15 May 2011.....

Do keep up

....was a Sunday, just one of fifty two scheduled to take place this year. It was also the one hundred and thirty fifth day of 2011 and for those of a female persuasion looking to make an early start on the shopping, there were two hundred and twenty three days to Christmas. Family birthday's aside, anything else spring to mind? Thought not, so put the news on!!

Last December, Mohamed Bouazizi,  a Tunisian fruit and vegetable street seller set himself alight in protest at the dictatorial Government regime which denied him, and many others of his impoverished ilk, the opportunity to scratch a meagre living. Long before his death, he was the first of hundreds, the protests had spread far and wide as downtrodden citizens found their voices. Other nations, Algeria, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Syria to name but a few, soon followed and for the same reasons as countless pro-democracy rebellions took hold and a popular uprising, the Arab Spring, very quickly grew a pair.

The Cathedral or great Mosque of Córdoba

Even though they both begin with the letter C, Cairo isn't Cordoba and even the giant Mezquita, (pronounced meth-kee-ter), once a great mosque in the beautiful Andalusian city, provides little more than a tenuous connection between the two. Sentiment clearly crosses continents though because, inspired by the manner in which mass resentment forced historic change throughout the Middle East and North Africa and fearful for their own future, Spanish students, youth groups, unemployed folk and a great many employees; the self styled "Indignados" (The indignant), embarked upon their own campaign of protest in the very heart of their nations capital Madrid. Tahrir Square anyone?

Left - Mr Bean   Right - The Spanish PM 

The Spanish economy is massive, the fourth largest in the eurozone and amongst the top twelve in the world, it's also in deep, deep trouble. Soaring unemployment, presently well in excess of 20 per cent of the workforce, is only matched  by the rate at which Spain is accumulating debt, a burden becoming harder and harder to service with plummeting tax revenues. Beleaguered Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, unkindly likened to Mr Bean, appears to have few answers and a year ago introduced massively unpopular austerity measures in an attempt to tame the spiraling deficit.  Spaniards aren't stupid though and on Sunday May 15th hundreds gathered in Madrid's iconic Puerta del Sol square to vent their anger and frustration. Many simply stayed on at the end of the day and so began the first tented city with more and more of the disenchanted and jobless joining the completely peaceful protest every day.

The movement known as 15-M after the day on which Puerta del Sol was first occupied soon spread to other Spanish towns and cities, and, at the last count more than 160 locations nationwide, mainly town squares and plaza's, housed protesters demanding economic and political reform. While the world watched, just as it did as events unfolded elsewhere, Mr Bean, (does anyone actually know his first name?), was dealt another humiliating blow by the Madrid group on the eve of the countrywide local elections scheduled for May 22nd. The Spanish Electoral Board ordered a "day of reflection" free of campaigning, mass gatherings and political messages for the Saturday before the poll. This order was upheld by the Supreme Court who also decreed protesters should vacate their encampment by midnight on Friday the 20th. The deadline came and went; unlike the "squatters in the square" who studiously ignored the instruction and mockingly painted one placard with the words, "leave us alone we're reflecting" A day later the ruling Socialist party were stuffed out of sight in all four corners of the country.

Finally, the authorities in Barcelona, the scene of another massive protest camp, lost patience and began to forcefully remove people from the the site at the city's Plaza de Catalunya on the flimsy pretext of clearing the area to allow Barcelona football fans to celebrate their teams victory, or otherwise, in that weekend's Champions League final. Predictably, heavy handed police action resulted in injuries and outrage. 
Spain is a Constitutional Monarchy and has been so with a democratic Government, albeit a largely successful one, for less than forty years. The politicians at the top of the tree mistakenly believe that they control the reins of power, an error they'll need to put right pretty quickly because the people who elected them to high office in the first place have never been more disgruntled. A salutary lesson.