Protest Camp, Plaça Catalunya, Barcelona #acampadabcn

Plaça Catalunya #acampadabcnFood commission, Plaça Catalunya #acampadabcnDeclaration of protest, Plaça Catalunya #acampadabcnPlaça Catalunya #acampadabcn"We've lost our fear" Plaça Catalunya #acampadabcn"Plaça Tahrir" Plaça Catalunya #acampadabcn
Capitalisme a la mierda Plaça Catalunya #acampadabcnCCOO a la mierda Plaça Catalunya #acampadabcnTourists still able to enjoy Plaça Catalunya #acampadabcn

I had the chance to spend a little time in the protest camp in Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona today. I’m no good at estimating the size of crowds but there were many more people around today than there were yesterday. Here are some snaps I took with my phone.

27 thoughts on “Protest Camp, Plaça Catalunya, Barcelona #acampadabcn

      1. The latter. I mean, does anyone has the slightest clue as to what to do to create jobs or to get out of the crisis? I don’t think so. Stop the cuts? Alright, but then explain how the Government is supposed to pay for their expenses when they run out of money. Will all those employed in the public secter accept a piece of paper instead of real money? Get real.

  1. In Catalonia it’s going to be fun. Some regional nationalists are already getting a bit itchy, like Monzó:

    http://www.lavanguardia.com/opinion/articulos/20110519/54156645763/he-aqui-la-spanish-revolution.html

    They must be afraid that out of this comes a movement that could compete with the regional elite’s recipes (new fiscal pact/independence).

    Oh, those pesky citizens.

    Politics is as much about perception as it is about the actual measures taken. If people do not understand those measures, then something is wrong. I’ve read that Angela Merkel is being made fun of for her recurrent use of the term “alternativlos”.

    Lack of imagination should be made a felony for those who rule. The citizens at least may protest, it’s a bit too much to expect that they solve anything at Sol or Catalunya. They have to be offered, well yes, alternatives. I understand that’s how the show is supposed to work.

    1. A little more precision: the alternative semi-officially offered in Catalonia is independence, to placate the “català emprenyat”. Now we have the (Spanish) “indignado”, and thus competition is on.

      Having said that, we have to note that the “català emprenyat” is a figure created by a vociferous (and therefore much respected) member of the regional elite, the “indignado” is self-attributed. I cannot stop wondering how many of the protesters at Catalunya adhere to both groups. But be this as it may, the battle over ideological supremacy should set in shortly after these elections.

      Maybe Catalonia is only waiting for a new Companys to give out weapons to a post-modern FAI (and where would Juliana be then?), or this time all the seeming contradictions collapse and something new is being made on a Spanish, European and global level, as would befit.

      This better happens soon, Spain has the dubious fame of being the testing tube for pitting two-three conflicting abject ideologies against each other just to to prove all of them wrong and come out as the negative example. (Strangely, the term “Spanification” has never been coined, while we all know about “Balkanisation”.)

      Maybe next time. But I hope not.

  2. Good to see Monzó complaining, Candide. He is perhaps the worst journalist working in Catalonia today, and therefore almost certainly the worst in Spain. His time as Latin American corespondent of La Vangua was an utter disgrace, as the man is singularly incapable of ditinguishing news from comment, and knows less about the continent than reasonably well educated banana merchant.

  3. That’s lovely, I suspect I just got a “not like” from somebody who has never read anything Monzó has written. Unless it was for slating the Catalan press, which I don’t think anyone can argue has anything like the quality of the Madrid papers (especially given the fact their foreign correspondants hardly ever leave Spain).

    1. No, it was me. I just left a bunch of negative votes in retaliation for the ones I got. I don’t think much of Monzó as a writer but I liked him when he was on the telly and that particular diatribe against the protesters was spot on, if somewhat obvious. By the way, I didn’t know he was a jorunalist.

    2. There’s a lot of psychology here to be discussed, but as it’s clinical psychology it’s of no interest to the broader audience.

      The interesting part is the absence of an expressed opinion observed also in other parts of this blog, I wonder what that indicates. For the moment I guess that staying silent expresses a growing feeling among Cataloonies that they can only defend their ideas when their audience is like-minded (which is why they won’t have you comment on their blogs, with some honourable exceptions).

      That, in turn, is a good sign, although there’s still a long way to go to reach commonly accepted standards.

  4. I might be wrong about his journalism then, I could have merged two right-wing writers in my head who were writing for the vangua around 2005, Monzó is a pretty poor commentator whatever, and has a real problem with Evo Morales.

    Primo, are you saying you disliked my post simply because you suspect I disliked yours, while you actually agreed with my point? You may have noticed that you only actually got one dislike on this thread, and logic dictates it came from either Tom or Candide. So did you dislike my post without reading it, just because you know I’m a supporter of Spanish unity?

    Ah, the binary Manichean nature of Spanish politics, the bad man is bad because he’s a bad man, no matter what he actually says or advocates…

    1. (“I can’t remember Monzó as journalist. Thanks for the hint!”, entirely void of any opinion, also got a “dislike”. Do you really want to ask why?)

      If you want to accept my making one point of yours more precise, Boy, I am sure that this “bad man” of yours is simply “the other”, i.e. the incapability of accepting a diverging opinion without identifying its bearer forever as “the enemy”. That is sad, even more so with Catalans who have this marvellous poet Miquel Martí i Pol: “Mireu-me bé: sóc l’altre”.

      Personally, I always tend to be “the other” (for what it’s worth: with Catalanists and with centralists alike) and in the end I’m happy with the “dislikes”.

      Monzó is full of Manichean “likes” and “dislikes”. It’s like he has two button’s you can press, and off he goes one way or the other. Martí i Pol was a real poet and the sweetest of persons. I remember that he received me at his home once and, knowing that I was visiting the ex-Yu off and on those days, he gave me a poem of his translated into Slovenian or Croatian, I cannot well remember which. He asked me to read it to him. I didn’t know much of either language then and didn’t understand what I was reading, but I could pronounce the words correctly and allow Martí i Pol to hear how his own words sound in that foreign language.

      It was one of those rare moments you treasure forever and you know you didn’t deserve and you wished had happened when you were more mature. And you know you’ll never be mature enough.

    2. First, you got all this logic thing wrong. Logic cannot possibly dictate whether a “matter of fact” is true or false, only empirical evidence can. Since I have got no evidence, I cannot know who disliked my comment.

      Second, if you must know, I disliked your comment for a couple of reasons. Because I thought it was shit (for example, accusing someone who isn’t a journalist of being a bad journalist, which makes as sense as criticising a formula 1 pilot for being unable to play the piano) and because somebody disliked my previous comment. I hope all is clear now.

      1. Listen, you moron (gosh, how I hate to say that word): there is what you call in beautiful Catalan a “codi deontológic” for journalists. You actually can study this profession at University, unlike driving a car. It’s actually a profession, not some sports. So yes, it makes sense to hold people to the established standards.

        I am sorry to call you a moron, but you seem to have no standards at all. Yet you speak as if you knew everything. If Da Boy mixed up things from his memory, he’s perfectly able to recognise that and has shown so: “I might be wrong “. You are in no position to call his words “shit”. Or else I’m quite in the position to call you a moron.

        Let’s see which one stands to standards.

        Clear?

      2. Primo, please take that post-it note off your fridge that says “Remember to go on the internet and be a dick to people!”. The man would be classified as a journalist in Anglosajonia, as we also use that term to refer to newspaper columnists, which he evidently is. The fact is, you are right, it’s actually Joaquim Ibarz who’s the worst journalist in Spain, Monzó is just a very poor journalist who writes on similar topics for the same rag. Mea Culpa.

        Secondly, we are not in a playground. It doesn’t matter who likes or dislikes your posts. Nobody’s counting. In fact, nobody but us three is even reading. I got something wrong, which is a fair enough reason for putting me straight, but I’m absolutely bemused as to the reason you disliked Candy’s post WHICH SAID THE SAME AS YOURS.

        1. What dick? You asked why I disliked your comment and that’s exactly what I told you. A dick would have been if I had refused to tell you. As for your last question, I don’t know if you’re referring to the person who signs as “Candide”, if that is the case, then the explanation is very simple: I don’t read his comments and I don’t care what he says. He gave me a dislike and I gave him one in return. That’s all. You say this is not a playground, and you’re wrong. It has been a playground ever since this person started hanging about here.

          1. The reasons you found something to be “shit” refers to things revealed to you post-factum. In-factum the only thing you knew was “I didn’t know he was a jorunalist”. And *even if*, at the point you said “shit” you had the other admitting the possibility of an error, thus undeserving of such attribute.

            Keep lying, but the record is a few lines above.

            When will you *ever* admit an error of yours? (Man, with guys like you around I’m gonna get White Supremacist all over the likes of you.)

          2. (OK, one thing’s true, I’m totally playing you. But there’s always Planet Earth and my belief that you can come back to it. Why else would I lose my time?)

  5. My prediction was not a great feat: Catalan nationalism will collide with the Protest Camps for ideological reasons and because the Cataloonies cannot accept any competition for the hears and minds of the citizens, or the attention of the media.

    Here’s two examples:

    http://www.strubell.cat/blog/1462/la-revolucio-catalaa-hector-lopez-bofill

    http://www.cataloniadirect.info/2011/05/what-catalan-revolution/

    These people, who are not only nuts but also evil, coincide in many fallacies. And it’s only the beginning.

    Or why do you think “conseller” Puig had to “clean” Catalonia Square for the Barça celebrations? In the end, it was those celebrations and not the Campers that turned violent. Be it know for all posterity.

      1. What an awful article. It is a worrying sign when somebody’s perception of the world departs so radically from the reality in which he lives that it is literally impossible to understand what his point is. I think what he means is “I wish the protesters in the square were campaigning for an independent Catalonia.” but it’s very difficult to extract his point from the actual words he uses.

        1. The indignés are a serious competitor for the hearts and minds of the angry citizen. Alexandre knows very well what he wants.

          As to another serious perception/reality split, read Rahola’s piece in today’s LV. (Hey, maybe you’ll be able to leave a comment. I’ve tried several times. Maybe the moderator is Rahola herself.)

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