15M Protests
This is probably the biggest event going on in Spain right now. Due to the incredibly high unemployment rate, students who just graduated from college cannot find jobs. As a result, they have begun to protest the lack of jobs and demand that the Spanish government help solve the unemployment problem. These students have no place to live, so they camp out in the streets of major cities, like the Puerta del Sol in Madrid. Some of the students on our study abroad program recently went to Madrid and witnessed the campsites. They said that the streets are filled with tents that are occupied by people of all ages. The surrounding area is incredibly dirty and smelly. 15M gets its name from the first day of protests- the 15th of May.
Several problems have risen due to the 15M protests. The protestors do not have a leader, so it's hard for them to get any goals accomplished. The Spanish government has counteracted with a demand that the students leave the streets or face consequences. On the news, I've seen many videos of the police violently beating up protesters. Unfortunately, the students have not made progress, and it seems like the protests are at a standstill.
Although I didn't view the original 15M protests, I have seen similar student protests in Santander and San Sebastián. Like the protests in Madrid, the students here have taken up residence in major plazas of the city. During the day, the students hang out and converse in the plazas, while they sleep in tents at night. However, the protests in the smaller cities have significantly less participants. In Madrid, the entire street is packed with people, while in Santander and San Sebastián, there's a much smaller number.
Here's some pictures of the 15M protests in Santander. I took these at 8:30am which explains why there is little activity going on:
Protest signs that the students have hung up.
More signs. You can also see some of the belongings of the protesters.
I'm so mad that this picture turned out blurry! This is a group of couches in the plaza where people are actually sleeping! No tent or anything. I would have tried to take a better picture, but I thought it would be a little strange if someone woke up and saw me taking pictures of them sleeping.
We also saw 15M protests in San Sebastián:
This is a good view of the tents where the protesters live.
Local Elections
Local government elections took place during one of the first weekends we were here. It was interesting because the citizens vote on a Sunday, compared to voting on a Tuesday in the US. I enjoyed seeing the campaigning that the politicians did. For example, many posters of the candidates are hung up throughout the city. Someone decided to put large red dots on the candidate's noses to symbolize that politicians are clowns. In Cantabria, Partido Popular (PP), a right-winged party, won the election. This will clash with the political party of the president of Spain, Zapatero, who is Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE).
E coli Outbreaks
As you probably heard, Europe was hit with a wave of e coli outbreaks. The disease was really prevalent in Germany, but cases were found throughout Europe. When news of the outbreak was first heard, all of our parents either sent us emails regarding the outbreaks or told us to be careful. At first, the German government stated that Spanish peppers were the cause of the outbreak. This later proved to be false, so Germany was forced to pay millions of dollars to Spain to make up for the loss in profits. I was initially concerned with the e coli outbreak because my madre makes me a salad with every dinner and puts red and green peppers in a lot of my food. But as I learned that the origins of the e coli bacteria were from Germany, I felt better about eating vegetables. Fortunately, no one in our group got sick.
No comments:
Post a Comment