Keep Fighting
It's been fifty years, and it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The youth of 1968 protested much the same things as the youth of 2018 protest, although today's youth is lacking the same passion. The Occupy movement promised much, yet delivered little, mostly because the younger people did not take up the banner. And, like back then, the young are told to shut up and obey the rules their elders have made.
It is part of the human condition that the young see the world in shades of black and white. Those that have learned to think see the injustices and want to correct them - now. Those that teach them want the young to learn that an order has been established and that they must learn to fit into that order. Both are, roughly, right. Injustices need to be corrected as soon as possible, yet there must be some sort of social order, otherwise the world would be in even more chaos than it already is.
Sometimes, student protest is at the heart of social change. In 1968, students led the way in many countries, most notably in Paris, the crib of communes and social upheaval in Europe and its area of influence. In Spain, they weren't far behind. In fact, one might say it had already been going on for a few years. Spanish students, however, were going one notch further, and had it more difficult. They were fighting not only a university anchored in rigid order, but a dictatorship anchored in supreme order with no deviation allowed.
There had already been protests as far back as 1956, mostly in Madrid. Things picked up speed after 1963, with the creation of the first semi-clandestine student associations on one side, and the appearance of the TOP on the government side. The TOP (Tribunal de Orden Público, Tribunal of Public Order) was originally created to keep subversive workers and students in line.
In January, 1968, students in Madrid go on strike, protesting the closing of the Department of Politics and Economics, which had been done because of student unrest. On the 20th, the Department of Philosophy in Madrid is taken over by students, and a crucifix thrown out of a window. (Every classroom had a crucifix hanging on a wall.) Worse than occupying a department, the crucifix flying out of that window lit bonfires in certain government offices.
In Santiago, the Department of Philosophy went on strike, and there were clashes with the police, especially after newspapers were burned in front of the offices of El Correo Gallego in Santiago. Barricades were set up and then thundered aside by the riot police. People were arrested, among them four students, two from Philosophy, one from Chemistry, and another one from Law. The local population's sympathy was with the students.
The official line, however, was summed up in an op-ed in one of the burned newspapers, signed by a student who went along with the regime. (I believe he later went on to be an Ancient Greek teacher at a high school in Santiago, and died a few years ago. I'd have hated to be in his class.) In the opinion editorial, the student heckled his fellow students on the other side of ideology, and said, "los rebeldes universitarios son much peor que una 'inmunda escoria'...." (the rebellious university students are much worse than 'filthy scum'...) That was Manuel Fraga's thinking, too. Manuel Fraga, president of the region of Galicia for around fifteen years, from 1990 into the 2000's, was at that time Franco's Minister of Information and Tourism. (Kind of like having Goering in an elected position in post-war Germany. Like Fraga coined, when he was minister, Spain is Different.) He called for order to be reestablished, and to reinstate the rights of students to study, "pues hay personas que, ajenas a la universidad, subvierten el órden." (for there are people who, not belonging to the university, subvert order). Vice President Luís Carrero Blanco, of blown-up car and outlawed joke fame, said that the agitators were "..unos pocos caídos en el ateísmo, en la droga, y en el anarquismo." (a few fallen in atheism, drugs, and anarchism).
But the uprisings continued. The Department of Sciences, took up the banner, joined by most of the other departments. The dean of the department broke up a large meeting in the Department of Biology, threw out a student he considered an agitator, and denounced the recently elected student government for rebelling against authority. That was the beginning of a sit-down occupation of the administrative building (now the Department of History and Geography), and a strike followed by almost every department in the university. The strike began on the 8th of March and continued until around the 17th of April, one of the longest since the 1930's.
There were police charges, many detained and sent to prison, and the papers took to running a list of wounded. The local people of Santiago took up donations to help pay the fines imposed, and fellow students sold blood to the same end. Several of the detained were released, and reinstated as students, others were sentenced to various jail terms as agitators and for public disorder.
Unfortunately, the students weren't successful in asking for the sacking of the dean of Biology nor in installing a more democratic university. But they made their stand, and stood by their principles. And the majority of the local population stood by them and supported them, like in Paris the striking workers supported the striking students. Only, in Franco's Spain it was more dangerous to march the streets.
These days, that same generation is once again protesting. Now, they protest the miserable hike of 0.25% of their pensions, leaving the lowest paid in extreme poverty, yet many are still being obliged to help their even poorer offspring. They have been thousands these past weeks, marching in just about every city in Spain. Perhaps the younger generations would do well to learn from them. They learned to stand up for their rights in their youth, against a wall of riot police, with the prisons awaiting them. The new generation is being too quiet. In fifty years much has changed, and much has gone back to needing change. How about it, kids? Spring of '18, anyone?
It is part of the human condition that the young see the world in shades of black and white. Those that have learned to think see the injustices and want to correct them - now. Those that teach them want the young to learn that an order has been established and that they must learn to fit into that order. Both are, roughly, right. Injustices need to be corrected as soon as possible, yet there must be some sort of social order, otherwise the world would be in even more chaos than it already is.
Sometimes, student protest is at the heart of social change. In 1968, students led the way in many countries, most notably in Paris, the crib of communes and social upheaval in Europe and its area of influence. In Spain, they weren't far behind. In fact, one might say it had already been going on for a few years. Spanish students, however, were going one notch further, and had it more difficult. They were fighting not only a university anchored in rigid order, but a dictatorship anchored in supreme order with no deviation allowed.
There had already been protests as far back as 1956, mostly in Madrid. Things picked up speed after 1963, with the creation of the first semi-clandestine student associations on one side, and the appearance of the TOP on the government side. The TOP (Tribunal de Orden Público, Tribunal of Public Order) was originally created to keep subversive workers and students in line.
In January, 1968, students in Madrid go on strike, protesting the closing of the Department of Politics and Economics, which had been done because of student unrest. On the 20th, the Department of Philosophy in Madrid is taken over by students, and a crucifix thrown out of a window. (Every classroom had a crucifix hanging on a wall.) Worse than occupying a department, the crucifix flying out of that window lit bonfires in certain government offices.
In Santiago, the Department of Philosophy went on strike, and there were clashes with the police, especially after newspapers were burned in front of the offices of El Correo Gallego in Santiago. Barricades were set up and then thundered aside by the riot police. People were arrested, among them four students, two from Philosophy, one from Chemistry, and another one from Law. The local population's sympathy was with the students.
The official line, however, was summed up in an op-ed in one of the burned newspapers, signed by a student who went along with the regime. (I believe he later went on to be an Ancient Greek teacher at a high school in Santiago, and died a few years ago. I'd have hated to be in his class.) In the opinion editorial, the student heckled his fellow students on the other side of ideology, and said, "los rebeldes universitarios son much peor que una 'inmunda escoria'...." (the rebellious university students are much worse than 'filthy scum'...) That was Manuel Fraga's thinking, too. Manuel Fraga, president of the region of Galicia for around fifteen years, from 1990 into the 2000's, was at that time Franco's Minister of Information and Tourism. (Kind of like having Goering in an elected position in post-war Germany. Like Fraga coined, when he was minister, Spain is Different.) He called for order to be reestablished, and to reinstate the rights of students to study, "pues hay personas que, ajenas a la universidad, subvierten el órden." (for there are people who, not belonging to the university, subvert order). Vice President Luís Carrero Blanco, of blown-up car and outlawed joke fame, said that the agitators were "..unos pocos caídos en el ateísmo, en la droga, y en el anarquismo." (a few fallen in atheism, drugs, and anarchism).
But the uprisings continued. The Department of Sciences, took up the banner, joined by most of the other departments. The dean of the department broke up a large meeting in the Department of Biology, threw out a student he considered an agitator, and denounced the recently elected student government for rebelling against authority. That was the beginning of a sit-down occupation of the administrative building (now the Department of History and Geography), and a strike followed by almost every department in the university. The strike began on the 8th of March and continued until around the 17th of April, one of the longest since the 1930's.
There were police charges, many detained and sent to prison, and the papers took to running a list of wounded. The local people of Santiago took up donations to help pay the fines imposed, and fellow students sold blood to the same end. Several of the detained were released, and reinstated as students, others were sentenced to various jail terms as agitators and for public disorder.
Unfortunately, the students weren't successful in asking for the sacking of the dean of Biology nor in installing a more democratic university. But they made their stand, and stood by their principles. And the majority of the local population stood by them and supported them, like in Paris the striking workers supported the striking students. Only, in Franco's Spain it was more dangerous to march the streets.
These days, that same generation is once again protesting. Now, they protest the miserable hike of 0.25% of their pensions, leaving the lowest paid in extreme poverty, yet many are still being obliged to help their even poorer offspring. They have been thousands these past weeks, marching in just about every city in Spain. Perhaps the younger generations would do well to learn from them. They learned to stand up for their rights in their youth, against a wall of riot police, with the prisons awaiting them. The new generation is being too quiet. In fifty years much has changed, and much has gone back to needing change. How about it, kids? Spring of '18, anyone?
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