For a long time, Barcelona has been receptive to those who come from outside. Some have come to do business, to build, to dream, making real what moved them; to make a vision a reality; to paint, and many, to develop personally, professionally, etc. Unfortunately, Barcelona also receives people who have been expelled by conflict, by armed conflict, by social conflict, by racial conflict, by conflict. Its geographical situation, the port, the climate, and its affordable neighborhoods and distances, make it a natural retreat for those who arrive, tired, hungry, hurt.
Conflict affects all societies, conflict too present in our society, whether it's behind the wheel of a vehicle that transforms its driver, angered by the bollards on Balmes street, or in the belligerent attitude of those who believe they have a divine mission to expand their borders for some historicist vision, which contaminates and justifies a war. But in conflicts, we all suffer, directly and indirectly, and Barcelona has been a cushion, a spring, and a cradle for many of those directly affected, the refugees, the nomads by obligation, who without a fixed destination, when they leave, they leave to survive.
We cannot fail to speak at this time of the humanitarian drama, at this time, of the biggest exodus in the last 100 years in Europe, just about 2,500 kilometers from Barcelona, the conflict in Ukraine. Now millions have already left the country and those who will do so in the coming hours, days, and months; each individual decision to protect life "adds up and keeps adding up" and there will be no solidary Europe if it is not cohesive in the reception of so many unfortunate people due to a war conflict that no one thought about or managed adequately, neither diplomacy, nor international politics, nor even military intelligence.
There will be no solidary Europe if it is not cohesive in the reception of so many unfortunate people due to a war conflict that no one thought about or managed adequatelyIn this avalanche of refugees, we must work as Europeans, and Barcelona is reacting within the European framework from a social and individual perspective. The initiatives showing solidarity in humanitarian aid by sending materials, sleeping bags, food, sanitary products, etc., are to be applauded. It seems that the response is massive and effective, and Barcelona is doing it in a sufficiently organized way in very articulated groups.Sending aid is a sign of response to need and it is working.Transport is also working; today, refugees enter and arrive in the EU and can move beyond the border once in Poland or other nearby countries, and their mobility is facilitated to cities such as, for example, Barcelona. In fact, here individual initiative is already providing examples of Barcelonans who take a van individually, or a convoy of vehicles to bring refugees to Barcelona, like that of the Primavera Sound Foundation, or even planes, as Open Arms does. Bravo for private initiative, hoping that institutional Europe wakes up and acts!
But the challenge for Barcelona, a historically supportive city where mutual accident insurance companies were established at the beginning of the 20th century for those who suffered work accidents, or dozens of projects full of remarkable volunteer work, is not whether we will be able to bring refugees or send material; it is whether we will do well what Barcelona, in the long term, must be able to manage as a city: coordinated, sustainable reception, with guarantees of providing these people with a certain humanitarian quality in which living conditions allow refugee mothers, women, grandmothers and grandfathers, girls and boys to develop personally and integrate into our society temporarily or forever, either back to their country of origin when peace arrives or as future neighbors of our cities.
Barcelona has a challenge: to welcome and to welcome well. Thousands of convoys and planes flying to the border with Poland will be useless if Barcelona does not have a coordinated and well-articulated reception network of centers, homes, and locations with guarantees of a better life than they would have in the midst of a war conflict. And they know a lot about this at the Fundació Barcelona Actua, in the heart of Gràcia, an entity with which I have the privilege of collaborating less than I would like. Laia Serrano directs the foundation and for years they have been welcoming refugees from conflicts all over the world who have settled in Barcelona. Initiatives of the foundation such as the BAC Stations to welcome people with needs of this type are an example of the good work done in Barcelona for years in terms of welcoming in conditions, coordinated with institutions and entities, and of high humanitarian quality.
The Barcelona Actua Foundation has been emphasizing for many years how relevant cooperation and coordination with a criterion of sustainable professionalism are with the refugee reception movement. First of all, we need to put energy into ourselves and our surroundings to create the conditions for reception. Individual initiative is very important, of course, and admirable how Barcelona can respond, but the municipal government, entities, and its citizens have to speak the same language, let's do it right: they are people. Nor can we forget other conflicts in the world, other refugees that in the past had to be welcomed and that perhaps the dimension and distance did not put them on the front page of newspapers. The media focuses, logically, on the main war conflict in European history in many decades, but we still have refugees, unaccompanied foreign minors, and many other flows of people who are expelled from their homes.
First of all, we need to put energy into ourselves and our surroundings to create the conditions for receptionBarcelona, with all its individual initiative, cannot be led to a lack of control, as is happening in Warsaw or Krakow, where thousands of people have slept outdoors in overflowing train stations; in Warsaw, today, 10% of the city's population of over two million inhabitants are already "Ukrainian refugees wandering the city and this has only just begun," my good Polish friend, Jacek, who has opened his office in the city center to host 30 mothers and children, told me yesterday; but this is not how it works, neither here nor there.
Barcelona can offer a proper welcome if we start with good institutional coordination, from entities with individual, anonymous, and generous people who make their homes available for the crisis. Therefore, the supportive city that we are, which awakens to welcome in a conflict that will not be short-lived, and that has only just begun, cannot have cracks in its reception structure, we will all lose the energy and good intentions of many citizens. Entities and administrations have the responsibility to coordinate and ensure that these displays of solidarity translate into reception actions, like those we would want for our children, mothers, or grandmothers if they went through the same ordeal. Public collaboration must be urged to coordinate with entities and these with the citizens of Barcelona; the Red Cross is already underway in Montjuïc and we must start here, for them to arrive and begin an orderly path towards a "new life" as new Barcelonians, even if temporarily.
For this reason and with this objective, Barcelona Actua and other entities are organizing informative sessions and responses to individual initiatives to better manage solidarity, since solidarity in the form of chaos causes energies to be lost and diluted and will be of no use to those who are now fleeing fire, conflict, and the irrational and ruthless will of reconquest, improper of our civilization.
For more information on how to accommodate your initiative to help and welcome in Barcelona, consult the website of the Fundació Barcelona Actua or that of the Barcelona City Council; the Generalitat also informs us. We are Barcelona, we know how to welcome those who come from outside, we have shown it throughout the centuries. Now too, but more than ever, let's do it well.
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