Spain's Crisis Leads To Rise Of Grass-Roots Groups
A year and a half ago, recession-ravaged Spanish society reacted to the economic crisis with the "Indignados," a mass protest that inspired the worldwide "Occupy" movement.
The "angry ones" are long gone from Spanish streets, but they've evolved into many grass-roots associations now filling the gaps left by the eroding welfare state, spawning a new form of anti-austerity resistance that embraces all branches of society, from those who have lost homes to foreclosures, to the entire judiciary.
Hardly a day passes in Spain without a noisy demonstration by one sector of society or another. One day, it's doctors. With drums beating, thousands of white-clad health workers protest government plans to overhaul the country's highly respected public health system.
"What they want to do is privatize the hospital, and we are here to just say we don't want that to happen. We want that to stop because we think it has to be universal; everybody has to be able to go to hospital," says Olwen Leaman, a young oncologist at Madrid's Princesa hospital.
Enlarge Sylvia Poggioli/NPR
Last week in Madrid's Puerta Del Sol square, a professor teaches a lesson outdoors while students take notes, all as a means of protesting education cuts.