Comments on: Resistance takes root in Barcelona

By: richard

richard — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:54:29 +0000

Many thanks for this post Hilary, and subsequent comments. Having arrived in Barcelona from Australia on May 13th and passing through Pl Catalunya on the 15th absolutely in awe of the buzz was something I will never forget. Nor the police actions since and we are left with an election result that can only pursue the “Goldman Sach-ing” of Spain.

Jeremy Hardy made a crucial point which you hinted at with your “ecological theme” –

“And despite being divided about exactly how to provoke a ‘recovery’, both main parties have junked any real concern about the fact that we are rapidly using up our planet and heading for an environmental disaster that will make pensions largely unnecessary” this is the issue, what is the reality of continuing “as is” – before 2050 there is a “need” to reduce average flobal emissions by 50%, maybe 60% in Spain (?)

Having energy generation so closely tied to “growth” is not conducive to reducing carbon emissions. Perhaps we should look to South American for solutions rather then Wall St.

By: noel

noel — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:19:42 +0000

I understand the desire to be wary of leaders in traditional organisations, because they have let people down, but please can we stop with this idea of any movement being ‘leaderless’ they never are, and never will be, leadership is part of a movement whether it is acknowledged or not

By: Dyane

Dyane — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:09:24 +0000

Thanks Lesley for including this link in your blog. Gives a very unbiased account of what is happening in Europe and what, I feel, many are trying to do over here in Vancouver and across Canada… Unfortunately things have become messy in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, but still, it is almost November 11th we all have to sit up and consider the space we inhabit and the world we share. Dyane

By: Robert the cripple

Robert the cripple — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:57:34 +0000

Look over at Labour list and you will see people demanding that these sit In’s be time limited, can you believe this time limit a sit in because it spoils the views. and I’m not kidding you.

The song needs to be “Where has the Labour party gone”.

By: Brid Brennan

Brid Brennan — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:28:41 +0000

really insightful article….makes great sense to those who weren’t there…this huge demo…and all the rivers of resistances it symbolises…is trully inspiring …it looks like the ‘indignados’ movement is here to stay and hopefully irrevesrible.

By: Oscar

Oscar — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:31:55 +0000

Also worth checking out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq2Wm6GyEr4&feature=youtu.be

By: Lesley Wood

Lesley Wood — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:27:30 +0000

Terrific article! Thanks for filling in the gaps. I was there, but the crowd was way too big to get a sense of what was going on!

By: Oscar Reyes

Oscar Reyes — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 22:10:46 +0000

Hilary’s really captured the spirit of yesterday’s march well, but I think her post also goes some way to correcting a lot of the US/anglocentric/major financial centres bias written in round-ups of the global protests. Inspiring as the Wall Street protests are, it is not really accurate to claim (as the Guardian, New York Times and even activist sites like ZNet have it) that these were the spur to rallies that swept the globe.

An initial call was made several months ago: http://15o.democraciarealya.es/ and the most successful of these have been based on concerted organising, not simply the fact that (as Jon Stewart of the Daily Show recently put it, the media dial has turned from blackout to circus).

It’s easy to over-state the “new model of protest” line too (eg. http://www.redpepper.org.uk/birth-of-a-new-movement/ ). There are many novel elements in this, enabled by the internet as well as the re-organisation of global labour– as Paul Mason has pointed out a while ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2011/02/twenty_reasons_why_its_kicking.html
. But in other ways it is all decidedly old-school: unemployment, job insecurity and the defence of a welfare state under threat from a massive austerity programme are spurring protests, coupled with a revolt against a banking system that’s totally out of control.

The Barcelona protest was one of the numerous protests in cities across the state of Spain, from 60,000 in Sevilla in the south to over 10,000 reported in Vigo in the north-west, and 500,000 in the capital Madrid. There are reports and videos (in Spanish) at
http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/estado-espanol-recopilacion-cronicas-videos-manifestaciones-15-o
and
http://madrid.tomalaplaza.net/2011/10/15/la-indignacion-sale-a-las-calles-de-todo-el-mundo-el-15-de-octubre/

The story of the three strands of the march that Hilary describes is also worth following. In Nou Barris, a working class suburb in the north of Barcelona, the march was followed by the occupation of an empty block of flats, with the aim of housing families that had faced home repossessions:
http://acampada9barris.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/okupat-un-bloc-de-pisos-buits-a-nou-barris/

A 6,000-strong march continued to the Hospital del Mar, in support of a revolt against health cuts that had already seen the occupation of two hospitals on the night before the main demonstration. The symbolic end point saw a huge die-in, with activists playing dead to symbolise “the deaths of many citizens” as a result of savage health sector cuts.
http://www.setmanaridirecta.info/noticia/la-columna-de-sanitat-la-mes-concorreguda-de-totes

Thousands more formed an education block that met up with an occupation at the Geography and History Faculties of the University of Barcelona, located close to the centre of the city. Once there, convened an assembly to discussed the demands of the recently formed Platform for a Public University (Plataforma Unitària per la Universitat Pública), which has called for a strike on 17 November.
http://www.setmanaridirecta.info/noticia/2000-persones-una-assemblea-la-facultat-del-raval-reocupada-la-columna-vermella