Legal demonstrations give citizens the opportunity to express their anger or concern about themes that vary from job losses or environmental damage to death sentences or war. Emotions can run high and they often produce isolated acts of violence. But some claim that in Barcelona every demonstration is accompanied by carefully choreographed acts of sabotage, vandalism and general civil disobedience. Some blame 'radicals', others point the finger at 'international professional anarchists' and still others nod knowingly in the direction of 'okupas' (squatters).
What do you think about these violent acts? Are they acceptable, excusuable or understandable... in any circumstances? Would you ever participate?
The following video illustrates the role of the media very well.
Are the media objectively reporting street violence or are they partly (or wholly to blame) for egging on the extremists?
In this world controlled by the capitalism, the big fish eats the small one, and Spain is getting small.
ReplyDeleteThey're furious because the socialist party (PSOE) is doing what the right-winged prime ministers of the European countries tell us to do. What can we do, instead? We've got two options: 1)Do what they make us do, in a quite hypocritical way or 2)Ignore what they say, but the EU won't help us like they did before.
The social welfare state will only work if every country is half capitalist/half socialist. If not, there will be more competitive countries that will accumulate too much money.
Well, I think I'm beating about the bush. I think this attitude shown in the video is totally unacceptable, but understandable for the reason(s) I said before. There are other (and more civilized)ways of saying things.
About the media, well... They only want something new for the audience. The more violence, the better. It's not their fault, it's ours. If the audience wasn't so macabre, the media wouldn't be so interested in accidents, wars, etc.
I am of the opinion that a demonstration is a true expression of the feeling of a population as people act as a unit and are uninhibited in the expression of their opinions.
ReplyDeleteTherefore if people are driven to act this way as they feel so ignored and disaffected by the countries leading powers then I support it. In my humble opinion I believe that, and I don't believe this is in any way a good thing, to get your message across to the government violence has to be used to catch there eye and make them react accordingly.
A simple solution to this problem would be if the government listened up to what the people had to say and changed there way of doing things way before it came down to people turning to violence and hooliganism.
As for the media, I don't at any point believe they are egging on the demonstrators as they are a third party that is present solely to gather the facts and the truth and report it as it happened. To sum up, the media is not making this happen as we as a society make the news and we also read what the media has to say about it, so you can't insinuate the media cause something to happen as it wouldn't happen, full stop, if the people of a country weren't prepared to demonstrate using violence.
jack roberts
I totally disagree with these acts of vandalism. Instead of doing stupid stealing at this trade they could, maybe... work!. This strike was absurd. It was obvious that Mr.Zapatero wasn't going to do nothing good for Spain when he was elected 6 years ago. Therefore, if they are bothered by his mandate, they should reflect upon who they voted for and be responsible for their acts.
ReplyDeleteI don't quite understand why they attack against the store, because it has no fault. They are just being hypocritical because the only thing they are interested in is the clothing inside the store. They are not criticising government which is who they should be criticising...(¿no?)The strike, besides having no success, was a great opportunity for young offenders attacking for no reason but fun.
Media should not be there at all. As Miguel said, it's not their fault, it's ours. It's the society's anxiety of having strong feelings and their kind of "need" for being idiots.
I would and will never participate in such thing.
I think that Santiago's points are slightly over the top as I believe that they had a right to strike and I am glad they did as they let everyone know about what they think. If they had just worked like Santi said then there opinions would go unheard and the government would be oblivious of what the people of its country is feeling.
ReplyDeleteAlso, just because you voted for someone to be the president 6 years ago it doesn't take away your right to express your dissatisfaction with what is going on now, 6 years later. 6 years is a long time and what you thought then doesn't neccesarily reflect what you believe now so I think that comment isn't really valid.
I hope I haven't offended anyone.
jack roberts
In my opinion, citizens should have the right to protest if they are being treated unfairly or if they want the government to act upon something that they consider is wrong. However, what happened during last wednesday's strike was unacceptable. Workers should find other ways to catch the governments attention that doesn't involve destroying the city they live in. What is more, in this video we can see how a group of people destroy and sack a shop that is in no way related to the government. This act might create controversy but they are taking the blame on someone that has no fault. In any case, i don't think it's acceptable to cause such destruction in any strike but that there are other ways to demonstrate against something.
ReplyDeleteFinally, i don't know if i will ever participate in a strike; i suppose that if i ever find that i'm being treated unfairly i will. Nevertheless, if i ever participate in one of these acts i will participate in a civilized way.
Flor T.
Jack,
ReplyDeleteI am not taking them their right for striking but I think there is no need of it in such situation. And also, I don't think stealing the Levi's store was a sign of complaint toward government... I mean, do you really think these people assaulted the store because of the bad government management? Or did they do it for fun? Levi's is a private enterprise...
Finally, I think there was no need to steal the clothes if they were really complaining of government....
No offense, just different way of thinking.
Santiago.
I think this is an unexcusable act. A strike doesn't mean vandalism and violence acts, or at least it shouldn't. People should find things that REALLY hurt the government. If you destroy a private enterprise's store, all you're doing is creating chaos among the people that are in your situation, not the people who, because of their incompetence, have created this situation.
ReplyDeleteActually, did you know in Japan they do a different kind of strike? Instead of not working that day, they try to produce double or triple, so that the companies have overproduction and they end having to get rid of part of their product, doing more damage than the European kind of strike. This is a very praiseworthy position, because it's very easy to detroy and to stay at home, but if you do double of your work for a common and bigger objective, you create a unity sensation, that can really get what they want.
Finally, I think that if I was affected by the situation, I think I would have done the strike, but obviously not in this uncivilised way, as if we were prehistorics that the only thing that can do is destroy and not face the consequences, as those who wore handkerchiefs in their faces to avoid being recognised by the police.
Citizens have the right to protest publically against a government's decision, it's a right they have in a democratic society.
ReplyDeleteHowever a protest with the aim of causing damages, violence practise and physical agressions is not acceptable. It's ilegal indeed, I mean, those vandals which appear in the video, should be judged fairly and go to prison or be penalised in some way, as that's simply a crime.
Refering to the other comments which I saw from my mates talking about the strike due to the disapproval with Zapatero's government's economic desicions, well just say that this violent protests weren't done by sindicalists, but by independent youth organisations, which are against the system (anarchists, fascists...) so they shouldn't be taken that seriously.
To finish, I'd like to point that this problems normally only happen in Barcelona, as it's the city with more anarchists in Spain, in fact during the spanish Civil War, it was the most conflictive city in Spain due to a variety of political ideologies.
Mario Romeo
I am completely against what happened last Wednesday, 29th of September. In my sincere opinion, I do not think the way people acted was the most correct. I do believe in the principles of striking as a form of showing what citizens believe and think.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't think it was well organized, or people even stopped to think why were they doing it, and what were they protesting against. In theory it was meant to be against the spanish govern but, they had no place in these manifestations. It seemed as a way to protest against businessmen.
It is hard to believe how things got so messed up from the original point. It is insane that school kids from our own school had to dress up with no uniform in case some radicals saw them, and would realize our school wasn't closed. Just the idea that we felt fear of something so basic (our school being open on a wednesday) I can still not believe. We were scared they would come up to our school and attack us, or start destroying it. It just boggles my mind how people would be able to do such atrocious act.
To conclude, I think this got way out of our hands. Does anyone now, at the end of the day, what was the point of this day. Destroy shops? Reck people's business, where they've worked so hard for? Make people feel unsafe in there own cities? Has this even helped a bit, or made it worse? I am honestly not sure what has this helped to change our situation of a huge credit crunch crisis.
Jennifer Arnau Cattanach
santi
ReplyDeleteYes, I have to agree with you on your point of how stealing from the store was needless and probably had nothing to do with the strike in an ideological and political sense. But this is an isolated case that has detracted from what is a fully justified and, in my opinion, legitimate protest. So, what I am trying to say is that it was uncalled for and stupid but you can't just take as all being the same as the vast majority of people were striking for a cause that they believe in and you can't just overlook that because of some hooligans that lost control and acted in an absurd and frankly unproductive manner.
jack roberts
They are fighting for their rights but the world has evolved and we are no longer cavemen that throw stones at each other. There's a more civilised way to express your opinion, it may not seem very effective, but if there's a global opinion and many people get moving to change things it would be better than doing such pre-historic vandalic acts.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, during this strike day, there's been other things done to change the law and to make the government do something abouts what the people think, and therefore many people have been affected. In my opinion, they needn't have to reach this point of violence, there are many other paths to follow that take to the same place.
First of all, I would like to say that last wednesday´s general strike om last wednesday was acceptable because it is a democratic right all citizens have. At the same time, it is also a right for the people who want to work to be able to do it without pressure or fear of the people who go on strike. This has been the situation in many places in Spain, many small businesses have had to close their shops and bars so that the people striking would not break their shop windows nor belongings. Their businesses could be seriously damaged.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find unacceptable is that these events are used to promote violence.
The squatter movement in Barcelona is of a violent nature. In the last few years they have taken advantage of all the big public events such as Spain winning the soccer world cup, Barça winning the League... and with these events they have managed to get the attention of the medias.
For this reason once more they have chosen this special occasion to take over an important building in the centre of Barcelona (Banesto Bank) on a day the publicity and attention would be drawn onto them.
It was also a mistake the police made, which was taking out the squatters from the building on the same day as the strike and at the same time there was a demonstration taking place
I would also like to say that I found it unacceptable that many people who were against the arguments of this general strike supported it by not going to work, nor school just to have a day off.
Sonia Hermosilla
What do you think about these violent acts? Are they acceptable, excusuable or understandable... in any circumstances? Would you ever participate?
ReplyDeleteThese demostrarions, or general strikes are happening due to the terrible economical crisis that Spain is living,.This situations, where families find it very hard to survive, lots of people lose theri, jobs, and there is so much unemployment, build up tension in society.This is what has lead to all these violent and criminal acts.However, you could also say that in every demonstration you can find a "reason" to become violent, but it is always unacceptable.
It is never beneficial for the demonstration organisers or for it's purpose that violent acts occur during it.When violence appears in this kinf of strikes, they lose are no longer justified.
In the other hand, I must say that people that become so violent and involved in these acts is because thay are living extreme situations, and I can never say what I'd do in order to save my family, although being violent doesn't save your family.When you are in such difficult situations, it is easy to lose your temper.
In conclusion, I find these acts totally unacceptable but the government must find a solution to help these people, but we are now entering in very complicated areas.
I totally disagree with this acts of vandalism.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has the right to demonstrate against your government if you don't agree with them. But one thing is demonstrating against your government, and another thing is doing vandalic acts like these people did.
These general stike happened in Spain due to the terrible period of crisis that Spain is going through. A lot of families are suffering the crisis because most members of the family are unemployed and they don't have a great income. And these situation affects loads of families from Spain. So I think that they have the right to demonstrate but it is totally inacceptable that some people become very violent and start breaking things from establishments that are trying to make some profit to arrive at the end of the month.
In addition I totally agree with oscar that some people become so violent because they are living extreme situations in there familiar ambit and they would do anything in the world to try and save there family from literaly starving.
In conclusion I think that people have the right to demonstrate but it is totally unacceptable these vandalic acts. And I think that the government should try to find a solution to the economic crisis that Spain is suffering, because if he finds a solution all of these thing won't happen again.
Didac Mullor