The patron saint’s festivities of La Mercè started this Friday with a brilliant, brave, risky, committed, controversial, open-mouthed proclamation… Najat el Hachni gave us a song to the fight for freedom, to the hard sacrifices that it entails. this fight, to respect for the rights of all individuals.
Her vindication of the rights of migrant women of Muslim tradition is truly an exaltation of coexistence in a society where we must all be able to develop as individuals. There is no way to be against this proclamation. No cultural tradition can justify discrimination. Although they disguise it as atavistic, discrimination is nothing more than a form of exploitation and domination. And excuse the militant tone of these paragraphs. But sometimes, and this is one of them, standing in profile is cowardly.
The appointment of the writer of Moroccan origin and also from Vicenza as the announcer of these gatherings a few weeks ago unleashed waves of boos and applause. Some accused her of being Islamophobic, transphobic and other very ugly things. Yes, El Hachmi’s considerations about the veil and attention to minors who intend to change their sex were already causing a lot of dust. Others, however, responded that El Hachmi is nothing more than a brave woman who dares to say what many others remain silent for fear of being censored by the guardians of the essences that lately move so well on social networks. The woke culture feeds on the virtual scream. And the writer, for her part, what she did about it was keep quiet, until she got up on the municipal platform.
The expectation yesterday in the Saló de Cent of the town hall building in Plaza Sant Jaume was maximum. The applause with which the renowned author was received seemed unusually enthusiastic. The Hachmi did not disappoint the eager respectable. This woman does not move like a fish in water on stage, but the truth is that in black on white she is overwhelming. Her quote-unquote partials will never be able to do her justice. I recommend that you rescue the broadcast of the speech. Surely they can find it on YouTube.
A proclamation, a good proclamation, must start from the crier’s own personal experience. And he does it brilliantly when he makes his own vicissitudes help explain those of others. A proclamation comes to portray shared realities, that of a city. Some will feel it more intensely than others, of course, but…
And El Hachmi draws us Barcelona as a scene of freedom, of the freedom that they always longed for. Who didn’t dream in their youth of leaving where they grew up and being told what it was and what they had to do? Who hasn’t fantasized about running away where no one knows you and truly building yourself? Barcelona has always been the city of second chances, the place to dust off so many corsets that were put on us and retightened for so many years.
And this conquest of freedom is sometimes, many times, more than hard, it is traumatic, it causes damage, a lot of damage, because it forces you to do much more than unbutton your corset. Sometimes, many times, the conquest of freedom forces you to break with your origins, to turn your back on your past, to choose, to take a path that in the end turns out to be tremendously rocky and thorny. The new world doesn’t exactly make it easy for you either.
“It is very surprising that today defending fundamental rights in Barcelona and not in Tehran is considered controversial.” “Does it bother you that I explain to you that in this city there are girls who cannot learn to swim or go hiking?” “What surprises me is that some are more bothered by the fact that we refer to these realities than the realities themselves.” “We are not traitors nor do we deny our origins for wanting independence. I will tell you a very hard reality that I have had to learn: if they want us tied, kneeled, cut, modified and fitted into a narrow and suffocating mold, it is because they don’t really want us.” “If misogynistic preachers dedicate so many hours to our way of dressing, it is because it is a very powerful and clear symbol of submission.” “Women’s freedom is so scary that they often prohibit us from things that don’t seem important, things that don’t in themselves pose a challenge to the established order.” In reality we are not only talking about migrant women of Muslim tradition. Disregarding one injustice makes us complicit in all of them.
Yes, the proclamations of the Mercè are usually pronounced surrounded by controversy, but rarely the response of the crier is so forceful. No other, at least in recent years, concluded with such heartfelt and sincere applause. Surely Mayor Jaume Collboni, in his debut in these arenas, saw it coming, and in no way wanted to overshadow her preacher and in her presentation he limited himself to supporting her.
“I want to recognize the courage of the women who open doors – the socialist stressed in his speech –, like the soccer players of the Spanish team.” “We all have the challenge of making Barcelona a fairer city,” he said later, “and we will all do it together.” “I also want to express my solidarity with all the victims of the war in Ukraine, the migratory drama in Lampedusa, the disasters in Morocco and Libya.”
And the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klichkó, ??also spoke and showed his gratitude. Wars are not won only on the battlefield.
