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This all thing is a path,
it's something we can decide, and start to build,
step by step. And even if it's slow,
even if it's absolutely not easy -it takes a lot of time and thinking
to decide these things, to lay it down-
this is the beginning of something bigger.
About the indignados ?
I think those are people fighting for a good cause,
maybe a little idealistically,
but it's their right to fight for a fairer Europe.
This is justifiable, and I find it very good.
I believe deeply in vibrations.
Each of you experimented that or googled it.
A Japanese man even underline the fact that
when you make a glass of water listen to
some Hitler speeches or classical music,
The shape of water molecules are different.
If I had time, maybe I would join them and march.
This is a way of showing one's disagreement,
so I encourage them, even if
we have to follow the society.
I don't feel...
The idea of this movement -the indignados-,
What bothers me is the label people are gonna put on it,
and for uninformed people,
it will be the label of young hippies who don't want to work,
and have nothing else to do and so on...
even though it's completely different.
This is about people becoming aware of something,
and they want to walk and act together.
Maybe it will be very slow,
it won't happen overnight,
but something is being set up,
a dynamic is creating
and this is a big source of hope.
Just this thing
is already a victory.
Gestures enable us to feel
the intentions of the crowd. We can know if people agree,
which catch phrase will have an effect on them,
which words reach them or not.
Most of the time, people agree
or say nothing, but never make gestures like...
We rarely see that gesture
but we see this one, which means "technical problem"
and this one too, because people feel like talking, and talk much.
The German protest march arrives in ten minutes,
I guess you want to welcome them.
If I were 20, I would join them.
I think it's good, it is the expression of democracy,
and it's important for people to make themselves heard.
I also would like to say that I live in the area and I found that
their arrival was very well managed.
They wanted to stay in the park, but the magistrate (mayor) didn't want to.
But when the weather is that bad, how can anyone sleep outside ?
So it's a good thing the building next door was put at their disposal.
I think there are always more people coming.
I find it very cool, really, i like it very much.
I heard some of their demands, about the closing down of reception camp for homeless people,
about refugees being driven out
and I also heard things about money being send all over the world,
while the average man never catch a glimpse of it.
Yeah, I feel things discussed here are related to obvious social inequality
being toughly questioned and... yeah !
This is approximately what I know about that.
We should take the microphone, just in case...
So, I am from Brussels, I was born in Brussels,
and when i heard the indignados were arriving on saturday night
the weather was awful, and when i heard the indignados were arriving on saturday night
the weather was awful,
but I decided to come all the same to meet them.
These people have walked thousands of kilometers,
and obviously we had to be sure they would be warmly welcomed.
I was very surprised to find a hundred people there, as well as the media.
A happy coincidence made that the building of the old university was completely empty so they settled there.
I had decided to bring boots, I succeeded in gathering fifteen pairs of boots
I brought them the next day or the following...
Here I got food.
They want to set up a secondhand clothes shop
so in this bag I also brought nice clothes, coats and so on...
This vehicle is also used for other things,
For now we're waiting for 11/11/11
We are in 2011
And of cours, the 11/11/11 action is traditional between North and South.
It must be unforgettable.
11/11/11 is almost a magic date !
I personally decided to gather two hundred cycles and to send them to Burkina Faso.
otherwise, I think their destiny would have know a dreadful fate...
because it's said that in Belgium, a hundred bikes are thrown out every week.
Belgium really is the country of wasting,
in my village, five or six bikes each week...
So I placed a classified ad and people reacted very enthusiastically !
But unfortunately, my town, Hoeilaart, which is ruled by Flemish Liberals,
doesn't participate.
This is the biggest carrier-tricycle in Europe !
In front, you've got some space, just the size of a bed,
1m by 1m75
and in the back you've got a camping-bike.
We can go camping and make 30 km with 4 car batteries in series.
It works really fine, let me show you !
Here is the switch,
I can go in forward gear
or in reverse gear.
It's very nice, I can go from Hoeilaart to Brussels and from Brussels to Hoeilaart
-which is about 30 km- whitout being tired.
It weighs almost 200 kilos !
Plus me, it makes 260 kilos.
You were asking me about feminism among the indignados.
It's not something obvious
I believe that the indignados aren't aware enough of structural inequality
between men and women,
and it gave us a reason
ˆto organize a talk in front of the station
where we analyzed the repercussion
of the national debt on women.
Here is a very concrete example :
National debt means less public spending, instead of taxing rich people
-but that's another story-
and so less nurseries.
As women usually look after children the most,
they can't work as much as before, and become more financially dependent.
Eventually, the social state, which used to offer public services, become a state which doesn't satisfy requirements.
Women have to take back roles of the state.
Like educating the children, or looking after old people.
The social state live it up to a social mother
and it becomes : mother a hundred percent, state zero percent.
This is something we talked about much in our discussion.
For example, cuts in public expenses
Belgium is asked to reduce from 22 billion €
its budget
and it will of course affect women :
There will be less actions against wife-beating,
less nurseries, more insecure jobs, and so on
What is said about debt and belt-tightening isn't only about capitalism,
but also about patriarchy.
We have a slogan : we give birth, we cook, we wash, we educate the children,
and they decide.
This is to say, the patriarchal power
is that very masculine power
embodied by politicians, bankers, multinational companies...
Here we are at the information point of the old university, where we were put
Our purpose is to welcome people,
show them the way to working groups and meetings.
We also are the lost property office,
and supply toilet paper, everything for community living
What can I say...
The equipment was found here
or brought by people to help us.
We were in a Dexia bank to do a small demonstration
affixing flyers at windows, thirty people
very very quiet.
The police arrived and we started to leave.
this police man, with white hair, who now is under detention,
started arresting persons, gently at the beginning, then more violently.
So he arrested me too, blocking my hands behind my back, pushing me on the floor
He kicked me in the face and just after, when I was still laying on the floor, he gave me a really strong punch...
These are the facts I have seen.
What he did is not the most important for me.
Mostly it was the police's action.
I know many cases of police violence worst than mine,
but with no cameras, videos, or publicity, the justice does nothing.
For this I don't like police insincerity
When today, the policeman was arrested
everybody told me it's something uncommon to the police, it's something terrible.
and they are going to prevent it.
The police hypocrisy pissed me off.
The message I'd like to give people is that police repression is getting worst everyday but we decided to keep fighting
Tomorrow, for example, at the 15 october protest, we'll be the first in line,
we are going to participate because we don't care about the police
Have you other questions ?
The media center
is like the meeting point
between this building and the rest of the world.
It has to spread the information about what is going on here,
they communicate, on the internet
on big media, online, independent media.
This is mainly communication,
but also the only place were we've got a lot of computer.
For translations or when we need to print something,
we come to the media center
About the question of media,
I was at the first general assembly of the European indignados, at the old university
on the 9th of October, 2011
The lecture hall was jam-packed and our first general assembly was about to be held,
and a journalist from television, a Spanish one I think
asked the permission to film, so we opened the debate :
Have the media the right to film ?
What kind of Spanish media was it ?
I can't remember, at some point someone asked if the channel belonged
Berlusconi -he owns Mediaset, a private communication group which owns itself "telecinco" and "cuatro".
So it wasn't an independent media.
I heard some people saying the media were manipulating us,
and so they think we shouldn't let them film our assembly
because they would select the images to deliver their own message
and distort the image of our movement.
On the other hand, people were saying our will is to draw public attention
We want always more people to join us
and broadcasting images on these mass media would enable to reach
different people, not the one we reach with our own media online.
So it was also a possibility to make our movement known more widely and to grow bigger.
These were the two antagonistic positions.
Someone said something interesting :
he said the media indeed manipulate and distort things,
but something from the movement always show through,
and showing the indignados
holding a general assembly is something quite significant.
This image had to be seen by the audience
because the few images they saw, for the time being,
were images of confrontation, police repression, and it scares people.
It's difficult to aks people to join us
if, to cut the story short, it is to be knocked by policemen.
I agree with that,
if we want to be a universal movement, we have to show every facet of it,
so that everybody can identify with us and join us.
Then we've got to think about how we want to be seen,
do we let the media film or not
It's obvious that in our system, media aren't independent
and are owned by private companies.
Media bosses are all mate with corrupt politicians.
This is what we call an oligarchy, and it's inner part of this system.
We also must put things in perspective, indeed there were cases of demonstrated effective manipulation
but it's not something systematic.
Here in Bayonne Sud-Ouest, a not-independent media, gave us a lot of media coverage.
It is a regional mass media
but there were journalists at Sud-Ouest who talked about the movement
in a very sympathizing way.
Still there is diversity among mass media
even if the media are not our purpose,
let's not forget...
So yeah, there is sometimes manipulation
but most of the time it is distortion.
It can't be avoided in the media, it's always about selecting,
choosing a way to tell things
and what we call our "own" media, like facebook or twitter
are absolutely not our media, but also privates groups
on which we have no control, in disagreement with freewares,
freewares which would be closer to our philosophy, sharing free knowledge
so i think we should change our system quickly,
and, why not, using these media. I agree as much with using Twitter and Facebook and with using mass media.
Another argument convinced me, someone said
"let them film and if they distort things
we'll have something to denounce this manipulation
if they make something good, well good for us,
and if they make something bad, let's use it"
I rather agree with this
Another argument was in direct concern to me
"we want to be a transparent movement", he said
and this is one of the things we need to be a democratic movement.
I really believe in it, I think that
if only for the symbol, preventing the media to film an assembly
would be a bad message to deliver.
We should take the risk of seeing our movement distorted, even if it means denouncing it later.
This is the army of the indignados !
I'd like to say that the movement of the indignados
enabled to gather many people
and I hope that soon, me and my fellow members
from all around the world, indignados or not,
will succeed in waking up the awareness of people
and show them we can live together in accordance with each other
without necessarily having a lot of money.
Human values are by far more important than money.
You can't eat money, but you can eat potatoes.
Food comes from different places.
There are some collection teams,
people canvassing, giving tractus at the exit of discount shops,
people who raise funds,
or even private individuals who come from time to time.
We stock food according to several criteria
and adapt menus on a day-to-day basis according to what we get.
Here is our stock of fresh produce, fruits and vegetables.
We have very good foodstuffs.
We are also helped by the city,
logistics who come to help us because we have small water leaks
and electricity issues, we have only one water inlet but they gave it to us, logistics who come to help us because we have small water leaks
and electricity issues, we have only one water inlet but they gave it to us,
and I want to say it because
some people motivate themselves from one day to the next
to help us cooking vegetables
and for three days we've been serving on average 400 places
and this is only on the evening,
and from 550 to 650 at noon and breakfast,
but among people who come, some have already eaten somewhere else.
To me food, and free food,
is a great way of organizing cohesion and conviviality.
It allow our speech not to be empty,
because people can with only a few means
get some rest, eat and regenerate.
Then, we organize actions,
and we feel more united once we shared something together.
I am the cook of the indignados from Bayonne, we came all the way from Bayonne and stopped off in Paris,
because there isn't any food banks.
I cam to Bruxelles as much to see what is going on and to participate,
and be there for my friends.
and there is much cooking work so I'm here to help.
Tonight we cooked a huge soup,
and I am making spaghetti bolognese with approximately six or seven kilos of onions.
We should have a good meal tonight !
On sert un peu *** ˆ cause du temps de prŽparation et de cuisson, donc voilˆ
Welcome to the indignados !
I am indignant first because I have children
and my children, who studied, aren't happy
though their job is the greatest job in the world, they are teachers,
and teaching nowadays has no answer,
neither to children who are taught,
nor to teachers themselves.
so I am indignant at that.
I am indignant because there are people living in the street,
I am indignant because there are children living in the street
and empty buildings that no authority will open
to give children a refuge
I am indignant because there are people, in other countries,
who are exploited, ill-treated, and Europe and some other organizations
send money to these governments, though the population suffer from abject poverty
and this money never is used for these people who need it the most.
To sum up, this is why I am here
and I will be indignant
until the world governs differently.
Turn back !