Pots, Pans & Democracy
My wife and I were making cookies in the kitchen when we heard a strange sound outside. It sounded a bit like construction but the time (around ten in the evening) indicated otherwise. Curious, I went out into the streets. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere and as I began to walk I noticed that there were people hanging from their balconies banging on anything they could find. I walked less than a block toward Chueca square, the center of my neighborhood and the sounds grew louder and louder. In the square and in many windows facing in on the square were people pounding on anything they could find: garbage cans, sheets of metal, bottles, pots, and pans.
It seems that this was for some a response to the television address that Mariano Rajoy, the Popular Party's presidential candidate, gave this evening regarding the ongoing protests outside their party headquarters. For others it was simply "sonidos contra terrorismo." Whatever the meaning the Spaniards continue to amaze me with their sudden and unified responses to the events passing around them.
Robert
http://robertjosiah.net
It is hard to imagine American's doing that isn't it? Every now and then you see a large group hailing the flag as one, but something I noticed living in Portugal - and traveling in Spain, Italy, and France was the sudden and abrupt way in which people that were essentially strangers to one another could react to something together. In Germany and Britain - I didn't see that. And I certainly found it the most obvious on the Iberian Peninsula. Maybe it's just a bad observation informed by tourism - but I don't think it is, and I don't know quite why it happens. It seems the Spanish and Portuguese people are more willing to share something with someone with a basic commonality.
20 April
Tuesday