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event2013 agora99 rome program & videos
last modified November 4, 2013 by facilitfsm
http://99agora.net/program2013
presentation and videos >> debt - democracy - rights - assemblies
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1st
Opening session @ COMMUNIA
Introduction to the meeting [10 am - 12 am]
Communication working group [12 am - 1 pm]
Roundtable @ ESC
Europe: Which space for common struggles? [3 pm - 6 pm]
Workshops @ CINEMA PALAZZO [6 pm - 9 pm]
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd
Workshops @ OFFICINE ZERO & STRIKE [10 am - 9 pm]
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3rd
Assemblies @ OFFICINE ZERO & STRIKE
Assemblies per Axis: Debt / Rights / Democracy [10am - 12am]
General Assembly [12am - 3pm]
- http://99agora.net/streamed-general-assemblies
- Final general assembly 99agora.net 1:37:26
- Democracy assembly 99agora.net/streamed-general-assemblies (2 videos) 2:32 48:51
- Rights assembly 99agora.net/streamed-general-assemblies 23:45
- Debt assembly 99agora.net/streamed-general-assemblies 21:48
Workshops // November 1st /// 6 pm - 9 pm
Streamed videos of the workshops along three themes: debt, democracy, rights
DEBT AXIS
- 99agora.net/debt/university-education-research 2:47:01 (duration)
PROPONENTS: Assemblea di Medicina, Atenei In Rivolta, Anomalia Sapienza (Roma); Exploit! (Pisa); DI.S.C. (Padova); Aula Flex/Aula LP (Napoli); Juventud sin futuro (Spain); AlphaKappa (Greece)
PRESENTATION: Starting from our experience, we have seen how the space dedicated to education has radically fallen into a crisis because of the policies of underfinancing, commercialization and fragmentation of knowledge carried out all over Europe, beginning with the Bologna Process and intensified by the austerity policies. The public expenditure, the welfare, the essential services, the quality of knowledge and the recognition of education as a fundamental right are the things that are sacrified on the altar of austerity. The massive job insecurity, the cancellation of the traditional welfare, without a subsequent replacement with adequate social measures, specifically affect all the subjects in the education field, especially university students and researchers. The university loses its role as temple of knowledge, becoming a space severely intertwined with the capitalistic values and no longer completely separable from the metropolitan space . Even though the austerity policies have a different impact on the school and university systems in each country, they make up the same neoliberal renovation plan; the space in which to build the university we imagine should be conquered through the identification of a European framework in which to claim a right to a new welfare.
METHODOLOGY: Main language will be English. We suggest each group/collective to prepare interventions in English and we ask whoever has a need for a translation to contact us in advance, so that it will be possible for us to arrange for a translator.
The introduction will be as short as possible, in order to give each group enough time to present their own point of view and proposals. However, we kindly request that each intervention does not exceed 5 minutes, possibly avoiding presentations that will be done at a previous time. At the beginning of the workshop we will explain our methodology of discussion.
This is how we visualize the unwinding of the discussion:
- An introductory part, meant to explain how we developed our reflection on the topic of the workshop and asking different groups taking part to it to briefly summarize the reality they see in their own country/city.
- A time of separate discussion on two main topics: “University, Merit and Research” and “University, Precarity and Metropolitan Struggles” during which the development of the two topics will proceed not necessarily separately and generate proposals of activation shared among different realities.
- A final moment of conclusion and synthesis of points of view and results of the two groups, merging the different results in a whole and shared ideal. - 99agora.net/debt/the-Troika-party-campaign-a-tool-to-dismantle-the-neoliberal-narrative 38:30
PROPONENTS: Troika Party campaign. Participants are individuals part of following networks: Attac, CADTM, ICAN, Jubilee Debt Campaign, PACD, TNI, EOZB.
PRESENTATION: Background Movements and organizations from the whole European spectrum (North-South-East, from trade unions to CSO and Occupy type movements) gathered in Amsterdam on 4-6 October, 2013, to identify common priorities in the resistance to the neoliberal economic governance promoted by the EU. During our discussions we realized that the neoliberal narrative (competitiveness, austerity, privatization, representative democracy) is one of the most effective tools for social domination and segregation. There is an urgent need to explore new forms of campaigning to unpack the hegemonic narratives and create spaces for alternatives.
Troika Party: some participants of the meeting concluded that many people are unaware of the strong role the Troika plays in EU policy decision making; mainly with regard to the countries in the South of Europe but with growing influence also in the North. Several groups decided to develop a joint election campaign to unpack the role of the Troika in European decision making. Building upon successful campaigns in Spain this campaign will use satire, sarcasm and humor as tools to dismantle the neoliberal narrative, but keeping the seriousness of the issue at the front. We are developing this campaign further but for now the idea is to promote a Troika like party and Troika like candidates – as Cristiane Lagarde or Mario Draghi – to run for the European elections with slogans such as “Vote for us and you will not have to vote never again” and “Democracy is not competitive”. This method will raise awareness about the real nature of the Troika policies, link the Troika with established political parties and corporations and translate the existing work on the consequences of its policies to an attractive language, using creative images and videos as the best marketing campaign. We aim to create an co-operative cross border open source advocacy tool for the 99%. That is easily by each group, network, country and reality.
Workshop in the Agora99 conference: We believe that Agora99 conference is a very relevant space to share this idea and continue building a network that will develop it further – These idea will be also taken to the international Blockupy conference in Frankfurt -. This type of campaigning will play a key role in bringing political messages to sectors of the population that are not yet politicized, making a contribution to a multi-level strategy for the European struggle against the EU crisis regime. In the workshop at Agora99 the campaign idea will be presented (at that moment it will be more developed) and we will organize several brainstorming sessions to discuss how this tool can be improved and adapted for each of the struggles present in the room.METHODOLOGY: Explain the project – goal , seen problems etc. (5-7 min) discussion + brainstorming about adapting more people to the project (there is already a network working on development).
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occupied factories ( no stream) PROPONENTS: Officine Zero (Rome); Ri-Maflow (Milan); Vio.me (Thessaloniki)
PRESENTATION: In the context of the European crisis, of the dismissal of productive activities, of the destruction of labor rights and welfare, of complete precariousness of new labor forms, resistance is taking shape in different ways, among which is the self-organization of work and production. During the workshop we would like to openly discuss, among others, the following issues:
1) The experience of self-organized work. Well aware of the different backgrounds, compositions and states of evolution we hope shall come together in this meeting, we would like to briefly exchange histories to understand how collectives in factories under workers control organize and coordinate autonomous production and labor, how they build a new example of horizontal and inclusive work. How do we override qualifications putting skills in common? What forms of organization of labor are possible and what forms of mutualism?
2) Self-organization of production facing the market. When speak about occupied factories, we immediately address the issue of production. Some occupied factories are experiencing reconversion and others have maintained and innovated the previous production. What are the main barriers they encounter when facing the market? What ways of exchange activate mutual circuits and how do they interact with surrounding territories and other networks? European legislation is structured for big interest groups, defending banks and companies that move huge amounts of capital. We would like to discuss how different realities are facing the limits and the obstacles that this legislation imposes to alternative work and production.
3) Reappropriation. We would like to discuss if and how workers imagine to formally take over occupied factories. In Italy the only paths legally possible are through public acquisition and assignment through tender or the Marcora Law (workers buyout). We would like to discuss the alternative solutions that European realities have found or are taking into consideration and which the main barriers in national and European legislation are. How do we invert the hierarchy so to guarantee quality in work and life over the interests of corporate giants? What are the perspectives for direct assignment to workers? Is it possible to build alternative solutions and juridical models reconsidering the concept of expropriation in favor of communities?
- 99agora.net/debt/precarious-work 2:55:39
PROPONENTS: CLAP (Rome); Precarius Inflexiveis (Lisbon); Precarity Office (Wien); Oficina Precaria (Madrid); Jobcenter work, Fels (Berlin)
PRESENTATION: Self-management and the safeguard of precarious labor are among the most important issues of our times. Only 20 years ago, when the dismantlement of the labor market and of the Fordist social contract began, the condition of precariousness was typical of the youth. Today, in the context of the great depression, precariousness and unemployment afflict everyone. It is worth remarking on the specific traits of precarious work conditions, especially since these are extending to the entire working society: time and space fragmentation; mobility; blackmail and fragility, salary and income weakness; the tightening of relation between work and education; scarce trade union power. Despite being deprived of basic rights such as sick leave, holidays and maternity leave and miserably low wages, the precarious work force of the old and the new generation is unable to achieve self-organization and is almost entirely marginalized, also despite the numbers, from traditional to negotiative trade unions. Undoubtedly, relevant exceptions can be found in the scene of grass-roots and conflictual trade unions, but the necessary dispositifs capable of setting the precarious work force at the center of union action and claims, bringing together and organizing this strongly fragmented sphere of precarious labor, often highly educated, dispersed in the metropolitan landscape, are lacking. Moreover, the lack of European spaces in which to consolidate relations and promote common struggles with the ability to cross national borders, is not sufficient to qualify the existing conflicts of the precarious work force as truly effective. Is it possible to build a trans-national network of heterogeneous subjects, conflictual unions and new dispositifs, able to sustain processes of self-management of precarious work force, and to favor unprecedented experiences of mutualism and solidarity at the same time?
DEMOCRACY AXIS
- 99agora.net/democracy/technopolitics (6 parts) 0:27 9:24 48:58 1:02:43 7:19 15:43 PROPONENTS: DinamoPress (Rome); eigenLab, Exploit (Pisa); Fundación de los communes (Spain)
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PRESENTATION: The reflection on new forms of democracy and political decision has a long history, that’s why we want to start this discussion from a defined question: the new possibilities given by communication technologies for a “conflictual democracy”.
“Technopolitics” has been defined as the tactical and strategic use of technological devices (including social networks) for organization, communication and collective action.Although there are very different cultures, levels of digital literacy and access to the network, the new emerging movements (mainly Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Spain, Mexico, Brasil and EEUU) are defining a new pattern of net-organization, a new form of political action, that have developed destituent and constituent processes.
Starting from this definition, we would like to discuss how social movements can construct a new way of public decision, without including political representation or delegation. We think of this workshop as a laboratory on transversal practices of decision, including on-line and off-line experiences.A space to discuss how to transform democracy in a revolutionary and constituent weapon, against financial governance. How to transform it if not through the appropriation of information technology and communication?
Our starting point is not a vision of Internet as a horizontal network where we are equal for definition. A network is made of different nodes and hubs, connected by different relations of powers. The network is not a smooth or neutral space, but it’s made of different levels of organization of power. That’s why the use of communication technologies cannot be separated from political action.
Since the new technologies have changed the possibility to speak out and organize, how do we construct a “common sphere” where it is possible to construct and coordinate collective actions, as well as the sense of this action? And how do we organise this common way at a European level?
The workshop will also focus on some practical issues regarding social networks and technopolitics.
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UK protest (no stream) PROPONENT: PhD candidate at the university of Sheffield in the Architecture Department (school of Social Sciences). My Thesis explores the act of protest as a ‘critical spatial practice’ (after Peter Marcuse, Henri Lefebvre and Michel De Certeau) and how the act of ‘becoming public’ (after Gilles Deleuze) apart from their political intentions are indicators of the relationship between citizens, their representatives and powerful non-democratic constructs within society.
PRESENTATION: Mapping contemporary protest – comprehending the geneality of protest through discussions over a historical mapping of protest in the UK (specifically London). Presentation followed by small group discussions and analogue mappings over existing mapping template.
METHODOLOGY: Utilisisng a map of UK protest as counterpoint (please see link http://zoom.it/DXyp). Hardcopy of map will be provided (approxiamtely A1 in size). The map will be presented, contextualising the constructs on which protest is contingent and how this effects the geneality of protest action today in the UK. Then through group discussion contestation of map content aswell as aditional information from a wider (non-London centric) point of view to inform the geneality of contemporary protest -
http://99agora.net/democracy/blockupy 3.00 PROPONENT: Interventionist Left (Berlin)
PRESENTATION: This workshop on Blockupy has been put together by members of the Interventionist Left (IL) in Berlin. In this regard, it focuses not only on the experiences of Blockupy in a German-wide and Europe-wide context, but also the local challenges and conditions in Berlin. Our aim is to use this chance at the agora to collect impressions and ideas regarding our past, future and current work surrounding Blockupy. We will therefore focus on 5 main questions: 1. the sharing of general and specific experience of regional struggles/activist activities 2. Blockupy as blockade of the European Central Bank – feedback, critique, alternatives 3. international preparation – what structures would improve networking at this level 4. Spring 2014 – decentralized days of action/ potential days of action – brainstorming, needs, ideas 5. different activist practices – experiences
In early 2012 Blockupy Frankfurt emerged as an attempt to bring together the new, participatory experiences of democracy movements across the world and ‘older’ forms of left organization and social movements. The goal was to join forces in Germany and across Europe and beyond to resist the destructive crisis politics of the troika and national governments. We wanted to stand in the way of profit-making of one of the most important economic hubs in Europe and block the daily business of the European Central Bank.
After two years of blockading the ECB, many things have changed. The coalition has grown together, yet, for example, the occupy movement is no longer present in German society. Blockupy is recognized across Europe as a platform for anti-troika resistance, yet many connections have yet to be made.
With the continued goal of building transnational resistance against austerity and crisis politics, we invite you to critically reflect with us on the past experiences of Blockupy and discuss possibilities for future common action:
How can we better link local struggles to central mobilizations? Why is Frankfurt (not) a meaningful place for protest against the troika and European crisis politics? How is protest against the ECB and troika discussed in various struggles and movements? How can we improve Blockupy as a transnational action? What ideas might we have for common action in the spring of 2014? What can we learn from each other about forms of action? How might we understand Blockupy in relation to social strike?
We look forward to discussing with those who have been involved and those whose local situations have prevented them from participating up to now. We want to learn about different needs and see what commonalities can be built upon.METHODOLOGY:
1. 15 minutes mumble round
2. 15 minutes presentation by moderators
3. 60 minutes world-café
4. 20 minutes discussion
- 99agora.net/democracy/constituent-processes (3 parts) 7:19 32:37 1:05:55 PROPONENTS: Enred (Madrid); Dinamopress (Rome)
PRESENTATION: The crisis of representation and the current economic crisis have given way to an institutionalimpasse where there is no possibility of change. On the one hand there is a feeling of blockage: mass mobilization, self-organization experiences and social huge social innovations have found a ceiling, a limit that can’t be exceeded. On the other hand, the opportunism of the “old” threatens to close an open conjuncture that brings infinite possibilities. In this dual constituent-destituent scenario, the question of power can be opened starting from a clear hypothesis: no bottom-up regeneration, or any reconstruction of the old may respond to the challenge we are facing. It is time for a change in the rules of the game, a deep extension of democracy based on citizens control. The “Charter for Democracy” (Enred, Madrid) is a tool, an unfinished text for the opening a new process of political and economic reorganization that can ensure life and dignity.
- 99agora.net/democracy/visualising-geographies-and-agendas-of-the-global-struggles (4 parts) 2:47 6:24 0:45 1:50:26 CO-PROPONENTS: Individuals involved in different international networks, including GlobalSquare and #EUinCrisis GlobalSquare.
PRESENTATION: We are proposing the creation of two platforms: – a timeline with all the upcoming international actions and meetings – a map of the experiences from the movements defending and promoting the commons. We have set the general framework for the platforms, but we would like to open them up for them to be ongoing participatory projects. We welcome both people already involved in similar platforms to share their experiences, and people specifically involved in local struggles who can provide an insight to how these platforms can benifit their own activities.
- 99agora.net/democracy/networking-struggles (2 parts) 53:17 1:58:53 PROPONENT: Collettivo Prezzemolo (Florence)
PRESENTATION: The purpose of the workshop is:
(a) to trace ways to go beyond the national framework, and scale up to the European level the protests against austerity;
(b) to propose a methodology on how to construct efficient and sturdy transnational, inter-organizational movement networks against austerity.
What we propose is a structured discussion on trans-national solidarity, co-ordination and collaboration networks, focusing on three key aspects: (1) The networks’ form/format, (2) their purpose/goals, as well as (3) concrete steps towards constructing them.METHODOLOGY: The workshop’s format is a “structured discussion”. Its duration is three hours [180 mins].
Three members of our collective will be co-ordinators of the workshop.Coordinators’ roles:
(1) Moderator
(2) Secretary
(3) Coder / Mind-mapperStep 1: Prior to the workshop, we shall have prepared a leaflet/sheet with key issues and questions to be addressed by the workshop participants. We will ask from the organizers to distribute the leaflet to registered participants beforehand, in order for the collectives to have the possibility to gather their members’ opinions on the issue and provide a collective response.
Step 2: Upon arrival at the workshop itself, the coordinators shall distribute leaflets to all the participants who have not already received it.
Step 3: The Moderator makes an introduction to the subject of the workshop, explaining its methodology [10 mins]. Then, she will ask all participants to fill in the sheet the issues they would want to discuss, focusing on their own experience, problematic points they have encountered and potential efficient solutions they have found. The participants will have [15 mins] to write down their ideas.
Step 4: The Moderator calls for a break [10 mins]. We gather the leaflets, and distribute the ideas, problems encountered, solutions proposed, issues to be addressed to a table (to be projected or hand-drawn on blackboard
Step 5: In this step, the main discussion will take place. Duration [90 mins]. The Moderator will address all issues of the table, asking the people to expand their ideas, comment, criticize, propose alternatives and so on. The Secretary will follow carefully the discussion and extract the main points of each intervention. The Secretary will send these “main points” to the Coder via a chat platform. The Coder will create a mind map, categorizing the main points and relating one to the other, as well as to the analytical categories we have elaborated. The Mind Map will be projected live whilst being constructed, in order for the workshop participants to see how the discussion is evolving.
Step 6: The Moderator calls for a break [15 mins]. We contribute in improving the Mind Map, synthesizing overlapping points, categorizing and relating the ideas expressed and so on.
Step 7: The Moderator presents the Mind Map to all Workshop Participants, asking them to confirm that their ideas are accurately represented, to reflect upon the discussion and, most importantly, to suggest WHAT WE COULD DO with this material, once the workshop is finished. If there is a certain level of coherence, we could perhaps form a joint working group (organizers and participants) to transform the Map into a Text, or a Website, or whatever else. [30 mins]
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http://99agora.net/democracy/visual-common-language PROPONENT: Activist in Interventionistische Linke (Berlin), also involved in a design/arts collective, that supports political movements and initiatives with diverse forms of visual communication
PRESENTATION: The agora process challenges its actors to develop a common language that aims the deepening and strengthening of transnational cooperation in the field of crisis protest; language not in the meaning of grammar and words, but understood as common reference points and interfaces of analysis leads to the idea of visual communication. Imagery could be a starting point to face that challenge, as it is already used a lot for transnational interactions: Symbols are re-used, photographs are attached to solidarity messages, design is shared as common good… The contemporary form of widespread communication in postmodern societies is increasingly more picture based, as visual communication emphasizes the affective way of understanding, therefore allows different models of interpretation, therefore replaces the relationship of producing and consuming by a model of more-dimensional interaction. While traditionally left parties and groups see design and imagery as a second-row tool, serving and distributing content, new forms of emancipatory activism try to equalize form and content. The classical modern form-follows-function design is now to be replaced by the idea that design and visual habits should not only be renewed constantly, but have also the potential to influence content in an emancipatory way and create additional spheres of discourse. Lifting visual communication to a level where traditionally analysis, strategy and content is discussed, i\’ld like to propose an open space kind of workshop, that invites all kinds of designers, artists and interested people to gather and share their experiences with creative processes in emancipatory movements. To do justice to the fact that artists are gathering, everyone is totally invited to bring inspirational works as much as pencils and sketchbooks to communicate with more than words…everything\’s optional, nothing is a must. Beside the chance to meet artists and designers from other movements, one aim of the workshop could be to develop possibilities for future cooperation in the field of art and design within crisis protests.
RIGHTS AXIS
- 99agora.net/rights/healthcare-movements (2 parts) 1:17 3:00:28 PROPONENTS: Assemblea di Medicina, Infosex, Ambulanti, Ambulatori Cinecittà Campo Farnia, Lucha y siesta (Rome); Consultoria – Ambulatorio popolare (Milan); Ambulatorio Zero81 (Napoli); Fuxia Block – Bios Lab (Padova); Social Health Space (Ano Petralona, Athens); Solidarity Social Clinic (Thessaloniki); Yo Sì Sanidad Universal (Madrid); Interventionist Left (Berlin).
PRESENTATION: The workshop on Health and Healthcare could be the first step for a discussion and a constructive debate on what is happening to the health systems of the countries affected by the austerity policies.
Firstly we would like to understand how these policies are attacking all around Europe the universal model of public healthcare, with disinvestment, privatization, and the closure of fundamental care facilities. The immediate consequence is the mutation of the concept of health. Health ceases to be an inalienable right safeguarded by state structures and public spending, and it becomes subjected to profit and to speculation of corporate companies. This change represents indeed a demolition of the universal access to the healthcare system: the service user becomes a mere client, and the weakest social groups are systematically excluded from the care services.
Furthermore, we would like to speak about the various forms of “Health resistance” carried out in various countries, from the experiences of the Spanish Marea Blanca movement to the self-managed clinics in Greece. We think that it would be useful and interesting to discuss and share the different dynamics that have managed to produce advanced, generalized and disseminated mobilizations on this issue of health. We will look at those countries in which millions of people took the streets, as well as those countries forced by a real health and social care emergency to self-organize to replace a collapsing public system.
In front of this phenomenon, a question arises at once: are these territorial experiences –real models of self-organization that create an alternative to national health systems-used to fill the welfare “gaps” produced by the heinous cuts of austerity policies? Or do they constitute not only a new model of health, but also a new form of resistance that opposes the “clearance sale” of national health systems?
These struggles bring into play the constituent forms of new healthcare models as well as a new concept of health. Do these experiences possibly indicate the necessity to start from an idea of health considered first and foremost as a “common good”? Do not they reveal, perhaps, the urgency to redefine the relationship between the user and the health operator? What is at stake now is triggering a virtuous mechanism in which everyone, and not only the operators, are the sharers and “co-managers” of this common good, and therefore the guarantors of its full, free and universal application.The concept of health can no longer be reduced only to the logic of medicalization. Rather, it involves an articulated path, a process that addresses the fundamental issue of prevention, instead of focusing merely on the process of cure and rehabilitation. The concept of health should be re-imagined starting from these assumptions: it is not just the care of discomforts and illnesses, but, more importantly, a tension able to activate the entire process (prevention-care-rehabilitation) for the entire citizenry.
Speaking about Health, in the post modern capitalistic world, it should even take in consideration an analysis on human relationships and on how to motivate human resources in times of instability. It would be useful to discuss about how crisis is commonly seen as something inevitable or as a disease which needs for a ‘specialist’ to cure it and not as an opportunity for personal, social and political change. Some questions to address could be: “Which skills do we need in a period of crisis? or “What are the differences we need in order to produce something different? Or simply “How we endure uncertainty through collective work?”.
Addressing to the society needs a broader understanding of the transformation of the context and of the relationships within it. Therefore, nowadays that precariousness has become a general existential condition, the overall health and well-being should become the ideal objective of those new health policies that focus on a broader concept of health as a common good.
METHODOLOGY: Main language will be English, we suggest every collective/group to prepare interventions in english. Let us know if you need translators so we can provide them.
We think we can try to make a unique discussion (but obviously it depends on how many people we will be). At the beginning of the workshop, we will explain the discussion methodology (5 minutes each speech).
There will be a computer with projector to help the discussion (list of interventions, synthesis of each speech, proposals, etc).Feel free to bring with you all the materials you need (computer slides, papers, videos, pictures, etc).
The Solidarity Social Clinic from Thessaloniki and YoSanidad from Madrid will project a 10 minutes documentary/video of their experiences.
We visualize that the structure for the workshop could be articulated in three different sections:
-In the FIRST PART we would like to analyze the impact of the global crisis in the healthcare systems all over Europe. We want to discuss how profoundly the global crisis has pondered upon the great changes in the European healthcare systems and in the concept of “health” along with the right to health to which all individuals are entitled. We will go over what was guaranteed before and what is no longer granted today. Each country could have a overall part explaining healthcare situation before and after crisis (like 5 minutes per person).
- The SECOND PART could focus on the practical experiences of “social-health fights” and the collective self-management, since these are two strong endeavors for the same idea of health. Thereby the wellbeing is not seen as merchandise or a source of economic profit, but as a crucial part of the commons and an inalienable right. In this part, we would like to confront parallel systems e structures vs desobedience (barriers and benefits) as we are trying some strategies we would like to share and learn from different ways of doing it. Given the constant impoverishment of the national healthcare systems, what kind of fights, self-management experiences, forms of mutualism or political and social movements grew up? How were they born and what kind of difficulties they had to face? How is it possible to get into a hospital, join the doctors and nurses and all the medical workers to contribute in the formation of a real and efficient form of “health-strike”?
-In the THIRD PART we will question ourselves about what kind of future and prospect we want to give to our experiences. What can we envision and what does it represent for us? Is it just a form of resistance or a stopgap? Is it a complete and self-sufficient project? Or the experimentation of a new and different model through which we can test an innovative idea of health that embraces more steps? For example: prevention and sanitary education, a different idea of the relationship between physicians and patients, a different concept of medicine, and the care and cure in a holistic approach followed by rehabilitation. This is a model which must be undertaken by the healthcare systems in order for it to become the normal standard of provided health services. Only in this way the different fights can really build and create new forms of rights.
This part will include communication strategies to put the health in the center of the political and media agenda and how we can build together an alternative speech about health.
In this third section if it’s possible we also want to point out some key-words and political practices. The purpose is to share some common forms of fighting around a new model of healthcare in order to stimulate a European discussion on these subjects and more concretely, a European movement that defends the universalistic and free access to healthcare and looks after a new unprofitable model of medical care without the interference of private interests. - 99agora.net/rights/territorial-struggles (2 parts) 3:06 2:39:50 PROPONENTS & PARTICIPANTS: No Grandi Navi (Venice); No Muos Roma; Off Topic, Milano in Movimento (Milan); Save Rosia Montana (Romania); SOS Halkidiki e Committe of Thessaloniki for the struggle against gold mining in Halkidiki (Greece)
PRESENTATION: The realization of large infrastructure projects, the indiscriminate exploitation and the systematic private appropriation of commons are today all across Europe a privileged ground of enhancement for the financial capitalism. In the same crisis management by the troika governance, the only indications of overcoming austerity policies consist in the approval of projects, devastating for the territories and the environment, in finding resources for infrastructure investment and in the privatization of essential public services. Against this view, however, have developed hundreds of small and big struggles. Each of them has at its center a single battle against this or that project of “great works”, against this or that initiative of privatization. But all of them share a powerful political counter-discourse that focuses on the defense and the self-government of commons and have deep local roots. From the struggle against mining in Greece and Romania, to the one against the “biocide”, from the one against fracking in the UK to Stuttgart21, from the struggles against high-speed rail until the battle against “big ships”, there is now a European scene of conflicts that define, in their complexity and articulation, a common horizon of radical change in the productive system and model of development in the direction of a profound ecological conversion of social relations. A field that needs to be mapped and processed today.
- 99agora.net/rights/Athens-and-our-cities 20:39 PROPONENTS: Liana Giannakou, Christina Thomopoulos and Eleni Tzirtzilaki are participants of “the free and self-organized EMBROS Theater”, a formerly disused and abandoned theater in Athens Greece which was reactivated in November 2011, and is currently occupied by people in different fields, artists, activists, political thinkers, social practitioners, architects, theorists, members of the local and global community. The opinions shared in this workshop, although influenced by the wider EMBROS community, do not represent the entirety of the overall EMBROS community.
PRESENTATION: In “Right to the city” Henri Lefebvre describes, “the city is a projection of the society on the ground.” Do we have a right to the city today? Who has a right to a city, when and why? Why not? In this workshop a group of participants of the free-self organized Embros Theater in Athens Greece create an entrance for us to explore the issue of “right to the city” from different view points: giving an image of current-day Athens, opening up dialogue for us to collectively connect what is simultaneously happening in other cities, and sharing examples of how the arts in the city, and public expression can offer different create different conditions and exchanges. How can the arts and public expression provide ways of overcoming present-day racism, fascism and extremism? How can they help us in claiming back the right to the city? What methods and means can help us achieve a transformation of place, and the people who live there through mindful daily practice, togetherness and exchange. How can create something together in the here and now? How can we adopt means to make our cities more humane, more livable? “The issue at this point is not we can make it possible for the foreigner to be accepted in the better society, but how we can imagine a better society with the foreigner and the acceptance of the foreigner at the epicenter.” – René Schérer A brief picture of some of the issues we are facing right now in Athens with respect to “rights”: In August 2012 operation «Xenios Zeus» was jump started in Greece – the chasing of immigrants in the center of Athens by the police, doing a kind of «stop and frisk» for people who look «foreign» and taking those without official documents and papers to prison camps, concentration camps in and out of Athens. But it is not only immigrants, but also female prostitutes, drug users, the homeless, city nomads (planodioi) – and the arrests continue. After these measures the streets and the squares of the city of Athens have become voided, empty, ghostlike, with fear spreading into the larger public sphere. Meanwhile plans like «Rethink Athens» and «Revitalization of Metaxourgio» by the Oliaros Investment Company, in collaboration with the Athens city Municipality, are preparing us for the imminent gentrification which is coming and the displacements which are yet to come. Is a city not of all its inhabitants? Others affected today in Athens are also second generation children of immigrants without nationality and sometimes without the right to take exams for university. Do these children not have the right to education? This is just the beginning of many changes of displacement that have been taking place in Athens. This, together with the attacks on immigrants by Golden Dawn. When will the violence, hatred, fear end? To take away rights of others is to take away the possibility of a city in which we can all belong and co-exist in. The violent murder of musician Pavlos Fyssas by a Golden Dawn member in September 2013 was another wake-up call for a city further eroding in public space. This workshop has been organized by a group of participants of the free and self-organized EMBROS Theater. As a space of diverse participants however, EMBROS does not have representatives. The opinions shared in this workshop, although influenced by the wider EMBROS community, do not represent the entirety of the overall Embros community, but of those present at AGORA 99 in this workshop.
METHODOLOGY: We will be exploring questions of “right to the city” through different modes of exchange, discussion and co-existence (both in larger and smaller groups), through movement and various forms of expression. We will be taking on experimental methodologies as they connect to freeing expression and presence in space. In a city, but really in any space, much of our rights are connected to mobility and how free we are to move around in different ways in various environments. Are we able to move freely in various kinds of spaces? Why or why not? How is our mobility affected by where we are? In this workshop we will be using our own movement in the space as a way to also explore/reflect on our movement in the city, creating new potentials through experiential exploration.
- 99agora.net/rights/migrating-Europe (6 parts) 7:36 9:25 9:25 54:15 53:54 31:52
PROPONENTS: Esc Infomigrante, Yo Migro, Astra19, Laboratorio53, Csoa La Strada (Rome); Dyktio Athens; Melting Pot Europa; Dyktio – Network for Political and Social Rights, Antiracist Initiative of Thessaloniki
PRESENTATION: The workshop will be divided in two parts, to try and explore the massive issue of Europe and migration from two specific perspectives: 1) European borders and right to asylum; 2) new practices of self-organisation.
1) EUROPEAN BORDERS AND RIGHT TO ASYLUM. We just assisted to the Lampedusa massacre. This is yet another massacre produced by European and national laws and policies to combat migrations. In Italy, we are now facing a political debate in which even institutional actors are taking position against the “criminal offense of illegal immigration” (“reato di clandestinità”) and other racist measures introduced by the national laws on immigration (the Bossi-Fini Bill and the Security Act). This positions sound really hypocrite to those who have been struggling for years against these laws and for freedom of movement. We can’t forget that the massacres of migrants happening continuously all over the Mediterranean border (from southern Spain, to the Aegean Sea): we must take action to stop this. Moreover, the Dublin III Regulation is about to come into force, defining a new shape of the right to asylum which ignores the claims for rights and freedom demanded by migrants throught Europe. European borders, Dublin III and a true European Right to Asylum are an urgency for European movements for migrants rights and against racism. These issues can’t be fully faced on a national ground and we need to build transnational campaigns, alliances and discourses/practices to intervene effectively. The proposal by Meltingpot Europa to meet in Lampedusa as soon as possible, so as to draft together the “Lampedusa Charter” and build a European campaign for a different Europe, can be an important first step in this direction.
2) NEW PRACTICES OF SELF-ORGANISATION. We are all experimenting new practices of migrants and ‘mestiza’ self-organisation, also in response to the dismantling of welfare services, affecting both ‘nationals’ and ‘non-nationals’ in all European countries. Often, associations, social centers & grassroots groups have to organize themselves to guarantee basic services (i.e. language schools, legal support, social clinics, etc.). In many cases, these experimentations go beyond the simple provision of useful services, and become the starting point for new forms of self-organisation and common struggle for rights, dignity, full citizenship and universal access to welfare. We would like to share and compare these practices, and explore ways to further network and connect them. - 99agora.net/rights/the-struggle-for-housing-rights (2 parts) 2:04:16 20:39 PROPONENT: Asamblea de vivienda, PAH Plataforma de los Afectados por la Hipoteca (Madrid)
PARTICIPANTS: Mushrooms, Point Break, Puzzle (occupied student residences, Rome); Action, Blocchi Precari Metropolitani, Coordinamento di Lotta per la Casa (movements for the right to housing, Rome)
PRESENTATION: Explain the PAH (Plataforma de Afectadas por la Hipoteca / Affected by Mortgages Platform, Spain) as a tool that works for the housing movement: as an organizational tool and as a political deconstituent and constituent struggle. The workshop would intended to see possible translations into other contexts in the euro-mediterranean area, in struggles for housing as in other areas.
1) THE PAH: In the last 4 years, a network formed currently by 200 PAHS statewide, and networking with other movements in order to articulate effective responses to the problem of housing. First of all, we are convinced that this is a problem of model, and therefore from the PAH we promote advocacy actions, aiming to change a clearly unjust legislation. On the other hand, we are aware of the housing tragedy huge dimension, and the impossibility of the affected people to wait forever for the laws to be changed. Therefore, we take the initiative, generating spaces of empowerment and organizing actions to force the banks to negotiate case-by-case basis. When these actions have been insufficient and not obtained replies from the Administration, civil disobedience has taken power as a legitimate and effective response.
2) THE WORKSHOP: As we’ve explained, PAH is a platform integrated by people affected mostly by abusive mortgages but also by the housing public system dismantlement and the rental law. The workshop aims to explain how this tool works in 2 senses: as an organizational tool: to empower the affected people, breaking the dichotomy victim-activist, individual-collective and involving such activists in the movement, going beyond their individual problematic and understanding their struggle for housing as a part of the general struggle for a general change of an unjust system.
The PAH is a useful organization in order to promote practices that take the struggle to many different levels at once: In the neighborhood, promoting civil disobedience as a legitimate tool to defend and promote our rights for decent housing (stop-evictions, escraches and Obra social (housing occupations). These practices also allow the formerly known as “affected people”, and now activists, to take their lives back and conquer their right to decent housing.
While this has been done on a regular basis in cities of Spain, during the last 2 years the PAH promoted the change of mortgages law, by launching a public campaign to inform the society about how unjust this law is. This campaign (known as the ILP) didn’t change the law, but approached the problem of housing to the citizens and got a 90% of consensus in Spanish population, allowing the PAH to better explain and legitimate the civil disobedience practices as an answer to political power denial to change the law.METHODOLOGY: Explanation of the tool with the two explained elements: organizational and political. Audiovisuals (videos on obra social (squatting) and other). Debate on possibles translations of the tool to other housing collectifs and struggles.
- 99agora.net/rights/right-to-the-city 2:27:50 PROPONENTS: Nuovo Cinema Palazzo, Teatro Valle Occupato (Rome); Lab. Off Topic, Milano in Movimento (Milan); Right to the City Initiative (Krakow); Embros Theatre (Athens). Among participants: social centers coalition of North East, Marche, Emilia Romagna (Italy)
PRESENTATION: Cities have always played a crucial role in terms of power relations, as the main stage where political and socio-economic contradictions gain striking visibility and materiality. In a context of economic globalization and rapid urbanization, the current remaking of global space fostered by neoliberal regime finds in the urban sphere the privileged scale for experimenting new development models and governance configurations, asserting the primacy of economic growth as the unique recipe to survive in the world competition for capital accumulation. Neoliberal policies have constantly produced an image of the city as spectacle, a brand to be promoted through entrepreneurial strategies of centralization and peripheralization, whose effects have been the securitization of public space, combined with the annihilation and/or domination of cultural and social diversity. In particular, urban governance strategies appear directly linked to the preeminence attributed to Mega-events and Mega-projects. Those are emerging as the brand new political paradigm grounded on the exceptional power to make financial speculation, job insecurity, urban soil consumption and opaque alliances between public and private interests the ordinary regime of government. In the re-shaping of urban territories, opposition to neoliberalism appears more and more as a struggle for space and through space, to be engaged as a practice of citizenship towards democracy revitalization. The workshop aims to discuss actions carried out in European cities, focusing on the re-appropriation of space as proactive responses to spatial dispossession, as well as new forms of self-government of alternative spaces of resilience to neoliberal agenda. A look at the city as a political space could highlight those fundamental grounds connecting urban struggles that – in different places – are all imagining, performing and creating a city space as an urban common against its commodification.
METHODOLOGY: Open discussion concerning: – analysis of common urban issues at European level; – proposals of political practices of re-appropriation and production of city space, also moving from experiences of self-government and direct democracy.
Happy viewing in solidarity with those attending Rome.
Chris