The Indignant

Something unusual is happening in Spain. Last night I got hardly any sleep at all because there were protesters camped out across the street from our apartment all night long. We live in front of Barcelona’s biggest park, called Parc Ciutadella, and inside it is the Catalan Parliament. Today is the day that Catalan’s elected representatives are to vote on next year’s budget, presumably including many cuts in social spending. The protesters had installed themselves in front of the entrance to the park to try to prevent the politicians from entering, so that a quorum of votes could not be reached and budget cuts would be prevented.

The “indignaos” or indignant, is the name given to a peaceful civic movement that started on March 15^th of this year in Madrid’s Plaza del Sol. The movement has spread to over 60 cities in Spain and its second largest is in Barcelona. The indignaos are composed of a wide swath of Spain’s population, clamoring for change in the current political system. Their manifesto is pretty pragmatic: they want reductions in the many advantages accorded to the political class (for example, the fact that after only 7 years of service as an elected representative, you get a pension for life, whereas the average Spaniard has to work 35 years to get the same; or the fact that if you are a cabinet minister, even if you only exercise your office for a single day, you are covered for life with a pension) . They also want more direct citizen representation in the election process, a more direct democracy.

I admit that I have always been sceptical of Spain’s activitsts - and activists in general. It’s always seemed to me that people are idealizing alternatives and change and I’ve many times had the desire to tell them to get real. Also, I get irritated by the lack of coherence in many of the activists here - “Down with America, but check out my iPad 2!” sort of stuff is rampant.

But this is different. First, the indignaos have the support of an unusually varied set of people from all walks of life in Spain. I’ve done my own personal polling and the support for their movement and for change is surprising. I just rode the elevator up to my flat with a woman who lives one floor above me. She must be in her mid-fifties, maybe even sixty. I asked what she thought of the movement and she said that she supported what they were doing and hoped the protesters got what they asked for.

This amazed me. I cannot imagine the youth of Canada rising up in peaceful resistance to challenge the status quo. We are an apathetic bunch. And if we did, I cannot imagine the rest of Canada being very supportive. To my mind, the epicenter of a clamor for change should have come from protests against the excesses of Wall Street and yet, apart from a relatively anemic protest, the banks have quietly returned to profitability levels that are in many cases above those of 2007.

Second, the indignaos have behaved with remarkable discipline, patience and decorum. Through the organized and intense use of social media, the indignaos are trying out a new way of exercising their political will - peacefully, horizontally. Notably, they have not chosen a leader. That is not part of their manifesto, which explicitly is participative, egalitarian and non- hierarchical.

Meanwhile, the political classes in Spain don’t get it. At first, both main parties tried to appropriate the cause of the indignaos, pointing the finger at the opposing party and saying, “see the people are protesting against you.” But the people are protesting against all of them, the whole system, as privileged and corrupt.

And it’s no wonder the indignaos are indignant. Spain’s unemployment is at 22%, and much higher than that for the 18-34 year old group that represents a majority of the protesters. These kids are well prepared for life, many with university degrees, but they’ve graduated into a world where they can expect to be unemployed for a long time. And if they do get a job, it will be at a dismal salary, less than 1000 euros a month. Given the price of real esate in Barcelona and Madrid, they can expect never to own their own dwelling. Even with double that salary, house ownership here would be very, very tough. Prices are commensurate with London. Salaries are not. So, it’s no wonder they’re calling out the political classes to relinquish their privileges and change. It’s not like they can point to many successes the politicians on either side of the aisle have achieved so far.

The sounds outside are loud and a little scary. There must be over a thousand protesters, chanting, singing, yelling. Have you ever participated in a political protest? I did at Georgetown, in the crazy years when Newt Gingrich wanted to do away with student loans and the whole department of education. (And did you know that he is running for president in the 2012 elections? Some folks don’t know when to quit.) It´s exhilarating to stand up and be heard, to challenge the status quo to be more just, more representative, more whatever.

The police have been deployed in front of my window to keep the protesters out of the park where the elected members of parliament are right now voting on the budget. As I write this, I can hear the firing of rubber bullets. Have you ever heard that sound? I woke up to it this morning and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It sounds like a semi-automatic weapon, because it is one. I was scared of taking Sasha to the nursery - if a rubber bullet hit him - or me - it could do severe damage. Funnily enough, I was not at all scared of the protesters, who have shown themselves to be peaceful, friendly and level-headed time and again when the police have tried to disband them. On the night that Barcelona won the Champion’s League, afraid that some of the more violent revellers would enter their camp on Plaza Catalunya and begin doing damage, the protesters formed a human shield, letting in neither police nor revellers, to protect their camp.

But I am damn scared of the police. A few minutes ago, the protesters, whose chants change all the time, were chanting to the police, “Police, come join us!”. Given the latest round of rubber bullets, I’d say that hasn’t worked. But this round, as with all others so far, goes to the protesters, who are extending a hand, not a fist.