Speaking Of Noticed Unheard Streets

A couple of weeks ago I paid a visit to Spain, to the Spanish coastal city Alicante. It was a trip to visit, and even to feel back to the land where I lived for 4 years, had my secondary education, and where I started these acts of contemplation and higher meditation.

This visit wasn’t a travel visit exploring sights or places but rather a rediscovery of Spain, and the Spanish social-political situation after 7 months. Due to Covid and then the Russian Ukrainian conflict has hardened the economy of Spain as the cost of living in capitalist terms has risen. Thou, this is not the reason why my hands made me write on this paper. During this visit, I had a look a specific “labelled” neighbourhoods, and streets which always get noticed still are unheard of.

I had to pass by an area that did not look like a normal Spanish area, or more specifically, did not look like the part of the other city. In Spanish, we term 'barrios' as a neighbourhood. Houses / apartments looked as if there was no one to care for them, disordered streets, disturbances, dirty and uncleaned, and the conditions of the building were unbearable for a common resident of Spain. I felt like the neighbourhoods you see in South America: totally disordered, chaotic, and tense.

Apparently, I am talking about the neighbourhoods of a discriminated community in the whole of Spain — “Gitanos”. I won’t be jotting down the social history of this community, but rather pen the social divide I see.

I have sat down in this community, and know them well enough. I remember my first year of school in Spain, most of my classmates belonged to this community. To date, my first year wasn’t a normal year of formal studies as I was learning Spanish in those classes. These classes were specifically intended for students who cannot keep on studying their normal formal studies and to help and assist them carefully so that they can obtain a certificate of secondary education. During this time, I observed how backward this community is being held. I observed a lack of education among them. I observed racial discrimination and more severe institutional discrimination.

I can carry on jotting down my observations, but this factor is not occurring in this certain community. If we look around us, globally, we feel the existence of such communities. They lack the resources and lack of education which eventually leads to worse crimes. And historically we have seen the existence of such communities, and that’s when I remember my Marxist thoughts and beliefs again. It’s a social divide I see, they are people like us yet we feel different from them.

Thou’ I attempt not to indulge economics here and my social-political thoughts, but to articulate what I observed in those neighbourhoods. On those streets, you see broken glasses possibly alcoholic bottles, probable signs of drug intake, signs of blood drops, and mainly what I saw, broken benches. Even whilst you observe the buildings, you see how badly their condition is. The doors, windows, and balconies are broken. You can sense it’s all dishevelled here.

Living in Pakistan, I was aware of such communities, well such neighbourhoods where you could sense the same cluster of environment, a muddled and hectic atmosphere. Even living in England, I can observe the existence of such communities and neighbourhoods. Every day, I walk through some streets, I see open drug dealing, little kids who are underage and go to school are involved in such grimly crimes which agonize you.

It’s all a struggle, a struggle of many things. As a lack of education, hardly would ever someone from this community lead up to a capitalist office job, which again makes such communities the major part of the discriminated working class. To say further than they experience discrimination, they are the victim of institutional discrimination, and by institutional discrimination, I mean systematic bureaucratic institutional discrimination.  It’s the same as how you can relate with the black people communities, but not here to jumble around identity politics, it’s all same. No time to go through identity politics and discuss how shattered it has made the conventional Marxist notion, but if you narrow it down, you find that it is all common. It's a clear social divide being observed by the existence of social classes, and the disproportionate distribution of wealth resources.

What my eyes see, and what I observe, is the lack of formal studies among the working class. Here, we specifically discuss the working class of the West. Studying among children in such neighbourhoods is highly possible to be low, as the constant dishevelled, chaotic, and tensed environment does not allow the formation of an individual with normal formal studies in schools. Kids dwelling in such areas are likely to go through the same process as what their parents or grandparents had to go through. The lack of responsibility from the institution and the parents has made these kids vulnerable and the reason is not that simple. Yes, I acknowledge that today's set of education is controversial and should be criticised from my point of view, as it is another tool of the capitalist system to sustain itself. Even the lack of education is one of the reasons why such communities are held backwards but by any means, the problem should be again pointed at the institutions. Institutions have never done anything to create such an atmosphere for such children, and as we know, a human being finds comfort in blaming the other side, because the being cannot stay in a state of guilt for longer. Therefore, the blame is always placed on the existence of such an environment.

Governments and institutions are never proportionate to get to the bottom of this problem because it is a cycle. It’s a necessary existence, such communities have to exist for today’s economy. It will keep existing, because the system of economics that is being used to solve such problems, breeds those problems. You look up at any matter, you observe that in every aspect this social divide is clear and visible. Today’s working class is more miserable than before. The existence of such communities shows that, by any means you try, you cannot see any improvement in the existing system, as it is always going to breed the same problem again and again.