Spain protests: Young protesters in Madrid and beyond have many different demands, but they are united in opposing the Spanish governmentThis article titled “Spain reveals pain over cuts and unemployment” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 21st May 2011 11.59 UTCThe arrival of the table, a battered piece of formica bashed on top of four rough, oversized legs raised a cry of joy. Never mind that anyone on a normal chair would barely be able to see over the top – here was another small triumph of the new Spanish revolution, the gathering of angry Spaniards of all colours, ages and persuasions that is sweeping across the country and beyond its borders.The table that arrived in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square was part of the swirl of creative chaos, naive enthusiasm and pent-up frustration that has transformed it into a makeshift camp for thousand of protesters who call themselves los indignados, the indignant ones.Tents and mattresses, armchairs and sofas, a canteen, portaloos and solar panels have sprung up in a remarkable display of organisational prowess. And the mass of people jostling around, each pursuing their own dream or demand, or just watching others doing the same, seemed more like something transported from the Arab spring in North Africa than from Europe.As the protests continued to swell on Friday, with 60,000 people defying authorities to obey the campaign’s “Take over the square!” slogan in dozens of Spanish cities, and with copycat demonstrations across Europe, the question was whether this was the new May 1968 – a youth-led popular revolt against an establishment deemed to have failed an entire generation.Esther Gutierréz, an elfin 26-year-old, wandered through the crowd with a battered shopping cart full of fruit.“We’ve got so much food we don’t know what to do with it. People just bring it to us for free and it’s wonderful stuff,” she said. “We want real democracy. Not just freedom for bankers. You’re not from the Spanish press, are you? We don’t speak to them.”Cynical and ingenuous by turns, the Madrid protesters and those who last week refused to obey orders to budge from the occupied city squares have torn up the rule book of Spanish public politics. The heavyweights of old – political parties, trade unions and media commentators – are not wanted here.“I was sacked when the Madrid regional government closed down a women’s centre last year when it imposed cuts,” explained Beatriz García as she bashed a small frying pan with a wooden spoon. “The unions didn’t even bother to turn up.”The political parties were worse, she said. “There is no renovation. There is nothing new or different, just two parties who take it in turn to govern because our electoral laws favour them.”Just a week ago Spain was known for the passivity of its citizens as they put up with one of the most depressing eras in recent history. Despite unemployment hitting 21%, widespread spending cuts and a socialist government bound to obey the diktats of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the financial markets, they had refused to show their pain. Marches, sit-ins or riots were for the French – or British students. The real drama, anyway, was in North Africa. Spaniards stayed at home.All that changed this week as demonstrations organised via Facebook and Twitter became static protests in city squares, mushrooming into something that caught politicians, unions and the media by surprise.While journalists were following the dull routine of campaigning for Sunday’s municipal and regional elections, the steam was beginning to escape from a pressure cooker of discontent.Many Spaniards had told pollsters they were tired of the same, well-known political faces – especially those who are due to be re-elected despite being mired in corruption scandals. Politicians have rarely been held in such disregard, with the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and opposition leader, Mariano Rajoy, of the conservative People’s party, rating lowest. Rajoy seems set to take over after a general election next March.When police forcibly evicted the Madrid demonstrators on Tuesday morning, they came back in even greater numbers later that day. By Friday night authorities had lost the battle to impose rules banning public politics on the day before elections. Police could only look on. “Join us, police officers!” the demonstrators shouted.By the early hours of Friday, it was already elbow-room only in the Puerta del Sol – the square which prides itself on being Spain’s “kilometre zero”, the spot from which all other distances are measured.On the statue of King Carlos III, somebody had pinned a sign that read: “We are anti-idiots, not anti-politicians.” Other placards read: “We aren’t against the system, we want to change it”, “Democracy, a daily fight”, and “Take your money out of the bank!”“We’ve brought tents, food and even Trivial Pursuit to keep us entertained,” said Pablo Cantó, a fresh-faced 23-year-old journalism student. Like many younger protesters, and the movement as a whole, he had trouble expressing exactly why he was here. “We want change,” he said. “Things just can’t carry on as they are.”The heavy clouds of cannabis smoke suggested others had brought their own form of entertainment.“I’ve been protesting for decades,” said 60-year-old school teacher Rosa Marín. “I’m glad to see so many young people here. The questions is this: Is this another May 1968, or are they just here for the party?”A gang of drunken skinheads, mindlessly chanting football terrace slogans, were there for the latter.But a neat, disciplined circle of people intently debating social reform showed many were here in earnest. They took turns to stand up and make their proposals, the audience listening and using the sign language applause of the deaf – by shaking their hands above their heads – to show approval without drowning the speakers out.The proposals, due to make their way through a laborious process of committees, working parties and general assemblies, varied from calls for less spending on the military to helping businesses. “Because it is not just money for the owners. They are the ones who give people like us jobs,” said one young man.For some younger protesters, it was a political baptism. “I don’t know what will come out of this, but it is enough just to show everyone how upset we are,” explained Javier de Coca by phone from the protest camp in Barcelona’s Plaza de Catalunya, where there was a surprising absence of the nationalist or separatist symbols of protest movements in recent years.“It’s as if they’ve realised they have more serious problems to deal with,” said one protester. One of those problems is 45% youth unemployment.On a wall beside the tarpaulin-covered command centre in what some were calling Madrid’s “Republic of Sol” – home to a press office, an infirmary and a legal centre – a list of needs had been pinned up. Toilet paper and food were scratched off the list. Bookshelves, wood, rubber gloves and bottles of cooking gas were on it. Volunteers were needed for a creche.“We process the proposals and try to turn them into something that makes legal sense,” explained a volunteer at the legal centre.However, the open assemblies are painfully slow. Some last for hours, as everybody is given their turn to speak. After almost a week of protests, the demonstrators have failed to come up with a coherent set of demands.Electoral reform to end the two-party system and action to both punish corrupt politicians and limit their luxuries and privileges were the main areas of agreement.So is the Arab spring spreading to southern Europe? “You can’t really compare us to people who were risking their lives by protesting,” said 23-year-old computer engineer Jaime Viyuela. “But yes, you can say that we are inspired by the courage of the Arab spring.” guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogSpain reveals pain over cuts and unemploymentRelated posts:Zapatero says Spain safe from bailoutProtest march against coalition cuts expected to attract 300,000Anti-cuts campaigners plan to turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square
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Spain reveals pain over cuts and unemployment
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/21/spain-reveals-pain-over-cuts-and-unemployment
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May 21 2011, 8:54am | Comments »
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Catalan independence boost after Barcelona vote
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/11/catalan-independence-boost-after-barcelona-vote
Nine out of 10 of voters in Barcelona backed independence for Catalonia.
This article titled “Catalan independence boost after Barcelona vote” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Monday 11th April 2011 17.08 UTC Campaigners for Catalan independence claim they have made significant advances after one in five people in the region’s capital city, Barcelona, backed a call for a separate state in Sunday’s unofficial referendum. Although the vote was organised by volunteers and had no legal standing, organisers said it had pushed the issue of independence further into mainstream political debate in this wealthy and populous north-eastern Spanish region. Alfred Bosch, spokesman for the organising committee, was happy with the 21% turnout. “We could never, even in our wildest dreams, have imagined a turnout like this,” he said. Nine out of 10 of those who took part backed a separate state, reflecting an overall 20% support for independence seen in similar votes held in hundreds of Catalan towns and villages over the past 18 months. Among key politicians reported to have voted in favour of independence was the regional prime minister, Artur Mas, of the nationalist Convergence and Union coalition. “This marks a change in the political cycle,” Felip Puig, a senior member of Mas’s government, told the Catalan language newspaper Ara. Critics accused Mas of being a “Sunday separatist” as his party has indicated it would not back a vote calling for independence in the Catalan regional parliament on Wednesday. Some observers claimed Mas was using the referendum to put pressure on the central Spanish government of Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero amid a bruising battle over funding of the Catalan government. The regional government, which is in charge of major services such as education, health and policing, must cut spending to help Spain meet its deficit reduction targets this year. Mas has vowed to negotiate a new and exclusive fiscal deal with Madrid. Anti-Madrid sentiment has been on the increase in Catalonia ever since the constitutional court last year struck out parts of a new autonomy charter for the region that had been approved at a legal referendum. Non-separatists pointed out that the weekend referendum in Barcelona showed the vast majority of Catalans were not interested enough in independence to take part. Spain’s constitution does not allow for the independence of any of the 17 regions into which it is divided. Constitutional change requires the approval of two-thirds of the deputies in the Spanish parliament and two-thirds of the people at a national referendum. Both of Spain’s two largest parties, the governing socialists and the opposition People’s party, oppose the independence of Catalonia. They jointly account for 323 of the 350 votes in parliament.
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April 11 2011, 12:16pm | Comments »
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Regional theatre should take more risks
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/23/regional-theatre-should-take-more-risks
Programming Barrie, Noël Coward or Daphne Du Maurier is understandable when times are tough. But if regional theatre wants to safeguard its future, it must look beyond plays of the past
This article titled “Regional theatre should take more risks” was written by Lyn Gardner, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 22nd March 2011 11.57 UTC A couple of years back, in a passionate post on this blog about regional theatre, the Royal and Derngate’s artistic director Laurie Sansom observed that “Regional artistic directors used to behave as if they were on Countdown: ‘I’ll have a Coward, please, a Shakespeare, a new play in the studio, and another Coward, please, Carol.’ These days, I can only imagine producing Noël Coward if an artist has a personal connection to the material and a burning desire to give it fresh theatrical life.” Two years is a long time in theatre. Since Sansom’s post on the vibrancy of programming in regional theatres, we’ve had an election, the formation of a coalition government that has no understanding of the crucial role theatre can play in its community both economically and socially, and the prospect of funding cuts. But it is clear that, long before the axes have fallen, many theatre programmes have taken on the look of a nervy Countdown selection. Perhaps it’s hardly surprising: just as hemlines go down in a recession, maybe artistic directors are inclined to look backwards rather than forwards. Perhaps even more importantly, it is a reminder how much confidence and psychology plays a part in creating the conditions necessary for a theatre to take risks, then reap the rewards. Back in 2001, the fact that there was money on the way (in the form of the £25 million that was injected into theatre after the Boyden report) created a sea-change in British regional theatre that was apparent long before theatres saw a penny of the cash. In the circumstances, then, perhaps it is no surprise that the seasons currently gracing our stages – in many cases programmed more than a year ago – reflect a certain nervousness about audience attendance, and suggest a headlong retreat into pre-Look Back in Anger drama. That impression may be somewhat skewed by the Rattigan centenary, not that I begrudge him his moment in the sun: Thea Sharrock’s timely (and award-winning) After the Dance at the National made as good a case for Rattigan’s rehabilitation as the Almeida’s revival of The Deep Blue Sea in 1993. But, even if you take Rattigan out of the equation, we’re still seeing a rash of Cowards and Priestleys, even the odd Du Maurier and W Somerset Maugham. Or how about Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton? Restoration comedy seems to be making a come-back too. I can’t recall so much interest in The Rivals since the 1980s. Of course there’s wrong with directors rummaging around in the theatrical attic and finding plays that glimmer in the dark. There are also horses for courses: Salisbury Playhouse, which recently saw a fine revival of The Constant Wife, may actually be the only theatre in the country where you could still do Somerset Maugham, and there is no one more qualified to do it well than Philip Wilson – who knows how to mine beneath a brittle surface and who, incidentally, has previously has proved himself a superb director of Coward. Sansom was right two years ago and he is still right now, in suggesting that it is a burning desire to give a play new theatrical life that makes it worth doing. The results can be transforming, as we saw in the 1990s with Stephen Daldry with An Inspector Calls, or have seen recently at the Finborough with a rare revival of Emlyn Williams’s Accolade. And David Grindley’s touring revival of Journey’s End demonstrates that even an old war horse can have real vigour and relevance. So I certainly don’t want to write off the plays of the past, but do want to point out that if regional theatre wants to safeguard its future it can’t play things too safe. It’s risk-taking that keeps theatre alive.
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March 23 2011, 6:22pm | Comments »
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