Let’s hope the revolution spreads to all of Europe

IT was very encouraging to see on television the uprising of tens of thousands of people in Spain, most of whom seem to be young people.

They are protesting about unemployment and about the austerity programme being forced upon them. But there appears to be more.

Apparently they want a more democratic society and a more democratic EU.

The latter is most important because, since the Maastricht Treaty, a neoliberal document, according to Professor David Harvey, the EU has become a free-market worshipping entity whose bureaucratic elite apparently does not believe in democracy — witness the unelected president and the lobbying to prevent citizens having a vote on the Lisbon Treaty.

What struck me most about this uprising was to hear one of the young people say, when a group was asked what the protest was about, that it was about ”creating a better world”.

Unemployment and austerity for working-class people, whilst elites lived the high life, sparked uprisings in North Africa. Now a similar thing is happening in Spain for similar reasons.

There is definitely a smell of revolution in the air. How the wealthy elites and their bureaucrat lackeys must be trembling.

Hopefully the uprising in Spain will spread to Portugal, Greece and to Ireland.

Indeed to the whole of Europe.

If it does it might provide the opportunity to create a Europe that is much more democratic, fairer, and determined to achieve a much more equal distribution of wealth.

Long live the revolution.

Brian Abbott

Bishopstown Road

Cork