Spain is back.

(originally published in Major Card)

Back to Spain, when Spain is back. Gone are the sad times of a country crushed by the austerity policies imposed by the PSOE and deepened by the PP. Gone is the situation of a defenseless people facing a bipartisan consensus that drove the Troika's policies into the depths of the country.

From indignation to a struggle for hegemony in a country with a long and beautiful leftist history, but which at the same time also suffered very hard blows. Among them, the transition from the resistance of the socialists to NATO to their accession to NATO. The same resistance of the Zapatero government to adhering to the austerity policy and the shameful accession, to which Obama even declared that he had called Zapatero the day before, as if confessing that it was the last word of pressure, that the PSOE government yielded to.

Until not long ago, the news coming from Spain was bad or terrible. It ranged from the immoral level of unemployment, including the scandalous figure of youth unemployment, to the exclusion of basic rights, especially for the most vulnerable, including the vast majority of immigrants who had built with their own hands the economic boom – largely in the construction sector – of the period immediately preceding the current recession.

The social situation has not improved, even though the government claims that, statistically, the worst of the recession is already behind us. The face of the social crisis is always visible on the streets: young and old begging, garbage cans serving as a source of something useful for many people in the heart of large cities, closed businesses, and many people wandering the streets and squares with nothing to do.

But this time, an immense crisis of political representation has surfaced, and the traditional parties, responsible for the crisis, are rapidly weakening. What other left-wing forces had failed to achieve, Podemos is now achieving: building its own left-wing force, an alternative to the PP and the PSOE.

Panic has gripped these parties and the mainstream media. A barrage of personal accusations has begun, with attempts to discredit Podemos in every possible way, denunciations of "Bolivarianism," "populism," and regression, all coinciding with the loss of support for their parties. They are trying to stem the losses by generating high levels of rejection of Podemos among conservative sectors, attempting to contain the hemorrhage within their parties. This is the panic of this year's elections, where the two traditional parties, which comfortably occupied the political spectrum through rotation, could be radically displaced.

While the protests were ongoing, they even found a certain humor, a certain frivolity, in the mobilizations. But now they see this intruder from Podemos challenging them for control of the country, and together they are firing all their ammunition at the new political force.

The new Syriza and Podemos parties face the challenge of forging new paths in the anti-neoliberal struggle in Europe. They confront the challenges sung about by Pablo Milanés in "Los caminos" (The Camino):

"The paths we found
They are the dreams of new destinations.
Let's not cross these roads
Because they are only dead roads."

In any case, the future of Spain and the Spanish left today depends on Podemos. Just as the fate of Greece and the Greek left today depends on Syriza. And, probably, the destinies of Europe and the European left today depend on Syriza and Podemos.