Turkey‘s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was facing the biggest challenge to his 10-year rule this weekend as parts of Istanbul turned into a war zone. Violent clashes took place between riot police and tens of thousands of demonstrators outraged at the heavy-handed response of authorities to an environmental protest on Friday.

The eruption of frustration with Erdogan’s government spread to a dozen other Turkish cities overnight and supporters gathered worldwide in Boston, London, Barcelona and Amsterdam to voice solidarity with the protesters.

Police eventually withdrew from the city’s central Taksim Square early on Saturday evening, bringing an end to the clashes. By late night thousands of people were celebrating there. “This is it, we won, Gezi Park is ours again”, said Burcu Kurhan, 33, one protester who joined the crowds in the inner-city park where peaceful protests started on Monday. “But we hope that Tayyip will have to go!”

Several overturned police and municipal vehicles were covered in graffiti demanding the government resigns.

“This is our museum”, explained one protester, laughing. “Memories of the days when a dictator ruled Turkey!”

Inside the park, the atmosphere resembled that of a summer music festival, with people scattered on the grass, singing, chatting and enjoying a beer. Celebrations united many factions of Turkish society – leftist groups, unions, nationalists, Kemalists and members of the gay and transgender communities waving rainbow flags.

“This is just the beginning, our struggle will continue!” chanted a euphoric crowd. The original protest was aimed at saving a city centre park in Istanbul from shopping centre developers who had been backed by the government. But it rapidly snowballed into a national display of anger at the perceived arrogance of the country’s rulers.

While the ferocity of Friday’s police crackdown attracted worldwide headlines, the mass protests against the government went largely unreported on the main Turkish TV channels and government-supporting newspapers. Erdogan, usually quick to respond to major events, also remained silent until Saturday, when he delivered a lengthy address on television. Calling for an immediate end to the protests, he pledged that the government would press ahead with the construction of the controversial shopping centre.

“Police were there yesterday, they’ll be on duty today and also tomorrow because Taksim Square cannot be an area where extremists are running wild,” Erdogan said. “If this is about staging a protest, about a social movement, I would … gather 200,000 where they gather 20, and where they gather 100,000, I would gather 1 million party supporters. Let’s not go down that road.”

Sirri Sureyya Onder, an MP from the Kurdish Peace and Democracy party (BDP), who was injured by a teargas cartridge on Saturday, said the government had gone too far in its crackdown on peaceful protesters.

“They are rebelling against all of this now. People are fed up with this lack of public discussion, with the disrespect, the immoderateness, the lawlessness and the authoritarianism of this government. It is not very good at apologising. But this time I think it will have to.”

The lack of media coverage has further inflamed tension on the streets. “There is a total media blackout on this in Turkey, the Turkish media silent on the protests; they all collaborate with the government,” said 21-year-old student Ayse Sarac. “We follow the foreign news coverage to get more information.”

On Saturday many shop owners, hotels and residents of Istanbul’s Beyoglu district showed solidarity with demonstrators, handing out water and offering shelter to those fleeing the police raids. Volunteer doctors and medical students set up makeshift clinics all over the chic central district. From a small bar just off Taksim Square, 30-year-old bar manager Esra Huri Bulduk and other activists handed out bottles of milk and anti-acidic fluids used to counter the effects of teargas.

A room in the Istanbul Chamber of Mechanical Engineers was transformed into an impromptu clinic. Up to 15 doctors have been treating victims of teargas attacks and police violence since Friday night. “We have treated more than 100 patients here,” said one medical student who wished to remain anonymous. “The police now use a very heavy teargas that causes serious health problems.”

Hundreds have sustained injuries over the past two days, some serious, with at least three people said to be in critical condition. There are reports of head trauma and broken limbs. Human Rights Watch confirmed that one 23-year-old student lost an eye after being hit with a plastic bullet by police.

“This excessive violence once again shows that this government is intolerant of dissent and restrictive of dissent,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But this is a new low, even for Turkey.”

The US has expressed concern over the way the Turkish government is handling the situation, and the British consulate in Istanbul took the unusual step of publicly rebuking the government for overreacting after a teargas canister landed in the consulate gardens.

“Our government actively supports the Syrian opposition, and they constantly call for more democratic rights in Syria. But look what they do to those who oppose their own ideas and policies – they try to shut us up with teargas and violence,” said Nejla Gulten, a 32-year-old sociologist. “When the prime minister speaks about women, he never speaks about the problem of violence against women, but only about how many children we should have. He shapes every issue in Turkey to suit himself.”

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/01/turkey-istanbul-erdogan-demo-protests

Europe’s 2013 protest season finally kicked off this week. On Saturday, three days after the umpteenth general strike paralyzed Greece, a “citizens’ wave” of indignation washed over Spain with hundreds of thousands of protesters swarming onto the streets of Madrid and over 80 cities in yet another major popular outcry against the ongoing financial coup d’étât. In Madrid, clashes broke out and at least 40 were arrested after police sought to disperse protesters who had once more encircled Parliament.

Saturday’s demonstration in Spain was deliberately timed to coincide with the 32nd anniversary of El Tejerazo, an attempted coup d’étât by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, who in 1981 led a military contingent of 200 armed officers as they stormed into Congress while it was in the process of electing a new Prime Minister. Although King Juan Carlos publicly condemned the coup, Der Spiegel last year revealed secret documents showing that the King privately sympathized with the coup.

For millions of Spaniards, the embarrassing issue of the country’s anachronistic aristocracy is enough of a headache already. As Spain’s crisis burst out into the open, King Juan Carlos infamously went elephant-hunting in Botswana, amply displaying the insensitivity and aloofness of the head of state (who also serves as honorary president of the country’s WWF branch). Meanwhile, the King’s daughter and son-in-law are facing major corruption charges for multi-million euro fraud and money-laundering.

Still, past military coups and absurd royal scandals are some of Spain’s least concerns at the moment. As the economy plunges ever deeper into the abyss, spectacularly missing EU-imposed debt goals by posting a dramatic 10.2 percent budget deficit last year, millions are now at risk of poverty. According to Oxfam, some 18 million Spaniards (almost 40 percent of the population) could face life of destitution by 2022. Decades of development risk coming undone. In the EU, only Bulgaria and Romania have a higher percentage of their population living in such dire circumstances.

With unemployment hitting a shocking 26 percent, with over 400.000 families evicted from their homes since the start of the crisis (amounting to a mind-numbing 500 families per day), and with another 53,272 families projected tolose their homes this year alone, an acute humanitarian crisis is presenting itself. Meanwhile, with the excuse of “balancing the budget”, salaries are being slashed, employees laid off, hospitals privatized, pensions cut, tuition fees hiked, taxes raised, and social spending decimated.

Last year, a quarter of the government budget went to servicing the public debt, while 100 billion euros were wasted to bail out Bankia, itself a conglomerate of bankrupt savings houses. Despite the lavish provision of public funds and theextravagant bonuses of Bankia’s executives (one of whom was given 6.2 million euros to go into “early retirement”), the bank will next week reveal total losses amounting to more than 19 billion euros, constituting the largest corporate losses in Spanish history.

All the while, the elephant in the room is a sickening corruption scandal that continues to plague Rajoy’s conservative government. Last month, Spain’s biggest newspaper El País published secret documents revealing years of endemic corruption at the highest levels of the governing party. Luis Barcenas, the treasurer of the Partido Popular, kept a double account from which secret contributions by Spanish businessmen were redistributed to leading party members. Among the benefactors of the scandal are former Bankia executive and IMF official Rodrigo Rato, as well as Prime Minister Rajoy, who for 10 years netted over 250.000 euros in illegal side-payments.

To make matters worse, much of this money appears to have originated from the construction sector, which experienced a huge boom during the build-up of the Spanish real estate bubble, suggesting that leading politicians greedily took bribes to allow private investors to bypass construction regulations and build on protected lands. In the process, thousands of building projects scarred the Spanish landscape, leaving behind hundreds of uninhabited ghost towns and destroying much of the country’s once pristine beach lines. When the bubble finally burst, millions of workers in the construction sector lost their jobs and hundreds of thousands lost their homes — while politicians, bankers and businessmen made windfall profits.

The PP corruption scandal confirmed a long-held suspicion among the Spanish population that democratically-elected representatives were largely complicit in causing (and profiting from) the country’s severe financial crisis. Already back in 2011, millions of indignados took to the streets to denounce the country’s representative institutions as a sham of democracy, counter-posing the corporate and corrupt practices of their politicians with a genuine form of grassroots democracy practiced through popular assemblies and solidarity networks.

This Saturday, the Marea Ciudadana — a loose and decentralized coalition of over 200 action groups and movement associations, and itself a product of nearly two years of popular resistance — brought hundreds of thousands of people back to the streets to send yet another message to the government: enough with austerity and debt repayment; enough with political and economic corruption, with banker impunity, royal dishonesty and police brutality; enough with the rule of financial markets and EU/IMF-imposed reforms; enough with this inhumane neoliberal solution to the crisis of capital.

As the PP corruption scandal sent Rajoy reeling and clinging on to power, the government’s last remaining fragments of legitimacy are rapidly evaporating. Polls show that 96 percent of Spaniards believe their politicians are thoroughly corrupt, and the persistent mobilization of hundreds of thousands of outraged citizens shows that millions are acutely aware that there is a direct line connecting these corrupt politicians to national businessmen, European institutions, and international finance capital.

And so, exactly 32 years since the Tejerazo, the people of Spain are making it known that they will not abide by yet another attempted coup d’étât. The elephant in the room has been exposed and the emperor is revealed to stand without clothes. The 2013 hunting season has begun. This time around, the hunter will be hunted and the King will be prey — along with the entire blue-blooded financial aristocracy: from Rato to Rajoy and from Bankia to the Troika. ¡Que se vayan todos! It’s time for them to go.

Source: http://roarmag.org/2013/02/23f-madrid-spain-austerity-protest/

Anti-austerity rage intensified in Madrid, as protesters surrounded the parliament Tuesday night in a sign of mounting frustration towards the right-wing government. Their demands included the resignation of top officials with new elections, the halt to austerity measures, and the rewriting of the Spanish Constitution. The protesters charged the government with theft and criminal activity for implementing harsh austerity measures, hiking taxes, record unemployment and allowing mass evictions of unemployed families on a daily basis.

As thousands converged outside the gates of parliament, hundreds of police clashed with protesters, detaining and beating many. Organizers of the action were harassed and intimidated by the police weeks before September 25th. Activists were detained, assembly meetings broken up and a cultural center was raided and shut down.

The Spanish government, with help of the mainstream media, hyped the event as a possible coup d’etate. Nearly 2,000 police officers were deployed to prevent the protesters from reaching the parliament. Despite the main unions withdrawing their support, it’s estimated close to 10,000 people attended. The call to surround the congress brought out Spaniards from all walks of life despite police repression to prevent activists from mobilizing.

On numerous occasions, the police pushed and shoved us as we tried to film. Other journalists were beaten and injured by rubber bullets.

Story produced by Jihan Hafiz and Jairo Vargas Martin.

The “Occupy Congress” protest comes as the government prepares to unveil further austerity measures on Thursday in a bid to shrink its budget deficit.

Spain is in its second recession in three years and unemployment is near 25%, with youth unemployment far higher.

The government will unveil the draft budget for 2013 on Thursday and is expected to present new cost-saving reforms to reassure lenders about the state of the country’s public finances.

Emergency funds

The demonstrators – known as Indignants – say “Occupy Congress” is a protest against the kidnapping of democracy.

Thousands of people had massed in Plaza de Neptuno square in central Madrid for the march on parliament.

But their route towards the parliament building’s main entrance was blocked off by metal railings, police vans and hundreds of Spanish riot police.

Mark Smith, who lives near the site of the protest, said: “I saw riot police with their batons charging at protesters trying to split up the crowd.”

Tuesday’s demonstration was organised via social media sites and many young people turned out, says the BBC’s Tom Burridge in Madrid – but the protest’s public profile meant the police were ready for them.

The police’s tactics seem to have been to target ringleaders to break up the crowds, adds our correspondent, which prompted some scuffles but no widespread fighting.

Buses had reportedly been laid on to ferry demonstrators into the capital from the provinces.

One of the main protest groups, Coordinadora #25S, said the Indignants did not plan to storm parliament, only to march around it.

The Coordinadora #25S manifesto reads: “Democracy has been kidnapped. On 25 September we are going to save it.”

Pablo Mendez, an activist from the 15M Indignants movement, told the Associated Press: “This is just a powerful signal that we are sending to politicians to let them know that the Spanish bailout is suicide and we don’t agree with it, and we will try to prevent it happening.”

Another demonstrator, Montse Puigdavall, said: “I’m here because of the situation we are living in now, because of all the social cuts and rights that we have lost, that took a lot of hard work to achieve.

“So we are here because we’re determined not to lose them.”

Under Spanish law, people who lead demonstrations outside parliament that disrupt its business while it is in session may be jailed for up to one year, AFP says.

Clashes have broken out at previous rallies and marches against the cuts and at least 1,300 police were said to be on duty at the Congress building.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19712203

The city of Florence is one of those privileged observation spots from which one can read the health of the Italian left and its international standing. Back in 2002 it was in this city that the first European Social Forum was organised. The event came a year after the bloody battle of Genoa, the event which marked the culmination of the anti-globalisation movement. Hundreds of thousands of members of social movements, trade unions, NGOs and activist groups gathered in what remains, to date, the biggest and most successful European Social Forum. The event testified to the cultural influence of Italian social movements in Europe, and of their espousal of a Europeanism from below.

On 9 December 2011, Florence was again the venue for a forum assembling key progressive intellectuals and activists of the Italian left, convening to discuss the future of Europe. Almost a decade after the first ESF, this forum was staged against a background of political demobilisation, in which Italian activists appear incapable of facing up to the politics of austerity pushed by the new Italian prime minister Mario Monti, who has been de facto chosen by the European oligarchy to reassure the financial markets.

The Florence meeting was titled ‘Routes of Europe’ (punning in Italian on ‘rout’) and sought a new progressive agenda for the old continent. The end result was a draft appeal, ‘Another Road for Europe’ (signed, among others, by Donatella Della Porta, who writes on the following page). This proposes economic recipes resembling those outlined in the Euromemorandum, among them an abandonment of the ‘stability pacts’, a shift in taxation from labour to wealth, the establishment of a European public rating agency, the creation of eurobonds to refinance public debt and investment in the green economy. To this, the Italian appeal adds an emphasis on the need for democratic reform of EU institutions to make them accountable and representative.

To date the Florence appeal represents one of the most advanced policy platforms on European reform. The problem is that it does not identify who should campaign for the demands it puts forward. The organisers of the Florence meeting mooted the idea of a new European Social Forum for this purpose, but this suggestion is a symptom of the degree to which Italian activists are out of tune with what is happening around Europe.

The organisational form that is en vogue across Europe is not the social forum as a convergence of progressive civil society organisations but the popular assembly used by the Indignados: a convergence of individuals who do not feel represented by any organisation, including progressive ones. The policies emerging from the Florence meeting resonate with some of the proposals that have been agreed by the assemblies of the Spanish Indignados through complex consensus procedures. Yet the organisers of the Florence meeting did not seem to acknowledge that this is currently the only movement that can halt the politics of austerity in Europe.

What made Italian social movements so influential during the anti-globalisation cycle was their capacity to combine a high level of intellectual analysis with the inventiveness of grass-roots organisational practices. The meeting in Florence demonstrates that this cultural capacity is still there. What is now missing is the connection between intellectual debate and organisational practices reflecting the direction that social movements are taking around Europe and beyond: popular participation and assembly democracy.

‘Italian activists continue to wallow in nostalgia for the anti-globalisation cycle,’ I was recently told by a member of Democracia Real Ya, one of the initiators of the Indignados movement in Spain. If valuable proposals such as the ones advanced by the Florence meeting are to have any political purchase, they need to find legitimacy in the movements of the present rather than in those of the past.

Source: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/a-different-kind-of-europe-responses/

Although they emerge from very different conditions, these movements – from the insurrections of the Arab Spring to the union battles in Wisconsin, from the student protests in Chile to those in the US and Europe, from the UK riots to the occupations of the Spanish indignados and the Greeks in Syntagma Square, and from Occupy Wall Street to the innumerable local forms of refusal across the world – share, first of all, a negative demand: Enough with the structures of neoliberalism! This common cry is not only an economic protest but also immediately a political one, against the false claims of representation. Neither Mubarak and Ben Ali nor Wall Street bankers, neither media elites nor even presidents, governors, members of parliament, and other elected officials – none of them represent us. The extraordinary force of refusal is very important, of course, but we should be careful not to lose track in the din of the demonstrations and conflicts of a central element that goes beyond protest and resistance. These movements also share the aspiration for a new kind of democracy, expressed in tentative and uncertain voices in some cases but explicitly and forcefully in others. The development of this aspiration is one of the threads we are most anxious to follow in 2012.

One source of antagonism that all of these movements will have to confront, even those that have just toppled dictators, is the insufficiency of modern democratic constitutions, particularly their regimes of labor, property, and representation. In these constitutions, first of all, waged labor is key to having access to income and the basic rights of citizenship, a relationship that has long functioned poorly for those outside the regular labor market, including the poor, the unemployed, unwaged female workers, immigrants, and others, but today all forms of labor are ever more precarious and insecure. Labor continues to be the source of wealth in capitalist society, of course, but increasingly outside the relationship with capital and often outside the stable wage relation. As a result, our social constitution continues to require waged labor for full rights and access in a society where such labor is less and less available.

Private property is a second fundamental pillar of the democratic constitutions, and social movements today contest not only national and global regimes of neoliberal governance but also the rule of property more generally. Property not only maintains social divisions and hierarchies but also generates some of the most powerful bonds (often perverse connections) that we share with each other and our societies. And yet contemporary social and economic production has an increasingly common character, which defies and exceeds the bounds of property. Capital’s ability to generate profit is declining since it is losing its entrepreneurial capacity and its power to administer social discipline and cooperation. Instead capital increasingly accumulates wealth primarily via forms of rent, most often organized through financial instruments, through which it captures value that is produced socially and relatively independent of its power. But every instance of private accumulation reduces the power and productivity of the common. Private property is thus becoming ever more not only a parasite but also an obstacle to social production and social welfare.

Finally, a third pillar of democratic constitutions, and object of increasing antagonism, as we said earlier, rests on the systems of representation and their false claims to establish democratic governance. Putting an end to the power of professional political representatives is one of the few slogans from the socialist tradition that we can affirm wholeheartedly in our contemporary condition. Professional politicians, along with corporate leaders and the media elite, operate only the weakest sort of representative function. The problem is not so much that politicians are corrupt (although in many cases this is also true) but rather that the constitutional structure isolates the mechanisms of political decision-making from the powers and desires of the multitude. Any real process of democratization in our societies has to attack the lack of representation and the false pretenses of representation at the core of the constitution.

Recognizing the rationality and necessity of revolt along these three axes and many others, which animate many struggles today, is, however, really only the first step, the point of departure. The heat of indignation and the spontaneity of revolt have to be organized in order to last over time and to construct new forms of life, alternative social formations.

The secrets to this next step are as rare as they are precious.

On the economic terrain we need to discover new social technologies for freely producing in common and for equitably distributing shared wealth. How can our productive energies and desires be engaged and increased in an economy not founded on private property? How can welfare and basic social resources be provided to all in a social structure not regulated and dominated by state property? We must construct the relations of production and exchange as well as the structures of social welfare that are composed of and adequate to the common.

The challenges on the political terrain are equally thorny. Some of the most inspiring and innovative events and revolts in the last decade have radicalized democratic thinking and practice by occupying and organizing a space, such as a public square, with open, participatory structures or assemblies, maintaining these new democratic forms for weeks or months. Indeed the internal organization of the movements themselves has been constantly subjected to processes of democratization, striving to create horizontal participatory network structures. The revolts against the dominant political system, its professional politicians, and its illegitimate structures of representation are thus not aimed at restoring some imagined legitimate representational system of the past but rather at experimenting with new democratic forms of expression: democracia real ya. How can we transform indignation and rebellion into a lasting constituent process? How can experiments in democracy become a constituent power, not only democratizing a public square or a neighborhood but also inventing an alternative society that is really democratic?

To confront these issues, we, along with many others, have proposed possible initial steps, such as establishing a guaranteed income, the right to global citizenship, and a process of the democratic reappropriation of the common. But we are under no illusion that we have all the answers. Instead we are encouraged by the fact that we are not alone asking the questions. We are confident, in fact, that those who are dissatisfied with the life offered by our contemporary neoliberal society, indignant about its injustices, rebellious against its powers of command and exploitation, and yearning for an alternative democratic form of life based on the common wealth we share – they, by posing these questions and pursuing their desires, will invent new solutions we cannot yet even imagine. Those are some of our best wishes for 2012.

Michael Hardt is an American political philosopher and literary theorist. Antonio Negri is an Italian Marxist philosopher. In the late 1970s Negri was accused of being the mastermind behind the left-wing terrorist group the Red Brigades. Negri emigrated to France where he taught in Paris along with Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. Hardt and Negri have published four important critiques of late capitalism and globalization: Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-Form (1994), Empire (2000), Multitude (2004) and Commonwealth (2009). These four works have been highly praised by contemporary activists. Empire, for example, has been hailed as “nothing less than a rewriting of The Communist Manifesto for our time” by the Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.v

There may be no better proof of the rupture that is brought about by the “movement of the squares” other than its open, participatory, directly democratic way of organising and functioning. Within a single week it has given birth to a political culture of a different type, one that literally overcomes all known models of organising and struggle to date.

Even if the issue of its procedures is incomplete, it comes up again and again and comprises the most important legacy already left to the political and social life of the country. This does not mean there are no issues with disorganisation, inefficiency, delays. Taking into account however the explosive rhythm of its development, the lack of previous experience on the side of those who created it, along with the need to compile, step by step, heterogeneous and different opinions of all participants through open procedures, all this is to be expected. Even if time-consuming, its procedures are flexible and are altered by the day; they are self-criticised, adjusted according to mistakes, comments and suggestions deriving from them being tested in practice.

The open, egalitarian and participatory character of the procedures and ways of organising derives from the will to find such procedures that can unite all who are affected by the crisis and dissatisfied with the current political system. The pacifist and non-party character of the original call-out was the condition that shaped a common public sphere where everyone would meet without any badges to co-decide by discussing at the same level.

The refusal to assign or elect representatives does not only cause unease to the forces of the state who do not know how to deal with this, as it overturns their tactic of manoeuvring, of libelling and destroying popular expressions of rage. More than that, this “facelessness” as Pretenderis would have it [a well-know reactionary TV journalist — trans], is the best way for the movement to safeguard transparency in its organising, as well as the will for whatever is created to express everyone — not just its most so-called “vanguard” or “politicised” part.

And so, the matter of procedures is not simply a matter of organising but a key issue regarding its political essence. An issue of safeguarding the conditions of unity, involvement, free participation to the right of speech and in the decision making process of the people’s assemblies; working groups, thematic assemblies and their immediate review and control. This understanding that rejects any kind of representation or mediation, is safeguarded by the constant circulation of revocable positions and runs through all structures and functions born by this movement.

In this spirit, the stance of the movement toward Mass Media is also differentiated, with the refusal to engage with them, not even by way of issuing press releases. With the screening of what part of its procedures and organising is photographed or taped, and most importantly, with the creation of the movement’s own channels of communication — with its main website www.real-democracy.gr, being the only medium-voice of its decisions.

The people’s assembly

The daily people’s assembly of Syntagma square (at 9 pm), like the corresponding ones in other cities, is the only one that holds the right to decision-making. The topics in each popular assembly are defined according to discussion, the demands and the proposals submitted in previous assemblies.
These are recorded in minutes that are published on-line. Suggestions are also collected, both on-line and physically in person and these are all grouped together in the corresponding topical groups and return in the form of specific proposals to the popular assembly for its consultation and approval.
The final resolutions are shaped during the assembly according to the comments of the speakers and are put up for approval, always before midnight, in order not to exclude those who work and those who have to use public transportation to return to their neighbourhoods.

Everyone has a right to speak and in the beginning of each assembly, after reading out and approving its topics, tickets are distributed to everyone who wishes to do so; speakers are selected by draw during the assembly. Usually speakers range between 80 and 100 in their number, while more than 2000 people take part in the assembly on a daily basis. Despite this element of chance, experience so far has proven this to be the best way to avoid any phenomena of imposition of specific agendas or the influencing of the assembly’s decisions by organised interventions.

After midnight, which is the moment until when the assembly must make its decisions, the assembly continues as an open speaking forum.

The working groups

At the moment, there are more than 15 working groups and 12 thematic ones. The working groups comprise the cornerstone of life at the square and their contribution so far has been priceless. Not only because they offer practical solutions and because so far they have responded, despite many problems and delays, to the ever-increasing needs for the shaping, the functionality and the procedures at the square, but most importantly because these groups themselves comprise the spirit of contribution of the people, their will to take life into their own hands and the capacities of their self-organising, without experts and capital, based on their own capacities. Thousands have joined up the group lists and this availability is the driving force of the movement even though it has not been utilised in the most effective of ways so far, partly due to the movement’s swift growing.

It is indicative that despite the substantial financial needs and despite peoples’ offer to contribute financially in response, the idea of setting up a fund has been rejected. Not only because of the looming dangers in the management of the money but also in order to prove that there are other ways to get things done. And so, the practice is to propose instead for contributions in anything ranging from writing materials to food, PA equipment or film projectors. And the contribution of the people has exceeded all expectations.

Until now, functioning groups include those of technical support, material supply, artists, cleaning, administrative support, canteen-nutrition, translation, respect (patrol), communication/multimedia, legal support, neighbourhood outreach, health, time bank and service exchange, composure and messengers. Each groups has been divided into subgroups according to each specialist work section. The groups meet in open assemblies every day at 6 pm and the messenger group makes sure that their needs and suggestions are known to all groups in order to safeguard the smooth cooperation and solving of any problems that may arise.

The thematic assemblies

The functioning of the thematic assemblies was born from the need and demand of the people, as expressed through the open channels of the assembly and the websites (real-democracy, facebook etc.) to have processes that will shape positions on the burning issues, on all those reasons that brought people to the streets and to the squares. They also serve the need for the shaping of appropriate conditions for a more extensive discussion of particular issues before their approval—something that the central popular assembly cannot, as a procedure, cater for. And so thematic groups have been formed for the crisis, for employment and the unemployed, education and students, health and insurance, environment, technology, solidarity, people with special needs, justice and legal issues, consultation of the debt. These assemblies meet daily between 7 and 9 pm and hundreds of people participate in some. Making their functioning substantial will largely aid and feed the discussion and topics covered in the main popular assembly, along with the attempt to articulate some concrete discourse for the overturning of the current system and the country’s escape from the crisis according to the will of the people.

GC (repost)

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2011/06/09/613-democracy-is-born-in-the-squares/

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/480674.html

pdf-en

The purpose of this Quick Guide is to facilitate and encourage the development of the different Popular Assemblies which have been created since the beginning of the 15th May Movement. This Quick Guide will be periodically revised and updated. On no account is it to be considered a closed model which cannot be adapted through consensus by any given Assembly. From the Commission for Group Dynamics in Assemblies of the Puerta del Sol Protest Camp we invite our friends and comrades to attend and take part in the meetings, work plans and internal Assemblies of this Commission, which are open to anyone who wants to come to them and actively participate in maintaining, perfecting and developing them.
Open Reflection on Collective Thinking
While we would like to share our impressions so far, we encourage you to continue to reflect on and debate these impressions as we feel that Collective Thinking is an essential part of our movement.
To our understanding, Collective Thinking is diametrically opposed to the kind of thinking propounded by the present system. This makes it difficult to assimilate and apply. Time is needed, as it involves a long process. When faced with a decision, the normal response of two people with differing opinions tends to be confrontational. They each defend their opinions with the aim of convincing their opponent, until their opinion has won or, at most, a compromise has been reached.
The aim of Collective Thinking, on the other hand, is to construct. That is to say, two people with differing ideas work together to build something new. The onus is therefore not on my idea or yours; rather it is the notion that two ideas together will produce something new, something that neither of us had envisaged beforehand. This focus requires of us that we actively listen, rather than merely be preoccupied with preparing our response.
Collective Thinking is born when we understand that all opinions, be these opinions our own or others’, need to be considered when generating consensus and that an idea, once it has been constructed indirectly, can transform us.
Do not be discouraged: we are learning; we’ll get there: all that’s needed is time.
>>THE BASICS

What is a People’s Assembly? It is a participatory decision-making body which works towards consensus. The Assembly looks for the best arguments to take a decision that reflects every opinion – not positions at odds with each other as what happens when votes are taken. It must be pacific, respecting all opinions: prejudice and ideology must left at home. An Assembly should not be centred around an ideological discourse; instead it should deal with practical questions: What do we need? How can we get it? The Assembly is based on free association – if you are not in agreement with what has been decided, you are not obliged to carry it out. Every person is free to do what they wish – the Assembly tries to produce collective intelligence, and shared lines of thought and action. It encourages dialogue and getting to know one another.
What types of Assembly have we used so far? Working Group Assemblies, Commission Assemblies, Local Assemblies (in neighbourhoods, villages and towns), General Assemblies of the Puerta de Sol Protest Camp and General Assemblies of Madrid (Puerta de Sol plus neighbourhoods, villages and towns). These latter (General) Assemblies are the final deliberative or deciding bodies from which the consensuses are decided in order to articulate the different lines of Joint Action for the 15th May Movement in each city.
What is Consensus? It is the way that the assemblies make a final decision over each specific proposal. Consensus is reached when there is no outright opposition in the assembly against the proposal. The following format must be applied to each proposal: 1) What is being proposed? 2) Why is it being proposed? 3) How can we carry out the Proposal if a consensus is reached? To sum up: What? Why? How?
What is Direct Consensus? A Consensus that is directly reached without opinions against it: Proposal > Consensus.
What is Indirect Consensus? A Consensus that is reached after debating different opinions on a proposal which did not reach a Direct Consensus. The following steps are taken to reach an Indirect Consensus: 1) What? Why? How? 2) After the moderator asks ‘Are there any strongly opposed opinions?’, and if there are, a queue for floor time is prepared. The Floor Time Team and Coordinator(s) open the first round of debate. Three arguments for and three arguments against are allowed. After that, the Assembly is asked to show its opinion again through Gestures. If consensus is still not reached when asking if there are opinions against, the Moderator will ask the Assembly to discuss the issue for three to five minutes in small groups where they are sitting. After this small break a second round of interventions consisting of Proposals for Consensus takes place. If a consensus is still not reached after these two rounds, the following takes place: a) If the Proposal comes from a Commission or Working Group, it is returned in order to be reworked, b) If the Proposal comes from an individual, it will be taken to the competent Commission or Working Group so it can reach a consensus on its usefulness and present a reworked version of it in the next Assembly, where it will once again go through the same procedure. And so on until a Real Consensus is reached.
>> THE ROLES AND FUNCTIONS INVOLVED IN A MASS ASSEMBLY:

It is vital to remember to control our gestures and body language so that our own emotions do not confuse matters, and to remember also that a smile is hugely effective in moments of tension or in an apparent dead-end. Haste and tiredness are the enemies of consensus.
LOGISTICS TEAM: A minimum of three people who are responsible for the equipment of an Assembly. They draw a Map of the Site on the site itself, organising spaces and the corridors that run through these spaces, they are in charge of the megaphone, they provide seating for people with disabilities or who are very tired, they provide water and shade (parasols/umbrellas) if temperatures are high or the sunshine is direct, etc.
ASSEMBLY PARTICIPANTS: This includes all those people participating in an Assembly, including the Group Dynamics Teams and members of Commissions or Working Groups. Participants are the life blood and the raison d’être of an Assembly. We are all responsible for running and building the Assembly. Our functions are: listening to the different speakers; participating in matters that require debate in rounds of floor time, and making individual proposals or subjective evaluations (having requested the Floor-Time Team to do so) during the Any Other Business round (normally near the end of each Assembly).
FLOOR TIME TEAM: Two to four people (depending on the size of the Assembly) positioned amongst the participants and next to the corridors. They should wear a distinctive symbol in order to be identifiable easily and carry a card which says “TURNS FOR THE FLOOR” which they lift above their heads, particularly at the end of each intervention. Their main task is to note down the names of the participants who want to take a turn. When such a request takes place, they ask the participant:
1) Is your intervention related to what is being discussed? (Remind the participant of the issue being discussed). 2) Is it a direct reply to something that has been said? 3) If so,is it in agreement or disagreement? With this information the floor-time team member determines if the intervention should be passed to the Floor-Time Coordinator(s) or not. If the proposed intervention bears no direct relationship to the issue at hand, the person’s name is noted so that they may be called upon during the Any Other Business round. They will also tell the participant about other debate forums (speakers’ corners, working groups…). Members of this team should be conciliatory, positive, neutral and patient. They are also responsible for noting any request from the moderator(s) to be relieved. They should try and involve people who have not yet intervened in the debate. A common error is to omit announcing the end of the period for requesting floor time. The total amount of floor time should be limited using common sense in order not to allow each issue to drag on indefinitely.
COORDINATOR(S) OF THE FLOOR-TIME TEAM: Two people, in close coordination with the Floor-Time Team, whose task is to organise the requests to take the floor that are forwarded to them by this team before passing them on to the moderator(s). Should a heated debate be under way, their role includes both selecting speakers so that the same message is not repeated, as well as mediating between people with similar arguments with the aim of presenting a unified proposal for debate. The coordinators are a filter – they do not evaluative the content of each intervention. In order to assure that the interventions are relevant, they should remind speakers of the issue at hand and if this does not coincide with what the speaker wants to share, direct them to other forums (speakers’ corners, working groups…). Once the intervention has been coordinated, the floor-time coordinator informs the facilitator who informs the moderator so that they can call on the speaker to intervene in the right order.
FACILITATING TEAM: Two or three people who back up the moderator. They are the moderator’s “voice of conscience”. They are the only people in direct contact with the moderators in order to help them maintain their concentration and impartiality. The Facilitators should be positioned around the moderation space. They help the moderator synthesise and reformulate proposals in an objective and impartial way. They facilitate the flow of information between “Coordination” and the Moderator so that floor-time is fair and organised. They prevent assembly participants from distracting the moderator, help the moderator communicate with people who find it difficult to speak in public, make the moderator aware of any errors in their vocabulary or summaries, inform them of any last-minute announcements, help them stick to the agenda, etc. In large debates the figure of a “Direct Facilitator” may be created in order to even more closely help the moderator to follow the norms of the Assembly.
An important way of helping the Assembly to run smoothly is to incorporate one or two people who intervene when there are silences, over-heated discussions or serious digressions. Their main role is to remind assembly participants of the importance of Collective Thinking, Active Listening and the true meaning of Consensus.
ROTATING TEAM OF MODERATORS: One or more people (who rotate if the Assembly is large or there is a lot of tension). This rotation is decided upon by the whole team of moderators, with the greater good of the assembly in mind. The moderator can ask to be replaced. The moderator should help the Assembly to run smoothly, should bring together the general sense of the Assembly rather than follow a protocol, Ideally, this figure should not need to exist. (everybody should respect everybody) The moderator(s) are responsible for: welcoming the participants to the Assembly;explaining the nature and workings of the Assembly; presenting the group dynamic teams and their functions; moderating positively and conciliating distinct positions without aligning themselves personally with any of these; informing the Assembly of the positions for and against during the process of Indirect Consensus; summarising each intervention during the rounds of debate should it be needed; and repeating the consensus as recorded in the minutes. The moderator also gives voice to gestures made should a speaker not have noticed (it is recommended that assembly participants wait for a speaker to finish their turn in order to express agreement or disagreement so as to avoid swaying the speaker). Furthermore, the moderator is responsible for ensuring an atmosphere propitious to the exchange of ideas and for establishing a positive tone. Should the need arise they might also release tension by reminding participants of the value that any debate adds to the 15th May Movement and by motivating participants in general. The moderator can also be replaced via consensus of the Assembly as a whole. Anything spoken off microphone should be relayed to the Assembly as a whole in order to foment transparency.
INTERPRETER TEAM: One or two people who translate oral interventions into sign language for the hard of hearing and vice versa. Their vision should not be impeded by standing in front of them. If the members of this team are in direct sunlight, the Logistics Team will assign two people to shade them with parasols.
MINUTES TEAM: Two people responsible for noting all interventions which do no have a script. In the case of consensus resolutions the minutes team can ask for any resolution to be repeated word by word and subsequently ratified by the Assembly. Normally one team member writes down interventions by hand whilst the other uses a computer in case what has been written needs to be cross-checked. If the members of this team are in direct sunlight, the Logistics Team will assign two people to shade them with parasols. At the end of the Assembly, the minutes taken by this team should be read out to avoid any confusion.
PROPOSAL – THE POSITION OF THE GROUP DYNAMICS TEAM IN EACH ASSEMBLY

LOGISTICS TEAM: Its purpose is to prepare and organise the Assembly area before it takes place in order to make it more efficient and functional. The logistics person(s) are in charge of agreeing on and marking out the area (within their possibilities) together with the other teams.
The Moderators’ Area is a rectangle marked out with chalk (or coloured tape stuck to the floor) in front of the assembly area like a type of ‘stage’. Between this area and the assembly area the Floor-Time Team is visibly placed and spread out amongst the participants. Within the Moderators’ Area, the Moderator and the Speaker (person who has the floor) will stand in the middle, flanked by the Interpreter(s) and Facilitator(s) who will normally be squatting or sitting on the floor when not taking part, and always within reach of the Rotating Team of Moderators and the Floor Coordinator(s).
To one side of the Moderators’ Area sit the Spokespeople of the Commissions and/or the Working Groups who will be intervening in the different parts of the Agenda; on the other side an area will be provided for the Floor Coordinator(s) who will always be within reach of the Facilitator(s) and as far as possible from the Minutes Team (who will always sit near the Moderators’ Area in order to be able to request a repetition, summary or text that has been presented) in order not to distract their attention from the conversations which take place before each turn to speak, making their job easier.
>>GESTURES USED TO EXPRESS COMMON OPINION OF THE ASSEMBLY

The following gestures have been agreed on in order to permit the expression of common opinion during assemblies:
1) APPLAUSE/AGREEMENT: Upraised, open hands moving from side to side.
2) DISAGREEMENT: Arms folded in cross above the head.
3) “THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID”/”GET TO THE POINT”: As if requesting a substitution in sport, revolving upraised hands.
4) “YOUR INTERVENTION IS TAKING UP TOO MUCH TIME”: Crossed arms. Forearms come together and move apart as if they were the hands of a clock so that palms touch above head.
5) “DIFFICULTY HEARING INTERVENTION”: Cupped hands to ears or hand moving up and down as if to indicate, “turn the volume up”.
It is advisable to remind participants of these signs at the beginning of each Assembly. It is also advisable to inform participants that is more useful to display disagreement once the person speaking has finished in order not to condition their intervention, whenever possible.
>>ORAL EXPRESSIONS RECOMMENDED FOR MODERATORS AND SPEAKERS
We use Positive Speech avoiding negative statements which close the door to constructive debate. It is a less aggressive and more conciliatory type of communication. It is useful to open a debate with the points that unite before dealing with the points that separate. Examples:
1) ‘Don’t touch that dog or it will bite you’ could be phrased as ‘Be careful with that dog because it could bite you and neither of us would like that.’
2) ‘If we don’t reach a consensus here all efforts will go to waste’ could be phrased as ‘It’s important we reach a consensus in this point or we could end up losing strength as a group and nobody wants that to happen.’
We use Inclusive Speech which makes no gender distinctions. It is clear that force of habit can be hard to break, but it is convenient that between all of us we mutually remind ourselves to remember this.
>>KEYS TO CREATING DYNAMIC AGENDAS
What is the Agenda of an Assembly? What is it for? The Agenda is a summary of the topics to be discussed during an Assembly. Its function is to make sure no important issue is left out, to establish an order in the type of interventions and to make it possible to calculate how much time each part of the Assembly should take. The agenda is drawn up by the Group Dynamics Team and the Moderator of any assembly should be familiar with it before opening an assembly as it is a basic guide to that assembly’s contents. The Group Dynamics Team does not have jurisdiction over the contents of the Agenda; its members merely organise the issues to be discussed as reflected in the consensus reached by the representatives of all participating commissions in preparatory meetings. The agenda contains an outline of what issues are to be discussed in the Assembly and as such should be read out loud at the beginning of the Assembly so that the all present are aware of what is going to take place. Experience will help improve the design and relevance of each Assembly agenda. We recommend setting time limits for each Assembly depending on the number of participants and the issues to be discussed, in order to avoid loss of concentration and unfruitful assemblies.
**Schematic, practical example of an Assembly Agenda**
1) Welcome and Positive Presentation. The Assembly is the effective celebration of the power of the people.
2) Summary of the consensuses reached in the previous Assembly and all outstanding issues.
3) Presentation of the Group Dynamics Team for the Assembly in question. The roles of each of its members.
4) Explanation of the concept “Assembly”. We do not “vote”, we reach consensus.
5) Explanation of the concept “Consensus” (direct and indirect). Explanation of the process used to reach an indirect consensus.
6) Examples of how the mechanics of the Floor-Time Team and Facilitators during an Assembly.
7) Reminder of the gestures used in an Assembly and suggestions of how to express oneself verbally in concordance with the 15th May Movement style, as approved by the General Assembly.
8) Reading the Agenda out loud.
9) The turn of the Commissions and Work Groups without specific proposals for the Assembly, only information which does not require consensus. It is advisable that a spokesperson from each Commission or Working Group attends the preparatory meeting for the Assembly in order to help organise the list of issues to be discussed.
10) The turn of the Commissions and Working Groups with specific proposals for the Assembly. If a direct consensus is not reached, the floor is opened to debate. Remember: there should be a maximum of two rounds of debate to defend each position (in groups of three speakers) and/or find a point of agreement. If the debate becomes heated, a period of common reflection can be opened and if after two rounds no consensus is reached the issue can be adjourned to the following Assembly. Opinion > Debate > Resolution or Adjournment.
11) IMPORTANT NOTICES. Citations, general interest information, latest news, etc.
12) ANY OTHER BUSINESS. During this round, there is no opportunity for debate. The information is not to be ratified at this point, rather taken up by the pertinent working group or commission. Important: if it is necessary to cut short this round because of lack of time or tiredness, announce this and tell those who have not had a chance to intervene in this round that the subjects they wanted to mention will have priority in the any-other-business round in the next Assembly.
13) Conclusions and notification of time and place of next Assembly.
14) Message of motivation and reminder of common purpose. Now is the time to use memorable words, which may be in verse, a piece of good news, a highly-charged quotation or a short text, etc.
15) Closure and acknowledgements.
(+ SHORT MOTIVATING MESSAGE. STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLE. ENCOURAGEMENT.)
AN OPEN DISCUSSION ON SOME THEORETICAL CONTENT
What is horizontal organisation?
It is a type of social organisation which implies equality for everyone participating in a group or society. There is no hierarchy and it is the opposite of vertical organisation in which some people make decisions and others obey them.
The method used to take decisions in a horizontally-organised group or society is through assemblies.
What is an Assembly?
An Assembly is a gathering place where people who have a common purpose can meet on equal footing. It can be for:
* Information: the participants share information of mutual interest. They do not debate the content of this information.
* Reflection: to jointly think through a subject, situation or problem. Information must be given, but there is no need to arrive at an immediate decision.
* Decisions: when the group must reach a joint conclusion or decision about a subject it has been involved in. To reach this, the two previous steps (having information and reflecting on it) must have been taken in order to build a consensus.
What do we understand by consensus?
A consensus is a collective construction of a solution to or a decision on a common interest.
It is not drawing up a proposal which includes each and every individual need, but is rather a the synthesis of all the individual opinions which give shape to the best way to achieve reach the group’s common interest.
It implies:
* Being very clear about the group’s common interest.
* Being aware that anything collective is the sum of all the individual knowledge and input; to this end, each individual’s opinions must have been be communicated, listened to and respected.
* Realising that it [consensus] is a commonly constructed end, rather than a function in itself.
*Realising that consensus involves a process and that time and the necessary steps must be provided for it.
The necessary steps are:
* Creating a relaxed group atmosphere which encourages participants to listen to, respect and support each other. climate which listens to, respects and has complicity amongst its members.
* Making sure that the task which will to be worked on is crystal clear.
* Sharing the information of each individual or sub-group so it can be properly taken into account.
* Considering all points carefully.
* Identifying and using points which are clearly fall on common ground in order to begin building the proposal.
* Gradually drafting the proposal through collective thinking.
* Celebrating your achievement.
What do we understand by collective thinking?
It is like a synthesis of individual talents and ideas, not an eclectic summary of what is best but rather a synthesis of all. Individual talents placed in the service of common good, creating through differences, understanding differences as elements which enrich our common vision or understanding.
It implies:
* Feeling that one is part of a whole.
* Letting oneself ‘blend into’ others.
* Not considering others to be opponents, but rather components of the whole group and in equal conditions.
* Respecting opinions not through obligation but rather through desire.
* Having a positive attitude to be able to see what unites, rather than what separates.
* Going for instead of going against.
* Thinking in advance that others’ contributions will enrich the process.
* Not reacting immediately, allowing what others say to sink in first.
This document is the result of the experiences of the Group Dynamics Commission for the Assemblies of the Puerta del Sol Protest Camp, and contains only suggestions. We encourage you to add to it, to improve it and to share it around so we can all learn to participate in an Assembly.

http://takethesquare.net/2011/07/31/quick-guide-on-group-dynamics-in-peoples-assemblies/

We EXPRESS OUR SOLIDARITY to Syntagma Square and, together, we call for the RE-ENFORCEMENT of the network of the Real Democracy Now groups across Europe.

1) We CONDEMN the propaganda of the major mainstream media who do not tell the truth about Greece, claiming that the violence was started by the protesters while there are numerous sources confirming that the Greek police act oppressively against the crowd, use prohibited tear gases, punish and beat protesters without reason, attack stores and arrest even those who do not participate in the protests. The crackdown of June 29th was in fact a chemical warfare against protesters.

We CONDEMN the actions of the Greek government: 1) The introduction of the IMF-EU-ECB Troika’s demands against the wishes of the Greek people. 2) The stance of the vice president of the government Theodoros Pagalos for calling the majority of the Greek people “crooks” while he openly declared that if instability continues the army should be called to protect the banks from the people. We wonder who will protect the people from the cannibalistic power of the banks.

Spain and Greece have been trapped within cultural stereotypes, cultivated by the mainstream mass media and people are led to believe that this economic mess has to do with our cultural habits. Of course we recognise our failure to identify the warnings in time, as before now we chose to ignore the problems and refused to see that we were being led into a destructive financial death-trap for the sake of private banks and global speculators. Hence, we call for the people to RISE UP and despise apathy and consumerism. It is time to take the future in our hands, ending the power of capitalism over our lives, both economically and politically

What we are experiencing, is the vicious application of a disastrous economic model in the EU, in the most undemocratic and provocative way while the political leaders do their best to keep the people misinformed and therefore easily manipulated. The current socio-political system aims to maximize the profit and socialize the cost.

2) We stand by the side of the SPANISH INDIGNADOS who were and always are a great influence and inspiration, by the FRENCH people and all those who go through difficult times, by the people of IRAN who fight against their oppressive regime, by the TUNISIANS and EGYPTIANS who showed the way to freedom, by the people of SYRIA, BAHRAIN, YEMEN, MOROCCO… the struggle is common.

3) We send our solidarity, also, to the people of CHILE who are struggling against the privatisation of schools and universities. During 2011 numerous student protests took place across the country, but the media kept silent about it. The Chilean people have a long history of fights against exploitation, one of the most notable being the fight against the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Under neoliberal politics, only a few privileged will enjoy social benefits, the privatization of education will shatter the dreams of the entire youth and condemn future generations to illiteracy.

4) We believe in a global political system of EQUAL PARTICIPATION for all citizens in political life, which should be the dominant value of human society, instead of money, productivism and economism.

5) There is an English saying ‘to take the bull by both horns’. In response to the crisis, we now see both the politics of nationalism and European state-federalism rearing their ugly heads. Nationalism, however intended is divisive, racist, fascist even and therefore ultimately undemocratic. With global capital now dictating each country’s policies, the Treaty of Westphalia has run its course. At the same time, we REJECT any political union foisted on us by the European state as a solution to the crisis, which will only damage each country further by following the same FAILED neo-liberal / global capitalist-led model.

6) Instead, we will replace and transform these bankrupt institutions with democratic People’s Assemblies.

7) Let us now call for People’s Assemblies everywhere! To express our common, local sovereignty, the means to build a new society that supports people and planet, while ALSO forcing each nation to join as one, to take on the global hegemon. For only then, when global capital is superceded by people power will poverty, famine, war and planetary destruction come to an end.

ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

I think I can change things.
I think I can help.
I know that together we can.
For peace, equality and freedom

Real Democracy Now – London International Assembly

The article is also available in Greek

http://eagainst.com/articles/london-message-to-syntagma//

In the following link you can hear the audio from the event organized by the Birckbeck Institute for the Humanities:

http://greekleftreview.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/the-rise-of-the-indignant-spain-greece-europe/

Speakers:
Costas Lapavitsas (SOAS)
Carlos Frade (Salford University)
Illan Rua Wall (Oxford Brookes)
Stathis Kouvelakis (King’s College London)
Alex Colas (Birkbeck)
Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck)