'Global May' on the launch pad

A year after the Arab Spring found its echo in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where a massive people’s assembly took control of the famous square, a new “Global May” is scheduled for an international launch tomorrow.

In Madrid, Barcelona and other cities in Spain, the demand for “real democracy now” found a response from hundreds of thousands of people angry with a political system that identified with financial and corporate interests.

The slogan “don’t vote for them”, directed against the major political parties, expressed a contempt for a sham democracy that had degenerated in its brief, 35-year existence since the end of fascism.

Simultaneous new occupations and assemblies are planned tomorrow in dozens of countries in a bid to stimulate the movement that took off last autumn, which saw camps created on Wall Street, outside St Paul’s cathedral and in hundreds of cities worldwide.

An attempt to give the May 12 movement some direction has resulted in an extensive
statement drawn up collaboratively by people’s assemblies and other networks over some months.

Acknowledged as a “hard and long process, full of compromises”, the statement, to its merit, is offered to “people’s assemblies around the world for discussions, revisions and endorsements”.

A clear concession made to reach consensus is that while the statement identifies the system in general as a problem, it refrains from using the term “capitalism” once in 2,000 words. This weakens its analysis, which tends to rely on moral terms like “greed” for explanations. Nor is there regard in the statement for the global economic crisis that is driving politics everywhere. Nevertheless, the statement is right when it declares:

We are living in a world controlled by forces incapable of giving freedom and dignity to the world’s population (if, indeed, they ever were). A world where we are told ‘there is no alternative’ to the loss of rights achieved through the long, hard struggles of our ancestors…. We condemn the current distribution of economic resources whereby only a tiny minority escape poverty and insecurity. Whereby future generations are condemned to a poisoned legacy thanks to the environmental crimes of the rich and powerful. ‘Democratic’ political systems, where they exist, have been emptied of meaning, put to the service of those few interested in increasing the power of corporations and financial institutions, regardless of the fate of the planet and its inhabitants.

Nor can one disagree with the statement when it says that “the economy must be put to the service of people’s welfare, and to support and serve the environment, not private profit” or that to achieve these objectives, people “must get democratic control over financial institutions, transnational corporations and their lobbies”.

The statement’s insistence that the movement does not “make demands on governments, corporations or members of parliament, which some of us see as illegitimate, unaccountable or corrupt” is commendable. But this is somewhat undermined by a series of demands about taxation, regulation and the reduction of military spending “to a minimum”.

These contradictions undoubtedly reflect debate and discussion about where a movement that includes people’s assemblies, democracy campaigns and occupations, is heading.

Some favour a sustained period of direct actions, and other forms of militancy that are essentially protests about aspects of the status quo. They imply that the existing political and economic system (aka capitalism) can be made to yield and change its ways. There is absolutely no evidence of this happening now or in the future.

Others acknowledge that the system itself is the problem and are willing to discuss how a transition is made from A to whatever B might look like. Ultimately, it’s the age-old question of reform or revolution. That, you can be sure, will loom large over all the actions that we will see from tomorrow.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Arab Spring's first election

“Whatever happens next, I feel like now I exist”, said one man in Tunisia, just after voting. And, indeed, Sunday’s elections in the small country that sparked off the Arab awakening of 2011 have seen an amazing enthusiasm from people, young and old.

Voter turnout exceeded all expectations as over 90% of those who had registered cast their votes. Out of Tunisia’s 10.6 million population, 4.4 have the right to vote. Over the summer 95% of them registered.

A Facebook campaign “Je me suis inscrit – Je vote” was enthusiastically supported and circular red bumper stickers with the motto “ana qayyadtu" – the same message in Arabic – are still decorating walls and cars.

For Tunisians this is an historic moment as the election for a constituent assembly is their first chance to voice their political desires since the overthrow of dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, last January. The new assembly has the task of designing a new political system and how the state will relate to its citizens.

The Tunisian political revolution was sparked by the self-immolation of a young fruit seller in the poor south of the country. Mohammed Bouazizi’s sacrifice became the signal for Tunisians to rise up against their oppressive rulers in a revolution which captured the imagination of millions of young Arabs, notably in Egypt where the dictator Mubarak was ousted within weeks.

The movement soon spread from North Africa to Spain and countless other countries which have seen democracy movements rise up.

The prejudice that Arab countries are incapable of embracing a wide range of views and holding truly democratic elections is being well and truly squashed by the seemingly endless and amazingly patient queues outside polling stations around the country.

They have voted for 11,000 candidates from nearly 100 parties for a 217 member constituent assembly in 33 districts of the country in a day which, according to thousands of international and local observers, saw few if any infringements of electoral procedures.

Dr Amor Boubakri, professor of law at the university of Sousse and a member of the Electoral Observatory , said he believed Tunisians have, have succeeded in making the Arab Spring's first election a resounding success.

Boubakri, who was interviewed by Al Jazeera, is confident that election will be a democratic transition, highlighting pluralism, power-sharing, organised opposition and gender inclusiveness as never before.

It is undoubtedly a new phenomenon, “something happening for the first time in Arab culture, as linguist and historian, Hammadi Sammoud has noted. “It is a rite of passage from accepting the things were decided for us to participating. We are creating ourselves.”

Huge problems beset the country, which has 700,000 out of work, a zero growth rate and near-junk status of its bond ratings. There is also a deep north-south divide. The northern coast benefits from tourism, cosmopolitanism and fertile land, while the south – where Bouazizi lived, remains dogged by poverty and under-development.

The people of the south and centre of the country are seen as a silent majority who have hitherto seen themselves as excluded from the entire political system.

Of the political parties, it is likely that al-Nahda (Renaissance), the moderate Turkish-style Islamic party will pick up voters in the coastal cities. But this will be countered by support for the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties and the Progressive Democratic Party.

The large number of political parties and diversity of views is an expression of Tunisia’s unique culture which has seen a synthesis of Ottoman, Arab and Islamic heritages with European influences.

The election is now re-shaping the relations of the citizens with the state. Tunisians know they are being closely watched by their neighbours in Morocco and Libya and more widely around the world. The huge enthusiasm shows a clear desire to take forward the democratic gains of the Tunisia’s January revolution into the social improvements that still elude ordinary people.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Real democracy on the march

In a bold and inspired move, Spain’s Real Democracy Now! movement is taking the struggle to towns and villages throughout the country, so that the issues they have raised can be presented and developed by many more people.

The movement (DRY or M15) is organising marches from towns in the north, east, south and west of Spain: Valencia, Barcelona, La Rioja, Galicia and Andalucía. It is in line with the desire of the democracy campaigners to be as inclusive, to break down barriers and to have the widest possible debates about the way forward.

Two legs are already underway, with over 100 marchers setting off from Barcelona earlier this week. Despite soaring temperatures, the protesters hope to walk 21 kilometres each day. The Valencia route is around 500 kilometres long. The plan is for all the marches to arrive in Madrid on July 23 for a rally and the presentation of demands to parliament.

Last Friday, as the Spanish parliament passed new laws against the rights of unions, democracy collectives agreed to begin planning for a general strike on October 15 to coincide with other direct actions.

The M15 campaigners are not, however, asking the largest trade unions – the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) and Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) to call strike action. They feel that these unions are too closely aligned with the Socialist Party (PSOE) government.

DRY has been holding rallies, assemblies and encampments in city centres since May. The occupation of Madrid’s Puerta Sol saw tens of thousands of demonstrators – young and old – gather to reject the country’s established political parties, the PSOE and the right-wing Popular Party (PP).

With slogans like “They don’t represent us”, and “Don’t Vote for Them”, the DRY movement denounced the privileges of the ruling elites, insisting that “the current status of our government and economic system does not take care of these rights and is in many ways an obstacle to human progress.”

Assemblies in Barcelona, Madrid and elsewhere have posted lists of demands ranging from greater democracy and political change to basic rights to jobs, quality of life, housing, public services, respect for the environment, reduced military spending and the abolition of the monarchy.

The call for a general strike poses the question of what such an action is for. Showing politicians and businesses that “if we stop, everything stops”, as a spokesperson from the M15 movement suggests, will not be sufficient to achieve the aims of the marchers. And, whilst rejecting their politically-compromised leadership, the members of the major unions cannot be ignored, if a general strike is to succeed.

A general strike as a protest – such as the two-day strike starting in Greece today – cannot by itself reverse the course of events, politically or economically. Both are inextricably linked and driven by a globalised crisis of the capitalist system of production as a whole.

Just as the unrepresentative political elites are inseparable from the system of private ownership of the means of production, so the financial system sits on top of the system of production for profit. Changing that means addressing the issue of ownership and power.

For true economic and political liberation, the issue of the state and power cannot be evaded. As A World to Win has noted: “The present state has to go and power has to change hands, from the minority to the majority, in revolutionary practice. Corporate and financial power could be co-owned and controlled and exercised through a network of people’s assemblies.”

In our view, that is the precondition for establishing real democracy now in place of the capitalist version that is discredited in the eyes of large sections of ordinary people. This is an urgent question because undoubtedly the far right is waiting in the shadows with own sinister plans of its own to “clean up democracy”.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary