Last weekend saw anti-capitalist marches take place in 50 cities in Spain under the banner “Democracia Real Ya”. Although the turn out was much higher than expected, for most people it was a case of “another day, another bunch of crusties on the street”. Now it’s Wednesday, and there are 4,000 people camped out in the centre of Madrid, some are flying Egyptian flags, #spanishrevolution is a trending topic, and everyone’s asking themselves, “is this an actual fucking revolution, or not?”
DRY’s (funny acronym alert) idea is to push for political change by boycotting the polls (local elections are scheduled for Sunday), and demonstration peacefully. So far, so much Utopian rhetoric, I know, but the popularity of the demonstrations shows that grass roots activism is now a viable option for a wider population who are hacked off with the Spanish government.
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Without boring you too much with statistics, Spain is deep in the shit. Mortgage rates are going up as house prices plummet, making house ownership an impossible dream for most. A growing number of lower income families are being caught in a negative equity trap, which effectively means they’re losing their houses AND having to pay back hundreds of thousands of Euros to the bank, as it’s not a legal option in Spain to just declare yourself bankrupt and write off your debts. Add to that the highest youth unemployment rate in Europe, and you can understand why so many people are taking to the streets.
Chants we heard in Madrid and Barcelona on Sunday included “PP and PSOE [two different political parties] are just the same shit”, “Tell them to vote for their fucking mums”, and “Hands up this is a robbery”. It was fun. The protests ended on Sunday with your standard spate of dustbin burnings and 19 arrests. Since then there have been complaints from the detainees of maltreatment at the hands of the police with one amazing quote: “How do you expect to find a job wearing those faggot trousers?”, attributed to an arresting officer.
Mass shows of public disaffection are nothing new here. Since the anti-war marches of 2004, credited with changing the government, people have marched in support of everything from the rights of embryos to the re-establishment of the republic with tedious regularity. Also, here in Spain, no-one really gives much of a toss about anything. The people I spoke to on Facebook this morning were more interested in going to the beach than joining the protests in Plaça Catalunya.
At the time of writing, the protests are scheduled to take place every night this week at 8pm in Madrid and Barcelona, with camps in both squares to continue through to Sunday. We’re yet to see whether Spain’s infamously apathetic youth will see it through, or if it can lead to any real and practical change. So far it seems the police are playing a waiting game, allowing the protesters to camp, as long as they keep the squares clean. For their part the organisers are trying not to give the police reason to go off, urging people not to drink or smoke weed.
We’ll keep you posted.
Images from Barcelona.