Occupy Reality!

Acampada Bankia Madrid

October 28

Dear people,

It has been one and a half year, and let’s face it, almost all that our movement has been able to produce are assemblies and demonstrations. I’m getting tired of those. My head starts spinning if I think of all the millions and millions of man-hours spent in talking and listening to other people’s bull shit without any practical result at all.

What’s worse is that the whole concept of assemblies has been steadily deteriorating over time, instead of evolving into something more constructive. By now, assemblies are open microphones with nobody really caring to create an orden del día or to take notes.

So people take the mic and shout their ideas. “Let’s call for an indefinite general strike!”. Applause. “Let’s all stop drinking Coca-Cola!”. Applause. “Let’s all go home, because it’s cold!”. “Excellent idea!”

This is not revolution. This is nothing at all.

Let’s start to look around. Let’s admit that we are still playing ‘their game’. They are not afraid of us. They have no reason to. We have to change the game. We have to occupy reality. We have to learn.

Don’t get me wrong, but we have to learn from Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Greek fascists.

Why? Because they know how to build up popular support. They know how to build community spirit. They offer food to those who are hungry. They offer shelter to those who are homeless. They offer help to those who are unemployed. And they thrive. Mamma mia, they thrive!

The unforgivable mistake of these groups is that they actively create divisions and encourage hatred by selectively serving one kind of people on the basis of their ethnic origin. In this case the Greeks and the Palestinians.

We have to do better. We have to create unity. “If we do not treat our fellow human beings as brothers and sisters, then sooner or later, it will be war.”

War is playing ‘their game’. War can never be won.

So building unity must be the next level. We must create community spaces for the locals and the immigrants. We must set up community kitchens. We must share what we have. We must turn to local organic farmers. We must create our own industries, our own society. That will be playing ‘our own game’. That will be revolution. Direct democracy will not work if it doesn’t stem from a society in which everyone feels represented.

How can we build this society? We need spaces, covered spaces, especially because winter is coming. Fortunately, these spaces exist, and they are distributed over all Spanish cities and neighbourhoods. They are called ‘Caja Madrid’, and they belong to Bankia, which belongs to the people.

The offices, the headquarters, the franchises, and all the empty houses owned by Bankia are public space and can be legitimately occupied. They can be used to house evicted people, they can be used for assemblies and working groups, they can be used for community kitchens, theatre, etc.

Publicly owned Bankia keeps evicting citizens every day. It’s time for the citizens to take what’s theirs, and to evict Bankia’s management from all the public property they are illegally occupying.

If we really want to make revolution, then let’s stop talking about it in endless assemblies, and let’s get it done.

March to Congress, 27-O

Solfonica performing at Neptuno, photo via @acampadasol

October 27, 2300 hrs

Dear people,

Today was the last of three days of actions planned by the 25S for the end of October. Forty thousand people marched from Plaza España to congress, according to positive estimates. I can’t confirm the number, but I can say that it was pretty big.

The choice for Plaza España was symbolic. Around the square you will find some of the highest skyscrapers of Madrid, and they are completely empty. With five hundred evictions per day in Spain, you could fill them up in a couple of days.

We take the Gran Vía. We have the drummers with us, and they make the difference. Protest is so much more powerful if there is a good beat to it.

Neptuno is filled with people already when the march arrives. And there’s more music. The Solfonica orchestra gave one of their spectacular performances in the middle of the crowd.

Another performance picked up the news from these days in a very confrontational way. Six people walked up to the barricades, white as corpses, with a rope around their neck. ‘Evictions’ was one of the signs they carried. ‘Unemployment’, was another. It has reached 25% (52% among youngsters), and it made all the headlines.

At nine o’ clock people sat down with their backs to congress, waving their hands, observing a minute of silence. It brought back sweet memories of Acampada Sol last year. Afterwards, a simple slogan thundered over the square. ‘Resignation! Resignation!’

An assembly was organised to speak about how to continue the protest, but it wasn’t well-structured, and moreover, it was cold. Very cold and windy. So people soon left.

Winter is here. And the evictions continue implacably, every day. So the struggle will have to continue as well. The next appointment in Madrid is for November 1-4. ‘Agora 99′, a meeting of European activists on debt, rights and democracy. Everyone is invited.

Standoff at Bankia

October 26

Dear people,

After Bankia’s refusal to negotiate, the campers took action. At one o’ clock in the afternoon they occupied the Bankia franchise in Alcalà 1, at the corner of Puerta del Sol.

Police went in after them and sealed off the entrance against sympathisers and press who assembled outside.

The occupiers demanded an end to the evictions, and the right to for those at risk of eviction to stay in their houses, paying a social rent.

Bankia is owned by the people. It is now officially supposed to serve the public instead of its shareholders. They don’t know it yet and they have a hard time to adapt to the idea. They can’t even dole out bonuses to their managers next Christmas. Not because the government doesn’t allow them, but because the EU wouldn’t have it.

The hours went by and the management persisted in its refusal to negotiate. Around five o’ clock, the occupiers sent out a comuniqué. It was read to the press on the bank’s doorstep.

They had been denied water. One of them suffering from diabetes was denied medical attention. On the outside there was medical personnel ready with food and water, there was a human rights observer. None of them could enter. According to the comuniqué the occupiers were even denied access to the toilet.

Rumours going around said that they were subject to arrest in case they wet themselves. All the same, the occupiers vowed to continue.

The people outside were not many. And half of them were press. Those who weren’t kept singing that their comrades inside were not alone. And that “Bankia kills”.

Yesterday’s suicide is not the only one linked to an eviction. More cases are surfacing. It’s just that none of those had been theatrical enough to be picked up by the media.

Bankia’s management found itself in a difficult situation. They were up against people with nothing to lose. If they had opted for arrest and violent dispersion of the people outside, it could have had enormous repercussions.

The bank should have closed at three. At a quarter past seven, the occupiers walked out of the side entrance. They had gained a tactical victory. Finally, Bankia had agreed to negotiate with people collectively about a social rent. They also agreed to defer next Monday’s eviction.

The occupiers accepted, adding that they will not lift their camp in front of Bankia HQ, because they don’t have any reason to trust the bankers. They will also formally denounce the way they were treated.

It’s a first step. If it doesn’t lead anywhere, people will return to occupy the bank on the inside. After all, since it was nationalised, Bankia is public space.

“A Decent and Adequate Home”

October 25

Dear people,

For three days now, people who were evicted by Bankia or are at risk of eviction have been camping outside the bank’s headquarters. Today there was a demonstration in their support.

The issue of evictions has finally caught on. Not only on the social networks, but also on tv and in the papers. It was about time. The numbers are staggering. Every day, five hundred evictions are being executed in Spain. At such a rate it amounts to roughly 180.000 evictions a year. If we estimate three persons per household, then we are talking about more than half a million people.

Some of them find shelter with family and friends, some of them are occupying, others are out on the streets.

‘A man’s home is his castle’, so they say. This morning in Granada, a man refused to surrender his castle when police came to evict him. He committed suicide instead.

So evictions are becoming main stream news. Today, El País published a page full of personal tragedies. With all the people forced out onto the streets on a daily basis, you can imagine that they had a wide choice of particularly tearjerking cases.

At the same time in the same paper, current mortgage custom and the way the banks abuse it, have been fiercely criticised by the judges who are supposed to sign the evictions. They argue that a part of the public funds with which the government bailed out Bankia should be destined to lift the burden of indebted families.

“Bail out people, not banks”, is another of the slogans at Occupy Bankia.

The socialists in the opposition have already presented a bill which aims to stabilise the situation and limit the amount of evictions. Bloody freaking hypocrites. They admitted that previous legislation they passed with the same purpose has failed. In the last four years (three of which have seen the socialists in power), 350.000 families have been evicted.

Then there are the ghost towns on the outskirts of the cities. I have seen them. Blocks and blocks of uninhabited molochs, built in the last years of the boom.

It all seems so simple. After the bailout, Bankia is owned by the state. Now the first thing the state has to do is extinguish the debt of people who were evicted by the bank, and do so retroactively. Next thing is to declare a moratorium on all evictions, until this whole debt thing has been sorted out.

There are many more houses than families in Spain. So there must be a way to solve this puzzle. In fact, it is the government’s duty to do so, according to article 47 of the Spanish constitution: “All Spaniards have the right to a decent and adequate home. Public authorities shall promote the necessary conditions and establish the appropriate standards in order to realise this right, they shall regulate the use of the land in the public interest to prevent speculation.”

Bankia has already stated that it will not negotiate with the people camped out on its doorstep.

Budget Night

October 24, 0140 hrs.

Dear people,

After a month of recess, 25S ‘Surround Congress’ has reconvened. Thousands of people were there, far too many to take part in either the assembly on the debt (on the left side of the barricades) or the assembly on the constituent assembly (on the right side of the barricades).

The call had been to paper the barriers with messages and proposals, and so people did. Lots of stuff. The idea behind it was to do something different from last month. In that respect, we also marched around congress through the alleys, singing and chanting. But they didn’t less us come far. At the end of Calle Lope de Vega, six police officers and one lechera blocked the way. Collective intelligence went in tilt. After a quarter of an hour, we turned around and headed back down to Neptuno in victorious retreat. There was a musical band to receive us.

That’s how the evening started to end. I greet many familiar faces, some of whom have come from outside of town. I meet an old friend, he has just arrived here from his night shift in the hospital. Lots of things have changed for the worse since the last time we spoke.

As far as he is personally concerned, his wage has been slashed by 30 percent, he puts in more hours, his taxes are raised, his job is at risk, and unemployment benefits are being cut. On top of that, he could be fined for taking part in this demonstration.

As far as his employer is concerned, it has seen better days. Private contractors are moving in to take over more and more branches of the hospital. Apparently, in Castilla la Mancha privatisation is almost complete, and now the corporations are eying for Madrid.

Not only medical personnel is having a hard time. Austerity has also struck the municipal cleaning department. The frequency of collection has been decreased. Workers can be laid off. Trash is piling in the streets.

In particular, the budget cuts of the government strike the latest generation of civil servants, the ones who were hired on temporary contracts that will not be renewed. The older generation will have to do more for less, but they are still safe. Private enterprises follow the government’s example and treat their workers accordingly, “or worse.”

As far as the country as a whole is concerned, my friend is still one of the lucky ones. The amount of evictions of people from their homes is rising fast. By now, (former) middle class families are being thrown out on the streets. Generally, these people bought their homes a few years ago when prices were crazy. Those who could afford it bought a second house as an investment, believing prices would never go down. Spain’s building frenzy was unmatched in Europe. Now there’s no-one who would buy those houses. They lay vacant.

Here in Madrid, very silently, but on a wide scale, individuals and collectives have started to open up homes for themselves and for those who have been evicted.

They live like Morlocks, underground; they are forever burdened by debt. Being forced to live out on the street is not enough. Your mortgage stands, until it’s paid off in full.

Not so long ago, Spanish ‘Bankia’ bank imploded and was resuscitated with public funds by the government. Since yesterday, about fifteen people are camping in front of Bankia headquarters. They demand, at the very least, that the mortgage debts of those evicted are extinguished. “If Bankia is ours”, one of the slogans says, “then give us back our homes.”

We’re at the barricades, it’s eleven PM. The parliamentarians come out. They have been discussing the proposed ‘budget of the debt’. People yell their slogans at them, then they go home, if they have a home to go to.

Police Charging… No Photos Please!

October 19

Dear people,

I have been off line for a couple of days, and the moment I log on again I can hardly catch up with all that happened. The usual strikes in Greece, Egyptian laymen protesting in Tahrir against the islamisation of society and in favour of a constituent assembly. Spanish unions calling for a strike on November 14 to coincide with similar actions in the rest of Europe, etc.

In Spain, above all, it has been a week of demonstrations by university and secondary school students. Yesterday, in all major cities they rallied against cutbacks and privatisation of education. In Catalonia students demanded the resignation of the minister of education who had recently stated that he wanted to ‘hispanicise’ Catalan schools.

In Madrid, thousands of students marched from Atocha to Sol in a loud and colourful protest. In Cáceres students were charged by police.

The same day, the director general of Spanish police announced his plan to “prohibit the recording, processing or circulation on the Internet of images showing police officers, if doing so would endanger them or the situation in which they are engaged.”

The proposal is part of an upcoming change of the Spanish penal code. It also includes the prohibition (for protesters, not police) to cover their faces during demonstrations, and a redefinition of the concept of ‘violent attack’ to include “any aggression or threats of violence against security forces and ambulance and fire crews.” This can be interpreted to include verbal violence. So calling an officer a ‘hijo de puta’ will be a violent attack on authorities, maybe even an ‘assault against the higher institutions of the state’, and will be punished as such.

A spokesman for the ‘Judges for Democracy’ said the reform was “extremely ambiguous and in no instance should be used to prevent the circulation of excesses on the part of police.”

El País didn’t fail to add that “during recent protests in Madrid, the actions of police were placed under the spotlight after videos were posted on the internet showing riot officers storming into the Atocha railway station firing smoke pellets and beating bystanders with their batons.”

The news of the proposal sent shock waves through the social networks, and was picked up immediately by foreign media ranging from Der Spiegel to the Washington Post.

The second largest Police union SUP, close to the 15M, accused the police chief of trying “to deflect attention from the reality of loss of purchasing power”. It also criticised the chief for failing “to mention how to prevent the recording of images, something that would appear to be impossible in the technological society in which we live.”

At every demonstration where police threaten the use of violence, protesters wave their hands chanting ‘these are our arms!’ The people from Audiovisuals - and not just them - make use of real arms, their camera’s, and they will not give them up.

If the law is illegitimate, we will not obey. We will expose the truth, in word, sound, and image.

*

Occupy Links

First Wave

Analysis and Agenda

October 15

Dear people,

“It was an occasion to go to church. A ritual for the hard core of the movement. We failed to inspire the masses.”

This is a brief description of what happened on October 13, and a pretty accurate one indeed. Throughout the global revolution network, people are analysing why, and what this means for future mobilisations.

Madrid is now concentrating on the upcoming events. These will be less global, more relevant to Spain. They were drawn up by the Action commission of 25S last week. I have found no evidence that they were ever consensuated by the assembly, but they were published on the site, which makes them official enough for me.

Oct 19 – We will present a document at Congress to express our refusal of the current budget in which one fourth of all expenses is destined to pay the debt.

Oct 23 – While the budget is discussed, we will organise debates at Neptuno and surround parliament with a human chain, as from 7pm. We will stay there for as long as the parliamentarians are inside.

Oct 25 – Day of decentralised civil disobedience. In Madrid, in Spain and all over the planet and the solar system, local collectives and assemblies are invited to do whatever they see fit.

Oct 27 – Massive demo from Plaza España over Callao and Cibeles to Neptuno.

That’s it for now. I was actually pretty pleased about it. On paper it’s a good balance of content plus localised and centralised actions. You will get all the news as the ideas turn into practice. For now, I’m logging off.

Take care.

*

Occupy Links

First Wave

Global Noise

Global Noise on Times Square, NYC. Photo via @icicommence

October 14

Dear people,

I’ve been looking at the pictures coming in via Twitter from many a corner of the planet. I love it, the feeling of unity without borders, from timezone to timezone. This is us, a globalised public opinion that is fed up with a globalised system of exploitation.

On the other hand, it was but a mere reflection of last year’s unprecedented demonstrations of tens of millions of people in a thousand cities worldwide.

Back then it spewed forth waves of occupations, actions, consciousness. This year it was an anniversary happening. And I agree with a comrade from OWS when he told me that these things don’t make a lot of sense. ‘We’re still here’, seems to be the message.

But as far as Global Noise went, debt was another message. In Tokyo people gathered to protest against a meeting of the International Monetary Fund. Other concentrations that I know of took place in New Zealand, Australia, Berlin, Frankfurt, Budapest, Rome, Venice, Amsterdam, London, Stockholm, Paris, Spain and Portugal, New York, Mexico and the West Coast.

Global Noise London. Photo via @15mLondon

I witnessed the parade in Madrid. It was probably one of the biggest. But there was nothing much to say about it. Three words sum it up pretty well. Loud, civilised, boring.

There were about ten to twenty thousand people banging on drums and pans. The opening banner was ‘We don’t owe, we don’t pay’. While moving over the Paseo de la Castellana, people neatly keep to one side of the boulevard, leaving the other open for traffic.

Police presence was insignificant. There were far less lecheras and officers to control this crowd than there had been the day before to evict sixty people from Casablanca Social Centre.

In a few hours, the march arrives in Sol. People make some more noise, and then they disperse into the Saturday evening movida without leaving a trace. I take a walk, and I’m sad. At first sight, nothing seems to be wrong. Bars are filled, people are showing off. The only visible stain on this happy panorama are the men and women sleeping in the entrances of the shops. I have a feeling their numbers are growing and growing.

And while there are ever more people living on the streets, authorities keep evicting their citizens from abandoned buildings. Yesterday I witnessed how the masons, under police protection, walled up the entrance of Casablanca.

It’s not going to be the end of it. Already I can read the writings on the wall… “La lucha es el unico camino”

‘Struggle is the only way.’

Madrid, Puerta del Sol. Photo via @kokekun

Casablanca episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

October 13, 0130 hrs

Dear people,

It lasted for about four hours. Authorities didn’t reflect on it, they struck back immediately.

At around eleven thirty this evening they sent police to shut down the housewarming party of the recently reoccupied Social Center Casablanca. And they made a show out of it.

I wasn’t there. I had just finished a translation into English of the comunicado from the centre’s website, which went up simultaneously with the re-occupation.

The text (down below) was an outcry of the neighbourhood against real estate speculation. It justified the occupation with the people’s need for a community space where they can shape their society together.

I just sent the piece up when I got a call. “They have arrived. I see six, seven, eight police vans. They are going to evict.” Then the line fell.

So I went. I almost got lost in the alleys of Lavapiès, but I couldn’t miss it. A long, long file of lecheras – or ‘milkmaids’ as the police vans are commonly known – was queued up in the streets. At a certain point, I stopped counting. Estimates say thirty.

I was impressed. Really. Like the epic scenes from Star Wars when miles and miles of Imperial Star Destroyer come slowly floating by over the screen. It was hard core.

The police had cut all the streets around the centre. I harvest the latest news and rumours. There were sixty people inside when it started. Police went in with a battering ram. They identified the people inside, then let them go. Thirty were still inside at the moment, and about to be released. Two were taken in because they had no ID on them.

I don’t know how gentle or violent the actual eviction was. All I saw when I arrived was a line of officers blocking a street.

They were ordered to disperse the crowd by pushing people down the road. All around the perimeter of the social center, this meant they were actually occupying a significant part of the neighbourhood. And the neighbours definitely didn’t like it. They made noise, they clapped their hands in rage, they banged against containers, from the windows they clashed their pots and pans.

And they hurled their outrage at the police. ‘Shame!’ ‘This is our neighbourhood! Get out!’ ‘You are to protect the citizens, not oppress them!’ ‘Mercenaries!’

I look at those officers. There are six in front of us. Only one has a shield. Two have guns. I look at their faces. Poor bastards. I really felt for them at that moment.

The shame in their eyes, it was touching. They did not like being there, and they did not make an effort to hide that. You could see they felt used. It hurt them when someone shouted that they had sold themselves for a plate of lentils.

Right there, I intuitively felt that authorities had made mistake. They enraged people by insisting on denying them access to a place that is legitimately theirs. They gave a exaggerated display of power tonight, and in the act they humiliated dozens upon dozens of police officers by forcing them to do this job.

Resistance will be punished harder in Spain, and oppression is being increased step by step. Around me there is talk of this becoming a police state. Then I look the officers in the eyes, one after another. True, this is police state strategy. But the line is very tin.

And this line is all they have. Riot police. Officers from the municipal corps make it clear they are something different. And the vibe from the army is that they will not suppress the population.

The thin line could break if we don’t give authorities reason to justify oppression. It comes down to simple fear. But the fear is not on our side. It’s on the police officer’s side. Fear to lose their plate of lentils. They enter Casablanca with a battering ram, because for the moment they are afraid to enter the place as citizens, and to join us in creating our own space, our own way of life.

*

Check out the video

http://bambuser.com/v/3057148

Footage of the raid

from inside: http://bambuser.com/v/3057129

from outside: http://bambuser.com/v/3057132

*
Comunicado (Spanish original)

October 12

Inauguration of a newly liberated space in Lavapiès: CSOA Magerit

Today, as neighbours of Lavapiès we inaugurate a space that has been recently liberated. This decision comes from our need to have a place where we can come together and shape our social life. We believe it’s necessary for people to have places where we can build our lives freely and collectively. This is what we aim to achieve with the inauguration of the new Occupied and Selforganised Social Centre Magerit.

The reason we elected this particular place have everything to do with the situation we are currently living. The economic and social crisis that invested us has been largely caused by the greed of people who are playing with our lives. The real estate speculation (of which this space is a clear example) has affected a fundamental part of people’s lives: their homes, from which the whole social fabric stems. The construction companies, the real estate speculators, the banks, etc. (with the approval of the political parties and elites) are responsible for the fact that we have no home now, that education is expensive, that unemployment benefits have been reduced, that we are losing our fundamental rights – health, freedom of expression….

By liberating this space from speculation, we want to transform it, together with many people, into a real alternative to this ever more inhospitable world.

We want this new space to be open to all people from the neighbourhood, from the city, and from everywhere else, and we invite them to participate.

Come and discover what is behind this door… come to create it.

¡Casablanca Vive!

October 12, 2230 hrs.

Dear people,

Columbus day in Spain is known as the ‘Day of Spanishness’. It’s celebrated with a military parade over the boulevards near congress, and it’s the perfect thing to parody.

Thus, a peace parade was organised to celebrate the ‘Day of the Native Peoples’. It started with a popular lunch on the Opera square, with native food from the Americas, followed by a fancy dress party in all the colours of peace. Police were there, they moved to identify all participants.

I didn’t witness the parade, because there was another event at the same time which promised to be interesting. A concentration on the central square of Lavapiès to protest against the eviction of Casablanca social centre last month and to reclaim access to the Library and the Archive of the Acampada Sol stored there.

It wasn’t widely publicised. And there was a reason for that. Underground voices were saying it was a cover. The true motive of the call was to reoccupy the place.

And so it was. It became a perfectly orchestrated celebratory action. The peace parade served as a diversion. Police didn’t suspect a thing. We went marching there with a drum band playing happy revolutionary tunes. In the meantime, a commando squad had already entered the place. When we walked up to the building they stepped out on the balconies and to the crowd’s delight they launched a giant banner which rebaptised the place as Magerit Occupied Social Centre.

There were a few hundred people out on the street cheering. In a few minutes a police car arrives. After ten minutes there are three police vans with a couple of dozen riot police. People form a chain outside the building to protect it. They chant. “One eviction, another occupation!” became “One eviction, the same occupation!”. They keep on chanting. The crowd grows. Police don’t know what to do. Finally they leave and people stage a victory party.

When they evicted the Casablanca last month, it was without judicial consent, and as such, illegal. Maybe next time authorities will think first before they act.

Live news from the inside is that the library is all there. It used to be 4000 volumes during the acampada. Now it’s ten thousand. I have no news about the state and presence of the banners and artworks at the moment.

The bad news is another. Since a couple of days the Spanish government changed the penal code. In the face of current social unrest, they have raised penalties for resistance against authority. Inspired – maybe – by Obama’s NDAA, they have opened the doors for indefinite detention. And, most dangerous of all, it aims to criminalise internet activism.

Up to a year of prison for people who call for illegal demonstrations through social networks.

The time has come for all of us to put on a Guy Fawkes mask.

“We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”

Check out the images. http://bambuser.com/v/3056971

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution/video?clipId=flv_27ef50b9-7c76-441b-b59e-cc80153ff5c3