Camp's over - now go and get Camps

 
The May 15 protestors are preparing to move on after a month in which those hastily constructed havens of campsite camaraderie redolent of bygone times, combined with logistical brilliance which was pure 21st century, have captivated the imagination of millions around the world. The Spanish Revolution has spread fast, but what is left at the center? How will the flame of Sol stay bright? Will the big bang principle of the center exploding into hundreds of neighborhood assemblies lead to the consolidation of a massive grass-roots movement, or will Sol turn out to have been a gigantic yellow dandelion, now dried and whose parachute seeds are drifting hither and thither toward ultimate oblivion?

The camp-out was perfect media fodder, but what we newshounds really want to see now is a focused campaign; a test of strength, even an easy victory will do. With small-town assemblies discussing complex political issues such as electoral reform, that next burnished day in the sun looks as if it might be a way off.

But when I asked one leading activist from the Sol protest whether this dispersal was wise he expressed confidence that it is "just a matter of time" before the seeds sown on May 15 grow into a nationwide movement with a well-matured manifesto. The hope is that a strategy will emerge from a vast consensus. Having waited so long for a youth movement to respond to the shameful lack of interest shown by the political class in the problems of Spain's youth, it seems reasonable to allow a little more time for the roots to sink deeper. But at the same time, 15-M has the momentum, and the next nine months of this lame-duck Socialist government - unwilling as it is to confront the protestors for fear of further alienating another segment of society and worsening its apparently inevitable defeat in 2012 - seem to offer dazzling opportunities for a campaign against the political class.

It might not be about left and right, but things will not be so easy when the Popular Party (PP) is in power. Such protests will be interpreted as predictable anti-government activity unless a visible fight against politicians' privileges and the lack of transparency and accountability is already in progress.     

Although one can only regret the second-worst outbreak of violence (after the initial attempt by Catalan police to clear Barcelona's Plaça de Catalunya) during the month-long campaign of protests, it is perhaps appropriate that Thursday's ruckus puts the spotlight on Valencia. Here is surely a sumptuous case for Real Democracy Now! A regional premier, Francisco Camps, who is about to be put on trial for influence peddling and accepting bribes from the PP's parasitic Gürtel business network; a city where popular barrios are bulldozed in the interests of the real estate speculators; a region where the public TV station is so bound and gagged it does not even refer to the Gürtel case; and where another patently corrupt PP leader, Carlos Fabra, spends public money on statues of himself at the entrance to the airport he had built in Castellón, where actual planes are nowhere to be seen.

Seething at the swearing-ins is certainly a good place to start the next phase of the May 15 movement. Maybe it will be a hot summer after all.   

Photograph by Carlos Rosillo. 

Comments

[Publicado por: Pablo Fernandez]

Ok, and Camp won the elections again because the people of Comunidad Valenciana are idiot right?

"A regional premier, Francisco Camps, who is about to be put on trial for influence peddling and accepting bribes from the PP's parasitic Gürtel business network"

Some few suits to be precise. I do not want to diminish the guilt, and I dislike the character, but your way of presenting the "bribing" case is misleading in the face of corruption cases accounting for several hundreds of millions elsewhere, and most probably also in Valencia.

[Publicado por: EL DE ABAJO ABAJO]

The Campses in Valencia campan a sus anchas. Nothing will happen, the ballot boxes have endorsed corruption: there you have it, the actual value of democracy is SHIT.