Contents:
Somebody throws an idea out there, we discuss it, reach an agreement on it, and then get to work. Olmo, a year-old business studies graduate from Granada, says he had never attended a demonstration before this.
Demonstrations need to be meeting points, ways to connect with others that can produce outcomes. It all began with "18 or 20 deadbeats with a budget of a thousand euros," says Chema Ruiz, the year-old Madrid spokesman for PAH, a platform set up for people unable to pay their mortgages, which joined forces with Real Democracy Now about two months ago. By early December, they had found another 10 or so like-minded individuals with the same ideas. They took their inspiration from protests in Iceland that resulted in prison sentences for some of those responsible for the country's bankruptcy as well as new legislation to prevent a future crisis.
Then the wave of protests that swept through the Arab world showed them how loosely formed group were able to organize protests through social media. In January, they widened their base by joining up with other groups that had sprung up in the wake of the financial crisis. More organizations, platforms, and civic associations signed up. The list grew and grew. All the while, the online discussions continued and a number of common ideas emerged: This is how the movement's slogan, which has resonated with so many, came about: We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers.
The name caught on, a website was set up, and the movement grew on a daily basis as new groups joined in the debate. By mid-March, the first face-to-face meetings were being set up. It was strange to suddenly meet all these people in person. On the May 2 public holiday, a meeting attended by some representatives was held in Madrid's Retiro park. An agenda was drawn up, and everybody was allowed to speak.
Less than two weeks later, Real Democracy Now made history.
It brought 80, people together who sought to make their voices heard in protests held in front of city halls throughout the country. Juan Cobo, a year-old photographer, says he returned home that Sunday evening with a broad grin on his face. When he saw that news coverage had focused on the few disturbances that had taken place, his smile faded.
But then, he says, he realized that this wasn't just a oneoff protest that had ended in smashed windows and graffiti. This was something new.
At four in the morning, he headed back to Sol to support those who had stayed on in the square. About 35 people were there, still awake and planning for the next day. That was the moment that Cobo knew he had to become more involved. The idea for a mass camp in the Puerta del Sol was being born, and for Cobo, there was no turning back. The next day at 4pm, the first tarpaulin was draped, and people gathered under it to discuss their next move. Soon, others joined, while a Popular Party candidate holding a campaign meeting across the street could barely hold the attention of a handful.
At 8pm, around people held a sit-in in the square. Though from different backgrounds, they all had one thing in common - they had had enough of being lied to by politicians. When they heard that similar camps had been set up in Valencia and Seville, they decided they would hold their ground if the police threatened to break up the camp. We are people who have come here freely to demand a new approach to politics based on respect. We don't belong to any party or organization. We are here because we want change. Thanks for your comment, Sam.
A favoured part of the world with friends living there. Thanks for the pingback Emily! Will have to check it out on your blog, as not quite sure what it is! Great blog — very informative. Nice to read it all in English too!
Thanks Jo, glad you found it useful. Although am tending to use more photos lately than write as much, as I think they tell this story so much better than words. Solidarity message from the Egyptian protest movement. Suggestions board on pillar of the Setas. All this was queer and moving. There was much in this that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies.
Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. Orwell was a democratic socialist and a left-libertarian sympathizer who expressed solidarity with the anarchist movement and social revolution, later commenting, "I had told everyone for a long time past that I was going to leave the P.
As far as my purely personal preferences went I would have liked to join the Anarchists. The most notable aspect of the social revolution was the establishment of a libertarian socialist economy based on coordination through decentralized and horizontal federations of participatory industrial collectives and agrarian communes. Here are just a few opinions of foreign journalists who have no personal connection with the Anarchist movement.
Thus, Andrea Oltmares, [6] professor in the University of Geneva, in the course of an address of some length, said:. They kindled in everyone the required sense of responsibility, and knew how, by eloquent appeals, to keep alive the spirit of sacrifice for the general welfare of the people. The anti-capitalist transformation took place here without their having to resort to a dictatorship. The members of the syndicates are their own masters and carry on the production and the distribution of the products of labor under their own management, with the advice of technical experts in whom they have confidence.
The enthusiasm of the workers is so great that they scorn any personal advantage and are concerned only for the welfare of all. The well-known anti-Fascist, Carlo Rosselli, [6] who before Mussolini's accession to power was Professor of Economics in the University of Genoa, put his judgment into the following words:.
This is chiefly due to the Anarchists, who have revealed a quite remarkable sense of proportion, realistic understanding, and organising ability Anarcho-Syndicalism , hitherto so despised, has revealed itself as a great constructive force I am not an Anarchist, but I regard it as my duty to express here my opinion of the Anarchists of Catalonia, who have all too often been represented to the world as a destructive, if not criminal, element. I was with them at the front, in the trenches, and I have learnt to admire them.
The Catalan Anarchists belong to the advance guard of the coming revolution. A new world was born with them, and it is a joy to serve that world. And Fenner Brockway, [6] Secretary of the I. It was unnecessary to tell me that it was the largest and most vital of the working-class organisations in Spain. The large industries were clearly, in the main, in the hands of the C. At Valencia the U. I was immensely impressed by the constructive revolutionary work which is being done by the C. Their achievement of workers' control in industry is an inspiration. One could take the example of the railways or engineering or textiles There are still some Britishers and Americans who regard the Anarchists of Spain as impossible, undisciplined, uncontrollable.
This is poles away from the truth. The Anarchists of Spain, through the C. At the front they are fighting Fascism. Behind the front they are actually constructing the new Workers' Society. They see that the war against Fascism and the carrying through of the Social Revolution are inseparable.
Those who have seen and understand what they are doing must honour them and be grateful to them. They are resisting Fascism. They are at the same time creating the New Workers' Order which is the only alternative to Fascism. That is surely the biggest things now being done by the workers in any part of the world.
Spanishrevolution (Spanish Edition) - Kindle edition by JOSEBA ELOLA. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Spanish Revolution. likes · talking about this. En Youtube: www.farmersmarketmusic.com
The organisations must, to be successful, be combined with a free-thinking people; not a mass, but free individuals. This was accomplished through widespread expropriation and collectivization of privately owned productive resources and some smaller structures , in adherence to the anarchist belief that private property is authoritarian in nature. Spanish Civil War scholar and anti-socialist Burnett Bolloten writes of this process: The economic changes that followed the military insurrection were no less dramatic than the political.
In those provinces where the revolt had failed the workers of the two trade union federations, the Socialist UGT and the Anarchosyndicalist CNT, took into their hands a vast portion of the economy. Landed properties were seized; some were collectivized, others were distributed among the peasants, and notarial archives as well as registers of property were burnt in countless towns and villages.
Railways, tramcars and buses, taxicabs and shipping, electric light and power companies, gasworks and waterworks, engineering and automobile assembly plants, mines and cement works, textile mills and paper factories, electrical and chemical concerns, glass bottle factories and perfumeries, food-processing plants and breweries, as well as a host of other enterprises, were confiscated or controlled by workmen's committees, either term possessing for the owners almost equal significance in practice.
Motion-picture theatres and legitimate theatres, newspapers and printing shops, department stores and bars, were likewise sequestered or controlled as were the headquarters of business and professional associations and thousands of dwellings owned by the upper class. The economic policies of the anarchist collectives were primarily operated according to the basic communist principle of " From each according to his ability, to each according to his need ".
In some places, money was entirely eliminated, to be replaced with vouchers and coupons distributed on the basis of needs rather than individual labor contributions. Bolloten writes of this process also: In many communities money for internal use was abolished, because, in the opinion of Anarchists, 'money and power are diabolical philtres, which turn a man into a wolf, into a rabid enemy, instead of into a brother. Rockefeller, if you were to come to Fraga with your entire bank account you would not be able to buy a cup of coffee. Money, your God and your servant, has been abolished here, and the people are happy.
Obligatory collectivization was justified, in some libertarians' eyes, by a reasoning closer to war communism than to libertarian communism: A new world was born with them, and it is a joy to serve that world. There are still some Britishers and Americans who regard the Anarchists of Spain as impossible, undisciplined, uncontrollable. Retrieved from " https: Those who have seen and understand what they are doing must honour them and be grateful to them. Along with the political parties, they have also failed to understand that not all movements work from the top down, that a leader or hierarchies are not essential, that it is possible for everyone to make a contribution, and for them to feel part of what is happening.
Locally produced goods, if abundant, such as bread, wine, and olive oil, were distributed freely, while other articles could be obtained by means of coupons at the communal depot.