Arson attacks in Barcelona; the chaos for the rich

Barcelona, a city about to become a target for its own inhabitants

I have visited Barcelona for
professional reasons at least 30
times in the last 15 years, and I
have to admit that many things
have changed to better for those
who love this beautiful city. But
things have also been getting
worse and worse for many of its
people. The economic crisis has
caused havoc in many families
who, because of high rates of unemployment, cannot now confront the economic downturns
that a group of corrupt politicians have caused from Madrid making use of their mafia-like
tactics, which have been beneficial for their rich friends who provide them with revolvingdoor jobs once their political career is over. Barcelona is becoming a city for the rich, while
in fact this city was founded by people who were not rich but hard-working citizens.
The arrival of foreign real estate agencies, interested in purchasing private property, has
made prices go up; a fact that has produced a negative impact on the lives of many tenants
who have to pay higher rents while their incomes decrease because of an inflation that
seems to be low but is progressive and detrimental. That is, prices go up while wages go
down, as simple as that.
But as you know, all coins have two sides and the worse of them will force a few, or perhaps
not so few, to take action on those who delight in making money while impoverishing honest
people. I will explain myself: a few months ago I was in Barcelona having a "vermut" - this is
how Barcelonians refer to a pre-lunch aperitif- with my friend Ricard. We were in a typical
bar in the "Barceloneta", which is an old neighborhood of fishermen; a place where low-cost
apartments were very common. This neighborhood has always been visited by many
Barcelonians and tourists -above all in summer- to have the abovementioned vermut, eat
paellas and other typical dishes of the Catalan cuisine.

The Barceloneta is right on the coast,
attached to the port of Barcelona, and right
next to the marina where very luxurious
yachts are moored, while this has drawn the
attention of some real estate agencies that
are putting into practice a series of
strategies that have to do with real estate
bullying once they have bought a building
that houses several tenants who pay rents
that have to do with the price of land for
that low-cost part of Barcelona.
Well, the point is that we were having that vermut when we started to listen to a group of
four young guys who had just entered the bar and seemed to be in a very bad mood. They
were very angry as one of them had received a letter from a lawyer that informed him that
he had to leave the apartment in less than six weeks.
My friend and me were engrossed in our conversation when all of a sudden I heard
something that caught my attention. The guys were speaking without fear of being heard
since they thought we both were foreigners as we were speaking in English and there
weren't many people in the bar. I told my friend to go on speaking, but we both started to
pay more attention to what they were saying. Their complaints had to do with the
aforementioned bullying and the increasing prices related to housing needs.
One of them said that ever since that fancy
dock for yachts had been built, anything
related to rents and housing would increase in
price. So the solution would involve to start
setting fire to as many yachts as possible and
occupy apartments as squatters do. One of
them said that setting fire to the boats would
not be difficult thanks to the use of firework
rockets and Molotov cocktails that could be
launched from the flat roofs of many of the
buildings looking over the marina.

This strategy would eventually spread panic among yacht owners and discourage investors
from buying any properties that would eventually be renovated and sold to the owners of
such yachts. The plot included to burn luxurious cars that would be parked on the streets,
and cause as damage as possible to new luxurious shops that would set up in a near future
to profit from the great buying power of the new locals.
At first, my friend and me thought that this was the complaint of a group of people who were
to do nothing rather than to take action against this form of fundamentalist capitalism. My
friend told me that many of the complaints we heard from those guys in the bar started to be
very common for many people in Barcelona, and he himself could be a victim of this plague
as his pension was to be reduced by the central government since the "piggy bank" for
pensions was almost empty due to the mafia-like strategies they have been playing in the
last ten years (money used to bail banks, and which has barely been returned despite their
having earned billions of Euros in benefits in the last five years)
When I finally returned home I started to think about all I had heard from those guys in the
corner of that bar and what my Catalan friend told me about his dubious future because of a
pension to be reduced to a minimum; a money which wouldn't allow him to buy enough
food, pay a rent or pay the excessive cost of bills for water, electricity and gas in Spain.
I went online to search for many of the devices those guys had described to make and use
against the new and powerful neighbors of the future Monaco-like Barceloneta. I found
many devices, which I will not reveal here to avoid providing terrorists with ideas for future
attacks. I finally concluded that those guys were the starting point of a series of activist
movements that will eventually lead to a scenario depicted in novels dealing with an
uncertain future caused by the greed and negligence of a few.
All this seemed to me very novelistic until I heard
the news concerning a fire that had taken place in
a marina in the "Port Forum" in St. Adrian, a city
beside Barcelona. Was it a coincidence or the
beginning of the chaos for the rich - this was one
of the sentences I heard from those guys. I called
my friend Ricard via Skype and he told me that at
first the firemen and the police thought the fire
was accidental, but it restarted some hours later,

while this raised suspicions among firemen and cops. Anyway, in the event it had been an
arson attack, it would be covered up to avoid raising the alarm among real estate investors.
To make matters worse a night watchman said he had heard a blast very similar to that
when powerful fireworks explode. He didn't pay much attention then as Saint John's festivity
is approaching (July 24th) and fireworks are used to celebrate the arrival of summer even a
few months ahead.
I am not in favor of violent protests but I put myself in the shoes of the victims of this
bullying and I conclude that when oppressors do not listen to reason, violence has the most
convincing effect. I know it is rude to say this but the money and power of a few, backed up
by the legal force of pseudo-aristocratic institutions (something very typical in Spain), can
make human rights a joke, not a reality.
So, if you are going to moor your yacht at the dock of any of the two marinas mentioned
above, take all the precautions in the world to safeguard your boat from angry and needy
people. Take up the best yacht insurance before policies go up in price and become
unaffordable.