Pablo González Gasca is well-known as a public face of Spain’s patriotic youth organisation “Revuelta”. The youth association rose to fame during the protests outside the Socialist Party headquarters in Ferraz as a consequence of the amnesty law for Catalan separatists, and has participated in other actions against separatism. After the Storm Dana disaster in Valencia—where torrential rain brought a year’s worth of precipitation to eastern Spain on October 29 last year—and the state’s failure to respond, Revuelta returned to the limelight, both for its ability to mobilise volunteers and its resource management.
You will have heard many times that the youth is totally lost, that there is no capacity for effort, for sacrifice, but in Valencia we have seen that there is a youth that is not afraid to get down in the mud and work.
That’s right. Young people in Valencia have shown that what some call the “glass generation” can become a “steel generation” that only needs a cause to fight for. Since they were young, they have seen how the great causes, such as the defence of the family, the nation or popular causes, have been denigrated, and many people, due to stigma or the influence of propaganda, have not thrown themselves into the mud before, but when they have found a necessary cause to fight for, they have broken all the chains.
Faced with what happened in Valencia, many people offered to help, but making that help effective is another matter. How did you organise that help and that army of volunteers?
For us, this has been a triumph of will. None of us young people who coordinated the aid were experts in logistics, personnel management, or humanitarian aid, but we believe that when there is impetus, enthusiasm, and generosity, the people who can fill those gaps appear on your path. So, hundreds of Spaniards showed up and we were able to coordinate to deal with any difficulties that appeared along the way.
Not only were people organised, but they were backed by the arrival of rescue machinery.
Yes, indeed. Thanks to our rapid deployment in the affected area, we were able to assess the main problems suffered by the people of Valencia. So, from the first week, and thanks to the donations of thousands of Spaniards, we coordinated teams and heavy machinery workers who began to move cars, free garages, search for missing people, and clear the streets. Being on the ground allowed us to align ourselves with the reality of our compatriots and their needs.
Despite all this work, there has been no shortage of attacks criminalising the volunteers, especially from an extreme Left that reserves its solidarity for outsiders. Have these attacks affected you emotionally or economically?
I would be lying if I said that they have not affected us, but not because of the work we have been doing, but because we felt that, when they denigrated our help and that of the volunteers, they discouraged many people from donating to our association and prevented the delivery of a greater amount of aid. Their insults and labels have only resulted in fewer donations coming in and therefore less possibility of help.
But, at the same time, a great many people on the Left, disillusioned by the inability of the “social” movements, supported our project, if only for this specific cause. In a certain sense, the nation has prevailed over ideologies.
What went wrong in Valencia?
In Valencia, a triple entente has failed. In the first place, the two-party regime, which out of political calculation has carried out a disastrous management. Both the Partido Popular and the Partido Socialista Obrero Español have devoted more time to throwing their weight around or blaming their political adversaries than to helping the people of Valencia. Second, we have the media—the media outlets of both political parties—which have dedicated themselves to criminalising and discouraging volunteers who came to help in the absence of the government. And finally, the state, dependent on political power, which took days to deploy the army, emergency systems, and specialists of all kinds. Even the military arriving in Valencia was completely ill-equipped, having to receive the essentials to carry out their work from our association, as was the case with heavy machinery. We even had to lend water pumps to the fire brigade! The people, on the other hand, have been able to counteract all this media, political, and state irresponsibility and inoperativeness. Hence one of the most popular slogans in this crisis has been, “only the people save the people!”
Two months have passed and the situation is far from normal. What do Valencians need most?
We have just finished the Christmas campaign, in which we have distributed gifts to more than 3,000 Valencian children. This has allowed us to be in contact with new families and their problems. There are still hundreds of garages to be unblocked, facades to be rehabilitated, businesses to be reopened, and homes to be furnished. The wounds are enormous and state aid does not arrive, so our work is far from finished.
