Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I’m from Madrid ,
Spain US , I thought that it would be
appropriate to spend some time working with the people here.
The 15M, which is the parallel social movement in Spain , which is
named after the day that it started, the 15th of May 2011,
definitely inspired and sparked Occupy Wall Street in its preparation and all
the general assemblies that led to the occupation of Wall Street. There were a
certain number of Spaniards that had participated actively over a few months in
Spain
to teach how we had learned to do things and how we worked. It hasn’t been a surprise to come here and see that the similarities are enormous in both the spirit and the way that things are done .
There was this big protest on the 15th of May. It was reasonably big by Spanish standards, about 100,000 to
200,000 people in Madrid .
It was a protest that went under the motto of Real Democracy Now, which was the name of the citizen horizontal
based platform that demanded a more participatory democracy in order to force
politics and economy to serve citizen society rather than the markets and the
corporations. A few hard core activists decided that night that after the
protest they hadn’t quite had enough, that they wanted to do more about it. It
wasn’t enough for them to just go and be protesting on the streets, so they
decided to go and spend the night in La Puerta del Sol, which is the central
square in Madrid .
The police evicted them that night. In solidarity the next day, instead of
15 people, there were about 100, and they were evicted again. In further
solidarity the next day, there were a few thousand, and the police could do
nothing. Over the course of a few days, a whole city was created out of
nothing. It was extremely spontaneous. No one had ever thought about it. It was
very different from Occupy Wall Street, where there was a lot of preparation.
In Spain, 15 people decided to stay one night and were sleeping on cardboard boxes,
and by the end of the week, there were a couple kitchens installed. There were
all kinds of tents and tarps and strings pulled over light posts. The city was
growing, demanding real democracy now, demanding that economics and
politics serve the people. It had the same special character of a very
politicalized action, party free, banner free and logo free, just letting aside
all ideologies and dogmas and instead concentrating on human
dignity. By the end of the week, camps had strung up in squares in cities all
over Spain , similar to the
way it happened later in the US .
In the camps of the 15M, we took the squares of the whole country demanding
social change and revolution. It was all based on an assembly process. We
developed the process of consensus by facilitation that is now used all over Spain and all over the United
States and in other places. A lot of the spirit of the quest for horizontal decision making, the quest for
inclusiveness, the quest for solidarity, were some of the values that were
agreed upon from the very start. After a few weeks, we understood that the camp
had served a purpose, which was to get us organized, to get us together and to
get us on a path, but that it wasn't a purpose in itself. It was only a tool, so
the time had come to leave.
What we did was we set-up an assembly in each of
the neighborhoods of the city and each of the towns that surrounded it. This
was done in some other provinces, though not in all of them. In Madrid, there
are up to the moment 60 or 70 local general assemblies, in which the neighbors
get together and work and talk politics and do projects, take direct action, get together to stop evictions by confronting the police directly, and try
to improve the conditions of the streets, try to make politics
through direct actions by making decisions collectively in an extremely
democratic process of consensus. There was an overlap, which enabled these
local neighborhood assemblies to establish themselves in the sense of the
organization that was very strongly held in La Puerta del Sol, where thousands
of people slept each night. The assemblies in neighborhoods were set-up while
this was still there, so in a couple of weeks, the power shifted over. It
wasn't something that was sudden. That allowed it to retain a lot of
organization and work.
Up to this day, the movement has worked through the
still persisting general assembly of Sol, which meets every Sunday, a coordinating assembly of all the local
neighborhood assemblies that meet on Saturday, and locally through each
neighborhood on whatever day each neighborhood decides to meet. Each neighborhood
has it a different time and day. That’s how, more or less, the movement is
still active throughout the whole country. It has interacted with other forms
of protest, helping the union workers, getting involved in education matters,
etc. But it retains its independence as a party-free, union-free movement. It
strives for horizontal leadership, while interacting with the rest of social protests.
I have grown up with a deep disgust for the world I live in.
I think that it doesn’t take too much to understand, independently of your
political ideologies, that the world is, to put it quite plainly, a pretty
fucked up place. There is much that is wrong. To start with, we are living
under dictatorships. Without getting into whether this is for the worst or the
better, the fact is that, at least all of the countries that I have
been in, I have never had the feeling that the people really had a direct
influence on the decisions of their government. It’s pretty much the same all
over the world but focused on different levels. Some eastern countries, there
are official dictatorships where the power is at the disposal of a single man or a
dynasty or a family, whereas with the western cultures, the power is actually
within a few corporations and a few businessmen and a few owners. In both
cases, the power doesn’t come from people making the decisions but rather according
to the personal interests of the minority. The difference is that some
countries are more open about being themselves a dictatorship, whereas western
countries pretend to be democracies. That’s perhaps the biggest hypocrisy of
all.
One could argue that if a dictatorship actually works for the good of the people and actually is affective in bringing wealth and prosperity and equality to the country, even though, on a philosophical level the distribution of power is not justified, it might not be all that bad for the people. However, in our case, I think it is clear that it is bad for the people and for the planet, for that matter, if we want to get into environmental issues and into why the economic system and dogmas of overproducing and of over consuming, exploiting the planet’s resources on a level that is not sustainable in the long term. Once again, I don’t think that would be any justification. One could even try to argue that, “Okay, we’re destroying the planet, but at least it’s because we are trying to get the best living conditions we can for all of humanity, but even that is again false since we are seeing that there is a tendency in capitalism to get the most profit out of the least benefits for the worker.
We have to admit that maybe traditional political movements may have been wrong. Marx predicted that capitalism would drive workers into slavery and worse and worse conditions each time. He was proven wrong. Capitalism has actually been smarter and has been able to give workers the sufficient leisure and the sufficient good conditions of life as to keep them, more or less, silent and satisfied. That was perhaps their greatest victory, their being able to make everyone, more or less, happy, or at least happy enough in order to not disrupt the system, but certainly things are getting worse. In my understanding, social services, basic needs, even human rights, such as education, housing or health are not being provided for society, and while a huge amount of money are being put on to commodities or to luxuries or to things in general that don’t seek the basic necessities and the basic wellbeing of society, whereas basic needs are just being discredited because they don’t give that much profit to the people who want to profit off of the economy.
I think that it is important because all of these things that are wrong on the planet need to be solved. They need to be solved if we want to keep a healthy world to live in, and they need to be solved if we want to improve the conditions of life and the social justice that should exist in our society. It is important that we become aware of these problems. It is important that we shout out that these problems exist, and most importantly, and it is perhaps here that we have more work to do, it is important that we come up with solutions or alternatives to try to solve these problems on a short, medium or long term scale, depending on the problem.
One could argue that if a dictatorship actually works for the good of the people and actually is affective in bringing wealth and prosperity and equality to the country, even though, on a philosophical level the distribution of power is not justified, it might not be all that bad for the people. However, in our case, I think it is clear that it is bad for the people and for the planet, for that matter, if we want to get into environmental issues and into why the economic system and dogmas of overproducing and of over consuming, exploiting the planet’s resources on a level that is not sustainable in the long term. Once again, I don’t think that would be any justification. One could even try to argue that, “Okay, we’re destroying the planet, but at least it’s because we are trying to get the best living conditions we can for all of humanity, but even that is again false since we are seeing that there is a tendency in capitalism to get the most profit out of the least benefits for the worker.
We have to admit that maybe traditional political movements may have been wrong. Marx predicted that capitalism would drive workers into slavery and worse and worse conditions each time. He was proven wrong. Capitalism has actually been smarter and has been able to give workers the sufficient leisure and the sufficient good conditions of life as to keep them, more or less, silent and satisfied. That was perhaps their greatest victory, their being able to make everyone, more or less, happy, or at least happy enough in order to not disrupt the system, but certainly things are getting worse. In my understanding, social services, basic needs, even human rights, such as education, housing or health are not being provided for society, and while a huge amount of money are being put on to commodities or to luxuries or to things in general that don’t seek the basic necessities and the basic wellbeing of society, whereas basic needs are just being discredited because they don’t give that much profit to the people who want to profit off of the economy.
I think that it is important because all of these things that are wrong on the planet need to be solved. They need to be solved if we want to keep a healthy world to live in, and they need to be solved if we want to improve the conditions of life and the social justice that should exist in our society. It is important that we become aware of these problems. It is important that we shout out that these problems exist, and most importantly, and it is perhaps here that we have more work to do, it is important that we come up with solutions or alternatives to try to solve these problems on a short, medium or long term scale, depending on the problem.
In terms of administration, I believe in a system of direct
democracy, of very participative democracy, but working on a very
representative basis. That is to say, I think that even local gatherings of
neighbors within a few blocks should have assemblies where people can get
together and discuss collectively their own problems and decide democratically
how to solve them, but I think stepping up, there should be a direct election
of representatives that start to, at least, have responsibilities for taking
these voices to upper circles of the administration of society. I'd like to see a form of
direct democracy in which there are no parties, no banners or logos, where people elect these human
beings not because of their moral prejudices or because of their religion or
whatever, but because they think they are going to be the person who most
adequately will fulfill their job.
I must admit that I don’t have a very clear, precise system in mind, but let us just say that I do believe that there should be the existence of a state in the sense that I think there should exist some kind of official administration that takes care of society. That doesn’t mean that borders should exist. Perhaps we’re talking about a unique state in all the world, or perhaps we are talking about a very strong form of United Nations, in which what we now call countries would become provinces or whatever. I just mean that I do not proclaim myself to be anarchist or any of the sort. Although, I may have sympathy with some for the philosophies, I think that there should be some official administration that takes care of things because I think there is a limited amount of time. This administration's goal would simply be to take control of the economy, of the prime materials, of the work force and make sure that these are focused on the well being of society and the planet and not on the interest of private corporations. I’m not saying that we should end private property as a whole. If I want to have a guitar, I should have a guitar. I’m just saying that the main means of production of social services, the basic needs like health and education, basic industry, food production should be administered outside of the quest for profit. It should just be based on solidarity and on trying to improve conditions.
There are plenty of resources and food on the planet to satisfy the needs of everyone. We just maybe need to, instead of increasing our production, focus on what is necessary for a happy, simple and healthy life, and I think if we try and work for that world, we will do a lot. I know that I’m being very naïve, and I’m saying very vague things, and as I say, I don’t have a very precise political agenda, but I think that all political agendas up to this moment have failed to give a precise answer, so it is the task of our generation, not over the course of a couple of months or even a year, but over the course of our lives, to build toward this goal. It will not take a single mind, but rather the collective build up of all the minds of our generation to solve all the particular problems and together achieve a system of governance and economy that will be able to satisfy these needs and again be workable. To be workable, that’s why I do not proclaim myself an anarchist, or I don’t think that we should all decide in assemblies by consensus. I think that there is, unfortunately, a certain practical demand to be met, that time is limited, and that specialization of work is needed if we attempt to have any serious advance in any field of thought, science, technology, agriculture or whatever. It’s pretty general, but I think it describes, more or less, the philosophy behind the struggle that I try to take up everyday.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
I must admit that I don’t have a very clear, precise system in mind, but let us just say that I do believe that there should be the existence of a state in the sense that I think there should exist some kind of official administration that takes care of society. That doesn’t mean that borders should exist. Perhaps we’re talking about a unique state in all the world, or perhaps we are talking about a very strong form of United Nations, in which what we now call countries would become provinces or whatever. I just mean that I do not proclaim myself to be anarchist or any of the sort. Although, I may have sympathy with some for the philosophies, I think that there should be some official administration that takes care of things because I think there is a limited amount of time. This administration's goal would simply be to take control of the economy, of the prime materials, of the work force and make sure that these are focused on the well being of society and the planet and not on the interest of private corporations. I’m not saying that we should end private property as a whole. If I want to have a guitar, I should have a guitar. I’m just saying that the main means of production of social services, the basic needs like health and education, basic industry, food production should be administered outside of the quest for profit. It should just be based on solidarity and on trying to improve conditions.
There are plenty of resources and food on the planet to satisfy the needs of everyone. We just maybe need to, instead of increasing our production, focus on what is necessary for a happy, simple and healthy life, and I think if we try and work for that world, we will do a lot. I know that I’m being very naïve, and I’m saying very vague things, and as I say, I don’t have a very precise political agenda, but I think that all political agendas up to this moment have failed to give a precise answer, so it is the task of our generation, not over the course of a couple of months or even a year, but over the course of our lives, to build toward this goal. It will not take a single mind, but rather the collective build up of all the minds of our generation to solve all the particular problems and together achieve a system of governance and economy that will be able to satisfy these needs and again be workable. To be workable, that’s why I do not proclaim myself an anarchist, or I don’t think that we should all decide in assemblies by consensus. I think that there is, unfortunately, a certain practical demand to be met, that time is limited, and that specialization of work is needed if we attempt to have any serious advance in any field of thought, science, technology, agriculture or whatever. It’s pretty general, but I think it describes, more or less, the philosophy behind the struggle that I try to take up everyday.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/