This time Ada Colau did not shed tears, like four years ago, like eight years ago, also right here, in a crowded Plaza Catalunya. But it did give her goosebumps.
In front of close to two thousand people, in the most important meeting of these two weeks, the mayoress and mayor of BComú on Wednesday evoked her origins to excite her people and mobilize her bases in the face of the most contested elections in memory this city, those of this Sunday.
Colau talked about his grandparents, how they came to Barcelona fleeing the miseries of the post-war period, how they worked in the homes of wealthy people to give their children a much better life, how they achieved it. And following this familiar and intimate thread, he remembered and honored the effort of so many anonymous people in this city, an effort that over the decades materialized in social changes, job improvements, in a much better place...
Yes, Colau, actually, as he already did at the start of this electoral campaign in the La Paloma nightclub, he wanted to inscribe his own personal career and the work of his eight years in government in this highly innovative tradition that he always wore Barcelona, the city that hosted the first union of republican women, the first demonstration in Spain in defense of the rights of homosexuals, those strikes to achieve the eight-hour working day...
Even the 15M, that indignant movement in which he participated and also stood up to conquer this mayor's office. “Then those of the PP told us that if we wanted to change the things that we presented to the elections, well here we are! to continue opening the way, to continue changing things”. Because, Colau warned the respectable, the right and especially the extreme right, and also the lobbies, lurk everywhere, to return to the past, to retrace what they have walked.
The truth is that the commoners know how to set up this type of soiree. First they warmed up to the public Vicky Peña, Bob Bop, Nacho Vegas, El niño de la hipoteca... At least the people had a great time. And then the commoners Gerardo Pisarello, Laura Pérez, Jordi Martí and Janet Sanz were in charge of distributing the corresponding blows among the opponents of this contest, Xavier Trias, Jaume Collboni and Ernest Maragall.
And suddenly, while Martí was speaking, the cloudy sky was dyed red, from the smoke of a lot of boats. The squatters of the old Massana de Raval school, committed for weeks to boycott the campaign of the commons, could not miss the main meeting of these days. “Sometimes, when you open the way, some want it to be opened even more,” Martí said, holding his own, until the squatters left.
