The Village Against the World (24 page)

It had only been a brief outing, and once he’d shown his face, he was gone again. Little changed throughout the spring; he was absent during the
semana cultural
in Easter week, absent from sports and cultural events, and absent from general assemblies and council meetings. The work of the mayor continued to be carried out by his fellow councillors, who waited and hoped for the pall to pass. The bond of trust and solidarity – and ultimately, silence – around the
pueblo
held firm; none of the Spanish right-wing commentators who had been baying for his blood the
previous August had even noticed the miniature crisis in Marinaleda. At the very least, Sánchez Gordillo’s illness hastened the urgency of questions the village had been ignoring for years: what would happen when their talisman, their leader and comrade, was gone? Could Gordillismo survive without Gordillo, or was he the magic potion that powered the
pueblo
?

The Asterix analogy is actually less glib than it sounds: the village of Marinaleda
is
an implausible, tiny exception to the rule of a seemingly impregnable empire – a liberated space, a labourers’ island in a sea of
latifundios
. Unlike Asterix’s Gaulish village, however, Marinaleda carries a paradox at its very heart: it is founded on a powerful leadership cult around one truly remarkable individual, but its politics are, above all, the primacy of people power. These politics are sincerely felt, and almost always sincerely executed. Everyone is equal, and everyone fights together, on behalf of everyone; but the
marinaleños
do so most passionately, and most successfully, when Sánchez Gordillo is holding the megaphone.

This is perhaps closer to the continuum of nineteenth-century Andalusian anarchism than it first appears. In the information age, using the mass media in the way Sánchez Gordillo has done is an appropriate and necessary form of ‘propaganda of the deed’. The deed itself is integral, whether a hunger strike, an occupation or a raid – but the way it is received is, too. In response to the August supermarket raids, many Spaniards said they thought his
methods crude, but far fewer disagreed with his message. Because, for all the mainstream media’s flaws, systemic and individual, the question remains: why is it that they fixated on him? Why do Sánchez Gordillo’s headline-grabbing actions
work?
In part, perhaps, because he’s a charismatic, polarising character; but mostly because people want to hear what he has to say. The megaphone may be shrill, but the words coming out of it have always chimed with the public – all the more so because nobody else in Spanish politics was daring to say them.

Sánchez Gordillo has delivered many fine and memorable epigrams over the years, some of which I have heard in person, in private discussion, or from a platform, and others in speeches or in articles in days of struggle gone by. There are more elegant and profound quotations, but it is this one that sticks with me: ‘Because we fight together, because we make our lives together, there is a high degree of good neighbourliness. When we plant trees, we do that together too.’ It is this kind of communism that is Marinaleda’s triumph – an almost ineffable sense of solidarity.

No one ever forgets ‘that strange and moving experience’ of believing in a revolution, George Orwell reflected, after arriving in Republican Barcelona on the brink of civil war, a society fizzing with energy as it fleetingly experienced living communism. Marinaleda is neither fully communist nor fully a utopia: but take a step outside the
pueblo
and into contemporary Spain, and you will see a society pummelled, impoverished and atomised, pulled
into death and destruction by an economic system and a political class who do not care, and have never cared, whether the poor live or die. Sánchez Gordillo’s achievements are more than just the concrete gains of land, housing, sustenance and culture, phenomenal though they are: being there is a strange and moving experience, and, as Orwell suggested, an unforgettable one.

In the eight or so years I have known about Marinaleda, I have sometimes had to remind myself of the gap between the grandiose claims made about the village, by left and right alike, and the humble size and intimacy of the place itself. It is a village which means so much to so many people, across the world; but it has only 2,700 inhabitants, and whole hours can pass where the greatest noise and excitement emanates from a motorcycle speeding down Avenida de la Libertad, or the vocal exercises of a particularly enervated rooster.

It is both poignant and appropriate that Sánchez Gordillo seems to see no bathos, or discrepancy, in devoting as much attention and passion to the local specifics of the
pueblo –
the need to start planting artichokes this month, not pimentos – as he does to the big picture, persuading the world that only an end to capitalism will restore dignity to the lives of billions.

The big hitters of the Spanish mainstream press might not have noticed that Sánchez Gordillo was unwell, but the steady stream of left-wing enthusiasts visiting the village
were finding out upon arrival. At a table outside Bar Gervasio I watched Sergio, the smart young councillor with the black stubble and the black jeans, unblinkingly try to explain to Uzma, the British documentary-maker, that it was ‘normal in political life to be away sometimes’. I don’t know where he is, and he’s ill, Sergio explained; ‘I’m not connected with him.’

‘
Hombre
, you’re famous!’ shouted one of Sergio’s young friends as he walked past us. Sergio looked sort of proud and embarrassed at the same time. In his mid-twenties, he’s by far the youngest councillor in the village, though only a decade younger than the new leader of IU, Alberto Garzón – a man identified more with the
indignados
than with established party politics. The future political direction of this generation, who not only do not remember fascism, but were not yet born when Franco died, is going to be critical to Spain’s future – not least because they are the ones weathering the jaw-dropping 57 per cent rate of youth unemployment and awkwardly squeezing back into corners of their parents’ homes.

Sergio recalled his mother telling him they were on strike when he was three years old. He did not, he laughed, know what it meant, but remembered noticing even then that something in the routine of his young life was different. ‘By the time I was twelve or thirteen, I was conscious about the situation in the village, and how it was different from other villages, from talking to my sister and my
mother, and going on my first demonstrations. I remember so many demonstrations, so many. The big one was when I was eighteen, going to Seville, and being in the big city, in front of the parliament of Andalusia. Seeing power for the first time was a revelation. I realised politics must be more than just passively choosing between two identical parties.’

His scepticism about all mainstream politics is that of an ever-growing majority in Spain. ‘A pox on all their houses’ has become more than just an offhand expression of apathy, so common in Western capitalist countries: it is an increasingly fervently held wish, as contempt is transformed into anger. For Sergio, the most important issue facing Marinaleda during the crisis was, in a sense, the same as it ever was: trying to persuade the central authority that work, shelter, culture, and life without undue interference – whether you call that freedom or autonomy – were all basic human rights.

‘Marinaleda has been important twice in its hundreds of years of history. The first time was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when we had the Transition, and that was a crisis really, a crisis of democracy, trying to find a way out of the fascist state, a way out of dictatorship. Right now, this is Marinaleda’s second moment. Look at the rest of Spain. During the better economic times, people weren’t watching us. Now they are all coming here. It’s an economic crisis, a political crisis, a crisis of corruption – it’s a systemic crisis.’

‘Are you optimistic about the village?’ I asked, alluding to the situation with the
peonadas
, and the collapse in funding they were getting from Seville.

‘The situation with work is critical right now,’ he agreed. ‘It’s complicated, with the
peonadas
, but critical. But of course I’m optimistic. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be working on this project. It’s a real alternative to the crisis, and I believe the rest of the capitalist world can be different, too. I’m aware that Marinaleda has advantages and disadvantages, but we can be an example.’

He cited their achievements again, with the same matter-of-fact confidence that Sánchez Gordillo always displays when talking about seizing the land, building houses, and reclaiming culture for the people. Are your fellow villagers optimistic too? I asked.

‘Yes, of course. They know the situation is critical. In the past Marinaleda received a lot of benefits from Seville to help create jobs, and now they are being taken away, because of the crisis of capitalism. But the
pueblo
, they know we fought – we all fought – for our needs and rights before, and it’s necessary to do so again.’

It’s not quite back to square one, back to 1980, but I was starting to see Sergio’s rationale. This was Marinaleda’s second great crisis-opportunity. You have a big burden, I said, you’re making a big promise, if you think you can sustain the utopia in this context. He laughed – at me, this time.

‘Are you serious? We’ve been fighting for thirty years, and we promised all this, back then. Look at what the
village was like thirty years ago, and look what it has become through struggle.’

He stopped short of saying, ‘Ha, your feeble crisis of capitalism is nothing,’ but I got the feeling he wanted to. The odds stacked against them in 1975, when Franco died, were certainly far, far greater, and this brazen revolutionary confidence is going to be essential to the village’s future.

We ordered another round of drinks, and Uzma pestered Sergio some more about when she might be able to meet Sánchez Gordillo; he buffered and stalled, perhaps a little weary of his role as gatekeeper, especially since his instructions were clearly to keep the gate firmly shut. I tried to swerve the conversation away from the mayor.

For my book, Sánchez Gordillo is not everything, I said to him. I’m more interested in the people, the
pueblo
, as a collective, and what they have achieved – not just the one man.

‘Okay,’ he said, gravely, ‘but you’ve got to understand who we’re talking about here. Quite simply, everything Marinaleda has won is thanks to Sánchez Gordillo. That is evident. Everything we have made, it’s thanks to him.’

It felt almost like I was getting told off for having the temerity to shift the credit for their victories from the leader to his followers – for daring to underestimate his influence. ‘But one day,’ I started, ‘well, the day will have to come when he …’ Sergio cut me off.

‘When he’s no longer leader, in the future, the project
will continue. The project is still the same, to create a utopia, and that will continue.’

He stopped.

‘But the day has not come yet.’

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my parents, Helen and Rod, for advice and support beyond the call of duty, to my sister Sally across the other side of the world and to my wonderful friends for putting up with me while I was writing this.

Thanks to Dave Stelfox for photographs and solidarity in the form of hot cheese; to Steve Bloomfield, Tan Copsey, Paul Fleckney, Cat O’Shea and all previous and honorary members of the Republic of Florence for their patience and good humour (you’re an acknowledgement); to Daniel Trilling for his ever-wise counsel; to Anthony Barnett, Alice Bell, Melissa Bradshaw, Heleina Burton, Joe Caluori, Ally Carnwath, Adrian Cornell du Houx, Valeria Costa-Kostritsky, Anna Fielding, Sam Geall, Rosa Gilbert, Paul Gilroy, Alex Hoban, Tom Humberstone, Jamie Mackay, Alex Macpherson, Phil Oltermann, Jen Paton, Laurie Penny, Kirsty Simmonds, Alex Sushon, Kanishk Tharoor, Vron Ware, Bella Waugh, Nick Wilson and Chris Wood for listening to me witter on; to my editor Leo Hollis at Verso, as well as Federico Campagna, Huw Lemmey, Mark
Martin, Lorna Scott Fox, Sarah Shin, Rowan Wilson, and my agent Sophie Lambert at Conville and Walsh. Shouts also to the people keeping my brain switched on in London, in particular everyone at openDemocracy, the Deterritorial Support Group and Novara Media.

I’m forever grateful to everyone who talked to me across Spain in the last few years – and especially to all the people who bought me beer, took me on marches, gave me lifts, talked politics with me, and made me lentils and chorizo. Thanks in particular to Marcel and Karine at Can Serrat in El Bruc, Ian Mackinnon in Madrid, Carlos Delclós, the Artefakte gang, Jaime Casas and Tom Clarke in Barcelona, Juanjo Alcalde, Emma Herrera Ortiz and Paulette Soltani in Sevilla, Javi Rivero and his family in Estepa, and Chris and Ali Burke, Antonio Porquera Tejada and Cristina Martín Saavedra in the village.

Thanks above all to the people of Marinaleda.