First of all, apologies for neglecting this space for so long. I do my best to update it regularly, but life has a way of making time fly (if the wait becomes unbearable -haha- you can always follow me on the Spanish daily Público).

As some of you might know, thousands of people are today filling up squares throughout Spain. If you do a search for the hashtags #yeswecamp, #spanishrevolution, #acampadasol, #acampadabcn, etc. you’ll get a feel of what is happening.

With a movement like this unfolding, one would think politicians would for once stop talking to themselves to relate to what the streets are saying… well, think again.

The #15m movement, which took to the streets last Sunday in almost 60 cities in demonstrations that became spontaneous sleep-ins (yes, twitter helped) and are now permanent meeting points for citizens who demand to “stop being commodities at the hands of politicians and bankers”, is the immediate continuation of the May Day demonstrations that were organized independently of mainstream tradeunions and parties and largely ignored by the media just a few days ago. In a broader time span, the #15m movement comes from the campaign against the so-called ‘Sinde-law’, the anti-P2P bill that was passed after months of deliberation and protest, and the related #nolesvotes (‘don’t vote for them’) initiative, which started by asking voters not to vote for those who supported the bill and later became a broader campaign against mainstream parties (PP, PSOE, CiU). The call for the March 15 actions, however, came from the more recent, Facebook-based ‘Democracia Real Ya’ (real Democracy Now) initiative. With local elections coming up in a few days (March 22^nd), the link between #nolesvotes and Democracia Real Ya became self-evident.

However, while this movement was gaining momentum, in a context of skyrocketing unemployment rates (45% registered youth unemployment), generalized cuts in health, education and wages, tax cuts for the rich and widespread political corruption, the political debate at the local level continued to revolve around crime, insecurity and migration, with some local candidates for the conservative PP throwing gems like blaming migrants for “reintroducing illnesses that had been eradicated” on the political debate and asking for the re-introduction of the long-forgotten ‘certificates of good behavior’ for uncivil migrants (as you might have guessed, crime and migration go hand in hand in the Spanish political debate on insecurity).

Contrary to what is happening in the US and the UK, where the crisis is forcing officials to re-think expensive and ineffective policies such as long prison sentences, surveillance, biometrics, etc., Zero Tolerance continues to thrive in Spain, and while there’s no money for doctors and teachers, politicians promise more police officers and private security, more publicly-funded CCTV cameras and less civil rights for ‘troublemakers’ (read demonstrators here).

As if anyone cared.

In 2006, migration and insecurity were the first and second worries of the population. Today, they are the last ones, and the levels of insecurity about the job situation and the crisis have gone up the roof.

Again, as if anyone cared.

Trapped in the tougher-than-you-on-crime race to the bottom, the gap between a population that hardly makes ends meet and sees banks and corporations get away with murder, and a political class that has built a wall of arrogance, incompetence, impunity and empty promises to keep the young, the unemployed and the evicted out has grown to reach seemingly unbridgeable proportions. This is what the Tahrir-like movement that is today spreading brings to the fore. The disillusion, the disconnect, the deep sense of betrayal (after winning the 2004 elections, Zapatero said ‘I won’t let you down’. ouch).

But, as the #nolesvotes initiative shows, demonstrators have not given up on institutional politics -while the slogan in 2001 in Argentina was ‘que se vayan todos’ (get rid of them all), the #15m movement is giving non-mainstream parties a chance, and while claiming independence and autonomy, seems to be interested in building bridges with some parties.

But is anyone listening?