Faced with my existential sadness without serious and objective problems, my psychologist made it very clear to me that we all have the right to be unwell, to have a bad time and even to complain without feeling ashamed because others do have real problems. Next, it is necessary to get to work to identify the causes of the discomfort to try to suffocate it.
Having overcome the personal shock, I have been dragging similar symptoms for a long time in terms of my city and my country. I could add Europe and the whole world, but the closer it is, the more it contributes to my concern. I guess it’s a protective effect that we have naturally. If not, the unattainable character of the universe would be a slab that would not let us raise our heads in the morning.
In Badalona, the Can Casacuberta library has been closed for more than a thousand days due to a fault in the air conditioning system and the poor state of the fire protection and the roofs. The situation is not much worse in terms of municipal sports facilities, which are literally falling apart.
Since 2004, the solution to the problem of sewage discharges into the sea has been clear whenever it rains in Badalona: rainwater deposits. Solution, by the way, already implemented in Barcelona for many years and that reduces the risk of flooding in the city. Only one of the planned 9 has been carried out. In 18 years.
The start of the works for the extension of Line 1 of the metro from Santa Coloma to Badalona accumulates 10 years of delay. The current forecast is to start in 2025, and the claimed arrival at Can Ruti is not even planned. From Santa Coloma to Can Ruti by bus it takes 50 minutes.
It seems to me that the Besòs area does not matter to anyone within the spheres of power in Barcelona
Eleven years after the definitive closure of the Tres Xemeneies thermal power plant, it seems that the transformation project for the area is beginning to take shape. Probably the greatest opportunity for urban and social transformation of the metropolitan area. Only last January did the Generalitat and Barcelona City Council begin to get involved. It is expected that the Metropolitan Area and the Provincial Council will also do so shortly. So let’s wait. But, in the meantime, let’s talk about the Barcelona cocktail bar that has won an award but whose menu is in English, whether the wealth tax is to squeeze the rich (who have never paid it), whether or not we move towards independence and what the new attack will be like… And come rhetoric.
Frankly, it seems to me that the Besòs area doesn’t matter to anyone within the spheres of power in Barcelona, and that if they build four floors, a park and a “dummy hub” they can already be happy. The global strategic vision for the metropolitan area is null. Barcelona is rather ashamed of its metropolitan environment.
Surely, you could make a list of positive things and even make constructive proposals instead of criticizing.
The cliché says that he is in the shower when they sell us good ideas. It doesn’t happen to me. Not in the shower or anywhere. But sometimes when I’m driving or going for a run, I have like an epiphany that lights me up. The last one was to become a member of all the political parties, since for a modest amount of money –or for free in some cases– you can vote in their internal decision-making processes. The capacity of influence to decide the configuration of the Government of the 6,465 militants of Junts has been infinitely greater than that of the ordinary voters in the elections to the Parliament. When in 2015 the CUP assembly tied 1,515 votes, if he had been a militant he would have decided whether or not to invest Artur Mas!
Perhaps this was participatory democracy, instead of voting on the participatory budgets that were made in Badalona a few years ago or being a more or less active member of various associations and school councils.
Now I find that I don’t know which professional to go to because of my concern, and I have had to do a self-diagnosis: I have made the traffic from the pissed off Catalan to the disgusted Catalan, cat and withered.
Faced with my desperate situation, I have had an instinctive reaction: to do everything possible so that my children have the maximum facilities to develop their lives anywhere in the world. That they can choose.
Maybe it’s a bit dramatic for me. Don’t mind me, I just had a bad day.
Martí Casamajó, member of the Restarting Badalona association
