Jihadism hates the city

Nobody should go to a concert with fear. Nor to a gay nightclub. Nor to a shopping mall. Nor get on a train or walk along the Rambla with fear. None of us should lose a tenth of a second of our lives thinking that, by doing any of these activities, we run the risk of being victims of a terrorist attack.

Nobody should die for having gone out to dance or to have an ice cream in the center of a big city.

In fact, we generally don't think about it at all. We do not keep in mind in our daily lives that jihadism hates the city and everything it represents. However, one day we wake up to images of the savagely perpetrated attack against the Moscow concert hall Crocus City Hall and, suddenly, we are aware that it could happen to us.

It is not the first time that Islamic State has attacked a large concert hall. In November 2015, in Paris, ISIS terrorists already attacked the Bataclan theater. In June 2016, in the United States, a lone wolf caused a massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. And, in May 2017, a suicide attack also caused a bloodbath at the Manchester Arena in England, during an Ariana Grande concert.

Three months after this last action, on August 17, 2017, terrorism struck the center of Barcelona. Since then, we walk among bollards, concrete cubes and large planters that theoretically protect us against new mass run-overs. If they could have, the 17-A terrorists would also have attacked the Sagrada Família, which is why, since then, its surroundings are closed to traffic and, to enter the temple, one must pass through a series of scanners and metal detectors.

For a few days now, due to the increased jihadist risk, the Mossos d'Esquadra, coinciding with the arrival of Holy Week, have also reinforced preventive patrolling and active surveillance in the Sagrada Familia itself, as well as in the surroundings of the Barcelona Cathedral and the church of Santa Maria del Mar.

Since the attack on the Rambla, we walk among bollards, concrete cubes and large planters that theoretically protect us against new mass run-overs

Precisely, we can afford not to think about the terrorist threat, because they, those responsible for internal security, do. It is good to be aware of this. Last year, throughout the State, 78 people were arrested for jihadism.This is the highest number of arrests of this type since 2005, after the 3/11 attacks.France, four months away from celebrating the Olympic Games in its capital, has just deployed four thousand soldiers to the most sensitive points of the republic. But the truth is that most European countries have maintained a high level of anti-terrorist alert for years.

One of the objectives of jihadism, and in fact, of any terrorist organization, is to condition the behavior of civil society. They bring terror to the heart of large cities like ours to combat the values that define it: freedom, diversity, culture, vitality. Because it is evident that attacks against such iconic spaces as Barcelona's La Rambla, beyond the cost in lives, have an important symbolic dimension. They are an attack against urban ethics.

The day we stop going out to dance, filling the city's great cultural facilities, or taking down the Rainbow flag from our balcony, they will have won.