That said, what can we as anarchists do over there? For any anarchist who is at least somewhat connected to reality, fortunately the great majority, it’s clear that we must be there, that there is something to be excited about. What none of us knows too clearly is what we can do, what we can contribute, and what we can expect from the May 15 movement. This is logical, given the heterogeneity and contradictions that it contains. In this section, we will try to express how and in what sense we think it could be interesting to participate in and contribute to this movement. We say “strategic vision” because it is a general vision, which we will try to annotate later with concrete proposals and some tactical considerations.
The largest part of the process currently developing in the May 15 movement consists in trying to find the slogans and political demands that are going to define it. This process is occurring in the working groups as well as the commissions themselves. In the former there is more debate and ideological struggle, while in the latter, in which those debates become concrete, is where we see tricks and skullduggery. One doesn’t need to be too sharp to see where the trouble lies: commissions such as those of communication, internal organization, assembly, and politics are where one will find the greatest number of políticos per square meter. Meanwhile, in commissions such as infrastructure, food, or respect, the cuts seem to be much milder. To be clear, we are not saying that this is the only thing happening in the commissions, but that some of the things we have seen or have been told are tricky.
As we said before, the demands with the largest echo on #acampadasol are those of political and, to a lesser degree, social reform, with a major citizenist content: reform of the electoral law, a law of political responsibility, greater participation, a law for payment on account of mortgages, etc. The members and militants of left-wing parties (IU, IA, etc.) and social movements are trying to tack the ship to the left, so that it will take up classical left-wing demands (from a basic rent and debt relief, to the nationalization of the banks), even though in the front are those who want the movement to be as neutral as possible (for example, http://twitpic.com/51lyqa) and they base themselves on a basic #consensodeminimos [minimum agreement]. In our opinion, we think that the most likely situation is that the final objective of both sides will be, whether through a citizens’ initiative or through the action of a political party – probably IU – to present a proposal to the Congress and to ask for its approval through a referendum. In this sense, both sides are putting a lot at stake to determine the contents of such a proposal and certainly how it will be carried out, but in a given moment they converge in certain basic points.
Obviously, we anarchists are convinced that if some of these reforms were achieved, even if they changed some of the “defects” of the system that infuriate people the most, this would not change anything essential. The problem is not corrupt politics, but politics as a separate sphere of life; the problem is not the lack of government transparency, it is the government itself; and the problem is not the bank or the bankers, but capitalist exploitation, whether large or small.
That said, we think that the anarchists are not and should not be in this struggle, that of grandiloquent demands and politics stuck in the sky. We should not enter this game, although if we want to be in the assemblies we must assume that we will have to put up with it and confront it face to face. We have lost nothing on this chessboard. The May 15 movement is not an anarchist or anti-capitalist movement, which means that the maximalist anarchist demands are out of place. It does not make sense to fight for the general assemblies to take on things like generalized self-management, the abolition of prisons, or even something as simple as the indefinite general strike, because it is obvious that the people who are there and the people who are following it with excitement and sympathy are not interested in that. Assuming (and it is a lot to assume) that for some strange reason, or through skullduggery, we were successful in convincing the general assembly or the neighborhood assemblies to accept as their own one of these slogans, the most likely result would be for the May 15 movement to quickly deflate, lose the majority of its supporters, and end up as a strange popular-frontist cocktail of leftists, citizenists, communists, and anarchists. That is, exactly what we have always criticized and where we have never wanted to be. In politics there is a term called “to vote with your feet”, which means that when you do not like how things are going in one spot, you simply go to another. Something similar happens in every assembly, there are many people who, when they dislike something or feel uncomfortable, they stop talking, hang their head, and stop going, without showing their discontent.
Why does all this happen? Well, because real movements tend to be fairly complicated. They have their own composition, their idiosyncrasies, and their developments, and above all, because one can not expect people to become anarchists overnight. Not a single one of us has become an anarchist quickly or painlessly, but rather through mistakes, illusions, incoherences, disappointments, debates, frustrations, flabbergastings, and with pounding our faces into the pavement (sometimes literally, with a cop on top). It can be pointed out that, in these occasions, people and things can change with a dizzying speed. We’re sorry, but we think that it’s simply not going to work.
We must be conscious of the representative role that the commissions play relative to the people who make up the demonstrations. This was seen most clearly in the Political Commission, which at its height could bring together 350 people in its two sub-commissions (short- and long-term). It’s clear that the assemblies are open and that everybody could participate in them but its undeniable that in the end the sub-commissions became separated apparently by temporal stages, but which really mark two very different viewpoints, the “reformist” and the “revolutionary”, between those that are asking for concessions and legitimizing the power structures with small (or large) legislative reforms, and those that want to draw a road map for a rupture with the model imposed by capitalism.
This is a big mistake since “revolutionary” or radical measures can happen in the short- or long-term, the important is to be clear about the current context and the steps that we want to take. To cite one example, in the Short-Term Commission they are considering changes in the Spanish Constitution, and in the Long-Term Commission agreements such as the general strike. We do not think that a change in the Constitution (which needs the approval of three-fourths of the Congress of Deputies) is much more possible in the short term than convoking a general strike (which is more of a tool of struggle than an end in itself), as complicated as this might be in the present day.
We think it is necessary to reflect on our involvement in the commissions, to try and make them more efficient and channel the use of energy in the right way. It’s not worth anything if 200 people with a “similar” outlook come together and mark a course that is totally unacceptable for this movement (as of today) and then let the short-term demands be a plea for strengthening the welfare state… In this reflection we need to criticize ourselves and directly consider acceptable short- and long-term proposals which put us on the road or help us take steps to a real social revolution, that is, if we don’t starve ourselves as a group of people who are above the moment. We need to display a certain intelligence and make a real calculation of the illusion of change that is in the air these days in the Puerta del Sol, to see if between us we can get this change to go a bit further than four quick fixes in the façade of democracy.
So, what options do we have?
It’s clear that many of us have considered doing something, or have found themselves doing it almost without realizing it, that we could call “lowering the discourse”, that is, sweetening our proposals to see if a spoonful of sugar helps them down. For example, playing a cynical semantic confusionism by speaking of “direct democracy” instead of “anarchy”, putting up with everything that we have to put up with to keep history in time, etc., etc.
Another option is to abandon the field as reformist. As we see it this is simply absurd. Basically because neither in the current moment nor throughout history do revolutionary movements arise out of nothing or emerge by themselves; it is the revolutionaries and the events themselves that with their force and tenacity are sometimes able to pull the social movements from being the reserve of parties and opportunists.
Although we will talk about this further on, we want to be clear that our idea is not to convert the May 15 movement into a mass “revolutionary movement”, something just as absurd as believing that anarchy will come tomorrow if we wish for it hard enough. Nor are we saying that we need to be there until the end. For us its clear that, if we don’t do things right, at a certain moment we will have to leave or, just as likely, we will be driven out. But it seems obvious that this moment hasn’t arrived yet, that there are still opportunities to contribute to and participate in this history, above all with an eye to the call for popular neighborhood assemblies.
This should make it clear that we are not dreamers who have been blinded by the May 15 movement or who have closed up shop “due to revolution” (more marketing), but are simply anarchists that have seen a clear opportunity – the first in many years – to participate in a real movement of considerable size.
3. Towards a concrete and practical anarchist participation
4. Some objectives and possibles axes for action
5. Neighborhood Assemblies: Hopes and Localisms
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1. Anarchists and the 15-M Movement: Reflections and Proposals
from the original text in Spanish: http://www.alasbarricadas.org/noticias/?q=node/17755
