Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The popular assemblies are (re)born!


In many districts of Athens and the rest of the Greek territory, the open assemblies are rapidly spreading, a practice that has timidly emerged in 2003, and was expanded in some neighborhoods after the events of the December of 2008. The daily presence of thousands of people in Syntagma Square in Athens and most important, the realization of the daily popular assembly, despite its presumed contradictions, have brought to the table the concept of public space, in the proper discussion over civic issues, namely the political issues. Thousands of people so far become self-organized, or stop by the squares of their cities, trying to form an alternative, horizontal way of communication and another way to resolve the problems of everyday life. The support and the outgrowth of other similar assemblies of direct democracy, towards the direction of reinforcing, not only the concept of the dual power but also the foundation of a new society within the society itself, is the fundamental goal these days. The radicalization of such a movement of direct democracy is possible- the people who participate in it will indicate it, if and whenever they want to- only if we participate actively now in all these processes that today it is impossible for all the political authorities to manipulate.