Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.06.2011, Side 10

10
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 7 — 2011
Normally, local elec-
tions in Spain are not big
news. Compared with the
desperate revolt against
tyrants in the Arab world now be-
ing acted out on our TV-screens, it
looks like small fries.

It is hardly big news if an opposition
party makes some gains when a two-
terms ruling party has manifestly failed
to deal effectively with a major eco-
nomic crisis, causing massive unem-
ployment and general economic hard-
ship to the people.
One peculiar local result merits at-
tention. In Valencia, the Conservatives
offered the voters a list of candidates
where all ten in the top seats had been
indicted before the elections in a court
case, accused of major corruption (for
defrauding the public, accepting bribes
and falsifying accounts). The crooks
won by a landslide. Our own Icelandic
Conservatives could easily put up such
a list of candidates. Would they win?
WHAT IS THE FUSS THEN? Well, it is
not only that although the ruling party
was justly punished, the opposition
did not win by a landslide, far from it.
Rather it is because a sizeable segment
of society, the young, the poor and the
excluded, didn’t vote at all.
WHY? A frontpage photo in El Pais says
it all. A young man, standing by a pro-
test sign in La Puerta del Sol in Madrid,
where hundreds of thousands of people
gathered before the elections to vent
their frustration, wore a T-shirt with the
following statement printed up front:
JUVENTUD SIN FUTURO: SIN CASA,
SIN CURRO, SIN PENSION—PERO SIN
MIEDO (youth without future, without
an apartment, without work, without
pension—but without fear).
WHY VOTE—if you think it doesn’t mat-
ter at all? If you have no confidence in
any of the political parties? After all,
political parties are the basic instru-
ments of a functioning democracy. But
why vote, if you think the political par-
ties are—behind different facades and
slogans—all the same?
Well, then—democracy isn’t work-
ing—is it? And that is the plain truth
and the main lesson of the Spanish
elections: Democracy is in crisis. The
neo-conservative ideology of the om-
nipotence of so called free markets has
ruled the world for three decades, and
has during its rule rendered democracy
itself almost impotent. Why vote, if the
financial elites that own this world have
the power to dictate to politicians what
is permissible, and what is not, for the
state to do?
For the past thirty years, the neo-con
ideology has ruled the world. Its basic
postulates—omnipotence of the mar-
kets and impotence of the state—are
simply incompatible with democracy.
This ideology is in practice the political
theory of plutocracy—the dictatorship of
international capital.
The Economist recently published a
survey on the super-rich and the rest of
us. Here is their conclusion: The rich-
est 10% control 83% of the world’s
assets. Within the elite, the super-rich
80 thousand individuals or so (out of 7
billion humans on EARTH), control the
vast majority of the world’s assets. Al-
though 90% of the world’s adults share
between them 17% of total wealth, more
than 50% of humanity own nothing at
all.
FINANCIAL WEALTH, as opposed to
the income generated by the real econ-
omy, has during those thirty years grown
to become more than ten times the
world’s GDP. It is, incidentally, the same
ratio as the Icelandic banks’ growth
beyond our GDP! This vast wealth is
controlled by a tiny international elite—
although predominantly American. The
neo-con ideology is about their rights to
profits, to the exclusion of any state ac-
tion to redistribute wealth. It excludes
democracy. And it confronts social de-
mocracy, which is about equality. Why
then not vote against the plutocracy?
The US originated international fi-
nancial crisis was caused by the bot-
tomless greed of this financial elite be-
ing let loose on the WORLD without the
democratic state reining it in through
legislation, regulation and supervi-
sion. When their avarice had pushed
the financial system to the brink of
bankruptcy, the state came to the res-
cue and bailed the bastards out on the
presumption that the System had grown
“too big to fail”.
Taxpayers had to pick up the bill.
With too much debt in their accounts,
many nation-states became dependent
on “financial markets” to refinance their
debt. Then the owners of capital in-
sisted on risk surcharges on their inter-
est, making the cost of debt-servicing
unsustainable. Again, taxpayers have to
pick up the bill. So the order of the day
is this: Increase your taxation and cut
your social expenditures. Money talks,
as the Americans say. The “financial
markets” have spoken. Why then vote?
THE WELFARE STATE is under a con-
tinuous onslaught by the forces of inter-
national capital, which are using state
treasuries as a risk-safe object for their
profiteering. The welfare state is the
product of many decades of democratic
action by people, who wanted to tame
“the wild beast” of capitalism and cre-
ate, through “people’s power”, a stable
and just society.
Now all of this is being challenged
by the forces of reaction. Is there a new
generation ready to take up the chal-
lenge? That is what the young and ex-
cluded in la Puerta del Sol were groping
for. But before they can hope for any
success they must for sure learn one
hard won lesson by heart: “Know thy
enemy”!
THE POLITICS OF FAILURE?
What’s happening in Spain? What’s happening all over the world?
Jón Baldvin Hannibalssson, a former leader of the Icelandic Social-Dem-
ocratic Party partly resides in Salobrena, Granada, where he voted in the
local elections, and his party (PSOE—Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol)
won an overall majority
News | Maybe local?
JóN BALDVIN HANNIBALSSSON
EL PAIS
“The Economist recently published a survey on
the super-rich and the rest of us. Here is their
conclusion: The richest 10% control 83% of the
world’s assets”
The sun is rising in Plaça Catalunya,
Barcelona. Some people are still sleep-
ing while others try to prepare break-
fast for everybody in Comissió de cuina
(“kitchen's commission”). Maybe it is
trend topic on Twitter, but it is difficult
to see lots of people during the morning
or in their sleeping bags during nights.
It seems that all ‘The Outraged’ want is
a democratic regeneration, as spoken
by the platform Real Democracy Now
(DRY). The truth is that thousands of
young people have been camping out
in various city squares around Spain;
the blame placed on the economic cri-
sis is, however, in their opinion not the
most important point. They ask for a
better democracy and that’s why they
put their attention to Iceland; and not
only for its inspiring democratic move-
ment of late, but also because of the
“nei” that citizens said about paying for
the mistakes from a private bank.
This last Friday (May 27) it seemed
a pitched battle. At 7 am, while people
were still sleeping, Mossos d’Esquadra
(the Catalan police) and local po-
lice ganged up to try and “clean” the
square to prevent possible damages if
F.C. Barcelona were to win the Cham-
pions League against Manchester Utd.
the day after [Barcelona won]. They
have started to remove tents, comput-
ers, posters, food, gas and other things
from the camp. The worst part is that
121 people have been injured, 84 of
them part of ‘The Outraged’ group. The
authorities insist on their intention of “it
was just to clean” but ‘The Outraged’
(“los indignados” in Spanish) claim it’s
closer to an eviction.
In Barcelona, the square of protest
is divided in three symbolic areas: Tah-
rir, Iceland and Palestine, and in sev-
eral corners where protestors attempt
to organise logistics, communication,
lectures and scheduled assemblies.
Commissions ask for what they need
via Facebook or Twitter, and indeed it
seems that social networks are playing
an important part in revolutions. Every
day at 7 pm, people are invited to meet
at Plaça Catalunya and participate in an
assembly for being able to discuss dif-
ferent topics. Although there are some
interesting proposals, others tend be
on the sillier side, like abolishing Parlia-
ment.
It’s thus hard to tell if this is the way.
It’s said that people in their twenties
shouldn’t be wasting their time protest-
ing in the squares instead of studying;
nevertheless the protests reiterate the
fact that what we have here is not de-
mocracy not only “because politicians
and banks are a team” but also because
of the dominant, two party political sys-
tem (the conservative party [PP] and
the socialists [PSOE]) that vehemently
resist any change or restructuring of
the system.
By now, ‘The Outraged’ have started
wondering if football might be more
important to Spain than democratic
change.
A LETTER
FROM
BARCELONA
Is Iceland Inspiring Revolutions?
ANNA SOLé SANS
JOSE ÁNGEL HERNÁNDéz