Shutting-up The People (Callar al pueblo)

Last week, the New York Times published a scathing editorial about a recently passed law here in Spain, officially called “The Law for Citizen’s Safety”, but popularly known as La Ley Mordaza (The Gag Law).

In the editorial, entitled “Spain’s Ominous Gag Law”, which is well-worth reading by the way, the New York Times opined that the law’s purpose appears to be “to help the ruling party maintain its hold on power by discouraging the anti-austerity protests that have snowballed into widespread support for the populist Podemos party”.

I couldn’t agree more whole-heartedly with their assessment, although I’d even go further and suggest that it is an attempt to quell any show of opposition at all to the government’s policies.

As the editorial states, the law introduces massive fines for demonstrating in certain places: 30,000€ for demonstrating in front of government buildings, 600,000€ (yes that's five zeros) for spontaneous demonstrations in front of other places considered “strategic”, 30,000€ for filming or photographing police and soldiers doing stuff(!)

Police blockade at the end of my old street in Madrid. They were blocking the way in case protesters wanted to get close to the HQ of the Partido Popular, the party of the current government

With the new law, I could very well not be able to take a photo like this, or even the one above, for risk of copping a 30,000€ fine

I find this new law both infuriating and terrifying. How is it possible that the government of a western European democracy could even contemplate such a law, let alone actually implement it? To me it reeks of something that belongs in the dark days of 1930s Europe.

The government’s excuse for the law (as it’s name suggests) is security for its citizens and institutions. To me, that sounds like something straight out of the propaganda chapter of “Fascism for Dummies”. It’s also utter rubbish.

For much of the time I have lived in Spain, the country has been gripped by a relentless and brutal economic crisis that has seen general unemployment rise to more than 26% at one point (currently it’s not much better at over 23%).

The degradation and depravation that has accompanied this has been heartbreaking: desahucios (evictions) in their tens of thousands resulting in skyrocketing homelessness; well-dressed pensioners begging in the street; people rummaging through the bins to find something to eat or sell. These are still every-day sights here.

But despite all this, the Spanish have maintained a dignity and control that, as an extrajero, has truly impressed and astounded me. Spaniards don’t just get mad, they get organised. Throughout 2013, there were close to 4500 manifestaciones (demonstrations) on the streets of Madrid alone. I was living right in the centre of that wonderful city that year and I saw plenty of them.

The placard translates to "Organise your rage". 
The Spanish don't just get mad, they get organised

People demonstrated against the crisis, against the government’s responses to it (like cuts to social services, privatisations, new labour laws), against the seemingly never-ending corruption scandals that were bubbling to the surface just about every day, against the foreclosures and evictions.

This 2011 protest was against the crisis in general and the capital that caused it 

This group from a Madrid 2013 protest was in support of the miners from the north of Spain. The big banner reads:
"We're not just indignant, we are "up to the balls", which is a pretty strong was of saying "fed up"

But what was even more striking than such community organisation and action was the lack of violence: in the vast majority (and I'm talking 90-odd percent) of these demonstrations there just wasn’t any. 

That’s what makes the government’s excuse for the Ley Mordaza so unbelievable. Why, if the vast majority of demonstrations in Spain are peaceful, even carnival-like at times, do such draconian measures need to be introduced? They don’t, of course.

A great many demonstrations I saw were attended by whole families...

And all ages.
The placards read: "Use of Common Sense Permitted" and "Enough with the Economic Violence"

Although the reasons for demonstrating were serious, there was often a "carnival" atmosphere.
The top photos is from 2011, the bottom from 2013

I believe with this law the government is attempting to squash this spirit of organisation and action of the people. They don’t want dissent in the streets – especially organised dissent that actually brings results.

The Marea Blanca (the White Tide) were demonstrations by Madrid health workers who managed to stop mass-privatisations in the Madrid region’s health service; the Marea Verde (the Green Tide) were demonstrations by educationalists, students and parents that have caused no end of problems to the government’s education “reforms” and, as the New York Times noted in their editorial, the 15M demonstrations actually spawned a new political party and it is seriously threatening the two-party system that has characterised Spanish politics ever since La Transitión (Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy) and hence the government’s grip on power.

The white coats of health workers in a demonstration of the Marea Blanca in 2013 

Huge crowds attended many of the demonstrations, as here in Madrid's Paseo de Prado in 2011

The 15M (May 15th, 2011) protest camped out for weeks in the central Madrid square,  La Puerta del Sol.
This protest would eventually spawn the new political party Podemos.

Spain’s democracy is young - not quite 40 years old – but I always thought it was strong. That this law is being introduced is making me question that.

What I hope is that the many people still around who remember Franco’s dictatorship will smell the reek of authoritarianism in this law and using their skill at organisation and action, put an end to it. 

It is an election year after all.

Some memorable pancartas (placards) I have seen at Madrid demos

No translation necessary

"They (the politicians) don't represent us".
That's the Prime Minister having unspeakable things done to him by a banker

Cigarette pack warning: "Cuts to Health Kill" 

The typical "For Sale" sign that people peg to their balconies when selling their flat. Here is reads:
"For Sale. The Welfare State"

The big red thing is meant to be the famous chorizo sausage. The chorizo has come to represent corruption and waste.
The banner underneath reads "Looking for honourable and committed politicians. Are there any around?"

Spring… at last! (Primavera…¡por fin!)…

Just south of Barcelona’s El Prat airport, there is a little sea-side town called Gavá. It’s home to an impressively wide, kilometres-long beach, a fair few footballers’ villas and one of my favourite chiringuitos (beach-side restaurants), perhaps somewhat wishfully-named Kuwai.

We were there not long ago, tucking into a scrumptious lunch of grilled cuttlefish, ham croquetas and patatas bravas, while simultaneously scanning the sky to for a glimpse of the A380 due to take off any moment and carrying Mum back to Australia, when suddenly a familiar though long-absent excitement struck me: I could feel spring in the air.

What is it about the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere that gets the juices flowing so? I don’t remember it being quite so captivating back in Australia – although having said that, I do remember a lot of relationship break-ups around this time of year, as “winter warmers” were shed for new springtime dalliances. I guess that’s biology.

Up here in colder climes, I imagine it also has a lot to do with the leaving behind of those long, dark, “dead” months. I remember in London how the first sighting of sprouting daffodils made my heart leap and the first sunny days of Spring saw the pubs empty as the punters crowded onto the footpath outside, wearing t-shirts (and sometimes even shorts) to enjoy their pints basking in the sunshine (even if it was only 12 degrees).

Of course here in Barcelona it’s not that extreme. Even in Madrid, where winter may not be as long as in London but is still pretty brutal, the only ones in t-shirts and shorts at this time of year are visiting guiris (foreigners) – and the more… er… excitable queens.

But still, the thrill is palatable.

I’m writing this post sitting in the terraza (terrace) of a local bar, not really caring that the sun is somewhat scalding my winter-bleached, follicular-challenged head.

In the park just across the road, pink and purple blossoms are filling the spaces where soon new leaves will be and on the faces of the people walking by, smiles have replaced the frowns of just a few weeks ago.

This excitement is a wonderful thing; a true recognition of and enjoyment in the change of the seasons - in nature I suppose. I’ll miss it when I finally head “home”.

Flu! (¡Gripe!)…

Last month un gripe (the flu) took hold in our household. Now I’m not talking about your run-of-the-mill “man-flu” here; I haven’t been so sick for literally years. Within the space of just a few hours I went from feeling quite normal to being worried I was actually going to die. It was brutal.

Unfortunately, despite bringing the marauding microbe home, I wasn’t the worst effected. Poor G went down like a tonne of bricks a couple of days after me and ended up in hospital with pneumonia!

That was a hell of a shock. G is normally insanely healthy - he is never sick - but all of a sudden there he was laid-up in hospital in quite a precarious state. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was pretty scared.

Now that the concern has passed (although I can tell you, we’ll both be making sure we have flu shots each year from now on), I’ve been reflecting on the whole experience from the point of view of an extranjero experiencing hospital for the first time in Cataluña.

The treatment G got once he was in hospital was actually top-notch and we’ll both always be grateful for that. But the actual getting into hospital was another story.

In Spain, the Sanidad Pública (public health service) is run by the government of each Comunidad Autonomo (literally Autonomous Community, but best translated as “Region”). As I’ve mentioned before Cataluña has privatised much of theirs.

Our local heath centre is run by one of these private companies, which also runs a hospital just around the corner from the surgery. G ended up in that hospital after our local GP took one listen to his lungs and referred him straight there with a little note saying pneumonia was suspected.

Now I thought that with such a note he’d be taken straight into one of those urgencias (emergency-room) cubicles from where all necessary tests would be performed. Instead, what he endured was seven hours of being shunted from the rickety wooden benches of the waiting room (which was actually the drafty corridor of a building from the century-before-last) to each hospital department and back again to wait the hour or two for the results from each test.

When “one last” x-ray was suggested, “just to make sure”, I put my foot down. I told the doctor that G simply couldn’t be expected to spend another few hours in that corridor – what he needed was to be at home in bed. That’s when she told us that he’d not be going home that day, but instead would be ingresado (admitted to hospital).

What followed was a 20-odd hour wait (thankfully though, now in an emergency-room bed) for a bed on the ward. Urgencias is a pretty awful place to be trapped for the best part of a day and night. To make matters worse for G (and for me), I was only allowed to see him for about 10 minutes during those more than 20 hours.

Like I said, once he was in hospital he was really well looked after, and although the building certainly looked the 100-odd years it was, it seemed to have up-to-date equipment and facilities. I just couldn’t help being suspicious that things could have been better if the hospital hadn’t been run by a private, for-profit company.

Why did G have to spend so long in the emergency department when there was a huge, brand-spanking new hospital less than a kilometre up the road? Was it because that hospital was run by a different health provider and our hospital would not get the money from the Sanidad for his three days in hospital if they sent him up there?  

Of course, maybe all the hospitals were colapsado (overrun) that day. Maybe it was the result of the cuts to the health budget because of the crisis. Maybe it’s always been that way here in Cataluña.

Or maybe my “pinko-poofo” prejudice against privatising essential services was colouring my thinking. Indeed there have been plenty of news stories this winter of emergency departments in totally public-run hospitals in other Comunidades leaving people on gurneys in corridors for 30 hours or more.

But then again this is Cataluña, where for much of the last 30 years successive centre-right governments have been busy privatising public services more than anywhere else in Spain.

And despite the savings and efficiencies that privatisation is meant to provide, Cataluña is one of the Comunidades in which public service budget cuts during this crisis have been most acutely felt by its citizens and where, at the same time, public debt has grown more than just about any other.  It’s food for thought.

But credit where credit is due. Thanks to the care that G received once he was finally ingresado  he made a full recovery - and just in time for our wedding(!) But that’s a post for another day.