Najat El Hachmi has starred in the proclamation of the 2023 Mercè, full of criticism of the sexism and the repression against women that has been attributed to Islam that tends to fundamentalism already immovable patriarchal traditions. As a summary, these have been 10 of the highlighted phrases of an intimate and forceful speech, which has not shied away from the controversy that the town crier has aroused since the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni chose her to welcome the town’s main festival. Barcelona:
“There are many of us blackberries from the periphery, from the peripheral of the peripheryfrom the periphery of regionsof neighborhoods that seem far from everything, where the values of democracy and the equality They slip through very narrow cracks, there are many of us who have had and have in Barcelona a kind of El Dorado of the independencethe emancipation individual and freedom. A place where no one knows us, where no one tells us our steps, where we have been or what time we left, how long the journey is. tunica that covers our pants and whether we have put on more or less mascara or talked to a boy Christiana place where rumors cannot be created that become prisons of words of international reach because there was always someone who called Morocco to explain to the family the indecorous behavior of so-and-so’s daughter.
“If in the Government Delegation we felt foreign In the place where we lived, in the consulate we felt foreign to the country where we were born. Because they spoke to us in Araba language that we did not understand and they used a very strange language: that of the administrative institutions that represented a regime authoritarian accustomed to treating its population as subjects worthy of being subdued.”
“Do not believe the self-proclaimed spokespersons of the invented communities: the immigrants and their children, what we want is neither fairs of diversity nor recognition of our uniqueness, we have not come here to be broth cubes that enrich the main substance of the dish. What we want is to live with the same rights that the rest of the citizens, have guaranteed dignity minimum to feel part of the human species and at home we will see if we do couscous or paella, ‘tall rodó’ or ‘tajin’. Because we aspire to be citizens and not town or tribe or community or believers or identity“.
“I came to university thanks to my grandfather Benisa, who believed that we could only progress if we received a good education But for my father, letting a woman alone take the train and come to a place where she could do whatever she wanted was more than he could bear. The freedom of women gives so much fear that they often prohibit us from things that do not seem important, things that do not in themselves pose a challenge to the established order.
“To this day and right here there are many girls who are forced to make the most painful choice that can be faced by a human being: choosing between freedom or belonging, between being who you are and assuming the price that they will make you pay or submit to continue being part of your family, your group of origin. When I think there are girls youths who have already been born here or have come as children who have to go through this unfair ordeal, they who have been educated in democracy, living in a country that fortunately tolerates sexism less and less, when I think that they have to battle alone to be able to enjoy rights and freedoms that other women already have guaranteed, I feel a Rage that propels me towards the blank page, towards round tables and conferences, towards any place where I can say this TRUE that no one seems to want to listen to.”
“He submission It starts with small, seemingly insignificant things. Because you are a woman you cannot wear pants, for example, or you cannot walk alone on the street or you cannot leave the house without covering your hair. Although many years have passed since I have been able to walk around this city dressed however I want, I have never forgotten the price it has cost me to be able to do so. Right now, there are many girls for whom Barcelona is the place where they have been able to walk with their heads uncovered for the first time. I would say that there is a tourism important of young people who, when they arrive, put the piece of cloth in their bag and let their hair down and cannot believe that absolutely nothing happens, that the world is not ending.
“Especially since the great setback that began in the 80s with the fundamentalism identity, we have been educated in the idea that if a single hair escaped from the cloth that covers our heads, everything would go to hell and the most terrible storms would be unleashed. But look at these girls with their manes to the wind who do not stop looking at their own reflection in each shop window, they feel a happiness unheard of, unimaginable for the anonymous people who surround them: the joy of freedom from things that do not seem important, which is true freedom.
“Now that I live a life comfortable and free, I can’t act like I don’t know that there are women and girls in this city who sufferI cannot look the other way and say nice words to you, not go into what is often criticized as controversial. It is very surprising that today defending fundamental rights in Barcelona and not in Tehran be considered controversial”.
“Does it bother you that I explain that there are girls in this city who can’t learn to swim or go hiking? Who grow up believing that they will only be valuable if they are covered? Does it bother you that I tell you that there are teenagers worried about your virginityyoung women who love forbidden people with guilt and paying the price of exile familiar? You don’t like me to tell you that there are women who make an effort to present the certificate of good conduct by dressing in a way decent (what they now call “modest fashion”) to have the right to leave the house? What are there girls terribly scared faced with the possibility of being taken to Morocco or Pakistan and marry them to that cousin who needs papers? Does all that bother you? Well, imagine how uncomfortable it makes them.”
“Don’t ask me to look the other way, enough of sacrificing the lives of girls and women in the name of I don’t know what understanding of civilizations and cultures, in the name of an idea of inclusion that once again expels us, women, from the condition of full-fledged human beings. And to those of you who are experiencing this situation right now, who are forced to choose between your individual freedom and belonging and the bond with your origin, do not be fooled, do not let yourself be subjected to this unjust blackmail. You have the right to be who you are and aspire to live free because none of us were born to submit. “We are not traitors nor do we deny our origins for wanting independence.”