Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.06.2011, Blaðsíða 8

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8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 7 — 2011
News | International
What's going on in Spain? Do you think they're maybe overinterpreting
what's been going on in Iceland? Or should we Icelanders get inspired
back and start fighting the system anew?
INSPIRED BY ICELAND?
Iceland and Spain are about as dis-
similar as chalk and cheese. How-
ever, the two nations have lately
found they might have a thing or
two in common. Namely, they have
come to share a common point of
view about their politicians: That
they are rubbish.
So, if in the fall of 2008 most
Icelanders rose up against their
corrupt political class, three years
later (better late than never) the
Spaniards mimic those claims
against their politicians. Since May
15, thousands of people have taken
to the streets in a wave of demon-
strations all over the country. The
main demand: A real democracy.
HOW TO COOK AN ANGRY RIOT
The easiest way to cook a fresh dish of
annoyed citizens is to mix the proper
ingredients into the pot.
First of all, add a big dose—a really
big dose—of unemployment. Icelanders
tend to get upset about their unem-
ployment rate (around 7%) but perhaps
they don’t know that in the country
where Cervantes was born, the situa-
tion is a bit worse. In Spain, the over-
all unemployment level reaches 21%,
which means that five million people,
who should be earning their bread
and butter every morning, instead kill
their time in the park feeding pigeons.
What’s more, that rate grows to 45%
amongst people under 25, the highest
recorded unemployment rate for young
people in any developed country.
If this is not enough, the average
lucky Spaniard (that strange animal in
danger of extinction who is able to find
a job) has to deal with another beast;
work that is insecure and poorly com-
pensated for, especially for younger
generations that in many cases are
forced to live with their parents until
the age of 35.
By now you might be wondering
what politicians are doing to overcome
that unsustainable situation. Well, not
much. They are precisely the great so-
cial cancer in the eyes of the people ral-
lying in the streets. Most of the politi-
cal class seems to be more concerned
about helping bankers instead of com-
mon people and an important number
of politicians from the two main par-
ties—right wing Partido Popular and
socialist PSOE—are suspected of being
corrupt, and furthermore most of them
are still holding their public offices in a
matter-of-fact way (more than a hun-
dred politicians that were seeking elec-
tion on May 22 were also under judicial
investigation, most of them belonging
to PP and PSOE).
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
One of the biggest problems citizens
have when they are surrounded perma-
nently by political scandals, corruption,
incompetent politicians and greedy,
unscrupulous bankers, is they tend to
view this situation as natural and even-
tually get used to it.
A spark is needed to wake up
people from th eir sleep. In this case
it came from an old Frenchman called
Stéphane Hessel, who at ninety-three
years, has managed to encourage citi-
zens to a peaceful insurrection with his
bestselling pamphlet titled Indignez-
vous! (“Time for Outrage!”). This old
member of the French resistance and
Holocaust concentration camp survivor
has reached the youth with his pas-
sionate writing about the risks of be-
ing indifferent to political issues, urg-
ing a non-violent insurrection against
the powers of capitalism. The Spanish
youngsters, seduced by Hessel’s words
and with the Icelandic revolution as a
model (or their idea of it), have woken
up and taken to the streets.
This is the way Democracia Real Ya!
(“Real Democracy Now!”) was born; a
group of citizens fed up with the sys-
tem, who organised a mass protest on
May 15 in Sol, a centric and well-known
square in Madrid. But surprisingly
the movement didn’t stop there, since
people decided to stay camped for the
whole week, until municipal and local
elections on May 22. The gathering be-
came more and more massive, people
rallied against the politicians and the
bankers under the motto “we are not
goods in the hands of politicians and
bankers”, many people were showing
Icelandic flags, chanting: “We want to
be Icelanders!” and “If Iceland could,
Spain can!”. And suddenly, the miracle
happened and the rallies spread and
became international, with demonstra-
tions in many cities all over the world
such as Brussels, Edinburgh, Tokyo,
London or even Reykjavik, where
Birgitta Jónsdóttir made an emotive
speech supporting the Spanish rebel-
lion.
PRESS EQUALS POLITICS
One of the funniest and peculiar fea-
tures about Spanish press is its close
ties to the main political parties and
large corporations. All the main news-
papers in Spain belong to big media
groups, each of them supporting a spe-
cific party. Independent journalism is
almost non-existent. So it’s not difficult
to guess that most news are biased and
focused on propaganda, in an elegant,
sort of post-modern way.
Thus, readers can find different im-
pressions depending on which paper
they have in their hands. If for the left
wing press the rallies mean the anger
of the people with the well-known cor-
ruption problem of the right party, the
press related to the latter claim that it’s
a movement against the incompetence
of the socialist government of José Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero. If the people are
particularly critical with them, they are
only a group of young ruffians and anti-
system Bolsheviks.
But nothing is further from the truth,
since Democracia Real Ya! states that
they are a “non-partisan citizen gather-
ing created and encouraged by Internet
and social networks […] whose unique
purpose is to promote open discussion
among all those who wish to become
involved in the preparation and coordi-
nation of joint actions”. This movement
consists of the unemployed, pension-
ers, mothers who want a better future
for their children and all sorts of citi-
zens that have something in common:
their weariness with the current politi-
cal and economic system. It’s not a rally
against a particular government, but an
outraged shout against corruption, ma-
nipulation and fake democracy.
Toñy García, a 53 years old woman
participating in the demonstrations,
says: “There are a lot of people but they
truly have everything well organised.
There’s not a drop of alcohol here nor
flags related to any party, they pick up
the rubbish and keep everything clean,
not giving any reason for the police to
intervene. They are acting in an intel-
ligent way”. Her sister Tere adds: “We
are determined not to be sitting there
doing nothing. We aren’t animals going
to the slaughterhouse”.
AND NOW…
The regional elections on May 22 end-
ed with an overwhelming victory of the
right-wing Partido Popular over PSOE.
That is funny if we consider all these
people were fighting for great changes
and then the most conservative party
got elected; this seems, to say the least,
strange. Samuel González, who has fol-
lowed the events from the beginning,
tries to explain this: “We have to take
into account two things. One is the ca-
pacity for self-criticism of the left wing
voters, that don’t doubt in punishing
their own party if they do things wrong.
The other one is the lack of sensibility
against the corruption from those on
the right”.
Whatever, a feeling of deception
has appeared in a part of ‘The Out-
raged’. “The election results show that
most people are only concerned with
their own welfare rather than a com-
mon purpose. This is a sign of absolute
short-sightedness”, says Lucía Tornero,
a young journalist I spoke to.
But there are also a few who be-
lieve that change is still possible and
won’t resign, like Juana, who thinks
that “there’s something special in the
air in Sol, something that must not be
stopped; that makes you think every-
thing is not lost”.
Was ‘the pots and pans revolution’ imported by Spain?
JOSé ÁNGEL HERNÁNDEz
GONzALO HERNÁNDEz