Wall street is now occupied and global indignation against plutocratic rule has reached its climax, it has come face to face with its source. Where things will go from here nobody can predict, that is the wonderful thing about civil disobedience, once its praxis enters the realm of actuality, it takes up a position in the social space, and it brings to life a dormant public domain, in which a multiplicity of voices dialogically determine collective creative actions to undertake.

It is the resurfacing of this dormant public domain, which makes for the headline – which makes what is happening in Wall Street worthwhile reporting on. Not the mundane details of whether there are 200, 2,000, or 20,000 protestors. Or whether they have media centres setup with the latest technologies and expensive computers. Not even the fact that Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, Chris Hedges, Michael Moore, Susanne Sarandon and Alec Baldwin have shown public support for the movement. Although these elements together add much-needed strength, the important thing to acknowledge, is that after ten years of slumber some courageous Americans have grabbed the bull by the horns and are determined not to let go. That a genuinely democratic space has been nonviolently pried open in the heart of the empire is the real news, that is the space of hope.

A space which is open to anyone and everyone; a space of dialogue where ideas about this world, about the workings of our societies, about possible futures, about the meanings of democracy, about the workings of capitalism, about imperialism and war etc., are exchanged by people of all social classes, all races, all nationalities, all genders. An exchange, which understands as its source of power, the fact that there can be unity without uniformity (unity through plurality) – perhaps a true representation of what Gandhi defined as enlightened anarchism when referring to the kind of society we should be striving towards.

This public domain which in its present embodiment opened up first through an ‘Arab Spring’, and quickly mutated into a ‘European Summer’, is now living its ‘American Fall’, and despite understandable and wonderful differences, it clearly offers a glimpse into the specter of a global people’s revolt. In its current phase, in the Arab world and Europe it has dispersed, the squares are no longer occupied there. In America, it began with New York and it has quickly spread to over fifty cities. It will most likely disperse at some point, but there lies its power. People momentarily occupy the social space, announcing their autonomy, and then disperse in order to ignore any structure which can stabilize them. In the meantime, through the process the power of the people has been reaffirmed, and an array of innovative tactics has been presented, which are then available to all of us.

From Egypt, social movements across the globe have learned of the power of camping together in city squares; from Spain the movements have learned to make decisions in large assemblies of thousands of people, by agreeing or disagreeing with specific proposals made by speakers via the use of sign language; from America, the most striking tactic has been the use of the ‘people’s microphone’. After a ban on using megaphones, the people at Occupywallstreet have taken to using this tactic in order to allow everyone in the crowd to hear the speaker. It simply involves the crowd repeating all the words of the speaker in order to collectively magnify his or her voice. It seems like a minor issue to focus on, but the reality is that it unites by getting people to relay information to others while also saying something to themselves, and in addition, it shows the limitless power of creative civil disobedience.

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The ‘Indignados’ are fully aware of the fact that their government does not represent them, whenever they congregate they shout that loud and clear. They know that only popular unity will salvage them from the train wreck, which complicit speculators and politicians have created, and as they read the financial news, they know things can only get worse. When the EU announced today that the economic crisis is no longer restricted to the Euro-zone periphery countries, people in the movement understood that this could only mean bad news for them. The same was clear when the New York Times began to speculate about a double-dip recession in the United States after reporting 60,000 job cuts in July. Or when Scott Minerd, CIO of Guggenheim Partners, said that Europe was on the brink of a major financial collapse. The ‘indignados’ understand that in the game of global speculation they are always the losers. So as financial ‘experts’ in Spain speak of the impossibility of an economic recovery, the media speculates about a possible bailout, the country’s borrowing costs surge, and Moody’s speaks of Spain as being on the verge of ‘shock’, the ‘indignados’ understand that mobilizing is their only defense.

The indignation on Spanish streets has not risen out of ignorance, when newspapers announced last week that the airport of Ciudad Real had joined the growing list of airports in Spain closing because of lack of flights, the ‘indignados’ understood that it had only been constructed during the building boom so that speculators could receive huge sums of public subsidies which will never be returned to the Spanish people. That is why they were not surprised a few days ago when the IMF recommended that the country cut salaries of public servants and raise VAT, or when Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado suggested that the nation might need to endure even deeper spending cuts than those approved by Parliament. Nor was there a sense of surprise when the Catalan Government announced yesterday that it would sell-off 37 of its government buildings at a loss of 42,4 million Euros. Nothing shocks the ‘indignados,’ they just hope that one day they will have enough critical mass to stop these incessant attacks from the financial and political elite, on the country’s citizenry.

A few weeks ago, Norman Birnbaum, Emeritus professor of the Law Faculty at Georgetown University, said that on both shores of the Atlantic the only thing that is clear is that something bad is going to happen; the ‘indignados’ have been witnessing this for a while. At around the same time, Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European Studies at Oxford University published an article in which he concluded that the United States and Europe are in an all out struggle towards decadence, and that Western politicians are like drunks dancing on the edge of the abyss of bankruptcy. The ‘indignados’ understand that politicians will pay for this bankruptcy by mortgaging the people’s future; the problem is that through the current political structures they have no hope of avoiding this. The governing socialist party, PSOE, has demonstrated that it responds only to the banking cartel, and although the prime minister has called for early elections in October, if the right-wing Partido Popular comes into office, things can only get worse. This was made clear in a recent Reuters interview in which senior advisers and members of the party acknowledged that presidential candidate Mariano Rajoy, will implement a “shock plan” if he wins the general elections.

Since May 15th, when ‘indignados’ camped in city squares across the country inspired by the so called ‘Arab revolts’, they have engaged in a parallel strategy consisting of nonviolent civil disobedience aimed at denouncing the injustice of the political and economic system, together with a constructive program aimed at reaching out, educating and organizing the Spanish public in an attempt to gain critical mass. Throughout this process, the ‘indignados’ have attempted to present the government with proposals for change, which the government has done everything possible to ignore. Even as recently as July 6th, the then First Deputy Prime Minister, and now socialist candidate Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, refused to receive a document from the ‘indignados’ highlighting their demands.

These past months, ‘indignados’ in every major city of Spain have endured police charges, evictions from city squares, beatings and arrests; yet, the movement has remained persistent, creative and engaged. Across the country, ‘indignados’ have organized and made decisions collectively through popular assemblies organized in city squares, they have stopped families from being evicted from repossessed homes, they have stopped the police from arresting ‘illegal’ immigrants in poor neighbourhoods, they have attempted to stop the closing of public hospitals following drastic public spending cuts, and they have organized neighborhood committees aimed at rebuilding the social fabric destroyed by the last two decades of rampant neo-liberal economics.

A recent survey conducted by the Instituto de Investigación de Mercados IPSOS, highlighted that between 6 and 8.5 million people have participated in the movement, and that 76% percent of those surveyed think that the demands made by the ‘indignados’ are reasonable and that they have a legitimate and democratic right to protest. In addition, The Economist magazine has suggested that the ‘indignados’ with their nonviolent practices are the most serious demonstrators in Europe. Yet, the Spanish government is bent on beating them instead of listening to their legitimate demands for a just economic and political system.

Last night’s beatings in Madrid represent a low point in Spain’s young representative democracy, the actions of the police are a tragic reminder of how little progress has been made institutionally, since the country’s transition from dictatorship to democracy. Yet, the perseverance and commitment apparent in the nonviolent actions of the ‘indignados’, demonstrates to what extent Spanish social movements have interiorized the true meaning of democracy and are spearheading the West’s move from a stage of low-intensity democracy to one of highly intensified democratization.

In a truly Gandhian manner, a group of Spanish ‘indignados’ is currently walking from Madrid to Brussels in order to make their voices heard by the bureaucrats of the European Union. They aim to get there before the global protest they have called for to be staged on October 15th. Perhaps by the time they get to Brussels, their indignation will have rubbed-off on those in other European nations who have understood the farce of our imperialist representative democracies, and the Spanish ‘indignados’ will not find themselves camping alone in front of the buildings of the European Union.

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It has been one month since the country’s ‘Indignados’ (Indignant Ones) movement claimed nonviolently sixty city-squares in cities across the country, calling for economic democracy, political justice and peace. Since then, much has happened within Spanish borders, and what is happening there is clearly spreading across Europe, where we have already witnessed social movements making similar demands. We have seen the Bastille in Paris, taken nonviolently by French ‘Indignados’ only to be quickly reclaimed by the country’s police force. We have observed the rise of a parallel movement in Portugal where most city squares have also been camped on by ‘Indignados’, and where only hours before the country’s general elections protestors in Lisbon were attacked and beaten by police. We have witnessed how on that same night, in Athens, Greece, 80,000 protestors congregated in the city’s main square in opposition to the country’s ‘austerity measures’, waving banners in solidarity with the ‘Indignados’ of Spain and of other European country’s.

Wherever you focus in Europe you hear the same cries of indignation. In some countries with more intensity than others, but the cry is becoming louder everywhere, and what seemed like a slow-motion financial collapse, is rapidly becoming an accelerated social catastrophe. Specifically in Spain, despite the political elite presenting a country recovering from the financial collapse, everyday things are getting worse economically, politically, and socially, and protest although nonviolent for the most part, could be on the verge of becoming violent unless political and economic elites begin to make some concessions.

On the economic front, Spain began June with comments from the European Commission about the potential of the country missing its economic growth and budget-deficit targets for the year; its recommendation was further economic reform. Then a report from the ratings agency Moody’s, pointed out that the high Catalan deficit was affecting the solvency of the whole of Spain. A few days later, in the region of Castilla-La Mancha, the incoming administration of the rightwing Popular party (PP), before even taking office, had already proclaimed that the region was “totally bankrupt”. Then, the National Statistics Institute revealed that Spain’s property sales in April had been the lowest since the institute began reporting in 2007. Obviously, this stream of negative news coupled with discussions taking place in Europe regarding a potential debt default by Greece, affected Spain’s bond sales and moved the country one step closer to a bailout, or a default followed by its subsequent debt restructuring.

On the political front, June has been equally intense, the government has approved by decree reforms against collective bargaining agreements, despite failed negotiations with the two major trade unions in the country. It has approved the extension, indefinitely of the country’s Spanish military mission in Libya, and has announced the creation of a new NATO operations centre, which will control Spanish airspace and will help in missions coordinated from Southern Europe.

In regards to the social front, as of the first of June, the government warned that the ‘Indignados’ could not remain camped on city squares for much longer. Then, using a visit from Tony Blair, in which Blair said, “demonstrators should be heard but not allowed to govern”, Spain’s prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, addressed the request for electoral reform by the ‘Indignados’, by telling them this could only be possible through consensus from all political parties – a cowardly way of responding without complying.

In response to these numerous events, commissions of the ‘Indignados’ from squares across the country met in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol Square, to discuss the future of the movement. Through a long process of popular assembly, they agreed to three important actions: First, to boycott the country’s Town Halls as the new governments were sworn in following the recent regional and local elections; second, to abandon city squares, and move their social action into city neighbourhoods – in an attempt to broaden the movement’s involvement with the rest of the citizenry; and third, to continue organizing protests on specific dates focused on particular issues – including a firm commitment to a global protest of ‘Indignados’ on October 15^th.

The movement’s first nationwide coordinated initiative since the spontaneous movement mushroomed on May 15^th, the boycott of Town Halls, was well represented over the weekend by ‘Indignados’ across Spain. Demonstrators across the country blocked entrances to Town Halls, climbed onto the balconies, blocked official cars from exiting carparks, disturbed investiture sessions with incriminating speeches, and followed politicians across cities as they celebrated their victories, shouting to them, “shame on you!”

Sadly, the police force was equally mobilized. In Valencia, where the new government has ten of its members including its president facing corruption charges, police charged at demonstrators injuring twelve and arresting five. The vice president of Spain, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, was forced to cancel a planned trip to the city in order to avoid further protests. In the city of Santiago de Compostela police also attacked the protestors. In the city of Madrid, police batons hit them. In the city of Salamanca five ‘Indignados’ were injured. In the city of Burgos two were arrested. In the city of Castellón, they were violently dispersed. In the city of Vigo, they were also dispersed; and, in the city of Palma de Mallorca, three were arrested. Following the numerous arrests across the country, spontaneous demonstrations followed in front of police headquarters demanding the prompt release of those detained. Most protestors where released on bail.

As things stand in Spain right now, according to a survey published by newspaper El Pais, there exists wide support (81%) amidst the Spanish population for the movement. In fact, in addition to public intellectuals such as Vicent Navarro, Arcadi Oliveras, or Eduardo Galeano giving them support, political figures such as Santiago Carrillo, who was the secretary general of the Spanish Communist Party during the country’s transition to democracy – a key voice throughout the transition, and Cayo Lara, the coordinator for the third largest political party in Spain, Izquierda Unida, have both aligned with the movement’s views. Even Rosalía Mera, who is Spain’s richest woman according to Forbes Magazine, has expressed public support for the ‘Indignados’.

It seems clear, when one has an in depth look into current events unfolding in Spain, that these protests have hit a nerve throughout Spanish society, and although the movement is practicing a form of nonviolent direct democracy which is not familiar to most Spaniards – indeed to the majority of citizens in Western style democracies –, the present Spanish political, social, and economic climate is beginning to be shaped, at least partially, by its cries of indignation. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight, that unless economic and political elites begin to listen and engage in some serious dialogue with the ‘Indignados’ instead of sending out the police force to hit them on the head, the nonviolent stance of the majority of protestors could quickly turn into a violent response to sustained police brutality. After all, it is important to remember that this is a one-month-old spontaneous and heterogeneous movement, which is only now beginning to organize and present specific demands.

The nonviolent protestors on Spanish streets are not Gandhi’s exemplary well-trained and disciplined nonviolent peacemakers, these protestors have not made pledges of nonviolence or have endured months of rigorous nonviolence training in Gandhian Ashrams. Whether the ‘Indignados’ can refrain from violence as the police continue to beat them, we will only learn as events unfold. However, if the country’s elites have any dignity left, they will not continue testing their endurance and will instead begin a credible process of reform, which examines and addresses all of their demands. At the time of writing, Artur Mas, the President of the Generalitat (the government of the Catalan autonomous region) was forced to arrive to parliament in a police helicopter, as thousands of ‘Indignados’ blocked the entrance in an attempt to boycott the region’s budget approval. They were shouting: “You do not represent us!” The parliamentary session began with only half of the representatives able to enter the building.

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Just twenty-four hours after Spain’s largest telecom company, Telefonica, announced a new round of layoffs affecting 8500 people, 25% of the work force, and as the G8 is meeting in Deauville, France, to discuss amongst other things the discontent sweeping across Europe, the Catalan police force – the Mossos d’Esquadra – following orders from the Town Hall’s new Catalan Nationalist Party (CiU) government, surrounded the nonviolent citizens camped at the Plaza Cataluña in Barcelona’s city centre. Armed with full riot gear, batons and machine-guns with rubber bullets, the police kettled in the protestors, making it impossible for them to leave or others to enter.

With the excuse of cleaning up the square for safety reasons, in preparation for tomorrow’s Champions League soccer final between Barcelona and Manchester United, the city government called for the dispersal of the crowds in order to allow for clean up teams to enter. Although this was the official stance, it soon became apparent that cleaning garbage from the square was not the true intent, and that the real aim of the operation was to seize computers, printers and documents from the movement’s steering committees, and to put an end to this popular uprising which is posing a threat to the country’s political and economic elites.

As soon as the police surrounded the crowds and the news aired on local television stations and radios, citizens from across the city began to leave their work places and made their way to the square in order to show their solidarity with those being harassed by the police. The scene they encountered resembled one of Gandhi’s legendary acts of civil disobedience – the demonstrators sitting on the floor, in silence, with their legs crossed and hands up in the air; symbolizing their defiance to the oppressive and brutal nature of this unannounced police action.

Unlike during pre-election campaigning time, eleven days ago, when the 15M Movement began to congregate in city squares across the country with shouts of indignation, this time the police did not hesitate, the orders where clear. The police began to point their guns at those outside the square that were shouting “This is our democracy”, and one by one they began to pull those sitting down inside the square – beating them with their batons. I have just heard that economics professor Arcadi Oliveras (Spain’s Noam Chomsky), was amongst those on the receiving end of the police’s indiscriminate use of batons.

At the time of writing, thousands of citizens are making their way to the square in Barcelona, and following two arrests and 99 injured, around 5000 protestors have already reclaimed the city square. In Madrid Esperanza Aguirre, who presides over the autonomous region and who also heads Madrid’s Partido Popular, has asked the ministry of the Interior to evict the protestors at the Puerta del Sol. On their part, the protestors at Madrid’s plaza have sent messages of solidarity to those being attacked in Barcelona. The police force in the city of Lerida has also evicted the crowds camped in the city square using water canons, and two protesters have been arrested. While in the city of Granada, the town hall is in negotiations with the central government about how to empty the city’s square.

The ambience in Barcelona’s plaza is now jovial, once the city showed its support to the protestors, the police was forced to leave, and despite the fact that they have confiscated many laptops and pamphlets, and have destroyed tents and equipment, which the protestors have been using for their popular assemblies, people intend to stay. A large banner in the middle of the square reads in Spanish: “You have cleaned up our exhaustion and now we are back”

Despite the fact that the political elites in Spain, in this new era of right-wing dominance are showing their mass use of force, they have encountered a well-organized nonviolent movement. If the movement holds to its principles, and other European countries join in the struggle, it will be the European Union which will be forced to restrain this police brutality, and which will eventually have to make concessions to this democratic citizens fighting non-violently for change. If the movement spreads, as many signs already seem to indicate, European political and economic elites will have to decide between reform and revolution.

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In Spain, the elections have come and gone, with the squares full of thousands of people continuing with their shouts of indignation, but so far they have not been heard. The political party PSOE of Zapatero’s ruling socialist government has taken a beating, but the formal democracy in which we live has not changed, and the centre-right Partido Popular has taken control of much of the country. What this means, according to most market analysts, is that as the new administrations take control of regional and local governments, previously undeclared debt will surface making Spain’s economic reality much more dire than what has been estimated to date.

The post-election week has already begun as a sober reminder of the economic tsunami engulfing the country. The bond market has already punished Spain for the ‘indignados’ movement and for the election defeat of the ruling party. The stock market has also reflected doubts about the country’s austerity measures, and the privatization of National corporations has continued with the announcement of the privatizing of the National lottery and a couple of the country’s airports. In addition, the Popular Party (PP) has made repeated calls for an early general election in which they are poised to win. Therefore, it is not naïve to state that so far the popular uprising has helped consolidate the centre-right as the people’s choice for spearheading the country’s return to economic growth – an economic growth which according to the PP’s political program will be achieved by cutting corporate taxes, reducing public spending, easing the firing of workers, bailing out failing banks, making it harder for immigrants to stay in the country, and augmenting the securitization of Spain in order to create a stable investment environment.

In essence, the choice made by those who opted to vote, reflects the opposite solution to what is being discussed by people in the squares. This is the unpleasant reality that those in city squares must reflect upon, if their demands are to be heard by the rest of the population. The ‘indignados’ want to be heard; now it is time for them to listen to the rest of the country in order to propose a truly constructive program with which the majority of the population can identify – we must move from this moment of indignation to a post-indignation space in which ‘responsibility’ becomes the mantra citizens embrace.

I have personally camped in the city squares and listened to the proposals made by those committee’s that have already hijacked the movement. What started as a call for electoral reform and the punishing of political and economic corruption – call that indeed attracted thousands of people to the city squares – has quickly metamorphosed into some kind of Bolshevik-like political project led by the country’s squatter movement. Although to those observing from the outside the calls for nonviolence and participatory democracy coming from the microphones of the committees seem to point to a truly revolutionary change, a close look from within the squares, reveals that those calls are as empty as the calls for change we are used to hearing from the country’s politicians.

It is my opinion, that this hijacking of a truly democratic uprising – inspired by a general indignation and glued together through solidarity – has already caused great damage to this spontaneous call for change. Of course it is difficult to put forth clear proposals when thousands of people find themselves on the streets, it is obvious, that in such situations groups with organizing capacity are going to take charge in the steering of the movement, but just because a group has the ability to organize meals, public toilets, and speaking engagements in a public square, it does not mean it has the ability to lead over the discontent of a mass of people. Sadly, those who called for the squares to be filled, do not seem to understand this, and their mistake, I think has already begun to demobilize those whose indignation is not only aimed at the actions of politicians and bankers, but is also aimed at the actions of the committees taking control of the squares. Hopefully, these committees will realize that the best option for the movement today, is for them to turn the microphones away from themselves, and hand them down, to those filling the squares asking for some form of real democracy.

Unless one thinks that the calls of indignation are going to be met by a centre-right government, it seems apparent that indignation is not salvaging Spain. Therefore, if we – the people in the squares – are to gain true democracy while avoiding the International Monetary Fund from ‘salvaging’ our country through a Greek style bailout and its subsequent debt restructuring, we must act responsibly and acknowledge that we need the majority of the country to rally behind our calls for change. This only seems possible, once we critique our own actions, correct our mistakes, and stop proposing utopian ideals through undemocratic means, and instead offer real solutions through truly participatory democracy.

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Amidst local and regional election campaigns, with the banners of the different political parties plastered across the country’s streets, people are saying ‘enough!’ Disillusioned youth, unemployed, pensioners, students, immigrants and other disenfranchised groups have emulated their brothers in the Arab world and are now demanding a voice – demanding an opportunity to live with dignity.

As the country continues to explode economically, with unemployment growing incessantly – one in two young people unemployed across many of the country’s regions. With many in the crumbling middle class on the verge of losing their homes while bankers profit from their loss and the government uses citizen taxes to expand the military industrial complex by going off to war; the people have grasped that they only have each other if they are to rise from the debris of the militarized political and economic nightmare in which they have found themselves.

Spain is finally re-embracing its radical past, its popular movements, its anarcho-syndicalist traditions and its republican dreams. Crushed by Generalissimo Francisco Franco seventy years ago, it seemed that Spanish popular culture would never recover from the void left by a rightwing dictatorship, which exterminated anyone with a dissenting voice; but the 15^th of May 2011, is the reminder to those in power that Spanish direct democracy is still alive and has finally awaken.

In the 1970’s a transition through pact, transformed Spain’s totalitarian structures into a representative democracy in which all the economic structures remained intact. For the highly illiterate generations of the time, marred in the reality of a poverty-stricken country, the concessions made by the country’s elite seemed something worth celebrating. Nevertheless, as the decades passed, the state-owned corporations were privatized robbing the nation of its collective wealth, and the political scene crystallized into a pseudo-democracy in which two large parties PP and PSOE marginalized truly democratic alternatives. As this neoliberal political project materialized, the discontent begun to resurface, but the fear mongers, Spain’s baby-boomers who had once fought for democracy, were quick to remind the youth of the dangers of rebellion. For many decades in Spain, the mantra was, ‘it is better to live as we are than to go back to the totalitarianism of the past, and if you shake the system too much, it will take away our hard-earned rights’. So the youth remained silent, fearful of what could happen if they spoke, and the baby-boomers in their content blamed the youth for their indifference. According to them, it was the youth unwilling to work, which were bringing the country to its knees. But the youth have stopped this blame game, and aware of the true risks to their future are finally enticing the whole country to mobilize.

A failed European project, with its borders quickly being reinstated, a collapsing Euro currency, and the examples of Greece, Portugal and Ireland are the reminders to those on the streets of what it is they are fighting to disassociate themselves from, and of the freedoms they are working towards. The economic and political project of the country’s elite has destroyed the economic dreams of whole generations of naïve and apathetic Spaniards; it has left the country in the hands of bond speculators and central bankers, and Spaniards will have to pay that price. Nevertheless, the debt accumulated by the Spanish family, has also earned it the education with which it can understand what is going on, and through it Spanish people will liberate themselves from the tyranny of their government.

What has begun in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and has been echoed in fifty-two cities across the country is the crystallization of a popular movement for freedom, which has no intention of fading away. The people have no choice, either they take city squares as symbols of their struggle, or their message is never heard. The government knows this and that is why it has quickly responded by trying to disperse the crowds with its repressive police force, but following some arrests, the people are back with more strength.

A silent revolution has begun in Spain, a nonviolent revolution which seeks democracy through democratic means, justice through just means, and peace through peaceful means has finally captivated the imagination of the Spanish people, and now there is no turning back. The challenge ahead will be in keeping the collective spirit nonviolent as the police force does everything in its power to disintegrate the movement into a violent chaos that can justify its repression. The popular movement will also have to be alert as the bond speculators threaten the country with economic sanctions in order to scare the population into submission, and a constructive program will have to be articulated so that the movement can continue to function whilst providing sustainable alternatives for a different Spain.

Hopefully an articulate steering committee will flourish soon from amongst the crowds, which is capable of making clear and viable demands that grab the imagination of the country and force the political elite to comply. These are delicate times in Spain, if this spontaneous nonviolent movement succeeds, Spain may welcome a brighter future, if it fails, I fear violence will become the only option for those in pain. What those outside of the country can do for Spain is to echo the shouts of indignation coming from the country’s streets. So far both mainstream and progressive international media channels have opted for silence. Let us hope this silence breaks.

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What would the world do without ‘our’ greatness, without ‘our’ kindness, without ‘our’ Altruism? It is in asking ourselves these kinds of moronic questions, that we carry forth the full force of our dogma – our collective delusion, the lie, which once again has facilitated the dropping of ‘our’ bombs on the citizens of another part of the planet. This time it is happening in Libya, and just as with all other wars of aggression initiated through the barrel of Western guns, the submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and missiles of all kinds, are only engaged in a ‘humanitarian’ mission.

The late Howard Zinn, would often remind his audiences around the world, of the definition of modern warfare – “war is the indiscriminate killing of civilians” he would say. Perhaps it would serve us well to ponder on this thought, as we embark as citizens on some kind of collective response to this new and illegitimate war, this crime against humanity, which once again is being perpetrated in our name.

We can choose to be distracted by the narrow-mindedly articulated debate on the illegitimate repression inflicted by Kaddafi on his people, on his despotic ways, his criminal behaviour, and flamboyant mannerisms. This is the sure way to guarantee a sleeping mass of ignorant and manipulated Western citizens, supportive of the criminal acts Western governments are in the midst of carrying out. Alternatively, we can say enough is enough, and we can begin to arm ourselves with the powerful nonviolent weapons of non-cooperation and civil disobedience, in order to mount a joint, citizen-led, coordinated and extensive campaign, for peace, and against war.

Yes it is true, Kaddafi is a criminal who oppresses the people of Libya and steals the country’s wealth. I sure hope he is brought down, but this toppling of corrupt leaders must spread across the region and throughout the globe, in the form on nonviolent popular uprisings – revolutions. Through Israel, Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Spain, the UK, and US. Through these countries and others, hopefully, ‘we’ the people, will learn to say stop to the perpetual militarization of our societies and to the stealing of our collective wealth.

If we do not say stop, then we can continue listening to the propaganda, minding our own business as we wait for a new war, a new financial collapse, or another nuclear disaster, as those who can afford to, continue to eat away at the planet’s natural resources. But lest not forget, that as Western bombs pound on Tripoli and Libya’s civil war becomes another US-led Western imperial invasion, the people of Libya are no safer, and are certainly not gaining the kind of democracy they had in mind when their uprising began.

So with Afghanistan flattened, with Iraq completely destroyed, with Pakistan being hit by drones, and with the people of Gaza forced to live in their open-air prison as millions of refugees from these war torn countries suffer the consequences of previous Western humanitarian missions, it would serve the western critical thinker well, to oppose any kind of military intervention, and to show serious scepticism towards the humanitarian and caring words stemming from the mouth of current Western government representatives. Listening to the benevolent messages from people like Obama and Sarkozy, would seem ironically comical, if it were not for the dangerous quagmire in which we find ourselves. Yet, since while they continue to blurt out mighty words, which often invoke God, innocents die, this is no time for comedy.

The time has come to break our silence and judge them and their allies for crimes against humanity. Only when we have wiped clean the blood spilled in the name of our false morality, by confronting the crimes committed in our name, might we find ourselves in a position from which to ethically judge the crimes of the foreign petty dictators our leaders often called friends.

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What a meaningless term democracy has become when uttered under the context of our 21st century Western reality. Do we really think the democracy we live embodies the dream our ancestors thought they were fighting for? I do not think it does. I think instead, that Western democracy, the democracy of imperial expansion embodies the violence and misery it claims to diffuse. The tragic thing is, that many Western citizens one speaks to, make similar observations, yet, the wheel continues to turn and its movement destroys many innocents. How can the wheel stop, when the citizenry goes along for the ride? When there is little will to change direction?

Let us take for example the self-proclaimed left-wing progressives of the United States. Imbued by arrogance and complacency, two years ago, they went along with the message of hope communicated by the now president of the United States. Their strategic plan was to vote Mr. Obama into office, and then convince him to act on their wishes for a better world. Their argument being, that he represented the lesser of the two evils. In retrospect, one can see that he was not the lesser of the two evils; he was a different evil representing the same class interests, with different rhetoric and face. Nevertheless, the progressive embrace of yet another criminal into the office of the United States has served to fuel and legitimize once again, the Nation’s expansionary venture of military violence and legalized capitalist crime.

With the year coming to a close, one can only assume that either these so called progressives made a strategic blunder, or they had no will for real change. I am inclined to believe that the choice was made to continue with the charade because there is no will for a paradigmatic change. But these are big words, and for this reason, many will discard what I have to say. So in order to at least begin the process of describing the kinds of actions, which I think are needed for a paradigm change to take place, below I will present a few suggestions a wilful citizenry can undertake in the coming year, in order to stop the inhumanity that today has become the norm.

Global General Strike
If there was indeed a true sense of solidarity and responsibility, those around the world who claim to fight for the betterment of the human experience on earth, could begin 2011, with an attempt to coordinate a Global General strike. A strike for peace and equality, in which workers refuse to work until everyone on earth is guaranteed equal social rights to shelter, food, and medicine. In the century of globalized capital, only a globalized citizens movement can effectively ward-off the ruthless attacks coming from the capitalist class. One does not need to be a Marxist in order to understand this, reading the day’s headlines of any mainstream newspaper clearly reveals the ruthless game being played by those running our capitalist economies.

Removing Our Money from the Banks
Another action that could proof useful in 2011 would be for those interested in real change to undergo a coordinated action of removing their money from banks. During the current global financial crisis it has become blatantly clear to what extent our money in the bank is serving to finance our own material and moral impoverishment. Why would we be interested in continuing to finance our own demise?

Refusal to Pay Taxes
The next action, which I would suggest, would be a globally coordinated effort to encourage citizens to stop paying the proportion of their taxes used for financing military ventures. Contrary to what we are led to believe, there is no such thing as a benevolent army, soldiers are trained to kill, and that is what they are doing around the world on a daily basis. Let us stop it if we really want change.

Hunger strike
Staging a hunger strike for peace with the collaboration of millions of concerned citizens from around the world, would certainly force governments to revise their continued militarization. A Gandhian inspired strike of this type in which those who refuse war are willing to suffer in themselves in order for things to change, could have a great impact. Imagine students, workers and retirees from around the world, together succumbing to such a painful ordeal in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in conflict zones, where our governments are destroying people’s existence.

Blank Vote
If you do not agree with the candidates presenting themselves to the next election, please do not vote for the lesser of the two evils, it is the surest way to avoid any meaningful change. If you have doubts about this, look at what Obama’s message of hope and change has amounted to.

I did not invent any of these tactics, so I claim no originality, I am just one more concerned Western citizen, using the internet while we still have it available for this kind of dialogue, in order to ask publicly the question I often ask myself: What must we do if we hope for change? I understand that many will disagree with my suggestions, and indeed might be offended by the tactics I propose, but if you really want change and you are not seeing it, tell me what we can do. As far as I am concerned, our current collective path is the path of No-Hope and No-Change, and I refuse to be a part of the charade. Let us hope next year is a little more humane.

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These events took place in International waters, 100 kilometers off the coast of Gaza. The nonviolent peace advocates were on a life-saving mission to liberate the people of Gaza, from the open-aired prison imposed on them by Israel under the consent of its ally, the United States. After being surrounded by Israeli military vessels and with helicopters hovering over their heads, these courageous nonviolent peace advocates watched with amazement and terrorized, as Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara shooting randomly and killing and wounding many of the advocates on board. Following the massacre, the ship was taken to Ashdod port where those who survived have either been arrested awaiting deportation, or are being treated in hospitals across Israel.

As these events have unfolded, popular furor has grown across continents, and demonstrations have been witnessed in front of Israeli embassies around the globe. The UN Security Council has had an emergency meeting to discuss the issue, spokespeople of different states have expressed deep concern about the events, and as Israeli ambassadors stationed in different nations jitter at the possibility of being expelled, the group of elders – the eminent leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela – has condemned the attack as “completely inexcusable.”

It was only a few weeks ago that the Israeli authorities denied entry to professor Noam Chomsky at the Allenby Bridge border crossing from Jordan to Jericho, in the Palestinian West Bank. Professor Chomsky was on his why to speak at Bir Zeit University. To many of us here in the West, at the time, it seemed bizarre that the Israeli government would commit such a foolish act, by barring academic freedom and freedom of speech in such an open and hostile manner. Professor Chomsky is after all, one of the world’s most renowned academics, and without a doubt, a source of inspiration to many who are advocating nonviolently for peace. What was hard to imagine at the time of this incident, was that professor Chomsky’s refusal of entry into the Palestinian Occupied Territories, although in one sense a continuity of Israeli policy against the Palestinian people and all who befriend them, also marked an intensification of Israel’s open assault on the values and rights of the citizens of the broader international community.

As Western citizens, we have become accustomed by now to the brutal treatment of Palestinian people by Israeli security forces through their daily acts of orchestrated state-terrorism. It comes as no surprise to us, when we hear of the continued extermination of the population of Gaza, and its non-stop humiliation and degradation. A crime which is beyond comprehension and which has already tragically led to the 22-day onslaught on Gaza in late 2008 early 2009 – a destruction of such magnitude, that it is now referred to by many around the world as the Gaza Massacre. An event during which, according to the United Nations Fact Finding Mission’s Goldstone Report, Israeli Defense Forces committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

As Western citizens, we are also used to the ongoing suffering of the people of Gaza, whose physical, psychological, and spiritual hardship is tested on a daily basis as they endure the reality of living in an open-air prison, which their jailers are free to bomb and destroy whenever they please. A situation against which, although condemnation has been strong, international pressure has not succeeded. What we are not accustomed to in the West, however, is to witnessing the Israeli government blatantly attacking hundreds of nonviolent peace advocates from around the globe, congregated on ships navigating in international waters. Peace advocates, whose aid campaign to Gaza has been widely publicized, and who have clearly informed their respective governments of their initiative.

In the West, we have become accustomed to the propaganda machine of the Israeli government filling the global airwaves with fabrications, defamations and outright lies following each crime committed, each violation of international law. Like the Israeli military, the Israeli propaganda apparatus is highly sophisticated. Nevertheless, this latest act seems like a challenge to the world, and I am not sure whether propaganda can bury it. Perhaps in the West, we have become immune to the daily deaths of Palestinians, or to the tragic death of a Western nonviolent peace advocate being shot by the Israeli defense forces while in Palestinian territory. I do not think however, that populations from around the globe can tolerate Israel’s interception of a peaceful convoy in international waters, with its subsequent shootings and killings of citizens from many different nationalities. Parliamentarians, Nobel laureates, spiritual leaders, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists amongst others, forced to endure the terror inflicted upon them by lethal Israeli military commandos.

Clearly, the attack on the Mavi Marmara is a premeditated act, and one for which the Israeli propaganda machine has been preparing for a while. Professor Norman Finkelstein has described Israel as a lunatic state, and has warned of the risk of such a state having hundreds of nuclear weapons. Watching through the Internet live-feed, Israel’s attack – in international waters – on global citizens brought together by a call to civic duty, all one can hope for as a member of the global nonviolent peace advocacy community, is that the pressure we exert on our governments forces an end to Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity. If Israel is not stopped following this tragedy, it will become clear to us, that just like the Palestinians we have all become targets for the Israeli military, and thus, are no longer protected from Israel’s lunacy.

The world has failed to defend the Palestinians for years, but yesterday Israel made a geopolitical turn by declaring war on the citizens of the world. It made all of us Palestinian, and now it is the responsibility of our governments to respond. Will the nations of the international community defend the rights of their citizens as well as the rights of the Palestinians? Will the siege on Gaza end, and those who have repeatedly broken international law, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity be tried and punished? Or has Israel just declared war on the citizens of the world with the implicit consent of its international allies? One cannot predict the outcome of this massacre; nevertheless, there are clear signs pointing to the potential beginning of a new epoch, for Israel, for Palestine, for the Middle East, and for the citizens of the world. Defining this epoch will revolve around determining whether Israel’s latest act, is an act of war against numerous members of the International community.

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We wake up in the morning to hear and watch the newest tragedy that has swept the world’s media attention. One morning it is the tragic crash of an airplane, the next some contested elections that turn violent as people revel. Soon, the media lens is directed to the death of a star, but after a few days, the media bites ease and as a few specialized commentators continue discussing previous events, cameras and microphones have gone somewhere else. Amidst this media frenzy, the future of the world is being orchestrated as attentive spectators watch in silence and (sometimes) disbelief.

Serious events and acts are taking place everyday which merit serious social debate, yet because of the fact that our societies are deeply fragmented, broken and clashing between each other, we are unable to grant ourselves the necessary pause, required for conciliation and unity. Because of this, we are easy to control as a mass of isolated individuals, which is held together by norms and regulations, bureaucracies, military, and police, and concepts such as the nation state, the church and the corporation.  If we are to stay in this model of society, I fear we will live in perpetual war until we destroy ourselves by not paying attention to the fact that something is drastically wrong.

We are living in societies plagued with corruption at all levels, we are constantly expanding our militarized societies surveilled by police forces and colonizing armies, which are rapidly eroding our freedoms. In the meantime, the resources of the world are generating massive amounts of wealth for a small minority, as our natural heritage is being rapidly dilapidated. In exchange, the majority of the global population receives what we have come to identify as ‘security’, when in effect, it could be clearly labelled as racketeering. As a collective, the mass of the population gets terrorized and soon succumbs to authoritarian rule.

In the Western world – the bastion of democracy – we console ourselves with the thought that we are free, we refer to ourselves as members of the free world and compare our free societies with tyrannies that govern in other parts of the planet. This we justify by the fact that our elected officials have reached the podium through an electoral system of some kind, thus in effect being representatives of our interests as citizens.  It can be argued that this is a fair assumption, as long as we conduct our field research in a laboratory, but if we engage with members of the numerous sub-communities, which exist within the boundaries of delineated Nation States, we quickly realize that there is tremendous discontent and frustration brewing amongst the population. At the same time, there exists in our societies a sense of impotence and fear that if the boat is rocked, things will get worse.

As the world globalizes on different planes – intellectually, spiritually, socially, politically, economically and militarily, to name a few, we are faced with the realization of the global consequences of our actions, or our inactions. At this point, all we can do is practice the great and often forgotten virtues of just analysis, honest critique and self-amelioration, hoping to contribute something of value to the global village. Without these virtues, we fall into the trap of blaming others for our barbarous crimes. When starving kids in poorer nations are dying and have no access to food or water, we blame the country’s tribal lords and corrupt politicians, we forget to mention the exploitation and extortion carried out by our corporations with the aid of our governments and laws. When we go to war, we blame tyrannical leaders for forcing us to attack them – we unload bombs on civilian populations in the name of pre-emptive strikes and the defence of freedom. We forget to question whether we have become animals and have lost all sense of reason. When our free-market banking system collapses and our politicians tell us that institutions are too-big-to-fail and must be bailed out by the taxpayers, we are quick to accept their jittery explanations and swiftly approve their actions. We forget to wonder whether we are being conned. Finally, when a surveillance society rises from within our democratic-communities and our freedoms are radically eroded, engrossed in our own delusion of freedom, we forget to evaluate whether we are still living in democratic states, or have transcended into something different. It is this lack of questioning which has paralyzed us as a collective-mass, and keeps us extracted from the true decision making process – the one that defines our present global reality and is shaping the future we will leave for others to inherit.

Although I believe professor Chomsky is right in advocating that “prediction in human affairs is a very uncertain enterprise”, I think it is safe to predict, that tomorrow we will wake up in the morning and the media will be playing out the show of the day, perhaps it will report on North Korean bombs, street fights in Iran, the failing state of California, the Madoff financial scandal, or the bombings in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan – amidst millions of other news, which will navigate through our systems of communication mobilizing us in one direction or another. It is also safe to predict, that unless there is a drastic change in the will and choice of the majority, at most tomorrow, we can expect isolated demonstrations making isolated requests; stop the war in Gaza, fight for gay rights, defend freedom of speech in Iran, or safe the Polar Bear. We are still far from defending a globally united cause for environmental sustainability and continuity, equality, freedom and justice for all, a fair system of distribution, and an end to oppression and war. If we can one day unite under that banner, all together at the same time and prolonging our request, popular uprisings in Iran, in Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan, will inspire us all and we will unite under the same cause. If this happens, together we will break our chains from the elite that govern us, and bridge the abyss, which has separated us from each other. A brilliant man I know once told me, that despite what we are told, human beings are not too different from each other. I believe he is right, but we must wake up in order to understand this.

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