Tag: Police Brutality

Cave Dwellers and Cops in Granada’s Albaicin

Protestors gather at Granada’s City Hall to protest evictions of cave dwellers from their homes. The sign on the left reads “San Miguel Hill is a neighborhood.” The big black and white banner says “The Caves Resist.” One of the chants during the protest had us all shouting “La Cueva, Mi Techo, Es Mi Derecho” i.e., “The Cave, My Roof Is My Right!”

As everyone who follows this blog knows by now, Peggy and I have been living in Granada for the past five months. We’ve been in Spain with our daughter, Maggie, our son-in-law, Kerry, and their five children Eva (14 years of age), Oscar (12), Orlando (10), Markandeya (7), and Sebastian (3).

Maggie’s family has been here on sabbatical so that our grandchildren might learn Spanish by attending school where only that language is spoken. It has been a wonderful experience for all of us.

Now Peggy and I are about to return to the States for February and March. We’ll spend most of that time in Florida, and then come back to Spain in April. Our plan is to remain here till the end of June. We’ll then fly on to Rome, where we’ll spend a month or so with our son Brendan’s family. (Brendan State Department assignment will have him living there for the next three years.)

In the meantime, very unexpected things have happened to me in Granada. Here we’ve been living in its Albaicin barrio overlooking the famous 13th century Islamic city, the Alhambra. We’ve walked part of the Camino de Santiago, along with traveling to Madrid (and its Prado Museum), to Bilbao (and its Guggenheim Museum), as well as driving to Tarifa (with its nearby Roman ruins), to Valencia, and Cadiz (which so reminded us both of Havana).

However, most unexpected of all have been some friendships I’ve made with cave dwellers and street musicians here in the Albaicin. I’ve already written about that here and here. My new friendships have introduced me to a way of life that I truly admire. With one cave dweller I’ve studied the “Mayan Bible” (the Popol Vuh) and have been introduced to Tarot (which I never thought I’d study, but which now greatly fascinates and benefits me).

The cave dwellers are constantly harassed by the police — or as they call them, “the puta policia” (or effing cops). Last week, those harassers once again invaded the caves, cut off their access to water, and destroyed the property of my friends and their neighbors — all in the name of “protecting” those concerned from their unhealthy way of life.

The other day, I attended a rally by about 200 cave dwellers and sympathizers in front of Granada’s City Hall (pictured above). Some have taken to wearing black nail polish on their left hands as a sign of solidarity with the Cuevistas. I surprised (and maybe scandalized) my family members by doing so myself.

In any case, immediately below, you’ll find an account of all this in another of my poor attempts at poetry. I wrote the “poem” so I’d never forget these people I’ve come to cherish and treasure. 

Cave Dwellers and Cops 
in the Albaicin’s Plaza Larga
(Jan. 27, 2023)

Since coming to the Albaicin
In Granada five months ago,
Its Plaza Larga has drawn me in,
Its cave dwellers have helped me grow.

Yes, they all live in Cuevas
Dug by gypsies and Moors
They’re troglodytes and drifters
Rebels all to their very pores.

They’re committed to music
Painting, poetry, and Life
Smoking hash and drinking cervezas
To peace and not the knife. 
.
Yes, the Larga’s a place
For outsiders like me
They’re poor, ill-clad
But happy
Living NOW as all can see.

One of them there
Wears a jellabiya on Fridays
And yells in a voice
Much too loud.

But no one’s upset by his antics
Or his shouting at the crowd
Instead, they roll eyes or support him.
Ridicule’s never allowed. 

I’ve met a man there called Simon
A street busker and shaman indeed
He helps me with my Spanish
Oblivious to any need

Because he’s rich, you see
Not with money, playthings, or goods
But with time, wisdom, and kindness
And absolute freedom from “shoulds.”

There’s another Simon
(I’ve met him).
Much younger and from France
There’s Ida from Denmark
And Ramon from north Spain
And Juan whose Traveler ancestors
Set the Cuevas as their reign. 

There’s a girl from Somalia called Filas
She’s dark, skinny, and profane.
She’s friendly and kissy and cheerful
Eats mushrooms and smokes in a chain.

And I’ve met 
A young man they call ‘Cesco’
He’s moving here this fall
From his home far away in Italia
(Perhaps he’s the wisest of all).

He’s a Bob Dylan scholar and tarotista
(He did my Tarot today)
He knows everything about Dylan
“Desolation Row,” and what his cards say.

So, I’m grateful to Andalusia
For giving me a gift so unexpected, and so fine
Of friendships with the Chusma
It’s been like draughting aged wine. 

Yes, I love crossing borders 
With campaneros like these
I’m grateful to Simon and the drifters
Who do whatever they please.

That is. . ..

If not for the “Puta Policia” . . ..
Anxious to show my friends who’s boss
They harass them and fine them. 
They smash their guitars
Understanding nothing about them
As if coming from Mars

They sack their poor Cuevas
Burn their goods and possessions
Interrupt their love making,
Their meditation sessions.

They render them homeless.
As if that were good
Can you imagine
Cops destroying their food?

But that’s the lot of drifters
Living everywhere it seems.
Of dropouts whose simple existence
Challenges our bourgeois dreams.

The system just can’t stand them
Detesting their sight and smell
So, it robs the poor of the little they have
And sends them all to hell.

I’d know nothing about this
If not for Simon and friends
If not for the Plaza Larga,
Where singing never ends.

If not for my new friendships
If not for Tarot and song
If not for gypsies and buskers
If not for my stay here so long.

So, despite the puta policia,
I’m grateful to be here
Learning from friends in the Plaza Larga
May God remove their fear.

Should Progressives Be Inspired by the DC Rioters?

Last week, Michael Moore asked an important question on OpEdNews. He wondered “Why Are We Not Uprising?” His revolutionary issue was the lack of single-payer healthcare so relentlessly highlighted by the worldwide covid-19 pandemic. Why no revolution, he asked, when so many are dying from clearly remediable causes – when the vast majority of Americans want single-payer?

Response to Moore’s article showed that he had indeed touched a revolutionary chord.

But then last Wednesday, when an actual uprising took place, everyone, it seemed, wanted to join hands across the proverbial aisle separating left and right. They jointly lamented the shocking breakdown of law and order. (The “Risings” Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti provide an example of that shared reaction.)

Think about it, everyone said: the rioters actually “desecrated” the Capitol Building’ “sacred” space! They broke some windows. They took selfies of themselves standing at the podium of the House of Representatives. They ransacked poor Nancy Pelosi’s office! They forced Mitch McConnell and Co. to run for their lives.

Washington policemen responded with a wink and a nod.

The horror of it all!

Something similar (with important differences) happened this summer, when Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrators took to the streets. Theirs’ was a largely peaceful uprising in the spirit of Martin Luther King. But then, agents provocateurs (and perhaps some demonstrators themselves) had the temerity to break into and loot Wal-Mart’s “sacred” precincts. Windows were smashed; fires were set.

That time, police responded with an iron fist. Demonstrators were beaten, tear-gassed and arrested.

Yes of course, there were those important differences between the two insurrections just cited. The DC protagonists were Trump supporters and right-wing fanatics. Their issue was election fraud. The cause of the BLM demonstrators was police brutality directed towards black and brown people.

Despite those distinctions however, don’t you see what’s happening? Michael Moore’s wish has come true! The first phase of the revolution is unfolding before our very eyes. But even its protagonists don’t recognize its portent and promise.

That’s because they’ve been hoodwinked into seeing each other as the enemy. Rather than joining forces against their common overlords, they’re punching down. The rightists think their enemy are blacks and immigrants whose numbers are rapidly changing U.S. demographics. Meanwhile, leftist demonstrators are the very ones mistakenly vilified by the rightists and their sympathizers among the police.

The empowering solution is for all of us to see the common revolutionary terrain on which we’re standing, namely:

  • Citizen anger, be it left or right is entirely justified
  • Both what happened In DC this week and in streets across the country (and world) last summer are the initial stirrings of a widespread working-class revolution.
  • Michael Moore is right. He’d agree, I think, that the real violence in question here is not breaking windows or setting fires. It’s a system that in the midst of a worldwide pandemic refuses (despite agreement between Democratic and Republican majorities) to refund our taxpayer dollars in the form of single-payer healthcare and guaranteed income for workers displaced by forces beyond our control.
  • That’s our money they’re not returning to us in this emergency!
  • Everyone can also agree with Trump supporters that our election system is entirely fraudulent. Voting machines are completely questionable; they should be replaced by paper ballots. Campaign contributions are nothing but legalized bribery. Voter suppression’s many forms (from unnecessary ID laws to the dismantling of the U.S. post office) are a sad fact of American life. Gerrymandering is hideously anti-democratic. So is the Electoral College. The list of fraudulence goes on.
  • Pelosi and McConnell do not represent us, but their donors. Following the example of our Founders (cf. Jefferson on this!), we should force them all to flee for their lives from outraged citizens and their pitchforks whether the attack comes from the right or the left.
  • The offices of our mis-representatives deserve to be ransacked.
  • Ordinary people should seize congressional podia and make their voices heard.
  • The police too are working class people misled into identifying fellow workers as the enemy while defending their own natural enemies.

I’m currently reading Barack Obama’s autobiography, The Promised Land. It’s an account of a well-meaning ambitious young black man whose rise to the pinnacle of political power gradually but inexorably transforms him into the servant of a class he initially identified as inimical to the interests of the people he wanted to help. It’s the story of an imperceptibly slow cooptation, early-onset blindness, and betrayal of ideals and common sense in favor of power, profit and prestige.

A similar cooptation threatens all of us at this pre-revolutionary moment. It will succeed if we allow our overlords to sell us a narrative that covers up the workers’ revolution that has the Pelosis and McConnells of the world frightened out of their wits. Like young Mr. Obama, we’re overlooking how the rich and powerful are blinding us to our common cause as wage-earning Americans.

Michael Moore (and the rest of us) should take note.