Taking the Square: Digital Activism in Spain

Nobody expects the #spanishrevolution. With this Python-inspired phrase and a V-mask a protester made the point that the Spanish political system is in turmoil. The construction bubble that sustained economic growth burst with the financial crisis of 2008. The result is a high level of public debt that may force Spain to request a humbling bailout from the EU and the IMF.

photo by @acampadasol via web

 Unemployment is a more protracted problem. It has long been argued that the social security system in Europe creates structural unemployment, which is not harmful. But the statistics in Spain reach today numbers beyond “structural”: a general unemployment rate of ca. 20% and a rate of 45% in the group of young people 25 or younger. Such dismal figures coupled with an ageing population and an expensive social system has created a political crisis.

 There are three contentious issues: a state regarded as subservient to the global financial forces and institutions and that does not represent national interests, an indirect democratic system that is not representative enough; and last but not least, the fact that a younger population must bear the burden of an older population that maintains its monopoly on political and economic power.  Hence a #spanishrevolution emerging from the “guts of the beast”: the young, bright, educated and unemployed.