Démocratie Réelle Maintenant des Indignés de Nîmes

12M, 15M, agora athens, indignados, indignés, march to athens

Dust in the Wind

In #globalrevolution, Athens on 14 May 2012 at 11:35

Athens, May 14

Dear people,

More or less we managed to hold the group together up until May 12, the day of the worldwide demonstration for direct democracy. It was in greater part thanks to our position in Strefi park on the hill of Exarchia.

The hill consists of two outer ridges and a little valley in between. In the valley, there’s the stone theater, and inside the theater we camped. There was water at 50 metres. If you climbed up the two peaks, you could watch out over the city down to the sea. If you descended, you were in the middle of Exarchia.

Yes, it was a perfect spot for a camping holiday in Athens, if you leave out of account that the park is frequented day and night by drug addicts and other phantomatic appearances.

Comrade Juanito

After a week, we were definitely ready to break up camp. The way it happened was a bit sad, but given all that happened before, it made sense.

On the 11th, we held one of our last internal assemblies at Strefi. Maybe half of the marchers was present. We spoke about the last issue that had to be addressed. The great demonstration of May 12, which we had announced in all the cities and villages along the way.

Last internal assembly at Strefi

The 12M call is a worldwide one, in line with the demonstrations of October 15 last year, but it seems to be picked up mainly by the indignados in Spain and the occupiers from the Anglo-Saxon world.

In Greece, the call for a demonstration has barely even arrived. And that more or less left us, the remnants of the march to Athens, to ‘represent’ Syntagma when we connect to the other squares.

What are we going do?

There will be no demonstration through the streets, there will be no actions. It has been a long time since we had energy or spirit for those kind of things. We will just assemble in Syntagma. And then what? Are we going to try to camp? Are we going to sleep without tents? Are we going to resist? Up to what point? Etc.

The assembly gets interrupted by comrade Marianne. She tells us that we are expected at the ‘Legalise’ festival on the edge of the city, right now.

It was true. But the assembly hesitated. Then it started to drizzle, and people made up their mind. The assembly split up, and over half of the people who remained took down their tents and left for the festival.

You will know that I am all for this legalise thing, we should have gone there and adapted our time schedule, but I hated to see the group fall apart like this, hardly without a word.

I stayed behind. The day of the 12th I spent on the hill around the ailing camp, prey to heavy attacks of melancholy.

Melancholy

Some people trickled back to Strefi during the day. A new assembly was called for, to prepare the great demonstration.

We were about a dozen people, of whom maybe six marchers. We were expected to be in Syntagma at five. It was four thirty when the assembly commenced.

First point, we hadn’t made flags or banners yet, or anything else in the week we were here. Second point, a leftover from the day before. What are we going to do?

At a certain moment, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing any more. Was this a comedy, or were we really trying to maintain a certain air of official assemblary protocol, as if there were still things to talk about or to decide, or to consensuate?

Outside forces had already taken over. We were in the final stages of a big crunch. Five o’ clock had already passed and we were still here, taking speaking turns, making technical interruptions, proposing, blocking, explaining, with the utmost seriousness. The only thing that missed was someone who proposed to take acts, like we used to do when we still believed our assemblies were important.

I think of Hitler’s final days in the bunker. When all fronts had ceded and Berlin was surrounded by the Russians, he kept moving armies that no longer existed, he kept planning the final offensive, he kept believing in the Endsieg.

I leave the assembly, I walk down the hill and through Exarchia to go to Syntagma on my own. We are like a fly, and Athens is a light. Here the March to Athens burns up, and we scatter, like dust in the wind.

On the square, the Athens branch of the 12M demonstration consisted of about thirty people, fifty at most. In greater part they are people from the march. There are a few locals, and also our friends from all along the way have come to meet us. Not all of them are here, unfortunately, but many of them kept their promise.

We put up our old banners and we make music. We have a direct connection with the squares in London, Madrid and Barcelona. I see images of Puerta del Sol full of people, and I look around at Syntagma. Last year I was on the other side of the line and we looked at this square. Monstrous crowds of people were besieging parliament day after day.

That season is over for Greece. There will be no spring this year. Maybe there will in Spain, in Portugal, in America. The images and the news from there leave us a bit of hope. Just like the presence of one of the German marchers who came from Patras in ten days, arriving today. Their march really existed in the end, and there’s someone here to prove it.

As our final theatrical act, we decide to stay on Syntagma. And this time, police allow it.

Camping on Syntagma, May 12

We occupied the square all night. In the morning, after we were woken up by rain, the first tents were placed by Max and Mary. They caused a last piece of discord in the group, because the decision wasn’t taken in assembly. The tents lasted until midday more or less, when the sun was shining again. Police walked by several times to get donuts, and initially the tents were simply ignored.

Tents on Syntagma, morning of May 13

After three donuts police came to say the tents had to go down. Max and Mary took out the supports and left them on the ground. A platoon of riot police was mobilised. They stood there for an hour. Finally the tents were folded.

I left to pick up my stuff on the hill. When I come back in the early evening everyone has gone to the Academy of Plato, for  a chat on alternative economies, organic agriculture, bargain etc. No-one was left but comrade Cansino, who took up the name of Kourasmenos when he came to Greece. It means ‘tired’, in Spanish ‘curas menos’, means ‘you do less’. He was sitting under a tree watching around, angry that he was left here alone, without a beer, to watch over other people’s stuff.

Comrade Cansino, a.k.a. ‘Kourasmenos’

I accompany him. The clan is split between the squat, the academy, the square, and who knows where else. Our camp on the hill has definitely been abandoned. It’s maybe the worst day of the march, or the agora, whatever. Officially we have three more days of agora scheduled, even though we don’t know exactly what’s planned for those days.

One of the ideas was to stay in Syntagma. At the moment we are two, during the evening also Nicolas and Juanito return. We are four marchers and two sympathisers who hold the square for the second night in a row. An old lady takes pity on us and brings us a bag of crisps and sweets.

This is what our revolution has become. A handful of people from all over Europe desperately camping in Syntagma. We have come to give moral support to the Greeks, but in the end it’s the Greeks who had to give their moral support to us, to keep us going. And now, finally, the end is near. It’s all in the past, and it weighs down like clouds of marble.

It takes a long time before we catch a bit of sleep. Then at five o’clock in the morning, the sprinklers go on.

Barricades on Syntagma

The second morning.

 

 

Question de points de vue. Pour le représentant des commerçants, l’image de la Puerta del Sol pleine de personnes et de tentes, qui fit l’année dernière le tour du monde, a causé un dommage incalculable pour l’Espagne, une perte bien supérieure à trente millions d’euros pour les magasins ayant pignon sur la place centrale madrilène. Demetra, quarante-cinq ans, assistant social au chômage et militant du mouvement 15-M, a quant à lui une vision radicalement différente de la situation : « tout d’abord, les chiffres sont exagérés, mais surtout, ce genre d’arguments est d’une insondable bêtise. Qui parle comme le président des commerçants ne comprend pas la nécessité de réveiller les consciences, chose que nous faisons depuis un an et que nous continuons de faire. Nous ne pouvons pas continuer à vivre dans une société dominée par le Dieu argent et où l’humain ne compte pas ».

Il est facile de deviner lequel des deux points de vue épouse le gouvernement espagnol, qui n’a pas perdu une occasion ces derniers jours pour répéter qu’il ne tolèrerait pas que se répètent les occupations de l’an dernier, tant dans la capitale que dans les autres villes. Une attitude jugée comminatoire y compris par le quotidien El Pais, pourtant sur des bases libérales. Dans son éditorial d’hier, on se demandait quel était le véritable objectif de l’exécutif de Rajoy : « éviter de nouveaux rassemblements ou laisser entendre que l’utilisation de la force est envisageable ».

A l’apparente nervosité de la droite au pouvoir, les Indignés ont répondu par la force de leurs arguments, en défilant dans plus de quatre-vingts communes, grandes ou petites, dans toute la péninsule ibérique. Dans la capitale, de nombreux cortèges sont partis dès les premières heures de l’après-midi des quartiers périphériques pour converger vers la place Puerta del Sol.

Les revendications du mouvement 15-M sont nombreuses et pouvaient se lire sur Internet ou sur les banderoles portées par les manifestants, dont beaucoup portaient un maillot vert, symbole de la lutte en faveur de l’école publique. 

« En peu de mots, nous demandons un changement radical des politiques économiques », nous dit encore Demetria, engagé dans le groupe 15-M et plus particulièrement en charge de la désobéissance fiscale. « Nous voulons payer le coût de la dette publique que nous avons souscrit, nous, citoyens. Et nous en avons marre de soutenir à bout de bras la monarchie et l’Eglise catholique », finit par ajouter Demetria.

« Mariano, Mariano, no llegas a verano » (Mariano, tu n’arriveras pas à l’été), est un slogan répété en chœur. Un objectif apparemment difficile à atteindre étant donné la majorité absolue que détient le parti populaire au Parlement, mais il est en revanche tout à fait envisageable de penser que le gouvernement en place puisse ne pas tenir jusqu’à la fin de la législature : les enquêtes d’opinion montrent chaque jour un peu plus que le consensus vis-à-vis de l’exécutif est en train de s’effriter.

Mais les Indignés espagnols regardent aussi au-delà de leurs propres frontières, vers cette Europe où les choses commencent peu à peu à bouger. Dans le cortège madrilène figurait Alex, chômeur de 28 ans, qui portait une pancarte sur laquelle était inscrit : « je suis reconnaissant au peuple grec d’avoir donné une leçon aux partis favorables à l’austérité ». « Nous devons nous joindre à eux pour crier fort notre refus d’un système inhumain comme le capitalisme », ajoute-t-il.

A quelques pas de lui, Inès, étudiante âgée de 19 ans, argumente : « la fin de la crise ne peut passer que par la sortie de l'union européenne, pilier de l'ordre néolibéral mondial. Si l'on ne reprend pas la souveraineté monétaire, on est livré aux marchés et aux intérêts de la dette, et aux politiques de rigueur ».

Nombreux sont celles et ceux qui s’informent des initiatives prises à travers le monde, de Jérusalem à Londres en passant par Paris et Londres. Un énorme drapeau palestinien rappelle le drame que vit ce peuple.

A la fin de cette édition, la place Puerta del Sol est noire de monde. Pour les Indignés commence une soirée que tous espèrent très longue, en dépit des avertissements proférés par le gouvernement de Mariano Rajoy, manifestement aux abois. La police a délogé comme prévu les manifestants encore présents place Puerta del Sol ce dimanche matin.

Capitaine Martin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WIoiBNZfzM

Publiée le 14 mai 2012 par Danch666

Par BFMT

A l’occasion de leur premier anniversaire, des dizaines de milliers d'Indignés ont manifesté ce samedi en Espagne, mais aussi dans de nombreux autres pays, pour dénoncer la crise, la corruption et le chômage.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqskhx_un-an-apres-les-indignes-ne-decolerent-pas_news