One year on, Spain's 'indignants' take to streets

By: Daniel Silva, Agence France-Presse
May 13, 2012 5:39 AM

Thousands stage nationwide anti-government rallies, a year after movement that inspired 'Occupy' protests was born. AFP

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

MADRID -- Masses of chanting "indignant" activists poured into the streets across Spain on Saturday in a vast show of strength one year on from igniting a global protest against economic injustice.

Thousands packed Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square, the emblematic birthplace of their popular movement against inequality, sky-high unemployment, and spending cuts that shook the political establishment.

Many had marched to the square for hours in separate columns of protesters from all directions.

Police gave no estimate for the turnout in Madrid but the authorities in Barcelona, Spain's second-largest city, said around 45,000 jammed the Plaza de Catalunya square.

The marches, held in 80 cities and towns across Spain, launch a four-day protest that will end on May 15, the anniversary of the movement's birth -- a date that led them to being dubbed 15-M.

The movement, which relies heavily on online social networks to campaign and organise, has inspired similar protests from Britain to the United States' Occupy Wall Street.

"We never ceased to exist. It is not that we have returned, we never left," said a 25-year-old nursing intern in Barcelona, adding she planned to camp overnight in the square.

While Barcelona city hall seems prepared to tolerate a camp for a limited period, the authorities in Madrid insist they will not allow a repeat of last year's month-long sprawling encampment in Puerta del Sol that included everything from a canteen to a kindergarten and a library.

Spain's conservative government, in power since December, has issued a permit for the "indignants" to use Puerta del Sol for a five-hour assembly Saturday and for 10 hours on each of the following three days.

But the activists' plans published online call for a minute of silence at midnight and for a "permanent assembly" to be held in Puerta del Sol during the four-day protest.

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said the government would ensure that the hours are respected.

"To stay in the square beyond those hours would be a violation of the law and of the rights of other citizens, and this government will ensure the law is respected," she told reporters Friday after a weekly cabinet meeting.

A year after the movement's birth, Spaniards have even more to protest: a recession, unemployment at 24.4 percent and 52 percent for the young, and more than 30 billion euros ($39 billion) worth of austerity cuts so far this year.

"We are here because we continue to be angry over the austerity policies which an economic elite is imposing on us," said 21-year-old philosophy student Victor Valdes at the Madrid rally.

Another protester, 23-year-old office worker Marina Santos said: "It is important to show that we are still here, that there are thousands of people that want a change and are willing to work for it."

She carried a handmade sign that read: "Another World is Possible" as she marched to Puerta del Sol to the beat of drums.

The "indignants" have staged overwhelmingly peaceful protests and neighbourhood assemblies since their camp at Puerta del Sol was dismantled on June 12 last year, but interest has tapered off.

"The movement has mutated, it is still there. What has happened is that it is not on the streets, it is online and in social networks," said Noelia Moreno, a former spokeswoman for the movement in Madrid.

"This is a long-distance race, no one can change an entire political system in one day or one year, it takes time," the 30-year-old unemployed video producer added.

Critics charge that beyond staging rallies, the movement has had little impact.

Antonio Alaminos, sociology professor at Alicante University, said the "indignants" had failed to organise and were left expressing a discontent born from social and economic malaise without a concrete ideology.

"The result: lots of small relatively disconnected groups that no longer form a social movement," he said.