colour revolution or not: with protests in Catalonia, Chile, Ecuador, France, Haiti and Hong Kong, what are the tests of authenticity?

When the Ukrainians gathered in the square in 2014, the stage had been set for a bloody coup. Today ‘the Maidan’ or ‘Euromaidan’ is seldom if ever mentioned and a false impression is often given that the subsequent Ukrainian civil war was sparked by a Russian invasion of Donbass and its annexation of Crimea. However, at the time of the Maidan, western media featured the Ukraine’s fascist-led colour revolution on a nightly basis: the use of catapaults to launch rocks at the police then applauded by BBC and C4 correspondents alike, as more judiciously were the Molotov cocktails laced with polystyrene for extra adhesion.

Even as it became abundantly clear that leading perpetrators of the violent disorder were neo-Nazi brown-shirts Svoboda and their paramilitary comrades Pravyi Sektor (Right Sector), who were engaged in arson attacks on union buildings and ultimately shooting live ammunition into the square, our media maintained the official charade that this was all part of a ‘pro-democracy demonstration’.

In Venezuela we have been presented with a different fictional account by the same media outlets as once again the US ramped up its repeated efforts to overthrow the elected President, Nicolás Maduro; on this occasion, manoeuvring to replace him with the hand-picked puppet Juan Guaidó. Thus, during another ‘popular uprising’ horrifically violent acts by anti-government thugs that included the burning of opponents alive, went unreported as the corporate media once again parroted the official line that consistently portrayed the perpetrators of these crimes as ‘pro-democracy demonstrators’ fighting against ‘a regime’ and ‘a dictator’.

Today we have the so-called ‘pro-democracy demonstrators’ in Hong Kong who are again lauded for their commitment, courage and ingenuity; even when it comes to smashing up buildings, and hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails at police lines. And when considering the authenticity of any uprising, our media’s characterisation of rioting as ‘protesting’ must always be considered a red flag. But besides the one-sided media coverage that quickly prioritises and magnifies the events on the ground (numbers, or rather the perception of numbers matters greatly) and makes this its nightly headline, there are further clues we can look for that help with spotting colour revolutions and distinguishing them from authentic uprisings.

By definition, colour revolutions are driven and directed by outside interests that steer the movement both by means of financial support and by way of official legitimisation (hence the unduly favourable media coverage). And whenever the US State Department issues statements that acknowledge its backing of any protest movement – but especially protests that destabilise states labelled hostile or ‘rogue’ – it is more than likely meddling directly in events on the ground.

In former decades it was left to the CIA to foment uprisings to topple unwanted governments or otherwise unfavourable ‘regimes’, but that role has today been passed over to its soft power agencies USAID and the GONGOs – government-organised non-governmental organisations. Amongst today’s prime movers we find the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which describes itself as “a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world” and that, in turn, funds think tanks and private NGOs. In their 2012 report, NED indicated that it spent more than $3 million on programmes in the Ukraine alone. It had previously spent millions more in US attempts to destabilise Chevez in Venezuela. As author and historian William Blum writes:

How many Americans could identify the National Endowment for Democracy? An organization which often does exactly the opposite of what its name implies. The NED was set up in the early 1980s under President Reagan in the wake of all the negative revelations about the CIA in the second half of the 1970s. The latter was a remarkable period. Spurred by Watergate – the Church committee of the Senate, the Pike committee of the House, and the Rockefeller Commission, created by the president, were all busy investigating the CIA. Seemingly every other day there was a new headline about the discovery of some awful thing, even criminal conduct, the CIA had been mixed up in for years. The Agency was getting an exceedingly bad name, and it was causing the powers-that-be much embarrassment.

Something had to be done. What was done was not to stop doing these awful things. Of course not. What was done was to shift many of these awful things to a new organization, with a nice sounding name – The National Endowment for Democracy. The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities.

It was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations, and of cynicism.1

Click here to read the full piece which provides details of NED’s meddling in elections across the world on William Blum’s official website.

Alongside the dirty hands of in-house agencies USAID and NED there is also the closely aligned and US government-funded NGO Freedom House which claims to be “an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world” and “a catalyst for greater political rights and civil liberties”. Habitually too, we will find the involvement of similarly deceptive ‘independent’ ‘pro-democracy’ organisations more than likely funded by or closely associated with billionaire George Soros.

As the Guardian’s Ian Traynor wrote at the time of America’s first soft coup in Ukraine, the so-called Orange Revolution of 2004, in an article entitled “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev”:

Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.

Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.

Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.

That one failed. “There will be no Kostunica in Belarus,” the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.

But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.

The operation – engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience – is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people’s elections.

He continues:

In Ukraine, the equivalent is a ticking clock, also signalling that the Kuchma regime’s days are numbered.

Stickers, spray paint and websites are the young activists’ weapons. Irony and street comedy mocking the regime have been hugely successful in puncturing public fear and enraging the powerful.

Last year, before becoming president in Georgia, the US-educated Mr Saakashvili travelled from Tbilisi to Belgrade to be coached in the techniques of mass defiance. In Belarus, the US embassy organised the dispatch of young opposition leaders to the Baltic, where they met up with Serbs travelling from Belgrade. In Serbia’s case, given the hostile environment in Belgrade, the Americans organised the overthrow from neighbouring Hungary – Budapest and Szeged.

In recent weeks, several Serbs travelled to the Ukraine. Indeed, one of the leaders from Belgrade, Aleksandar Maric, was turned away at the border.

The Democratic party’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican party’s International Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom House NGO and billionaire George Soros’s open society institute. 2

Click here to read Ian Traynor’s full article.

Applying these criteria, it is possible to test the ongoing protests around the world to ascertain the likelihood and scale of outside interference. In the following sections I provide a brief overview region by region. In summary, those pursuing anti-austerity objectives are almost certainly the least susceptible to external manipulation; these include the mass uprisings in Chile, Ecuador, France and Haiti. The unrest in Catalonia is a consequence of a different form of state repression with historical roots and the mainly peaceful protests are the spontaneous response of a mostly genuine pro-democracy grassroots movement. The situation in Hong Kong is more complicated and compelling evidence of western interference is presented below.

Update:

Press TV compares western media coverage of the protests in Hong Kong, the Gilets Jaunes in France, and the Great March of Return in Gaza:

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Hong Kong

As the initially peaceful protests and mass demonstrations rapidly turned into riots and highly coordinated pockets of violent resistance, it also became increasingly clear that contrary to US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s, and US government denials, the unrest had indeed been actively fomented by agencies acting on behalf of American foreign policy agenda. The following extended extract is taken from an assiduously referenced investigative piece written by geopolitical researcher and writer Tony Cartalucci:

US policymakers have all but admitted that the US is funnelling millions of dollars into Hong Kong specifically to support “programs” there. The Hudson Institute in an article titled, “China Tries to Blame US for Hong Kong Protests,” would admit:

A Chinese state-run newspaper’s claim that the United States is helping pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong is only partially inaccurate, a top foreign policy expert said Monday. 

Michael Pillsbury, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News National Security Analyst KT McFarland the U.S. holds some influence over political matters in the region.

The article would then quote Pillsbury as saying:

We have a large consulate there that’s in charge of taking care of the Hong Kong Policy Act passed by Congress to insure democracy in Hong Kong, and we have also funded millions of dollars of programs through the National Endowment for Democracy [NED] … so in that sense the Chinese accusation is not totally false.

A visit to the NED’s website reveals an entire section of declared funding for Hong Kong specifically. The wording for program titles and their descriptions is intentionally ambiguous to give those like US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plausible deniability.

However, deeper research reveals NED recipients are literally leading the protests.

The South China Morning Post in its article, “Hong Kong protests: heavy jail sentences for rioting will not solve city’s political crisis, former Civil Human Rights Front convenor says,” would report:

Johnson Yeung Ching-yin, from the Civil Human Rights Front, was among 49 people arrested during Sunday’s protest – deemed illegal as it had not received police approval – in Central and Western district on Hong Kong Island.

The article would omit mention of Johnson Yeung Ching-yin’s status as an NED fellow. His profile is – at the time of this writing – still accessible on the NED’s official website, and the supposed NGO he works for in turn works hand-in-hand with US and UK-based fronts involved in supporting Hong Kong’s current unrest and a much wider anti-Beijing political agenda.

Johnson Yeung Ching-yin also co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post with Joshua Wong titled, “As you read this, Hong Kong has locked one of us away.”

Wong has travelled to Washington DC multiple times, including to receive “honors” from NED-subsidiary Freedom House for his role in leading unrest in 2014 and to meet with serial regime-change advocate Senator Marco Rubio.

It should also be noted that the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum also sits on the NED board of directors.

This evidence, along with extensively documented ties between the United States government and other prominent leaders of the Hong Kong unrest reveals US denial of involvement in Hong Kong as yet another wilful lie told upon the international stage – a lie told even as the remnants of other victims of US interference and intervention smolder in the background.

The direct ties and extreme conflicts of interest found under virtually every rock overturned when critically examining the leadership of Hong Kong’s ongoing unrest all lead to Washington. They also once again reveal the Western media as involved in a coordinated campaign of disinformation – where proper investigative journalism is purposefully side-stepped and narratives shamelessly spun instead to frame Hong Kong’s ongoing conflict in whatever light best suits US interests.

What’s worse is big-tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Google purging thousands of accounts attempting to reveal the truth behind Hong Kong’s unrest and the true nature of those leading it. If this is the level of lying, censorship, and authoritarianism Washington is willing to resort to in order for Hong Kong’s opposition to succeed, it begs one to wonder what this so-called opposition is even fighting for. Certainly not “democracy” or “freedom.” 3

Click here to read Tony Cartalucci’s full article.

Here to read a follow up piece in which Cartalucci explains how Twitter “not only has taken no action to expose and stop US interference in Hong Kong, but is actively aiding and abetting it” by “target[ing] accounts within China itself to disrupt any effort to expose and confront this US-backed unrest unfolding in Hong Kong.”

And here to read an earlier post which provides further background to the current uprising in Hong Kong.

Note that: on Wednesday 23^rd, HK’s security chief John Lee announced that the bill that had triggered the initial demonstrations by allowing for the extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China – legislation that protesters feared Beijing may use to target dissidents – was officially withdrawn. In response, several opposition lawmakers tried to heckle Lee’s speech, demanding his resignation:

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Haiti

Mass demonstrations demanding the resignation of the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, began in July 2018 following disclosure of the embezzlement of $2 billion in Venezuelan oil loans when “former Presidents René Préval and Michel Martelly, declared states of emergency, allowing their respective prime ministers — Jean-Max Bellerive and Laurent Lamothe —to approve projects using PetroCaribe funds”:

Prior to the earthquake, Haiti had accumulated more than $396 million in debt to Venezuela, which the South American nation forgave. But in the last seven years, it has wracked up [sic] almost $2 billion in new debt as Martelly’s government ministers traveled the globe promoting a new image of a post-quake Haiti while reconstruction projects languished and tens of thousands continued to live in camps. As of October, more than 37,000 Haitians still lived in 27 camps, the International Organization for Migration said. 4

Click here to read the full report published in the Miami Herald.

Although it was the PetroCaribe scandal that sparked the initial unrest, there are many related concerns about government corruption that continue to fuel the protests:

But the anger isn’t just over squandered money. It’s also directed at Haitian politicians and their privileges in a country where two out of three people live on less than $2 a day and concerns are increasing over the potential for more social unrest.

During recent political mudslinging, the president of the Haitian Senate and an opposition senator accused each other of corruption. Sen. Ricard Pierre said Haiti’s cash-strapped government was paying $115,500 to rent a residence for the head of the body, Sen. Joseph Lambert. Lambert in turn accused Pierre of stealing the chamber’s generator.

Pierre denied the accusation. Lambert announced that the Senate would cancel the lease and curtail lawmakers’ privileges. The damage, however, was already done.

“They were not even ashamed,” K-Lib, 37, [whose real name is Valckensy Dessin] said, adding that it’s time for Haitians to stop accepting “corruption and impunity” as normal.

“After the last events that happened to Haiti, the Haitian population understands the necessity for them right now to take part in everything that is happening in the country,” he said. “What’s happening is a movement of massive collective consciousness.” 5

Click here to read the full report published in the Miami Herald.

On Valentine’s Day Al Jazeera reported the deaths of “at least” nine people and “dozens of others injured”. 6 The deaths received very little coverage in either the corporate or alternative media.

Here is a report uploaded by The Real News Network on October 22^nd, featuring political economist Keston Perry, who says the Trump administration is propping up the Haitian regime:

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France

Many thousands of Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) anti-austerity protesters will once again peacefully take to the streets in Paris and other cities across France tomorrow for the fiftieth consecutive weekend.

Last weekend’s ‘Acte 49’ protests took place in Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille and Bordeaux and looked like this:

And like this – met by a very heavy-handed police response which includes the deployment of water-canon, flash grenades and tremendous quantities of teargas (some dropped from helicopters), while the corporate media generally ignores these protests altogether:

One of the first political commentators to understand the significance of the Gilets Jaunes movement was American author Diana Johnstone, who is based in Paris and wrote in early December:

Initial government responses showed that they weren’t listening. They dipped into their pool of clichés to denigrate something they didn’t want to bother to understand.

President Macron’s first reaction was to guilt-trip the protesters by invoking the globalists’ most powerful argument for imposing unpopular measures: global warming. Whatever small complaints people may have, he indicated, that is nothing compared to the future of the planet.

This did not impress people who, yes, have heard all about climate change and care as much as anyone for the environment, but who are obliged to retort: “I’m more worried about the end of the month than about the end of the world.”

After the second Yellow Vest Saturday, November 25, which saw more demonstrators and more tear gas, the Minister in charge of the budget, Gérard Darmanin, declared that what had demonstrated on the Champs-Elysée was “la peste brune”, the brown plague, meaning fascists. (For those who enjoy excoriating the French as racist, it should be noted that Darmanin is of Algerian working class origins). This remark caused an uproar of indignation that revealed just how great is public sympathy for the movement – over 70% approval by latest polls, even after uncontrolled vandalism. Macron’s Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, was obliged to declare that government communication had been badly managed. Of course, that is the familiar technocratic excuse: we are always right, but it is all a matter of our “communication”, not of the facts on the ground.

Maybe I have missed something, but of the many interviews I have listened to, I have not heard one word that would fall into the categories of “far right”, much less “fascism” – or even that indicated any particular preference in regard to political parties. These people are wholly concerned with concrete practical issues. Not a whiff of ideology – remarkable in Paris! 7

Click here to read Johnstone’s full article entitled “Yellow Vests Rise Against Neo-Liberal ‘King’ Macron”.

And here to read my own assessment of the Gilets Jaunes movement from an article published on March 25th entitled “Gilets Jaunes, Avaaz, Macron & Facebook (or when grassroots ‘populism’ meets controlled opposition”.

It is difficult to find up-to-date figures of casualties for the full year of Gilets Jaunes protests but as of July, Spiked online magazine was reporting:

The gilets jaunes have been protesting in France – week in, week out – for over six months. They have had to run the gauntlet of tear gas, police batons and rubber bullets every weekend. And yet there has been barely any coverage of the police’s actions – let alone condemnation.

As of this week, the French police stand accused of causing 861 serious injuries to yellow-vest protesters: one woman has been killed, 314 have suffered head injuries, 24 have been permanently blinded, and five have had their hands blown off. Police have attacked disabled people and the elderly. 8

Click here to read the full report published by Spiked online.

On February 23^rd, French lawyer and former gendarme, Georgia Pouliquen, produced and uploaded an impassioned video testifying to the brutal treatment meted out against Yellow Vest protestors by President Macron’s French government. In May, Pouliquen travelled to England for the first time in order to help spread the truth about Macron’s assault on the French people. The following upload begins with her original video and afterwards features an extended interview she gave to Brian Gerrish of UK Column News:

Update:

Images from Gilets Jaunes Acte 50 on Saturday Oct 26^th:

On the same day, Afshin Rattansi interviewed Priscillia Ludosky, one of the founders of the Gilets Jaunes movement, on RT’s ‘Going Underground’. They discussed the French police’s use of flash-ball riot control guns against protesters, the massive amount of injuries recorded among the Gilets Jaunes protesters, as well as the European Commission’s role in permitting state repression:

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Ecuador

In common with the Gilets Jaunes protests in France, it was the raising of fuel prices that ultimately sparked the ongoing crisis in Ecuador, in this case following President Lenín Moreno’s announcement that his government was intending remove subsidies on petrol. However, the underlying reason for the protests traces back to just a few days earlier when on October 1^st, Moreno was quick to capitulate to IMF demands for the imposition of severe austerity measures and a raft of neo-liberal conditionalities following the acceptance of a $4 million loan:

Protests began on October 3 when President Lenin Moreno cut petrol subsidies that had been in place in the country for 40 years. The cuts saw the price of diesel more than double and petrol increase by 30 percent, overnight.

The government also released a series of labour and tax reforms as part of its belt-tightening measures it was forced to undertake when it agreed to a $4.2bn loan with the IMF.

Some of the more controversial reforms include a 20 percent cut in wages for new contracts in public sector jobs, a requirement that public sector workers donate one day’s worth of wages to the government each month, and a decrease in vacation days from 30 to 15 days a year. 9

Click here to read the full report published by Al Jazeera.

At the height of the protests, Moreno decided to relocate his government to the coastal city of Guayaquil before sending armoured cars onto the streets of the capital Quito in desperate attempts to quell the disturbances:

Tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of people participated.

They were massively disruptive, and the government response was fierce. Security forces killed at least seven people, arrested about 1,000, and injured a similar number. Moreno had declared a “state of exception,” a curfew beginning at 8 pm, and yet still had to flee the capital—temporarily moving it from Quito to the port city of Guayaquil.

writes Mark Weisbrot in The Nation magazine, adding:

Amnesty International had demanded “an immediate end to the heavy-handed repression of demonstrations, including mass detentions, and…swift, independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of arbitrary arrests, excessive use of force, torture and other ill-treatment.” The level of police repression shocked many in a country where security forces are not known for the use of excessive force.

The government also raided homes to arrest political allies of former president Rafael Correa, including Paola Pabón, the governor of the province where the capital, Quito, is located. This continues a disturbing crackdown, which has included trumped-up charges against Correa himself and a number of former officials and the abuse of pretrial detention to force them into exile. On Monday, the Mexican embassy in Quito offered protection to a number of pro-Correa political dissidents, including legislators. 10

Click here to read Mark Weisbrot’s full report entitled “Ecuador Reaches a Deal – but Unrest May Return” published in The Nation magazine.

In the midst of Moreno’s state of emergency crackdown on October 11^th, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued an official statement that begins:

“The United States supports President Moreno and the Government of Ecuador’s efforts to institutionalize democratic practices and implement needed economic reforms.” 11

On October 10^th, The Real News Network spoke to representatives of two of the largest indigenous organizations CONAIE and CONFENAIE:

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Chile

Protest in Chile erupted a fortnight ago, again in response to unsustainable increases in the cost of living but also with charges of government corruption hovering in the background. In response last Friday [Oct 18^th], President Sebastián Piñera announced a state of emergency, and began sending in troops to disperse the demonstrations. As in Ecuador, a curfew was soon put in place. CBS News has since confirmed “at least 18 dead and thousands arrested”:

Approximately 20,000 soldiers are patrolling the streets. Nearly 200 people have been injured, and some 5,000 have been arrested.

Human rights groups expressed concerns about how security forces have handled the protests after the government ordered a military curfew. It was the first such curfew — other than for natural disasters — imposed since Chile returned to democracy in 1990 following a bloody 17-year dictatorship.

“We’re worried,” José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press. “The images that we’ve received from credible sources, trustworthy sources, show that there has been an excess of force both by police as well as some soldiers.” 12

Click here to read yesterday’s full report published by CBS News.

Al Jazeera‘s Manuel Rapalo reported from Santiago on October 23^rd:

And this is footage of protests that took place yesterday:

Update:

Scenes from Chile’s capital Santiago on Friday [Oct 25^th] with police firing tear gas and water cannon at demonstrators:

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Catalonia

On October 6th, author, political activist and commentator Chris Bambery, published an extended piece that put into historical context the rise of the Catalan independence movement and the likelihood of heightened protests in the coming weeks. His piece begins:

Catalonia awaits the verdict in the trial at the Spanish Supreme Court of 12 political and civic leaders charged with ‘rebellion’ and ‘sedition’ for their part in the 1 October 2017 referendum on Catalan independence. That verdict will be delivered before 17 October, the judges say. Brace yourself for a wave of non-violent direct action in response across Catalonia.

Continuing:

In Catalonia hundreds of mayors and councillors face trial for crimes such as keeping council buildings open on Spanish holidays or not flying the Spanish flag on those days, while others face trial for ripping up pictures of the King.

However offensive or outrageous you find such things it is hard to imagine them reaching the courts in Germany, France, the UK or other Western European states. The UK is no paragon of liberty and its democracy is flawed but its handling of the Northern Ireland peace process stands out well in comparison to Spain’s dealings with ETA and the offer of peace. Why are things different in Spain? 13

Click here to read Chris Bambery’s full article.

A few days later the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and EuroMed Rights issued a joint report accusing Spain’s Supreme Court of “serious irregularities” in the trial of the Catalan independentists:

The two organizations alleged that judges didn’t do enough to ensure that lawyers could shed light on the alleged facts—for instance, when they prevented defense teams from contrasting the testimony of some witnesses with actual footage from the scenes they were describing.

Observers from the two organizations, who attended the Supreme Court hearings in person, said that prosecutors called witnesses whose testimonies offered “stereotypical” narratives and didn’t guarantee the right to defense. 14

Click here to read the full report in Catalan News.

In light of the Supreme Court verdict and the imprisonment of nine independentist leaders, protesters then took to the streets of Barcelona:

By late afternoon, thousands of protesters had answered a call from the Tsunami Democràtic movement designed to bring the airport to a standstill.

Thousands set off by car, train and metro. When police closed the station, even more made the three-and-a-half hour journey on foot. Several people were injured as police baton-charged protesters on the concourse of Terminal 1, the main international terminal. Foam bullets were reported to have been fired and video emerged of national and the regional Catalan police beating demonstrators and attacking journalists.

Thirteen people received medical attention and more than 60 flights were cancelled. 15

Click here to read the full Guardian report.

However, the real struggle for independence in Catalonia had already reached its crisis point two years ago on October 1^st 2017 when, as eyewitness reporter Kevin Buckland testified:

[A]ll across Catalunya ballot boxes were ripped from people’s hands by masked police and a dangerous violence was unleashed, at random, upon some of the 2,262,424 people who stood in long lines to cast their vote. The repression dealt by the Spanish State to prohibit the Catalan Referendum, in every bloodied baton and ever rubber bullet, transformed the day from a question of independence to a question of democracy. People were voting for the right to vote. 16

Click here to read more from my October 4^th post entitled “reflections on October 1^st 2017: the day when tyranny returned to Catalonia”.

As a friend living in Barcelona reported on the eve of the Catalan elections just a few weeks later:

Things are rather complicated at the moment. We’ve had a “coup d’etat” by the Spanish state (government and lawcourts working together; no independent judiciary here), although of course from their point of view, it is the Catalan side that have staged one of those.

Whichever way, I don’t think the Catalan leaders deserve to be in custody (this could mean up to four years before trial), and even less go to prison for up to thirty years if found guilty (which they might well be). To me this means that anybody, not just them, can be put in prison for their political ideas, whether they’re peacefully demonstrating, or striking, or whatever. Anything can be judged as “sedition” these days.

Something else that has happened is that Catalan self-government, which is in fact older the Spanish constitution, has been suspended, and we may not get it back after the election. The Spanish government have made it clear that it all depends on whether the “wrong” side win or not. Rigging is definitely on the cards.

In the meantime, freedom of expression is being curtailed, sometimes in bizarre ways: for example, yellow lights in public fountains have been banned, because they evoke the yellow ribbons that independentists wear as a protest against the arrests. And school teachers who dared hold debates in class about the police violence on October 1^st have been taken to court for it. What gets to me is that many people refuse to see how worrying these things are. I suppose normalizing it all is a survival strategy, since the alternative, i.e. being aware of what’s going on, makes one anxious and afraid.

Click here to read more of my original post “notes from Catalonia on the eve of tomorrow’s elections” published on December 20^th, 2017.

But the struggle over Catalonian independence cannot be understood without considering the broader historical context including concessions made following the death of Franco in 1975 and Spain’s transition to democracy. As Chris Bambery explains:

The European Union is very proud of Spain’s Transition and held it up as a model, for instance in the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. That in part explains its silence on what Spain has done in Catalonia, even its moves to stop three Catalan prisoners and exiles being able to take their seats in the European Parliament after they were elected this year.

When Franco died in 1975 a mass movement of anti-fascist resistance had grown up, strongest in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Madrid. The May events of 1968 had set in motion a chain of events where the left seemed to be in the ascendant.

In ruling circles in Bonn, Paris, London and Washington there was concern that Franco’s death might unleash a mass movement moving in a revolutionary direction. Many on the revolutionary left confidently predicted that the regime could not be reformed but must be toppled.

In Portugal that is precisely what had happened.

Bambery concludes as follows:

It is very clear that the limits imposed on Spanish democracy during the Transition of the late 1970s need to be addressed. But that is something which is near impossible in the current atmosphere in Spain. A conviction for the Catalan 12 will only increase the alienation of that nation from the Spanish state. 17

Moreover, one of the side-effects of the 2008 financial crisis was that it opened up old wounds.

Back in October 2012, I reposted an article by journalist and pro-independentist Esther Vivas entitled “When will we see tanks in Barcelona”. She begins:

“Independent Catalonia? Over my dead body and those of many other soldiers”. It was with these words that on August 31, retired infantry lieutenant-colonel Francisco Alaman Castro referred to the possibility of an independent Catalonia.

Continuing with tremendous prescience:

The current crisis is not only an economic and social crisis, but really an unprecedented regime crisis that calls into question the state model that came out of the Transition, its “pacts of silence” and the very shaky democratic system that we have today.

In the middle of this mess, we must support all democratic demands that come up against the monarchical corset of the Transition, starting with the right of the Catalan people to decide its own future. Who is afraid of such a referendum in Catalonia? Those who are not willing to accept its result.

And concluding:

Infantry lieutenant-colonel Francisco Alaman Castro said that “the current situation resembles that of 1936”. That is quite a declaration of intent. Today, as then, our democracy, our rights and our future are threatened. What is at stake is important. When will we see tanks in the streets of Barcelona? It would not be the first time. But there is one thing I am sure of: the people will not remain silent.

Appended to Esther Vivas’ piece I added my own “words of caution” that begin:

The situation Esther Vivas describes is obviously a very troubling one and I fully appreciate that recent history makes the political situation in Spain more complex than in other luckier regions of our continent – Franco having died in 1975, and thus fascism in Spain lasting well within living memory. However, and in view of what is currently happening across Europe and the rest of the world, I feel it is important to also consider the issue of Catalan independence within a more global context.

The break-up of states into micro-states is a process that has long served as a means for maintaining imperialist control over colonised regions. This strategy is often called Balkanisation, although in general only by its opponents.

Click here to read to read all parts of the post entitled “on the struggle for an independent Catalonia”

In short, what is happening today in Catalonia is the almost inevitable consequence of multiple misguided actions by the Spanish state in its attempts to repress the independentist cause which has deep historical roots and was reignited by the austerity measures imposed during the 2008 debt crisis. The decision two years ago to crush a referendum on the spurious grounds that any vote on independence immediately violates the constitution and the draconian sentences issued to pro-independence leaders meant to quell support for the movement has instead emboldened opposition to Madrid and set in motion a potentially unstoppable revolt.

It is curious that some pro-independence sections of the Catalan protests have begun reaching out to pro-western Union Jack waving protesters in Hong Kong given how the colonial ties are in effect reversed, but the fact that tactics employed in Barcelona have copied those tried in HK does not mean the two movements share anything else in common. It is a mistake to confuse these movements.

Update:

Live feed of peaceful protests taking place on Saturday 26^th in Barcelona calling for Catalan independence leaders to be freed:

*

Final thoughts

There are mass demonstrations in two states that I have avoided discussing for quite different reasons: Palestine (specifically Gaza) and Lebanon.

In the case of Lebanon, where demonstrations began little more than a week ago, I am as yet disinclined to discuss the movement until I have a clearer understanding of its background and goals. Regarding Palestine, on the other hand, the case is absolutely open and shut and I have already posted many articles in support of the Palestinian struggle for recognition and full right to return to their land.

The Great March of Return protest that began in Gaza in March 2018 is the single longest running of all the uprisings in the world today. It is also the most dangerous and the most underreported. Dozens are wounded every single week and a great many of the victims are innocent bystanders and children, while our western governments remain impassive and the corporate media maintains an almost unbroken silence.

The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR) has documented 214 killings by Israel since the outbreak of the protests on 30 March 2018, including 46 children, 2 women, 9 persons with disabilities, 4 paramedics and 2 journalists. Additionally, 14,251 have been wounded, including 3,501 children, 380 women, 245 paramedics and 215 journalists – it also notes that many of those injured have sustained multiple injuries on separate occasions. 18

Today marks the 81^st Friday of the mass demonstrations in Gaza. If we wish to hold up a standard against which all other popular uprisings might be gauged then it must surely be the Palestinian Great March of Return. If there is any flag to be waved today and any cause to stand firmly in solidarity with, it is for the freedom of the Palestinian people, and most especially those trapped within the open air prison of Gaza.

Update:

Palestinians gathered in the east of the blockaded Gaza Strip for the 80th consecutive Friday [Oct 25^th] to demand the right of return to their ancestral homes. They also called for an end to the illegal Israeli blockade on the enclave, which according to the United Nations amounts to collective punishment:

*

1 From an article entitled “Trojan Horses and Color Revolutions: The Role of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)” written by William Blum, published in Global Research on August 7, 2017. https://www.globalresearch.ca/trojan-horses-and-color-revolutions-the-role-of-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-ned/5515234

2 From an article entitled “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev” written by Ian Traynor, published in the Guardian on November 26, 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa

3 From an article entitled “US is Behind Hong Kong Protests Says US Policymaker” written by Tony Cartalucci, published in New Eastern Outlook on September 9, 2019. https://journal-neo.org/2019/09/09/us-is-behind-hong-kong-protests-says-us-policymaker/ 

4 From an article entitled “Haiti owes Venezuela $2 billion – and much of it was embezzeled, Senate report says” written by Jacqueline Charles, published in the Miami Herald on November 15, 2017. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article184740783.html

5 From an article entitled “’Where did the money go?’ Haitians denounce corruption in social media campaign” written by Jacqueline Charles, published in the Miami Herald on August 23, 2018. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article217110220.html

6 “Death toll rises in Haiti protest crackdown” published by Al Jazeera on February 14, 2019. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/death-toll-rises-haiti-protest-crackdown-190214174428945.html

7 From an article entitled “Yellow Vests Rise Against Neo-Liberal ‘King’ Macron” written by Diana Johnstone, published in Consortium News on December 5, 2018. https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/05/yellow-vests-rise-against-neo-liberal-king-macron/ 

8 From an article entitled “So now you care about France’s brutal treatment of protesters?” published by Spiked magazine on July 2, 2019. https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/07/02/so-now-you-care-about-frances-brutal-treatment-of-protesters/ 

9 From an article entitled “Ecuador unrest: What led to the mass protests?” written by Kimberley Brown, published in Al Jazeera on October 10, 2019. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/ecuador-unrest-led-mass-protests-191010193825529.html

10 From an article entitled “Ecuador Reaches a Deal – but Unrest May Return” written by Mark Weisbrot, published in The Nation magazine on October 16, 2019. https://www.thenation.com/article/ecuador-protests-imf/

11 https://www.state.gov/united-states-response-to-protests-in-ecuador/ 

12 From an article entitled “At least 18 dead and thousands arrested in Chile protests” published by CBS News on October 24, 2019. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chile-news-santiago-at-least-18-dead-and-thousands-arrested-in-chile-protests-2019-10-24/ 

13 From an article entitled “Flawed transition: why the Spanish state is repressing the Catalan independence movement” written by Chris Bambery, published in Counterfire on October 6, 2019. https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/20589-flawed-transition-why-the-spanish-state-is-repressing-the-catalan-independence-movement

14 From a report entitled “Human rights groups denounce ‘serious irregularities’ in Catalan trial” published by Catalan News on October 9, 2019. https://www.catalannews.com/catalan-trial/item/human-rights-groups-denounce-serious-irregularities-in-catalan-trial

15 From an article entitled “Violent clashes over Catalan separatist leaders’ prison terms” written by Sam Jones and Stephen Burgen, published in the Guardian on October 14, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/14/catalan-separatist-leaders-given-lengthy-prison-sentences

16 From an article entitled “Disobeying Spain: the Catalan Referendum for Independence” written by Kevin Buckland, published in Counterpunch on October 3, 2017. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/03/disobeying-spain-the-catalan-referendum-for-independence/ 

17 From an article entitled “Flawed transition: why the Spanish state is repressing the Catalan independence movement” written by Chris Bambery, published in Counterfire on October 6, 2019. https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/20589-flawed-transition-why-the-spanish-state-is-repressing-the-catalan-independence-movement

18 https://pchrgaza.org/en/?p=13019

from los indignados to Podemos: Esther Vivas reflects on half a decade of public outrage in Spain

What remains of all our outrage?

Esther Vivas | Público

It’s been five years since the massive occupation of May 15, 2011 that gave birth to the movement of los indignados, 15M. Five years of faltering progress with many advances and set-backs along the way. Five years of a tremendous crisis, civil unrest and mass protest. So, what remains today after such a sustained period of outrage?

15M has changed the way we read and interpret the crisis we are facing. We were all told in 2008 that “we live beyond our means”, and blamed for the present situation, but the movement of los indignados has enabled us to change the story. One of its principle slogans, “no somos mercancías en manos de políticos ni banqueros” (we are not mere things to be manipulated by politicians and bankers), pointed in this direction. 15M said that the banks were the authors of economic collapse, and that most of the political class was also complicit. Los indignados imposed a counter-narrative that challenged the official lie: neither guilty nor responsible, it said, we are victims of an age of corruption.

What began as an economic crisis, soon led to a social crisis and finally, under the impact of 15M and the independence movement in Catalonia, to a crisis of the political system per se, which led people to question the founding principles of the (post-Franco) Spanish Constitution of 1978  and each of its pillars, monarchy, two-party system and our state model. This would have been unthinkable not long ago.

15M connected with the seething social discontent and helped to propel it into the form of collective mobilisation, legitimising protest and nonviolent direct actions, such as camping in public places, or occupations of empty houses owned by banks, like the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (or PAH – literally: Platform of People Affected by the Mortgage). Potentially illegal actions were now considered legitimate by a significant portion of public opinion. According to several polls, up to 80% of the public considered that los indignados were right and supported us, despite criminalisation and stigmatisation by those in power.

Two years after Mareas ciudadanas (the citizens’ Tide), the spirit of 15M finally made the jump to policymaking: moving from “no nos representan” to “Podemos” and the claims of “los comunes” †, having overcome the difficulty of gaining political traction. Even after pundits had accused the movement of being unable to present a serious political alternative and said that the management of our political institutions must be left to professionals.

The emergence of Podemos came with the victory of five MEPs in the European Parliament in May 2014, which marked the beginning of a new political/electoral cycle; one that has not yet been closed, and that was further crystallized in municipal elections of May 2015 with victories against all odds, of alternative candidates in local government capitals of Barcelona, Madrid, Zaragoza, Santiago de Compostela, Cádiz… followed by the breakdown of two-party politics (in the General election) on December 20^th. This political translation of outraged social unrest simply needed two things: time and strategic boldness. These successes had not been anticipated, and without the 15M movement would not have been possible.

Those stuck in “old politics” have been forced to rethink their modes of communication. Some have abandoned ties and put on more fashionable shirts, as step-by-step all kinds of shifts became imperative and the word “change” became ubiquitous in the electoral scene. As if that was not enough, a new party, Ciudadanos (Citizens) was launched, with the aim that social unrest might be railroaded into more harmless channels.

Maybe on today’s upset political chessboard the weakest side is the social mobilisation necessary to any process of change. The bid for institutional participation, the setting up of new political instruments and the sudden and unexpected victories in various city councils took place in a climate of social passivity. However, real change does not come about only through conquering institutions, but through gaining support from a mobilised society. If society does not exert pressure on governments for change, it is the powers-that-be that will, and we know whose interests they serve.

What remains of all our outrage? A regime in crisis, not ready yet to fall but ready to be reconfigured. As the French philosopher Daniel Bensaïd said: “Indignation is a start. A way of standing up and beginning to walk. One becomes indignant, rebels, and then thinks what next.” This is where we are now.

* Article in Publico.es, 15.05.2016.

† This is the name used by the candidacy of Ada Colau, elected mayor of Barcelona on May 2015.

Follow the link below to read the original article in Spanish:

https://esthervivas.com/2016/05/15/que-queda-de-tanta-indignacion/

Esther Vivas is an activist, journalist and the author of several books on food and agricultural policies and social movements; her latest work is The food business: Who controls our food? ( Icaria ed., 2014)

@esthervivas | facebook.com/esthervivas | www.esthervivas.com

**Translation is my own — approved by Esther Vivas

+info: http://esthervivas.com/

I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce this article.

Not all of the views expressed are necessarily ones shared by ‘wall of controversy’.

Esther Vivas offers a Catalan perspective on Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn and the whirlwind of change

Esther Vivas

Up until now, the emergence of a new political and anti-austerity movement has threatened only the periphery of the European Union, with Greece and Spain leading the way, whereas Jeremy Corbyn’s victory in the British Labour leadership elections represents a blow much closer to the heart of the beast, the City of London.

Against all odds, Jeremy Corbyn won the polls this Saturday in the first round with 59.9% of the vote. The veteran Corbyn achieving what had seemed impossible: a staunch critic of austerity, unswerving campaigner on environmental and anti-militarist issues and someone offering solidarity with refugees, chosen to become leader of his recently defeated and beleaguered Labour Party. Thus what the Labour Left had failed to achieve during more triumphant times, became a reality when least expected.

His campaign, full of hope, had been founded upon social media and huge rallies, but was somehow able to combat a smokescreen of fear and panic put out by establishment scaremongers so familiar to us both here and in Greece. And though the Blairites within his own party turned their cannons against Corbyn, their blitz was not enough to defeat hope.

In fact, it was the British ‘social-democrats’ in league with economic and financial power, who, as in the rest of Europe, have dug their own graves long ago. Corbyn’s triumph is a consequence of New Labour’s betrayal of the interests of its own social base: their defeat is very much in line with those we have seen in Greece with PASOK and, in the last European elections, in Spain when the PSOE got the worst results in its history: only 23% of the vote.

Corbyn is in tune with Podemos and the Syriza that had represented real change, and not the Syriza that yielded to the Troika. The difference now in Britain is that this alternative to outdated social democracy arises from within the very party that had previously abandoned itself to the markets; this sudden re-emergence of a real opposition highlighting the deep public disenchantment with traditional politics, the so-called “old politics”. In voting for Corbyn, the members and supporters of the Labour Party signalled deep unease with the party’s cozying up to the powers of business and finance capital. Their vote was a vote for no cuts, and end to financial insecurity, to privatisation, and to every facet of “austerity”. The people have said “enough”. Sound familiar?

This is not the first time the people of Europe, angered by unbridled capitalism and opposed to imperialist wars, have organised to push for change. We saw it in the anti-globalisation movement during the early 2000s, and the rise of social forums in Florence, Paris, London … with the assistance of thousands of people across the continent. We saw it with the Occupy and los Indignados movements which began in 2011 and planted their flags in hundreds of cities across Europe; their epicenter in Spain. And we see it again with the emergence of a “new politics” founded on “change”, not only social, but political and institutional. Their goal: to win.

Of course Corbyn will not have it easy. The old guard of the Labour Party will do everything possible to sink him, since his programme is diametrically opposed to Blairism. But he has the support of thousands of people. Success will depend upon being true to their promises irrespective of the immediate consequences. But the lessons of the failure of Syriza cannot be ignored. Defeating austerity, we have seen, is never an easy ride. However, with Corbyn we see not merely the winds of change, but the coming of a hurricane.

Follow the link below to read the original article in Spanish:

http://blogs.publico.es/esther-vivas/2015/09/17/jeremy-corbyn-huracan-de-cambio/

Esther Vivas is an activist, journalist and the author of several books on food and agricultural policies and social movements; her latest work is The food business: Who controls our food? ( Icaria ed., 2014)

@esthervivas | facebook.com/esthervivas | www.esthervivas.com

**Translation is my own — approved by Esther Vivas

+info: http://esthervivas.com/

I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce this article.

Not all of the views expressed are necessarily ones shared by ‘wall of controversy’.

King Juan Carlos has abdicated — long live the real transition!

After the abdication of the king, time to checkmate the regime
Esther Vivas

The regime is collapsing, it is dying and in its last-ditch struggle to survive, the king has abdicated. Never has the regime resulting from the Transition [The Transition is the name given to the political process following the death of Franco, which culminated in the Constitution of 1978] been as widely challenged as it is today. The pillars on which it rests, the monarchy, the judiciary, bipartisanship, have been greatly delegitimized for some time now. We no longer believe in their lies, those lies with which they are trying to hold together a system that is falling apart. What seemed not so long ago impossible appears today as a reality. Let us push with all our might to widen even further this breach that the economic, social and political crisis has made possible.

Since the elephant hunt of his “majesty” in Botswana, through the indictment of his son- in-law Iñaki Urdangarín in the “Noos affair” and the involvement of the Infanta Cristina in this case, and including the many operations on the monarch’s hip, costing millions and paid out of public funds, the Royal House has become a caricature of itself. One of the main justifications of “democracy” is mortally wounded, but it is not dead yet.

The announcement of the royal abdication is a final, desperate attempt to save the regime; an attempt at a “facelift” with the aim of restoring legitimacy not only to the monarchy but also to its suite of judges, politicians and opinion formers. For years, far too many years, they have lived under the shelter of this false Transition, trying to efface or hide our collective history. Our forgetfulness has been the substrate of their victory, not only moral but also political and economic.

The economic crisis, transformed into a profound social and also political crisis, has put the king and the regime of 1978 on the ropes. People have said “basta”. We saw it three years ago with the emergence of the 15-M Movement; with the spread of civil disobedience; with the occupation of empty homes that were in the hands of banks, and all of that with broad popular support despite the criminalization of protest. More poverty means more pain, but thanks to these mobilizations it also means greater awareness of who are the winners in this situation – the bankers, the politicians – and who are the losers.

The rising demand for sovereignty in Catalonia has also thrown the regime on the ropes, highlighting the deeply anti- democratic nature of a Constitution that does not allow the right to self-determination. Today, the European elections have given the “coup de grace” to a decaying regime, with the loss of more than five million votes for the PP and the PSOE and the emergence, with the election of five members of parliament, of “Podemos” . The regime is becoming nervous, very nervous.

The royal abdication is the latest rescue manoeuvre. But we must nevertheless remember that the system still has room for manoeuvre. The abdication of the king illustrates the weakness of the pillars of the regime and the strength of the people. But we do not want Juan Carlos Felipe [Juan Carlos Felipe is the Crown Prince] either. It’s time to go out into the streets to demand the opening of constituent processes throughout the Spanish State, in order to decide what kind of future we want. We must go on the offensive in order to checkmate the regime.

*This article was published in “Público.es ” June 2, 2014. Translated by International View Point.

I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce this article.

+info: http://esthervivas.wordpress.com/english

Spain: popular resistance delivers results

Victory against Madrid’s hospital privatisation – and other recent struggles in Spain – shows popular resistance delivers results.

“Resisting is pointless,” we hear endlessly repeated. “So many years of protest but the crisis continues, why bother?” insist others, inoculating us with apathy and resignation. “Protests could lead to something that’s even worse,” whispers the machinery of fear. They want us submissive, heads bowed. Dreams of change are forbidden. However, history rebels, it is indomitable. And it shows us, despite the naysayers, that struggle is worth it. The victories against the privatisation of the Madrid’s public health system, of the Gamonal neighbourhood standing up to speculators and the corrupt, of the cleaners in their battle for jobs in the capital and the struggle against evictions and the banks, are good examples.

It is not easy to achieve concrete victories when the political class betray our rights and sell out to capital. It’s hard to win when the state apparatus defends the haves, and rolls back our democratic rights and freedoms. The task of change is arduous, when the media are hijacked by private interests. Still, there are victories, big and small, showing us the way.

The Madrid government’s u-turn on its plans to privatise six public hospitals is one of them. The [Popular Party-run] adminstration in the capital has been forced to revoke the “outsourcing” plan after fifteen months of protest and the announcement of the High Court of Justice of Madrid to provisionally suspend the privatization process on the grounds it could pose “serious and irreparable damage.” There have been months of demonstrations, strikes, a referendum with nearly one million votes against such measures, hospital occupations, lawsuits. The triumph swept away its leading promoter, regional health commissioner Javier Fernández-Lasquetty, who has been forced to resign. It’s worth the fight.

Gamonal, another great victory. After little more than a week of intense protests, from 10 to 17 January in Burgos, against the construction of a boulevard in the neighbourhood of Gamonal, mayor Javier Lacalle had no choice but to halt construction indefinitely. The conflict, however, came from afar. A multi-million euro project, with huge profits for firms and politicians of the day, in a working class neighbourhood lacking investment and amenities. The “urban” conflict in Gamonal became the spearhead of the fight against corruption, land speculation and crisis. Demonstrations were held across Spain in solidarity with the community. And the attempts to criminalise and spread misinformation failed. It’s worth the fight.

13 days of strike and tons of debris around Madrid were necessary to avoid 1,134 layoffs of street cleaners and gardeners of the City of Madrid. It took an indefinite strike to paint into a corner private contractors that not only wanted to have hundreds of workers, but to carry out pay cuts of up to 43%. The victory was partial because the staff had to each accept 45 days temporary furloughs (unpaid lay offs) annually over the next four years, and a wage freeze until 2017. Still, this does not detract from an indefinite strike , unprecedented sadly in this day and age, succeeding in protecting every single job. It’s worth the fight.

The fight against evictions has been, without a doubt, the ultimate expression of a collective rebellion against this con-trick of a crisis. In response to the unlimited usury of the banks, people organized at the grassroots. Over a period of more than four years, the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) has managed to stop 936 evictions, rehouse 712 persons in empty properties owned by financial institutions and today occupied under the Obra Social campaign of the PAH. And it has forced many banks to negotiate hundreds of repossessions and social rent. Some will say that is very small progress compared to the overall offensive. That’s true. However, I would put that to all those who thanks to the PAH have a roof over their heads. It’s worth the fight.

Since the emergence of the indignados, or 15M movement, we have gone from “They do not represent us” to “Yes we can”. We have regained confidence in ourselves. The offensive by capital continues, but our indignation and disobedience increases. Victories today are catalysts of the victories of tomorrow. Struggle is imperative to change things. We must take note. And if we do, we can win.

* Article published in Público.es, 30/01/2014. Translation by Revolting Europe.

* Esther Vivas is a member of the Centre for Studies on Social Movements (CEMS) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She is author of the book in Spanish “Stand Up against external debt” and co-coordinator of the books also in Spanish “Supermarkets, No Thanks” and “Where is Fair Trade headed?”. She is also a member of the editorial board of Viento Sur.

I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce this article.

+info: http://esthervivas.com/english/

how can there be any talk of recovery in this “age of austerity”?

Toffed up to the nines and luxuriating in five-star privilege, David Cameron recently told a gathering of fellow ministers and lords during the annual Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall in London that the devastating “austerity” will be “permanent”:

The age of austerity is not just a passing phase and Britain should get used to having a ‘permanently’ smaller state, David Cameron said last night.

The Prime Minister used one of his most significant speeches of the year to say that low public spending and a ‘leaner, more efficient state’ would have to be maintained permanently in order for the UK to succeed.

He said the country would have to rediscover its traditional ‘buccaneering’ spirit for private enterprise in order to generate wealth instead of relying on the state.

His remarks are a significant shift for a leader who said in 2010 that he ‘didn’t come into politics to make cuts’, insisting: ‘We’re tackling the deficit because we have to – not out of some ideological zeal.’¹

Tory cuts, ideological? Come, come…

If you can stomach any more of it, the full Daily Mail article is here.

Curiously, chief political correspondent at the Guardian, Nicholas Watt, lets Cameron and his Coalition government off the hook too, accepting his pleading that the cuts are “not out of some ideological zeal”:

In a change of tack from saying in 2010 that he was imposing cuts out of necessity, rather than from “some ideological zeal”, the prime minister told the Lord Mayor’s banquet that the government has shown in the last three years that better services can be delivered with lower spending.

Watt adding that:

The remarks by the PM contrasted with his claim after the 2010 election. In his New Year’s message for 2011, issued on 31 December 2010, he said: “I didn’t come into politics to make cuts. Neither did Nick Clegg. But in the end politics is about national interest, not personal political agendas.” […]

A few months earlier that year, in his first Tory conference speech as PM, Cameron said he would have preferred to tackle the deficit in ways other than public spending cuts.²

Click here to read the full article.

Yet this declared “change of tack” is absolute nonsense and easily refutable nonsense at that. Here, for instance, is what Cameron promised back in April 2009 at the party’s spring conference when he was a mere leader of the opposition:

A Conservative government would usher in a new “age of austerity”

So begins a rather different Guardian article, this time from politics editor, Deborah Summers, reporting on what she (and others) then described as Cameron’s ‘age of austerity’ speech. Her article continuing:

The Tory leader insisted greater transparency would help to get Britain’s finances back on track as he used his keynote speech to the Conservative party forum in Cheltenham to pave the way for sweeping cuts in public spending.

“Over the next few years, we will have to take some incredibly tough decisions on taxation, spending and borrowing – things that really affect people’s lives,” Cameron warned.³

So for the record then, Cameron has never changed tack at all. Neither for that matter have their Coalition ‘partners’, the spineless Lib-Dems, or even the supposedly left of centre Labour government. None of our main parties ever seriously discussing real alternative economic strategies, with policies differing purely in terms of how savage the cuts would “need to be”. The Tories, once in office and free to wield the axe thanks to the quiet complicity of their Lib-Dem lackeys, cutting deeper and faster because, in truth, they love nothing better than hounding the lower classes and impoverishing the poor.

Yet after more than three years of “taking our medicine”, a collective punishment very eagerly dished out by the Coalition government, there has basically been no recovery at all in any meaningful sense. Yes, GDP growth has been positive for three quarters, but even this is only at levels comparable to the end of 2009 and beginning 2010 – in other words, growth equivalent to that achieved during the last few months of the admittedly wretched and incompetent Labour government.⁴ So no improvement, whatsoever, and this is after three years of stagnation. On top of which, all these figures are “real” and thus “adjusted for inflation”. But then, of course, the inflation rate itself is already rather carefully finessed. Henry Blodget of businessinsider provides a helpful explanation of the effect of this adjustment, although here writing about US GDP growth back in May 2011:

The way the government calculates real GDP is to start with nominal GDP – the actual change in the output of the economy as measured by adding up all the actual sales prices (“nominal”) – and then “deflating” this number by subtracting an estimated inflation rate. Thus, the government backs into the real GDP growth number, starting with nominal prices and then adjusting for inflation.

Well, the “GDP deflater” the government is using right now – the estimated rate of inflation – is only 1.9%. As anyone who has been to a supermarket or gas station recently can attest, this assumption is preposterously low. But the effect on “GDP growth” of using a very low inflation estimate is helpful, in that it makes real GDP growth look bigger.⁵

Click here to read the full article.

GDP is regularly and rather casually accepted as an indicator of “standard of living”, although actually it measures something entirely different and far more abstract: the monetary value of all goods and services produced within national borders. “Standard of living” is therefore better assessed on the basis of a variety of alternative indicators including the quality of healthcare, standards in education, income growth inequality and so forth. That a string of successive governments have failed us in all these regards is widely acknowledged.

I know many who work in the NHS and can’t recall anyone ever telling me that services were getting better or their jobs any less stressful. More personally, I have worked in education for more than fifteen years and standards have unquestionably declined, whilst grade inflation is absolutely real. But then, we can all see how our public services, and the NHS especially, have become infested with managers; whilst our teachers, healthcare professionals (doctors excepted) and many other public sector workers have been put under increasing pressure, and further demoralised thanks to deteriorating pay and contractual conditions alongside flexploitation. Meantime our entire society is being steadily ripped apart by the ever-widening gulf in wealth and incomes. Much of this, of course, is Thatcher’s legacy.

Now I accept that there is indeed a great deal of waste in public spending, and pruning out levels of superfluous management as well as trimming salaries at the top could be beneficial as well as cost effective. But these are not cuts of the type being made on the ground. If the government were seriously intent on cutting back only on real waste, then it would apply its measures with something like surgical precision, but instead it brings the axe. Waste being just a smokescreen. And as with any axe, it hacks away at the bottom of the trunk. Making the most vicious cuts to welfare, which means deliberately snatching a little public money from those who can least afford to lose any, whilst simultaneously targeting the soft underbelly of our few remaining public services, which is also as deliberate as it is ideologically driven. Lastly, when it’s not cutting services, it’s selling them off instead – lowest prices, because everything must go…

Our government is now so openly committed to establishing its permanent “age of austerity” that for millions of people no hope survives that their standard of living will ever improve again – with the proposed £20bn cuts to the budget of our already broken and terribly overstretched NHS being nothing short of a final swing of the wrecking ball through Britain’s most treasured national institution.⁶ Indeed, a friend who is a dedicated political activist in London recently sent me a distressing email that put into better perspective (since it was founded on her own personal experience) how this talked-up “recovery” is absolutely nothing of the sort. She wrote:

Life is already unbearable/intolerable for many people in the UK on sick benefits having their benefits cut off or cut in half to £49 a week to live on, left with no money to pay bills or the water rates part of their rent, means eviction and out on the streets, living with no heat, no light, no gas, no electricity; or mental breakdown and in a mental hospital; or taking their own lives as they have nowhere to turn and an uncaring society that goes on about benefit scroungers. These people are too sick to work. This is pure fascism and no one is making a fuss in the UK – why? Where is the anger, where are the activists? Why aren’t they doing something? People who are too sick to work are being killed by this government.

Yes, as Cameron entertains an equally pampered audience from behind his gilded lectern, talking without a hint of irony about all the “hard choices” and “tough decisions” he has to make in this new age of perpetual “austerity” — does one use the fish knife for spreading one’s caviar? — people less than a mile away are already struggling to find a few coins for the electricity meter or food for the next meal. All of which elegantly sums up the age we are already living in: an age not of shared “austerity”, where “we’re all in this together” (even if we know it was the bankers who caused the crisis), but of “let them eat cake” disparity. Times, for instance, when super rich Premier League footballers (super rich by ordinary standards that is) wear shirts emblazoned with the name of payday loan sharks Wonga and no one seems to notice, no one feels ashamed, and so one begins to wonder, as my friend wrote: “Where is the anger, where are the activists? Why aren’t they doing something?”

*

Yesterday, I received a new article from journalist and political activist Esther Vivas, which is appended below. In it she details the growing despair of the people of Spain as they suffer even more severe “austerity” bringing with it the inevitable mass unemployment, frozen salaries and escalating costs of living. Broadly, what she says about Spain sadly applies to nearly every corner of the western world and beyond.

Spain in 2014: Not a Prosperous New Year
Esther Vivas

We have entered 2014 a little poorer. For those of us with a job, our salaries have been frozen, or even cut; only a few can expect a rise in the New Year. Furthermore, the price of electricity, public transport and water are increasing.

2013 ended with the controversy over a threatened increase in electricity bills by 11%, leaving Spaniards paying well above the European average and Spain ranking the third most expensive electricity in Europe. So, Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) government intervened and stopped this rise by decree. As you can see, if the PP wants to, it can intervene. But overall, there is little willingness to confront the interests of multinationals. For now, the government has limited the rise to 2.3%, and we are expected to be thankful.

The rising price of public transport is another traditional New Year scam. Train tickets, are up nearly 2%, and in Barcelona, not to be outdone, the fare raises on the subway are an abusive 5% with the most popular travelcard, the T-10. However, if you usually take the high speed train (AVE) , which is only used by a minority of citizens, do not worry, because the price has been frozen . Lucky too, are the drivers who use the highways from Castelldefels to Sitges and Montgat to Mataro, where the tolls have been reduced by 30% and 10% respectively, provided they use teletac card, the automatic payment system. Lower the cost of private transport and increase the cost of public transport – that’s the approach of Catalonia’s [right-wing nationalist] CiU government.

And in Barcelona, we face further rises, for water too, even if money appears to be in plentiful supply, especially for the city council, as we saw with the celebrations on New Year’s Eve at the Montjuïc fountain. The tourists are happy at least. But for the rest of us, water bills will be going up by 8.5 % on average in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, thanks to the votes of CiU and [Catalan Socialists] PSC, and the abstention of the [left nationalists] ERC. In the end, those who criticise the cuts are the first to sharpen the scissors. We will not forget.

Meanwhile, the minimum wage remains frozen, as was the case last year, leaving it at a meagre 645 euros per month, while public sector workers remain on the wages they received in 2010. Pensions of those ten million retirees who worked all their lives, will see their incomes hit by a change in indexation that means rises are tied to below inflation (CPI ); this year they will rise by just 0.25% , the minimum set by the Government. An increase that will barely buy a cup of coffee.

We enter this 2014, a little poorer. Our purchasing power slowly falls. Every year that passes we have less. They want to make poverty normal. Do you remember those stories, not so long ago, of those struggling on 1000 euros a month? The new precariat. Today an employer offering a job paying a thousand euros monthly would be swamped by curriculums. And yet some, like the Prime Minister, dare to say that 2014 brings “the beginning of the recovery.” What a bunch of thieves and liars.

*Article published in the Spanish digital newspaper Público.es, 02/01/2014. Translated by Revolting-Europe.com.

+info: http://esthervivas.com/english/

I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce this article.

Not all of the views expressed are necessarily views shared by ‘wall of controversy’.

*

Update:

On January 6^th, Chancellor, George Osborne, delivered a New Year economy speech at the West Midlands headquarters of Sertec in which he continued from where Cameron had left off, announcing that:

If 2014 is a year of hard truths for our country, then it starts with this one: Britain should never return to the levels of spending of the last government.

We’d either have to return borrowing to the dangerous levels that threatened our stability, or we’d have to raise taxes so much we’d put our country out of business. Government is going to have to be permanently smaller – and so too is the welfare system. […]

We’ve got to make more cuts. £17 billion this coming year. £20 billion next year. And over £25 billion further across the two years after. That’s more than £60 billion in total.

Click here to read a full transcript of George Osborne’s speech at gov.uk

From a report in the Guardian published the same day (co-authored by Nicholas Watt and Rowena Mason), we also learn that:

In an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme, Osborne said he would seek to achieve some of the £12bn savings by targeting housing benefit for under-25s and by means-testing people on incomes of £60,000 to £70,000 who live in social housing. But one Whitehall source said that targeting those two areas would produce “laughable” savings. Department of Communities and Local Government figures show that the 11,000 to 21,000 council tenants, who earn more than £60,000 a year, each cost the taxpayer £3,600 a year. Targeting this group would produce savings of £40m-£76m a year.

No doubt desperately intent to put some clear blue water between his own party and the truer blue Tories in the run up to the 2015 general election, the same article reports on Nick Clegg’s entirely belated fightback against what are in any case his own government’s “austerity measures”:

Clegg chose to describe Osborne’s plans to target cuts on the working-age poor – while ruling out tax increases – as “lopsided and unbalanced”. In a sign of how coalition relations will remain fractious until the election in May 2015, the deputy prime minister said: “You’ve got a Conservative party now who are driven, it seems to me, by two very clear ideological impulses. One is to remorselessly pare back the state – for ideological reasons just cut back the state.

“Secondly – and I think they are making a monumental mistake in doing so – they say the only people in society, the only section in society, which will bear the burden of further fiscal consolidation are the working-age poor.”

Signalling how he will waste no time in publicly criticising Tory plans over the next 16 months, Clegg later added: “I literally don’t know of a serious economist who believes that you only do it from that lopsided, unbalanced approach. Almost all serious economists say you have some kind of mix.”

Meanwhile, professional clown and London Mayor, Boris Johnson, managed to upstage both Osborne and Clegg on LBC radio by comparing Nick Clegg to a condom, describing him as “David Cameron’s lapdog-cum-prophylactic protection device”.

This is taken from The Mirror, published January 7th:

The London Mayor likened the Deputy Prime Minister to a “prophylactic protection device” as relations between the Tories and Lib Dems sank to a new low. The tirade came during a radio phone-in after Mr Clegg claimed George Osborne’s “extreme” plan to cut £12billion from welfare was a “monumental mistake”.

Furious Tory MPs called on the Lib Dem chief to apologise. Leading the backlash on LBC radio slot Ask Boris, jabbering Johnson said: “Clegg is there to perform a very important ceremonial function as David Cameron’s lapdog-cum-prophylactic protection device for all the difficult things that David Cameron has to do.

“He is a lapdog who’s been skinned and turned into a shield.”

You can listen to Boris Johnson’s latest rant against Coalition teammate Nick Clegg embedded below:

 

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Additional:

On November 27^th, Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza in Greece, wrote an op-ed for the Guardian entitled “Austerity is wreaking havoc, but the left can unite to build a better Europe”. Here are a few pertinent extracts:

Those European leaders who claim that the current medicine is a “success” are hypocrites. For millions of people, the European dream has turned into a nightmare. Eurobarometer surveys show the growing crisis of confidence in the EU and the catastrophic rise in the popularity of far-right parties. What should give us hope is the emergence of new solidarity groups and community-based movements. They can and will lead to greater democratic participation and control. […]

Europe needs an anti-austerity and anti-recession front, a solidarity movement for its working people, north and south. This could deliver a pact for democracy, development and social justice. We must rebuild solidarity among the young, the workers, the pensioners and the unemployed to break down the new dividing line between Europe’s rich and poor, the “mur d’argent” to use a historical phrase that has become topical.

Click here to read Alexis Tsipras’ full article.

*

1 From an article entitled “Cameron: Austerity should last for ever and Britain must get used to being a ‘leaner, more efficient state’” written by James Chapman, published in the Daily Mail on November 11, 2013. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2501697/Cameron-Austerity-Britain-used-leaner-efficient-state.html

2 From an article entitled “David Cameron makes leaner state a permanent goal” written by Nicholas Watt, published in the Guardian on November 12, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/11/david-cameron-policy-shift-leaner-efficient-state

3 From an article entitled “David Cameron warns of ‘new age of austerity’” written by Deborah Summers, published by the Guardian on April 26, 2009. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/apr/26/david-cameron-conservative-economic-policy1

4 A comparison can be easily made from studying a graph published by the BBC in late October. Figures from the ONS for UK GDP growth are as follows: 2009 Q4, 0.4%; 2010 Q1, 0.5%; 2010 Q2, 1.0% compared against 2013 Q1, 0.4%; 2013 Q2, 0.7%; 2013 Q3, 0.8%. Indeed, the accompanying article begins: “The figures mean that the economy grew at its fastest pace for three years.” After three years of Coalition government, in fact! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10613201

5 From an article entitled “Check Out What GDP Growth Would Look Like If The Government Were Using The Right Inflation Numbers” written by Henry Blodget, published by businessinsider on May 30, 2011. http://www.businessinsider.com/gdp-adjusted-for-inflation-2011-5

6 In October 2011, Denis Campbell and James Meikle investigated and reported in an article published by the Guardian entitled “£20bn NHS cuts are hitting patients, Guardian investigation reveals”.

They write: “This Guardian investigation details the latest evidence of increased cuts – the cuts that, according to the government, should not be happening – being implemented across a wide range of the NHS’s many care services. With £20bn due to be saved by 2015, and the NHS receiving only a 0.1% budget increase each year until then, experts predict that tough decisions – about the availability of services and treatments, staffing levels and which clinics and hospitals provide care – will become increasingly common.”

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/oct/17/nhs-cuts-impact-on-patients-revealed

independence for Catalonia?

An introductory note:

The following is the translation of an article written by journalist and political activist Esther Vivas after the recent September 11^th demonstrations for Catalan independence.

The Catalan independence issue is a complex one, and so I also sent the original article to a Catalan friend who has helpfully explained some of the more technical terms. I have since re-edited the original version and added my friend’s remarks in the form of footnotes (with links) to provide a little guidance for those of us less familiar with politics of the region.

What is perhaps especially interesting to outsiders is the birth of a new political movement. The movement, which is known as Procés Constituent – approximately translates to mean “constitutional process” – was started by a nun by the name of Sister Teresa Forcades and a fellow activist called Arcadi Oliveres.

*

Catalonia: independence from Spain, independence from capitalism

Esther Vivas

Hundreds of thousands turned out last September 11 to demand independence for Catalonia. Some decided to surround the Caixa, form a human chain around the largest bank in Catalonia and third largest in Spain, to demand not only independence from Spain, but from capitalism.

Some in that crowd will say that independence comes first, and then we’ll see. That independence itself will end unemployment, poverty, and hunger. As if independence were a divine manna. This, however, is falsehood. Just ask people in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus and all of us now living in Spain. Instead, gaining real independence must mean that we escape from, well, the grip of the Troika^*, since it is the European financial powers which now stand in the way of real freedom for the people. After all, there can be no real independence under the burden of debt, the blackmail of the risk premium and the “markets” .

Others in the crowd will claim “Madrid robs us ”, and so if we say “Farewell to Spain”, then our problems are solved. But nothing is further from reality… Where are we going with a country in the hands of just 400 families¹ forever? Moving towards real independence, involves asking: independence for what and for whom.

The open debate in Catalonia today is an opportunity to rethink the foundations for a new model of society. It may be independent, yes, but it must be open to a ‘constitutional process’² that allows us to decide together what kind of country we want… Always remembering that it has been the banks which are most responsible for this crisis, with La Caixa being the largest bank in Catalonia. And that to save these financial institutions we have been sunk into absolute misery. So we will never be free nor independent, if we are still subject to policies that only serve to prop up the banks.

It is also common knowledge that La Caixa does not want a referendum on independence. “Social peace” [or “let’s not rock the boat”]³ being the final guarantor of its sustained profits, and with the Spanish State always its biggest source of business…. Its true loyalties evident from the scandal involving the royal family… La Caixa ensuring a golden retirement for the Infanta Cristina in Switzerland⁴, as head of the International Department of the La Caixa Fundación, her salary increasing to 320,000 euros per year…

So which country will we have after independence if our largest bank still evicts families and rips us off through ‘preferred shares’⁵? What will our independence amount to if we are still in the hands of thieves…?

* This is an extract from an article published by Esther Vivas in Spanish in Publico.es, 12/11/2013.

Originally translated by http://revolting-europe.com.

+info: http://esthervivas.com/

*

Footnotes:

* The following is a previous article published by Esther Vivas at Publico.es, June 1, 2013:

United against the Troika
Esther Vivas

Who is the Troika? A year ago few knew the answer to this question. We knew it by reference, to its stay in Greece, and it wasn’t good. The Troika was synonymous with austerity, adjustment and cuts, hardship, hunger and unemployment.

But it was not until the arrival in Spain of the much denied rescue, in June 2012, that the “men in black” and “Troika” became a household name. Today, a year later, people, sick and tired, are coming out into the streets to say loud and clear: “Troika, go home”.

History repeats itself. And just as many countries of the South in the 1990s and 2000s saw mass demonstrations against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, whom the people accused of reducing them to misery, now people here speak out against the Troika: the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. The bank is different. But the logic is more of the same.

Centre-periphery relations at a global level are now repeated in the European Union. And the countries of the periphery of the Continent, we have become the new colonies, markets or sources of financial capital. Where once, in the South, structural adjustment plans were applied, in order, it was said, to make debt more sustainable, as if the misery and poverty to which they could be subjected was sustainable. Now they speak to us of “aid” and “bailouts “… and they reduce us all to misery.

Debt remains the yoke imposed on the poor. A mechanism of control and subjugation of peoples. An infallible instrument to transfer resources, or to be more precise, of plunder, from South to North, either global or at a European scale. And an argument for reducing the rights of the majority and generate more profits to capital, cutting and privatizing public services covertly. The debt imposed on us, which, incidentally, is not ours, is the perfect excuse to implement what is a long plan. Thus, the scam is called the crisis, the theft is the debt.

We have quickly learned the meaning of the Troika, but also that of other concepts such as anger, rebellion and disobedience. And today we rise in more than 100 cities across Europe as the “peoples united against Troika”. Because we can.

* Article published at Publico.es, June 1st, 2013.
** Translated by http://revolting-europe.com.

1“400 families”: I don’t know exactly when this phrase was coined, but it has been current in the media in recent years to refer to the Catalan ruling elite, whose members are often descended from the industrial bourgeoisie of the past. The phrase became popular in 2009 when Fèlix Millet, a well-connected businessman from this particular class, confessed to embezzling large amounts of money from the Palau de la Música foundation. He has also been accused of conniving in the illegal funding of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, the political party in power in the autonomous government, many of whose leaders happen to belong to the “400 families”. But despite his confession and the public outrage that followed, the court case keeps being delayed and Millet has only spent a few days in prison so far.

According to La Vanguardia, in an interview he referred to himself as belonging to a group of 400 influential Catalans, some related to each other and others not, “who meet everywhere and are always the same” (sorry, I haven’t found a link in English:

http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/noticias/20090924/53791233174/uno-de-los-nuestros-felix-millet-orfeo-catala-omnium-cultural-montserrat-estado-liceu-joan-anton-mar.html).

2“constitutional process”: this refers to the writing of a socially progressive Catalan constitution in the future, which is advocated by a group called “Procés Constituent” started by Teresa Forcades (the nun who became famous on Youtube exposing the pharmaceutical industry in connection with the swine flu vaccine) and a fellow Christian activist called Arcadi Oliveres.

This group is not a political party and both founders have said from the start that they are not going to stand in elections. Their aim is allegedly to set up a movement that will eventually lead to a “constituent assembly” for the new Catalan state. The group organized the alternative human chain around la Caixa that is mentioned in the article, to signal their differences with the independentist “Via Catalana” chain.

They are pro-independence but believe that a Catalan republic will be pointless unless it’s built on radically different principles, so for example in their manifesto they advocate, among other things, nationalising banks, refusing to pay “odious debt” and extending the welfare state (which is the reason Vivas supports them; I also signed my support when they first published their manifesto, which felt pretty odd given my feelings about Catholics –Forcades and Oliveres seem well-meaning, though). So when Vivas refers to the “constituent process”, I think she’s referring to the idea that social rights should be written into the future Catalan constitution.

To read more about Sister Teresa Forcades and her movement, “Procés Constituent”, I recommend a BBC news article entitled “ Sister Teresa Forcades: Europe’s most radical nun”, written by Matt Wells, published on September 14, 2013. The article outlines her 10-point programme, drawn up with economist Arcadi Oliveres, as follows:

• A government takeover of all banks and measures to curb financial speculation

• An end to job cuts, fairer wages and pensions, shorter working hours and payments to parents who stay at home

• Genuine “participatory democracy” and steps to curb political corruption

• Decent housing for all, and an end to all foreclosures

• A reversal of public spending cuts, and renationalisation of all public services• An individual’s right to control their own body, including a woman’s right to decide over abortion

• “Green” economic policies and the nationalisation of energy companies

• An end to xenophobia and repeal of immigration laws

• Placing public media under democratic control, including the internet

• International “solidarity”, leaving Nato, and the abolition of armed forces in a future free Catalonia

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24079227

3“Social peace”: this is a direct translation of a euphemism that is often used here by politicians, bankers and businessmen alike, so when there’s a demonstration or a strike or any kind of protest by the people, those in power will say that this is undesirable because it disrupts “social peace”, by which they mean that the protests threaten to disrupt the status quo.

4“ensuring a golden retirement for the Infanta…”: this refers to a financial scandal involving the Infanta, her husband, the king and various Partido Popular politicians and regional governments. It’s a long soap opera so I’ll spare you the details. The latest thing is that after being let off the hook by the corrupt justice system, the Infanta has been given a cosy and highly lucrative job in Switzerland by La Caixa, the bank mentioned in the article.

5“preferred shares”: this is a complex, high-risk ‘financial product’ that a few years ago was fraudulently sold by Spanish banks to thousands of unwitting citizens, mostly elderly and uneducated, who didn’t have a clue what they were buying. When the crisis set in, the buyers lost everything (in fact I know someone whose elderly mother lost her savings this way). The victims are still fighting to get their money back. If you want to read more about this, you can have a look here: http://www.arabtimesonline.com/NewsDetails/tabid/96/smid/414/ArticleID/194380/reftab/96/Default.aspx

I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce these articles.

Not all of the views expressed are necessarily views shared by ‘wall of controversy’.

*

Update:

The following is a subsequent article on progress of the ‘Constituent Process’ published on October 27^th 2013:

Catalonia: a Constituent Process to decide everything
Esther Vivas

Nobody said that it would be easy, but it is necessary to try. And this is precisely what is being done through the Constituent Process in Catalonia, led by the Benedictine nun Teresa Forcades and the economist Arcadi Oliveres, along with many other people. To create social consciousness, to mobilize, to promote civil disobedience and to raise a political alternative that defies those who monopolize power.

Its objective is to construct a new politico-social instrument, based on popular self-organization, loyal to those of at the bottom and able to contribute, in diversity, to the social and political left as a whole. On the horizon, if things work out, it expresses the will to compete in the next elections to the Catalan Parliament, with a broad candidacy, the result of the necessary confluence of many people, some currently inside and others outside the Process, that aspires to transform social discontent into a political majority and to establish the bases to promote a constituent process, that allows us to collectively equip ourselves with a new political framework in the service of the majority.

Some will say that this is utopian, but it is more utopian, from my point of view, to think that those who have led to us to the present situation of crisis, from which, by the way, they obtain substantial benefits, will get us out of it. Breaking with scepticism, apathy and fear is the challenge that we have ahead. Knowledge that “we can” is the first step to obtaining concrete victories.

Ever since the Constituent Process went public last April, the support received has been wide The Process has connected with broad sectors of society who perceive, in the present context of crisis, the urgent necessity of changing things. Many people without too much political or organizational experience have identified with a discourse that appeals to something as essential as can be: justice.

Other social activists have seen in the Process an instrument to go beyond social mobilization per se and to consider a political-organizational perspective of change. Two years after the emergency of 15M, many perceive that no matter how much we occupy banks, empty houses, supermarkets, hospitals… those in power continue applying a series of measures that sink us into absolute misery. Resting on the essential struggle on the street, without which there is no possible change, the Constituent Process raises, at the same time, a challenge to the political-economic regime, as well as in the institutions. And to change the system by “occupying” these instances and giving them back to the social majority via a constituent process.

For sure there are no magical formulas but experiences like the constituent processes in Latin America (Ecuador, Bolivia, or Venezuela) or, closer to home, Iceland, in spite of their debatable evolutions, are experiences to consider deeply, not to imitate but to learn from their successes and errors. In Catalonia, the debate on the national question and independence opens an opportunity, as we could never have imagined, to be able to decide… and to decide on everything.

High participation

The high participation in public presentations of the Constituent Process, some led by Teresa Forcades and others by Arcadi Oliveres, with an average of between 400 to 700 people in municipalities like Vic, Sabadell, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Lleida, Girona, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Balaguer, Figueres, Blanes, Granollers, Terrassa, or even small municipalities like Santa Fe del Penedès or Fals, shows the capacity of attraction of this initiative, which has, in a few months, made more than one hundred presentations across the Catalan territory.

And more importantly, the interest of those who approach the Process does not reside only in listening to its two main promoters but in participating actively in the construction of this politico-social instrument. In this way, more than 80 local assemblies have already been set up across Catalonia. Also specific assemblies around such issues as education, health, feminism and immigration have started up. All of them are coordinated in a general assembly known as the Promotional Group, which meets monthly.

The forms of action of the Constituent Process also reflect this “other politics”. At most public events makeshift money boxes are passed around to collect what it costs to rent the PA apparatus, photocopies and so on. The presentations serve also to attract those present to attending local meetings and assemblies. The groups in the territory are organized according to their own priorities and are coordinated nationally. The Constituent Process still has some way to go, but it shows the potential of a political initiative able to connect with major social unrest. Although obviously there is still much to be done, perhaps the most difficult part: to consolidate the process and improve the coordination of the assemblies. This is a work in progress.

From bottom to top

The confidence generated by its principal promoters, Teresa Forcades and Arcadi Oliveres, is key to its success. But we know that this is an initiative that will only succeed if it is built from the bottom up. I was told the day both presented the proposal: “We two alone cannot do much”. Correct. Today, the Constituent Process has more than 44,000 people attached and multiple local and sector meetings. Teresa Forcades and Arcadi Oliveres, as has been said many times, do not want to be leaders of anything, but agree to put their credibility at the service of a just cause.

Criticisms of the Christian profile of both have been made, despite the secular nature of the Process. Which in part is not surprising. The social mobilization of the left, both in Catalonia and in the Spanish state, would not be understood, in part, without the contribution of ordinary Christians. Without going any further, one of the founders of the Field Workers Union was none other than the priest of the poor, Diamantino Garcia. Denying this reality means ignoring this part of our collective history. And both Teresa Forcades and Arcadi Oliveres have spoken repeatedly and at length before the Constituent Process, against the ecclesiastical hierarchy, for the separation of church and state and in defence of the right of women to decide on their bodies. Which, incidentally, has earned them widespread criticism by reactionary sectors of the church and its hierarchy.

Last October 13, the main event of the Constituent Process was being held in Barcelona, just six months after its introduction. I still remember how before the proposal someone commented: “Why go ahead with such a project. This is going to fail”. A colleague said: “Failure would be not to try.” How right she was.

*Translated by International View Point.

+info: http://esthervivas.com/english

Esther Vivas speaks out against Spain’s reactionary government

Spanish State: They want us poor, silenced and straight

Esther Vivas

The governing Popular Party (PP) is on a crusade – not only against fundamental rights such as health, education, housing, work, but also against sexual and reproductive freedoms. The PP wants to impose a model of society, not only at the service of capital, but sexist and homophobic to boot. It wants us poor, silenced and straight.

Last week the Government proposed to the Spanish regional governments that they veto, within the public health system, assisted reproductive treatment (artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization) to lesbians and single women. A measure that threatens equal access to public services and discriminates against those who do not conform to the strict hetero ‘standard’ . If you are female, poor, lesbian, or you are single, you are forbidden to get pregnant. For the PP, without men there must be no children. In this way, the Right imposes its family archetype: a straight couple.

We are facing a government that is shocked that two women can be mothers, that two men can be fathers, that a lone woman may have daughters and sons, but it does not feel the slightest shame in pursuing policies that lead to hunger, unemployment and evictions. It is the double standard of those who do not have any principles. Who are only obedient to the doctrine of capitalism and patriarchy.

Yesterday in a feminist protest outside the Ministry of Health in Madrid, called precisely to condemn this measure, the response was repression. This is a government that pursues and criminalises those who refuse to be silent. The ‘politics of the truncheon is the other side of coin of their ‘politics of cuts’.

Here’s another example. The Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality plans to leave out of official statistics the abuse of women who, despite being attacked, do not visit the hospital or whose hospital stay is less than 24 hours. Which means the majority of cases will remain hidden. Could it be that the figures are getting out of control?

In the first quarter of 2013, 1,100 women per month signalled injuries when reporting attacks by men, according to the Observatory for Gender Violence of the General Council of the Judiciary. This, however, represents a minority of cases. In 2012, according to the same organisation, in only 11% of the 128,000 complaints for abuse did women notify that they had been injured. For some, it seems, it is better to hide or disguise the reality, rather than fight it.

And to all of this must be added the offensive by Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón to change the already limited abortion law, turning the clock back to the era of ‘the caves’. A change that, in the words of the minister, will take place in the next three months. The future law, everything seems to indicate, will be more restrictive than that of 1985, only allowing pregnancy to be terminated in certain, very limited circumstances.

Among the cases that are being earmarked for removal from the current law, is the malformation of the fetus. According Gallardón, the reform aims to ‘increase the protection of the quintessential right of a women: that of motherhood.’ And I wonder: Motherhood in whose hands? Women or the State?

In short, this is an attempt by the PP to take control over, and legislate about our body. These measures ultimately add up to a political solution to the crisis that sees women returning to the home. When cutting public services such as health, welfare, social services, there will be a whole area of care work, invisible, undervalued, but essential, that will end up being done, again, by women. It is us who, above all, will bear the burden of the cuts to the welfare state.

We face a right-wing government that is sexist and homophobic. The response to this can only be at once left-wing (not talk, but action on the streets) and feminist, in defence of sexual freedoms.

*Esther Vivas is a Spanish journalist and activist.

**Translation by Revolting Europe.

+info: http://esthervivas.com/

I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce this article.

Not all of the views expressed are necessarily views shared by ‘wall of controversy’.

Esther Vivas calls for action against Spain’s boom in corruption

Spain is in the hands of thieves

Esther Vivas

No doubt. We are in the hands of thieves. The Barcenas, Pallerols, Crespo, Nóos and Mercurio cases, added to the Gürtel case, Millet, Champion, Pretoria and many others, show that those who have been giving us lessons of austerity have been benefitting: not only the bankers and businessmen but also, when the cameras have not focused on them, the politicians, who have filled their pockets in order to live in opulence and extravagance. And all at our expense.

Mayors, former ministers, regional leaders, senators, councillors, MPs… a total of more than 300 politicians  are under investigation for corruption. And sleaze is present at all levels of public administration. Corruption looms too in the General Council of the Judiciary, including the governors of the Bank of  Spain and the Royal Family. Here no one is exempt. And we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

The Valencia region and the Balearic Islands have the dubious honour of topping the ranking of corruption and cronyism, although territories such as as Catalonia, Galicia, Madrid and Andalusia follow closely behind. In Valencia, nine members of the Popular Party are formally charged and former senior officials of the government of Francisco Camps, who, even The New York Times has compared with Silvio Berlusconi. In the Balearics, there are almost a hundred defendants, between middling and top posts, for the most part from the last Popular Party administration of Jaume Matas, who, incidentally, has accumulated a total of a dozen cases of irregular funding, among others.

In Catalunya, corruption is widespread in both Convergència and Unió [the two parties of the coalition CiU backing recently re-elected Catalonia regional President Artur Mas]. Convergència, whose headquarters have been seized to cover the bailout of 3.2 million euros for the diversion of funds from the Palau de la Música and [the alleged public bid rigging] for the ITV [vehicle inspection stations] by Convergència’s general secretary, Oriol Pujol [son of former Catalan regional premier Jordi Pujol]. Furthermore, there’s the case of the Catalan Health Institute, which forced its president Josep Prat to resign, and now the case of Xavier  Crespo, Convergència deputy in parliament, presumed to be linked to a plot of laundering funds from the Russian mafia. The “very honourable” Jordi Pujol seems to be ignorant of this, and is promoting from his think tank a “code of ethics for professionals in politics,” based on honesty and transparency. Another bad joke.

And so to Unió Democràtica de Catalunya, or Unió, which was convicted of misuse of 388,000 euros of European Union funds meant for jobless training programs between 1994 and 1999. That’s case known as Pallerols. And that culminated — check this out! — with an agreement between prosecutors and defence to avoid prosecution, and a statement from, among others, the training chief Duran y Lleida, and a reduction in prison sentences to less than two years (initially the Court of Barcelona demanded 11 years!), thus avoiding jail. Justice?

Nor should we forget the ‘fake redundancies’ plot in Andalusia, led by the Socialists, with about 70 defendants, including former senior regional government officials. Many, it seems, were the beneficiaries, for over at least ten years, of money from the Andalusian ERE redundancy scheme. It was a scandal that followed in the wake of a long history of corruption in socialist ranks since the days of Juan Guerra and Luís Roldán.

Having said this, most corruption cases occur locally. Today some 80 mayors and former mayors plus several dozen more councillors are under investigation for cases related to the awarding of contracts and urban development. Many of them are charged with crimes of embezzlement, breach of trust, influence peddling and/or fraud. The Pretoria [urban development] case in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, and the more recent case of ‘operation Mercurio’ in Sabadell, are examples.

The major political parties in particular appear to have done what they wished with public funds, using them as illegal financing instruments and treating public matters as if they were private. No wonder, then, that in the last Barometer Sociological Research Center (CIS), in December 2012, politicians and parties were considered the third most important problem that exists in the Spanish state, after corruption and fraud. In fact, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2012 report,  the Spanish State was ranked 30th in the standings, tied, coincidentally, or maybe not, with Botswana.

Intimidating the media

And, what happens to those who dare to denounce corruption? Today the most emblematic case is that of  CafèambLlet (a local magazine with very little means) that reported in early 2102, by means of a home video (an upload that was seen by more than a hundred thousand Youtube visitors within just a few days) how Catalan public health money was being stolen by businessmen and politicians of CiU and Catalan Socialist Party (PSC).

Months later, CafèambLlet faced legal action by Josep Maria Via — someone quoted in the video — for allegedly attempting to bring him into disrepute. Following an unusually fast trial, in which representatives of CafèambLlet were not even allowed to speak, the editor was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of ten thousand euros. But take note, another major  scandal that was uncovered by CafèambLlet in its Crespo Report, regarding [the CiU’s deputy] Xavier Crespo, who in turn threatened to sue the magazine, and is at present facing investigation for graft and bribery called for by the anti-corruption prosecutor. Will anyone compensate CafèambLlet for the threats received by this character?

Nature of today’s corruption

Corruption is not perceived today as it was in the past. Now it is regarded as an intrinsic part of the crisis. And in so far as it increases unemployment, poverty and insecurity, illicit enrichment of the elites at the expense of the majority is becoming an unbearable burden. So the impunity enjoyed by the politically corrupt appears to be ending. And as the pillars that built the system during the Democratic Transition continue to crumble, and as the loss of legitimacy of institutions and political representatives grows because of their subservience to financial power, it is likely that the impact of this corruption on public opinion and voting behavior will be dramatic.  The crisis is no longer seen as resulting from the ‘waste’ of the ordinary people but as ‘theft’ and ‘fraud’ of the ruling elite.

Now is therefore the time to act. To say stop and to take action. To demand mechanisms of control over public officials, the revocation of mandates, the de-professionalisation of politics, the end to the accumulation of public posts, a limit on salaries, and transparency in public accounts. Yesterday thousands of people gathered outside Popular Party headquarters in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza and La Coruña.  A first step in a new surge in the streets? The Barcenas case may turn out to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Certainly, it is high time that they return all that they have stolen from us.

 I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce this article.

* Translated by Revolting Europe.

+info: http://esthervivas.com/english/

hidden costs of the bargain basement

When buying cheap turns out expensive

Esther Vivas

Three, two, one, zero… The sales are now on. Offers, discounts, % off… fill the shop windows of the high streets and the shopping centres. It is the time to buy and to buy cheaply. But… Is what we’re buying really so cheap? What is being hidden behind the clothing and domestic appliances? Who are the winners and who are losers from our shopping? Often what seems to be cheap can end up very expensive.

Mango, Zara, H&M, Bershka, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, Gap, Oysho… They talk about savings and, more so in the sales, low prices. What they don’t tell us and what is hidden behind the label ‘made in China/Bangladesh/Morocco’ is how they achieve such prices.  Industrial relocation is the response: manufacturing while paying the lowest possible price for manual labour, and consequently, violating human rights and basic labour laws. This is exhaustively explained and documented in several reports by the Clean Clothes campaign. Practices that are, of course, also present in the big brands that sell products a bit more expensively or at the top end. The logic is the same. Behind the “glamour” or the “luxury” is hiding the sweat of badly paid workers.

The report, “Spanish Fashion in Tangiers: work and survival of clothing manufacturers”  by the Clean Clothes campaign of the Spanish organisation SETEM is one of the many investigations that shows the situation in terms that are more transparent. Analysing what the real situation is for textile workers in Tangiers for major international companies, and revealing the working conditions in Moroccan factories: 12 hour working days, six days a week, a salary no more than 200 euros a month, and even on occasion under 100 euros a month; arbitrariness in hiring and firing, and restrictions on union activity: a situation that can be found in so many other countries. It’s no accident that our clothes are increasingly produced in Asia, Central America, Eastern Europe and Africa.

But it’s not only those working in factories overseas who are losing out, also here the employees in shopping centres and sales outlets are subject to precarious, flexible working conditions with difficulties for union organisation… And so the pressure to achieve the lowest possible costs also impacts on domestic workers. Those responsible for the unemployment and the precarious situation in the north are not the workers of the south, but rather a few economic and business elites who are trading in our lives, just as much here as on the other side of the planet.

So, Amancio Ortega, the owner of Inditex which numbers among its portfolio of brands; Zara, Bershka, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, Oysho and Massimo Dutti, was in 2011, according to Forbes, the third richest man in the world, despite or thanks to the economic crisis, depending on how you see things.

This same story is repeated in the production, distribution and sales of home appliances, technology and even food. And it’s not just that a few are taking advantage of precarious working conditions but also of extremely weak environmental legislation. So the current production system for consumer goods is exploiting finite natural resources, making employees or entire communities ill and/or polluting where eyes don’t see. Everything, apparently, at zero cost — zero cost to the producers.

Then they tell us that we can buy cheaply. And the January Sales are the greatest exponent of this practice. But is what we are buying really so cheap? The current production and consumption model counts on a series of hidden costs that all of us end up paying for. Labour exploitation, precarious conditions, miserable salaries, weak or non-existent union rights… whether these are in the south or in the north they generate poverty, inequality, hunger and home evictions… and it’s the State that has to respond to such situations and conflicts, cleaning up the inevitable social and economic costs.

The same happens with businesses that pollute and exploit without control or limits to natural resources, generating climate change and environmental destruction with their practices… Who pays for the fragmented and delocalised production and the petrol addicted transport system that generates the green-house gases? Who pays for displaced communities, sick workers and uninhabitable territory? Who bears the consequences of an agricultural and food production model that does away with agrodiversity in farming and makes us addicted to junk food? We do. For the company it’s all free. These are the invisible costs of abusive practices which it is supposed no one ever pays for. Stubborn reality shows us the opposite, it’s society who pays, and it pays a lot.

And the most scandalous part is that to carry out these practices, multinationals count on the active support of those in those institutions that design the economic, social, environmental and employment policies… at the service of interests of the former. As has been repeated countless times in the streets, our democracy has been kidnapped. And even though they tell us time and again that “buying cheap everyone wins”, the reality is otherwise: “buying cheap turns out expensive”.  And in the end we, the majority, pay the price.

*Article published in Público, 09/01/2013.

**Translated by Pressenza.com.

+info: http://esthervivas.com/english/

I would like to thank Esther Vivas for allowing me to reproduce this article.

Not all of the views expressed are necessarily views shared by ‘wall of controversy’.