Mallorca, the island of dreams, seems to be lost in a nightmare. The locals can feel it in every alleyway, on every beach and in every conversation about the future. "Mallorca is disintegrating, society is falling apart," said Joana Maria Palou from the citizens' initiative Fòrum de la Societat Civil in a recent interview. It sounds dramatic, almost as if it were the lament of an ageing patriarch, but it is the sober reality that hides behind the façade of a tourist paradise.
Palma's transformation: from meeting place to tourist trap
Jaume Garau, a Mallorcan who still knows the city of Palma from the days when you met more locals than tourists in the cafés, is particularly aware of this change. "Plaça Cort used to be like a big living room. You always met someone, chatted about the day and life over a café solo," he says. But today he avoids the center that used to be his home. Hotels and souvenir stores have supplanted the old stores, and the flow of tourists is suffocating the old traditions. "It feels like I'm in a movie, but no longer in character," he says.
Retreat into privacy: the island of closed doors
Mallorca is at a critical point. The island was once a paradise where locals could retreat to quiet, unspoiled corners. But today there are hardly any places where this is still possible. Beaches such as Es Trenc, once a well-kept secret, are hopelessly overcrowded in summer. "We Mallorcans have learned to live with tourism, but now it is changing our everyday lives and paralyzing us," says Joan Cabot, a concerned observer of developments on the island.
People are also withdrawing from the countryside. Margalida Sastre, a 71-year-old resident of Petra, feels this particularly keenly. "Even in the interior of the island, it's unbearable in summer. There's no peace and quiet, no parking spaces, and there's garbage everywhere," she says. Her village used to be a place of community, but now the old houses have been bought up by rich foreigners who are rarely there. "Everyone used to know everyone else, but now you often don't even know who your neighbors are," she says.
The bars are disappearing, and so is the soul
As the old villagers disappear, so do the traditional bars that once characterized social life. In Petra, a quaint bar had to make way for a hip café that caters more to tourists than locals. "Pa amb oli? It's no longer on the menu," says Margalida Sastre, shaking her head. "It does something to a village when its soul disappears."
Language and culture: a gradual loss
The loss of language is another issue that affects the Mallorcans. "How many times have I been in bars where the menu was only in German," reports Joan Cabot. Mallorcan is being spoken less and less, and the traditional festivals, once an outlet for the local population, are increasingly being overrun by tourists. But today there are hardly any places left where the locals can retreat. Beaches such as Es Trenc, once an insider tip, are overcrowded in summer.
The end of the "Isla de la Calma" (Island of Calm)?
"We are used to being conqueredby the Romans, the Arabs, the Catalans and now the tourists," says Jaume Garau. But the price the Mallorcans are paying for life in paradise is high. "We are destroying it together, the holidaymakers and the Mallorcans. There are no heroes in this movie that is currently playing."
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