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24th May 2007, 18:12
The dozen or so occupied factories that existed at the start of the 2001 rebellion grew in only two years to include hundreds of workplaces, taken over and run by workers, without bosses or hierarchy. Almost every workplace sees itself as an integral part of the community, and the community sees the workplace in the same way. As the workers of Zanon, a ceramic factory say, “Zanon is of the people.”
Workplaces range from printing presses and metal shops to medical clinics, from cookie, shoe, and balloon factories to a four-star hotel and a daily newspaper. Participants in the recuperated workplaces say that what they are doing is not very complicated, despite the challenges, quoting the slogan: “Occupy, Resist, and Produce.” Autogestion is how most in the recuperated movements describe what they are creating and how.
This movement continues to grow and gather support throughout Argentina, despite threats of eviction. So far, each threat has been met with mobilization by neighbors and various collectives and assemblies to thwart the government’s efforts. In the example of Chilavert, a printing press, the retirement home across the street came out and not only defended the factory from the police, but insisted on being the front line of defense. The recuperations are hugely popular, and many outside the movements explain them quite simply, saying that there is a lack of work and these people want to work.
Over time, recuperated workplaces have begun to link with one another, creating barter relationships for their products, and collective links to the global workplace. For example, a medical clinic will service members of a printing factory in exchange for the free printing of their material. This has happened on a global level, as well.
New Movements Internationally
While movements of such rapid growth, diversity, and popularity are not unprecedented, the most significant innovation in Argentina may be that disparate groups are creating global networks of exchange and communication. Argentine movements have made significant connections to the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) in Brazil, with each sharing experiences and strategies for land take-overs, forms of traditional medicine, and tools for democratic practice.
The Zapatistas have also consistently engaged in exchanges. Since the 2001 rebellion, a number of people from unemployed workers movements have been invited by the Zapatistas to spend time in the autonomous communities in Chiapas, exchanging ideas and experiences. Despite limited resources, dialogue between various movements has been long and varied.
During the past three years in Buenos Aires, autonomous movements have held an annual gathering called Enero Autonomo (Autonomous January). Groups came from all over Latin America, including Mujeres Creando from Bolivia, and autonomous groups from Brazil. Participants also included various collectives and community-based organizations from Europe and the United States. This linking process has gained momentum over the past few years, and all signs indicate that this growth is accelerating.
Horizontalidad and direct democracy are important models for building a new society, one basis for which is the creation of loving and trusting spaces. From this space of trust and love, using the tools of horizontalidad, a new person—who is a protagonist in her or his own life—begins to take shape. This is not random, it is a conscious process of social creation. Women, in particular, have created new roles for themselves. Based on this new individual protagonist, a new collective protagonism appears, which changes the sense of the individual, and then the sense of the collective. From this relationship arises the need for new ways of speaking, a new language.
Ideas and relationships cannot occur in a vacuum. They take place in real places, in “territories” that are liberated from hierarchical structures, and involve real people. These territories are laboratories of social creation. The new movements in Argentina are examples of these laboratories.
Marina Sitrin is a writer, teacher, student, dreamer, and self-described militant, who has participated in numerous anti-capitalist and visionary movements and groups. She is working on a new book, Insurgent Democracies: Latin America’s New Powers (Citylights Press, 2007).
This article is based on the Introduction to Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina (AK Press, 2006), a collection of first-person narratives of the people who lived through, and created, the events recounted here. Horizontalism was published first in Spanish by Chilavert, a recuperated print house in Argentina.
More at http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?...070523074036151 (http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070523074036151)
Workplaces range from printing presses and metal shops to medical clinics, from cookie, shoe, and balloon factories to a four-star hotel and a daily newspaper. Participants in the recuperated workplaces say that what they are doing is not very complicated, despite the challenges, quoting the slogan: “Occupy, Resist, and Produce.” Autogestion is how most in the recuperated movements describe what they are creating and how.
This movement continues to grow and gather support throughout Argentina, despite threats of eviction. So far, each threat has been met with mobilization by neighbors and various collectives and assemblies to thwart the government’s efforts. In the example of Chilavert, a printing press, the retirement home across the street came out and not only defended the factory from the police, but insisted on being the front line of defense. The recuperations are hugely popular, and many outside the movements explain them quite simply, saying that there is a lack of work and these people want to work.
Over time, recuperated workplaces have begun to link with one another, creating barter relationships for their products, and collective links to the global workplace. For example, a medical clinic will service members of a printing factory in exchange for the free printing of their material. This has happened on a global level, as well.
New Movements Internationally
While movements of such rapid growth, diversity, and popularity are not unprecedented, the most significant innovation in Argentina may be that disparate groups are creating global networks of exchange and communication. Argentine movements have made significant connections to the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) in Brazil, with each sharing experiences and strategies for land take-overs, forms of traditional medicine, and tools for democratic practice.
The Zapatistas have also consistently engaged in exchanges. Since the 2001 rebellion, a number of people from unemployed workers movements have been invited by the Zapatistas to spend time in the autonomous communities in Chiapas, exchanging ideas and experiences. Despite limited resources, dialogue between various movements has been long and varied.
During the past three years in Buenos Aires, autonomous movements have held an annual gathering called Enero Autonomo (Autonomous January). Groups came from all over Latin America, including Mujeres Creando from Bolivia, and autonomous groups from Brazil. Participants also included various collectives and community-based organizations from Europe and the United States. This linking process has gained momentum over the past few years, and all signs indicate that this growth is accelerating.
Horizontalidad and direct democracy are important models for building a new society, one basis for which is the creation of loving and trusting spaces. From this space of trust and love, using the tools of horizontalidad, a new person—who is a protagonist in her or his own life—begins to take shape. This is not random, it is a conscious process of social creation. Women, in particular, have created new roles for themselves. Based on this new individual protagonist, a new collective protagonism appears, which changes the sense of the individual, and then the sense of the collective. From this relationship arises the need for new ways of speaking, a new language.
Ideas and relationships cannot occur in a vacuum. They take place in real places, in “territories” that are liberated from hierarchical structures, and involve real people. These territories are laboratories of social creation. The new movements in Argentina are examples of these laboratories.
Marina Sitrin is a writer, teacher, student, dreamer, and self-described militant, who has participated in numerous anti-capitalist and visionary movements and groups. She is working on a new book, Insurgent Democracies: Latin America’s New Powers (Citylights Press, 2007).
This article is based on the Introduction to Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina (AK Press, 2006), a collection of first-person narratives of the people who lived through, and created, the events recounted here. Horizontalism was published first in Spanish by Chilavert, a recuperated print house in Argentina.
More at http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?...070523074036151 (http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070523074036151)