Translation: Houses for living in, not for investment. Toward a general strike!
SPAIN, October 5— Thousands are camped out in Madrid’s Plaza del Sol protesting the housing crisis that is plaguing Spain. Since September 26, hundreds of thousands have marched in Madrid and other cities across the country.
The housing crisis is international: from townships in Gqeberha (South Africa) to the unlivable slums in New Delhi (India). It is most acute in Gaza, where the genocidal Zionist regime has destroyed or damaged over 90% of Palestinian homes. Trump-connected Zionist tycoons like Witkoff and Kushner are eagerly waiting for the entire population to be killed or evicted so they can rebuild the area with luxury hotels and residences.
Spanish workers and youth have been in the forefront of the international fight against the Gaza genocide. Posters and banners at the Madrid encampment reflect this.
“I’m from Gaza,” a worker told a Turkish newspaper last year during protests in Barcelona (Spain) against skyrocketing rents and evictions. “Every word I write feels like it’s soaked in the pain we endure each day. Thank you for using your voice. When we see a soul kicked out in Barcelona, we feel the pain, because we too are kicked out by the Zionists. Thank you for standing with us. Maybe your words will echo where hope still breathes from Madrid to Gaza.”
The recent spark that ignited the fury of Spanish workers and youth was the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, 87 and disabled, from the Madrid apartment she had lived in for seventy years. Urbagestion, which bought her building, had tripled her rent.
This company owns over a million homes. It and other vulture companies control over half of all rental homes. Vulture funds are large investment funds that buy homes or housing complexes at low prices and then rent or sell them at ridiculously high prices.
Capitalists use all forms of propaganda and lies on the web and in mass media trying to discredit protests against the housing crisis. And any struggle to benefit the working class. But the protests continue to swell. The crisis has brought down the social democratic government of Pedro Sánchez and his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).
The masses need to bring down capitalism!
Because of the protests, Maricarmen will be able to return to her home at her old rent. But the legislature vetoed emergency measures put in place by terrified politicians. The nature of capitalism shows us that there is no reform through which the needs of workers can be met.
The PSOE and the Catalonian party JUNTS propose ridiculously limited measures. They want to give tax relief to “lesser evil” capitalists who don’t raise rents and who build more homes for sale. These homes would end up in few hands. They propose this to calm the workers’ anger and because they fear a general strike.
Their right-wing counterparts VOX and PP blame immigrants for the problem. They aim to divert attention from the structural housing crisis and to divide the working class.
Comrades of the International Communist Workers’ Party traveled from another Spanish city to Madrid to express support and solidarity with protesting workers, retirees, and students. And with those who are struggling to make ends meet and pay their rent. They distributed leaflets saying:
The enraged masses can and must become a Red Army to fight for a Communist revolution that will end the capitalist dictatorship and abolish private property once and for all, building a society without landowners, without rent, and without money—a society where all workers ensure the well-being of our class. That is why we invite workers to join us and help build the International Workers’ Communist Party, because communism will be the grave of fascism!
Comrades invited everyone to “to read and discuss Red Flag and enlist in the communist cells of the ICWP.” The work of the communists of the ICWP can transform the political consciousness of thousands in Spain and the world
The fight is just beginning.
There’s a world to win!
Translation: Today it’s Gaza! Tomorrow it’s your house!
NOTE: Sra. MariCarmen died in hospital on October 7, as Red Flag went to press. Thousands gathered to mourn her murder by the vulture corporation that evicted her.
Translation: The same people who don’t want you to have dignified housing deny the genocide..
