Social movements after 2011: run for power or stay out from the halls of power?

Food for thought: People want to run for power, but staying in the streets / Which counter-hegemony? Which cooperation among social movements in order to take the power? Looking beyond Western countries as political and economic reference pattern

Objective of this dialogue:  Ways of making social movements key players of political and economic change in the Mediterranean region, creating a long-lasting counter-power against dominant neoliberal development models

Summary by Fabio Laurenzi, COSPE (Moderator)

Participants: Thameur Mekki, Tunisia (via Skype), media activist, National Consultant for UNICEF Tunisia, journalist writing on the blog www.nawaat.org, where several independent journalists deal with topics such as democracy, transparency and good governance. He works in the project L’Orient XXI; Igor Sticks, Croatia, writer, artistic producer and founder of the Subversive Festival, international festival  of critical social thinking and political and cultural militancy. He’s currently carrying out a research on “Citizen-Artist: Creative Citizenship in Occupied Spaces”, aiming at exploring the connections among the occupation of public spaces, creative forms of self-governance and artistic expression; Alberto Tena, Spain, member of the Political Secretariat of the party Podemos; Fabio D’Alessandro, Italy, activist for the NO MUOS movement, fighting in order to dismantle US military telecommunication infrastructures in Sicily.

Thameur Mekky intervened via Skype and started his speech talking about the Arab Spring experience in his country, Tunisia. The activist has underlined that the democratic transition is still ongoing, but also that the post-revolution phase is revealing some negative aspects:  police is repressing press freedom and freedom of thought, and institutions are co-opting civil society; this represents a risk, as it could annihilate all attempts of building an alternative to established powers. According to Mekki, it is necessary to underline the similarities between the Tunisian revolutionary movements and the Indignados movement: a critical analysis of these phenomena is thus required, looking at the Mediterranean in general, focusing in particular on the distance between the parties’ (old and new ones) politics on one hand, and the movements’ politics on the other hand. The Arab Spring and the wave of new movements (Occupy, Indignados and political organizations such as Syriza and Podemos) made the “inadequacy” of political parties emerge, in particular in front of the current political crises, which is constantly evolving. Political parties aim at preserving their oligarchic power; not only they were unable to contain the social void that emptied living spaces, rights and future to young generations, but they contributed in worsening it. This situation has been then exacerbated by the global economic crisis, which produced its worst and discriminatory effects in countries such as Tunisia and, generally speaking, in Southern Europe. According to Mekki, it is necessary to sustain an anticapitalistic criticism and to radically reform the models of representative democracy, also by opposing the effect of “mass distraction weapon” produced by Islamic terrorism. The Tunisian activist concluded his speech by stating that Islamic terrorism in part expresses a serious social disease, and it is also exploited by State establishments in order to reinforce their grip on power.

Igor Sticks started his speech underlining the necessity of overcoming, in this phase, the double feeling of failure linked to the resilience of old politics in the national States and in the European Union administration. He spoke about a “double feeling of failure” because people go from fear to frustration and end up in deception, after the enthusiasm of social mobilization. Thus, there is a tangible risk that these feelings become limits in imagining the future. The Croatian writer expressed the need for developing a credible alternative, politically effective, which overcomes the dangerous opposition between institutions/parties/elections and grassroots movements from civil society, in order to avoid dispersing the great democratic energy liberated by movements and civil society. Sticks also pointed out the urge for abandoning Western countries as the only reference model for politic and economic reform. This reflection emerged from the analysis of Eastern European countries’ experience: the European Union appeared as the only alternative to “planned economies”. It is thus necessary to develop a Mediterranean view and to work on “common vision of good sense”: in the long run, this could help Southern and Eastern Europe to build credible alternatives to the North-European and US hegemonic “market + formal democracy” model. In order to do so, strategies and actions with a pragmatic orientation must be developed, based on daily activities social spaces and on their political potential; a wider vision able to connect both the mobilization experienced in the national and transnational political spaces, and the one experienced by citizens in local contexts.

This last reflection has introduced the intervention by Alberto Tena. The member of the political Secretariat of Podemos has underlined that power is an entity in which a counter power can be built; Podemos represents an alternative both to local movements, aiming only at permanent activism, and to socialist left parties. Tena expressed his reserves about the fact that social movements’ refusal of “institutional” politics, as this risks to inhibit their ability to transform and reinforce democracy. According to him, this does not mean that movements have to abandon their peculiarity and their expertise deriving from their constant work of mobilization and reflection “on the street and within assemblies”; nevertheless, it is not enough to really change things and to overcome the neoliberal model which runs economy and democracies in Europe. The representative of Podemos has criticised “traditional” Left parties and in particular the ones inspired by Tony Blair’s Third way, absorbed by neoliberalism. He has also questioned ‘old Marxist’ parties: they are too tied to a 20th-century revolutionary vision, that considers the ‘conquer of the State’ as the only way of realizing a ‘radical’ change. Tena underlined the need for creating a  popular and diffused ‘counter-hegemony’ able to conquer public opinion: this is necessary in order to make a difference also at the electoral level,                                                                                                                 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order to counter neoliberal hegemony in the national States and on the supranational level, and to modify austerity policies promoted by the European Union.

Fabio D’Alessandro underlined the need to avoid referring to past models too; instead, we have to leave the door open to movements’ creativity, starting from their connection with ‘squares’ and ‘streets’, representing the contemporary agora. D’Alessandro talked about the NO MUOS experience: it is a local movement opposing to the destruction of its territory and the use of technologies harming public health, thus it is able to dialogue with civil society as it deals with a concrete issue, which has an impact on citizens’ health and on environmental heritage. This let the movement catch on locally in a much stronger way compared to political parties, creating a greater awareness about the need to preserve his own territory. The NO MUOS has been able to involve a great number of young people, including a group born within the university milieu; this is happening during a particular historical moment, when new generations are accused of disaffection and laxity towards politics and civil engagement. D’Alessandro finally recalled the fact that his movement has a precise and limited but politically very sensitive target: avoiding the construction of new military infrastructure on Sicilian land, thus, avoiding further militarization of the Mediterranean.