A Fuming Fall In Europe
By Farooque Chowdhury
02 October, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Europe witnessed a fuming fall day with politics of protest on September 29, 2010. From Athens to Barcelona to Brussels to Dublin to Lisbon to Madrid to Vilnius, the continent experienced extra-legal political actions in streets. Anger and rejection experienced torching police vehicle, flaming tires, and general and open-ended strikes.
In Dublin, a driver blocked the entrance to Dail Eireann, the Irish parliament, with a concrete mixture truck several hours before Dail Eireann was scheduled to convene. The truck was painted with blood red slogans: “Toxic Bank” and ‘All politicians should be sacked’.” He was protesting the bailing out of the Anglo Irish Bank that owes $97 billion to depositors worldwide, leaving Irish taxpayers with a mammoth bill. Police arrested the protester. The doors of the truck were welded shut and its windows covered in metal grills to prevent police from gaining access. Independent analysts now estimate that bailing out the Anglo will cost $47.1 billion, a fifth of Ireland's GDP. A single speculating bank’s hunger indeed!
With protests in so many places, it was difficult to gauge the scale of demonstrations. There were sit-down protests in the middle of street and marches, picketers blocking trucks, hundreds of cancelled flights, deserted airports, confrontation with riot police, and beating and detention of protesters. Brussels found 100,000 protesters marching towards EU offices. Trade unionists from Britain joined them. Physicians, pensioners, public service workers, bus and trolley drivers, railway workers, engineers turned protesters in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Slovenia and Lithuania. France recently witnessed protests.
In Spain, unions said, 10 million people, or more than half the workforce, were on strike. Spain experienced its first nationwide strike in eight years. In the southern Spanish city of Huelva the crowds seemed to be bigger than protesters in Brussels. Spanish newspapers El País and 20 Minutos reported that a third of their own workers stayed at home, while the metal industry informed that 60-70 percent of workers stayed away from big factories. Most of the unrest centered on other Spanish cities. In Getafe, a town outside Madrid, a police officer fired shots into the air to disperse protesters outside a factory. In Barcelona, students burned a police car and blocked streets with rubbish containers and police officers fired rubber bullets. The protest left Madrid's Barajas airport all but deserted of passengers. In the city, buses were extremely scarce. Eighty percent of Spain's high-speed train trips were canceled. Only 25 percent of commuter trains ran. Garbage went uncollected in many areas. Picketers roamed the streets of downtown Madrid. A group of strikers blocked Madrid's Gran Via, a major commercial thoroughfare. Several TV stations suspended broadcasts shortly after midnight as staffers honored the strike. Newspapers in Spain were affected with editions running fewer pages.
Greece already has been suffering from two weeks of protests by truck drivers. They have made it difficult to get supplies. Many supermarkets are strolling with shortages. Earlier this month prime minister George Papandreou had a shoe thrown at him as 20,000 people took to the streets.
In Slovenia, about half of public sector workers remained on strike for the third day causing jams at border crossings with non-EU Croatia. The Vilnius protest was considered “illegal” by the authorities.
The protests raised concerns and made stocks slip down. The dollar fell further. European markets descended. The Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq composite, Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped.
The people rose to oppose harsh austerity measures including freezing of their salaries, salary cutting, pension trimming, consumer and income taxes hiking, job cutting, and budget slashing. These “gifts” are being presented to the people suffering with high unemployment. The measures’ aim is to control debt.
Workers are the main victims of an economic crisis set off by bankers and speculators. But now, the poor are being pushed to pay to prop up the economy. Unemployment rate in Spain now stands at 20 percent. Many businesses are struggling to survive there. Portugal is one of the euro zone's most fragile economies. Ireland is in recession.
People demand a fairer system of taxation “Hospitals in rural areas were closed, pensions were cut, salaries were cut, basically mortality rates went up, more old people died in the winter because they couldn't afford to heat their homes. You're actually starting to hear stories about people dying because of budget cuts there. That is the future for Greece, Portugal, Spain, and maybe to a lesser extent Italy as these cuts really start to bite.” “… [F]or the banking system there are millions and billions of euros, but the social payments are being cut.”
These are peoples’ acts of rejection, rejection of neoliberalism, of an economy with its centre of gravity in speculation, of a class war waged by capital against labor, of a political system inconsiderate to the interests of the low-earning people. These are signs of breach in the foundation of trust. These are failures in and limits of cooption; the section of labor that was coopted with perks from colonies and neocolonies is finding it difficult to remain coopted.
But these are not the beginning of an end; rather an interlude in a long descending journey by capital. There are risks: rise of phobias of different shades capitalizing unemployment, price hike, decaying public services, torn down social benefits, and frustration; rise of ultranationalism and politics of hatred as arms of a section of capital against people of other colors and from other lands.
These show the limits of power capital wields: of media power, of manipulating mass psychology and education, of making people perceive happy with saucy propaganda and cushions, and of keeping a content middle class. But the limits prevail.
There awaits a journey uphill and zigzag, to be politicized, for the people now struggling with a disintegrating life, and counting days for a coming winter.
Farooque Chowdhury, a Bangladesh-free lancer
contributes on socioeconomic issues
