Great demonstration ‘The rural world awakes’ in Madrid. /
Tens of thousands of farmers, ranchers, irrigators, fishermen, hunters and people from the world of the bull participate in the Madrid march
It was a cry for help in an unprecedented demonstration. Tens of thousands of people – more than 100,000, according to the first estimates of the Delegation and 400,000 according to the organizers – flooded the center of Madrid this Sunday in what was the largest rural protest in the history of Spain. A tide of the most eclectic people. People from a very varied social class but with a common denominator: their pride in being from the countryside. That crowd mobilized by the platform ’20Mrural’ took the heart of the capital of Spain to demand help from the public authorities and citizens – not “charity” or “alms” – to be able to continue with their way of life. It was a noisy march, but not a festive one, because anxiety over a more than uncertain future took over everything.
The cries against the Government, which were many, were also mixed with desperate requests. An “SOS” to not let the rural world “die”, “asphyxiated” for years in some cases, and months in others, due to the increase in the cost of fuel, electricity, raw materials and the drought . Also in recent weeks and days due to the increase in cereal prices for the animals due to the invasion of Ukraine and the carriers’ strike, which prevents the production of the rural world from being brought to the markets.
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The objective of the organizers of achieving a massive and transversal protest was amply achieved. Few demonstrations in Spain have elicited the response of as many groups as those that were seen this Sunday on the asphalt of Paseo de la Castellana: farmers, ranchers, irrigators, fishermen, hunters, people from the world of bullfighting, small rural tourism entrepreneurs, beekeepers …
Different professions and different origins, because this Sunday in the main artery of Madrid it was impossible not to find the flag of an autonomous community, although the national flags and the banners of the giant unions of the field, COAG, ASAJA and UPA, predominated.
Aboard 45 tractors, various carts, donkeys or on horseback, surrounded by chickens, cows or sheep and behind the slogan ‘The Rural World Wakes Up’ the slogans, shouts and banners were as varied as the groups that participated in this historic march . Although the ’20Mrural’ platform insisted on its apolitical nature, the truth is that the presence of well-known faces from the opposition was visible, such as the ‘popular’ Cuca Gamarra, Fernando López Miras or Esteban González Pons; the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal (who returns to the streets after the concentration of his party on Saturday in Madrid to protest the high prices); or Edmundo Bal, from Ciudadanos.
‘orange tide’
Criticism and attacks on the Government were also seen and heard everywhere. «Sánchez traitor», «Government of wolves, town of Borregos», «outside the ministers who attack the countryside», «Podemita and living room ecologist, come and live in the town as I live»… Particularly harsh with the socialist Executive They were mostly hunters. The ‘orange tide’, the color chosen by the hunting group, had between “eyebrows” the ‘Animal Welfare Law’ and “restrictions on the world of hunting”, which “threaten to end thousands of posts forever of work in a rural environment that is already in a coma. The voices against the parties that support the prohibition of wolf hunting were also loud, almost as much as that of the professionals who live off the fighting bull, who did not spare the two parties of the central Executive either.
But beyond more or less political claims, the messages were desperate cries from people who do not see a way to save their way of life if things, laws and the way of looking at rural economies do not change. «Cattle ranchers against the ropes», «They are starving us», «In defense of the olive grove and its partners», «I am a rural world and I am bullfighting», «The survival of the countryside belongs to everyone»… A skeleton on the that hung a poster with the legend «Spanish farmer, SOS» and an obituary announcing the «Death of Mr. Mundo Rural after 10,000 years of life», graphically summarized the restlessness that was breathed.
Attention calls from some workers who also made it clear in the big city that they do not want urbanites to give them anything because, as one of the most recurrent banners recalled, «If the countryside dies, the city does not eat». “We want solutions, not subsidies” or “For a rural world alive and without handouts”, were other posters and slogans that were seen and heard throughout the tour. Those little more than 4 kilometers that separate the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V, in front of the Ministry of Agriculture in Atocha, to the Fuente de San Juan de la Cruz, at the gates of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, were full of color, but the atmosphere It was not festive at any time. The anxiety of the protesters, like the leaden sky that Madrid wore this Sunday, prevailed over the drumming and the constant noise of the cowbells that accompanied the march from the beginning.