Juan Luis Sánchez - Voices of the plazas
Today, headlines from around the world resonate with the news that there are nearly six million Spanish citizens currently unemployed. Spaniards are in the process of losing their quality of life, along with their access to health, education and even food. The number of homeless people is rising and cutbacks and "reforms" continue without respite.
How is it possible for the country to accept that over half its population of under 25-year-olds are unemployed? How does a society sustain itself with over a million members living in households where not so much as a euro comes in by way of a monthly salary? How sick is a society when the only social group not to lose its purchasing power in recent years are the retired and when there are more than 150 home evictions per day? What is the impact of such a profound crisis on freedom of expression?
As could have been foreseen, street protests have only increased in size and intensity since the start of the crisis in 2008. And authorities have responded in equal measure.[1]
The turning point was 15 May 2011, when – summoned by organisations such as Juventud sin future (Youth without a future),[2] Democracia real YA! (Real democracy NOW!)[3] and about 200 smaller citizen platforms – thousands of protesters occupied plazas and streets in 58 cities, starting with Puerta del Sol in Madrid. They claimed they weren't being represented by traditional politics; they demanded a radical change in society. Immediately, the media linked the protests to the Icelandic rallies of 2009, to the 2011 revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and to the movement set out in the best-selling book Indignez-vous! by Stéphane Hessel, a French Resistance hero, concentration camp survivor and co-author of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage!) rails against apathy and argues that anger and indignation can be a powerful motive for change. The protesters became known as the Indignados movement, or 15M, and became a global symbol.
A survey published by RTVE (Spanish public TV) reported on 6 August 2011 that, since 15 May 2011, between 6 and 8.5 million citizens had participated in the 15M movement, visited the campsites where protesters gathered, joined assemblies or took part in the demonstrations organised by "Democracia real YA!"
On assuming office in December 2011, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy unleashed a seemingly unstoppable agenda of cuts intended to slim down Spain's welfare state. It had to be defended. The protection of and provision for society had been secure for decades, but now it was regarded by Rajoy's party as a luxury, and by the opposition as a key political victory that had to be won. For grassroots activists, it provoked an even stronger reaction, led by 15M.
As one reform followed another in waves, the 15M movement discovered who its allies were: state employees and civil servants who now perceived public services – basic health, education, assistance to immigrants and disabled people in vulnerable situations – to be at great risk, along with their own jobs.[4] Civil servants became a target for conservative media. They were slow, they were "lazy", they were "privileged", they abused the system. A type of Orwellian Newspeak was being born. Spain has over three million state employees and the tales spun by the media talked endlessly of an over-abundance of public sector workers, in spite of the fact that, according to the International Labour Organisation, the percentage of public sector employees, compared to the overall workforce, is lower than that of some 15 other European countries.
Seeing that the regenerated social movements, along with trade unions and public sector employees, were uniting against government policies, it was virtually guaranteed that the streets would be permanently filled with protesters. "Labour reforms are going be at the cost of a [general] strike," Rajoy practically bragged in January 2012, unaware that the television cameras were on him as he had an informal chat with his Finnish counterpart, Jyrki Katainen, on the fringes of a Council of the European Union meeting. Rajoy's government has lived through two brutal general strikes that have affected the entire country and thousands of demonstrations. In Madrid alone, at least ten demonstrations are recorded daily.
Doctors, underground train and bus drivers, journalists, judges, district attorneys, lawyers, teachers, firefighters... every day a demonstration, almost never assembled by a trade union, but which can regularly count on the support of other movements, always connected through online social networks.
How is it possible for the country to accept that over half its population of under 25-year-olds are unemployed? How does a society sustain itself with over a million members living in households where not so much as a euro comes in by way of a monthly salary? How sick is a society when the only social group not to lose its purchasing power in recent years are the retired and when there are more than 150 home evictions per day? What is the impact of such a profound crisis on freedom of expression?
As could have been foreseen, street protests have only increased in size and intensity since the start of the crisis in 2008. And authorities have responded in equal measure.[1]
The turning point was 15 May 2011, when – summoned by organisations such as Juventud sin future (Youth without a future),[2] Democracia real YA! (Real democracy NOW!)[3] and about 200 smaller citizen platforms – thousands of protesters occupied plazas and streets in 58 cities, starting with Puerta del Sol in Madrid. They claimed they weren't being represented by traditional politics; they demanded a radical change in society. Immediately, the media linked the protests to the Icelandic rallies of 2009, to the 2011 revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and to the movement set out in the best-selling book Indignez-vous! by Stéphane Hessel, a French Resistance hero, concentration camp survivor and co-author of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage!) rails against apathy and argues that anger and indignation can be a powerful motive for change. The protesters became known as the Indignados movement, or 15M, and became a global symbol.
A survey published by RTVE (Spanish public TV) reported on 6 August 2011 that, since 15 May 2011, between 6 and 8.5 million citizens had participated in the 15M movement, visited the campsites where protesters gathered, joined assemblies or took part in the demonstrations organised by "Democracia real YA!"
On assuming office in December 2011, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy unleashed a seemingly unstoppable agenda of cuts intended to slim down Spain's welfare state. It had to be defended. The protection of and provision for society had been secure for decades, but now it was regarded by Rajoy's party as a luxury, and by the opposition as a key political victory that had to be won. For grassroots activists, it provoked an even stronger reaction, led by 15M.
As one reform followed another in waves, the 15M movement discovered who its allies were: state employees and civil servants who now perceived public services – basic health, education, assistance to immigrants and disabled people in vulnerable situations – to be at great risk, along with their own jobs.[4] Civil servants became a target for conservative media. They were slow, they were "lazy", they were "privileged", they abused the system. A type of Orwellian Newspeak was being born. Spain has over three million state employees and the tales spun by the media talked endlessly of an over-abundance of public sector workers, in spite of the fact that, according to the International Labour Organisation, the percentage of public sector employees, compared to the overall workforce, is lower than that of some 15 other European countries.
Seeing that the regenerated social movements, along with trade unions and public sector employees, were uniting against government policies, it was virtually guaranteed that the streets would be permanently filled with protesters. "Labour reforms are going be at the cost of a [general] strike," Rajoy practically bragged in January 2012, unaware that the television cameras were on him as he had an informal chat with his Finnish counterpart, Jyrki Katainen, on the fringes of a Council of the European Union meeting. Rajoy's government has lived through two brutal general strikes that have affected the entire country and thousands of demonstrations. In Madrid alone, at least ten demonstrations are recorded daily.
Doctors, underground train and bus drivers, journalists, judges, district attorneys, lawyers, teachers, firefighters... every day a demonstration, almost never assembled by a trade union, but which can regularly count on the support of other movements, always connected through online social networks.
Police brutality
To every action there is always equal reaction on the opposite side. Excessive behaviour on the part of the police is hardly new, even at the least officially organised smaller demonstrations taking place in Spain.. read more:http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2013-04-12-sanchez-en.html
