Welfare State: DEMOCRACIA
Freedom, social progress, solidarity and democracy are accessible through consumption and the targeting of the capitalist worldview is generated through the mechanisms of the performance, as Guy Debord pointed out.
In this context we propose a meeting between the integrated and the marginalized society at the right time when the welfare state acts in search of justice and equality: One of the largest slum settlements in Europe still survives in Madrid, which is called El Salobral and is located in the Southern periphery of the city. Last March the Community of Madrid and the City Council agreed to its demolition and the consequent rehousing of its inhabitants, most of them gypsies. In this settlement those who are clearly marginalized by socio-cultural factors are found together with those who are voluntarily there such as drug dealers in search of an area away from police vigilance.
On the other hand, the demolition of the slums and the consequent relocation of its occupants attract new inhabitants who come to this area looking to be rewarded with a new home by the social services. The extinction of El Salobral not only implies the destruction of poor housing but also making the land uninhabitable so that it can no longer be built on. The project developed by Democracia conceives the staging of the demolition of this marginal community as a performance for all members of civil society. Above other considerations such as the disappearance of specific cultural forms (that of the gypsy culture), the civil society celebrates the disappearance of the ghetto via a media performance. Those who form the “integrated civil society” are the hooligans who applaud the action of the machinery demolishing the ghetto. The path of the marginalized society is its integration in the spectacular consumption society, which will assure them of their basic rights.
