On January 10, 2014 in the Spanish city of Burgos, the local government and a cabal of real estate developers were pushing ahead with a project to gentrify a working class neighborhood by constructing a fancy new boulevard. The neighbors of Gamonal held a protest and the police attacked, sparking four consecutive nights of rioting in which people destroyed banks and construction equipment, and fought with police.
Afterwards, they continued holding protests demanding the unconditional release of those arrested, and they organized blockades to prevent construction. The mayor initially announced that the project would continue unabated. Solidarity protests were organized in dozens of other cities across the country, leading to riots/clashes in Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, and the colony of Melilla. In Barcelona, multiple banks were smashed, Town Hall was attacked, and a central police station was attacked, forcing police to temporarily retreat. The gentrification project was subsequently cancelled.
You can read more about how this played out in our book The Failure of Nonviolence by Peter Gelderloos.
The Failure of Nonviolence by Peter Gelderloos
In the years since the end of the Cold War many new social movements have started peacefully, only to adopt a diversity of tactics as they grew in strength and collective experiences.Detritus Books
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