One Year On, Spain's 'Indignants' Take to Streets

By Daniel Silva
AFP
May 12, 2012

http://news.yahoo.com/spains-indignants-over-streets-042623383.html

Photo Gallery: http://tinyurl.com/7d6e9e7

Masses of chanting "indignant" activists poured into
the streets across Spain on Saturday in a vast show of
strength one year on from igniting a global protest
against economic injustice.

Thousands packed Madrid's central Puerta del Sol
square, the emblematic birthplace of their popular
movement against inequality, sky-high unemployment and
spending cuts that shook the political establishment.

Many had marched to the square for hours in separate
columns of protesters from all directions.

Police gave no estimate for the turnout in Madrid but
the authorities in Barcelona, Spain's second-largest
city, said around 45,000 jammed the Plaza de Catalunya
square.

The marches, held in 80 cities and towns across Spain,
launch a four-day protest that will end on May 15, the
anniversary of the movement's birth -- a date that led
them to being dubbed 15-M.

The movement, which relies heavily on online social
networks to campaign and organise, has inspired similar
protests from Britain to the United States' Occupy Wall
Street.

"We never ceased to exist. It is not that we have
returned, we never left," said a 25-year-old nursing
intern in Barcelona, adding she planned to camp
overnight in the square.

While Barcelona city hall seems prepared to tolerate a
camp for a limited period, the authorities in Madrid
insist they will not allow a repeat of last year's
month-long sprawling encampment in Puerta del Sol that
included everything from a canteen to a kindergarten
and a library.

Spain's conservative government, in power since
December, has issued a permit for the "indignants" to
use Puerta del Sol for a five-hour assembly Saturday
and for 10 hours on each of the following three days.

But the activists' plans published online call for a
minute of silence at midnight and for a "permanent
assembly" to be held in Puerta del Sol during the four-
day protest.

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said
the government would ensure that the hours are
respected.

"To stay in the square beyond those hours would be a
violation of the law and of the rights of other
citizens, and this government will ensure the law is
respected," she told reporters Friday after a weekly
cabinet meeting.

A year after the movement's birth, Spaniards have even
more to protest: a recession, unemployment at 24.4
percent and 52 percent for the young, and more than 30
billion euros ($39 billion) worth of austerity cuts so
far this year.

"We are here because we continue to be angry over the
austerity policies which an economic elite is imposing
on us," said 21-year-old philosophy student Victor
Valdes at the Madrid rally.

Another protester, 23-year-old office worker Marina
Santos said: "It is important to show that we are still
here, that there are thousands of people that want a
change and are willing to work for it."

She carried a handmade sign that read: "Another World
is Possible" as she marched to Puerta del Sol to the
beat of drums.

The "indignants" have staged overwhelmingly peaceful
protests and neighbourhood assemblies since their camp
at Puerta del Sol was dismantled on June 12 last year,
but interest has tapered off.

"The movement has mutated, it is still there. What has
happened is that it is not on the streets, it is online
and in social networks," said Noelia Moreno, a former
spokeswoman for the movement in Madrid.

"This is a long-distance race, no one can change an
entire political system in one day or one year, it
takes time," the 30-year-old unemployed video producer
added.

Critics charge that beyond staging rallies, the
movement has had little impact.

Antonio Alaminos, sociology professor at Alicante
University, said the "indignants" had failed to
organise and were left expressing a discontent born
from social and economic malaise without a concrete
ideology.

"The result: lots of small relatively disconnected
groups that no longer form a social movement," he said.

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate