Autonomies

The following is an effort to intervene in a debate that arose recently in spain, among a great number of social movements, associations, collectivities, before a call by a group calling itself Plataforma ¡En Pie! to occupy the country's parliament (el congreso) on the 25th of September with the intention of bringing down the government and creating a new constitutional order.  The tenor of the text that follows is negative.  Leaving aside any questions of tactics, what is challenged is the misconception that in taking the spanish congress (as if this were possible at the moment!), that a new revolutionary order could begin to be institutionalised.  What is presented, in other words, is a kind of radical social-democracy, very badly outlined, which by contrast to all that 15M, and other like movements have made possible, is an enormous regress in thinking about and acting towards radical political change.  Why?  Because it takes us back to the idea of revolution as the property of a revolutionary subject, the idea of revolution as the conquest of state power, and of the revolution as creating a new state.  The enormous reaction that the proposal has and continues to engender, and divisions within for example 15M, are indicative perhaps of confusion and fatigue within the multiple strands of the many who have over this last year given and created so much.

For the various texts produced by Plataforma ¡En Pie!, click here.  The original group behind the initiative, after this last weekend, has now been included in a broader group called Coordinadora 25S that is trying to play with/modify/add to/clarify the original  initiative.  It is unclear at this point where all of this will lead, though below it is argued that nowhere good.

The text follows in Portuguese …

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