15-M

I couldn't let the week go by without blogging about what's going on in the Puerta del Sol.  You've probably seen on the news that a popular social movement burst onto the Spanish scene on the 15th of May.  It involves the occupation of public squares by protesters eager for political and social change.  The biggest of these demonstrations is here in Madrid, where a group has been camping out in the Puerta del Sol for just shy of two weeks.

At first, I was quite cynical about this.  I swung by the square and saw a bunch of hippies camping out in a square that was plastered with signs expressing noble-sounding but vague ideas.  I sympathized with their plight.  Here were a bunch of young people who do not see a future for themselves, given the current economic crisis.  Unemployment in Spain is at 21%, but among the young it's at 45%.  They're angry with all sorts of institutions, the government, the banks, the schools, for having failed them.  But I did not have any confidence that much would come of this. There are a lot of calls for change and reform, but no real clear message about what shape those reforms should take.  Will the people in charge listen?  Will they feel compelled to make changes?  What changes would those be?  I could not imagine an outcome to all this, other than the protestors eventually going home, leaving the Puerta del Sol a mess.

But today I went by again, with Zoë, after a meeting at Santiago's school, and I found myself inspired.  These people aren't just camping out in the square: they've built a functioning village there.  Under the tarps  one finds a series of well-marked out enclosures.  One is a lending library, the other a day-care center.  One provides emergency medical assistance, and another dispenses donated food to participants. There are meeting areas where different groups discuss their concerns.  Animal rights.  Constitutional reform.  Educational reform.  There are signs everywhere protesting everything, although the stranglehold that Spanish banks have on debtors figures most prominently, I thought.  In Spain, if you default on your mortgage, they foreclose on you, but you still owe the mortgage.  Isn't that incredible?

One sign in particular caught my eye.  It was a series of instructions for how one should behave in the event that the police decided to clear the square.  The instructions urged people to adopt a nonviolent response, to sit down, stay quiet, and send out a text message saying "Sol is being cleared.  Come support us."

Police are all around, but they are clearly bored.  The protestors are orderly, respectful, and completely nonviolent, giving them nothing to do.  While we were there, a guy with a megaphone asked people to avoid using the bathrooms in adjoining businesses, and instead go to those of business farther from the plaza.  Apparently, the business owners immediately around Sol complained that their facilities were being taxed by all the extra use, so the protestors are doing their best to accommodate them.  They've already cleared the spaces in front of businesses, so that customers can get in and out unimpeded, at the request of the owners.

It's really remarkable that something so well-organized has sprung up from a movement that has no visible central leadership.  I hope that when they finally tear the campground apart and go home (this Sunday, they say), they will remain organized, remain nonviolent, and find a way to be effective.