[Dissent-fr-info] The Movement of the 'outraged', or #spanishrevolution - ENGLISH TEXTS

Wed Jun 1 11:38:14 UTC 2011

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD:  WE'LL TRY AND FORWARD MORE INFO IN ENGLISH AS
IT COMES OR AS WE TRANSLATE IT

about on SPAIN:
The Movement of the 'outraged'
or #spanishrevolution

 It is really impressive what's going on in Spanish main  plazas right
now.  Just two weeks ago there were these 'calls' to do marches on the
15th of May: "TOMA LA CALLE" (take the street) with no organizing
signature. We saw the flyers a while back and sort of marked it off, it
was totally unclear who or what was pushing for it but it sounded legit:
mainly a critic of the political system and their management of the
crisis.   As the time got closer there was a lot of buzz (talk of a new
generation of mobilizing beyond organizations, crisis of two party
system, fed up with 40% youth unemployment, etc...).  On the 15th we
went to the march locally in Zaragoza- which was lively, and sizeable,
 mostly noteworthy because it seemed to 'come from nowhere' or from no
one...Up to that point no big deal. We left for a work trip, and missed
the first week- which apparently started with a plaza sit-in, eviction
and then a massive country-wide (and beyond) response.  We found out
about it because it made the front page of the Herald Tribune and people
were reading those news in Amsterdam.  

Some of the keywords are: direct democracy and precarity, but the
overarching term that has coined the name of the movement is "el
movimiento de los indignad at s" (outraged) the term inspired in the
30-page book with a similar title by Stephane Hessel (Time for Outrage
in English), just released in Spain and top-seller in France, is a call
of attention to overcome indifference and engage in active response
against the current state of
things: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf1RGoHOJ_M
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf1RGoHOJ_M>

The call for 'real democracy' has made explicit connections with the
revolts in the arab world and actually Tahrir plaza of El Cairo is taken
as an inspiring reference for the movement. 
Every city  in Spain (all provincial capitals and some others) have tent
cities set-up, and they've been going for two weeks now.  Since we got
back we've been going to ours in Zaragoza where the tents are being
added to everyday.  There are assemblies, workshops and actions daily,
almost continuously- and this is repeating itself all over the country.
 There is an update calendar in-situ and on-line for every specific
sit-in where you can check the activities for a week: 
9am yoga
10am legal info
12am workshop on civil disobedience
2pm lunch 
5pm kid's activities (including assemblies for children)
7pm protest action
8pm political assambly
11pm logistical meeting

Its mostly youth, mostly 'nationals' (as in the migrant presence is
limited it seems thus far) but it is massive.  It has to be kept in mind
that the squatting of the plazas was ocurring during municipal and
regional elections (May 22)- thus in and of itslef doing public acts
like that is a form of civil disobedience (it is illegal to do
'political acts' the day before and election).  While there are a lot of
question marks as to what happens now after the elections, thus far, one
week after and counting, its still going strong with actions
diversifying. They have space for kids here in zgz, and they put
together "asambleas infantiles" so we are enjoying that part too : )

On May 27 , the police tried to  evict plaza Catalunya in Barcelona
(eviction attempts also occurred in two other Catalan citites), the
repression and the video-taped conversations among the police were so
intense that the response in solidarity was country-wide: caceroladas in
every plaza (inspired by the argentine political repertoire of banging
pats and pots during dictatorships and economic crisis). 

15 days after the first sit-in there has been a call to make a symbolic
and generalized action calling attention to the involvement of banks in
the crisis and the power of response by the population:   withdrawing
150Euros from the ATMs

Our friend Liz together with others are translating texts into English:
http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/spanishrevolution/
<http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/spanishrevolution/>

Please spread the word!!  Its very inspiring, people randomly walking by
and intermignling with big assemblies in the street, kids messing around
in protest play areas,  people commenting and conversing in the street,
the energy of a tense protest ebbing and waving, moving.  We shouldn't
over romanticize,  there definitely things to point out, improve, etc.
but its is impressive and very generalized.

MAP of the camps- including international solidarity camps:

http://www.ikimap.com/map/2CYF.

General website "take the plaza", including links to specific cities and
reflections:

http://tomalaplaza.net <http://tomalaplaza.net/> 

Camp in Zaragoza & a few of our pictures

http://www.acampadazgz.org/

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/3149011/1/acampada%20zgz?h=ccb06a
<http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/3149011/1/acampada%20zgz?h=ccb06a>
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