The march for Maricarmen, who died this Wednesday after two weeks in the hospital, advanced this Thursday through Madrid with an unusual sound in a mobilization of 20,000 people, according to the Government Delegation: that of silence. It was only broken, at times, by the drone of the helicopter, the voices of the journalists narrating the scene, and the chants that came in waves from the crowd. In front, the head of the Tenants' Union walked seriously, in silence, with their orange vests and a gesture of mourning. Behind, a stream of people accompanied the memory of a neighbor who had already become a symbol of the fight for housing.
The demonstration started at 8:00 p.m. at Puerta del Sol with Maricarmen symbolically opening the way. Her photograph, held by a young woman from the Tenants' Union, led the march alongside a wreath of flowers with a simple and painful message: "We will continue fighting for you. Your union loves you." From the first steps, the emotion was impossible to hide and the tears began to flow. At the height of Cybele, the young woman carrying the portrait began to cry and then continued advancing, still with wet eyes, without letting go of the image of the old woman.
Maricarmen died just 24 hours earlier, at the age of 87, at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, where she had been admitted since she was evicted from the home in which she had lived for more than seven decades on September 23. This Thursday he planned to sign a new contract that would have allowed him to return to it after the agreement reached with the company that owns the property, Urba Gestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL. He didn't get to do it.
For this reason, the event was more of a farewell than a protest. The cold forced us to walk huddled inside jackets and coats, and the crowd, made up of both young and old, advanced with a strange mixture of mourning and determination. From time to time, slogans broke the silence—"We do not tolerate one more eviction," "Long live the struggle of the working class," "From north to south, from east to west, the struggle continues no matter what the cost"—and swept through the demonstration like a jolt. The march seemed to advance like this, with noise and reflection, as if it had not yet decided whether it had gone out to protest or to say goodbye.
The difference became more evident when walking through the demonstration from beginning to end. Behind the twenty police officers who opened the way and guarded the march, the militants of the Tenants' Union walked without speaking and barely chanted the slogans, even when the crowd shouted around them. A few meters further back, the conversations began, the chants became more frequent and even a group accompanied with a bass drum.
The tone began to change as the march approached Retiro and the containment that had marked the entire route began to break down upon reaching Sainz de Baranda. Already at the last corner, small lights appeared overhead. One, another, dozens, hundreds: they were the flashlights of mobile phones raised into the night in memory of Maricarmen. In the background there was still some distant chanting, but it was soon buried by a new applause.
And then the march entered Maricarmen Street. Something changed there, the duel that had been contained for kilometers seemed to be suddenly released. "We're not all here, Maricarmen is missing," someone shouted. The phrase caught on among the attendees until it filled the sidewalks and more voices, more slogans and more applause came. As if reaching their house had given them permission to release all the rage they had carried inside until then.
However, the young people of the Tenants' Union continued to advance with serious faces, without joining in the chants. People were already waiting at number 46 before the demonstration arrived and, when the header finally appeared, applause broke out that seemed to never end. Five minutes passed as the photograph advanced toward the portal that Maricarmen had entered and exited for decades.
Under one of the trees in front of the building was a small altar with lit candles, bouquets of flowers, and handwritten letters. There the members of the union deposited the crown that they had worn throughout the journey. And then another sound appeared, at first timid, then spread throughout the street: the metallic jingling of keys. Hundreds of hands waved them high, turning one of the most everyday objects in any home into a form of protest.
The union asked to lower the volume because they wanted that corner to be "a nice space", a place where they could say goodbye to Maricarmen, away from the slogans for a few minutes. It was not easy to contain a crowd that had just arrived with a lot of accumulated emotion, but little by little a corridor opened to the altar and people began to pass through it.
A woman left a candle and walked away. Another was bending over to place some flowers among those that already covered the ground. Some people remained still for a few seconds in front of the altar before returning to the rest. There were young and old, although there were many women. Some cried and others crossed themselves. Among the murmuring, a chant was heard again: "This is patriotism."
The succession of people at the altar ended when the attendees sat on the ground around the tribute until they formed a large circle under the trees. A choir was placed in front of the candles and flowers and during several songs the screams and slogans disappeared, giving way to the voices of the group. For a few minutes, the end of the demonstration took on the appearance of an improvised vigil in front of Maricarmen's house.
Around ten at night, Alicia del Río, spokesperson for the Tenants' Union, spoke. "Today we marched from Sol to the house of our fellow activist and friend, Mari Carmen," he said, and attributed Maricarmen's death to the "rentier system" and to those who, according to the organization, support it: the rentiers, the laws that allow it, the governments that maintain them, the judiciary and the Police in charge of executing the orders. "All the accomplices of the rentier system are to blame for Maricarmen's death," he proclaimed.
The union remembered her as an "independent and fearless" woman who ended up turning her own house into "a trench." "She was militant and she was family. She was stubborn and loving, brave and vulnerable," Del Río read. And the farewell came in a short phrase: "Goodbye, colleague Maricarmen. You are family and you are a union."
A few meters from the altar, several people began to unfold a huge blue tarp on the ground with an image of Maricarmen's face and, above it, a promise: "We are not going to stop fighting." The people closed a circle around him again. The screams returned. "Here are the anti-fascists," some chanted while others continued by the candles.
