A city is that sum of free men and women who enjoy competing in a given place to demonstrate that their idea of freedom is the one that yields the most fruits for all. Aristotle had it very clear, and we have made little progress after his definition of "citizen" in Politics: unlike the resident, or the mere visitor, the citizen is one who has the right (exousia) to deliberate on the good governance of their environment, this being the multitude of citizens who must enjoy a self-sufficient life. There is no deliberation (namely, the capacity to discriminate what is convenient or good) without freedom, nor self-sufficiency (namely, the capacity to self-determine one's own actions and guarantee one's own economic subsistence) without freedom.
What I am telling you, like any philosophical reflection, has nothing metaphysical about it; on the contrary, it is the most concrete thing in the world. That is why we love cities and adore ours first, Barcelona, but also the most beautiful in the world, like New York, as they are the places where we embrace freedom with the most pleasure; they are the places where they allow us to be more like we know we are.
The last elections in the Community of Madrid focused on the concept of freedom —they often overused it and in a somewhat clumsy way—, but it is noteworthy that most Catalan media dismissed the elections widely won by Isabel Díaz Ayuso as a mere matter of guzzling beers in Malasaña bars and engaging in nocturnal revelry. Few journalists of my tribe understood that Díaz Ayuso won because she was the candidate with a more ambitious discourse –often hyperbolic and demagogic, it is true–, but, in any case, the one who best embodied the sense of freedom of the people of Madrid.
Time will tell if her management lives up to her words, but it is clear that the Madrid right made the citizens of the Spanish capital believe that Madrid is one of the best places in Europe to have an idea, put it into practice, and have it end up generating money. On the contrary, the left of kilometer zero (which once led very important movements like the movida) stagnated in a puritanism of denial that not even Pablo Iglesias managed to reverse.
It is clear that the Madrid right made the citizens of the Spanish capital believe that Madrid is one of the best places in Europe to have an idea, put it into practice, and have it end up generating moneyUnfortunately, the commoner-Podemite government of Barcelona has followed the creed of its Madrid brethren, with the difference that our city does not enjoy the services and infrastructures of a state capital. For many years, the citizens of Barcelona have known everything that the Colau administration dislikes: it does not like tourism, Uber, Cabify and Airbnb, it dismisses the expansion of El Prat and cultural projects (of dubious artistic interest, as I wrote last week) such as the Hermitage.The Barcelona administration, like most of the left on the old continent, is reactive and, therefore, conservative. Most enemies of "colauismo" usually denigrate our mayor, accusing her of being an "activist." I think quite the opposite: I wish there were a real activist in the city council (the IEC dictionary defines the word as "propagandaactiveat the service of a political or social doctrine"), because that way we would know what the idea of freedom is, what are the areas of business, intellectuality or simple leisure that interest the highest authority of the city.
My esteemed The New Barcelona Post does well in reminding us daily of the enormous number of companies and cultural initiatives that choose Barcelona to locate their business and have their senior executives spend a season here (just this week we welcomed the neobank Qonto and celebrated the reopening of the Fira with the audiovisual technology fair ISE and also B-travel), which certifies that the city is not in the decadence or dryness of ideas proclaimed by the most apocalyptic spirits.
However, the City Council's administration, and its tactic of responding "no" to most citizen initiatives (it doesn't help that the Catalan middle classes are systematically punished by the administration in the form of increasing taxes) has deeply affected a citizenry increasingly resistant to risk and initiative. It is not necessary to conduct many surveys or commission excessive reports; one only has to ask most zentennials and young people who have just completed their university studies to see how Barcelona is gradually moving away from their area of professional interests.
I wish there were a real activist in the council, because that way we would know what the idea of freedom is, what are the areas of business, intellectuality or simple leisure that interest the highest authority of the cityIt is somewhat amusing that our city continues to maintain its source of economic attraction while most of its youngest and most active spirits think of fleeing abroad to work. This means that, despite being able to eventually find sources of subsistence,the city is bleeding out as a deliberative-libertarian place in the opinion of our future citizens. The end of the pandemic and the economic reactivation of cities around the world will configure a kind oftabula rasain which the cities of the planet will be able to reset their tourist, industrial and cultural offer. This struggle will take place at a historical moment in which the citizens of Europe and the world, after a year of basic rights constraints, will want to regain areas of freedom, and as quickly as possible.
For now, we know almost all the "noes" that Barcelona offers to the world. Now we should think about what its "yeses" are. We urgently need an idea of freedom, and I would say also a new generation of municipal politicians who, if possible, have deliberated on it with a little zeal. If you find a truly free man or woman in Barcelona, believe me, follow in their wake, because they are not abundant.
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