PROTESTS IN SPAIN - LARGELY PEACEFUL TO DATE
As anyone who reads this Blog knows, I am the first to criticize Spain (mercilessly) when I see wrongdoing whether it is corruption, property illegality or lunatic Spanish government policies. Indeed, I doubt that anyone tries harder to portray Spain objectively with neither fear nor favour.
However, again and again, I state that the high overall quality of life in Spain is what sets it apart from the UK and is the best single reason for coming here both for holidays as well as permanent life.
Never have I felt this more strongly than today – having seen the appalling, stomach churning images of the riots in the UK.
I am speechless at what I have seen and disgusted that my native country can produce people capable of the type of behaviour broadcast. You may have already seen this clip from the BBC but, if you have not, look at it now to see the sheer, lousy rottenness that lies within the UK.
No doubt the riots in the UK represent a tiny section of British society – but it is clearly a significant minority, one that is bestial and one that casts shame on anyone British. Certainly, it is behaviour that is, almost without doubt, the logical conclusion to years of rampant and uncontrolled mass immigration to the UK, the breakdown of the nuclear family and the sloppy thinking behind the extremes of political correctness – which seems to have ineluctably confused right from wrong.
Of course, it is not just these disgusting rioters in the UK who have lost their moral compass. Indeed, the same has been shown to be true of the UK’s politicians (remember the expenses scandal), the newspapers (the hacking disgrace) and, of course, our bankers and ‘regulators’ – who have almost brought our country to its knees through their despicable greed and gross incompetence (and yet have ‘got away’ scot-free!).
Is it any wonder that we are having these dreadful riots in the UK?
So, what is different in Spain, you may ask – or is Spain ‘cooking’ up for much the same?
Well, predicting what will happen in Spain is not, of course, for the faint hearted and to suggest that similar riots in Spain to those in the UK will not happen would be pretty brave.
However, so far, protests in Spain during the past year have been notable for their peacefulness – with some minor exceptions. The Indignado movement has been disciplined and notable for its organization which has included even appointing cleaners to tidy up during static protests.
Of course, the Spanish are stressed and nowhere more so is this the case than with young people, some 45% of whom are unemployed in Spain and have virtually no chance of finding work in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, Spain’s overall unemployment rate dwarfs the UK’s at something like 20%+ Needless to say, few people in Spain have a good word to say about Spanish politicians who have taken, during the past ten years, corruption and incompetence to a sublime state of the art. Likewise, the banks in Spain are loathed for ruining the economy.
So, there are good grounds for protests in Spain. But that is what they have remained – protests not riots. And certainly, there has been no indication that the Spanish would go on a vicious looting binge…
In fact, the Spanish people as a whole are tolerant and, unlike the UK, still have very strong nuclear families and tightly knit communities. Whilst it is true that the nuclear family is being steadily eroded (there are more children, for example, born out of wed lock than ever before) the nuclear family still exists in Spain in a recognizable form. This provides some element of protection for extended family members when they are struggling economically and a form of behavioural ‘discipline’.
In fact, a friend of mine today summed up a couple of differences between the British and Spanish when he said that the Spanish respected property too much to destroy it and, in any event, would be too concerned about what Grandpa said if he saw them behaving badly to do anything too terrible on the streets.
We shall see, of course, but I think that the type of behavior seen in London is unthinkable and to have vicious, nihilistic riots in Spain like those in the UK would deeply shock the Spanish. It is something I hope never to see here and which, on balance, I think is unlikely to happen. I am only appalled that it has occurred in the UK and that we have seen a savagery that is completely unwarranted and that reflects terribly upon us Britons.
FURTHER RELEVANT ARTICLES
Demonstrations in Spain what the Indignados are saying
Nick,
a pretty much spot-on analysis. My house in Bristol is about a crow-fly mile from one of the trouble-spots. My young Valenciano friend Fernando has written, horrified, enquiring if I am OK. Well, I am, except for the sickened feeling of living in a country where this can happen.
I was outraged to see on Newsnight last night the Labour MP and education shadow having a go at the Tory Min of Ed, conflating aspects of present education finance policy with the ‘reason’ why young people feel like rioting and looting. As the Tory said, the people on the streets have no more idea of what education policy is in the UK than a hole in the ground.
A ‘rapper’ on the programme waffled about ‘anger’. It’s well known that some of the lyrics of raps are laced with violence, nihilism, greed, an appalling attitude to women. It’s considered cool to be like this. It is considered cool to want to be like, to emulate, the heavy duty dudes that emerge from black American culture.
There was a house 3 doors down from me which was some sort of ‘refuge’ for feral teenage boys. It closed down some months ago but the week before last one of the boys, about 14-15, perhaps no longer in the tender care of a private contractor to the council’s social services dept, was one of 4 ‘men’ arrested for attacking, robbing and savagely beating the proprietor of the asian corner shop at the top of my street.
There will be a section of the intelligencia/establishment in UK who will now be wringing their hands in a frenzy of confusion over their disappointment that their liberal, p.c. laissez faire policies have been thrown back in their faces.
People like Harriet Harman will spout about government cuts and college fees. They need to have their noses shoved up against the fact that the situation in Spain for young people is much more difficult but they do not feel it right or necessary to burn down buildings, loot shops, stone the police.
Forty years ago, a college mate of mine, from Peru, fulfilled one of his most looked-forward to treats of being in London. He went to White Hart Lane, just a 20 min bus ride from halls, to see Spurs play Arsenal. He arrived back rather early. I asked him why. He said that the atmosphere in the ground was so stiff with latent violence, he was scared and had to leave.
When I was in Valencia in Oct 09, my female companion said that one of the things about the city she most liked was “the complete absence of menace.” She knew what that was all about, having been born and raised in NYC and lived in London for 30 years.
The people of Tottenham, Haringay, Hackney and Peckham have taken to the streets by day with brooms to clear up the mess. Some have taken to staying overnight in their shops and formed cadres of vigilantes, set to repel hooligans with more than a taste of their own medicine.
We have a real disaster here, far more worrying than mere economic difficulties.
Nick
this is my reply to my friend Fernando, a 25 year old Valenciano who lived in my house here in Bristol for 8 months. His enquiry after my health reveals a feeling that he never felt safe here.
Hi Fernando
no trouble in Freemantle Rd. All is OK here
The people doing this stuff in Bristol [and other places] were just using the problems in London as an excuse ["we are angry"] to have a riot all of their own, for no other reason than it felt like a cool thing to do. Entertainment. They are criminals and idiots. They should be locked up. I hope they are.
It is true that the British do have a violent side to their character. Not many people realise this – not even the British – but the we are a warrior people. It is usually very well hidden but it has been there for many hundreds of years. Back in the 6th/7th/8th C, the Saxons buried their dead with a sword. Small boys, old men and even women – everybody went to the afterlife with a sword. And not a ‘toy’ sword or a ceremonial one but a real combat sword.
But the ‘British’ people who are on the streets now, burning buildings and looting shops, are new British people. They are like the North Africans in Spain but they have picked up the feeling for violence which has been an undercurrent in British society for 1000 years.
It is true, amigo, that the British can be extremely dangerous. There is a phrase in English – “a Glasgow kiss” Glasgow is the biggest city in Scotland and is known for its very tough people, people who love to fight, especially after a few drinks. So what is “a Glasgow kiss”? It is when a guy smashes the other guy’s face by a head-butt.
It is good for everybody else that we also have a culture of good government, democracy and a justice system that cannot be bought.
But still, I am looking forward to leaving here as soon as possible!
It’s getting worse. More deaths.
I expect the Spanish will understand why football matches have been and are being cancelled. They will recall that the English – and it is an English problem: the Scots do not do this – have a reputation for savagery, sometimes lethal, in and around football matches. I mentioned this in my earlier post. The fact that this problem has almost entirely faded away over the past 10-15 years does not mean that the police or football people can afford to let down their guard.
But countries not familiar with the reason that English football clubs have to spend lots of money hiring police officers to be present at matches will be amazed that the rioting has had this effect.
Bristol City v Watford? How apparently innocuous is that? But Avon & Somerset Constabulary have their hands full in an area called Stoke’s Croft, contiguous with Bristol’s main shopping area.
For some time now the run-down nature of this barrio has attracted the post-hippy, ‘counter-culture’ leftovers from the mid-70s. There has been an undercurrent of antagonism by these people to this area being cleaned up and regenerated. When Tesco put in a Tesco-Metro local store, there were protests against big, bad capitalism. This store has now taken punishment from the cretins who subscribe to the mindless rejection of the way of life of 99.99 of the population, the criminals who have taken advantage to loot and the brain-dead hooligans out, by way of entertainment, for a night of gratuitous violence,
In other words it’s like El Cabanyal but with petrol bombs and gangs of recreational vandals.
[...] This is something upon which most of the Spaniards I know are sceptical, along with the Indignado movement which may play an important part in the general [...]