In the middle of Christmas, a man, an innocent person, has died under strange circumstances in the river of Seville, persecuted as a black street vendor. And the thousands of deaths in Gaza or on the way to the Canary Islands cannot make us, anesthetized by barbarism, ignore this
More than a thousand protesters for the death of Mamouth Bakhoum point to institutions for their responsibility
As you grow up, you will see white people scamming black people, every day of your life, but I will tell you one thing, and don’t forget it: whenever a white man abuses a black man, it doesn’t matter who he is, or how rich No matter how distinguished the family he comes from, that white man is trash.
How many manteros have you seen, are you seeing this Christmas as you come and go through the shopping areas? How many of you ignore or ask the price of this fake brand bag or scarf, of these sports shoes or soccer jerseys so similar to the authentic ones that even when they are subjected to laboratory there is no difference in quality that justifies that the real ones are worth five times more than the ones on the blanket? 135 euros instead of 25. This does not pose a problem. The exorbitant profit margin, even typical of a scam, is allowed in capitalism and even welcomed.
Well, last Sunday the 29th, on the eve of New Year’s Eve, in the heart of Seville, in front of the Post Office headquarters, at the foot of the Cathedral and La Giralda, there were twelve of those manteros that are seen every day and more at parties in the central Tetuán and Rioja streets or in the commercial area of Nervión. Two local police officers arrive. We have also seen that, how they appear scaring them and they pack the bundle with incredible skill and speed and they fly away. Almost like pigeons that a child scares away for fun.
“Game” is the word that the head of the Seville Local Police, Antonio Luis Moreno, used in his appearance before the press. Specifically, according to Europa Press tickersaid that in the vast majority of “routine measures” against street vending, the Local Police “does not arrest anyone” because the irregular vendors “let go of the bundle” and the merchandise is seized by the agents. “These are the rules of the game.”
Moreno described as “surprising” and “incongruous” that the 43-year-old mantero Mamouth Bakhoum whom the two Agents, according to him, “followed, not pursued.”ran away with the merchandise. Let’s see, with his sale he earned his living in Spain and, in Senegal, that of his wife, one-year-old daughter, elderly parents and siblings. It surprises me more and makes it more incongruous that our police have internalized as a “game” this scaring and running around people who subsist in precariousness.
It is striking and arouses suspicion that the Chief of the Local Police surmised that the mantero fled thinking that since he did not have papers he would be deported, when Mamouth Bakhoum had his documents in order as the Police should know.
Just as it shocked me that police chief Moreno in the SER local Hoy por hoy said that the man must have run a mile and a half to the Guadarquivir and threatened to jump into the water despite not knowing how to swim, and suicidally jumped into the river, believing that the agents were from the National Police and they would ask for his papers and, if he did not have them, they could deport him… When we later discovered that Mamouth Bakhoum already had his documents in order. In fact, I have his return ticket to Spain by plane on July 7 after visiting family in Senegal.
Didn’t the police know this?
What can and should be done
Seeing an innocent die, an innocent drown, drowned, has to be horrible. The Police maintain that their two officers tried to prevent death, that they jumped into the water even though it was the divers of the firefighters’ Aquatic Rescue Unit who, later, managed to recover the body. The place where Mamouth Bakhoum died is an area of enjoyment, it is called Muelle de las Delicias, a beautiful riverside, next to terraces full of tourists and places in the sun, where many of us stroll, on foot, on roller skates or by bicycle. It was December 29. The year began in two days. And from the moment the water swallowed him, none of us can turn back the hands of the clock so that the innocent is saved.
PHOTO 2025 01 02 14 39 42
But other things can and should be done. This is what some 200 people, most of Senegalese and African origin along with dozens of Sevillians, asked for on Monday 30th in an improvised march that briefly cut off traffic. What they asked again together this Thursday the 2nd in a concentration five times larger: to clarify with statements from manteros and police, from witnesses and water rescuers, from recordings from cameras in bars and from passers-by, with the autopsy why it was taken so far away, to such hopeless consequences, the persecution of a seller with 34 t-shirts that if sold for 25 make this human life have cost barely 850 euros.
All questions must be clarified. Including why someone who, in the middle of December, according to the Police, ran a mile and a half without letting go of his bundle and jumped into the river, is pulled out of the water like a corpse, like can be seen in video imagescovered from the waist up only by his tank top.
Another circumstance to be clarified is why a mantero who in the middle of December runs a mile and a half without throwing away his bundle of T-shirts, according to the Police, when his body is rescued from the river emerges covered from the waist up only with his undershirt with tank tops.
We have the collective task, as a democratic society, to work to end the structural racism that maintains laws and norms that deny the right of African citizens still plundered by Europe to travel and migrate like any human being in the world, which subjects them to the official mafia that in our Western, European embassies and consulates, charges them for processing visas that we systematically deny them without returning the money they have paid, that forces them to board boats risking their lives and once here with us condemns them. underground for at least two or three years, exploited as neo-slaves in greenhouses or forced into the persecuted street sales until they can try to regularize themselves.
Those who, within the State Security forces and bodies, see on the front line, together with the Maritime Rescue personnel and NGOs such as the Red Cross, how castaways, including babies, arrive at port, the undignified conditions in which they are “ stores” then, the lives of unjust persecution and exploitation that they suffer, are welcome if they take the step of refusing to be complicit, of denouncing it and working to change it.
A society that does not persecute, punish and prevent the perpetuation of mistreatment, abuse and ultimately the death of innocent people, a society that acts with indifference if the innocent person is a poor black mantero who goes unnoticed when he dies at Christmas in the provinces, It is a racist and classist society, with an imperfect and sick democracy that the convinced democrats, of any origin, who live here together, must work to heal.
Self-criticism and journalistic rectification
I share an excerpt from what you have written These days, on his blog, the Malian Sacko Yacouba who studies Finance and Accounting at the University of Seville:
An immigrant has jumped into the river
A person without paper has jumped into the river
A black man who has an expulsion file has jumped into the river
A mantero has jumped into the river
Such were the comments from the radio and television networks.
Such were the knives that licked our wounds.
Such was the dehumanization of which we have been victims.
In fact, to improve our democracy, the most profound self-criticism and purpose of amendment of the journalistic profession is imposed, which in the majority of the first hours, here in Seville, I understand that due to a mixture of neglect associated with the reduction of personnel at Christmas , negligence and racist underestimation did not contrast the police version with Senegalese or mantero groups.
He accepted the police report as good, without further ado, even insofar as it accused violent attacks following the death committed by Senegalese at the La Ranilla police station and widespread burning of containers. The content and form failed when inappropriate expressions of the informative genre “News” were used, such as “looking for revenge” in the case of ABC on the 30th. Medio, already convicted in the first instance (2021), Provincial Court (2021) and Supreme Court (2022) for damaging the honor of innocent Sevillian Muslims by linking them with jihadist terrorism through a photo.
It is imperative to engage in self-criticism and never again incur in the widespread following by the local media of the police version, without contrast, that Mamouth Bakhoum voluntarily jumped into the river and his associates then attacked the police station.
We must recognize, in order not to repeat it, that at the national level this case has had less coverage than that of the Mantero Mame Mbaye in 2018 in Madrid’s Lavapiés and that in the local media the following of the police version that Mamouth Bakhoum jumped by his will to the river and his relatives then attacked the police station, as has rightly criticized the Constitutional professor Joaquín Urías. Who, in addition, very accurately, has focused on how, when, finally, the voice of the Senegalese has emerged questioning the police version, a past episode of the deceased’s encounter with the Police has been leaked, violating data protection. It has been uncritically disseminated again by the media although it does not now minimize or clarify the circumstances of the death, but only seeks to discredit it.
It is not difficult to contact African and Senegalese groups and references in Seville. Associations abound, from the Senegalese of Seville or the Manteros Union, to New Type of Immigrants, Smile for Africa either La Tontina. In recent years they have become more and more active and organize social and cultural events such as the Back to the roots (Back to the roots, in English) or Jammu Africa (Peace for Africa, in Wolof). Let us look for each other, while racism, intolerance and fascism thunder even in the face of tragic deaths in the middle of Christmas like this, and let us unite as fellow citizens in building together the better society that we want and deserve.
We can no longer resurrect our Sevillian neighbor, born in Senegal, Mamouth Bakhoum, but we must protect his honor from those who first caricature him as crazy, we must support his family and friends in their trance and prevent another innocent like him from returning. to fall
#Resurrect #mantero
