In short, it happens that for days groups of young people from the left-left and the Greens have been protesting against the excess of tourists in Barcelona. The methods of protest are particularly creative: they spray tourists sitting at tables in bars with water pistols shouting “Go home” or they lock them inside bars for a while.
They do it for two reasons, they say. To counteract the increase in housing prices, which owners prefer to rent to tourists. And because too many people means pollution (but they don’t say this, in Spain tourism is worth 12% of GDP and 10% of jobs).
We are fine with that. Tourists stink, make noise and don’t even understand the monuments they visit. Everyone to their own home!
Perfect, but how do we do it?
Treating tourists badly? It’s useless: Liguria has always done it and yet even the Milanese continue to go there. Raising prices out of all proportion to make tourism an elite activity and who cares about the poor? The left would be fine with it – the true communist loves the poor so much that he does everything to keep them that way but the liberals would turn up their noses. Closing off tourists and privileging residents? Fine, but sooner or later even the residents will go on holiday, and by turning into tourists they would end up having to protest against themselves…
No,
really. This thing about the left that wants to keep foreigners away, close borders, deny dialogue between cultures and doesn’t understand that the “different” is a resource that enriches everyone… no, we really don’t like it.