August 25, 2012– SPAIN – In
the small Spanish town of Marinaleda, located in the southern region of
Andalusía, Mayor Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo has an answer for the
country’s economic crisis and the hunger that comes with it: He
organized and led the town’s residents to raid supermarkets to get the
food necessary to survive. Seven people have been arrested in two raids
in which trade unionists loaded shopping carts full of food and left
without paying, with the support of the townspeople cheering them on and
the mayor watching with approval. (reuters.com, Aug. 15) Gordillo, 60,
is a leftist and a member of the Izquierda Unida political party. He
sports a Palestinian kaffiyeh scarf around his neck and a Fidel
Castro-like beard. Gordilla says he wants to draw attention to the
plight of the common worker in Spain, a country in which the economic
collapse has hit particularly hard and millions are suffering.
(europeonline-magazine.eu, Aug. 14) Since 2007, poverty in Spain has
risen 15 percent, while unemployment hovers around 25 percent and tens
of thousands have lost their homes to bank foreclosures. The
conservative national government has only made matters worse, by
introducing austerity measures that have worsened the workers’ lives,
while bailing out the bankers and capitalists who caused the crisis in
the first place. Gordillo plans to lead a march from Jódar, one of the
cities most affected by the current economic meltdown, to other Spanish
towns, to try to convince other officials to fight back against the
ruling class’s demands of cutbacks and increased hardship for the
workers. He is fighting dismantlement of state social services, bank
payoffs, and the throwing of the common Spaniard under the bus to the
benefit of those exploiting them. Gordillo hopes he can convince other
mayors to stage a real resistance to the government’s demands. –Workers World
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