Last week I found myself lucky enough to be in attendance at a public conversation between Pablo Iglesias, secretary-general of upstart Spanish anti-austerity party Podemos and Democracy Now‘s Amy Goodman. Barely a year old, Podemos (we can, en espanol) is a populist movement that exploded in reaction to EU-imposed austerity, and the slender Iglesias comes across as a blend of very cool professor and firebrand revolutionary. Feeling that his people have been taken advantage of by the big European banks, he doesn’t shy away from the occasional guillotine quip. But as a self-described leftist, he spoke about his movement as being less about a right vs left ideology, and more about the people vs. the powerful financial elites. He knows they’ve been had.
Iglesia’s party doesn’t even hold any seats in the current Spanish parliament, yet they dominate the Spanish media and were able to bring out tens of thousands in Madrid for a January rally. Early polling gives them a strong showing in their November elections, with many comparing the rise of Podemos to that of Greece’s SYRIZA. And that gets my attention.
I was one of those who thrilled per the news that Greece had decisively voted in a progressive left wing government. One of the things that makes the SYRIZA victory so remarkable was how surprised the rest of the world was that they won. Who would have thunk that an optimistic party wanting to tax wealth and reinstate a strong welfare state for a people crushed by austerity cuts would be so attractive? But why wouldn’t the Greek people want to be governed by a group that serves the (vast majority) of Greek people? It’s their country, and that is something that seems to be lost to so many very serious people within the very serious global ruling class. It’s the democracy, stupid, and the scales are starting to fall from everyone’s eyes.
Limited as my knowledge of Spanish (and Greek) politics is, I do have an inclination towards upstart social movements. And I feel like America is primed for its own awakening. Without austerity to unite us, we can still feel how the slow chipping away at our own social safety nets has become the new normal. At work we do more for less money, and for some reason let people like the Walmart heirs and the Koch brother’s shape our public policies. We let it happen, and we can unmake it. But it won’t be easy, and I have lots of empathy for so many of my fellow citizens who fear the future so much that they want to take the rest of us down rather than face the change.
But the future belongs to those movements that cast a wide and inclusive net. The reactionaries can (and will) continue to make a lot of noise, but the future will be browner, gayer and more female. Movements that recognize that we are all in this together have the edge, and that is what I am counting on.