We've been put in a mirror on the doorway of the house, on the top of the staircase wall. It was a semicircular circle, similar to the rear-view mirrors of cars. We were surprised by this strange new presence. Although it is not a camera, we have felt the desire to write “The Elder Brother takes care of you”. Our first hypothesis is that someone has asked for this device to be installed after having experienced a surprise. Maybe an attempt to rape a stranger. Perhaps the former bully couple has hidden in the dark corners of the porch. In the imagined scenes, the victim is a woman and the aggressor is a man.
Soon my neighbor, also a young, feminist woman, has written to me: “Listen, I would say this wasn’t at noon…”, and a picture of the mirror. I told him that I too had noticed him and that he had upset me. It warns us of a danger that we have not seen so far. He said to me, “I never thought something bad could happen on the portal. Until the cursed mirror appears!”
We wrote to the owner of the house. Answer: "Nothing has happened. The goal is to see all blind areas to generate more security.” It's pretty. Most of the neighborhood and our patrons have decided it's for our good. With this paternalistic decision, however, they have created a new concern for us. Better said, a ghost. The ghost that women know so well: sexual terror. In the 2014 issue of Argia, I wrote in the article Kontuz, the patriarchal society uses the ghost of rape to keep women in control, constantly promoting dependence and fear. “Beware! Be careful!” says the repulsive mirror every day.
But you lack a fact to understand the context: I live on San Francisco Street in Bilbao. The Tourist Office advised foreigners not to come here until recently, as this is a health hazard. Here we live the miserable of the city, which we never appear in the beautiful images of the tourism section: immigrants, gypsies, jonkies, prostitutes and puppets or lots of lawns. Bronx bilbaíno. The neighborhood is packed with ertzainas and local policemen to keep order in the ghetto, as well as security cameras. We might think that the cops have a lot of work, but I always see them with humor talking. Every now and then, he takes some young Maghreb and gets into the door so that the camera doesn't record what's going on there.
A Sanfran neighbourhood association calls for “more security” to deal with burglaries and trapezians. A spokesman told me I was an SOS Racism militant. “Understand that an old woman sees the square full of black men and feels insecure.” On the other hand, the Coordinator of social movements denounces the stigmatization of the neighborhood, situations of social exclusion, police abuse and the lack of street educators, and organizes initiatives such as the rice of the world to celebrate the diversity and coexistence of the neighborhood. You can see the posters of both in our streets, each with their demands. In recent times a new wallpaper has also appeared on the walls: Too many immigrants, in Basque. As Katixa Agirre said, basquewashing.
Sexual terror + myth of insecurity = social control, xenophobia and sensationalism. Two new developments: 1. On the same day that we've been given a mirror on the porch, a camera from Ana Rosa's show has traveled the neighborhood asking white neighbors about narcos and immigrants. 2nd In Bilbao, the VOX headquarters is located in Sanfran.