kabarsula From Maricarmen’s eviction to the general strike: how Spain’s youth are defying the housing crisis bandar SLOT INDONESIA

“These young people today… they don’t protest like they used to…” They call us the “generación de cristal” or the “Glass Generation”.  They say we are fragile, but here we are protesting and resilient – because when glass breaks it cuts.

To many on the outside it may have looked like the Spanish housing protests happened overnight – an outpouring of grief and rage following Maricarmen’s eviction in September. But the lack of affordable housing has long suffocated students, young people, elderly people, single mums and marginalized populations, such as racialized groups – those of us who are already at higher risk of social exclusion.

The heartbreaking sight of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman who could have been your own grandmother, being evicted from her home and carried out on a stretcher – that, that was the moment when we collectively said “enough!”. And that’s when everything that we housing campaigners had been building for years – association networks, workshops, talks and activities to raise awareness and connect people – finally came together

The encampments started in Madrid, and the rest of the cities followed suit. Everyone was watching the news waiting to see what would happen to the housing decree (a decree that had been gathering dust in a drawer for years to suddenly be issued urgently). But then there was no parliamentary majority, and just like the butterfly effect, an eviction – among so many in Spain, and so many that people are trying to stop – ended up triggering an early election.

“An unstoppable movement took shape, undeterred by fake news, insults, and threats from those who either do not understand the problem, or those who are actively part of the problem and seek to intimidate us. But a movement this large is hard to scare.”

We respond to their accusations with our actions. When they threaten us, we stand strong; when they accuse us of being antisocial, we hold assemblies and organize ourselves; and when they call us slobs, we clean the entire square.

Behind the scenes, there are very committed people willing to work, study and get little sleep, while at the same time preparing food for their comrades, keeping watch at night or organizing the tents. If you join an encampment, you won’t be alone, a friend will offer to share their tent or pick up your tent by car if you live far away.

The encampments have been a mobilizing force behind the first general strike in Spain in 14 years. They are a symbol of an entire society pushed to the brink by unchecked greed, precarity, racism, unrestrained and debilitating rent hikes, hedge funds that treat housing as a commodity, evictions and a core failure to guarantee adequate and affordable housing for all. Something as basic as a fixed address and a roof over one’s head – that’s what we’re asking for, for everyone.

People and persistence build power

This resistance is not sustained solely by slogans; it is sustained by bodies, by sleepless nights, and by an infrastructure that we build from scratch on concrete squares. Because a camp is not simply about pitching tents: it’s about building a small, self-managed city in a matter of hours.

We had to think about the urban planning of the square to make it habitable and safe, mark out evacuation routes, organize infrastructure committees, manage lighting points, meticulously clean every corner, and set up a communal kitchen capable of feeding dozens of comrades three times a day with whatever supplies supportive neighbours brought us. Every hot meal served in Las Setas square was a victory against institutional neglect.

Defending the right to protest in the streets is the only tool we have left when the right to a roof over our heads becomes a privilege. Protesting for our rights should be guaranteed not criminalized.

Spain’s housing crisis is a form of violence that hits twice as hard when it intersects with other factors for example, institutional racism. If renting is a pipe dream for many young people, for people from a migrant background, who are subjected to additional bureaucratic hurdles due to their status, it is entirely beyond reach.

That is why our camp does not advocate housing for just a few. It calls for housing for all to ensure that no one is left out in the cold because of their background, social status or skin colour.

“The hardest part of maintaining the encampment is when the cameras are turned off and the square falls silent. Those of us who have done night security shifts know how heavy the early hours of the morning can be.”

While the city slumbers, we watch over those asleep inside the tents. As the cold seeps into our bones, we have to dig deep for courage as we endure constant threats, provocations and intimidation, all for standing guard. Through keeping our nerve, looking after each other and keeping our assembly comrades informed we’ve proved that collective self-defense works without having to resort to violence.

They say we are fragile, but occupying a square for weeks while juggling exams, precarious jobs, night watch shifts, and logistics committees requires a strength that defies their pejorative rhetoric about our generation.

Today’s general strike does not come out of nowhere: it has been cooked up in our shared pots and pans, defended by us during night watches, and planned out together in every map drawn by hand on the pavement. If access to decent housing unites us and the right to protest protects us, we will remain organized here.

They call us ‘generación de cristal’: but from broken glass we build our own resistance: an attack on one of us is an attack on us all.