(Also listen to the musical collection Rola la Lucha Zapatista, with over 70 works by musicians from Mexico and the world, as part of the campaign Thousands of Rages, one Heart, in honor of the Zapatista struggle, as well as our musical collection Las voces rebeldes del Otro Lado, Zapatista music made in the USA.)
This program recounts the story of the Movement for Justice in el Barrio, in East Harlem in New York. It explains how a movement of migrants has organized to defend itself against eviction. The Movement takes its inspiration directly from the Zapatistas, and their forms of organizing and struggling.
Desde abajo y a la izquierda, en esta transmisión, les compartimos algunas reflexiones sobre:
– Antifascismo, recordando a Renato Biagetti y a los Migrantes Asesinados en Italia.
– 22 de septiembre adhesión de la PIRATA a la jornada en solidaridad con los pueblos zapatistas.
– 15 de octubre Global Revolution: Roma Arde, algunas reflexiones.
– Noviembre en Alemania: acciones en contra de Castor el tren con desechos tóxicos nucleares.
What is the current state of the occupy movement and where is it headed? Since November police and city governments have raided and destroyed encampments, arrested and prosecuted occupiers, and more often than not successfully prevented the reoccupation of public spaces. In this light it’s become commonplace to say that a fundamental shift has taken place in the movement. Adbusters, for example, published a statement saying that OWS should call it a victory and withdraw, at least for the time being in order to plan for the spring—“phase one” had ended, and “phase two” was beginning. There is something useful about the idea of phases, of identifying this hinge or turning point—for example, it lets us differentiate in broad, tactical terms between the occupation of public or semi-public space on one hand and the occupation of private or “ambiguous” space on the other. But in other ways the distinction is problematic. It relegates the struggles that inspired and created the conditions in which OWS was possible to a sort of pre-history, a “phase zero”—insurrections like the argentinazo that we heard about earlier in the show, not to mention Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Greece, as well as, closer to home, the student movement and the struggle around justice for Oscar Grant. Also, it makes it hard to see the proliferation of diverse tactics that have already been used in occupies around the country, as well as the subtle and not so subtle differences with regard to the varying conditions in which each occupy constitutes itself as a force. By zooming in on the Bay Area and looking at some of the occupy experiences here we’re hoping to sketch out a more nuanced view of this transition point.