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?"

Farewell to “the leader who changed the history of Spain" (Adiós al “líder que cambió la historia de España” )…

Spain has been in mourning this week.  Adolfo Suárez González, the first democratically elected Presidente del Gobierno (Prime Minister) after Franco’s dictatorship, died on Sunday (March 23).

Suárez was Prime Minister from 1977 until 1981, as Spain transitioned from dictatorship to democracy – what the Spanish call simply "La Transición" (The Transition).

Now, and this is probably something you'll hear from time-to-time in this blog, it completely blows me away that the country in which I am living has been a democracy for only 37 years.

I’m sure that’s because I come from a country that has only ever known democracy (at least for its non-indigenous citizens), which probably makes me a little naive. And my Eastern European friends will remind me that their democracies are even younger. But that still doesn’t dull my fascination and (even) awe.

There are some aspects of Spain that I wonder might be signs that the democracy is still young(ish). Corruption, that so flourished during the dictatorship, is still rife in the political and business worlds (although the country been getting a better handle over it just in the years that I’ve lived here); the virtually undisguised disdain which many of the powerful still hold towards ordinary people; the influence that the Church blatantly still tries to wield and the strikingly authoritarian views that often appear in the conservative media (some of the worst offenders being TV and radio stations owned by these same Bishops), are some examples.

But there are positives too. One, for me, is the fervour with which the Spanish protect their rights and freedoms. Perhaps this is because there are so many people still alive who remember living without them. I think that in some slightly older democracies, like my own, we take these rights so for granted that we can sleepwalk into them being eroded.

Spaniards on the other hand, are very quick to recognise a threat and organise themselves to fight it – often into massive movements. I’ve mentioned before the astounding number of manifestaciónes (demonstrations) that have been held in Spain since the economic crisis hit - 25,461 just last year!  And whilst it is true that most of these have their roots in the economy, many people think the measures being taken to combat the crisis are also leading to an erosion of their rights and freedoms.

There have been the mareas ciudadanes (citizens' tides) of varying colours (white for health, green for education, violet for women’s rights), movements for better democracy have camped out for months in Madrid’s central Puerta de Sol square and people have marched from all points of the country to converge into macro-manifestaciónes in the capital.

The sheer number, participation, energy, variety and (in the vast majority of cases) peaceful and festive natures of these demonstrations have been truly awe-inspiring to me, as an extranjero. Things did get very ugly just the other day though: 67 police and 34 protesters were injured when violence broke out at the end of a demonstration, in scenes like nothing I had ever seen in all the demonstrations I witnessed whilst living in Madrid (and I saw a lot of them). I hope it's not a sign of things to come…

Regardless of whether I’m right to (perhaps cheekily, or worse) suggest that these are signs of Spain’s democracy being “young”, there is no denying it is strong and modern – something that most Spaniards are very proud of.

And that takes us back to Adolfo Suárez. Just about everyone I’ve heard talk of him this week, including ordinary Spaniards, interviewed as they waited in a two and-a-half km queue for their turn to file past his coffin, agree that the road to Spain’s democracy might have been very different without Suarez and his ability to both find consensus and persuade during the very tricky time that was La Transición.

And it is for this, much more than simply being the first democratically elected PM, that Suárez was farewelled with such honours. The title of this post I’ve taken from a newspaper headline and sums up perfectly how Spain sees Adolfo Suarez: he was the man who changed the history of the country. And just 37 years ago(!)