Démocratie Réelle Maintenant des Indignés de Nîmes

Belga

Les différentes marches d’Indignés sont arrivées vers 19h au parc Elisabeth, à Koelkelberg. Les marcheurs ont été accueillis par les Indignés sur place dans une émouvante embrassade généralisée. Au total, 400 personnes étaient rassemblées sur le parc. Après avoir planté leur cinquantaine de tentes, comme un drapeau planté après des centaines de kilomètres parcourus, une Assemblée populaire s’est tenue pour discuter de la proposition du bourgmestre de Koekelberg, Philippe Pivin (MR). La commune a, en effet, refusé que le campement soit installé sur un parc classé mais a mis à leur disposition le bâtiment universitaire HUB (Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel).

Aucun consensus n’a été trouvé à la fin de l’Assemblée. Ceux qui voulaient rester camper pouvaient maintenir le campement, les autres pouvant investir le bâtiment de l’HUB.

Après avoir fait un ultime appel pour que le parc soit évacué, 150 policiers ont été déployés pour nettoyer le parc. A 21h45, une rangée de policiers s’est avancée sur les campeurs, confisquant les tentes sur leur passage. Les Indignés se sont alors assis et ont commencé à jouer de la musique et danser devant les forces de l’ordre pendant que des Indignés repliaient les autres tentes à l’arrière. Un slogan s’élève de la foule – « La police avec nous ! » – pendant que d’autres s’indignent : « bienvenue à Bruxelles ! »

Johan De Becker, le chef de corps de la zone ouest, explicite ses directives : « Les Indignés sont autorisés à mener leurs assemblées sur le parc Elisabeth pour leur semaine de mobilisation, mais doivent évacuer les lieux pour 22 heures chaque jour. »

Pendant que les policiers entourent le parc, une seconde rangée de policiers finit par venir de l’arrière pour resserrer le groupe de campeurs. Une assemblée s’improvise au centre pour décider de la marche à suivre, une dizaine de marcheurs refusant de se plier aux injonctions de la police : « Nous avons campé dans tous les villages où nous sommes passés. Nous ne quitterons l’espace public que contraints par la police. »

Une fanfare s’est alors déployée sur la rue pour emmener les Indignés jusqu’au bâtiment autorisé. Escortés par des policiers, une quarantaine d’entre eux ont quitté le parc en dansant.

Peu après 23h, la dizaine de marcheurs refusant toujours d’abandonner l’espace public, les policiers ont emmené un car pour procéder à une vingtaine d’arrestations administratives. Les marcheurs assis, qui refusaient de se lever, ont été traînés par la police jusqu’au car. « Non violence ! », scandaient les Indignés.

La petite centaine de personnes restantes a poursuivi le car en rue en criant « libérez nos camarades », puis est retournée applaudir les policiers dans le parc.

A 23h40, un second car embarquait une seconde vague d’Indignés, pendant qu’une femme criait aux policiers que les coupes budgétaires se feraient aussi dans leur personnel. A minuit, la place retrouvait son calme.

Au total, 48 personnes ont été arrêtées administrativement, majoritairement de nationalité espagnole. Elles ont été amenées au commissariat d’Etterbeek et reconduites, dimanche matin, à Koelkelberg. Leurs tentes leur ont été rendues.

'Saludo al Sol'

Dear people,

We left Gent this morning in group, and we were singing our usual songs in French and Spanish. “They call it a democracy, but that isn’t true / It’s a dictatorship, and you know it!”

To me, it sounded a bit strange to sing something like this in a country without a central government for one and a half years running. But we are not talking about political dictatorship. National governments don’t matter that much any more, the states have lost their sovereignty bit by bit. The economy is queen, and her high priests united in obscure institutions like the Fed, the IMF, and the ECB decide on policy for the world at large. National states only need to implement their directives.

In a nutshell, this is what we are going to denounce in Brussels. Our political system has nothing to do with democracy. The socialist government in Greece is forced to sell the people’s property to multinational vultures in exchange for loans at unpayable interest. If it weren’t for the revolution, which will take place more sooner than later, the country would be enslaved indefinitely.

Action interview

St. Peter's Square in Gent, this morning

In Belgium, the crisis hasn’t yet made a real impact. Some of the Belgians I spoke say that this is in part thanks to the fact that they don’t have a government. Drastic measures cannot be taken by a provisional government, so deep cuts were not made until now. Life goes on here, banks are falling, but as long as people don’t feel it in their pocket, they don’t really care. They look at our protest as something picturesque. They are sympathetic towards us, but they’re not yet worried about themselves. In the South of Europe the tempest is raging, but here only few people have noticed the clouds rumbling in the distance. The storm is heading towards them as well, and when it arrives, they will remember us.

Leaving Gent

Gent is the most northern point of our expedition, from here we turn straight East, towards the rising sun. Like yesterday, the city never ends. These are still the suburbs of Waregem. The national roads are a very interesting urbanistic shadow zone. It seems like things are permitted here that you will not see in the cities themselves. There is no real need to keep up a façade, because apart from us, no-one walks by. Between the houses, the villas and the shopping hangars, you find lots of erotic night clubs and brothels, where people from the city can enjoy themselves anonymously, far away from peeking eyes, and far away from the lord our god. You will find all kind of buildings on the way, but you won’t find a single church.

Along the road a police van stops to ask us where were going. We are going to Aalst, our last stop before Brussels. It’s four thirty in the afternoon when we arrive, but it seems like it’s three a.m. on a saturday night. High school students are clustering around the bars in the center, drinking beer. Disco beats are blasting out onto the streets on every corner.

On the central square the mayor is there to welcome us. She offers us a camping space near the swimming pool at the edge of town. We respond that we prefer to camp in the center, and we create a ‘Square Commission’ ad hoc, to look at the different possibilities. The central square is out of the question, because there will be market tomorrow. We choose a square with access to water. A bit reluctantly, but with a smile, the mayor accepts our decision. I doubt they have sufficient police force at their disposal to evict us.

Instead of an assembly, cancelled because of the rain, we take the square and we play a game of ‘stoelendans’. The revolution is fun. It can only be fun, or else it won’t be worth the effort.

Scenes from a 'stoelendans' on the central square of Aalst

Tomorrow Brussels. It’s going to be a different story than what we’ve encountered in the Belgian towns. In a world without national states, the metropoles form a Champion’s League apart. The capital of Flanders, Belgium and the European Union has more in common with cities like Barcelona, Paris, Milan and Tokyo than with a small town like Aalst.

Yesterday evening we lost a lot of time in an internal assembly, trying to decide if we will accept the invitation of a Scandinavian left wing party to enter the European parliament. We could have made much better use of that time, to work on the preparation of debates and actions. To me it seems that many people consider all the talking to be an activity already. Once they finally decide on something, they don’t see the necessity - or they are too exhausted – to put it into practice.

The result is that we don’t really know what is going to happen in Brussels. Things have been prepared, but it’s not really clear by whom and how it will turn out. It might become a very constructive week of exchange. But it might also turn into complete chaos, which is more likely.

Still, as the great Dutch philosopher (and former football player) Johan Cruyff says: “Every disadvantage has its own advantage.” And the advantage of chaos is that everything becomes possible.

Popular Assembly in Gent

Dear people,

This morning the lowlands were covered by a sky in all the different shades of grey. A strong wind was blowing, and while we were having breakfast, the rain started.

It felt good. The rain and the wind are as a much a part of this country as the canals and the dikes. It fits. And besides, we have been too lucky already with the weather. A bit of rain is always good for the epical aspect of our expedition.

It didn’t last long. While we walk over the bicycle lane of the national road to Gent, the wet weather ceases. From then on the walk is easy.

Belgium has lots of peculiarities. One of these is the urbanisation of the roads. When we arrive in Gent it seems like we never left Waregem. We didn’t really cross the countryside. All along the way there were houses, villages or shopping centers.

Through the years Belgians have kept up the tradition of building their own house. And up until not so long ago they could legally do so wherever they bought a piece of land. And because most people for convenience’s sake want to be close to a road, this resulted in an endless variety of houses lining the national roads, from one village or town to another. It might seem that most of Belgium is one big city, but that’s an illusion. The country side starts in people’s back yards.

Comrades Charlie, Cowboy and Abel

Comrade Maria

The Avengers, from the Flemish public television

Along the way I talk a bit with comrade Rino, from Italy, who has been with us before on various occasions. After Paris he has joined the Mediterranean for a while, and I was happy to hear positive news about them for the first time.

They called themselves ‘Ecomarche’ when they left Paris, because they wanted to give an example of an expedition without a carbon footprint. They went without support vehicle and carried their bags on their shoulders. That was the beginning, later on they were joined by a support vehicle all the same, so to uphold their ecological image they started gathering the trash they found along the road. Some of the many, many bags they filled were piled up on the squares of the villages and towns where they arrived, to confront people with everything they just throw out of the window.

Rino denied that Lady Blue is a dictator and that the marchers wouldn’t reach Brussels without her. She’s with the vanguard, she prepares the arrival and coordinates the diffusion in the towns. The others contribute to the march in their own way and sharpen their objectives with the feedback of the assemblies they hold in the towns. If it’s all true I would have to admit, shamefully, that their march is working out better than our own at the moment.

Scene from an assembly

We enter the lively town of Gent and we occupy the impressive square of Saint Peter. All day long we have been followed by a Flemish television crew. They have the occasion to film our first trilingual assembly. Dutch, French and Spanish. The indignados from Gent have been very active in preparing it, they have been waiting for us and they received us with cakes and sweets and lots of food. Some of them were already present at the border and at Kortrijk. It was a great occasion, but before too long it was sabotaged by a band of anarchist squatters. They came with drums and a whistle. A brilliant move.

Late night demonstration

As the samba rhythm echoes over the square, our bagpipe player joins in and people start to dance and jump around. Finally, after all the endless assemblies in Spain and France we had to come here to the cold and windy lowlands to find the one fundamental and indispensable ingredient of the revolution.

Music.