I set off from my flat in the old town at approximately 09:00HRS, on an unloved, knackered “sit up and beg” bike that somebody had left in the house. Kit for the day: waterproof jacket, hat, red scarf, blue scarf, water, packed lunch, notebook, first aid kit and crash helmet. It’s mostly downhill from my patch to the centre of town, and as I freewheeled along I could take in all the strike propaganda that had gone out over the past week. The road and pavement was littered with pamphlets like confetti after a wedding, posters plastered the walls, particularly those of banks. I haven’t been past a Caixa bank that hasn’t been defaced, usually with the word “asesinos” – “murderers” since Friday the 9th, when a woman committed suicide as her house was being evicted on the orders of la Caixa. The staff cleans off the graffiti, but as with the bank’s reputation, the stains remain visible.
I began to slow down
as I got onto the main shopping drag, noting a high police count. Municipales –
the relatively harmless local cops - were redirecting traffic around key areas
while the Ertzaintza riot brigade were doing their best to look menacing in
balaclavas and bright red NATO helmets. After locking my bike around the
corner, I approached the morning’s target: Corte Ingles. Apparently it is a
time honoured tradition in Bilbao to picket the up-market superstore whenever
there is a sizeable strike. However when workers picket in Spain, they do not
do it symbolically. In the country where the fishermen used to picket the sea,
any major strike is an opportunity to enforce as total a shutdown as possible.
These “piquetes” little-reported part of the Spanish anti-austerity struggle,
but every strike begins with early morning scuffles between police and pickets
determined to go beyond the mandate of their unions and shut down as much of
the economy as possible. Corte Ingles never shuts during strikes – it seems to
only employ people with an upper class lisp and a snobbery borne of centuries
of upper class breeding. The picket was made up of an anarchist / communist
mix, sprinkled with a handful of slightly uncomfortable looking mainstream
union activists. However, the police had beaten them to the entrances and
controlled the shop side of the street. As the picket’s numbers grew they
hurled abuse at the well-heeled staff as they scuttled behind the police lines.
At approximately 10:00HRS the picket line moved onto the road, chanting “cops -
pickets of the bosses” and the Ertzaintza advanced to push them back onto the
pavement. The warmth of the sun had barely begun to filter into the street, yet
the first European general strike had begun for Bilbao.
I felt surprisingly
calm as the pigs moved in. No rushing fear flooded my veins with adrenaline –
we were too numerous to arrest and the batons hadn’t come out. Nor did I feel
much of my deep contempt for the police force – we had transgressed from
passively “demonstrating” for the strike to actively enforcing it on a scabbing
business, therefore they would move to stop us. Both sides knew the score and
began the dance without fuss.
None of the
passionate demands or the frantic appeals to reason of the piquetes would have
any impact – they didn’t blink when the evicted woman jumped off her balcony –
why would they now? So I kept my mouth shut. Escalating the situation from
shouted commands to orchestrated shoving, they began to push us back. I was in
the second line, and as the woman in front of me dug in her heels I put my
hands on her rucksack to back her up, and the people behind me did the same.
The unconscious, automatic nature of this resistance was curious. There had
been no prior discussion about what we were doing, the group had acted
spontaneously and as one. Nor did I really know anybody in the group, I
recognized a few faces from the indignado demos and others from the CNT, but no
real friends or – mortal sin! – no buddy. Yet here I was, testing my strength
against the Ertzaintza. A curious place, austerity Spain. As usual with these
things the police got the upper hand and after somebody at the front went down
we were pushed back onto the pavement. During the standoff an officer came up
with a hand held video camera to record faces. About half of the crowd masked
up. Another interesting facet of protest in Spain is the lack of cameras.
Britain really is up there as one of the most paranoid, aggressive and invasive
surveillance states in the world, Spain has few cameras by comparison, and
Forward Intelligence Team tactics are less systematic.
Sick and tired of
being filmed and with no hope of shutting down el Corte Ingles for the moment,
the piquetes broke up into smaller groups and began to roam the Gran Via
shutting down businesses. I decided to follow the cluster of youths with the
red banners, as they seemed to be some of the most militant of the bunch. The
method was simple. Rock up in front of an open shop, then yell, chant and bang
banners against noisy things until the shutters come down. Most businesses seem
to have opened hesitantly, terrified of any potential disruption to the norm,
and would shut their doors as soon as they saw us coming. However the
Ertzaintza were not too happy with this and followed us, coming to the defence
of scabbing businesses and allowing them to stay open. This began a walk pace
cat and mouse chase between the piquetes and the cops, as we strolled down Gran
Via shutting businesses and staying two steps ahead of the 5-0. Somebody handed
me a bunch of stickers to put up – the logic seemed to be that covering the
town in our material was the second best option after closing everything down. So I spent a happy
half hour strolling along Gran Via, usually reserved for consumption and
nothing else, chanting “hoy no se trabaja, es dia de huelga” “today nobody
works – it’s a strike day”, sticking trade union stickers to corporate shops,
with a glaring riot cops following a few
meters back. A thoroughly pleasant way to spend a morning. I toyed with the
idea of affixing a sticker to the riot van… should I? It’d be tricky but not
impossible; wait for the pigs on foot to cross the street to move on the
piquetes, close the distance on the vehicle quickly on the driver’s blind side,
slap it somewhere visible and be lost in the crowd changing my outer layers of clothing
before they knew what was going on. To stick or not to stick? Eventually decided against it – I had
promised my friends that I would take care of myself and this would probably
constitute breaking that promise. Eventually we noticed the growing number of
trade union bib wearing workers heading in the main assembly point en masse and
joined them for the union rally.