The extent of the crisis has finally brought Spaniards from all
walks of life out to protest in vast numbers and on a multitude of
fronts.
 |
| July 20th 2012 |
The streets were a powder keg of rage, and the spark has finally gone
off. The sheer duration and depth of the economic crisis has pushed
thousands of citizens on to the streets -- health workers, educators,
judges, anti-eviction activists and many more -- while thousands of
others are now convinced protesting does make a difference after all.
In one case, the insistence of health professionals got the regional
government of Madrid to rethink its plans to turn
La Princesa Hospital
into a center for seniors; in another, hundreds of activists managed to
stop dozens of home evictions by physically preventing bank officials
from entering the premises, and getting some rules changed along the
way. And experts forecast that in the near future the protests will
increase, not decrease.
Just a few months ago, Spaniards were angry but not quite to the
point of doing something about it. But the time for action has come.
"The spark is going off sector by sector," says
José Félix Tezanos, a
sociology professor at distance-learning university
Uned who back in
April 2011 gave this newspaper an accurate prediction of things to come:
there was a breeding ground of unemployment, a lack of future
expectations and a series of spending cuts (which began in 2010 with the
previous Socialist administration), all of which constituted a time
bomb that could go off at any minute. And so it has.
"An innovative trait of these conflicts is that they cut across
categories: at the doctors' protests you can also see department chiefs,
interns, patients, PP voters and Socialist voters," he adds. "This is
an explosive cocktail because it represents an increasingly angry social
movement that is confronting an increasingly less representative
political power."
The turning point was the occupation of
Puerta del Sol in Madrid on
May 15, 2011 -- what became known as the
15-M or Los indignados
movement, which inspired similar protests such as
Occupy Wall Street.
The occupiers shared a somewhat vague, if strongly felt, sense of
indignation at the economic and social deterioration of Spain, says
Belén Barreiro, director of the studies department at
Fundación
Alternativas, a progressive think-tank.
Daniel Kaplún, a sociology professor at
Carlos III University in
Madrid, agrees. That original protest gave rise to other successful
movements such as the anti-eviction group Platform for those
Affected by
Mortgages (PAH), and served "to create awareness that institutional
channels were no longer useful to improve things," says
Kaplún.
That grassroots movement took traditional institutions such as labor
unions and left-wing parties by surprise - these did nothing more than
trail behind the protestors - and the groundswell of indignation began
growing in different directions, "with the kind of legitimacy that only
people can give it," adds
Kaplún.
One example of this is the
Madrid Association of Specialist
Physicians (Afem), created just a few months ago by a group of doctors
who led the protests against the Madrid government's plans to bring
private management in to a good number of public hospitals in the
region.
Their indefinite strike is being followed by 30 percent of
physicians, according to the Madrid health department.
"It was born out of a feeling of disillusionment at the grassroots
level and among professionals as well; we felt we were not being
represented, either by the unions or by the associations," says
Afem
president Pedro González, a neurosurgeon at
Madrid's 12 de Octubre
hospital.
"The 15-M movement highlighted the people's discontent, but we
believe we professionals need to go a little further; we have to
provide solutions and show that there are alternatives out there that we
can put into practice to improve things without making it excessively
taxing on society."
Belén Barreiro adds that if
15-M showed the way forward, the
subsequent deterioration of Spain's social and economic fabric has
opened up a growing number of fronts.
"Society is worse off now than it
was a year-and-a-half ago, and the cuts keep affecting more areas, even
the untouchable pillars," she says.
A doctor in political science and
sociology,
Barreiro is talking about the foundations of the welfare
state - health, education and pensions, entitlements that should be
defended by the left but also by broad sectors of "a Catholic right with
a strong sense of solidarity."
In any case, after five years of crisis the situation has become
unbearable for growing numbers of people.
The jobless rate has jumped
from 21 percent a year ago to 25 percent at the present moment,
according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).
For the first time
in 25 years, Spain has surpassed the record figure of two million
people with no jobs and no unemployment checks.
There are nearly 1.7
million households that have all their members unemployed, 312,700 more
than a year ago.
Pensioners have become the main providers of income in
thousands of homes, but family support, that traditional cushion that
Spaniards could always fall back on at times of need, is starting to
wear out, warn the experts and retired people now have to face more
expenses than ever before, such as co-payment for prescription
medicines.
And those are not the only consumer goods that have gone up in price.
The government has raised both income tax and value-added tax. It has
increased college tuition fees and daycare center rates, reduced the
number of scholarships that it grants, fired teachers, and sent home
workers in the public health sector, social services and the justice
system.
"We are now in phase two of the adjustment. The bulk of the necessary
adjustment to reduce the deficit is now complete, but we're still
pending a purge in the public sector because of its excess size," says
Sara Baliña, an economist at
Analistas Financieros Internacionales, a
consulting firm. "These measures create a lot of unrest because they
have more direct repercussions.
[...] Is the worst over? I hope so, but
we don't believe that the economic situation, both in terms of GDP and
of employment, is going to be normalized until late 2013."
Amaya Egaña, a 53-year-old woman who jumped to her death just as she
was going to be evicted from her home in
Barakaldo in early November,
has become one of the symbols of the growing sense of despair in Spanish
society.
Soon after that, the government announced a two-year
moratorium on evictions for a few, very specific cases in which the
homeowners in default were considered to be especially vulnerable.
For now, the legality of things is being questioned but there is no violence
"The decree against the evictions is insufficient and it leaves a lot
of people out, but it is a small victory and that's why people trust
us," says
Adrià Alemany of the PAH, who is a great defender of civil
disobedience.
His association and a like-minded group called
Stop Desahucios have
managed to stop nearly 500 evictions. "It is these small battles that
open up a different horizon of possibilities," adds
Alemany.
"In 2009,
when our organization was born, we were preaching in the desert; in the
last few months, we have become a popular cry. Things have been
achieved, and people have realized that protesting does help effect
change."
A major step forward was the recent incorporation of judges - from
the most progressive to the most conservative - into the protest against
the abuse of home evictions.
In a rarely seen gesture, Spain's justices
denounced the defenselessness of evictees, since the law does not allow
the judge to decide whether the payment arrears have justified causes
or not.
Soon after, judges, lawyers and attorneys criticized the new
legal fees introduced by the government, which they said will hurt
citizens. Authorities say the goal is to end the backlog created by
excess litigation.
"They cannot relieve our workload by reducing citizens' access to
justice," explains
Joaquim Bosch, spokesman for
Judges for Democracy, a
progressive judges' association. "The court fees and the evictions have
shaken judges out of their world. With the crisis, we were seeing more
eviction cases in court and witnessing the defenselessness of the
defendants compared with the lenders."
These protests come at a very tense moment between the judicial
establishment and the justice minister,
Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, who has
enacted more cuts and put a freeze on new court positions even though
the courthouses are overflowing with cases.
Western society needs to consider that stability is not guaranteed
And so every other day a new group of people is joining the protests.
Associations representing disabled persons have organized a big march
in Madrid this Sunday to complain about the regional and local
governments' failure to extend them the disability checks to which they
are entitled.
Meanwhile, long-running conflicts keep flaring up now and then. One
of these is in the education sector, which suffered billions of euros of
cuts in 2010 and from which an April 2012 decree is set to slash
another three billion euros. After many months of isolated protests over
regional cuts, the movement has coalesced into a more unified group
with greater visibility.
In Madrid, it has been teachers who, since mid-2011, have spearheaded
protests that resulted in what later became known as
"the green tide."
This led to a rainbow of "tides" in the demonstration that united
thousands of people on Madrid's streets on September 15: there was a
white tide for the health sector, a
black one for public services, a
violet one for equality, and
an orange one for the social services.
The
fact that the march was organized by 230 groups may be the single most
illustrative example of a social mobilization that includes unions,
political parties, long-standing associations and newly created ones of
all shapes and sizes.
Professor Kaplún says that besides the speed and breadth of the cuts -
"There is a middle class that is becoming impoverished at lightning
speed, and inequalities are growing at the same rate," he notes - there
is growing disgruntlement at the fact that "the losses are not being
shared out: a few continue to earn more and more while the majority gets
increasingly poorer." Amid all this, the political class seems to be
bound to economic interests. "The contrast between the bank bailouts and
the cuts is increasingly blatant," he says.
- 15-M. A spontaneous, diffuse movement resulted in the occupation of
Puerta del Sol in Madrid on May 15, 2011. For months, the general
discontent over spending cuts and the mismanagement of Spain's
democratic institutions took the shape of very varied public debates;
the protest eventually simmered down and morphed into neighborhood
projects and other initiatives.
- Evictions. Since 2007 there have been 350,000 foreclosures. A
groundswell of protest gelled around the groups Stop Desahucios and
Platform for those Affected by Mortgages, forcing the government to make
a move, even if many people consider that move insufficient. Judges
have also spoken out in defense of evictees.
- Education. The education cuts are measured in billions of euros and
the government is forecasting a 10 billion-euro reduction between 2010
and 2015. The last year has seen two milestones: a complete strike at
all levels, from pre-school to university, on May 22, and a parent
strike to support the student stoppage on October 18.
- Health. The health cuts total upwards of 10 billion euros in three
years (including the upcoming cuts of 2013). To this must be added plans
to privatize health services in several regions. In recent weeks,
Madrid has spearheaded the protests, with a major strike this week.
- Social services. Social workers and the neediest people have seen
the Dependents Law budget lose nearly 500 million euros in two
back-to-back blows. Meanwhile, the budget for basic social services at
the local level has dwindled by 65 percent in two years.
- Equality. The outlays have been reduced by 13 million euros over the
last two years, and are now down to 18.9 million euros. The fight
against domestic abuse has also lost financial support.
- Justice. The new fees for starting court proceedings have gotten
judges angry. The fees range from 100 euros for claiming an outstanding
debt to 1,200 euros for appealing to the Supreme Court. Penal
jurisdiction and cases of abuse are exempt from paying fees.
- Public servants. They lost their Christmas bonus and their wages will be frozen in 2013 for the third year in a row.
- Culture. The cuts to the 2013 budget are 30 percent, putting the
entire sector on the warpath. Value-added tax has ballooned from eight
percent to 21 percent for movie, theater, concert and exhibition
tickets.
Barreiro also talks about the frustration of many
Popular Party (PP) voters
who were convinced the conservative party "held the key to get out of the
crisis" yet have found that "things are not better but actually
worse."
All of which increases the call to action, even more so if this action is
seen to bear fruit, as in the case of the eviction moratorium.
"As the
crisis starts affecting more and more sectors, people are becoming increasingly
aware that they can make a difference and that resignation is no longer an
option," says
Jordi Mir of the
Center for the Study of Social Movements at
Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. "The situation is growing dire
because there are no elements to indicate that things are going to improve;
representative democracy is failing, and the mobilization drive is recruiting
population sectors that were traditionally less active, both among the young
and the old. For now, the legality of things is being questioned, but
there is no violent confrontation, the protests are peaceful."
The crisis of the political parties is one of the factors at the heart of
these grassroots protests. For the
PP, the loss of potential voter support is
happening fast and hard, to the extent that only 56 percent of those who voted
for the conservatives just a year ago continue to back them, according to
figures gathered by
José Félix Tezanos in the latest issue of
Temas magazine.
And in a further unusual development, this fall by the party in power is not
resulting in a popularity rise for the main opposition party.
Tezanos says he is concerned about a situation that does not yet have a
predictable end result. "We are headed toward a period of great conflict
and loss of power for the political parties," he warns. "Western
society needs to think about the fact that stability is not guaranteed."
The sociologist says that parties must confront this situation, or else
"we are faced with non-viable societies where discontent can hardly be
channeled," leaving the door open for extremist and populist movements.
"And if the government were to consider the protests a public order
problem and bring out the riot police, this peaceful movement could turn
violent."
All the experts agree that social action will only grow.
"This will not
end with a demand for a return to the way things used to be; going back is not
possible.
This is going to result in a new model of society," says
Tezanos. "I don't know what that model will be, but I think there are only
two ways out: through the extreme right or through the left."
El País in English - 9th December 2012
.jpg)
