No a los numeros

Official government numbers based on TV helicopter shots: 350,000 people
Official police figures based on the same footage: 1.32 million

It's not the first time they've been channel-hopping. At the last big anti-government 'manifestacin', the local parliament only spotted 15,000 marchers, suggesting that the other 385,000 in the police count had in fact been the same people with a succession of different hats.

To lose a million is quite a feat but it didn't make any difference to the real people there, counted or not. Barcelona's protest was the biggest on the planet (alongside Rome - which is both bigger and a captial) and no-one should be the least bit surprised.

If there were a world championships for protesting against authority, the Catalans would be first to boycott it. Idealism, anarchism, freedom of thought and anti-government polemics are fairly typical hobbies for an eight-year old here and the faith people have in themselves over and above those meddlers in Madrid runs deep. For an occasion like this, where not only are the Catalonians entirely in the right but for once the rest of the world actually seems to agree with them, they were always going to put on a good show.

And so it proved. People queued, chanted and waved flags. They hugged, marched and stood patiently in queues for the toilet. The streets were paved with people power.

The success of the demonstration was partly due to the universal chant of 'No A La Guerra'. It was a lot more successful than 'Not in Our Name' due to a greater number of shoutable vowels, coupled with the opportunity (never missed) to roll one's rrrrrrrr's with phonetic vitriol.

If it had been a brand, the world's marketeers would have given up by now and started following their dreams again. 'No a la guerra' achieved total market penetration - everyone from TV channels to the official national post office were displaying homemade versions of the slogan. A five-storey high banner hung from one building; a resident at an old age home braved his balcony to wave his notepad until the nurses upped his dosage. Ambitious people even tried selling t-shirts with the slogan, but generally home-made was the way forward, preferably coupled with a cartoon of Aznar as a donkey, an arse-licker or an obedient puppy.

While many listened to the official speeches, just behind the stage in Plaza Tetun, the anarchists were proving that they don't just have the best tunes (and tattoos) but that they were more than capable of making their point loud and clear with what one banner nicknamed a mani-fiesta-cin.

(right-click to save)
What started as little more than a scrap between photographers [mp4/avi]
Became a vertical challenge.[mp4/avi]
The statues held it proudly in place [mp4/avi]
And as night fell, the Powerbooks came out. [mp4/avi]

(You'll have to supply your own pumping DJ soundtrack but suffice to say there was one and it was loud)

Later on, the anarchists announced that they'd occupied an empty building (another Catalan habit; hopefully more on that soon). The building, a two storey shop space that had seen better days, was near Plaza George Orwell, aka Plaza Trippy, and everyone was welcome later for a party.

When we got there, the place was buzzing. DJs were setting up, slogans and satire were being sprayed on the walls and dozens of people were chopping and peeling as an enormous pile of vegetables was slowly sliced, diced and placed in two enormous paella pans (I've seen smaller paddling pools), creating two big stir fries for everyone - no mean feat.

Of course next day they realised their mistake. If only they'd asked the local government for advice, they could have got away with just making a sandwich.

Well done everyone; it was an honour to share the world’s streets with you. Let's just hope someone noticed.

Posted by Andrew Losowsky at February 16, 2003 04:43 PM | TrackBack