A Brief Insight into the so-called 'Spanish Revolution'

Pertinent to what we have come to discuss here are the words of the recently deceased Portuguese Noble-Prize winning author José Saramago:

We discuss everything in this world, except for one only thing that we do not discuss anymore. Democracy is there as if it was an altar saint from whom we can no longer expect any miracles, but who is still there as a symbol [...]. We are not paying attention to the fact that the democracy under which we are living is a sequestered, conditioned, and amputated democracy.

These are, in short, the guiding principles of a social movement that has developed with the various names of “democracia real ya”, “no les votes” and “Spanish revolution” but whose demands pertain by no means only to the Spanish world. In fact, what we are trying to do is to spread the message, so that people all over the world who are uncomfortable with and angry at their deaf and corrupt political systems, may finally discover that they are not alone and ultimately decide to speak up their minds, as is their right.

In order to do so, we are going to answer two questions that are probably in everybody’s minds right now. The first of them is ‘why did this happen?’ and the second one is ‘what is the next step?’

The answer to the first question is a tricky one, but we can sum it up as follows. The origins of the movement, which had already been brewing for months before the Spanish local and regional elections took place, can be found in the implementation of the Act of Sustainable Economy (Ley de Economía Sostenible), in which the minister of Culture brought forward authoritarian measures such as censorship on the Internet or the compulsory payment of a fee whenever a citizen buys a recording device thus criminalising the citizen before the arguable crime has been committed. These measures were strongly rejected by the majority of society but political parties would not listen and, in what seemed an aberrant coalition the three principal parties, liberal conservative PP, socialist PSOE and conservative Catalan nationalist CiU joined together in a quest against the people they were supposed to represent to push the law forward. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Demonstrations against the war in Iraq under the previous conservative government or against the reform of the abortion laws under the current one, which created a great deal of social unrest, both went unheeded. These, however, are not the reasons why the movement has come to happen. It is not the outcome or the moral judgement of these measures that we are concerned about at the moment. What we are concerned about is that the population has no say whatsoever in major political decisions that affect us all and that clearly create political and social unrest. For what is the use of a democracy that allows demonstrations if political ears are deaf to these and citizens are treated just as forces of power legitimization that can be disposed of once the elections are over?

This, coupled with the deep economic crisis in which Spain is immersed, the unsuccessful austerity measures implemented by the government last year, and the high unemployment rates with a percentage of 40 to 45% of youth unemployment, being the highest in Europe, have widely contributed to the spontaneous blossoming of Real Democracy Now. At the same time as this unemployment rates and general unhappiness take place both major political parties are carefully avoiding to tackle, solve and be honest about the huge corruption skeletons kept in their cupboards.

So, not only they are not listening to us, we also do not have an acceptable party to which we can vote. The bulk of society, composed of progressive and conservative citizens, has been reduced to choosing between two major parties with which they do not always agree and which definitely do not listen to their pleas.

The time is ripe for a change and we demand it NOW. This is the first time that citizens belonging to all kinds of political identities, religious or unreligious beliefs and different wealth status have come together to speak spontaneously and freely about what we need to change in our society. These needs are basically the following:

1) A reform of the current Electoral Law, so that every vote stemming from each Spanish citizen might count equally in the distribution of parliamentary seats.

2) A genuine separation of powers, with justice being independent from political power and with the Senate being reformed in order for it to have a real and useful role.

3) A much needed political regeneration that will bring forth transparent slates, the suppression of public spenditure being used by political parties, the perpetual inability of those condemned for corruption to perform civil services, the absolute suppression of the unjustified privileges that stem from political services, the publishing of the personal estates belonging to politicians before and after they have exercised their functions, and the need to pass a competitive examination set up by the state if any citizen wants to become a politician.

All these, we believe, can be changed and, once that has been done, each ideological tendency will be able to move on to work for its own particular goals. We believe, it must be insisted on, that this can be done in Spain if we all keep together as one, rejecting the advances made by political parties to support the movement. We do not want their support, we want them to change. If this can happen in Spain it can also happen in Britain and throughout the world. I believe the moment has come to open our eyes and finally speak our voices out loud. This should become, indeed, a worldwide revolution.