By Sonia Potoy and J. Palomés.
It has been 35 years since Sylviane Dahan arrived in Barcelona from Paris. She immediately got involved in the life of the neighborhood that welcomed her, combining the neighborhood struggle with her feminist militancy. She has been the soul of the women’s voices of the Association of Residents of the Esquerra de l’Eixample and the Federation of the Association of Residents of Barcelona (FAVB).
How did you get to Barcelona?
I am the daughter of a family of Algerian immigrants who emigrated to France. In Paris, he lived with a Catalan refugee from Franco’s dictatorship. At that time I was twenty years old and experienced something sensational: May 1968 which shook conservative France. This did not mean only a youth movement. It was a general strike that paralyzed the country for a month. We shook the power. That marked me. I lived in France for several years and had my children there, until my partner and I decided to come to Barcelona around 1987, where we settled and I started working as a teacher.
… and get involved in neighborhood struggles.
Yeah yeah. I only got involved in the neighborhood association when I arrived. I was struck by the strength and activity of the neighborhood associations that existed in Barcelona. I came from Paris and there they were not as structured as here. My feminist convictions were indeed forged in France, where I began as a militant in the Movement for the Liberation of Women in France (MLF) with such important leaders as Simone de Beauvoir , and with struggles that began as the right to abortion or sexual liberation. This was my awakening to activism.
How did you join the neighborhood association?
I have to confess that, at the beginning, I came to learn Catalan, but very soon after I got involved in the neighborhood movement until I took responsibility for the edition of the magazine of the Neighborhood Association of l’Esquerra de l’Eixample, until relatively recently. He had experience in matters of layout, design, printing… because he had already worked in France in a printing house for issues of militancy. Until I also started to actively participate in the Women’s Voice of the association.
What issues do you address in the Women’s Voice of the Association of Neighbors?
The main challenge that exists in the Women’s Voice is to give understanding to a very, very elementary concept: women exist and we are half of the population, which even if it seems elementary, not everyone understands and that is why it is so hard to fight for equality We talk about equality, but equality is simply accepting this fact, that biologically there are men and there are women, and the fact of being women has unfair, harmful, unequal consequences for women. We are different, but not unequal. Women themselves do not realize that they are 50% of the population. Women themselves have internalized that society is dominated by men. Over the years that I have been in the Women’s Voice of the association, I have met many women who, when faced with violence, do not report it. They have accepted the abuse all their lives. I have met elderly women who have decided to leave home, because they could no longer bear the abuse, when their children, now adults, had left the home. They had endured an unhappy and cruel marriage all their lives. And I’m talking about women with studies, with training. I have seen this in Barcelona, in Paris. It is the patriarchal system that has been exploited through the division of labor to impose a superiority of men over women. And when women do not have economic independence, autonomy, this is exacerbated.
And what strategies do you promote in the association before this?
Women cannot rid ourselves of this violence with intellectualism, with books, with theories. This is why the work done in women’s groups in the neighborhoods is so important: we need to make this violence visible. Violence cannot be invisible. This is the essence of democracy: how is it possible that there are women who suffer, who cannot develop their potential, their personality, their value, their rights, because they are under a system of patriarchal subjugation. Democracy, then, goes through the recognition and assessment of a part of society that is undervalued. A recognition that would benefit us all, by the way. In the FAVB we promote the Purple Points, an agreement between all the entities in the neighborhood to fight against sexist violence. It is particularly involved in the shops and establishments of the neighborhood and works in Sant Antoni, here in the Eixample, and it is also being developed in Besós.
And yet, it seems that gender-based violence is growing day by day…
Violence against women is increasing day by day. Prostitution is accepted, pornography is accepted, wombs for rent are a fait accompli… The feminist struggle is more necessary than ever and the union of feminists is more necessary than ever. Certain gender claims, LGTBI… have created a lot of confusion within the feminist movement. There is a great divide among the left, in feminism, and this divide is the triumph of neoliberalism. Fifty years ago it was unthinkable, unimaginable that surrogate wombs would become normalized and now it is something that many people accept with total normality, like pornography, which is affecting the new generations so much. Prostitution, pornography, what they call surrogate motherhood, are brutal violence against women that span gender and poverty. They are big businesses that exploit women’s poverty. Capitalism and the patriarchal system complement each other perfectly. The woman’s body was the last stronghold that capitalism had not reached. Big businesses have been created with women’s bodies.
Is awareness about women’s rights growing among citizens?
This is the main task we do in the women’s vocal groups and, indeed, awareness among citizens is progressing, indeed, but violence against women is growing day by day. In addition, there are no institutional measures to guarantee your safety, there are laws that are not enforced and governments that do not require compliance. Democracy is still very fragile in this sense. The patriarchy is afraid of losing its privileges and that is why, as we advance in the awareness of our rights, the more threatened the patriarchal system feels. Violence against women, misogyny, advances with the same intensity as the awareness of our struggle advances.
There is talk of a crisis in neighborhood associations, why?
The neighborhood movement is no longer the same as it was in the 80s. Society has also changed. In those years, left-wing parties were very much involved in the neighborhood movement, which caused neighborhood leaders to become political cadres and a new generation of neighborhood activists and militants has not arrived. Today, neighborhood activism continues to exist but with many difficulties, because currently the demands of the associations to work are enormous. Before, for example, there was volunteering and the only expense was the rent that was paid with members’ contributions. People gave their energy, their work and their time voluntarily, without anything in return, simply because of convictions. I have experienced this change. Today, even activism has become professionalized and we don’t have young people. The new generation is not attracted to the neighborhood movement.
Is funding the main weakness of neighborhood associations?
The economic needs of neighborhood associations are not what they used to be. We used to live on contributions and work was voluntary. Now there are far fewer members and we depend on grants. There is no economic independence: we depend on a premises given to us by the city council and we depend on subsidies, which must be justified and this entails a huge bureaucratic and administrative work that is subtracted from the work of neighborhood activism. There are associations, and they are not few, that have hired agencies to outsource these time-consuming tasks, and to hire administrative staff for day-to-day tasks. Young people today, and I understand that, will not come to work without a salary. There are many neighborhood associations that have ceased to exist for this very reason.
Why do you think young people are not attracted by the neighborhood movement?
Society has changed. The new generations do not have the same economic conditions that we had thirty years ago. We had work, for example, and we did not suffer from the insecurity of today’s young people. Now, the main concern of young people is to keep their job or have a decent place to live, for example. In addition, a rejection of political parties is perceived among the new generations and they perceive the neighborhood movement as an extension of political parties.
The young people, since 15-M, have created their own spaces. For example, in my neighborhood a group of young women has been created who do not want to join the neighborhood association because they have other perspectives, other ways of working, of understanding the struggle. What shall we do? Fold up? In the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Barcelona (FAVB), the Women’s Committee still works very well, but this is not the case in many, many neighborhoods.
How do you perceive the future of neighborhood associations?
The neighborhood movement is in crisis, because it has not been renewed, but it is also a movement that has resisted for 50 years. I don’t know what the future of the neighborhood movement can be. But I do know that there will always be a need for a meeting place, for exchange, for cohesion. The communal feeling will always exist in the human being. We have to find a formula, a space that is more open and less rigid than what has prevailed until now. The youth are not comfortable with this rigid structure of the neighborhood movement, more used to the assemblyism strengthened from 15-M. The neighborhood movement has played a prominent role since the Transition, I don’t know what comes next. What I do know is that people, neighbors will need to meet, communicate, cooperate to solve problems because we cannot do anything alone. Association is a vital need, inherent to the human being.
