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Argentina - anarchists on neighbourhood assemblies
News from the front.
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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Argentina - anarchists on neighbourhood assemblies
We received this article from Folks at the Biblioteca Popular José Ingenieros - Buenos Aires Argentina with the request that we circulate it. While we might not agree with everything it contains it still provides some useful local anarchist analysis of the developing situation.
Andrew
----
Some comments on neighbourhood assemblies.
Even before the events of 19 and 20 December, and faced with the increasing deterioration of the economic and institutional situation, in some neighbourhoods of the city of Buenos Aires, local people began to meet up, almost spontaneously, on street corners, to share their unease and to discuss effective forms of protest. In the two weeks that followed the fall of Fernando De la Rua, the phenomenon multiplied, with around twenty neighbourhood assemblies being held and the creation of an inter-neighbourhood assembly. This meets on a weekly basis to co-ordinate the proposals of the neighbourhood assemblies, and has an average of 3000 "autoconvocados"* from all the city’s neighbourhoods participating in it. Today there is already more than fifty assemblies operating in the city of Buenos Aires alone, while in Greater Buenos Aires (the urban belt surrounding the city, where there is the largest demographic concentration in the country), and in the rest of the country, the first steps are beginning to be taken in this direction.
Faced with this phenomenon of incipient direct democracy, unprecedented in the history of this country, we need to formulate some considerations that arise from both participation in and observation of this movement:
The majority of the population of the city of Buenos Aires, the cradle of the phenomenon in question, belong to the middle class.
The movements of protest and resistance against the current economic model have had several years of gestation. The middle class, however, were generally unaware of these, adopting a position of passive observance of the dictates issued by the financial powers, acritically accepting the consensus created by the mass media concerning the marginal nature of these protest movements, and profiting, as far as possible, from the "advantages" that this model seemed to offer them.
The initial reason for these first "encounters" between local people was the unanimous rejection of the financial ring-fence (the so-called "corralito") set up by the then Minister of the Economy, Domingo Cavallo. Broadly speaking, this "corralito" consisted in the expropriation by the banks (and large companies, often associated with them) of a substantial part of the capital of hundreds of thousands of small and medium savers, in an attempt to save certain banking institutions from collapse. These measures not only dealt a direct blow to the impoverished middle class, who had originally been the main supporters of the government of the Alliance, but also had a devastating effect on domestic consumption, deepening a recession in the local economy that had been going on for more than four years. It was this situation that prompted the middle class - who felt let down and used by those who in turn had used them to reach power - to meet in assemblies, thus giving material form to a growing mistrust and rejection of the traditional forms of participation that the institutions of representative democracy offered them.
With time (in the very short time that this has gone on), the fundamental concerns of the assemblies moved on from the specific subject of the "corralito" to more general questions of the economic model and the political system. At the same time there began to develop a sort of rapprochement between the assembly movement and the "piqueteros" movement; the latter are from another socio-economic grouping, and have many years of struggle and resistance against the neoliberal model behind them, but not against capitalism as a whole. We consider this point, the union in the struggle between assembly-
members and piqueteros, as one of the most interesting and positive aspects in this process. We must also remember that in the inter-neighbourhood assembly it was resolved to include delegates from both the piqueteros and the workers struggling against employers' organisations or the state, who had been left to their fate by the bureaucratic union leaders, as in the cases of the Bruckman textile workers or the Zanun ceramic workers, who in both cases occupied their factories before these were closed down by the respective companies.
This whole assembly movement is in its very early stages and is just beginning to take its first steps. Coexisting in it are local people with no experience of political participation, alongside experienced militants from the whole spectrum of the left, and even some poorly camouflaged "snipers" from the discredited traditional parties.
The assemblies generally operate horizontally, with rotation of co-ordinators, speaking times, etc. In them the people talk quite freely, and are able to listen to speeches of all types: from naive local people who repeat the alienating discourses of the mass media, to "self-sacrificing" militants who repeat the alienating discourses of the party, to "eminent" fascists who are in raptures before the flag and the national anthem, to the occasional libertarian, and so on. Nevertheless, it is the voice of "common sense" that prevails, and a marked distrust and rejection of any whiff of institutions, leaderships or political parties can be perceived.
Each assembly is autonomous from the rest of the assemblies. No assembly speaks or decides for any other than itself. This autonomy is reflected in the co-ordinating inter-neighbourhood assembly, where in a manner much closer to federalism than centralism, even if with the inevitable defects of all new movements, all the assemblies usually have the same opportunities when presenting their proposals to the rest.
Another feature that it is important to highlight, in this case of the inter-
neighbourhood assembly, is that this is coordinated by rotation, that is to say, every week the neighbourhood assemblies rotate the function of co-ordinating and organising the inter-neighbourhood ones.
As a final point, it is necessary to warn about the fragility of these assemblies; this fragility is constantly stressed by the groups that do not benefit from an exercise of direct and popular democracy, and so try to undermine a movement that, if it were to take root, would make the rotten foundations of many power structures tremble. This fragility is perceived in aspects such as the lack of patience when faced with certain difficulties that arise from limited experience of horizontal practices, particularly at the time of making or voting on resolutions, with many feeling that this apparent wasting of time is in turn a wasting of forces; also regarding the capacity to put these resolutions into practice, when the desired impact is often not achieved in the actual actions.
Resolutions
Perhaps an analysis of the resolutions that are proposed and voted on in both the neighbourhood and the inter-neighbourhood assemblies will enable us to understand this phenomenon that is very new at local level, but is spreading fast.
The fact that there are contradictory resolutions, we believe, faithfully reflects the heterogeneous nature of the assembly movement, as well as its understandable immaturity. Taking as our example the fourth inter-neighbourhood assembly, we see that at the same time proposals of a radical nature are voted for, as is the case of: "The people must governs through its assemblies" or the case of "Annul article 22 of the constitution, which prevents the people from self-governing, only being able to do so through representatives" along with moderate ones such as "Remove the special powers of the Head of the City's Government, AnÌbal Ibarra", or one previously voted for, which demanded "Representation of neighbourhood assemblies in the legislative chambers with voice and vote".
It can also be seen through some proposals that certain groups, especially the CTA (Union of Argentinian Workers), the MST (Workers’ Socialist Movement, in the United Left coalition) and the P.O (Workers’ Party), attempt to manouevre the assembly movement in their own direction. A clear (and pathetic) example of this was when, in the fifth inter-neighbourhood assembly, there was a vote in favour of a proposal to march round the National Congress on 13/02/2002, the day when there was to be discussion on the approval of the executive budget for the year 2002; when the assemblies reached the Congress they saw that a stage had previously been erected, from which leaders of the CTA were speaking. Other examples quickly come to light when we review the proposals for votes, and we note that some of these are party manifestos, such as the call for a "free and sovereign Constituent Assembly", the platform of the ultra-troskyist P.O.
However, it is important and positive that the proposals that in our view are freshest and most original almost all come from assembly-members who are not involved in union or party structures, or at least, are not "brainwashed" by these structures and their discourses. But we cannot help but stress the naive character of many resolutions, such as the one that proposes that "hiding information by an organ of the mass media must be sanctioned by the penal code", ignoring the fact that it is the very essence of these media conglomerates to be shapers of consent.
As regards the role that the libertarian or anarchist movement in general plays in these assemblies, it would be difficult to outline a general line of action; we believe it would even be unnecessary. Many members of these groups participate in the assemblies, and immediately after the events of 19 and 20 December, there was an attempt by some groups to positively disseminate the message and promote the creation of neighbourhood assemblies, when these were still a minuscule and isolated phenomenon. Just days before the fall of President De la Rua, Osvaldo Bayer, a recognised libertarian writer, was asked on a radio programme who should lead an imminent change in the country’s political and economic situation. Bayer answered that "the assemblies must do it, everybody’s assemblies", and this aroused an almost mocking and amazed silence on the part of the person who had asked him the question. At that time, few imagined that a movement with these characteristics could arise and spread with the spontaneity and force that it is showing today. We believe that as anarchists we must defend and enrich the resource, the valuable space that these assemblies are, to in turn enrich ourselves with them, provided they maintain their characteristics of horizontality, solidarity, freedom of speech, respect for other assemblies, autonomy and co-ordination in the various struggles. Almost without knowing it, and sometimes in spite of us, from the very beginning these assemblies, if not in word then in deed, raised historic libertarian flags, such as federalism, autonomy and the construction of an alternative from the bottom up. We believe that it is our task to prevent these principles from being lost, distorted, or, in the worst of cases, from being just that, principles, and not concrete practices.
Fortunately there is a lot to learn, a lot to do, to improve, and a long way to walk.
The Comrades of the José Ingenieros Popular Library, Buenos Aires, 22/02/2002
Translation by Les
[*"autoconvocados" is the word used in Argentina to describe people who are not part of institutionalised political groups, who take part in political action. It literally means "self-convened"]
--
--------
http://www.struggle.ws
3000 + pages on anarchism, Ireland, Zapatistas
revolutionary history and struggles around globalistaion
********
****** The A-Infos News Service ******
News about and of interest to anarchists
******
COMMANDS: lists [at] ainfos.ca
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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________________________________________________
Argentina - anarchists on neighbourhood assemblies
We received this article from Folks at the Biblioteca Popular José Ingenieros - Buenos Aires Argentina with the request that we circulate it. While we might not agree with everything it contains it still provides some useful local anarchist analysis of the developing situation.
Andrew
----
Some comments on neighbourhood assemblies.
Even before the events of 19 and 20 December, and faced with the increasing deterioration of the economic and institutional situation, in some neighbourhoods of the city of Buenos Aires, local people began to meet up, almost spontaneously, on street corners, to share their unease and to discuss effective forms of protest. In the two weeks that followed the fall of Fernando De la Rua, the phenomenon multiplied, with around twenty neighbourhood assemblies being held and the creation of an inter-neighbourhood assembly. This meets on a weekly basis to co-ordinate the proposals of the neighbourhood assemblies, and has an average of 3000 "autoconvocados"* from all the city’s neighbourhoods participating in it. Today there is already more than fifty assemblies operating in the city of Buenos Aires alone, while in Greater Buenos Aires (the urban belt surrounding the city, where there is the largest demographic concentration in the country), and in the rest of the country, the first steps are beginning to be taken in this direction.
Faced with this phenomenon of incipient direct democracy, unprecedented in the history of this country, we need to formulate some considerations that arise from both participation in and observation of this movement:
The majority of the population of the city of Buenos Aires, the cradle of the phenomenon in question, belong to the middle class.
The movements of protest and resistance against the current economic model have had several years of gestation. The middle class, however, were generally unaware of these, adopting a position of passive observance of the dictates issued by the financial powers, acritically accepting the consensus created by the mass media concerning the marginal nature of these protest movements, and profiting, as far as possible, from the "advantages" that this model seemed to offer them.
The initial reason for these first "encounters" between local people was the unanimous rejection of the financial ring-fence (the so-called "corralito") set up by the then Minister of the Economy, Domingo Cavallo. Broadly speaking, this "corralito" consisted in the expropriation by the banks (and large companies, often associated with them) of a substantial part of the capital of hundreds of thousands of small and medium savers, in an attempt to save certain banking institutions from collapse. These measures not only dealt a direct blow to the impoverished middle class, who had originally been the main supporters of the government of the Alliance, but also had a devastating effect on domestic consumption, deepening a recession in the local economy that had been going on for more than four years. It was this situation that prompted the middle class - who felt let down and used by those who in turn had used them to reach power - to meet in assemblies, thus giving material form to a growing mistrust and rejection of the traditional forms of participation that the institutions of representative democracy offered them.
With time (in the very short time that this has gone on), the fundamental concerns of the assemblies moved on from the specific subject of the "corralito" to more general questions of the economic model and the political system. At the same time there began to develop a sort of rapprochement between the assembly movement and the "piqueteros" movement; the latter are from another socio-economic grouping, and have many years of struggle and resistance against the neoliberal model behind them, but not against capitalism as a whole. We consider this point, the union in the struggle between assembly-
members and piqueteros, as one of the most interesting and positive aspects in this process. We must also remember that in the inter-neighbourhood assembly it was resolved to include delegates from both the piqueteros and the workers struggling against employers' organisations or the state, who had been left to their fate by the bureaucratic union leaders, as in the cases of the Bruckman textile workers or the Zanun ceramic workers, who in both cases occupied their factories before these were closed down by the respective companies.
This whole assembly movement is in its very early stages and is just beginning to take its first steps. Coexisting in it are local people with no experience of political participation, alongside experienced militants from the whole spectrum of the left, and even some poorly camouflaged "snipers" from the discredited traditional parties.
The assemblies generally operate horizontally, with rotation of co-ordinators, speaking times, etc. In them the people talk quite freely, and are able to listen to speeches of all types: from naive local people who repeat the alienating discourses of the mass media, to "self-sacrificing" militants who repeat the alienating discourses of the party, to "eminent" fascists who are in raptures before the flag and the national anthem, to the occasional libertarian, and so on. Nevertheless, it is the voice of "common sense" that prevails, and a marked distrust and rejection of any whiff of institutions, leaderships or political parties can be perceived.
Each assembly is autonomous from the rest of the assemblies. No assembly speaks or decides for any other than itself. This autonomy is reflected in the co-ordinating inter-neighbourhood assembly, where in a manner much closer to federalism than centralism, even if with the inevitable defects of all new movements, all the assemblies usually have the same opportunities when presenting their proposals to the rest.
Another feature that it is important to highlight, in this case of the inter-
neighbourhood assembly, is that this is coordinated by rotation, that is to say, every week the neighbourhood assemblies rotate the function of co-ordinating and organising the inter-neighbourhood ones.
As a final point, it is necessary to warn about the fragility of these assemblies; this fragility is constantly stressed by the groups that do not benefit from an exercise of direct and popular democracy, and so try to undermine a movement that, if it were to take root, would make the rotten foundations of many power structures tremble. This fragility is perceived in aspects such as the lack of patience when faced with certain difficulties that arise from limited experience of horizontal practices, particularly at the time of making or voting on resolutions, with many feeling that this apparent wasting of time is in turn a wasting of forces; also regarding the capacity to put these resolutions into practice, when the desired impact is often not achieved in the actual actions.
Resolutions
Perhaps an analysis of the resolutions that are proposed and voted on in both the neighbourhood and the inter-neighbourhood assemblies will enable us to understand this phenomenon that is very new at local level, but is spreading fast.
The fact that there are contradictory resolutions, we believe, faithfully reflects the heterogeneous nature of the assembly movement, as well as its understandable immaturity. Taking as our example the fourth inter-neighbourhood assembly, we see that at the same time proposals of a radical nature are voted for, as is the case of: "The people must governs through its assemblies" or the case of "Annul article 22 of the constitution, which prevents the people from self-governing, only being able to do so through representatives" along with moderate ones such as "Remove the special powers of the Head of the City's Government, AnÌbal Ibarra", or one previously voted for, which demanded "Representation of neighbourhood assemblies in the legislative chambers with voice and vote".
It can also be seen through some proposals that certain groups, especially the CTA (Union of Argentinian Workers), the MST (Workers’ Socialist Movement, in the United Left coalition) and the P.O (Workers’ Party), attempt to manouevre the assembly movement in their own direction. A clear (and pathetic) example of this was when, in the fifth inter-neighbourhood assembly, there was a vote in favour of a proposal to march round the National Congress on 13/02/2002, the day when there was to be discussion on the approval of the executive budget for the year 2002; when the assemblies reached the Congress they saw that a stage had previously been erected, from which leaders of the CTA were speaking. Other examples quickly come to light when we review the proposals for votes, and we note that some of these are party manifestos, such as the call for a "free and sovereign Constituent Assembly", the platform of the ultra-troskyist P.O.
However, it is important and positive that the proposals that in our view are freshest and most original almost all come from assembly-members who are not involved in union or party structures, or at least, are not "brainwashed" by these structures and their discourses. But we cannot help but stress the naive character of many resolutions, such as the one that proposes that "hiding information by an organ of the mass media must be sanctioned by the penal code", ignoring the fact that it is the very essence of these media conglomerates to be shapers of consent.
As regards the role that the libertarian or anarchist movement in general plays in these assemblies, it would be difficult to outline a general line of action; we believe it would even be unnecessary. Many members of these groups participate in the assemblies, and immediately after the events of 19 and 20 December, there was an attempt by some groups to positively disseminate the message and promote the creation of neighbourhood assemblies, when these were still a minuscule and isolated phenomenon. Just days before the fall of President De la Rua, Osvaldo Bayer, a recognised libertarian writer, was asked on a radio programme who should lead an imminent change in the country’s political and economic situation. Bayer answered that "the assemblies must do it, everybody’s assemblies", and this aroused an almost mocking and amazed silence on the part of the person who had asked him the question. At that time, few imagined that a movement with these characteristics could arise and spread with the spontaneity and force that it is showing today. We believe that as anarchists we must defend and enrich the resource, the valuable space that these assemblies are, to in turn enrich ourselves with them, provided they maintain their characteristics of horizontality, solidarity, freedom of speech, respect for other assemblies, autonomy and co-ordination in the various struggles. Almost without knowing it, and sometimes in spite of us, from the very beginning these assemblies, if not in word then in deed, raised historic libertarian flags, such as federalism, autonomy and the construction of an alternative from the bottom up. We believe that it is our task to prevent these principles from being lost, distorted, or, in the worst of cases, from being just that, principles, and not concrete practices.
Fortunately there is a lot to learn, a lot to do, to improve, and a long way to walk.
The Comrades of the José Ingenieros Popular Library, Buenos Aires, 22/02/2002
Translation by Les
[*"autoconvocados" is the word used in Argentina to describe people who are not part of institutionalised political groups, who take part in political action. It literally means "self-convened"]
--
--------
http://www.struggle.ws
3000 + pages on anarchism, Ireland, Zapatistas
revolutionary history and struggles around globalistaion
********
****** The A-Infos News Service ******
News about and of interest to anarchists
******
COMMANDS: lists [at] ainfos.ca
REPLIES: a-infos-d [at] ainfos.ca
HELP: a-infos-org [at] ainfos.ca
WWW: http://www.ainfos.ca/
INFO: http://www.ainfos.ca/org
-To receive a-infos in one language only mail lists [at] ainfos.ca the message:
unsubscribe a-infos
subscribe a-infos-X
where X = en, ca, de, fr, etc. (i.e. the language code)
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