Spain, you are not alone

Spain: Wellsprings of an explosive movement
Sunday, June 5, 2011
By Dick Nichols, Barcelona
Protest camp in Madrid, May 19.

In late April, the progressive Spanish daily Publico asked why there was so little resistance to the economic crisis, despite the country’s 5 million jobless and rising misery.

The union and social movement leaders and left academics interviewed pointed to the numbing impact of mass unemployment, the casualisation of work, the bureaucratisation of organised labour, widespread scepticism that striking could achieve anything, and the economic cushion provided by Spain’s extended families.

They also cited the apparent failure of French and Greek general strikes against austerity.

The consensus was that, given the absence in Europe of even one successful struggle, people in Spain were resigned to battling their way through the crisis as best they could.

No-one sensed the new wave of struggle just over the horizon.

Just over one month later, camps of thousands of los indiganados (“the outraged”) are pitched in the squares of at least 80 Spanish cities and towns.

The eyes of the world are on Mardid’s Puerta del Sol and Barcelona’s Plaza Catalonia, where the occupiers are denouncing pro-corporate austerity, political corruption and demanding a “new system”. …more