Indignados: "A methodological revolution" - interview in Brussels

Knowledge Collection Political Innovation
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The background story?

Hi Giovanni, this was a really cool interview ! I liked what you said about methodology of mass demonstrations, I see this as an added value: even if protests don’t end up changing something radically, they can be immensely helpful so that people understand the HOWs… and see the ongoing process of organizing it and keeping it alive. And precisely because many people aren’t there for a specific reason, or some don’t even understand what’s happening, by understanding how it works they can also learn more about WHY it works this way, as opposed to formal, or individual participation (i.e. at the polls)

So what’s your story Giovanni? how did you end up in Brussels at the protest…? I see you tagged your post with Indignados, occupy, 15mglobal, so which is it? I still have a hard time understanding where a model ends and the other one begins, or which borrowed ideas from the other, but I’d we curious to see what’s your story for joining…

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Journalist

Hi Noemi,

thanks. I am an Italian journalist based in Brussels and I took the advantage of the 12th of May Outraged demonstration in Brussels to interview Miguel (who answers to my questions), a Spanish ‘Indignados’ activist. I covered as a journalist also the demonstration  in Brussels on the 15th of October 2011 (see photos in the video).

Cheers

Giovanni

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I thought you were the one answering, since the man in the video looks similar to the man in your profile picture :)) I thought it was you, sorry.

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have you written something about Indignados?

Ciao Giovanni! Thank you for the interview!

I agree with Noemi about the utility of the protests in order to join people and keep alive the movement, also for the attention of the media. But I think that the protests aren’t enough and it is necessary that the movements formulate also proposals to solve the problems, otherwise the protests will be considered only like outbursts of anger and dissatisfaction

have you written something about Indignados? I’d like to read!

Also because I’m dealing with the occupation of theatres and cultural spaces in Italy. You can read something here

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Interesting paper

Ciao Alessia,
 
I covered the demonstration in Brussels on the 15th of October 2011 on social media, so you should recover the old tweets but I do not recommend it. There are some photos here https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.252015098178137.62246.190141131032201&type=3 and this paper is very interesting, check it out:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t4hh0n42dnpb4ew/BwZH1UYgtX/MONTARELO_Thesis15M_FINAL.pdf
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Reading something about Indignados

Hi,

there is a modest paper about the 15M movement in https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t4hh0n42dnpb4ew/BwZH1UYgtX/MONTARELO_Thesis15M_FINAL.pdf

Perhaps some parts are interesting for trying to understand how it started, how it works, what are the main area of work,…

Hope it helps

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must read

Thank a lot for your participation

very interesting. must read!

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Good work!

Hey, vamospudiendo (Miguel, right?), thanks for sharing, and welcome!

I browsed through your thesis and read the parts on organization (p. 37 and following) and objectives (p. 55 and following). It seems really good, careful work. And in English! Thanks a lot.

It is indeed interesting, and it clarifies some questions that I had in mind. My thoughts:

  • results seem to be there - in this it seems I have been wrong. They are non-systemic, but very concrete (like a certain number of evictions avoided.
  • the way to organize does not appeal to me a bit. Assemblies are awful technologies for coordinating: very inefficient (as people have to take turns for speaking), non-scalable and troll-friendly, in that they give disproportionate veto power to noncooperative individuals. Also, it is a bit sad to see young kids adopting 1970s decision making processes associated to movements that famously failed to affect change! Come on guys, you can do better than that. The German Pirate Party approach, or that described here on Egderyders by Smari for the case of Iceland, seem to hold much more promise. 
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objectivs and assembly model

Hi,

thanks for having a look to the thesis (just for clarification, it is a master thesis not a PhD thesis, it is much modest and amateur…)

Comenting on your post, well, objectives are not defined, there is not a program or decalogue in the 15M.Blocking evictions, blocking raids against illegal inmigrants,… are the more visual and concrete actions with results. But the objectives, although undefined and variable depending on the indignado you speak to,  go much more further, go towards changing subtancially somethings.

The failure or success of the model of organisation depends a lot on how you see it. Depends on the hurry, the timing is different; depends on where you put the value, in the result or in the process.

Of course, it has all the problems that you mention and more (although the groups are intelligent enough to react to systematic vetos and boycots, moving to wide majorities of 4/5 in some assemblies when consensus couldn’t be reached; as well there are continouos change of roles to avoid manipulations or trolls).

But the 15M can’t be understood without the horizontality, materialised through the assembly system.

Some examples:

-it has been easily propagate thanks to this horizontality

-the authorities have problems on fighting against it (the difuse enemy)

-the assembly model matches with one of the main success of the movement: recover the confidence and responsability of the people, recover the feeling of power of citizens, don’t let you always dictate what it has to be done, give your opinion, move the political discussion on the street and don’t be full of complexes if you are an expert.

-it has been basic to make people involved and to gain momentum.

It is something to be seen if the decentralised assembly model followed in 15M in Spain can be coordinated in the future for deeper actions, agreement, for building alternatives,… or it will go through a disconnected groups which meet periodically. If the first option is reached, in my opinion 15M can have a lot of results.

By the way, inside this umbrella called 15M, there is an iniciative call democracia 4.0 (http://demo4punto0.net/) that goes a bit in the same line that the interesting article of smari you mentioned. democracia 4.0 proposes a combination of the vote of the parliament and the direct vote of the citizens.

Thanks again for your comments and your post!.