Samantha Hudson, unfiltered at the Sol encampment: "We are not going to ask for our rights, 'please'. We are going to demand them"

Samantha Hudson was one of the voices that this Sunday took the stage set up in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where hundreds of people remain concentrated to demand measures against the housing situation. The 27-year-old singer and activist addressed the attendees with a speech in which she vindicated collective mobilization and launched harsh criticisms against the right, the far-right, and the Government that, according to her words, presents itself as progressive.

Hudson began by acknowledging that housing is a problem that affects a majority of the population. "I feel that housing is an issue that affects all of us. In fact, most of us. That's why we are here today," she pointed out to the attendees.

The artist wanted to focus precisely on that social majority against those who, in her opinion, concentrate economic power. "It is important to emphasize that we are the majority. That the rich, that the elites, that the rentiers, that the billionaires, that the technocrats are a minority," she affirmed.

And she once again resorted to one of her most recognizable phrases to vindicate the strength of the mobilization: "Because we are not males, but we are many."

Samantha Hudson vindicates the spirit of 15-M

During her speech, Hudson also related the current encampment to the 15-M movement of 2011. The activist explained that she could not participate then due to her age, but that precisely for that reason, the concentration of these days has a special meaning for her. "I did not experience 15M, like many of us who are here, because, well, I see a lot of young women. I think we were quite young to participate in that," she explained.

That is why she assured that she was moved to see the convening power of the current protest and the work carried out by the Tenants' Union and the organizations that have collaborated in the mobilization. "Being here today, the encampment, all the work, this call, well, I don't know, it moves me because I think it really is moving," she affirmed.

"Youth is left-wing and organized"

One of the most forceful moments of her speech came when Hudson responded to those who, according to her, have defined her generation as a fragile youth or with a growing tendency towards the right. "All those people who said that our generation is a fragile, glass generation, that our generation has a right-wing tendency, should put a dot in their mouth," she stated. And she added a phrase that provoked applause among the attendees: "Youth is left-wing and organized."

For Hudson, the very existence of the encampment and the participation of different organizations demonstrates the mobilization capacity of young people. "This encampment, all the work of the Tenants' Union, of all the organizations that have collaborated, of all of us who are here supporting in different ways, I think it is a demonstration," she maintained.

Against a "suffocating, unjust, and unequal system"

The activist also defended collective mobilization as a response to the housing situation and contrasted different social models during her speech. "Against a suffocating, unjust, and unequal system, collectivization and popular mobilization are always the answer," she affirmed.

Hudson compared what is happening these days in Madrid with the mobilizations of 15 years ago and spoke of the "triumph of the collective over individualism, of the public over the private, of the proletariat over the bourgeois."

She also put on the table some of the demands being raised in the protest and acknowledged that, until now, some of those measures seemed difficult to achieve. "Indefinite rents, prohibiting evictions, I don't know, expropriating the vultures from the banks, intervening in the market..." she enumerated.

"I think about it, and it crossed my mind in this merciful city, in this system that leaves you no room to think. And one thinks those things and sees them as distant and thinks: they are impossible," she continued. However, she argued that mobilization can change that perception: "Things are impossible until someone, in this case several people, stand up and say the complete opposite."

"We are not going to ask for our rights, please. We are going to demand them"

Hudson ended her speech by raising the tone even further and assuring that the demands of the protest should not be presented as requests, but as rights that must be demanded. "We are here today to say that all these issues that are being raised are not only possible, but necessary, and we are going to go for them because we are tired of being nice," she stated. And she concluded: "We are not going to ask for our rights, please. We are going to demand them."

The artist closed her speech with a message against the right, the far-right, capitalism, and fascism, in addition to vindicating the struggle of the working class. "To hell with the right and the far-right, to hell with the supposed lukewarm members of this supposedly progressive government, to hell with capitalism, to hell with fascism," she proclaimed. Hudson ended by vindicating "the struggle of the working class" and added the terms "queer, anti-racist, and feminist" to her final message.

Her intervention took place on a day when the encampment in Puerta del Sol once again gathered numerous participants and also included well-known faces such as Juan Diego Botto, Marwan, Pedro Almodóvar, Sarah Santaolalla, Sergio Peris-Mencheta and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón to show their support for housing-related demands.