Lately there have been many demonstrations here in Spain. The first one, which is the only one I attended, was in Las Bardenas Reales, a protected desertic area, except for a part of it, which is used by the military to test their bombs and weapons. So, yeah, the parade was against the military use of that area, with a great lunch after the parade in the countryside. Will post the photos I have of that soon. 1.000 persons showed up.
Then, there was a demonstration in Madrid, organized by catholic organizations, to protest against the homosexual marriages, which have been allowed as of today in Spain, with the only opposition of the right-wing parties. They were protesting because “homosexual marriages will destroy the families”, whatever that means. 180.000 people, from what the authorities said, showed up.
Then, last weekend, there was a demonstration against poverty in the world, to ask polititians to do everything on their hands to make poverty history. So, as ignorant as I am, I was expecting all the people in the previous demonstration, plus many more that have nothing against homosexual’s rights, show up on this one. But heh, only 50.000 people showed up, so it means, provided that all those 50.000 were in the previous one, there are still 130.000 “familiy-protective” persons in Spain that don’t want homosexuals to be married and form their own legal families, but have nothing against poverty, which indeed destroys many more families than any other thing 🙁
Curious country we live on. Fortunately next week there is San Fermín, which will help in forgetting about all this 🙂
curious country? you should live for a while in Italy… my country is a curious (well, crappy is a better word) country
Western governments have been trying to make poverty history for years. And still are. What is the point in protesting over that? How about solving AIDs or doing something productive. You can’t make poverty history by going on a march, wearing a bracelet or going to a gig in Scotland. It’s insulting to those in Africa to suggest that awareness in other continents was only ever the problem.
Hum, I just don’t get why going to San Fermin to give a bad time to the poor bulls will help you forget about everything… why should you forget it, to begin with? Why not give the money you’ll spend going there to the poor? And the time you’ll spend to community services, instead?
Why does this make you better to those that didn’t go to the demonstration against poverty?
Really a curious world we live in 🙂
It doesn’t make me better, since I didn’t go to the march against poverty, as I said at the top of the blog entry.
And yeah, I’m also against killing the bulls in the arena, which has nothing to do with the running of the bulls, where no bulls are killed. They run in the morning, and in the evening, there is a “corrida” where they are killed, so yeah, the corrida should disappear. But San Fermín is not only that, is a 9 day/24 hour a day festival.