One can arguably say that the protest dynamics of the Arab Spring have spread to southern Europe now, as Greeks and Spaniards, having figuratively looked south across the Mediterranean to the revolutionary movements that have erupted across most of North Africa, in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, have thus found inspiration to carry on their own defiant mobilizations against the decaying economic and political institutions in their own countries. One can in turn ponder whether earlier massive protest marches in France, Ireland and Greece last year had inspired some of the Arab masses to erupt and organize this year. The conditions driving regional protests and upheaval are different in many respects, far worse actually in the Arab world where there are not only harsh economic conditions but harsh human rights conditions, but both regions are, together, suffering from the malignant effects of imbalanced economic systems increasingly devoid or all ethical principles and moral boundaries, almost like watching the planet regressing backwards into quasi-feudalism and quasi-slavery. And they are lacking in grass-roots democracy - genuine participation and representation - in the body politic, in Europe because political systems have become unresponsive and/or commandeered by special interests, and in North Africa and the Middle East because, by and large, autocracy and totalitarianism have been the order of the day.
Ironically in Western Europe, those countries undergoing social upheavals, Greece and Spain in particular, are quasi-socialist states. Socialist economic and political values underlie their institutions, overlaid if not overpowered, however, by neoliberalism and monopolistic capitalism at the top, whose GREED IS GOOD banking and financial sector ravages led the Spanish Socialist government to announce the severe austerity measures that have exacerbated the social crises in Spain. Now isn't that a strange phenomenon, a Socialist government serving as punitive enforcer for the Capitalist order? How would Marx analyze that?
Needless to say if you have been following current events, in Spain's latest national elections this past May, the Socialists got slaughtered from all quarters and opposition conservatives emerged as the big winners, winners who are not about to abandon the Capitalist ruling class with all its predatory instincts and ghostly fascist heritage dating back to Franco lurking in the background. Will this polarize Spain even farther down the road? Conditions are already bad in Spain, but will they get even worse now, leading to what?
For a look at current conditions inside Spain as well as at the powerful protest movement that has been pouring out into the streets of Madrid and Barcelona, and beyond, to challenge these conditions, one would do well to take a look at this short film produced by, to quote from al Jazeera, which has aired it, a "team from Televisio de Catalunya [which] filmed through the first weeks of the May protests in Madrid and Barcelona..." It is called The Indignant. Check it out:
If the video screen doesn't show CLICK HERE.
UPDATE ON THE INDIGNANTS:
Just in, from AFP via Rawstory:
Spain's "indignant' launch new protest march
BARCELONA (AFP) -- Spain's "indignant" activists began their last and longest protest march on Saturday, leaving from the northeastern city of Barcelona to cover 650 kilometres on their way to a major Madrid rally on July 24.
Two other marches set off earlier this week, from Valencia in the
east on Monday and Cadiz in the south on Thursday, spreading the message
of their anger at unemployment, welfare cuts and corruption. (FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE)
