“We wait lots of people, lots of trouble. Grace went very well. It’s like going back to before!” Says Ferran, waiter at La Gata Bar, in the Vallespir street de Sants, dedicated to Raffaella Carrà. This neighborhood has started its festivities today (which will last until the 28th), the first without restrictions despite the fact that covid-19 continues to exist. Gone are the masks, people compulsorily sitting at tables and the safety distance. In Sants reigned this Saturday afternoon a cheerful and optimistic spirit. The Gràcia festivities, whose last day is precisely today, have been a success and Sants hopes to emulate it, although with fewer tourists and more people from the neighborhood, their neighbors say.
“We expect 20% more people than in 2019. Why? Well, because there is a desire to go out, to forget. Have been two very hard years and part of the illusion of the people is this, the party”, points out David Cerqueda, member of the festival committee Valladolid Street, that this year is dedicated to a character, Dori, a lover of books. Sants, says Cerqueda, is not a neighborhood “as famous” as Gràcia and, therefore, there will not be as many tourists. She says it proudly. Cerqueda also believes that this year there will not be the wild bottles that took over the Parc de l’Espanya Industrial last year. He believes that the absence of restrictions and the fact that the bar counters are open they will deter people from setting up these massive street parties.
The neighbors believe that the absence of restrictions and the bars in the streets will dissuade the large bottles of last year
The town crier, Elies Campo
People, curious, have begun to set foot in Sants from 18 hours. The neighbors went out at that time to the streets to see their decorations, most of them with recycled materials. At 8:00 p.m. the celebration officially started with the proclamation, which this year was carried out by Elijah Field, the 39-year-old ‘santsenc’ engineer and activist who revealed the espionage of 65 Catalan politicians and pro-independence activists through the Pegasus computer program. This is the plot known as ‘Catalángate’.
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In his proclamation, Campos, who has been introduced by the president of the municipal group of JxCat at Barcelona City Council, Neus Munté, has made a review of the history of the neighborhood who saw him born, has remembered the singer Nuria Feliu, deceased a few weeks ago and also a native of Sants, and has alluded to his last “professional challenge”, the one related to the Pegasus case. “It was a case that included the abuse of technology, human rights and my country. digital surveillance tools now spy to a representation of Catalan society. [El ‘Catalangate’] is being put as an extreme example of the serious consequences of abuse of digital tools”, has explained.
According to Campos, this type of thing “affect the functioning of democracy” of a country and has also cited other ‘apps’ such as Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok as bad examples. The engineer has argued that “Society must be aware of these interferences and demand products that respect privacy.” “I invite you to live the festivities no digital distractions” it is finished. And he has asked everyone to leave their phones at home.