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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

CrimethInc.

Fire Extinguishers and Fire Starters

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.

Barcelona, Spring 2011: Chronology of An Unexpected Event

Buildup:

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 “social assemblies.”

November 28, 2010: Elections in Catalunya replace the governing

Socialist Party with the rightwing Convergencia i Unió, 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 “black bloc” anarchists, leads thousands of

people into the emblematic rich neighborhood, Sarrià, 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.

#Revolution Breaks Out:

Sunday, May 15: A recently formed platform centered in Madrid,

Democracia Real Ya or “Real Democracy Now” (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 activists—non-party assembly decision-making, nonviolence, and

unity among los indignados, “the indignant”—are 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 “extension,”

“communication,” “content,” “assembly preparation,” “financial,”

“legal,” and “kitchen.” 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 Barcelona’s

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 “Day of Reflection,” 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 “revolution.” 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 “Self-Organization and Direct Democracy” 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 “mi puta madre” 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 “more debate” 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 “clean up” the plaza for “hygienic reasons”

and to remove potentially dangerous clutter ahead of tomorrow’s 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 “nonviolent resistance.” 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

person’s 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.

Winding Down:

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 “Plaça de l’Assemblea.” 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 Characteristics of the Occupation

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 what’s going on. A young student comments on a flyer I’m

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 texts—not 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 “for the

plaza” and receive at least a sympathetic response, and often a lot of

free materials.

What we have experienced in Barcelona is a rupture—not so much in State

control, in view of the democratic forms chosen by the occupation

movement, but most definitely in people’s 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 opinions—because 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:

“But if we get rid of all the politicians, new ones will just come

replace them.” “No, these kids are right! We need to get rid of all of

them. If we’re able to get rid of the first batch, we can get rid of the

next ones too!”

People’s 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 “Aquí comença la

revolució!” “The revolution begins here!”

So where did the so-called Spanish Revolution end up?

I remember yelling to a friend, high on the mass excitement of those

first days, “This is our revolution! No barricades, nothing romantic

like that, but what do we expect? It’s a piece of shit, but we already

knew this is the world we live in. We have a lot of work to do!”

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 variety—including some anarchists—who

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 I’m

getting ahead of myself.

The preamble of the DRY manifesto gives a good impression of their

political brand:

“We 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.”

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 “democracy” (good) and

“corruption” (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 “we’re

going to change everything,” 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

it’s 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 Ningú ens representa, “No one represents us,” was

distorted within their program to mean, “None of the politicians

currently in power represent us: we want better ones who will.”

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 point—the control

room, as it were. This is a statist impulse. The need to impose

legibility on a social situation—and social situations are always

chaotic—is 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 “chaos” 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 “normalized” 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), “a 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,” 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 “Politicians, Bosses, Bankers, CCOO UGT [the major trade

unions] Fuck Off.” 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 “No one represents us!”

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 “nonviolent resistance.” 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 pacifists—and they certainly didn’t do it sitting down

waiting for the legal team, as the pacifists had advised—the 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 revolts—emboldening 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 you’re 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 “antisistema.”

The CC police set themselves the task of kicking out the Pakistani

lateros (beer vendors). Their justification was that “they bothered

people” by offering beers for sale every few minutes, and that they

“created a bad image” 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 “uncivic.” 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 wouldn’t 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 CC’s 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 needs—sometimes 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 “anarchist ghetto” indicates that we are less isolated than

most people. This communality that we carry with us makes us stand out;

the “ghetto” 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 occupation—staffing 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 day’s 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 Note on Technology

A reader might notice that from the vantage point of the internet, it

seems like the “#Spanish Revolution” was based almost entirely around

Twitter and Facebook, virtual communication that doesn’t feature at all

in my account. In reality, except for the occasional tech geek wandering

by suggesting that we could solve all the world’s problems with virtual

simultaneous internet democracy, that part of the revolution simply

didn’t exist for me.

Perhaps this is not surprising, in that I don’t have a cellphone and

don’t 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.

Anarchist Strategies

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 “radical” 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 “Self-Organization and Direct

Democracy.” 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 occupation’s 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

“escrache” 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 meetings—this meant that we weren’t 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 didn’t want to be

responsible for that, did we?

At the time, there were only about six of us there. I don’t 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 didn’t need any discussion, and they were

modestly Herculean. It’s 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 I’ll 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.

What We Learned

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 anyone’s 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 distraction—it doesn’t 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 don’t 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 you’re 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

wasn’t a comfortable space for them. It strikes me that these two

opposite approaches are complementary. Both are based on avoiding

personal discomfort.

Some further lessons:

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. They’re 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 people’s 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 couldn’t have our event in the spot

where we wanted. “Why?” I asked, getting ready to go ballistic. The

response was far more pathetic than I had expected. “Because our forms

are divided into different columns, see, one column for each space in

the plaza, but that space over by the staircase, well that’s not an

official space.” “That’s okay, we don’t mind, just write it down.” “But,

but, I can’t. There isn’t a column for it.” “Well, make a column.” “Um,

I can’t.” “Oh Christ, look, which one’s open—look, here, ‘Pink Space,’

just write our event down for the ‘Pink Space’ and when the time comes

we’ll just move it.” 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 sham—that, 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 weren’t 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 didn’t

enjoy speaking or receiving compliments—it made me feel nervous and

self-conscious—but I wonder: if I hadn’t, 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.

Appendix: Translations from Original Texts in Catalan and Spanish

“Why We Don’t Lay Claim to Democracy”

Possibly the first anarchist text to come out of the occupation, this

was published alongside “And after Sunday, what then?”

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

“freedom” and “democracy” are synonyms, but democracy always leads to an

even stronger social control—it 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 doesn’t 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 don’t need others to tell us what we can do.

We are not satisfied with the single voice of the centralized assembly,

because it’s hardly any better than the daily silence of capitalism. We

want a plaza full of voices, of assemblies, of conversations. We’re

truly interested in creating links between all of us, but we’d like to

do it in another way: through solidarity between the struggles and not

through the homogenization of our ideas.

Let’s destroy democracy and spread freedom!

“And After Sunday, What Then?”

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:

never to pact with the rich and powerful

to support the prisoners created by the repression

to respect diverse paths of struggle

to seize the streets, and the responsibility to sustain ourselves

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.

“Grave Errors of the Protagonists of the Central Assembly”

This flyer appeared on the first Friday of the occupation.

“Patience, patience – this isn’t easy.” [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.

“We are creating a space for expressing ourselves.” Lies. With a central

assembly, they are silencing 9,999 spaces for expressing ourselves,

replacing them with one single space. Didn’t they notice that in the

hours before the Central Assembly there was a multitude of meetings,

conversations, assemblies, and initiatives not controlled by anyone?

“Everyone agree? Good, consensus.” 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 we’ve already reproduced everyday

democracy and massive apathy. They are killing the revolution with

boredom.

“There’s no time to debate here, this has to pass through the

commissions.” 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.

–Always propose the desired option in the first position. E.g. “The

proposal is to do a silent march to Plaça Sant Jaume. Everyone in

favor?” No one wants to be in the minority, so those who aren’t in favor

will abstain from voting, so there will be the appearance of consensus.

–Avoid debate on your ideological foundations. E.g. “The proposal is to

carry out a nonviolent actoin against the banks.” 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 can’t be a future politician if you don’t know how to control the

rage of your flock. This is what democracy is all about.

–When you monopolize the microphone to make speeches and sway the

masses, it’s best if you don’t use the exact same gestures as Lenin did,

so as not to reveal your true intentions.

–Never, 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

–Replace 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 everyone’s

participation without creating silenced minorities. These groups would

communicate among themselves, collaborating when they consider it

opportune.

–Convert 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 don’t have

spokespeople, we don’t need unified texts either. If we don’t have

leaders, we don’t 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!

“The Greatest Violence Would Be Returning to Normality”

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 don’t want just a plaza, we want the whole city.

“Assemblies, Democracy, and Capitalism”

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.

“Important Information Regarding a Possible Eviction of the Plaza”

This was the official text put on the encampment website on May 20 and

handed out among participants.

Regarding political and electoral posters: removal of posters that

urge voting for any political optoin [including blank or null votes]

will now begin [in order to comply with Spanish law regarding the “Day

of Reflection” before Election Sunday].

In the case of police intervention, we will all sit down in the plaza.

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).

We define ourselves as a gathering [to attempt to dodge the law

prohibiting protests in the days before the election].

In the case of arrest NEVER make a statement in the police station. We

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.