People attend a gathering to mourn for terror attack victims at Placa Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, on Aug. 18, 2017. Xu Jinquan/Xinhua News Agency/Press Association. All rights reserved. Until fairly recently, walking down Las Ramblas – the scene of yesterday’s devastating attack – was something Barcelonians used to do quite regularly, enjoying a relaxed stroll down to the port. Before the great urban transformation brought about by the Olympic Games 25 years ago, it was one of the few spots where ordinary citizens could come in contact with the sea. This pedestrian boulevard is one of the city’s landmarks, once famous for its unique mixture of cosmopolitan diversity and Mediterranean parochialism, a place where the uptown Catalan bourgeois rushing to the opera house would encounter everyday folk going about their business, as well as the seedier elements of the night-time economy. In other words, Las Ramblas represented the democratic spirit of an open-minded city in southern Europe.
Over the last decade or more, Barcelona’s success as a global tourist destination has made Las Ramblas a place most locals tend to avoid, thinking it too crowded, and lamenting the replacement of modest stands selling blue parakeets and baby turtles with fancy kiosks selling waffles and ice-cream. Even so, Las Ramblas remains part of the soul of this city, if only because it is still the place where Barça fans traditionally gather to celebrate the victories of their extraordinary football team.
So yesterday, when Barcelonians learned that a van had ploughed through a crowd of pedestrians in this special place, killing more than a dozen and injuring one hundred, it was experienced as a terrible blow. Barcelonians are very proud of their welcoming and peaceful city. When, 30 years ago, Basque terrorists, in their deadliest attack ever, bombed a supermarket car park killing 21 innocent people, the city reacted with incredible abhorrence. As a consequence, Eta never came back to town.
