What my friends back home want to know is just how bad are things over there in Spain for workers to actually take up arms against the military (the Guardia Civil is basically the Spanish national military police). Unfortunately, the answer is -- pretty bad.
First, for a short history of the confrontation, you can peruse these videos and photos of what has transpired over the previous weeks. Here is a link from AlJazeera, which has proven to be a good source for information on the strikes as the Spanish government and media are trying to downplay the events.
Let's start our story with the presidential debates that took place back in 2011. The current Spanish government headed by the conservative Popular Party was able to capitalize on the fact that the Socialists had made cuts to social programs, while bailing out financial institutions. During the debate, then PP presidential candidate Mariano Rajoy said, "No pienso dar un euro de dinero público (a la banca) como han hecho ustedes." (I'm not considering giving even one euro of public money (to the banks) like your party did."
And as we all know, now President Rajoy recently promised upwards of 100 billion euros to Spanish banks, a figure that equates to more than 2,000 euros for every man, woman, baby, child and senior citizen currently living in Spain. Here is a 30-second clip of the debate from 2011 in which President Rajoy made his soon to be broken promise.
So here is the situation. The Popular Party has continued the Socialist party's policy of cuts which affect nearly everyone in Spain (I say nearly everyone because recently Mr. Rajoy refused the EU's demand to cut government employee salaries and pensions, which not so ironically would include those of the police). Add to all this the fact that unemployment in Spain is edging towards 25% with youth unemployment having broken the 50% barrier, and you now see the reason why the miners took to the streets when subsidies to their industry felt the PP's wrath.
But if all this is not enough, the government is trying its best to stifle any protest in Spain through intimidation and confrontation, whether it be by miner, teacher, indignado, or any of the other myriad of groups with a legitimate beef, which seems to be about everyone here but the bankers, civil servants and cops. The coal miners are simply the first to really fight back.
President John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." And I suppose this would be the best one line explanation that I could give to my friends back home.
So here is the situation. The Popular Party has continued the Socialist party's policy of cuts which affect nearly everyone in Spain (I say nearly everyone because recently Mr. Rajoy refused the EU's demand to cut government employee salaries and pensions, which not so ironically would include those of the police). Add to all this the fact that unemployment in Spain is edging towards 25% with youth unemployment having broken the 50% barrier, and you now see the reason why the miners took to the streets when subsidies to their industry felt the PP's wrath.
But if all this is not enough, the government is trying its best to stifle any protest in Spain through intimidation and confrontation, whether it be by miner, teacher, indignado, or any of the other myriad of groups with a legitimate beef, which seems to be about everyone here but the bankers, civil servants and cops. The coal miners are simply the first to really fight back.
President John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." And I suppose this would be the best one line explanation that I could give to my friends back home.
