In a regional meeting of the PSOE Canarias held just a few days ago, socialist representatives in the councils and town halls of the entire archipelago held an in-depth debate on the leading role of local administrations in the great transformations that our society has experienced in recent decades.
In this meeting, I had the opportunity to present my vision on the matter, starting from the idea of what it really means to transform society from the town halls. I believe that transforming society is making injustices visible and acting against them, creating egalitarian systems, opening solid channels for the participation of all the agents involved in it, turning good intentions into actions aimed at improving the lives of our neighbors, generating more sustainable spaces or applying in our management, every day, those principles on which democratic coexistence is based.
Transforming society is also counting on citizens to make all this possible, using politics as the key, and all this undoubtedly bears the seal of the Socialist Party.
I am convinced that municipalism as a transforming instrument cannot be understood without the PSOE, just as the PSOE cannot be understood without municipalism. An evident example of this is the figure of the Casa del Pueblo (People's House), which, with more than a century of history, has always remained close to the neighbors of our municipalities as a space for meeting and debate.
These houses, our local groups, keep their doors open today to receive proposals, complaints, demands or needs. We keep alive that spirit of the people's house, that symbol of resistance, where we speak with passion and conviction, also with respect and democratic sentiment. That will be the reason, that enormous and deeply rooted social symbolism, which makes our headquarters today being attacked by those who defend exactly the opposite.
“Bitches”, “murderers”, “death”, “pigs”, “whorehouse”, “Nazis”, “sons of bitches”, “garbage”… Graffiti like these are frequent on our facades, but to those who believe they can threaten, sow fear, attack rights and freedoms, tarnish the word “democracy”, we say again, clearly and forcefully, that nothing and no one will provoke even a single step back in this decades-long fight in favor of peaceful coexistence.
From our town halls, we do an intense job, side by side with councils, autonomous community and State, to be able to transfer to citizens, with maximum efficiency, all those policies designed to improve their lives. We are that first door that people come to, that institution in which we provide proximity, closeness and familiarity, a bridge that should serve to unite politics with people.
Local politics means being aware of the importance of each personal and family history. It is precisely that, humanity, that makes the difference. Hence the obligation to always be up to the task and to be exemplary.
The capacity of the town halls to manage complex situations has been demonstrated with facts over the years. We find one of those moments in our most recent history, the COVID pandemic. The confinement demonstrated the ability of administrations to reinvent themselves, to continue working in one of the most complicated chapters they have had in their path.
During all those months, municipalism was once again key to the rights of citizens, a valuable tool for useful politics. The town halls were the first containment dike from a social perspective, since we guaranteed that municipal services and aid reached every corner of our towns and cities. We said that no one would be left behind and we maintain it. It is the ethics of care: faced with the vulnerability or situation of dependence of a member of our community, we have the moral duty, from our town halls, to respond.
The advance in rights and freedoms for which we work from the town halls must bring with it the maximum possible degree of social involvement. The progress of our municipalities can only occur if we walk hand in hand with citizens. We are the tool in what should be a culture of dialogue, because it is unthinkable to try to manage for the well-being of the neighbors if there are no coinciding spaces for debate and reflection.
We are talking about a transforming municipalism, which means that it manages to improve the way of life, that it opens up to participation and gives answers to realities that are so often unfair, changing things from below, with a social, supportive, sustainable and feminist perspective.
