Catalunya - Arnau Montserrat

Interview Details

• Region: Europe - Catalunya
• Language: English
• Interviewee: Arnau Montserrat
• Interviewers: Terry Dunne & Mags Liddy
• Date: 2017
• PGA Affiliation: Movimenta de Resistência Global
• Bio: Arnau Montserrat - I am nurtured, in many ways, by the Vall de Can Masdeu, community eco-social territory wedged between the district of Nou Barris and the Collserola mountains surrounding Barcelona, where I coordinate part of its gardens and I raise a son who I love. I also run the blog Remenat and the workshop series Mans a la Terra around agroecology, health DY and climate transition, with which I have the perfect excuse to visit the different Ruralitzem projects, a network where they also let me give free rein to my obssessions, like restoring a century-old raft in the valley, reintroducing the scratching goat in our around the city, or resuscitating the abandoned Sant Llàtzer hospital next to Can Masdeu. And I spend my good times as a consultant on municipal food policies or for agroecological projects, sometimes in the neighborhoods, other times, in the countryside. Ah, when I can, I dance, and even have the nerve to teach how.
  Arnau is the author of the book, Nos sobran las ideas Propuestario para una transición ecosocial.
• Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zagxxncmriu7cvr9um5xh/PGA-Catalunya-1-Arnau-Montserrat.docx?dl=0&rlkey=z1cl9yixoy5kgpjzmu0w5mwhg

Transcript

Arnau Montserrat: I’m pretty sure that I was there as a delegate or representative of MRG [Movement for Global Resistance] but I’m not totally sure maybe Enric has a better memory from that, but I think it was a formal relationship between MRG and PGA and not only personal level. Anyway, everything is also personal because with this kind of thing; at the end of the day, it works because some people are really willing and putting energy in, and we were into that coordinating efforts and being inspired.

Mags Liddy: Yes OK so being inspired and coordinating efforts around the Global Days of Action?

Arnau Montserrat: Yeah because at this point, it was the common field, no? Basically, that was what was stimulating the action. The wish, it is important, no, the desire, the passion! I think we did not have a really accurate political analysis. It was really based on action, and PGA was a good space for that. It was similar to us, and we worked together in order to make action, because we have this shared anti-capitalist perspective, one that is critical of capitalist globalisation. We wanted to do something, and we were inspired, especially by Seattle, and by some people in Geneva and other things like this. Before, in my case, I only knew Seattle, and I had to do something.

Sometimes I felt that the political analysis was a bit weak. Because if you have a plan then you can see that you achieved some points of this plan, but it’s more like, “We want we everything! We wanna fight for it and we don’t want too much representation, or representation at all!” It was like this, and PGA was not, nor were any other similar space like the Global Social Forum, there were no spaces at the end which represented people involved in the struggles beyond that struggle itself, beyond that moment of climax. It was a bit more about co-ordinating, self-learning spaces, learning from each other, really horizontal, really inspiring in many senses, but with some weakness I think in terms of political space. But it was probably necessary because coming from the old left it was really so refreshing. But it was quite anarchic, too!

Mags Liddy: So it was refreshing, it was inspiring, but it had some weaknesses?

Arnau Montserrat: For me it was like, maybe not just PGA because the organizing was more really really a lot of work related to action, direct action, it was already really a lot of logistics and many things like this. The Global Social Form even being less anarchist or less radical could have taken some more representative role. I can be quite libertarian and anarchist, but in spite of that, I don’t believe that we can be without big trade unions and big. . .even political parties but especially trade unions or ways of mutual organisation that are working at a global level with a clear agenda where many, many alliances and many different political visions share a common space and set a global agenda.

I think we have that but always with specific agendas. We have the one against the mines, or for nuclear weapons, or for some specific campaigns that are really focused on a topic. But we don’t have this political space at a global level; and the corporations and the way they organise themselves through different forums and through different global organisations they’ve got it. I mean they struggle with each other, they have inter-capitalist wars, they have all this shit, and they have different interests and the capitalism from Turkey is not the same as from Brazil and Russia against the States, but I think that their level of co-ordination is much higher than ours.

For me, something that is really inspiring is Via Campesina. I know it is only about agro-ecology and not about all the topics, but I think it is a really interesting space. They organise action, they co-ordinate, they create spaces, but somehow they act like a global farmer trade union, with a really radical view. I think that for me is really interesting, and we should have done something similar to that and we didn’t. That’s what I mean when I say weakness.

But at the same time, there are plenty of things to do at the local level so probably the reason is that we are overwhelmed with local struggles, national levels, European levels, and specific targets. You can spend your whole life just working with one single issue, and then you have to co-ordinate on a global level. It is much easier to go to a Social Forum and get inspired from meeting people, and then go home. That’s already much more than all your neighbors and friends do. . . .

Mags Liddy: I wonder if it is also, you said, the lack of political analysis?

Arnau Montserrat: Maybe also, I don’t know, There was a lot of reactivity against the old politics, against old left politics. Now we are gonna do everything horizontal; we are gonna do everything by direct action; we are gonna be delegating as little as possible; we are gonna do it ourselves; we are gonna organise mutual aid. And then when you do that, when you have this philosophy, it is much easier to do this kind of work on a local level than a global level because that means aeroplanes all the time, it means a way of life that is not really what you want on a personal level but also on a political level. It causes a lot of impact. This idea of having a global perspective but having a local action; I think that was really intense. Even while we were into the anti-globalisation movement, moving from city to city to counter-summit to counter-summit; even then, that was glamourous and exciting and funny and formative and so even at this time everyone was talking about “local action,” “local action,” “local action” and this is what we did too.

Terry Dunne: So are you saying that the involvement in global protest inspired people into more local action?

Arnau Montserrat: Yeah, for me the two moments which are so clear in Barcelona, and that I know the most, are the anti-globalisation movement from 1999 to 2003; and the Indignados movement from 2011-12. Those were so clear. You go for a big thing and then people spread, and de-centralise into many local struggles. In the case of Indignados it was other revolutions. In the case of the anti-globalisation movement, maybe because of this lack of an agenda or maybe because of too ambitious an agenda (destroying corporate power all over the world is maybe more ambitious than changing the right-wing government in Spain?) No, that is already really difficult, but it’s different.) We had a super ambitious programme, and maybe that is another reason why there was this move to the local. Many people get involved into the local thing and then there was not that much energy. Because maybe you can think, “I’m getting older, maybe I have kids, my local projects are growing, I have to focus energy there…” But then other younger people could be involved in the global movement? But I didn’t see that.

After 2006 until 2016 the global struggles have been a bit less. I mean it exists but it has been a little less, it has had less impact on public debate, and has been I think less attractive for many young activists. So the actions, the climate actions for example, maybe are an exception, because those have been really powerful. Copenhagen, and also with this coal mine in Germany. All this I think is more similar to what we believe as direct action, global action, activists from all over Europe. In that case, that is more similar, but other counter-summits that have been recently seem to have less impact.

The first years of the anti-globalisation movement had a huge impact I guess and PGA was quite important, because they were at the right moment and the right place. We can say it like this, they ride the horse, but they create the horse also. I think they got some ideas that were really visionary and they created the basis for many things, not only PGA people but PGA people and friends. At the same time, it was the moment; for that it was the right place at the right moment.

Terry Dunne: What legacy, or influence do you think that movements like MRG had on the situation here after 2008, after the crash, in what ways did the spirit of MRG continue after the end of the actual organisation?

Arnau Montserrat: It was some things, like one is a more libertarian and horizontal and non-hierarchal political culture, a way of organising, ways of facilitating, ways of making decisions. So that’s one thing really clear, I mean Spain has long had anarchist goals, with the civil war, powerful movements. There has always been this kind of culture, but nothing like now. We are in a really good moment in that sense. Another thing of course is all the local experience, all the local struggles, even projects or struggles, campaigns or networks, newspapers, communication in general. All these people and groups and projects that are the outcome of the anti-globalisation movement on a local scale.

Another legacy is the feeling of being increasingly critical with the way that Europe has been built on a really capitalist basis. Sorry for my simple vocabulary; but the way that Europe was organised. Because here, there were few criticisms about the European building process. But here the E.U. was celebrated and was seen as a step-forward as more social and more progressive and even in some aspects it was, for example in ecological aspects, clearly it was better than Spain. But as we can now see clearly, it is organised for German Banks and Euro dominance and for corporate Europe and at that time it was not that clear.

I remember one of the cornerstones in that process was a demonstration that was here in 2002, against the European Union of Capital, that was the name of the demonstration, against the Europe of Capital, and there were massive amounts of people, like 300,000 people marching in Barcelona. Like this is not black bloc and pink bloc, this is much bigger. And it was not even an important moment, because it was a European summit. It was not the World Bank or the WTO, but at this point it was also a way of protesting against the right-wing government. It was not only the European Union, but it was so significant anyway because two things happened. One, the political parties and the big trade unions went at the back of the march for the first time in forty-years. They were behind the people, hiding, not like leading. Another point is that people were marching against the “Europe of Capital,” and at this time it was super radical, so that’s another legacy. I don’t know of other places in Europe but I think clearly we succeeded in relating both things, and one of the ways we succeeded is that we didn’t only go to WTO, World Bank, G-8 meetings but we went also to the European Union meetings and it was a way of connecting both processes of corporate dominance all over the world through to different institutions.

I think it was important in that way of organising people on a global scale. For example, in the famous year of 1968, there were people moving all over the world, from Paris, and Mexico, wherever, and sharing visions. And they were Maoist or they were Guevarist or . . . I mean they were clearly inspired by a global agenda but it seems that, maybe because of technological reasons or transport reasons or whatever, there was a mutual inspiration all over the world and the people that were taking action, international action, seemed to be more like, we are gonna help people in their own struggle, like people here went to Nicaragua and some people even went to the guerrillas. Irish people went to the civil war and fought for the Republic, people were supporting other struggles, but the idea that you have a battle in a place, and that this battle is not for that city or that country but is just a theatre of a global struggle. When you go to Prague, you were not fighting for the Czech Republic, you were fighting against the corporate power in Prague and two months later you were doing the same thing in London or after that in Prague again. And that’s interesting, this way of using that super-connectivity of the world, the world becoming smaller, not only for moving money, but also for moving activists.

Mags Liddy: And also for moving ideas

Arnau Montserrat: Exactly.

Terry Dunne: I noticed a couple of things you don’t mention as a legacy, maybe you don’t see them as a legacy, but does the horizontal and non-hierarchal political culture live on within the groups that come from that tradition that are now standing for election or has that been a switch, I mean like your mayor and . . .

Arnau Montserrat: O.K. that’s interesting. I didn’t say this because I don’t think this is a legacy from the anti-globalisation movement; This is a legacy from the Indignados movement but the Indignados movement is in a way a legacy of the anti-globalisation movement. You see the hot points in Spain, in Catalonia especially, has been the transition, after that was almost revolutionary, ’75, from ’70 to ’77 or ’78. Another hotpoint is the anti-globalisation movement, another . . . you can imagine that the Olympic games here in 1992, it was quite a big consensus. The only thing that moves the country in a more left or progressive way was all the struggles related to labour. All the other things in the agenda were so alternative and little, and when the anti-globalisation movement came, a lot of these things grew a lot, not only the anti-globalisation movement. It started maybe one or two years before but with some local struggles that are of no interest for your work.

Terry Dunne: Maybe it does?

Arnau Montserrat: Yeah, maybe, for example there was a big kinda counter-summit here against the Army march. Yeah, the Army organised a march here every year, the Spanish Army but it was not because of being independent-ist at this time, maybe for some people, but for most of the people it was for being anti-militarist. There was always some protest, but then now we are 500 people, now we are 1,000 people.

Then there was another thing camping for more money for aid for the Third World, a reformist agenda, but it was growing and growing and growing, with many people camping in cities in Catalonia, in cities all over Spain, and that was 2 years before Seattle and that was growing and growing a lot, no four years before Seattle, but it was a kind of awakening from, after the Olympic Games, y’know 95/96 and then it never stopped actually because after the anti-globalisation movement from 2004 to 2011, it was also the movement for housing. Here that was really strong and still is quite strong, so it really never stopped, it is something that comes from these years, from ’95 and ’96, and in a way has been growing, but with the anti-globalisation movement we have a peak, and with the Indignados we have another peak, a huge . . . a bigger peak I guess. Because I was a protagonist of the anti-globalisation movement and because of egocentric nature of humans I say ‘yeah it was so important’ and I recognise it was so important for me, but if I see society, for example this march against the Europe of Capital. It was super big, but the day after, nobody was holding the agenda against this Europe. it was inspiring but it was not articulating. But it is not the same with the Indignados. After the Indignados many things really articulate, not only political parties, many other things, so that is I think a really important moment. In Madrid, for example, they still have many active assemblies, like five years after, neighbourhood assemblies. In Barcelona, not so much because there are more experiences, previous experiences and they merge, or because there are neighbourhood assemblies also, they call like this, and it’s not Indignados, but it doesn’t matter the name. So more or less like this it’s been refreshed and reinvented thanks to Indignados movement. But then the legacy of Indignados, one of the legacies, one of the most important legacies is the political party and the ways of organising that are less horizontal and less anti-hierarchal. We see that as a weakness or we see that as we are showing our cleverness or we are showing our weakness. What I see is that it opens many possibilities that were not possible before. For example being in a city council like Barcelona and promoting a confrontation with many real estate companies, promoting a new tourist economy, basically putting limits to the tourism and promoting for example all these changes with mobility and transportation in the city. Always in a way it’s not enough for the activists, of course it’s like this, but you can do things that before you couldn’t. Like getting money for developing interesting plans. But it expresses institutional power, it expresses as Gramsci would say, that you went many steps forward in terms of cultural hegemony, but at the same time in order to have more impact into society, society also impacts more on you.

One of the things that defines society is the big scale and this is quite difficult for us to accept as we are quite anarchist and quite focused on the local. We promote communitarian relationships and that we feel we have power here. This is important, and then you go to this big scale and things are much more different, delegation is unavoidable, and in is fact necessary. You see in Indignados, the squares, the assemblies, were crap y’know? They were a disaster, first, basically because people don’t have a facilitation and a culture, and second it was 5,000 people in the smaller assembly.Like this you cannot do that. So this big scale changes a lot of this horizontal culture, and with Podemos even more, because it is at the level of Spain.

Terry Dunne: So there was something from the experience of Indignados, because of the scale of it, there was a shift away from the assembly model of organising to a delegation model of organising and if you could speak to what is the relationship with, I’ll just say the new parties, as there is one in Madrid, there is one in Bilbao and so on.

Arnau Montserrat: Well one the more interesting new political parties is old —the CUP

Terry Dunne: Yes, the left-nationalists . . .

Arnau Montserrat: So not only new, the Barcelona en Comú is governing in alliance with the Communist Party, the old Communist Party, who are super old.

Terry Dunne: I didn’t realise that, so what is their relationship to the continuing neighborhood assemblies and what is their relationship to movements today while they’re in government?

Arnau Montserrat: The relationship is really different in Podemos than in the city councils because in the city councils you have real power. Podemos has a lot of power, but it is more like a big trade union, you influence a lot but you are not, (well it depends on the country, but normally you are not) inside the board of the company. (In Germany trade unions participate on the board, but not normally here). Podemos is normally in opposition so it is a different role, but when Podemos, the CUP, Barcelona en Comú, have institutional power, (which is happening in many places in Spain now), it is sometimes in the worst position, (that is as a strong minority). You are in power, and people see you as being in power, but in an assembly you have only 11 seats of 40, so it is not enough. It is not a majority, you have to always be doing alliances for any decision. So that’s complicated, but the way they are relating, it depends. The way they try to operate is, you tell me what you want and I try to get as much as I can on that institutional level, (in that case in Barcelona city council). But let’s be clear, this level is not everything you need or everything you are asking, so we have to work in a team, and we have to be related to Podemos, because maybe in Spain they can affect the laws. We have to be related to all these movements in Europe because maybe they can affect them. We have to be related to social movements because without street action pressure nothing will happen. We have to be related with trade unions, we have to be related in Barcelona, and this is really important here. With the neighbourhood associations there is a federation which is quite powerful and really progressive and so we have to be related to the neighbours so they become more active and participate in the process.

This is the plan, but in reality what happens is some movements are less strong than before because some activists went into the institutions or because the people feel that things are more or less being well done, so it is not necessary that they are there. Other movements are not like that at all; they are stronger than before. For example, the movement against the tourist model. Because clearly the situation is getting worse, and also because of increasing housing prices. People were organising on all this and it is merging and this is quite strong now.

And people are saying, “oh you are doing nice things,” and “you are not doing enough,” and the people say “no because we don’t have the laws which allow us to do what we want to do.” And it’s true, so it is an interesting process for me that everybody is maturing at a political level, understanding the complexity and being more clever than before in order to use complexity in your favour and in order to become broader, and less like small activist groups but having to have a constant dialogue with the whole society.

I think this is really what it should be, but at the same time it is super-frustrating. Often in Spain where the city, the municipal level, has been historically under the control of the state. Really a lot; like you got this new law from four years ago, just before we won all these city councils, that doesn’t allow the city councils to have any new workers, new employees.

So you wanna do new things, but you don’t have new employees. So you have to do new things and more ambitious policies, and take back some private public services. All these things that people want you to do but you can’t because of laws or because you can’t contract new people or because you are 11 seats amongst 40, or because of other things like this. And sometimes you think, we are spending too much time within institutions and it would be better to promote more self-organisation outside the institutions. This is a good question, no? I think on a municipal level it is worth it, but on a state level it is difficult to say honestly for me because you see all these people, all these new activists really focused on Podemos, but at the same time I don’t see this increasing the level of self-organisation in society. Maybe I’m not being fair? Maybe it is happening, everything at the same time. The question is, one thing affects the other, self-organisation, for example, the social economy is growing a lot in Catalonia, the self-organisation, for example it could be a squatted social centre or could be a co-operative, whatever, but all this self-organisation is mutually synergical and mutually reinforcing with the institutional power or the other way around. That is the question, and I don’t have an answer, no, I need more perspective, maybe in ten years I can tell you!

Terry Dunne: Just for clarity there, the new parties on a municipal, local level, you spoke about how they speak to movements, and neighbourhood assemblies, yeah?, when they speak to the general public are they very clear about saying yeah ‘vote for us but also organise’, very clear?

Arnau Montserrat: Yeah on a theoretical level, we are on a good level. Even more with Barcelona en Comú than with Podemos but both are quite interesting and the CUP is even more interesting.

Terry Dunne: So they are very clear, voting for them is not the solution, and are they able to stop to a degree when people are not able to pay their mortgage, when the bank takes the house back?

Arnau Montserrat: They can do many things, they can increase the level of public housing, because of the last twenty years. They can put fines on companies to discourage that way of acting. They can make agreements, often the agreements are coming from the same little organisations, the PaH [Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca] or even the people who live in the houses. They can make agreements with the banks, and sometimes the institutions, the Barcelona city council, has a role in that negotiation or being a facilitator or being a holder – the one that finally gets the use of the house, some houses go to the municipality or some stay private but with an agreement that is more socially progressive and that both sides agree.

Terry Dunne: So it becomes a council house, the council pays the bank and you pay rent?

Arnau Montserrat: I don’t know exactly, I don’t know the details but there are different levels of socialization. Honestly they intervene a lot but the tools they have are really poor.