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Title: Fire Extinguishers and Fire Starters Author: CrimethInc. Date: June 8, 2011 Language: en Topics: 15M, Barcelona, Spain Source: https://crimethinc.com/2011/06/08/fire-extinguishers-and-fire-starters-anarchist-interventions-in-the-spanish-revolution-an-account-from-barcelona
In May, a new movement spread across Spain and elsewhere around the
world, with crowds occupying public spaces in an attempt to formulate a
new resistance to the effects of capitalist crisis and austerity
measures. We are excited to present Fire Extinguishers and Fire
Starters: Anarchist Interventions in the #Spanish Revolution, a full
report from a comrade on the ground in Barcelona. This report chronicles
the trajectory of the movement and offers a critical analysis of the
potential and limitations of the forms it assumed.
September 29, 2010: The major labor unions, CCOO and UGT, along with the
anticapitalist CGT, the anarcho-syndicalist CNT (which has multiple
splits), and other small unions, hold a general strike to protest the
bank bailouts and proposed austerity measures included in the Labor
Reform. In many city centers and industrial zones, participation in the
strike is massive. In Barcelona, the streets erupt in heavy, day-long
rioting. CCOO and UGT pickets, on the contrary, tend to be symbolic and
spectacular. Both organizations subsequently sign on to the Labor
Reform. Before or shortly after the strike, half a dozen neighborhoods
in Barcelona form neighborhood âsocial assemblies.â
November 28, 2010: Elections in Catalunya replace the governing
Socialist Party with the rightwing Convergencia i UniĂł, which adopts a
hardline, pro-police rhetoric.
January 27, 2011: Acting apart from the major unions, the CGT, CNTs, and
COS (a left Catalan coordination of syndicates) hold a general strike in
Catalunya, which is also called for in Euskadi and other parts of the
Spanish state. The strike coincides with the approval of the Labor
Reform, supported by the major unions and the Socialist Party (which has
led the government in Madrid since 2004). In certain cities, the strike
receives substantial support in the transport and manufacturing sectors,
but generally achieves little participation. In Barcelona, burning
barricades, sabotages, pickets, and contentious protests win a combative
visibility for the strike.
May 1, 2011: In Barcelona, the anticapitalist Mayday protest, supported
by the CNTs, CGT, COS, socialist indepes (Catalan independence
activists), and informal or âblack blocâ anarchists, leads thousands of
people into the emblematic rich neighborhood, SarriĂ , where protestors
burn dumpsters and luxury cars, smash up approximately a hundred banks,
fashion stores, and car dealerships, cover the walls in spray-painted
slogans, and throw bottles and paint bombs at police before being
dispersed in a heavy charge. The mood is exultant. The weeks before and
after are marked by especially high quantities of sabotage and attacks.
Sunday, May 15: A recently formed platform centered in Madrid,
Democracia Real Ya or âReal Democracy Nowâ (DRY), holds simultaneous
protests in dozens of cities throughout the Spanish state, convened via
Facebook, Twitter, Indymedia and various activist listservs. That night,
the idea is spread via Twitter to camp out in Puerta del Sol, a central
Madrid plaza, modeling on the Tahrir Square occupation in Egypt. In
other cities, occupations also begin in central plazas that night or the
next night.
Monday, May 16: In the evening, eighty to a hundred people begin an
encampment in Plaça Catalunya, the symbolic center of Barcelona, which
in the last decade has become almost exclusively a tourist zone. As in
other cities, the occupation organizes itself with a general assembly. A
small number of anarchists are participating. In the meeting, they argue
down the proposal to sign on to the Real Democracy Now manifesto from
Madrid. Many other people also express the need for the Barcelona
encampment to develop independently. It is decided the encampment will
release no unitary manifestos that attempt to speak for all
participants. Notwithstanding, principles of unity already authored by
the DRY activistsânon-party assembly decision-making, nonviolence, and
unity among los indignados, âthe indignantââare successfully imposed.
Tuesday, May 17: Early in the morning, the police attack the occupation
in Madrid, beating and harassing the 250 people camped out there and
arresting 19. However, comrades gather outside the jail, and the square
is subsequently reoccupied by an even larger and more energetic crowd.
The Barcelona encampment grows to over a thousand. As in other cities,
the central assembly begins to create commissions to work out various
infrastructural and ideological needs; these include âextension,â
âcommunication,â âcontent,â âassembly preparation,â âfinancial,â
âlegal,â and âkitchen.â During the day, DRY activists carry out
nonviolent sit-ins in various banks. Hundreds of people are sleeping in
the plaza overnight.
Wednesday, May 18: The encampment makes the front page of Barcelonaâs
various free newspapers, which are more trend- and controversy-sensitive
than the traditional newspapers. Up until now, the latter had been
silencing the events, but once the cat is out of the bag they take the
lead in sculpting public opinion on the so-called 15 May or 15M
movement. At the nightly cassolada (pots and pans noise demo) and
assembly, the crowds in Plaça Catalunya reach 5-10,000. Many anarchists
who had previously abstained from the pro-democracy protest, either out
of disdain or because other protests were happening the same weekend,
spontaneously converge in the crowd. Several bring whatever anarchist
flyers and pamphlets they had laying around, and these are quickly
snatched up by the crowd. Anarchists make plans to hold a debate on
democracy the next day, without getting approval from the central
assembly.
Thursday, May 19: Twenty thousand people take part in the cassolada and
assembly, and during the day thousands more people pass through, or hang
out to make music and art. In the evening, some anarcho-punks have set
up a distribution, which serves as a convergence point for various
anarchists. The first original anarchist critiques of the situation are
printed and distributed (see appendix), while timely texts on democracy
and nonviolence that have recently been published in the Catalan
anarchist journal, Terra Cremada, are reformatted as flyers and
distributed. In the late afternoon, we start the debate with a critique
of democracy. Fifty people of all sorts crowd in to participate, with
great interest. We use an old megaphone lent by the CNT, but many
speakers prefer not to use it; thus a small upward limit is placed on
participation on the debate, as no more than the fifty people closest to
the center can hear over the background noise of the plaza.
Friday, May 20: Anarchists set up a tent in the morning, with a table
for distributing flyers, posters, and other literature. More critiques
written by participants in the occupation are printed. A self-appointed
representative of one of the commissions attempts to kick out the
anarchist tent and another tent set up by members of a
performance-oriented squatted social center, on the justification that
space in the plaza is reserved for the commissions. The evening meeting
is largely dominated by Trotskyists and small-scale, left-wing Catalan
independence politicians. The crowds have swelled beyond the limits of
the plaza, and can no longer be counted. Even though a high quality
sound system has been set up, the half of the multitude that rings the
margins of the plaza cannot hear the assembly. The number of commissions
has reached, by some counts, 17, along with multiple sub-commissions.
Meaningful participation in the official structure becomes increasingly
impossible.
Saturday, May 21: The âDay of Reflection,â a constitutionally mandated
holiday before Election Sunday. Protests of any kind are firmly
prohibited this day. If the occupation previously constituted an illegal
gathering, as of Saturday it is a flagrant violation of the Spanish
Constitution. In general, people are defiant and contemptuous of the
law. There had been much talk of police evictions, but with the massive
crowds, President Zapatero and the Supreme Court have decided to be
tolerant. Notwithstanding, DRY activists in many cities use the threat
of police eviction as an excuse to remove anti-election banners. In
Barcelona they are unsuccessful. Hundreds of thousands of people pass
through Plaça Catalunya to witness the ârevolution.â Everyone in the
city is talking about it. Out of the Content Commission, which had
previously been trying to impose a reformist statement of minimum
demands, a âSelf-Organization and Direct Democracyâ sub-commission is
formed, with heavy anarchist participation.
Sunday, May 22: Countrywide elections take place for city governments
and deputies. The Socialist Party loses its majority; by next year they
will have to be replaced in Madrid by the conservative Popular Party.
However, both of these two major parties lose a huge portion of their
traditional votes. Extreme right and fascist parties pick up a large
number of votes, although they remain relatively small. In Catalunya,
left-wing independence parties and other fringe left parties greatly
increase their proportion of the votes and enter into power in some
cities. In Euskadi, the recently legalized Basque independence party
Bildu wins major victories and becomes the second largest party in the
region. The greatest winner is abstention, which is the preferred option
for one-third to one-half of the electorate, depending on the region.
Additionally, blank or null votes double or even triple, to reach around
5%. Messi, Shakira, and âmi puta madreâ gain record numbers of votes. In
Plaça Catalunya, the crowds remain unbelievably massive, but contrary to
all previous days, the atmosphere is more like a county fair, as many
people come from the polling stations to check out the curiosity.
Monday, May 23: The occupations around Spain continue, although they
begin to diminish. In Barcelona, the cassolada is shortened from an hour
and a half to half an hour. The general assembly involves 5-10,000
people, roughly the same amount as the first Wednesday. A proposal
consensed on by the Self-Organization sub-commission to decentralize the
assembly and respect autonomous decision-making processes is voted on
and receives overwhelming support. However, thirty people, mostly
Trotskyists, vote for âmore debateâ and the proposal is sent back to the
commission, as debate is impossible in the massive general assembly.
Tuesday, May 24: During the day, the encampment in Plaça Catalunya is
very small, but all the physical structures (computer lab, sound system,
kitchen, garden, tents) guarantee its continued presence. The central
assembly is only half as large as the previous day. By this point,
anarchists have printed and distributed at least 20,000 flyers,
pamphlets, and posters, all paid for by donations collected at the
anarchist tent.
Wednesday, May 25: The numbers remain the same as the previous day. Some
activists begin to build houses in the trees of Plaça Catalunya to make
an eviction more difficult. In the neighborhood of Clot, the Social
Assembly of the neighborhood holds an open meeting in the market square.
150 people, young and old, come to participate. After engaging
conversations, debates, and brainstorms, the meeting ends with a
cassolada. Other neighborhoods begin to do the same, sometimes joining
up with the weekly pickets held by local hospital or education workers
protesting cutbacks.
Friday, May 27: At 6:30 a.m., approximately 300 riot police move into
Plaça Catalunya in order to âclean upâ the plaza for âhygienic reasonsâ
and to remove potentially dangerous clutter ahead of tomorrowâs European
football championship between Barça and Manchester, which is to be
televized in the plaza. About two hundred people are sleeping in the
plaza at the time. A meeting is called; this is the same tactic certain
activists used to centralize and pacify 500 people in a major occupation
in Barcelona before the January general strike, enabling the police to
detain and evict the lot of them with ease. Thinking they have come to
evict the plaza, tens of thousands of people surge towards the center
and surround the police. Sanitation workers are loading all the
materials in the plaza into trucks. Thirty-five trucks are filled with
tents, tables, chairs, sleeping bags, computers, kitchen equipment,
literature, the sound system, and more. Protestors unsuccessfully
attempt to prevent the trucks from leaving the plaza, provoking police
charges. Dogmatic pacifists attempt to force everyone to sit down and
hold signs saying ânonviolent resistance.â They physically force some
people to sit down, and accuse those who do not of being infiltrators.
Hundreds of people are beaten by police while sitting down. Over time,
more and more people take to their feet, either as a rejection of the
extreme degree of pacifism or simply to allow themselves to be more
mobile in confronting the police. As the police are repeatedly swarmed
and surrounded, they fire rubber bullets into the crowd at close range.
People begin to throw plastic bottles, trash, water, and juice at the
cops, and in a few cases rocks are thrown. Pacifists form a human chain
to protect the police lines, but the crowds eventually push past them
and swarm the police, forcing them out of the plaza and cutting off the
surrounding streets. Perhaps fifty thousand people or more have
converged on the center, and the atmosphere is triumphant. 121 people
have been injured, many with broken bones. One person is reported to
have lost an eye and another person to have lost hearing in one ear. One
personâs lungs and spleen have been punctured by a rubber bullet fired
from less than two meters away. He is sent to the hospital in critical
condition; no reliable information can be found about him afterwards. A
rumor circulates that a Portuguese protestor in Barcelona has died.
Saturday, May 28: Football fans gather for the European championship.
Normally, a giant TV screen is installed in Plaça Catalunya, but due to
the continuing occupation, the screen is placed at another point in the
city center. The media worry about clashes between protestors and
football hooligans, and rumors circulate that Nazis are planning to
infiltrate and attack the plaza. Pacifists form cordons to block off all
the entrances to the plaza. No football fans are allowed entry. The
pacifists watch as fans fight with police, and cheer as they are
arrested. Even youths are denied sanctuary in the plaza. The pacifists
attempt to silence anarchists shouting at the police. After this day,
many anarchists stop participating in the occupation, or shift to the
neighborhoods.
Sunday, May 29: In other major cities, including Sevilla and Valencia,
the occupations have continued, but they have been monopolized by DRY
activists; there is little open debate and low participation. In the
nightly meeting in Sevilla, only about two hundred people participate,
while during the day scarcely fifty people are present.
Wednesday, June 1: The general assembly in Plaça Catalunya has shrunk to
a stable thousand people participating every night. The tents, kitchen,
garden, and sound system stolen by police have been replaced. During the
day, a few hundred people hang out. In the neighborhoods, open meetings
and cassoladas continue to gain steam. Some neighborhoods begin to block
streets, a proposal that was always too controversial for the general
assembly. DRY activists in some neighborhoods insist that the
neighborhood assemblies must be auxiliaries of the central assembly in
Plaça Catalunya, but they do not seem to be successful. In some cases,
exclusive nonviolence is abandoned as a principle of unity. In Clot,
participation in the neighborhood open assembly grows to two or three
hundred, and new plaques are installed to change the name of the square
to âPlaça de lâAssemblea.â Open assemblies and cassoladas are carried
out in perhaps ten other neighborhoods.
Thursday, June 2: A fringe left political party sets up a table in Plaça
Catalunya, but anarchists physically eject them, provoking a
confrontation with pacifists. Pacifists, meanwhile, continue to eject
Pakistani street vendors from the plaza, while refusing to apply the
same policy to the generally white citizens who buy beer from them.
Anarchists begin several arguments with these pacifists. Two days later,
the first text in a non-European language to be distributed inside the
square appears. It is a flyer in Urdu, asking the vendors not to sell
beer in the plaza, because it hurts the image of the occupation.
Sunday, June 5: Comrades in Madrid report that the occupation there has
largely degraded. Many junkies are shooting up in the plaza, possibly
encouraged to go there by police or simply taking advantage of the
autonomous zone, while Nazis have attempted to join the assembly and the
protest marches on multiple occasions. The rumor circulates that DRY
founders in Madrid are talking about turning their platform into a
political party before the federal level elections scheduled for the
fall. In Barcelona, anarchists organize a talk criticizing the
imposition of nonviolence in Plaça Catalunya. That evening, the general
assembly decides to dismantle the encampment but keep the information
tables and commission tents open during the day. Plans are prepared for
a blockade of the Catalan parliament on June 15, and for a major protest
on June 19. Lead organizers propose to have a security cordon within the
march in case certain people start chanting violent slogans.
The first day I set foot in the plaza, I knew I was experiencing
something unique. No one here had ever seen anything like this.
Thousands of people, friends and strangers, crowding together,
announcing their indignation, defying the law, calling for revolution. I
had hardly ever spent time before in Plaça Catalunya. It was just a
place for tourists and pigeons. Now I could pass hours here and have
conversations with all sorts of people. A Pakistani man asks me to help
translate whatâs going on. A young student comments on a flyer Iâm
handing out. Two grandparents argue about democracy and the best way to
go about the struggle.
Once people saw that I was handing out flyers, they lined up to take
them and soon I was all out. During the first week, everyone was
excited, everyone was desperate for new ideas and perspectives. In a
matter of days we distributed thousands of flyers, many of them new
texts written just for this situation. On the other side of the city and
in the metro, I often saw people reading our textsânot just glancing at
them, but poring over them. That first week, I could go into any bakery
or copy shop in town and request free bread or cheap copies âfor the
plazaâ and receive at least a sympathetic response, and often a lot of
free materials.
What we have experienced in Barcelona is a ruptureânot so much in State
control, in view of the democratic forms chosen by the occupation
movement, but most definitely in peopleâs affective reality. Society
left its isolation cells and physically manifested itself in the middle
of the plaza, and many people were feeling its presence for the very
first time. They were recognizing how isolated they had been until now,
in the plaza, where they encountered a force, a collective power,
waiting to be reborn. In these unprecedented circumstances, people could
begin to believe in the possibility of situations that were entirely
new.
Before, when you handed someone an anarchist flyer, they might think
about it for a while, it might improve their understanding of you, it
might annoy them, but in any case they would only digest it at the level
of opinionsâbecause you were talking about something hypothetical,
something unreal. But in the plaza, hearing our conversations or reading
the literature we had on our table, people would really begin to debate:
âBut if we get rid of all the politicians, new ones will just come
replace them.â âNo, these kids are right! We need to get rid of all of
them. If weâre able to get rid of the first batch, we can get rid of the
next ones too!â
Peopleâs aesthetics no longer marked their political niche. The most
important thing was their bravery and sincerity. Many times I saw
grandparents berating young punks for being too passive, or people
dressed for work taking a more radical position than activist hippies.
And everyone was talking about real possibilities. For at least the
first week, these people meant it when they chanted âAquĂ comença la
revoluciĂł!â âThe revolution begins here!â
I remember yelling to a friend, high on the mass excitement of those
first days, âThis is our revolution! No barricades, nothing romantic
like that, but what do we expect? Itâs a piece of shit, but we already
knew this is the world we live in. We have a lot of work to do!â
Within the complexity of the Spanish Revolution, one could find plenty
to denounce. For a critical anarchist, it would be easier to reject the
whole thing than embrace it. Fortunately, on the whole Barcelona
anarchists refused to take the easy road.
Most noteworthy in its long list of faults were its disappointed
pretensions of being revolutionary. The Democracia Real Ya activists did
their best to place the whole movement in an ideological straightjacket
from the beginning. In Barcelona in particular, these activists were
joined by a legion of minor league politicians, particularly Catalan
indepes, as well as Trotskyists and dogmatic pacifists, all trying to
get a piece of the pie. These in turn were aided by a great mass of
well-meaning people who were simply reproducing the values of democracy
and nonviolence taught to them by the system, and no small number of
highly skilled and no less well-meaning activists of the
anti-globalization or student varietyâincluding some anarchistsâwho
cherished the processes of consensus and direct democracy.
This complex agglomeration of people formed a powerful recuperation
machine that could not be neutralized with any simple approach. But Iâm
getting ahead of myself.
The preamble of the DRY manifesto gives a good impression of their
political brand:
âWe are ordinary people. We are like you: people, who get up every
morning to study, work or find a job, people who have family and
friends. People, who work hard every day to provide a better future for
those around us. Some of us consider ourselves progressive, others
conservative. Some of us are believers, some not. Some of us have
clearly defined ideologies, others are apolitical, but we are all
concerned and angry about the political, economic, and social outlook
which we see around us: corruption among politicians, businessmen,
bankers, leaving us helpless, without a voice.â
Democracia Real Ya did an excellent job of formulating a mediocre
politics defined by its populism, victimism, reformism, and moralism. By
using common, value-laden terms such as âdemocracyâ (good) and
âcorruptionâ (bad), they created a discursive trap that garnered
overwhelming support for all their proposals while deflecting or falsely
including proposals that went further. Their stated minimums included
revolutionary language and the highly popular sentiment that âweâre
going to change everything,â while offering a ladder of demands that
basically signaled the prices, from cheap to expensive, at which they
would sell out. It started with reform of the electoral law, passed
through laws for increased oversight of the bankers, and reached, at
itâs most radical extreme, a refusal to pay back the bailout loans.
Everything was structured around demands communicated to the existing
government, but prettied up in populist language. Thus, the popular,
anarchist slogan NingĂș ens representa, âNo one represents us,â was
distorted within their program to mean, âNone of the politicians
currently in power represent us: we want better ones who will.â
However, to carry out this balancing act, they did have to adopt vaguely
antiauthoritarian organizing principles inherited from the
antiglobalization movement, such as open assemblies, no spokespersons,
and no political parties.
Proposals centered on direct action or sentiments containing a rejection
of government and capitalism were easily neutralized within this
ideological framework. The former would be paternalistically tolerated
as cute little side projects eclipsed by the major projects of reformist
demands, and the latter would be applauded, linked back to the popular
rhetoric already in use, and corrupted to mean an opposition to current
politicians or specific bankers.
The only way to challenge this co-optation of popular rage was to focus
critique on democracy itself. We quickly discovered that the idea of
direct democracy was the major theoretical barrier that protected the
existing representative democracy, and direct democracy activists,
including anarchists, were the critical bridge between the parasitic
grassroots politicians and their social host body.
By the fourth or fifth day of the occupation in Barcelona, it became
apparent in practice what we had already argued in theory: that direct
democracy recreates representative democracy; that it is not the
features that can be reformed (campaign finance, term limits, popular
referendums), but the most central ideals of democracy that are
inherently authoritarian. The beautiful thing about the encampment in
the plaza was that it had multiple centers for creation and
initiative-taking. The central assembly functioned to suppress this; had
it succeeded, the occupation would have died much sooner. It did not
succeed, thanks in part to anarchist intervention.
The central assembly did not give birth to one single initiative. What
it did, rather, was to grant legitimacy to initiatives worked out in the
commissions; but this process must not be portrayed in positive terms.
This granting of legitimacy was in fact a robbing of the legitimacy of
all the decisions made in the multiple spaces throughout the plaza not
incorporated into an official commission. Multiple times, self-appointed
representatives of this or that commission tried to suppress spontaneous
initiatives that did not bear their stamp of legitimacy. At other times,
commissions, moderators, and internal politicians specifically
contravened decisions made in the central assembly, when doing so would
favor further centralization. This is not a question of corruption or
bad form; democracy always subverts its own mechanisms in the interests
of power.
Again and again in the plaza, we saw a correlation between democracy and
the paranoia of control: the need for all decisions and initiatives to
pass through a central point, the need to make the chaotic activity of a
multitudinous occupation legible from a single vantage pointâthe control
room, as it were. This is a statist impulse. The need to impose
legibility on a social situationâand social situations are always
chaoticâis shared by the democracy activist, who wishes to impose a
brilliant new organizational structure; the tax collector, who needs all
economic activity to be visible so it can be reappropriated; and the
policeman, who desires a panopticon in order to control and punish. I
also found that numerous anarchists of various ideological stripes were
unable to see the crucial theoretical difference between the oppositions
representational democracy vs. direct democracy/consensus and
centralization vs. decentralization, because the first and second terms
of both pairs have been turned into synonyms through misuse. For this
reason, I have decided to rehabilitate the term âchaosâ in my personal
usage, as it is a frightening term no populist in the current context
would use and abuse, and it relates directly to mathematical theories
that directly express the kind of shifting, conflictual, constantly
regenerating, acephalous organization anarchists are calling for.
After visiting another city where the encampment had basically killed
itself through boredom, I realized that these antiauthoritarian
consensus activists had also partially saved the day in Barcelona.
Because radical anarchists are so extreme in our critique, we often lack
social intuition; we have a hard time viewing the world from the
perspective of ânormalizedâ citizens. And while the #Spanish Revolution
took everyone by surprise, it especially took us by surprise. Only a few
of us had arrived by Wednesday, the third day of the occupation, and
most did not come until Thursday or Friday. However, the consensus
activists tended to be at the heart of it from early on. Many of them
were experienced moderators, thanks to their participation in the great
mobilizations of the antiglobalization movement, so they were often the
ones facilitating the central assembly. And because they functioned as a
bridge between the parasitic grassroots politicians and the masses, they
also functioned as a shield for anarchist ideals, because they were
actors in their own right who had their own goals, quite distinct from
the goals of the DRY activists or the Trotskyists.
In cities where this activist core did not exist, DRY activists or
Trotskyists quickly homogenized the encampments and vigorously
suppressed radical ideas. These encampments soon shrunk like a
desiccated corpse, with more parasite than host body. In Barcelona, on
the other hand, anarchists enjoyed legitimacy and presence from the
get-go, and the grassroots politicians generally had to pay lip service
to anarchist organizational ideals, giving radical anarchists more room
to work in.
One of the most repugnant features of the occupation, which ultimately
caused many anarchists to stop participating, was the imposition of
nonviolence. Nonviolence was one of the original principles of the DRY
platform, and in Barcelona the first antiauthoritarian participants
either did not try to or were not able to reject it. Nonviolence was
never debated, but always included in every action proposal, so the
choice before the central assembly was always nonviolence or nothing. In
the beginning, activists carried out a few peaceful sit-ins. For May 30,
DRY announced an action to be carried out throughout the entire Spanish
state: that day, everyone should withdraw 155 euros from their bank
accounts (155 = 15-5, or 15 May), âa peaceful and subtle act, but
sufficiently contentious and attention-grabbing to clearly demonstrate
the indignation we feel, and also our strength and commitment to take
this through to the end,â in their words.
But generally, their action plan was to do nothing, to stay in the
plazas, to prevent people from seizing or blocking the surrounding
streets, and to talk about another protest on the fifteenth day of the
following month. When anarchists in Barcelona distributed flyers on the
third day of the occupation, they quickly released a statement, not
approved by any assembly, saying that the occupation was strictly
pacifist, and that the police were trying to infiltrate and encourage
violence; therefore all the good citizens should bring their cameras and
take pictures of everybody and everything.
I believe it was the first Wednesday or Thursday when a group of
activists dropped a huge banner from a major building alongside the
plaza, reading âPoliticians, Bosses, Bankers, CCOO UGT [the major trade
unions] Fuck Off.â The crowds cheered exultantly. Two days later,
another group blocked a street and cut open a section of the giant
billboard covering another building, to reveal a large spray-painted
slogan beneath; if I remember correctly, it said âNo one represents us!â
On this second occasion, some people cheered, but self-appointed leaders
tried to stop the action and denounced it as violent.
When police carried out their hygienic operation on Friday, May 26,
pacifists verbally or physically obliged everyone to sit down and to
hold signs with the words ânonviolent resistance.â The police beat the
protestors with glee, opening heads and breaking arms. On a few
occasions when people attempted to snatch away police batons, pacifists
ran towards them to bring their message of peace. As thousands more
people arrived to liberate the plaza, they overwhelmed police lines and
surged towards the cops in the middle, shouting and starting to throw
things. Pacifists formed a human chain to protect them. Police were
eventually pushed back, not without completing their cleaning operation
and allowing the sanitation trucks to depart with all the materials they
had stolen. Even though the crowds generally pushed past the limits set
forward by the pacifistsâand they certainly didnât do it sitting down
waiting for the legal team, as the pacifists had advisedâthe ideologues
of nonviolence still claimed it as a victory. They also falsely stated
that the police attempted to evict the plaza and were defeated. All this
should come as no surprise, as pacifists have done the same thing with
the Arab revoltsâemboldening statists like Obama to do the same.
The following Saturday was the worst day, when the pacifists formed
human chains to keep football fans out of the plaza and cheered police
as they arrested hooligans. When there were still comrades in critical
condition in the hospital, injured from rubber bullets shot by police
officers, these same pacifists proposed going to support a rally the
police were holding to protest their upcoming wage cuts.
There were other problems as well. Senegalese immigrants selling
sunglasses and Pakistani immigrants selling beer and sandwiches moved
into the autonomous zone we had created in the plaza. Selling things on
the street, if youâre not rich enough to have your own store or kiosk,
is illegal in Barcelona, and the cops often amuse themselves chasing
immigrant street vendors. Enter the Convivencia (coexistence,
living-together) Commission. The CC formed with the explicit objective
of not allowing antisistema to come and take over the plaza. Antisistema
is a media term originally used to refer to anarchists in a
depoliticized and delegitimizing way; it has since been extended to
squatters and anyone else who falls outside the range of acceptable
democratic opinion. In popular usage it is almost a synonym for hoodlum
or hooligan. Consequently, the proposal to form the CC won popular
approval in the assembly before any debate could be had, and despite the
fact that many non-anarchist participants in the plaza had signs
criticizing the media use of the term âantisistema.â
The CC police set themselves the task of kicking out the Pakistani
lateros (beer vendors). Their justification was that âthey bothered
peopleâ by offering beers for sale every few minutes, and that they
âcreated a bad imageâ for the encampment (in the media). Multiple times,
anarchists confronted CC members, who often went around with name-tags
and walkie-talkies, but to no avail. Despite accusations of hypocrisy
and racism, they specifically refused to talk to the people who had the
money to buy the beer, and only focused on pushing out the people whose
livelihood was based on selling it.
There was a heavy dose of legalism as well among the leading organizers.
They attempted to get us to take down our signs against voting, claiming
it could be used as a justification for a police eviction, even though
the whole occupation was blatantly illegal. At another point they raised
a stink when some people started an urban garden in the plaza; they
complained that replacing the mulch beds around the fountain with plants
was âuncivic.â For context, the civisme laws in Barcelona have been an
aggressive tool to kill street culture and make things more comfortable
for tourists. Anarchists in the plaza often had to argue against
legalist mentalities; it helped that the occupation in itself sprang
from illegality. On this front, we gained some ground; the garden, for
example, was not suppressed.
There were also problems with certain junkies and drunkards who had
taken up residence in the plaza and constantly harassed or even
assaulted women. Pacifist organizers and the Convivencia Commission
tried to prevent the feminist assembly in the plaza from organizing
self-defense classes and taking care of the problem on their own,
instead paternalistically offering to protect them. Anarchists had a
hard time dealing with the junkies and drunkards who were being jerks.
On the one hand, we were glad they were taking advantage of the
autonomous zone to live without police harassment for a few weeks. On
the other hand, some of them acted in ways we wouldnât tolerate from
anybody; in another context, only residual liberal guilt would have kept
us from knocking them on their asses. Unfortunately, the situation was
extremely complicated: any use of violence could have provoked a major
confrontation with the pacifists, with totally unforeseen consequences.
Worse still, it could have a conservative backlash that would have
vindicated and demanded more of the CCâs policing activities.
On the whole, however, there was much in the plaza to value. It was an
extensive, chaotic space of self-organization where people met their
logistical needsâsometimes going through the official channels,
sometimes not. There was a library, a garden, an international
translation center, a kitchen with big stoves and solar cookers, and at
any time there were a couple concerts, workshops, debates, and massage
parlors taking place, along with innumerable smaller conversations and
encounters.
And it was amazing to encounter a wider anarchist community there, to
find that most comrades had the same idea to come down to the plaza even
though the most visible discourses emanating therefrom were staunchly
social-democratic. The comrades we met there were not always members of
our pre-existing affinity groups, but also libertarians we had never
worked with before. On the whole, comrades demonstrated an impressive
commitment, agility of action, and a nuanced and incisive critique. It
became clear again that the old stereotype of the anarchist ghetto is at
best only partially true. At the first chance to join a collectivity and
communicate with others, most of us were there, even though it was often
an uncomfortable or even hostile environment. The very fact that we can
speak of an âanarchist ghettoâ indicates that we are less isolated than
most people. This communality that we carry with us makes us stand out;
the âghettoâ is formed less by attitudes on the interior and more by the
imposition of a general social isolation on everybody else. In
Barcelona, this has become truer in the last few years, now that many
anarchists have distanced themselves from the tradition of squatting for
the sake of squatting.
Not exactly on the turn of a dime, but within the space of a couple
days, many dozens of us dropped our routines and threw ourselves
wholeheartedly into the occupationâstaffing the literature table,
writing or finding texts and photocopying them, having conversations and
arguments, joining the commissions, and organizing debates, talks, and
concerts. It was an incredible feeling to find so many accomplices in
the middle of a social singularity, to spend the night conversing,
arguing, and analyzing the dayâs events, to spend the following morning
writing the next round of announcements and critiques, to pass the
siesta printing, and then to go back down to the anarchist tent for an
afternoon and evening of distribution, meetings, and the assembly.
Inevitably, we exhausted ourselves. Talking with comrades who took part
in the December 2008 insurrection in Greece, it sounded like people
reached their physical limits in three weeks. Evidently, debates and
meetings are more taxing than riots and tear gas: most of us started to
burn out after a week or two. Many of those who were most active in the
first week were gradually replaced by a sort of second shift of those
who had taken longer to be convinced of the need to participate.
A reader might notice that from the vantage point of the internet, it
seems like the â#Spanish Revolutionâ was based almost entirely around
Twitter and Facebook, virtual communication that doesnât feature at all
in my account. In reality, except for the occasional tech geek wandering
by suggesting that we could solve all the worldâs problems with virtual
simultaneous internet democracy, that part of the revolution simply
didnât exist for me.
Perhaps this is not surprising, in that I donât have a cellphone and
donât use Facebook. In the end, these are just tools for spreading the
word, and while they do change the terrain, from a certain point of view
they are superfluous. I found it easy to be in the center of important
happenings and to stay informed. Toting a cellphone around would have
just wasted my time and left logs of all my movements and communications
for the police to browse at their leisure. For the past millennia, there
have been occasions in which people gather together spontaneously in
surprising numbers. As social isolation increases, networking technology
helps overcome the growing distances, but it also plays a role in
creating them in the first place.
I recall a talk in a Barcelona anarchist social center, in which we
called an Egyptian anarchist in Tahrir Square via Skype. She laughed
about the whole Twitter and Facebook obsession, explaining that those
tools were useful but that their importance had been exaggerated by
Western media.
After debating the matter with comrades nearly every day for weeks, I
think those of us who chose to participate in the occupation with an
anarchist critique made the right strategic choices. Our only errors
come down to a question of finding the right balance between the various
forms of activity.
The few anarchists who were there at the beginning were instrumental in
blocking the signing of the Democracia Real Ya manifesto and in
approving the decision not to produce any unitary manifestos. This
allowed the Barcelona occupation to take on an independent character and
develop according to its own needs, which endowed it with more vivacity.
In Sevilla, by contrast, the occupation in Las Setas signed on to the
Madrid platform from the beginning, never developed as much diversity or
strength, and quickly lost what it had. And in Madrid, the assembly
passed a law early on to allow no ideological symbols or ideological
groups in the occupation, which was a decisive factor in preventing the
anarchists there from ever setting up their own table to distribute
propaganda. Accordingly, they had far less visibility, though they made
a major effort to participate in the various commissions. We owe what we
achieved in Barcelona in part to the fact that some anarchists went to
the protest and occupation at the very beginning, despite the odious
democratic rhetoric that predominated; and that they did not only go as
warm bodies, but as fighters or activists with their own specific
critique.
We owe what we achieved in Barcelona in part to the fact that some
anarchists went to the protest and occupation at the very beginning,
despite the odious democratic rhetoric that predominated; and that they
did not only go as warm bodies, but as fighters or activists with their
own specific critique.
After more anarchists arrived on Wednesday and Thursday, there was a
debate that ended in an impasse: do we participate in the assembly and
the commissions, or do we stay at the margins? A couple of us argued
that the place of the anarchists is always in the margins, and our role
is to subvert the center and make sure the margins are more alive, more
creative, and more interesting than the center. Fortunately, we did not
win that debate, although subsequent events vindicated our position. In
the end, most âradicalâ anarchists[1] participated in various
commissions, especially Content, where minimum demands and political
programs were formulated. Anarchist participation basically made this
commission explode, as the Trotskyists and social-democrats who
previously dominated it found it impossible to get approval for their
populist programs with us involved. Subsequently, the commission broke
up into about a dozen sub-commissions: these included labor, ecological,
and other themed ones, and also âSelf-Organization and Direct
Democracy.â This did not prevent the Trots from subsequently speaking in
the name of Content and trying to delegitimize the decisions of the
sub-commissions.
Those favoring self-organization (anarchists and autonomists) and those
favoring direct democracy (radical liberals) were lumped in the same
sub-commission; the latter found this appropriate, while the former
considered the two terms to be diametrically opposed. Of course, the
former were right, but it was a good thing the two groups were lumped
together because this allowed the two camps to debate, spreading a
critique of direct democracy beyond anarchist circles and giving
anarchists good practice in communicating. Not to sound arrogant, but
the partisans of self-organization tended to win the debates, as the
democrats had superficial ideas and generally less experience in any
kind of struggle.
By participating in the commissions, anarchists achieved multiple
victories. In a few instances, we changed the form of the occupation; in
many instances, we held effective debates, crystallized our analysis,
and gained contact with a broader antiauthoritarian community. We also
blocked several attempts to pacify or neutralize the most beautiful
aspects of the occupation.
However, within a couple weeks most of us realized that we had made a
mistake by putting so much energy into the commissions. We had
effectively sequestered anarchist ideas in a few useful but relatively
small spaces; we had exhausted ourselves with daily meetings; and we had
allowed ourselves to be seduced by the official organizational
structures, which generally proved themselves impervious to
decentralization from the inside. Meanwhile, we had only realized a tiny
fraction of the occupationâs potential for self-organization. This is
ironic, in that most of us were busy talking about self-organization in
the appropriate commissions.
On a few occasions, we defied the central assembly and the commissions
by organizing things on our own, starting projects in small affinity
groups and working out conflicts with other projects on a case-by-case
basis. We set up the literature tent, organized two or three talks, two
or three debates, helped organize a concert, and helped organize an
âescracheâ protest at a nearby workplace that had just fired a worker
for being pregnant. If we had only put half as much energy into the
commissions, those valuable debates still would have happened, but we
could have organized ten times as many informal events in the plaza,
making it a reality that the margins were stronger than the center.
As it happened, within a week the anarchist tent had become a place
where people rested between meetingsâthis meant that we werenât having
as many spontaneous conversations with random passersby. The margins, I
should clarify, were not a lifeless place waiting for anarchist
leadership. There was already a great deal of activity there, much
organized by hippies, but little of it had any explicit political
content; thus it was less contentious, and more easily delegitimized
within a dichotomy of work/leisure or culture/politics.
On the first Friday of the occupation, the day we set up the anarchist
tent with the literature table, a vital strategic decision had to be
made unexpectedly. Someone from some commission came up to tell us that
the plaza was reserved for commission tents, so we had to move to the
edge, basically a sidewalk area outside the entrances to the inner
plaza. The guy was very clever, and used a convincing argument: if we
stayed there, then the Trotskyists and Stalinists and all these other
parties could also set up their tents, and we didnât want to be
responsible for that, did we?
At the time, there were only about six of us there. I donât want to make
myself too much of a protagonist; everyone telling the story from their
own perspective will remember analogous episodes, because we have all
made heroic efforts in these days. But the fact of the matter is, I soon
found there were only two of us who opposed moving the tent, and the
other one was willing to accept the majority position. I argued
forcibly: who cares if all the little Marxist-Leninist parties in the
world move in? The commissions and the official structures are far more
dangerous. Furthermore, we were fully legitimate in setting up this
tent, because we were not a pre-existing political party but a
spontaneous initiative that arose from the plaza itself. Most of the
people in the tent at that point had never worked together on any
project before, and a couple of us had met for the first time in the
plaza. Not only was it our responsibility as anarchists to defy the
commissions and open up the plaza for all sorts of initiatives, but it
was a good thing if they subsequently tried to kick us out in the
general assembly. As anarchists, we want to make existing conflicts
visible, not avoid them. Let them try to kick us out, and then see where
this democratic revolution goes.
We argued face to face with various commissiocrats, sometimes being
nice, sometimes being outraged, until they were convinced or exhausted.
We also built some common ground with another tent they were trying to
kick out, one that had been set up by some performance kids from a
circus squat. If we had not won that little battle and realized the need
to seek conflict not only with the State but also in the social
movements, which also contain the State, we would have been at a severe
disadvantage in everything that followed.
Other strategic decisions were easier. We all agreed it was important to
confront the keepers of order, such as the people from the Convivencia
Commission. We started arguments where necessary, but remained willing
to reconcile and be friendly if they stopped acting like cops or
politicians; this actually happened on a couple occasions.
Our propaganda efforts also didnât need any discussion, and they were
modestly Herculean. Itâs impossible to say how many flyers we handed
out, but it may well have exceeded 30,000, plus hundreds of pamphlets
and posters. Surprisingly, it was all self-financed via a donation jar
at our table. Especially in the first week, passersby tossed in huge
quantities of coins and even bills so we could keep printing our
supposedly extremist and alienating propaganda.
The final strategic conflict Iâll detail involved criticizing allies who
were involved in the centralization of the meetings. Our criticisms were
harsh at times, and they strained more than a few friendships, but I
think it was absolutely necessary. By widely posting the accusation that
the assembly was being manipulated by Trotskyists and left Catalan
politicians, we put these people on the defensive and limited their
activity. The same approach was harder with the DRY activists,
unfortunately, because they were previously unknown and they were in the
middle of the whole thing from the beginning.
Meanwhile, by strongly criticizing the consensus activists for
facilitating this manipulation and recreating the State, we made visible
an absolutely vital line of conflict, deflating the various excuses that
hid authoritarianism within questions of process and inefficiency. This
latter group, the consensus activists, mostly had good intentions, and
some were in fact comrades, so they were genuinely sensitive to
criticism. The results of our attempts to criticize them will surface in
the coming months as they evaluate their own intervention in this
phenomenon and we continue criticizing them. It is necessary that as
soon as possible, everyone who honestly desires freedom recognize that
democracy must be destroyed in all its forms.
We can derive a number of lessons from this experience, many of which
are still being digested.
For me, the first is this: there can be no more excuses for mass
assemblies moderated by consensus specialists. It is important for
collectivities to come together; when this happens, it is important. But
the only mass organizational form that can exist without being imposed
is that of an encuentro, an encounter, where people speak their minds or
share ideas or ask for help on initiatives that they are starting
without needing anyoneâs permission. Within this encounter, there can be
individuals and affinity groups, people involved in formal (nonparty)
organizations or informal federations, or whatever. The whole question
of formality or informality is a distractionâit doesnât matter, it only
comes down to personal taste. From an anarchist viewpoint, the only
necessity is that there be no decision-making body that has more
legitimacy than all the others. A social movement is essentially an
attempt by society to be reborn out of the void of capitalist
alienation. We should not have to adhere to any single organizational
form in order to fully participate in the social movement, because every
single one will exclude certain kinds of people.
In the past, the CNT played this role. To participate in the struggle in
Barcelona, you practically had to work within the CNT, and they screwed
it up something awful. It would be a similar mistake to grant legitimacy
to a mass assembly, regardless of whether it uses consensus or voting,
because depending on the time and location of the meetings, how long
they last, whether there are chairs to sit in or whether the space can
be accessed by handicapped people, some people will be excluded. Even if
you could design the perfect meeting form and rewind capitalist
development to recreate a proletariat that all went to work and went to
bed at the same time, there would still be exclusion, because some
people just donât do meetings, while others have large crowds and
speechmaking in their blood. The only answer to this is to recognize a
web of decision-making structures and organizing forms with equal
legitimacy, destroying once and for all the divide between public and
private.
Secondly, we learned again what makes a good intervention: presence plus
critique. Presence means being there, but it also means participating,
becoming a material and integral part of what is going on. Critique
means not leaving your brain at home because you think youâre going to
scare people off with your anarchist ideas; it means expressing
yourself, and also listening, and evaluating your own behavior.
I had a chance to compare our experiences with a failed anarchist
intervention in another city that confirms this point. Some comrades
went to the encampment there just as warm bodies, without criticism.
Others went provocatively, snubbing everything and everyone and leaving
when they got a bad reaction, deciding not to come back because it
wasnât a comfortable space for them. It strikes me that these two
opposite approaches are complementary. Both are based on avoiding
personal discomfort.
People are situational, not sovereign. This same idea seemed to be
confirmed by the Greek experience. With the possible exception of a few
Nietzschean superbeings, people are not sovereign individuals who live
according to their opinions. Rather, people respond to their situations.
Accordingly, the same person who has little time for an anarchist text
on a normal day of the week will stop and read it and fantasize with you
about overthrowing the State if you happen to meet them in the
unexpected terrain of a spontaneous collectivity. The next question to
explore is to what extent we can plant seeds, in the boring moments,
that will stay with people and have the chance to sprout when those
people enter the unpredictable terrain of a rupture.
Collaboration between the various sects of libertarians was vital.
Perhaps affinity groups are overrated: in the end it did not matter so
much whether a fellow anarchist agreed with you on the question of the
existence or nonexistence of the proletariat; it mattered more whether
we could get along and communicate. It was a great advantage to have
many different perspectives mixing, different strategies being
developed, and different people being drawn to participate in different
ways. The anarcho-syndicalists made a great effort to be present in many
of the commissions, and it was funny and instructive seeing them
participating in the same popular debates with nihilist and
insurrectionary anarchists. They also brought with them the important
tradition of the CNT, which granted legitimacy to anarchist
participation on the whole.
Decentralization is not the same as dispersal. A mass gathering point
such as Plaça Catalunya can give us a sense of collective strength,
which dispersal would dissipate. Decentralization means not utilizing a
unitary organizational structure with central nodes. It is a question of
mode, not scale. Many people, including some anarchists, misunderstood
the anarchist proposal for decentralization as a proposal to shift
activity to the neighborhoods. While this was in fact part of what most
anarchists were proposing, it is equally possible to transplant
centralized structures at a smaller scale to all the neighborhood
assemblies. Fortunately, the Barcelona neighborhood assemblies, which
formed around the September general strike, had already defeated an
attempt to centralize them within the umbrella organizing structure that
arose around the strike. They preferred their autonomy. As such, they
were a favorable terrain for anarchists, especially where we had already
been participating in our neighborhood assembly. It was harder for
grassroots politicians to take them over, and harder to impose an
ideological unity, because we already had a point of unity: we lived in
the neighborhood together, and we had no pretensions of all thinking the
same way.
When we express anarchist ideas honestly, humbly, and passionately, it
can reveal that many of those who remain silent are already partially on
our side. Inertia and common values work against us and favor the
populists and democrats, but anarchist ideas almost always win a debate
because they speak to an inalienable impulse towards freedom that exists
in everyone who still has a heart. The important thing, then, is to
participate in the debate, as long as that debate does not legitimize
official political channels but takes place between ordinary people. It
is no coincidence that the dogmatic pacifists boycotted the debate we
organized about nonviolence. Theyâre not interested in a debate, but in
imposing their practice.
Nonviolence is not a cultural peculiarity, but a real danger everywhere
democracy exists. I thought that with its Mediterranean culture and its
long, living history of forceful struggles, Spain would never have a
problem with nonviolence. But in a period of a few years, it has
appeared with a strength that could rival the pacifism in the UK or US.
And these pacifists do not generally emerge from a trajectory of the
historical nonviolent struggles in Spain, such as the antimilitarist
movement. Rather, they have been created out of whole cloth by the
democratic context itself; the ground was prepared, in my mind, by the
tolerance of leftist, democratic, rights-based discourses in the
antagonistic social movements of the last couple decades. People who
identify as peaceful should be heartily encouraged to make themselves at
home within our struggles. Nonviolence, on the other hand, must be
treated with contempt until it is made synonymous with cowardice and
snitching, and decent pacifists abandon ship to never again be confused
with cop-lovers. By continuing to use the dichotomy of nonviolence and
violence, and arguing whether or not our actions qualify as violent, we
are only empowering them. Violence does not exist: it is a vague and
moralistic category. Only nonviolence exists, and it means selling out,
running away, and censoring other peopleâs struggles.
Direct democracy is just representative democracy on a smaller scale. It
inevitably recreates the specialists, centralization, and exclusion we
associate with existing democracies. Within four days, once the crowds
exceeded 5,000, the experiment in direct democracy was already rife with
false and manipulated consensus, silenced minorities, increasing
abstention from voting, and domination by specialists and internal
politicians.
In a story worthy of Kafka, we were trying to schedule a debate and we
wanted to let those at the Activity Commission know. The kid at the
table looked down at his form, a crappy little piece of paper written up
in ballpoint pen, and told us we couldnât have our event in the spot
where we wanted. âWhy?â I asked, getting ready to go ballistic. The
response was far more pathetic than I had expected. âBecause our forms
are divided into different columns, see, one column for each space in
the plaza, but that space over by the staircase, well thatâs not an
official space.â âThatâs okay, we donât mind, just write it down.â âBut,
but, I canât. There isnât a column for it.â âWell, make a column.â âUm,
I canât.â âOh Christ, look, which oneâs openâlook, here, âPink Space,â
just write our event down for the âPink Spaceâ and when the time comes
weâll just move it.â Within two weeks, without any prior training, the
Spanish Revolution had created perfect bureaucrats!
Some radical anarchists put too much trust in the commissions. They were
only useful as spaces for debate and as spaces to subvert. For example,
in the beginning, the assembly decided not to release unitary manifestos
speaking for everyone. Subsequently, in the commissions, anarchists had
to fight proposals for minimum demands and manifestos every single
night. Finally, there was a commission meeting with no anarchists
present, and the minimums were passed through the commission and
subsequently ratified by the general assembly, which ratified nearly
every proposal passed before it. On the other hand, the anarchist
proposal to decentralize the assembly was voted on twice, and each time
achieved overwhelming support, but curiously was defeated on
technicalities both times. This action demonstrated that we were right,
we had lots of support, and the assembly was a shamâthat, in itself, was
a victory. But direct democracy cannot be reformed from within. It has
to be destroyed.
In another example of the unsuitability of these organizational forms,
the attempt to organize a simple debate about nonviolence almost failed
because the Self-Organization and Direct Democracy Sub-Commission needed
days to debate and consense on exactly how they wanted to do it. In the
end, two people decided to ignore the commission, and joining with
another anarchist who was not participating in Self-Organization, the
three of them organized a successful talk and debate in just a day,
accomplishing what a group of fifty people had failed at over the course
of a week.
Finally, we learned our own limits. After two weeks of meetings,
debates, and grassroots bureaucracy, some of us were ready to shoot
ourselves. We were exhausted, and we had made the grave error of
dropping all our other projects and actions. This demonstrated a
necessary flexibility, but it also meant that during these most critical
moments, radical anarchist actions werenât happening in the streets. It
always felt vital to be in the meetings, in case something should go
wrong, but we could have moderated our participation and devoted some
energy elsewhere.
In this respect, it became obvious that we lack people who are
comfortable with public speaking. This is a vital skill we need to
develop collectively. Often, people with antiauthoritarian critiques
made up a large proportion of a meeting, but we just sat through it all
and listened to bullshit because none of us wanted to take the
microphone. In the second open assembly in the Clot neighborhood, I
started to get depressed because it was exhibiting none of the
antiauthoritarian sentiment as the first one. Populist inertia was
steamrolling us. Finally, I took the mike and launched into a ten-minute
speech urging a focus on long-term revolutionary goals and
self-organization, and slamming reformism, pacifism, and attempts at a
homogenous unity. A huge part of the crowd cheered, and afterwards more
people were motivated to get up and express similar sentiments, shifting
the direction of the whole meeting. At the end, half a dozen people,
from grandmothers to students, thanked me for my contribution, while
others came over to start arguments that ended with them either
convinced of or at least respecting the anarchist position. I didnât
enjoy speaking or receiving complimentsâit made me feel nervous and
self-consciousâbut I wonder: if I hadnât, would the meeting have run its
course with the uninterrupted illusion of a reformist majority?
Now that the Plaça Catalunya occupation is disappearing, the struggle
will continue in the neighborhoods, in the radical unions, in
preexisting affinity groups, and in the new relationships that have been
formed during these days. Time will tell, but I suspect we have made a
great leap forward by participating in the neighborhood assemblies,
meeting new accomplices, and winning ourselves a great social visibility
in spite of a hostile democratic environment. The real revolution is a
long time in coming, but its sputtering attempts to come to life are
plainly visible in these surprising, pathetic, exhausting, beautiful
moments, as long as we have the fortitude to be there.
Possibly the first anarchist text to come out of the occupation, this
was published alongside âAnd after Sunday, what then?â
We participate in the struggles against home repossessions, against
evictions, against the cutbacks and all the abuses we suffer daily. We
create social centers, libraries, newspapers with counterinformation and
analysis, community gardens, and specific events. We practice direct
action, attacking the symbols of our oppressors such as the police, the
politicians, and the banks. For all these reasons, we do not lay claim
to democracy.
We believe that it is only necessary to lay claim to freedom, without
establishing limits to our desires. Frequently it is thought that
âfreedomâ and âdemocracyâ are synonyms, but democracy always leads to an
even stronger social controlâit is dictatorship with other weapons, it
is the State that tricks us into participating in our own domination.
There is no single democracy in the entire world where the people are
free, and this is not a question of corruption but rather of the normal
functioning of democracies.
Like all kinds of states, democracy is based on centralization and the
monopolization of decision-making. It doesnât matter if we all
participate in these decisions, because massive assemblies are easy to
manipulate. The person with the microphone, the people who want to lead,
will always be within the majority and the minority will always be
silenced. In Plaça Catalunya we are creating a real democracy and this
is our great mistake. We are reproducing the same roles that exist in
parliament, we are creating the progressive politicians of tomorrow.
We imagine a Plaça Catalunya with a diversity of assemblies, where
everyone can start initiatives without passing through a centralized and
cumbersome assembly, thus giving everyone the experience of
participating in a process of autogestion instead of being spectators.
We can organize millions of initiatives with greater fluidity without
having to pass through the commissions, which are easily dominated by
specialists. We donât need others to tell us what we can do.
We are not satisfied with the single voice of the centralized assembly,
because itâs hardly any better than the daily silence of capitalism. We
want a plaza full of voices, of assemblies, of conversations. Weâre
truly interested in creating links between all of us, but weâd like to
do it in another way: through solidarity between the struggles and not
through the homogenization of our ideas.
Letâs destroy democracy and spread freedom!
In Tahrir Square, after bringing down the dictatorship, people realized
that it was only the beginning. Even though none of it appeared in the
media, afterwards there was a whole series of strikes and occupations in
factories and other places. Bringing down the dictatorship was just one
step forward for opening the struggle and keeping the State from
shooting them all down.
In Plaça Catalunya, if we bring down the monopoly of the political
parties and the electoral farce, what will we have accomplished? Nothing
more than to open new possibilities to struggle and achieve what we
really want: the autogestion of our lives and the end of exploitation
and social hierarchies.
We want to collectivize the social wealth, as our grandparents did in
the revolution of 1936, and in the insurrections of Figols, Casas
Viejas, Asturias, and the Hospitalet Commune in the years before. The
dictatorship destroyed these struggles, but not our desire for freedom.
Later, the democracy has maintained and intensified the social and
economic changes made by the dictatorship.
If we end this circus of politicians, we will have the opportunity to
realize our dream of self-organization and collectivization. Without a
doubt, these implies a hard struggle with much determination,
responsibility, and perseverance if we really want to solve the problems
we suffer. They will call us violent, they will repress us, they will
try to assign us leaders and new politicians.
Therefore it is indispensable:
through mutual aid
It is not easy, but it is possible. The path is long and as long as our
dream of liberty remains alive, we will be more alive than ever.
This flyer appeared on the first Friday of the occupation.
âPatience, patience â this isnât easy.â [Words often spoken by the
meeting moderators] The forms and structures taken by the central
assembly are not something natural, but rather a specific choice towards
centralized instead of decentralized structures. Even though many of the
organizers are surely reproducing what they already know in good faith,
the effect and the purpose of centralization is to create a structure in
which the majority cannot participate, they can only watch and vote.
âWe are creating a space for expressing ourselves.â Lies. With a central
assembly, they are silencing 9,999 spaces for expressing ourselves,
replacing them with one single space. Didnât they notice that in the
hours before the Central Assembly there was a multitude of meetings,
conversations, assemblies, and initiatives not controlled by anyone?
âEveryone agree? Good, consensus.â It is evident that in the majority of
votes in the General Assembly, it is the abstaining vote that wins. Only
four days of real democracy and weâve already reproduced everyday
democracy and massive apathy. They are killing the revolution with
boredom.
âThereâs no time to debate here, this has to pass through the
commissions.â But when there are thousands of people in the plaza, when
in the meetings only the people closest to the speaker can hear, when
some commissions last until five in the morning, there is no possibility
to debate in the commissions either. A structure has been created in
which delegation is necessary. The democracy with which we are all fed
up has been reproduced.
How to Manipulate an Assembly
For he who has the microphone and announces the proposal, it is
extremely easy to generate the desired consensus.
âAlways propose the desired option in the first position. E.g. âThe
proposal is to do a silent march to Plaça Sant Jaume. Everyone in
favor?â No one wants to be in the minority, so those who arenât in favor
will abstain from voting, so there will be the appearance of consensus.
âAvoid debate on your ideological foundations. E.g. âThe proposal is to
carry out a nonviolent actoin against the banks.â Nonviolence is never
debated, but imposed, by making exclusively pacifist proposals so that
the options will always be doing nothing, or doing something nonviolent.
You canât be a future politician if you donât know how to control the
rage of your flock. This is what democracy is all about.
âWhen you monopolize the microphone to make speeches and sway the
masses, itâs best if you donât use the exact same gestures as Lenin did,
so as not to reveal your true intentions.
âNever, under any circumstances, allow decentralization or spontaneity
to flourish, because then your loyal masses would be replaced with a
multitude of self-organized, creative, and liberated people.
Concrete Proposals for a Self-Organized Plaza
âReplace the monopoly of the commissions with a multiplication of
organizing groups. Multiple kitchens, multiple communication and
extension groups, with more autonomy, more fluidity, more possibility to
develop diverse forms for diverse tastes, more space for everyoneâs
participation without creating silenced minorities. These groups would
communicate among themselves, collaborating when they consider it
opportune.
âConvert the Central Assembly into a general encounter for exchanging
information and resources, and generating a collective environment and
consciousness. Here one could make proposals in order to seek support
and allies, but without obliging everyone to sign on. If we donât have
spokespeople, we donât need unified texts either. If we donât have
leaders, we donât need homogenized actions. What unites us is the fact
that we are here and we are self-organizing our resistance.
Down with centralization! Up with self-organization!
This flyer appeared about a week into the occupation.
In Plaça Catalunya we are already thousands. We have taken the center of
the city. We have made it ours, and with our determination we have
opened a fault line of indignation in the wall of consent and social
resignation.
Now we only have two options: allow this crack to close up, losing a
unique opportunity for a veritable social change, or open it as much as
we can, widening it until it reaches the very foundations of our misery
and exploitation.
If we want to get somewhere, if we want everything that we denounce and
disdain to disappear, we must exceed the limits of the plaza. We must
exceed the limits of the very legality which yesterday told us we could
not occupy it, and today tells us we cannot leave it, that we cannot
touch the normality that surrounds it.
We must disobey the voice of Power when it tells us that blocking a
street is violent while it blocks human lives with layoffs and
exploitation, when it tells us that confronting the police is violent
while they torture immigrants and and dissidents in their jails, when it
tells us that attacking a bank is violent while it leaves whole families
on the street for not paying the mortgage.
We must disobey, because no revolution has ever been carried out while
respecting the laws of the powerful. We must disobey, because the
greatest violence would not be to continue to act illegally, but rather
to pass up the opportunity to end once and for all the abuses and all
the massive violence this society produces.
We must take the streets, we must extend the revolt to all the
neighborhoods and every field of life.
We donât want just a plaza, we want the whole city.
This text appeared on a poster produced about a week into the
occupation.
The democratic form is the most perfected political system that Capital
has encountered for its development and universal implantation. There is
no practical criticism of democracy without a criticism of capitalism.
To accept or attempt to reform capitalism implies accepting or trying to
reform its most appropriate political form. Democracy separates
political decisions from the rest of social life. It foments the
illusion that we are equals before the law and the institutions, while
obscuring the fact that while it offers these possibilities they will
only be a reality for those who can employ them. This separation avoids
class antagonism or gender differences, reducing conflicts to an
apparently neutral sphere in which it will be possible to achieve
equality via discussion and consensus among the affected parties. And it
is this mechanism that brings with it a generalized demobilization, in
which any movement that is oppositional in the beginning can be
integrated through dialogue between representatives.
Nonetheless, the criticism of democracy cannot be reduced to the manner
in which decisions are made. Democracy, whether direct or
representative, is the supremacy of means over ends, and the dissolution
of potentialities into that which is purely formal. If a movement
advances and confronts Power, it is not democratic. But if the conflict
or the movement can be compatible with arbitration and conciliation,
then it is normal that form and procedure should be the most important
considerations. Organizing an assembly according to the proper norms
becomes more important than what the assembly decides. Those who
privilege procedures of administration are condemned to creating an
administrative apparatus, instead of resituating discussion within the
content of our experience, our words and our actions. Reality is
inverted, and it is forgotten that revolution is not only a question of
form. It is the nature of this change we must insist upon. To create a
world without money, without the exchange of commodities, without the
buying and selling of labor, without companies as competing poles of
value accumulation, without work being separated from the rest of our
activities, without the State, without a political sphere that is
specialized and isolated from our social relations.
This was the official text put on the encampment website on May 20 and
handed out among participants.
urge voting for any political optoin [including blank or null votes]
will now begin [in order to comply with Spanish law regarding the âDay
of Reflectionâ before Election Sunday].
It is our duty to show our ID and our right to politely ask for the
badge number of the police officer. IMPORTANT: Once seated on the ground
in the plaza, make use of the LEGAL TEAM, identified by their reflective
jackets, to act as mediators between the plaza and the police. (The
LEGAL TEAM is a defense commission belonging to the Bar Association).
prohibiting protests in the days before the election].
are providing all of you with the phone number of the LEGAL TEAM so they
can give you legal aid.
[1] I use this term simply to separate us from those of the
consensus/moderation crowd and those whose participation was not openly
anarchist.