My Cana­dian friend Alex asked me about them, so I wrote this reply:   Alex: Out of curio­sity, what are your thoughts on the riots/protests in Spain? Do you iden­tify with them? Have you ever been a part of any demons­tra­tions (at any point, not just recently)? Fran: I’ve been to seve­ral, 15M the last one. I remem­ber still the huge demos­tra­tions against joi­ning the Iraq war and after the Madrid bom­bings. Pro­tests are actua­lly fre­quent, but often very poli­ti­zed or very union-centric. Valen­cia is a con­ser­va­tive city which is often seen as very cola­bo­ra­tive and sub­ser­vient of the cen­tral goverment, […]

1. The day of the mag­ni­fi­cent rally, a man that con­si­de­red him­self Anony­mous was quite ent­hu­sias­tic about having been cho­sen from the crowd to give an impro­vi­sed speech. It wasn’t pro­ba­bly the most ins­pi­red moment of the event but, nonet­he­less, it see­med to fit appro­pia­tely with the spon­ta­neus cha­rac­ter of a group that would resist defi­ning itself as such. In retros­pect, though, the man was going to regret enjo­ying that brief taste of sin­gu­la­rity. For, not being very aware of the dif­fe­rence bet­ween free­dom and anony­mity, by the end of that day he had already asso­cia­ted his face­less side with the […]