Due to poor response to the taking of places is pro ducing throughout the English territory is having on the U.S. media, the director of Literal , Rose Mary Salum, and myself have taken the initiative to offer its readers from Madrid direct testimony of what is happening and what's next.
the imminence of regional and municipal elections taking place across the country on 22 May, I Real Democracy, a civic open platform composed of associations, especially youth, of different ideologies and different objectives, convened on May 15 the English to a day of protest in major cities to publicly display their weariness against the English political class. Under the slogan "We're not good in the hands of politicians and bankers", these groups brandished a handful of proposals that seek the consensus of the disenchanted and are presented as a starting point to improve the quality of democracy and the life of citizens. These statements went beyond the expectations of the sponsors, who considered them a success (attended by about 130,000 people around the country) because of the reluctance of the English population to go out measures to censor political or economic. The unexpected scale of the march in Madrid prompted the platform to take the Puerta del Sol, final point, seeking to increase the impact of the demand among the public. The immoderate evacuation at dawn 16 by police in a small group of young men who had been sleeping in the plaza set off a firestorm of indignation in social networks and several thousand locals attended the concentration called that afternoon and in the same place. Who came to this appeal were set up in people's congress and decided in a vote by show of hands to take its place until next Sunday, May 22, election day. To recall, the Puerta del Sol preserved for the people of Madrid and the English general, a richly symbolic as the nerve center of old Madrid, a point from which to begin counting the kilometers of roads linking the capital radio with major cities of Spain and, above all, the scene of important events in the history of Spain: rebellion against Napoleon's troops (brilliantly depicted by Goya in "The Charge of the Mamelukes"), proclamation of the Second English Republic, or More recently, instead of mourning for the victims of the attacks of March 11, 2004.
Neither threats of eviction from the Electoral Board, nor rain, nor the indifference interested , even contempt, of the mass media were able to deter the campers. The reaction of Madrid immediately caught the rest of English and, as a wildfire spread by mobilizing the consciences of the English and, currently, in many cities, large and small groups of citizens have taken their central squares. But the repercussions do not end there: young English citizens living in European capitals, forced to leave the country to study or work, backed these initiatives and focused compared to the respective embassies of Spain . And the phenomenon grows, they continue coming accessions, this time across the Atlantic: English residents of Santo Domingo, Guatemala, Mexico City and even New York (Washington Square, Manhattan) and Chicago ( 180 North Michigan Avenue) are speaking to the diplomatic and consular missions of Spain. Moreover, Portuguese and Italian citizens have decided to follow suit and have taken central squares of Lisbon and Rome.
As has happened elsewhere in the world, such protests are made through social networks (mainly Twitter, acampadasol # # # democraciareal spanishrevolution # nolesvotes # yeswecamp, and Facebook , that the protagonists remain as direct information channels (there are even cameras located on the places that broadcast 24 hours a day), alternative to traditional media ( "Do not follow the media: find the web") and based on the written and audiovisual organizers and demonstrators themselves, as well as contact system and cohesion among all participants. The huge success of the organizers, anonymous young, well educated and disappointed, was put in place a kind of emergent system in which individual initiative is naturally integrated to generate a social phenomenon, like a fractal, is reproduced at a rate spontaneously increased.
This protest comes on the occasion of regional and municipal elections taking place tomorrow, but it is not intended to influence votes or even to advocate abstention or blank vote. It is a completely apolitical and asindical act that goes far beyond, because it has generated a popular movement of indignation that seeks to alter a political system and a way of governing and not moving away from its idea of \u200b\u200bdemocracy but also own constitutional requirements. Concentrated people think that political parties have been transformed into organizations whose goal is profit of its members and those who finance them through the power control unit ("No, they do not represent us"), which population been reduced role in governing the country on behalf of the interests of big business ("If I have not voted, why send the market), that the welfare of citizens is no longer the end of political action (" Why are you a salary for life if I have a living wage?") , that the system itself prevents accountability of politicians (" No corrupt politician in a list) ; that, ultimately, the personal and social general has deteriorated without any sign of a political backlash beyond the so-called "media policy" (" is not a crisis, it is a scam!").
All this does not explain if you do not look back and verified the clear deterioration experienced by the English democracy in recent years. Bipartisanship is merely prevailing political manifestation of the dominance in society of a middle class conservative who heads the private sector (represented by the Partido Popular) and a progressive bourgeoisie that controls the public sector (led by the English Socialist Workers Party) whose most visible result is a system of patronage without excluding all those not involved. Thus, the political struggle, set on a ubiquitous propaganda machine that pits citizens closer together, has become a dispute about linking the wealth of the nation to one or another economic sector, ie one or another group of social elite. It is also clear that the ultimate reason for this eruption of social unrest in an economic crisis that is leaving your mind time to become structural. In the 90's, with the governments of José María Aznar (Popular Party), there was an economic boom based on speculation and real estate market is not reflected in real wealth creation and drove the English to live beyond their means . In the following decade, under the socialist cabinets José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the situation remained unchanged until the outbreak of the subprime crisis in the United States and exposed the falsity of economic growth. Since then the gap between those who enjoy the benefits of the umbrella of patronage and those left to weather the crisis has not only grown since the former have managed to maintain their purchasing power at the expense of reducing the latter. As a result, it has been issued by the English society a disturbing sense of pessimism and a bleak certainty that the future holds no expectation of improvement. And this is the more serious because such views are particularly prevalent among young people, who begins to see migration only way out.
The current crisis, which began in the financial field and has become social and political, has reduced the income of a large part of European citizens, many countries have chosen to vote anti options and ultra-right wing. Hence the reaction of the English people mean a rush of hope, for not asking less democracy, but, as output of this historic turning point that begins to sound too much like that of the 30's of XX century.
