Salon.com > Madrid

Spain dances with chaos

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Among the global superbrands radiating out from Madrid’s famous Puerta del Sol, the real growth industry is also Spanish history’s cornerstone commodity: gold. There are about 15-20 guys, none of them white, wearing sleeveless yellow fluorescent waistcoasts over their winter sweaters, plastered all over with the all-caps legend COMPRO ORO. I buy gold. Five hundred years after Spain subjugated large portions of the world and built its palaces on plundered gold and silver (by the 16th century, the equivalent of US $1.5 trillion’s worth), selling the family jewels has become a grim zeitgeist boom economy through bitter necessity.pictures by author

Anti-austerity protests grip 56 Spanish cities

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 17:44:00 +0000

MADRID (AP) — Tens of thousands of people marched in 56 Spanish cities Sunday to protest punishing austerity cuts they say will only increase unemployment and job insecurity in a country experiencing its second recession in three years and record high unemployment.

Around 20,000 people marched in Madrid behind a banner that said, "They want to ruin the country. We have to stop them." The rally in Spain's capital was supported by 150 organizations.

Protesters chanted slogans against cuts and waved placards reading "youth without jobs, society with no future." That is a reference to the youth unemployment rate, which surpasses 50 percent. Spain's overall jobless rate is nearly 25 percent and social unrest is on the rise.

Thousands of protesters swarm Spain’s capital

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:55:00 +0000

UPDATED:

Thousands of protesters clashed with riot police in Spain's capital Tuesday in a showdown on the doorstep of the parliament building in Madrid.

Tuesday's march aimed to manifest rage against a new round of harsh austerity measures the government will announce in the 2013 budget on Thursday.

A manifesto for the day stated that "the current situation has exceeded all tolerable limits" and demanded a reconstitution of the entire Spanish government, including electoral and tax reform, and a moratorium on Spain paying national debts in the service of "private interests."

The Indignados, as the Spanish anti-austerity, anti-capitalist demonstrators are known, strongly influenced Occupy organizing models and tactics last year, including repurposing city squares for encampments and assemblies.