The Diversity and Interculturality Program and the Bamboo School of Casa Asia, together with the BCN Interculturality Program of the Barcelona City Council, are the promoters of this project, which offered a setting to present the conflicts to the public from three scenes of intercultural coexistence, but also the questioning of stereotypes. In addition to the 20 people of diverse cultural origins who were part of the project, the more than 50 people who made up the audience of spectators also participated, who after the presentation of each scene were encouraged to contribute their reflections and opinions and even try on stage how they could transform the situations of oppression that were presented to them. Quite a challenge that allows you to gain confidence and be able to react to similar situations of oppression that we witness on a daily basis.
Before the performance began, the actresses and actors walked among the people sitting in the audience, spreading rumors related to widely spread stereotypes in our society, in order to put the audience in the shoes of who is the object of these prejudices: “All gypsies steal”, “Muslims are all terrorists” or “Lesbians are sluts”, were some of the phrases that filled the public with doubt, who did not receive prior notice of the reason for these interventions.
The first scene dealt with linguistic discrimination, which is often considered a serious social problem, showing a case that could possibly occur on a daily basis. To express this, a conflict originated in the subway was represented, where commuters had difficulties in making operators understand that the machines were not working properly. However, these two workers let two girls who spoke Spanish pass easily, implying that they discriminated against the other passengers for having a language different from theirs. However, the participation of the public in this scene allowed the conflict to be transformed and resolved, since it was proposed that the Spanish-speaking girls face the two workers. Thus, this scene showed a case of xenophobia and racism, since the people discriminated against were foreigners.
The second scene represented the conflict in a family made up of a mother and a son of Chinese origin, who communicated to his mother that he wanted to go live with his girlfriend, originally from Argentina. The mother, on the one hand, did not accept such a relationship, since her supposed daughter-in-law was not Chinese, not even Spanish, and that caused her rejection. It was a very difficult shock for the public to resolve, but a young spectator tried to change this situation, showing that we are all people with our own cultural traits, but we deserve equal respect and that we must value, accept and coexist with this cultural diversity.
The third and last scene, put on the table how to defend the power of women against sexism, a regular problem in our society. The actors and actresses showed an argument between a Moroccan woman with her Catalan husband, after the girl’s mother was ill and about to die, and her husband did not allow her to leave the house to visit her. The audience felt deep empathy for the woman and a lady from the audience also took the stage to replace the oppressed wife and tried to defend her right as a woman and a person.
In this scene, we also saw how there was no union between women, but that the mother and the sister of the husband contributed to the perpetuation of the macho attitudes of the son. This is a universal reality, present in all cultures, although the sorority between women is becoming more visible.
It should be mentioned that these conflictive situations are not exclusive to either Chinese or Moroccan culture, but these cases also occur in our society. We constantly tend to think that this only happens in countries that many call traditional or less developed (but are not); However, the reality is different: racism, xenophobia, machismo and value judgments, occur everywhere.
In fact, all the themes they presented were everyday and possibly occur in the lives of all people. The project, highlighted by the European Commission as good integration practice since its inception in 2012, aims to promote diverse participation and debate around intercultural coexistence in the city. If you want more information about the project or if you want to participate in future editions, contact us: [email protected]
