The Spanish Revolt: defying the crisis from below

We can certainly affirm that the Network has built up the structure of the organization since the very first days of the 15M. Although it remained essential, it has been in a hybrid way, because the place where people took decisions was on the street, in the assemblies, occupying public spaces (the network speeded and complemented the physical work). The movement has given a radical importance to the physical presence in the public space. The task of redefinition of the public space has become central. This centrality counteracts a number of dangers which go together with the use of new technologies in a postmodern context[17]. We will quote some of them:

a) The insistence on the need to occupy public space bodily is a blow against the virtual fetishism of the “networks revolutionary.” We can define this type of “fetishism” as the expression of discomfort and critical opinion only by virtual means, taking these means as “the real” space of protests.(This limited attitude can be seen as an expressionof neoliberal individual, “free” of all social ties. He feels himself “free” when he can express himself or consume intense experiences infinitely (the networks!) but its real power –material power– is amputee).

b) The new utopianism that understands new technologies, by themselves, as “the way” of liberation.

c) The impossible rhythm of the networks. The time of the social movements is more related with “the time of the bodies” because, as Guillermo Zapata[18] has noted, networks “never close” (stream communication), they have a “digital time” that is constantly running, and it’s impossible for our bodies to operate in a “digital rhythm”.

Finally we would like to discuss the concept of “informative guerrilla” which has been proposed by Umberto Eco[19]. According to this semiologist, the answer to the increasing concentration of the media is not to conquest “the winter palace” of the Media; we have to develop a decentralized guerrilla war, which conquers the receiver and not just the message channel. But we could say that no one guarantees us the old battlefield will lose its importance because we want it. This means: if we forget a statewide Project of communication, democratized and under popular control, maybe we are relying too much on the spontaneity of a “consciousness change”.

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