological foundation, are irresponsible from a public health perspective, and will cost suffering and life. There must be a limit to impunity.”
The health unions expressed that mobility studies indicate that the restrictions are very lax, because 80% of those who live in confined areas move every morning to other neighborhoods to work, almost half on public transport. They also criticized the measures in Madrid because they lead to the saturation of hospitals and ICUs, and at the same time demand forceful measures to stop a contagion curve that does not stop growing.
It is not just about health problems, because of the cuts and privatizations carried out over the years. There are also social problems. Specialists have specified the differences between the first and second wave of infections and among them, they mentioned that socio-economic inequalities are now more evident, incidence grows notably in the poorest urban areas and remains in the richest areas. Those who have to go to work every day, take public transport and suffer years of social neglect, are more vulnerable to the pandemic. Governments are centrally dedicated to safeguarding the profits of a handful of entrepreneurs at the expense of the health of the vast majority. The institutional regime acts as the executive arm of its decisions. In short, the capitalist system, in systematic crisis, is responsible for the great suffering of workers and the people.
We repudiate the repression, we demand the punishment of the officers and political leaders and the resignations of Ayuso and Minister Grande-Marlaska. Although the prisoners were released, the charges against them should be dropped. There is a different health, social and democratic path, different measures can be applied, as we repeatedly point out from SOL and the International Socialist League. We will not stop pointing out that, beyond the speeches and some partial measures, the Sánchez-Iglesias government is not on the left. There are those who know it, and even so they provide support against the advance of the right and the extreme right. This causes a vicious circle in which the so-called “lesser evil” is always chosen. It is time to raise a different political alternative, a front of the radical left to stand up to the powerful, to the reformist and right-wing parties, to end social inequalities, support those who struggle, promote popular organization and mobilization in the neighborhoods and the general strike of the workers to stop the closures, layoffs and bury the precariousness imposed by the labor reform.
