Europese Sociale Consulta: de Agora van de 21ste eeuw

Het initiatief voor de Europese Sociale Consulta (ESC) werd genomen vanuit Barcelona, maar kreeg ondertussen al navolging in Londen, Berlijn, Tübingen, Stockholm, Dijon, Madrid, Lissabon en nog tientallen andere grote en minder grote steden. Op al deze plekken ontstonden discussieplekken die moeten participeren aan het ontstaansproces van de ESC. Want laat het duidelijk zijn: het gaat hier om een radicale participatorische filosofie. Vrijdagavond 6 september om 20u geeft de Barcelonees Enric Dur een voorstelling van de ESC en het proces erachter. Dit zal doorgaan in de Partiottenstraat 27 te Berchem, op 5 minuutjes wandelen van Berchem-Station.

Hieronder wordt een korte (Zapata-)geschiedenis van de Consulta gepresenteerd en ook een woordje uitleg gegeven over de ESC. Vooralsnog in het Engels, maar ik nodig iedereen die zich kan vinden in de 'hallmarks' van de ESC uit om te komen luisteren naar Enric...

This is what democracy looks like!

Since September 11th, the battlefield of the global war is public opinion. To win this war, a new version of the oldest weapon has come out on the media market, capable of unifying the people in times of crisis, neutralising dissenting opinions and justifying injustice. We are talking about fear. The language of fear articulates the neoliberal defensive against the " antiglobalisers" and the language of this war – the symbolic martyrdom of capitalism of the twin towers, the clash of the democratic west and the barbarian pre-modern civilisations, the irrefutable evidence that the mistrust of immigrants is justified or the rise of religion as a key political factor – justifying the use of force as routine and the increase in social control, materialised in ECHELON Schengen information system .EURODAC... The towers fell at just the right moment so that the imperialists could intensify permanent war which allows them to continue merchandising life in all its aspects. From this medium the extreme right can thrive since it is governing in the US and invades the ballot boxes and the political practices in Europe.

The fear of global terrorism heightens the daily fears of losing your job, money and property. We are in front of an arid and homogenising landscape in which the key decisions of our lives do not belong to us fully. We live on the periphery of events. The television grinds reality and offers us information which is wrapped ready for consumption, unchangeable. Celebrities and news shape the world to which we are not really invited. We are encouraged to vote for governments, town councils and presidents so that they decide for us. We do not have any connection with the production of our daily needs: clothes, food, the roofs over our head. We don't know the ecological and social cost of what we use and exchange. We interiorise the passive role so much that the capacity to participate actively in the development of events has converted into something like a flaccid muscle due to lack of use.

Commercialisation, fear and repression, antidotes against change that can only last in contemporary society through the consensus of elites. And the main tool for this global consensus is another manufactured product which has offered us new versions for some time now. Democracy. In reality, and behind the trimmings: Market Democracy.

The market monitors Democracy and Democracy becomes an electoral market where votes are bought and sold following the rules of competition. In this way, current democracy is situated in the limits strictly shaped by the interests of the small groups which dominate the majority. To ensure that no one changes, the constitutive essence of whichever democratic process: information-deliberation-decision información-deliberación-decisión, stays in the hands of an elite. Right in the era of information, the information is controlled; the big media corporations offer us half-truths and decontextualised news. Without understanding what is happening, only abstention is left. Neither is there deliberation nor decision in the hands of the people, simply because the vote delegates all responsibility to professional political parties which in turn have very little leeway and depend on the market value of their actions. And meanwhile the elites continue making their own decisions according to an inexorable logic more and more outside of the area of discussion. This is the famous unitary thought. One movement of capital is worth how many thousand of votes?

However, Market Democracy, in order to govern, needs to legitimate itself in participation. The mechanisms of participation in the institutions- political parties, negotiation tables, dialogue commissions- institutionalise social conflict, but only within "reasonable" limits. The sold "participation" ends up being a polite way of neutralising popular movements, making people feel that finally they have found a place to be heard by those in position of authority, who are going to listen carefully in order to incorporate the right proportion of worries and demands of the people and therefore neutralise their discontent.
We do want participation, but with autonomy! If we really want to have an impact, we have to start hitting where it hurts most, the roots of the legitimacy of power: its way of understanding democracy .. and fear:

And here comes into play the emancipating realities that since the Zapatista uprising in 1994 have experienced a new emerging cycle, grass roots based but with a global dimension. It's about a combination of discourse and practises local and global at the same time that have eroded so much the source of legitimacy of power structures nationally and internationally, revealing to the public their violent and undemocratic nature. The superiority, almost organic of market forces has been put into question and the economy has been questioned again in political terms. The diversity of the forms of action (artistic forms of expression, direct action against the symbols of capitalism, civil disobedience, discussion fora..) the recovery of political imagination and its decentralisation have multiplied active participation and has had a contagious effect: communicative, capable of generating a sympathetic current in public opinion. A radical rejection has been transmitted to the structures of power and domination.

But even though in general we have known how to explain what we are against, what we have not been able to articulate is what we propose. Above all we have not been able to put in common what we already have articulated. Perhaps it is necessary to take the shape in which organise ourselves, our movements, not only as a strategy in order to organise protests, but really as way to organise society, especially in the political area. We have specialised in social change, when this is a process which concerns the whole of society, starting with our neighbours. Where the practices of the "counterpower" :the dual power, municipalism, bioregionalism or the popular consultas/referendums, community neighbourhood plans, neighbourhood assemblies, the networks of counterinformation, consumer cooperatives, the fair trade networks...: is in the need to exercise democracy from the grassroots level. And a democracy therefore cannot be an informal elitist process centred in activism.

As a practise, direct democracy has to be learned. We have to start to reclaim democracy in itself- not as a better system of representation, rather as a process to reconstruct the world, as a tangible place where to remake freedom.

This is the reason for the European Social Consulta: To become a tool that helps to promote, visualise and articulate the meaning and the practise of democracy from the grassroots level in Europe, through already existing struggles but above all opening new spaces. How to achieve it? This is the function of the Internal Consulta. Ideas?

INTERGALACTIC ZAPATISMO

The EZLN, along with the National Indigenous Congress and other popular struggles have been practising a permanent process of consultation with Mexican Civil Society from 8 years ago. In 1994 the National Democratic Convention (CND) started. Nearly 7000 Mexicans in all the entities of the Republic went to Zapatista territory. The 27th of August of 1995 in all the entities of the Republic, the National Consulta for peace and democracy was carried out. With the participation of more than 50,000 promotors, nearly 10,000 tables were set up in which one million and eighty eight thousand citizens answered questions made by the EZLN. In 1996 the first American Continental Meeting for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism was held in La Realidad Chiapas. In March 1999, the National Zapatista Consulta took place. A completely new event, 5.000 zapatista indigenous people broke the military blockade and spread around the country. In each state the Co-ordinators for the Consulta were organised in order to programme activities and to take them to each municipality of their entity. The balaclavas are seen and heard in squares, universities, markets and streets. It was a pacific conquest which achieved 3 million votes in the whole country in favour of the San Andrés Acords and the end of the war of extermination.
In 2001 the March of the colour of the land was held El 2001 vive which again became an experience of self-organisation where the delegation of the commanders of EZLN pass through. Day to day, the autonomous town councils in rebellion continue to practise direct democracy as a way of daily resistance.

In the 1950s and during 3 decades, the workers survey was put into practice in Italy and also in other countries. Through the Quaderni Rossi, militants, trade unionists and intellectuals study in depth their practices. Aware that scientific research is not neutral, they understood "marxism as a sociology conceived as political science, science of the revolution". The militant joint-research was done in factories and workshops of the big Italian industrial areas, articulating a crucial question, What to do? How to transform? Worry that with the progress of the survey always ends up translating to How to fight? It already was not about analysing "from outside" the methods of production or even changing one aspect or another, rather producing collectively conditions of a transforming action. Therefore the academic research is joined to the worker self organisation, contributing a consciousness raising tool to the river of antagonist struggles that took Italy to the social explosion of the 70s.

The 18th of July 1936, with a military uprising against the Republic the Spanish Civil War broke out. In this context the process of collectivisation was born, historical reference for the popular struggle. Some months before, in the Confederal Congress of Zaragoza, the CNT (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo) anarquist trade union and which held majority at that time, defined the concepts of free communism, foreseeing the situation that would develop later with the Federation of Free Communes. The popular reaction stopped the success of the fascist coup d'etat, stopped the offensive and started the process of collectivisation in the city as well as the rural areas. A process in which millions of people participated in that became owners of their own lives, experimenting with collective economy and politics which was shown in the Council of Aragon and in Catalonia. The most part of services, industry and agriculture were self-organised and even a Committee of militias was founded to organise armed resistance. Finally these initiatives were defeated by the events of the war, the pressure from state forces which saw self-organisation as dangerous and also due to their own errors. However, the important part is that is was done: it has been shown that generalised self-organisation in a totally hostile context is possible. Communities have been founded in which money was abolished and where private property and economic management has been passed to the workers who decided in assembly on production distribution, services, education and all aspects of daily life.

There are as many realities as projects, but if there one of these proposals is the practice of permanent autonomy, 24 hours a day, and the attempt to democratise all aspects of life: decision-making on, personal relations, production, distribution and consumption. It's about integral self-organisation based on non-capitalist criteria- as far away as possible from the logic of money. The rural location allows for the exploration of self-sufficiency through renewable energy, re-usage and recycling, the various ecologically sustainable agricultural models and the use of own resources. Various networks of rural communities have been working for decades creating an archipelago of refuges, connected in turn with urban refuges in the exchange of products, experiences and mutual oxygenations.

Despite cultural factors such as the Cast System which make participatory democratic processes difficult, in India there are impressive examples little known outside of its borders. The indigenous movements or Adivasis (who inhabited the subcontinent before the invasions which would result in the Hindu culture ), who reject the cast system and generally the patriarchy also.

Some Adivasis movements are fighting for self-government in the areas where they live, preserving millenary practices in participatory democracy and collective property- like the Nagas in the Northeast who for years have been defending themselves from the Indian state. Others fight re-taking the reigns of their destiny after having been incorporated in the lowest rungs of the stratified Indian society such as the case of Chattisghar Mukti Morcha, dedicated to the permanent construction of the Adivasi self-management in a mining area. There are also peasant movements which oppose the cast system, the patriarchy and capitalism such as the KRRS, known for direct non-violent actions against multinationals such as Monsanto, Cargill and KFC, whose ideal es the construction of the egalitarian "village republic" dreamed of by Gandhi, a utopia obstructed by multiple social and economic factors. Narmada Bachao Andolan fights against more than 3.000 dams which the government want to build in the Narmada river (they managed to stop the World Bank project ). Small scale fishermen have also organised at the grassroots level around India, in local organisations within the NFF, to save the craft of fishing, fishing communities and the marine ecosystems from the depredation of the Western ships-factories. These and many other movements are struggling in India for self-government in local communities, local markets and the protection of resources against the violent robbery of capitalism.

SOCIAL CONSULTA FOR THE ABOLITION OF EXTERNAL DEBT

2000, Spanish state: The consulta for the abolition of the external debt turned into one of the key experiences in participation, learning to work in a network and creating social fabric at a local level. Without basing itself on any structure nor acronym, 500 assemblies were formed in 500 locations and neighbourhoods, around 10,000 people participated in this co-ordination of an assembly-based which led to the participation of more than 1.000.000 to vote 97%: in favour of the abolition of external debt. The Consulta was forbidden by judicial power and this turned it into a massive experience in civil disobedience and rebellion through direct democracy.

CONSULTA POPULAR DE BRASIL

In 1997 a wide range of activist from various social movements in Brazil started to meet in order to build an alternative social project from and for the Brazilian people. Between July and October of 1999 they organised a popular march around Brazil which took 1100 activists from Rio de Janeiro to Brazilia,1800 km debating with people from hundreds of cities. 5000 people participated in the Assembly that the march held when it arrived in Brazilia. In 2002, the popular consulta in Brazil continued to advance as a model process for collective debate and transformation. Promoting participation with a permanent exchange between local networks, moving along at a grassroots pace, an alternative project for Brazil is being built through a new way of doing politics.

Thinking, telling stories, passing on knowledge, checking the quality of information, taking part of this information, contributing directly to dreams, words and intelligence. Indymedia is a network of individuals linked to a world of communications: video, radio, hackers, journalists and photographers. An international collective of media created in order to promote a radical, objective and passionate account of the truth. Indymedia is a place for open publication: anyone can publish directly without censorship, all types of documents. Indymedia is independent, disperse and horizontal, since it is done with collective thought. From Seattle in 1999 a network of independent media centres began to function and the network hasn´t stopped growing. In the middle of 2002 there were already 75 web pages set up: a demonstration that through decentralisation, autonomy and horizontality, global projects are also possible. Indymedia is a vehicle towards the freedom of information which no one controls, the public cyber image of a swarm of bees which symbolises a new form of doing collective action.

ARGENTINE ASSEMBLIES

All of them go! Not one of them should stay! With this cry and to the beat of pots and pans; neighbours, youths, the elderly, militants and other people of every type met in the squares to find out and give their opinion about what was happening in the streets, they started to call for meetings on another day and in this way spontaneously and thanks to the snowball effect, the Argentine popular assemblies were created. These neighbourhood assemblies where co-ordinated periodically with other neighbourhoods and nation-wide. They have become a process of collective construction of the alternatives to the repudiated political system. Few historical experiences symbolise so well the counterpower and selforganisation from the grassroots like these neighbourhood assemblies which appeared as an alternative logic to the economic oligarchies, political corruption and bureaucracy and the old left. At the same time the picketers continued roadblocks, the unemployed from the provinces and the suburban areas that organised in an autonomous fashion. In General Mosconi, a nearly free zone has been created in which more than 300 projects have been set up. If the Argentine crisis is the best example of neoliberal failure, the popular assemblies are the most visible example of grassroots resistance, of direct democracy as a common nexus of the new ways of doing politics.

"In a society divided into social classes, into rich and poor, into exploiters and the exploited, to believe that power is neutral is tremendous naivety and that's why in 1979 we stood for the municipal election thinking that we had to empower a class, a power that would commit everything to the workers who had the least, with to those who had been robbed of their right to speak. That's why we realised that we had to put power up against power that would know how to oppose power of the bourgeoisie and who unfortunately has to continue to fight for rights that the workers have always been denied. ". Marinaleda is a rural town of 2000 inhabitants in the province of Seville, example of direct democracy as a type of self-organisation of a: two assemblies open to anyone in the town, a co-operative system of production , an untouched place that not one representative of the police or- government dares to set foot. As their slogan says "from a utopia toward peace". Every four years the inhabitants of Marinelada vote, but the party system there are the minority.

Thousands and thousand of people have met, shared experience and affirmed their struggles. For example in 1996 in Chiapas, in 1997 , in 1998 in Geneva , in 1999 in Bangalore, in 2001 in Porto Alegre and in Cochabamba. "After meeting together, being in assembly together, we have separated and we have returned to our place of origin to try and be a network." The network process has been managed for some years, but there is a long way to go. People in Bolivia fell far away from Mexicans and Southern Europeans still feel far away from the groups in Scandinavia. The global meetings are spaces for discussion, exchange of information and skills which have served to recover and internationalist discourse in various forms but with a common objective: confront capitalist globalisation.

The direct actions against the big summits of the Empire, the days of global action, are spaces and tools for communication and co-ordination between people who think, act and speak for themselves. The use of distinctive tactics chaotic self-organisation, the rejection of whichever form of collective identity for the networks, centralisation of funding, permanent spokespeople for the media, the virtual inexistence of mediators has made it structurally very difficult to divide, corrupt , or domesticate us, and has resulted in a high level of operativity and dynamism. With these events that have made resistance visible, there has been only one criminalising solution from the police and media. The movements have come to public attention but for the moment the power remains intact like the pavement we walk on. The debate how to manage this situation has already been opened for some time.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)