BARCELONA, 14 NOVEMBER 2023
On November 14, 2023, a community workshop on ANTIFASCISM about Nou Barris district was held in the Barcelona together with 17 people who were part of civil society organisations. It was chosen to hold a workshop in this district because it has been one of the two areas where the extreme right VOX has had the most political representation in the last municipal elections (12% on average) and because it is the most impoverished district in Barcelona.
First, we did a round of presentations in all the entities that were part of the workshop. They all expressed their fear that the extreme right would continue to rise in the district and spoke of the historical memory of the neighborhood to reclaim its anti-fascist and combative past.
Post-war Barcelona was marked by a lack of public investment and a high rural exodus, which increased the rise of self-built peripheral neighbourhoods.
Politically, the district experienced strong activity led by neighbourhood associations throughout the Franco era, in response to the disorderly urban planning of the post-war period and the imbalances of developmentalism in the sixties and seventies. At first these were cultural or sports associations, but the low living conditions in the area encouraged entities to defend rights and improve urban conditions. Between 1950 and 1963, Nou Barris went from 100,000 to 220,000 inhabitants, being one of the main migration absorption areas until the 1970s.
Nou Barris is and has been for more than fifty years a nucleus of neighbourhood resistance, of struggle for the dignity of its inhabitants and of organisation to achieve such basic rights as housing, health, education, transportation or sewage. These demands have been achieved thanks to long and hard struggles, which have not ceased and continue with the aim of continuing to improve community life in these neighbourhoods on the northern outskirts of Barcelona.
Secondly, a member of the Nou Barris Acull diversity platform explained the racist and Islamophobic incident that occurred in the Prosperitat neighbourhood against an oratory in 2017. In that year, an attempt was made to open an oratory in Nou Barris and a extreme right group (Plataforma These groups have tried to capitalize, in recent weeks, on the protest of some residents of Japan Street opposed to the oratory. The extreme right has organised Islamophobic events, while neighbours and the “Nou Barris all” network carried out many pro-diversity activities, as well as the Barcelona City Council to mediate between neighbours. Finally, the ultra groups were denounced and have been sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Thirdly, a participatory workshop was held where there were two parts:
- REASONS FOR THE RISE OF THE EXTREME RIGHT. The participants separated into groups and identified the main reasons why the extreme right has risen in Nou Barris:
- Economical crisis. Poverty and inequality
- Neighbourhoods without public facilities, neglected.
- Feeling of grievance for the institutions, which are forgotten
- City segregation
- Social and economic discontent. Dissatisfaction with the system
- New match. Hopes for change
- Important transversal problems, such as access to housing or unemployment.
- Racism. Connect with citizens who believe the urban myth that immigrants have privileged access to migrant aid
- They take advantage of security excuses for structural problems in the neighbourhood.
- Abstention and distrust in institutions
- Reaction against progressivism: feminism and anti-racism
- IDEAS TO PREVENT THE EXTREME RIGHT. Participants continued working in groups to identify ideas to prevent and combat far-right extremists in the district.
- Protect and strengthen the neighborhood’s civil society
- Promote spaces for dialogue between key actors
- Promote anti-racism and feminism in education
- Invest public budgets in the district, especially in employment and housing
- Strengthen citizen participation and the role of institutions in the district
- Create new hate narratives based on sport, art and culture
- Work with young people in the streets
- Promote media literacy
- Regulate rent and ensure the right to housing
- Encourage youth participation
- Promote intercultural alliances
- Support victims of discrimination
- Economic reactivation of the territory and strengthening the social and solidarity economy.