A place, a showcase, the same message: Madrid trade takes sides in favor of Palestine

Carlos Guillén (26 years old, Madrid) raises the fence of his business in Malasaña this Tuesday at noon. It is the Quality store, in which he and his brother sell second -hand luxury clothes, works of great designers rescued from the 1990s and with a price adapted to the fetish. Every detail of the premises is taken care of at the millimeter: Gucci belts on the counter, Prada shirts on the hangers, a teddy bear with pole sweater on a shelf and a refused skateboard with a drawing by Pablo Picasso hanging from the wall … Several people who pass ahead stop looking at the showcase. It has a pink leather jacket manufactured in the sixties and designed by André Courrèges, a jewel valued at 600 euros. But for the majority not so familiar with the subtleties of the fashion world, what most attracts attention is a blue poster of the size of a folio attached to the crystal, with a watermelon drawn – Palestinian resistance symbol -, in which it reads: «This establishment condemns the genocide in gaza.» For Guillén, hanging the poster is just «a matter of empathy.» Just in front of the business, the same poster appears in a fruit shop. Two streets on the left, in a hairdresser. When twisting the corner, in a bookstore and a few meters below in a gift items. That in Malasaña, but that message is also read in cafeterías of Carabanchel, in bars of Latin or in opera ice cream shops.A poster against the genocide in Gaza, hung in the showcase of the hairdressing 'Dreir Hair Club', in Malasaña, Madrid.César Vallejo RodríguezThe entrance of the 'Tres Brothers Moriary' bookstore, in Malasaña, Madrid, with a poster in support of Palestine.César Vallejo RodríguezPoster against the genocide in Gaza, in the premises of the clothing store 'Quality', in the Malasaña neighborhood, Madrid.César Vallejo RodríguezThe counter of the 'Quality' clothing store, in Madrid, presents another poster in support of Palestine.César Vallejo RodríguezPoster against the genocide in Gaza, attached to the door of the 'Curiosité' of Malasaña, Madrid.César Vallejo RodríguezThe showcase of a clothing store in Malasaña, Madrid, with another poster in support of Palestine.César Vallejo Rodríguezdetrás of the idea is no government or oenegé, but the collective of artists with Palestine. It is an initiative that comes from the bottom up. It occurred to Rocío a few weeks ago, which is part of that group, and that he prefers to hide his last name because he wants the essence of the project to be community. They began to distribute them on July 28 to try that «a general and massive positioning of public opinion against this barbarism is normalized, beyond political, ideological positions,» he says. So he contacted Artur Galocha, graphic designer and illustrator of book covers, such as Operation Apollo (KO books), and he sent them the design to collaborate. «We, like most people, feel helpless and block ourselves to the terrible dimensions of this live slaughter of families, women and children of the Palestinian people,» says Rocío. From the collective they do not know how many people have downloaded it from the Internet, but they point out that only in the first week in Madrid 300 were already hung. “We have been surprised that there are already so many establishments with a poster before the teams in several neighborhoods have made their cast,” says Rocío, who expects the phenomenon to go in crescendo as they print and distribute more. business owners. In fact, the most prominent incident has been the review of a star that has taken Polar company, Carmen Barral's store (46 years), on Count Duque street. «The day they gave me the poster I was being catastrophic. Only four cats entered the store and two of them were Israelís,» he says. «They were out of the premises looking at the poster and making fuss. They entered and were educated. They looked at things, but they bought anything. At night I saw that they had left me a review of a star in which they said that the treatment had been disastrous.» But it's not something that worries Barral. In fact, he took it as proof that the message is taking effect. «I liked that they felt a little marked. They know that outside their country there are other opinions.» The initiative arrives almost at the same time that the controversy between the singer Rosalía and the fashion designer Miguel Adrover, who did not want to make a dress until he gave his opinion publicly about the systematic killing of civilians in the strip. That message opened a debate on whether or not each person has the obligation to position themselves regarding the war in Gaza, where at least 60,933 people have already died, according to the data of the Ministry of Health of the Strip. Nearly 1,500 of them were attacked while trying to get food at help distribution points.Sara Hernández, worker of the 'Tres Brothers Moriarty' bookstore, poses next to the poster in support of Palestine at the door of the establishment in Malasaña, Madrid.César Vallejo Rodríguezen The door of the bookstore The three brothers of Moriarty is also the poster. Sara Hernán, 26, works there and is one of which she thinks «is important.» «It is deplorable what is happening. Looking for the other side is a privilege that we have, but that people who are suffering the genocide do not.» He is aware that he will not solve the problem by hanging a sign, but with the entry of humanitarian aid blocked on the strip border, that gesture is «of the few things that can be done,» he says.