This weekend, the port of Los Mármoles was the scene of two opposing accounts of human dignity. While the Open Arms ship concluded its humanitarian mission in the waters of Lanzarote, Santiago Abascal chose the same place to demand that the "ships of the new slave traders be confiscated and sunk."
Ignoring the fact that calling NGOs "slavers" perverts the history of slavery and criminalizes solidarity, what Abascal proposes in his speech is a warlike imaginary. In his language, the migrant is not a person but an invader, the NGOs are not rescuers but enemies, and the battlefield is the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands.
When that framework is accepted, the first defeat has already been suffered. It is the normalization of violence in media discourse, it is the breaking of the first line of defense that protects people from hatred. Because when words are used as incendiary bombs, and are accepted in public debate, the next step is to justify violent acts.
Humanitarian ships don't sink. That's wrong! Cruelty should not be a political measure because rights sink and humanity sinks. Hatred should not become discourse. That's also wrong.
Abascal came to Lanzarote to stir up fear of migrants and spread his message of hate in a Community that is experiencing a housing emergency, officially declared by the Government of the Canary Islands. Hatred of others distracts from the structural precariousness generated by touristification, empty housing, and speculation. The discourse of hate is useful to economic power and the dominant elite because it divides the working class and prevents the claiming of shared rights.
Vox is the puppet of the system that needs you to look at the dock so you don't look at the real estate speculators. It needs you to blame the migrant so you don't blame the economic model. That's what the populism of hate consists of, in manufacturing enemies among those below so that no one looks towards those above.
Lanzarote cannot be the territory for hate campaigns of any party. It has the right to decide what kind of community it wants to be. Of course, that decision does not involve sinking boats, but rather strengthening a democratic sovereignty that cares for life, protects people, and guarantees rights to those of us who inhabit it. True "patriotism" consists of defending human dignity, not trampling on it to win votes in Madrid.
Faced with the noise of hatred, Lanzarote must respond with memory, humanity, and justice. This island, which knows what it is to emigrate, chooses the course of human dignity, that of the right to a better life here and on any shore. Because the future is not built by distilling hatred or manufacturing fears.
In this task, we must continue to defend the most basic thing—which in these times seems to be revolutionary—the dignity of people and human rights as an insurmountable line of defense.
