Barcelona is usually celebrated worldwide as a number one web site of municipalism, an strategy that mixes a politics of liberation with a practical, problem-solving focus. Because the New Yorker’s Masha Gessen detailed a couple of years in the past, “Municipalist applications are typically centered on the particular wants of a metropolis’s residents and particular applications that deal with them.”
Nowadays, activists from all corners come to Barcelona to learn the way community-run associations have put a solidarity financial system into motion—selling native democracy, neighborhood schooling, and wellbeing. Lots of these impressed by Barcelona’s instance have adopted comparable methods in their very own communities.
Nonetheless, the scenario was as soon as fairly completely different. From 1939 to 1975, Spain was dominated by a fascist authorities led by Normal Francisco Franco. Nou Barris, the 9 neighborhoods on the coronary heart of this motion, had been predominantly immigrant and working-class. In 1976, a cement manufacturing facility opened. It was imagined to be an financial boon, however it turned evident that the plant was poisoning the neighborhood.
Working shortly, residents…referred to as collectively a neighborhood meeting to declare in unison that this manufacturing facility was being reclaimed by the individuals.
A 12 months later, a neighborhood rebellion passed off. The polluting manufacturing facility was transformed right into a community-run establishment, generally known as the Ateneu Well-liked de Nou Barris (Cultural Affiliation of the 9 Neighborhoods), which turned a driving pressure behind native victories starting from paved roads and environmental protections to improved public transportation and neighborhood well being—and impressed many imitators.
Though native in nature, this historical past has implications for motion activists in communities throughout the globe. It exhibits how actions from modest origins that faucet into neighborhood historical past can materially profit the lives of 1000’s of individuals.
Save Our Lungs!
When the manufacturing facility started working in 1976, it was imagined to create wanted jobs for the neighborhood. However as soon as it opened, residents shortly observed that after they hung garments as much as dry outdoors, they shortly shriveled on account of mud from the plant. Kids developed respiration issues as they inhaled the toxic air. Public well being issues spiked.
Because the well being disaster worsened and metropolis officers did not act, residents determined to take issues into their very own arms. On a chilly and clear January morning in 1977, a delegation of neighbors outfitted with rope, hammers, and shovels marched to the plant carrying a banner that learn: “¡Salvemos nuestros pulmones!” (“Save Our Lungs!”). Benefiting from protests throughout city which had occupied the police, the protestors started bodily dismantling the polluting equipment contained in the manufacturing facility.
Working shortly, residents then referred to as collectively a neighborhood meeting to declare in unison that this manufacturing facility was being reclaimed by the individuals. Any further, it was determined, the constructing would serve to heal the neighborhood relatively than poison it.
So well-liked was their motion that, regardless of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in harm to the property, the mayor didn’t attempt to press expenses towards these concerned, preferring, as one native newspaper put it, to keep away from battle and dwell “a straightforward life.”
Within the months that adopted, the individuals reworked the manufacturing facility from an empty poisonous shell right into a vibrant area of cultural life. They introduced in music, theater, poetry, debates, and a neighborhood circus. When a grand opening was held three months after the preliminary occupation, 1000’s attended. Collectively they christened this area Ateneu Well-liked 9 Barris—in honor of the 9 neighborhoods that it represented.
A Labor Heritage
The title ateneu paid homage to the widespread ateneus populares or “individuals’s athenaeums” of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These had been community-run associations, primarily present in northern Spain, and devoted to the development of studying for on a regular basis individuals. Very like the citizenship faculties constructed by civil rights organizers within the US South, ateneus taught studying and writing, politics, literature, historical past, and science to anybody who wished to study.
In a time when formal schooling was nonetheless largely reserved for an elite intelligentsia, these “democracy faculties” not solely made primary schooling obtainable to essentially the most marginalized but in addition taught individuals easy methods to take motion on the problems affecting their neighborhood. As one native journal described: the tradition of the ateneu “ought to entertain, but in addition clarify why issues are as they’re, talk about them, and foster the required responses.”
The marketing campaign…did greater than shut down a polluting manufacturing facility. By recreating the neighborhood hub…residents resurrected previous neighborhood traditions.
Collaborating in these ateneus helped neighbors from completely different backgrounds construct relationships. In so doing, they realized that their households confronted widespread points and helped them to determine instruments to handle these points. The ateneus married well-liked schooling and neighborhood identification to create highly effective autos for native change and private growth.
As a result of all neighborhood members might participate in these ateneus, the kids that grew up in these establishments usually turned the subsequent technology of civic leaders. Labor leaders like Teresa Claramunt first realized the abilities of organizing, writing, and public talking within the neighborhood ateneu. Claramunt put these expertise to make use of constructing one among Spain’s first feminist unions and main the strike that gained an eight-hour workday for laborers.
By the early twentieth century, ateneus could possibly be present in almost each neighborhood all through Catalonia till the consolidation of the Franco regime put an finish to those establishments.
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Rebirth
The marketing campaign within the winter of 1977 did greater than shut down a polluting manufacturing facility. By recreating the neighborhood hub of the ateneu, residents resurrected previous neighborhood traditions, albeit ones interrupted by almost 40 years of dictatorship. The Ateneu Well-liked 9 Barris helped develop a brand new technology of democracy faculties.
Campaigns which have come out of the ateneu have had a broad vary. Typically the problems are hyperlocal: paved roads for the neighborhood, improved public transportation, road lighting, and extra. Residents additionally fought towards gentrification and air pollution, in the end profitable environmental safety insurance policies for the encircling mountain panorama.
The neighborhood…is [unified] by 5 values: respect, solidarity, cooperation, mutual assist, and participatory democracy.
In response to Spain’s heroin epidemic of the Eighties, the neighborhood used the ateneu to open a youth middle—launching a sequence of juggling, stilt-walking, trapeze, and different workshops to maintain younger adults off the streets whereas celebrating the cultural heritage of the circus in Catalonia.
The ateneu, briefly, served as a neighborhood hub the place individuals met, the place neighborhood points had been debated and plans made, the place trainings had been held, and alliances fashioned.
However political work was (and is) only a portion of the exercise in Ateneu Well-liked 9 Barris. Along with serving as a platform for neighborhood organizing, the area introduced life again into the neighborhood. Teams had been fashioned to reinstate carnivals and launch new festivals equivalent to La Cultura Va de Festa (The Tradition Goes Partying) which hosts tons of of tourists annually. The inseparable relationship between this political and social work is completely captured within the ateneu’s motto: “Motion, Battle and Enjoyable.”
Constructing a Tradition That Teaches Democracy
Right now, the neighborhood of Nou Barris has been reworked due to its ateneu, and different communities throughout Barcelona have taken be aware. Many have rebuilt ateneus of their very own. Some have used refurbished previous manufacturing facility buildings, others have negotiated to achieve possession of historic neighborhood homes. There may be, as soon as once more, a thriving tradition of native democracy being woven within the streets.
In an period when most of the neighborhood establishments elsewhere are in decline, the tales of Barcelona’s ateneus have priceless classes to show. The social significance of such neighborhood establishments is evident: whether or not it’s a union corridor, church, or college, these areas tie individuals collectively throughout variations with a typical set of values.
The neighborhood of Nou Barris isn’t unified by race, revenue, political get together, and even language however relatively by 5 widespread values: respect, solidarity, cooperation, mutual assist, and participatory democracy. These, they’ve agreed, are the premise of a neighborhood that creates a good and equitable society.
The political classes are equally vital: these community-based establishments are essentially the most potent autos individuals have for creating native democratic energy. They’re one of many few locations the place on a regular basis individuals can construct a constituency massive sufficient to influence the real-world points that have an effect on them and their households. As neighborhood leaders in Nou Barris say: “Higher to do it collectively than alone.”
However above all else, members of Ateneu Well-liked 9 Barris stress that an important a part of their work is cultural. Their mission is to construct a tradition that perpetually teaches the values and practices that people must dwell in neighborhood and democracy.
On this sense, political and social work are merely instruments to assist individuals develop the values that allow them to take accountability for the wellbeing of one another and the planet. By means of inventive and academic exercise, these shared values and codes are cultivated; via debates, public assemblies, and theater, ateneus attempt to show important considering “to counteract manipulation of racist and patriarchal speech”; via their community-managed construction, ateneus are a college of democratic participation and social group.
With rising polarization when individuals really feel unheard by their political representatives and powerless to supply a greater life for his or her kids, the ateneu teaches that actual change and social transformation is feasible via this tradition of collective work.
When describing what made the exceptional legacy of Ateneu Well-liked 9 Barris doable, one of many residents merely stated, “It’s as a result of individuals have energy right here.”
“That’s essential,” she continued, “as a result of we all know what it’s prefer to don’t have any energy in any respect. Below Franco, individuals—and particularly Catalans—had no selection however to do what they had been advised. We are going to by no means quit our freedom once more, and the one method we are able to keep it’s if we stand collectively.”