The model car stolen by minors in Spain in 1969 was the Seat 600 (4354). Then there are the Seat 1500 and 1400 (1,947), Citroën (1,700), Seat 850 (1,545), Renault (1,158), Simca 1000 (862), Morris (498) and Seat Coupe (289). In 1966, car theft by young offenders totaled 15,745 vehicles and increased to 30,667 four years later. In the sixties the population lived in danger of lack of freedom when two more Spain were being built: one that had 600 and one that had been stolen from them. The brilliance of the promises of a developing consumer society has left part of the cities in the shadows and born out of it.
What happened next will not surprise anyone, because the crime was mythologized and the neighborhood struggle for a dignified life in the neighborhoods that the dictatorship opened without first aid was ignored. So Quink became a pop legend and the associations disappeared from the sweet history of the stolen Seat 600, the chase, the jeeps and the thugs. The brilliance of the knives hid the conflict rather than the crime: the conflict of marginalized neighborhoods that struggled to stop such a presence.
In plots converted into flood zones, in buildings often compared to Scythians due to prison overcrowding offered by urban planning to those arriving in the countryside from the countryside, unsuccessful generation of broth was made due to lack of capacity. , Unemployment, Crime and Drugs. And is stigmatized by the marginalization with which he was condemned first by the plans of the dictatorship and then by the plans of the transition period.
“The transition was not aimed at transforming the social and living conditions of its citizens, and especially those living on the edge,” explains Inigo Lopez Sim (n (Basauri, 1984), PhD in Modern History at the University of the Basque Country. And author Forgotten. Urban Marginalization and the Quincke Phenomenon in Spain (1959-1982), Published by Marcial Pons. This book explains another spot that the Spanish democratic process has and that was in anticipation. “Shaur”, as the author says, is against the official story.
In those years, the romanticization of juvenile delinquents was almost non-existent. Quink. “Idealization of the past and nostalgia have led to a myth that has been entrenched since 2010. They did not have as much attractiveness in their time. The neighbor’s children lived in very troubled places and were portrayed as anti-heroes in the movies. “It’s almost anti-systemic,” said Lopez Simon. The researcher says that mythologizing the Quink story is very easy, much easier than fighting neighborhood associations. “It was a very important movement. In Otksarkoga they were hijacked by buses because they did not reach El Bario and occupied the City Hall. They received help and attention by force. They were very well organized and ideological districts. It was less comfortable than Quink,” the historian explained.
In the investigation, he reveals how much easier it was for the system to praise a ideologized child rather than a neighbor who fights for his or her community and rights. “Crime is less of a problem. The criminal must somehow be part of the system and enjoy the consumer goods that he can not afford. “Most of them were 13-year-olds who suffered but did not serve in the military,” he added.
For Lopez Simon, urbanism helped a lot in promoting this exclusion. Once they were marginalized, they used land as an element of distinction. His neighborhood was his territory and his identity. Everything happened thanks to what the market dictated. The working class was not interested in the regime and the supplied houses had serious construction defects. “It was not an accidental construction. They needed a land of owners, not proletarians. They believed that by chaining and mortgaging, they were already bothering families to continue their payments.
In 1968, the same year that Otxarkoaga’s AFO emerged, on the one hand, the Association of the Heads of Families of the Great San Blas, Hermano Garcia Noblekhas and Canilekha districts, on the one hand, and the Neighborhood Association was established in San Blas. Plot H, on the other. These groups managed to make structural changes in the buildings. In most of the suburbs, residents gathered and organized to solve various problems that affected their daily lives, both at the urban and social, cultural or labor levels. The Neighborhood Coordinator aimed to condemn and address the large housing gaps in fifties dormitories, which are “marginalized” in the suburbs, the historian said.
The Franco regime knew there would be juvenile delinquency problems, that lack of school would have consequences for social order and gangs. Vikings, Los Ballas, Los Bruges, from El Regio, or young people who instilled fear only in their name, for example, potato or inch. “They walked into pool halls and nightclubs like the famous Argentina,” said the historian, who conducted fieldwork with street interviews. Argentina was in an empty space in the middle, a hundred meters from the subway exit and at the bottom of several old cinemas. He had a golden age of struggle in the seventies. When they got bored, their plans changed.
“What do we do? Well, we went with the flourishes, to Goya. The problem? That all the fascists were there. They were beaten because they were more. Franco was already dead, but they were partisans. Christ the King, the new power … It was their zone, the blue zone , National Zone, they saw you with long hair and already knew that you were not from there, there was no serious confrontation, because there were always a few of us caught.One or two, limited to singing Face in the sun And things like that, “said one of the witnesses, historian Lopez Simon.
This is the story of a population that was unable to access goods that heralded the birth of a new capitalist country that grew up in luxury stores and empty spaces on the outskirts of cities such as Bilbao, Barcelona and Madrid. The neighborhoods are paved with streets, busy hoping for the well-being that new citizens have brought. Asphalt arrived; Job, no.
Tabloid in 1967 In case Launches a series of reports called “Ruleta de barrios”, where he reveals the shortcomings of the newly built neighborhoods of Madrid. The first in this series was dedicated to San Blas (Madrid): “Great San Blas, bigger than Valladolid. 200,000 inhabitants without a first aid home or police station. Schools, playgrounds and asphalt are missing.” Ten years later the same newspaper published a similar report again. The situation has not changed. There were no means of rest and education. And the street was full of children.
There was only one public library in San Blas, and in terrible institutions. 0.11 books per capita. Neighbors set up their own leisure activities because the neighborhood did not offer an alternative for the small population. There were 12 football teams. This is due to the large number of young people there and the association opportunities of the neighbors. Another vacation was the cinema, with lots of theaters in those years. In 1973, the first swimming pools were opened inside the sports center. As this was not enough, the Neighborhood Initiative itself awarded the district with sports facilities located between Garcia Noblekha Streets and Guadalajara Avenue.
The last school in Otksarkoaga (Bilbao) was built in 1966. Prefabricated and with three million pesetas. There were three classrooms on the first floor with 50 students and two on the upper floor, which could accommodate 147 students. Overcrowded classrooms and lack of seats. The result was a school failure, a graduate gain. For the 1974-1975 school year, the percentage of students who did not receive a school degree was 59%. For the 1989-1990 academic year, this figure dropped to 41.4%. The first public library was built the same year, with 80 readers and an investment of 285,120 pesetas, according to historian Lopez Simon.
San Blas and Otxarcoaga became controversial areas when neighborhood associations became aware of the neighborhood’s difficulties and shortcomings and condemned them before the authorities. But it was not as cool as the chase in the Seat 600.
Source: El Diario
