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On
Friday 12 March 2004, under pouring rain, the streets
of central Madrid were a sea of umbrellas. People
gathered in their hundreds of thousands to grieve
and give their solidarity to the families and friends
of the 200 people who had died the morning before
in multiple bombings placed by supporters of Al Qaeda.
Just over a week on, many of those people again filled
the streets of central Madrid. This time the air was
warm, the sky was clear and the atmosphere very different
as the sun set over the city.
Like
many other hundreds of thousands around the world,
madrileños were commemorating the invasion
of Iraq a year before. In the Spanish state, demonstrations
took place in almost every city - Barcelona (estimated
to be the biggest at 200,000), Valencia, Alicante,
Sevilla, Zaragoza, Logroño, Palma de Mallorca,
Ibiza, Santiago, Coruña, Vigo, Vallodolid,
Burgos, Palencia, León, Zamora, Segovia, Soria
and Oviedo, and in the Basque Country in Bilbao, San
Sebastián and Vitoria . People filed slowly
through their streets demanding an end to the occupation
of Iraq, the withdrawal of Spanish troops and, as
the posters said, the right of peoples to national
sovereignty and self-determination.
While
many of the speeches from the platform in Madrid were
not surprisingly sombre in tone, given what had happened
so recently in the city and the continuing tragedy
of what continues daily in Iraq, the atmosphere in
Plaza de Cibeles, and finally as the march congregated
in Puerta del Sol, was one of pure celebration. After
just over a week since the bombings, people now felt
that they could let themselves go in an outburst of
joyous chanting. "No to the war" rang out
constantly as the marchers passed by. However, the
chant that received most deafening support was: "What
happiness; a Spain without Aznar!" (it rhymes
in Spanish: ¡Que felicidad; un España
sin Aznar!).
A
year on from the invasion of Iraq, the rally supported
by 37 social organisations - trade unions, political
parties (in particular the newly elected Spanish Socialist
Party and Left Unity), cultural groups, NGOs and representatives
of civil society - used the occasion to celebrate
the removal from government in last Sunday's elections
of the deeply despised, reactionary and lap-dog of
George Bush, José María Aznar. As many
placards said, this was the funeral of the right-wing
Popular Party (or as some placards called it the 'dangerous
party' - 'Partido Peligroso' in Spanish).
It
has been a highly momentous week in Madrid - from
tragedy to joy, from sorrow to celebration. José
Saramago, the Portuguese Nobel prize winning writer,
in what will surely become a telling phrase in the
future, described Madrid from the platform at the
rally as "the moral capital of Europe".
The
new 'socialist' Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez
Zapatero has huge challenges ahead. However, already
he has reaffirmed his election commitment to withdraw
Spanish troops from Iraq, saying that terrorism cannot
be defeated by war. Moreover, he has prioritised domestic
violence, housing and education as his political priorities.
He may even open the way for a serious 'peace process'
in the Basque Country whatever obstacles may stand
in his way, including the prejudices of many in his
own party. Many of the necessary conditions would
seem to be right for such a move - greater openness
and flexibility towards dialogue on the part of the
new socialist government; clear political and military
weaknesses and demands in the left nationalist movement
in the Basque Country; the existing ETA cease-fire
in Catalonia; a deep revulsion towards the use of
political violence amongst the people of the Spanish
state; and the strong electoral support for nationalist
parties across all the Spanish state, but particularly
in Catalonia where left-leaning parties now make up
the vast majority of electoral representation.
Time
will soon tell if Zapatero and his government have
the foresight and nerve to make such moves. In the
meantime, let's all rejoice in a Spain without Aznar.
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