All things happen for some reason. We have read this well-known phrase that seems obvious in Gamonal. In the comic book In the echo of a memory (Gamonal. The same memory oihartzunean.La Red Sheep, 2021), and has its essence, as in Gamonal there was also a stir on January 10, 2014, when the City of Burgos, ruled by pp, was committed to making an expensive boulevard.

The economic crisis continued to blow strongly, and for many this project of millions of euros was a waste, where public services were scarce. For several days, neighbors settled in front of bulldozers, raided banks, set containers on fire, and police arrested 46 people in the area. In the end, the boulevard was not made. It was then that many of us learned the name of that distant neighborhood of Castilla de los comuneros, and that victory was the inspiration of other struggles, for the so-called Gamonal effect.

2025: Parking is a source of concern

The one who approaches Gamonal today will not notice the consequences that that little revolution of eleven years ago had. In Vitoria Street, the epicenter of the protests, the public buses circulate there under the LED Christmas lights, you will listen to humorous monologues in the house of culture where the assemblies of the neighborhood were held, and if you ask in the libraries of Burgos, “ah yes, that Gamonal...”, the librarian will answer as if it was a taboo.

But the underlying problem is still there and, for example, one of the main concerns of neighbours and neighbours is now a large parking lot they want to do up to date. Building a multi-storey building that would often work doesn't seem like a good idea either for traffic, for the public box, or for health. Another struggle emerges in Gamonal, one more over the course of its history.

In fact, you can learn a lot from the story of the neighborhood. The Gamonal comic, produced by DIBUJANTE María de la Fuente and historian Sergio Izquierdo, shows how, beyond the 2014 protests, the personality of the Gamonenses has matured based on real testimonies. Thus, we will see that the evolution of many other working-class neighborhoods of similar characteristics in the Basque Country has not been very different.

Dropping out of plough to enter the factory

The name of Gamonal comes from the Gamon or Ambulatory plant, which in its day grew with great intensity in these prairies irrigated by the Pico River, for the food of cattle. In the Middle Ages, Gamonal was an important town with many accommodations, as it was in the center of the Camino de Santiago. In the neighborhood there are still customs that remember it, such as the festival in which the legumes called titos are distributed. But from the 19th century Burgos wanted to appropriate these valuable lands as a “reserve” for the expansion of the city. The annexation was officially carried out in 1955 by the Franco authorities and soon after it was chosen to build an Industrial Pole, doped by the company with incentives. Then began the exodus of peasants from the villages of the province.

“We immediately realized that, apart from those Puercas factories that devoured us, here everything was like in our people – one of those people who emigrated to Gamonal explains in the comic book. We defected from the Gold to get into the cement blocks and continue working in a disgusting lifetime.” It is the same process that occurs today in many places: thousands of migrants leave their homeland in search of a better future, but immediately they understand that this paradise is not as they told them.

The loss of everything they had and the need to leave it behind marked the character of the new neighbors. Gamonal changed from one day to the next to being the neighborhood of the highest densities of the Spanish State – now, with 60,000 inhabitants, it occupies a third of the population of the capital of Burgos. In order to warm up the pockets of the construction companies, numerous blocks of giant brick and cement housing were collected without meaning and with little equipment or service. This was one of the germs of the subsequent struggles, because urbanism can also explain many things.

Gamonaldi to Gernika loaded with bombs

The librarian we asked about Gamonal hasn't told us much, but he gave us a reference: The militarization of Gamonal (militarization of Gamonal) just written by Vicente Vivancos, expert in neighborhood issues. Incobi, 2023). Anyone who thinks that Burgos is a city of priests and military should read it to distinguish wheat from straw.

Since the end of the 19th century, the military had settled in Gamonal and had taken over lands where they wanted to set a shooting camp in exchange for drinking water. Subsequently, an aerodrome was built, one of the few in Spain. In times of war, this place became the scene of the movements of Francisco Franco, Emilio Mola and many other fascist leaders, with silent citizenship as a witness. From there came the planes of the Condor Legion that ravaged Gernika on 26 April 1937 loaded with bombs. But the inhabitants of Gamonal also suffered the experience of the Francoists, as the only master of the people was shot.

At the end of the war, by order of General Juan Yagüe, the military occupied more land: “Or they were given or expropriated in the assignment, they were left with no other option, what would they do? The military got those lands for kissing money,” explains Vivancos. Thus, gradually, the town surrounded by barracks and militarized ended up being the current neighborhood. In this suffocating urban funnel, the only way out of Gamonal is Vitoria Street, the old N-1, and physical limitation also generates a great social limit.

Classism and class struggle

The neighbors José Medina and Marcos Erro in Gamonal. The story from below (Gamonal. The story from below. They have written the book Traficantes de Sueños, 2017), and in the presentation shown on the web they explain very well how much the sense of shame and contempt of some comes: “An interviewee told us that Christmas lights are also uglier at Gamonal.” For many of the capital it is still a barria of the chamberlain and the evil jokes... What is it to call the garbage collection truck “Gamonal Bus”, if it is not a classism?

In the neighborhoods where the working class lives, on the other hand, they understand each other: they speak the language of those who suffer the daily problems of real life. We have read this in the preamble to the Gamonal comic book. In Gamonal it is difficult to make much progress, and that has been learned well by the neighbors. As we will hear in the comic book from an anarchist watchmaker, “there is no endowment, no green space, no institute that has not been able to fight.” In 1980 the prices of bus tickets, in 2005 an underground parking... There has always been some reason to go out into the street. And although in the protests against the 2014 Boulevard the M15 movement played an important role, without that background the fire that caused the spark cannot be understood.

Pride between blocks

In December it is cold in Burgos and the bus line Arlemo-Gamonal 01 has taken us directly to the neighborhood, but has not stopped at a station, which has unleashed a woman’s anger. The memory exercise carried out since 2014 has also meant a certain empowerment among the neighbors, the pride of living among the housing blocks. How many of them are in the suburbs of the cities and towns of Euskal Herria?

The former Ateneo Popular has been transferred to the Recovered Social Centre (CSR) in Gamonal. The Caja de Burgos Banking Foundation intends to demolish it from an occupied building decorated with spectacular murals, but at the moment they have not succeeded. A hanging poster with this call: concentration on January 16 in the Plaza Mayor against parking in height. By the time you read this will have passed, but now you can guess what the next chapter will be that represents the story of this fighting neighborhood.