The Alonso Martínez metro stop appears on Génova Street in Madrid. Ana went up the stairs that March 13, 2004 without knowing very well what she was going to find. She had stayed with five colleagues from the group with whom they shared political and social activism after two days of desolation due to the 11-M attacks, of growing anger at knowing that the Government was lying about who was responsible, and with a general election next day. Ana, like thousands of people, had received the message that she was calling to go to the PP headquarters at six in the afternoon.
“Aznar de rosasitas? They call it a day of reflection and Urdaci working? Today 13-M at 6 p.m. PP Headquarters c/Génova 13. X the truth. No matches. Pass it on”. This was the initial SMS written by a student from the politics faculty of the Complutense University – who maintains anonymity – sent that morning to 17 people, which was forwarded and which ended with a concentration of thousands of people on Génova Street. Then they marched towards the Puerta del Sol. An initial SMS, but also other similar ones in a chain, which impacted the history of the country and the sign of the elections. The first viral message.
The text resonated in people’s heads, explains Ana, who is an architect. Activist groups, anonymous people who already knew that it had not been ETA, who wanted to express their discontent after the murder of 191 people, but the day of reflection restricted the movements. That call opened the door to confront what they considered a misinformation campaign on the streets.
From the networks, then understanding SMS and email, a movement began “from below” that demonstrated that citizens could organize themselves through these means outside of power, but that was based on a previous foundation of leftist movements. Guillermo López, professor of Journalism at the University of Valencia, points out that what happened on March 13, those large concentrations in Madrid, Barcelona and other Spanish cities, was not born out of nowhere but from this activism that had been brewing especially with the protests against the Iraq war, and also for the Prestige, where demonstrations were called between activist groups through SMS. It was not a movement induced by the parties, he points out, but it was politicized.
The 13-M, explains the professor, was a precursor to how the Internet later changed the way of mobilizing and obtaining information. He opened the possibility of people breaking into public space without it being planned. Guillermo López attended the protests that took place in Valencia. There were, he says, very diverse people. I’m sure there were also political party activists, but it was not a hierarchical movement. He himself had a weblog where he debated the attack, the authorship, the information that the Government gave and did not give. There was also a feedback of this movement formed from below with the information that the media was giving.
In 2004, political parties turned their backs on the Internet, although 25% of citizens already used this tool. Víctor Sampedro, professor of Political Communication at the Rey Juan Carlos University, has analyzed in the book 13M: Multitudes online, the impact of that day, described as the first event of a techno-political nature in Spain. The result seven years later, he says, was the success of 15-M, where the communication went from 1 1 of that day in 2004 with SMS, to 1 100 thanks to social networks.
But from that first moment in which communication was “counterhegemonic,” he points out, it moves from the periphery to the political system. From the use of networks initially from the social left until a few years ago also from the right and the ultra-right.
The first elections in Spain where communication on networks played a fundamental role were those of 2015, with the emergence of Pablo Iglesias and Podemos. In addition to television, professor Guillermo López recalls, Iglesias had made his way on social networks. But in a global view, he points out, 13-M was the only unregulated movement, from below. Even in 15-M there were important organized groups.
Ana left the subway at six in the afternoon. There weren’t many people yet, but Génova Street was filling up. This architect, who had participated above all in the V for Housing mobilizations – for decent housing – met with her colleagues. There was a need, she explains, to be physically present, to occupy public space. “As the street filled, an electrifying energy grew,” she recalls.
You cannot read that reaction of 13-M without paying attention to the communication policy of those two days of the Aznar Government. Gabriel Colomé, professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ??points out that that communication strategy that wanted to maintain the authorship of ETA “was enraging the citizens, and led the Executive to disaster.” A criterion from the “black and white” era was applied on public television when the international media were already targeting Al Qaeda.
It was also a mistake, he explains, that the Government opted for the Minister of the Interior (Ángel Acebes) as spokesperson, and therefore without a “fuse” to turn back informationally. A strategy that culminates, Colomé recalls, with Mariano Rajoy’s television appearance while the protests were taking place on Génova Street. An appearance in which he describes them as illegal and undemocratic in a gesture, says the professor, that legitimized them.
From March 11 to the 14th, 3 million voters moved. That written in an SMS “Aznar de rositas?” changed many things.