An update on the Spanish Indignados: not dead, just distributed (#15M update)
29th November 2011
This document, with the voices of Occupy Barcelona participants, is worth watching:
Occupied Barcelona: The Spanish Election Rejection from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.
November 29th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
I attended few assemblies during the 15M dates, and public surveys during them, I agree with many of the claims the movement does. However I am still surprised that noone, specially no foreign blog/post/article mentions a key element for us here, which is the right of self-defetermination of our country, Catalonia. No website mentions the words ‘catalan’, ‘Catalonia’, instead it is packed together in the ‘Spain’ context. I just wanted to remind that in those surveys I just mentioned, the “right” of self-determination – which is different from actual independence – was not accepted and therefore removed from the 15M’s agenda in Madrid(specially), and also Barcelona. I find that a shame. I must admit that I’m somehow not familiar with the current state of the agenda.
It is also surprising how they can ask for nule votes when there are parties that claim/want the same the movement is asking for – see Pirate Party of Catalonia, Pirate Party of Spain, Popular Unity Candidate (CUP) – And they offer and suggest the use of tools such as electronic polls, use of social networks and so on so everyone can participate in political decisions. To me, this “don’t vote” position is counterproductive, it’s like pretending that everyone thinks just like you do, and until then nothing is going to change. They omit the fact that the world is still moving, and action need to be done. I’d rather vote for an option that offers a collective/horizontal construction of society and progressively go there, than wait for everyone to agree with you.