They came to Madrid from every corner of the country.  Some walked for a month.

“We want work. We can’t accept that millions of unemployed people must go home to live with their parents,’’ said Jorge Balbas, an unemployed man of 24 from Burgos in northern Spain.

The march for dignity was a big one. It was another in an endless stream of strikes, protests, marches, bank sit-ins, and even suicides in Spain.

This march culminated in Madrid last weekend with tens (hundreds?) of thousands coming to the capital to vent.  They were met by 1700 police.  The story seemed to get lost in the news about Ukraine and MH370 and other stuff.  But it’s a really important, systemic news story: one that could yet play out in other countries (China perhaps?)

Inevitably, violence erupted. 101 were injured. Many were arrested.

For two or three years now nothing much has changed in Spain. Officially, unemployment remains stuck at a monster 26%. For young people its about twice that rate. The economy is now said to be growing, but at an anemic 0.1% in Q3 2013 and 0.2% in Q4 2013. That’s well inside the range of statistical error and not even enough to turn around growth per person if it is correct: per capita incomes are still falling. Officially, the economy has contracted around 8% since 2008: on the ground and in reality it probably feels a lot more than that.

This all started with one of the greatest of all housing bubbles pumped up by cheap debt and greed. It blew up and up. And then it popped in 2008. Only a $55 billion EU rescue saved the Spanish banking system from complete collapse. But of course, like all rescues, it was only just barely enough to save the skin of the bankers. Nothing has been done to restore the economy and the financial system to health. That requires the removal of toxic debt. It requires bankers to get their just deserts.

Instead the austerity package imposed by the government of Prime Minister Rajoy was considered vital to bringing Spain’s huge debts under control and restoring confidence in its shattered banking system. But spending cuts of 150 billion euros have done nothing to dent Spain’s record levels of unemployment and prolonged recession.

The economy is a in a funk. But more importantly it is in a social crisis. Housing and jobs: it’s as fundamental as that.

About 6,000,000 are unemployed.

Over 350,000 families have reportedly been evicted since the housing bust in 2008. That would be well above 1,000,000 people.

“It is a real social emergency,” says Gerardo Pisarello a Barcelona based law professor and mortgage expert. “Spain has one of the worst housing policies in Europe.”

Unlike Germany, he says, there is no rent control to govern the private market and only 2% of housing is social housing – state subsidised homes for low-income families. This compares with about 20 or 30% in the Netherlands, Scandinavia, France and the UK.

Spain also has some of the toughest mortgage laws. People must continue to pay off their mortgages, complete with interest and penalty charges, even after they have been evicted and their home – whose value is appraised by the bank itself – has been repossessed. Since mortgage defaulters are disqualified from filing for bankruptcy, many are saddled with debts they can never escape.

Carmen Carmona and her lawyer stand in her home in Madrid, as the police enter and take down the identifications of the media before carrying out her eviction … Just ponder being Carmen.

The people are angry at paying the price for what they see as the corrupt collusion of Spanish politicians and regional banks that helped trigger the crisis …

… and they are getting angrier.

So where’s the way forward?  Who knows, but …

… history tells us that catastrophes this bad frequently lead to revolution. A complete stripping of the old to replace it with something new. Sometimes peaceful, sometimes extremely violent, they lead to big change, as in Spain it must. But as we have seen with Egypt in the last few years, this road can be very bumpy indeed.

Incumbent politicians rarely have the will or the courage to lead the people through this sort of turning. Spain’s current Government leaders (like most in Europe) look more like Nero than, say Washington or Lincoln (but then look what bloodshed those two oversaw to deliver their new future!)

How on earth will Spain create a million jobs any time soon, let alone five million?

It will be a long hard road …