It's not a crisis, it's the system

"No es una crisis, es el sistema! - "It's not a crisis, it's the system" was the key message the indignados sent to their politicians as they returned in their tens of thousands to the centre of Madrid last weekend.

Hundreds had arrived after a month-long march from 50-odd towns and cities in every part of Spain, from Andalucia in the south, Valencia in the east, Extremadura in the west and Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia in the north.

The "pilgrims," from youngsters to pensioners, had brought with them stories they had heard on the way of the everyday difficulties faced by Spaniards, from families evicted from their homes to men and women losing their jobs.

They also brought the support and understanding of an ever-wider number of people about their movement of "angry ones" - and the hopes they had of creating a new social, economic and political order based on the needs of the people, not the banks.

Swelling the ranks in Madrid's Puerto Del Sol were thousands who had arrived on buses from the far corners of the country. And there were also hundreds of visiting indignados, from Greece, Italy, France, Portugal and elsewhere.

It was a long weekend of music, poetry, speeches, protests, popular assemblies and debates. Above all, two months after they exploded into plazas across Spain and onto our TV screens, it was a sign of the resilience of Spain's most novel radical political movement since the Popular Front in the 1930s.

When the encampments in the capital's central square were disbanded after a month-long occupation, and in the wake of a landslide victory for the right-wing People's Party in regional and municipal elections, many questioned what impact the May 15 movement would really have. Those questions still linger.

The Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero did not fall and has not abandoned its attacks on welfare, public services and working people's living standards.

Most recently it has raised the retirement age to 67 and by September changes will be brought in that will undermine national collective bargaining in favour of company-level agreements, as well as scrapping protections against cuts in working hours.

Meanwhile its main rival, Mariano Rajoy's People's Party, is cooking up a "shock plan" of "tough" anti-deficit measures should it win the November 20 general election, as polls predict it will.

But neither party have a solution to the economic crisis that began in 2007 with the bursting of a housing bubble fuelled by credit from Spanish and foreign banks.

The unemployment rate is now 22 per cent, with two in five young people out of work. Half a million businesses are bankrupt and the public finances are in a bad state.

Despite all the sacrifices squeezed out of ordinary Spaniards, Europe's fourth-biggest economy remains in the front line of the eurozone's sovereign debt disaster.

The borrowing costs for Italy and Spain are rising again. Spain's sovereign-debt rating has just been put on "negative review" by rating agency Moody's, meaning it could soon be downgraded.

Spaniards know that the politicians in Madrid don't have the solutions. Recent polls suggest there is a lack of confidence in the entire political class.

But support for the indignados, confirmed by polls and by an ever-lengthening queue of high-profile supporters - from Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz to veteran Communist leader Santiago Carrillo and filmmaker Pedro Almodovar - is as strong as ever.

Some point to what they see as signs that the politicians are responding, or at least that they want to be seen to be listening.

The government passed new legislation in June that limits the amount banks can claw back from people who default on their mortgage, as well a much-delayed freedom of information Bill.

Zapatero's annointed successor, former deputy PM and interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, has said that under his leadership the government would introduce a Robin Hood financial transaction tax and increase taxes on large corporations and the wealthy, as well as provide incentives for those who invest in Spain and Spanish jobs.

This has seen the Socialists start to eat away at the big lead of the People's Party.

However the indignados - disillusioned Socialists, former communists, angry People's Party supporters, but mostly people who have never engaged in politics or at least identified with any of the political parties - are unimpressed.

Instead they are working towards a political programme that they believe goes to the heart of Spain's deep-seated problems.

The means are novel, holding intensive discussions in open working groups improvised in town centres and other public places, where anybody can get engaged with a diverse range of themes, including politics, economics, culture, the environment and ethics.

These locally developed proposals, reached by consensus, are then brought to national assemblies, such as the one in Madrid's Retiro Park on Monday July 25.

On Europe, they want an end to the downward spiral caused by austerity and privatisation policies and instead are calling for a plan for growth and jobs through more public spending and a shorter working week.

They see no merit in endless sacrifices to prop up Europe's banks. The holes in Europe's socio-economic and political fabric are huge, and so they say that nothing but huge changes will do.

Overriding all else, though, are the demands for radical reforms to the political system that would break the hold of the two increasingly indistinguishable political parties that have dominated the country since the transition to democracy in the late 1970s.

The May 15 movement's analysis of and proposed solutions to Spain's problems are very close to the Communist-led United Left, the country's third national political force.

Frustratingly for leader Cayo Lara and his followers, United Left continues to languish at 4 to 6 per cent in the polls, a historic low.

And although it has sought to co-operate with and to lend support to the movement, for example by repeatedly bringing its demands before parliament, the indignados continue to make clear to them with the now familiar words for the whole political class: "You don't represent us."

This is in part because of United Left's long co-operation with the Socialists in local and occasionally national government.

What remains the most spectacular achievement of the May 15 movement is its ability to repeatedly mobilise people in huge numbers, something only trade unions have historically been able to do.

On June 19 between 200,000 and a million - depending on who you ask - took part in protests held in dozens of cities across Spain.

In Barcelona striking health workers joined with thousands of indignados under the slogan "Paremos Los Recortes" (Stop The Cuts).

The target was a key vote in the regional parliament where the governing right-wing Catalan nationalist party CiU, aided by the People's Party, has been particularly zealous in axing spending.

What has also distinguished the movement has been the use of non-violent direct action.

As well as its occupations of city squares, and numerous spontaneous traffic-stopping protests, it has organised the prevention of around 70 evictions across the country.

The next phase of mobilisation is a march to Brussels, to take a radical message to the heart of Europe, then a day of action in October.

After the Spanish spring expect a hot Spanish autumn.

For more of Tom Gill's writing visit revoltingeurope.wordpress.com

What's the big idea?

Among the proposals gaining wide acceptance among the indignados are:

- Converting the million unsold homes into public housing stock for rent

- A public bank to provide credit to struggling businesses and industries

- An end to the ongoing privatisation process of the Cajas, the publicly owned savings banks

- An end to evictions

- A clampdown on the banks' reckless mortgage lending

- A reversal of the fiscal reforms of the past 10-15 years to make income taxes more progressive and to increase taxation on companies

- A ban on Spanish companies establishing subsidiaries in tax havens