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Spanien: Manifest for et ægte demokrati, nu

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Fra Democracia Real YA:

Manifesto (English)

We are ordinary people. We are like you: people, who get up every morning to study, work or find a job, people who have family and friends. People, who work hard every day to provide a better future for those around us.

Some of us consider ourselves progressive, others conservative. Some of us are believers, some not. Some of us have clearly defined ideologies, others are apolitical, but we are all concerned and angry about the political, economic, and social outlook which we see around us: corruption among politicians, businessmen, bankers, leaving us helpless, without a voice.

This situation has become normal, a daily suffering, without hope. But if we join forces, we can change it. It’s time to change things, time to build a better society together. Therefore, we strongly argue that:

  • The priorities of any advanced society must be equality, progress, solidarity, freedom of culture, sustainability and development, welfare and people’s happiness.
  • These are inalienable truths that we should abide by in our society: the right to housing, employment, culture, health, education, political participation, free personal development, and consumer rights for a healthy and happy life.
  • The current status of our government and economic system does not take care of these rights, and in many ways is an obstacle to human progress.
  • Democracy belongs to the people (demos = people, krátos = government) which means that government is made of every one of us. However, in Spain most of the political class does not even listen to us. Politicians should be bringing our voice to the institutions, facilitating the political participation of citizens through direct channels that provide the greatest benefit to the wider society, not to get rich and prosper at our expense, attending only to the dictatorship of major economic powers and holding them in power through a bipartidism headed by the immovable acronym PP & PSOE.
  • Lust for power and its accumulation in only a few; create inequality, tension and injustice, which leads to violence, which we reject. The obsolete and unnatural economic model fuels the social machinery in a growing spiral that consumes itself by enriching a few and sends into poverty the rest. Until the collapse.
  • The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society. Wasting resources, destroying the planet, creating unemployment and unhappy consumers.
  • Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs. We are anonymous, but without us none of this would exist, because we move the world.
  • If as a society we learn to not trust our future to an abstract economy, which never returns benefits for the most, we can eliminate the abuse that we are all suffering.
  • We need an ethical revolution. Instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service. We are people, not products. I am not a product of what I buy, why I buy and who I buy from.

For all of the above, I am outraged.

I think I can change it.

I think I can help.

I know that together we can.
Go out in the streets with us. It’s your right.

Læs mere (spansk).

Oprør i Spanien – hvad er det, der foregår?

Videoen viser pladsen ved Puerta del Sol i Madrid for to dage siden, fredag den 20. maj.

Oprøret er tydeligt inspireret af de store demonstrationer i Tunesien og især Egypten, men situationen er helt anderledes, fordi Spanien er en helt anden slags land – rigere og allerede demokratisk og med et kapitalistisk/plutokratisk politisk system, der er integreret i EU og kan være meget vanskeligt at forandre. Miguel-Anxo Murado rammer ikke helt ved siden af, når han i The Guardian gør opmærksom på, at de igangværende demonstrationer udelukkende retter sig mod venstrefløjen i spansk politik – højrefløjen har demonstranterne opgivet forlængst:

Sunday when a rather obscure demonstration turned into a permanent rally, which is gaining momentum by the day and has gathered thousands already.Tellingly, they’re being described not in political but emotional terms. They’re the indignados, “the angry ones”. Angry at the banks, at the labour market, at the main political parties and most of all at the politicians, who they feel don’t represent them. What they actually want is less clear. They pride themselves on not having leaders or a specific political platform, an ideological fuzziness that has enabled them to attract a diverse constituency.

They have taken the politicians off guard, that’s for sure. Both the ruling Socialists and the conservative opposition, the People’s party, are in shock. Not at being criticised but at being bundled together as “the same thing”. In next year’s general election the socialists were counting on the fear the conservatives instil in many Spaniards. The conservatives were counting on the anger aroused by the socialist government, among many others. Now that anger seems to be directed at both parties and it is both that are afraid.

Murado fortsætter med at forklare, at demonstrationerne ikke skal forstås så meget som mod de økonomiske stramninger og kolossale gaver til bankverdenen i kølvandet på finanskrisen, men at det mere er et oprør mod et forbenet politisk system – et synspunkt, han efter min bedste opfattelse ikke har ret i. Han fortsætter dog med at observere:

The makeup of the protestors is not that mysterious if you take a walk in the square. Those who camp there are unmistakeably part of the anti-globalisation camp, focused in social causes (immigrants’ rights, world hunger), idealistic, often naive, and with a strong anti-capitalist bent. They’re actually very few.

What is new here is that at times they’re reinforced by a much wider and down-to-earth crowd. It’s comprised of pensioners, passersby and angry parents, but still mostly of university students. The People’s party knows these are not their potential voters. If they’re angry at the Socialists it is because they feel it has shifted to the right in the economy, which is true. The hardcore may be “post-democratic”, but the ensemble is certainly not “trans-ideological”.

I believe this is the key to understanding this protest. For all its far-reaching rhetoric, it addresses solely the left. It ultimately represents the frustration of those who see that it doesn’t matter which way you vote, the economic policies are dictated by the markets; hence the critique of “the system” and the demands of accountability and transparency. Most of the protesters seem to be the people who voted Socialist in 2008 only to prevent a win for the People’s party. They don’t want their vote to be taken for granted yet again.

Oversat til danske forhold kunne det måske svare til frustrationen hos de mennesker, der i 2011 kommer til at stemme på SF eller Socialdemokraterne for at holde Dansk Folkeparti fra fadet, blot for at se dem videreføre Dansk Folkepartis højreekstremistiske indvandrerpolitik (det lover de jo faktisk, at de vil gøre).

Ikke desto mindre er det  her, Murado tager fejl – formentlig på grund af hans eget ønske om at bagatellisere demonstrationerne. Han har ret i, at demonstrationerne udelukkende henvender sig til venstrefløjen i spansk politik, men det gør dem ikke til en ren protestbevægelse uden program. Hvad demonstrationerne i Egypten og Spanien har til fælles, er det elementære krav om værdighed, der ligger bag. I Egypten, at de kunne få et samfund, hvor regeringen ville respektere de mest basale menneskerettigheder.

I Spanien, at de 45% af ungdommen og næsten 20% af den samlede arbejdsstyrke, der er arbejdsløse, de millioner af akademikere, der hvert år sendes lukt ud i arbejdsløsheden og de endnu flere, der lever som overbeskæftigede og underbetalte mileuristas, kan leve et mere værdigt liv uden hele tiden at skulle se tilværelsen forsvinde under deres fødder.

Når den økonomiske krise oven i disse strukturelle problemer rammer frontalt ned i almindelige menneskers hverdag, mens landets politikere slipper uden straf fra korruptionsskandaler i milliardklassen og pengene fosser ud til bankerne i “genopretningspakker” – ja, så bliver folk vrede. Og det er den vrede, der nu viser sig i Spaniens gader, som eksemplificerer ved studenten herunder, der gør opmærksom på de anstrengte og usikre forhold, mange af landets studerende må leve under.

"Becaria precaria", Barcelona, 20. maj 2011