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Nelkenrevolution reloaded? Krise und soziale K채mpfe in Portugal
Extract in English (c) edition assemblage, 2013
Ismail Küpeli
Nelkenrevolution reloaded? Krise und soziale Kämpfe in Portugal Reihe: Systemfehler, Band 4 1. Auflage, 2013 ISBN 978-3-942885-27-0 © edition assemblage Postfach 27 46 D-48014 Münster info@edition-assemblage.de www.edition-assemblage.de /systemfehler/ Mitglied der Kooperation book:fair Mitglied der assoziation Linker Verlage (aLiVe) Umschlag: Markus Weiß, TYPOGO, Berlin Umschlagsreihengestaltung: Markus Weiß, TYPOGO, Berlin Lektorat: Andrea Strübe Satz: Cosima Mangold Druck: CPI Clausen & Bosse, Leck Printed in Germany 2013
The revolution of carnations reloaded? Crisis and social struggle in Portugal
W
e can draw some preliminary conclusions about the development of the protest movements in Portugal in 2011-2012.
First of all, it is difficult to foresee the way social movements start and continue to develop. It is astonishing how quickly protests are mobilized for, how structures and organisations develop and then lose relevance or even disappear in the shortest amount of time. The reasons and motifs for protest cannot simply be explained on the basis of material and objective conditions such as poverty and unemployment. At times they appear to be grounded in the subjective perception of one’s own conditions such as dignity and powerlessness. To that extent critical sociology has to tackle both the objective and subjective bases of social movements. Increasingly, traditional actors which mobilise opposition have lost in power and credibility. Parties and trade unions with their huge apparatuses and resources lag behind the selforganised and independent protest movements. When actors - such as the PCP - attempt to dominate mass movements these attempts are often unsuccessful. The fluidity of the independent mass movements is to no avail when people demonstrate and strike regularly but structures and networks rarely crystallise. Sustainable organisations are necessary so that mere routinized protests can become a real political power. On the other hand, mass movements could strengthen the already existing left opposition parties such as the PCP and BE. These could fight for political change inside of parliament. But that hasn’t happened either.
One should emphasise that regardless of the moderate balance sheet of social struggles in Portugal, the masses of people have learnt to articulate their political interests. They organise themselves against the basic political and economic crisis as well as the government’s self-destructive policies.
Conclusion: The revolution of carnations reloaded? Portugal experienced a number of political revolutions and regime changes throughout the last century: The monarchy which ruled the country for centuries was replaced by an instable republic in 1910. Only 16 years later a military coup replaced the Republic. Subsequently, the authoritarian Salazar regime continued the status quo by relying on the political and economic elites of the country. The Salazar dictatorship would prove itself to be one of the longest living dictatorships in Europe - despite various insurrectionary and opposition movements. The colonial wars in Angola and Mozambique took their toll in the 1960s. As a consequence, discontent with the regime grew inside of the military. This led to the formation of the clandestine MFA. The coup by the MFA in 1974 overthrew the dictatorship and ignited the revolution of carnations. The years following the revolution were determined by a dispute over the achievement of immediate goals: the end to the colonial wars and the introduction of democracy. Would that hail the end of the revolutionary process, or should a social revolution follow the political revolution? During a short ‘socialist’ phase big landowners were expropriated to the benefit of agricultural workers and many enterprises were nationalised. In the end, conservative and social democratic forces asserted themselves and Portugal drew closer toward a neoliberal Europe. The ‚socialist‘ measures were cast aside. In the 1980s Portugal was shaped by the neoliberal zeitgeist. The markets were liberalised and the nationalised industries privatised. The conservative
and social democratic governments concentrated on its export industries supported by the country’s low wages. The economic growth and financial support of the EMU led to higher prosperity in Portugal. That’s why Portugal remained politically dormant. Bigger protest movements didn’t occur. This tendency was reversed at the end of the 1990s last not but least because countries such as Turkey also banked on export industries with low labour costs. In many areas Portugal was forced out of the market. The collapse of economic growth went hand in hand with factory closures and downsizing. With vague hopes of economic recovery on a world scale the Portuguese state and its people indebted themselves. These hopes ended with the economic crisis in 2007. Cut off from further loans Portugal was forced to implement neoliberal austerity measures under the auspices of the Troika (EU Commission, ECB and IMF). Living costs increased and wages stagnated for the majority of people. People’s deteriorating conditions led to new protest movements against the austerity policies and the neoliberal EU. These new movements and its actors primarily mobilise young precarious workers. These form an important plank next to the traditional left opposition of PCP, BE and CGTP. Furthermore, the repertoires of contention of the social opposition have widened in scope. Next to demonstrations and strikes, there are occupations such as the Es.Col.A in Porto. People are radicalising not at least because of the growing confrontations between police and protesters. The current crisis and resistance against the hegemonic neoliberal policies in Portugal show how fragile the seemingly insurmountable political and economic structures are. Social movements can develop (and collapse) quickly. It is clear that social struggles can’t and won’t stop at a country’s border. For a while now, the economic processes have been networked on a European-wide level. No longer are politics ‘from above’ confined to the national arena. The internationalisation of social movements will (have to) follow suit - a process which has started in countries such as Portugal. Despite increased levels of social struggles it would be disingenuous to speak of ‚the revolution of carnations reloaded’.
Neither the traditional or newly formed left opposition parties have the power to bring down the government. Nor are the international power structures the same as in 1974. The overthrow of the Salazar dictatorship was welcomed across Europe back then. Today the European Union constructs and demands an anti-democratic and neoliberal policy package. Portugal doesn’t stand ahead of a re-run of the 1974 revolution. Instead the social movements (not only in Portugal) have the difficult task to break the neoliberal hegemony in Europe and halt the collapse of standards of living for wide sections of the population.
Voices from the social movements Gui Castro Falge (a) Tell us something about yourself: Whats your profession, do you have any kind of income? Or: How do you sustain your life? Do you observe a change in you personal situation since the crisis (of the last 4-5 years)? Me and other two out-of work architects are starting a walkingtours-agency, a greeters group of some sort, in Porto. It’s called the worst tours (theworsttours.weebly.com). I also do posters, designs and projects for a living. It seldom pays enough to get by. Finally, I’m trying now to make a part time of opening a tea-time coffeeshop in a bar in Porto that presently only opens during the nights... so: doodling, tours, tea and cake. (b) What are your political activities? How you get involved in this topics?Are you going to work in this fields in the future? Are you satisfied with your political work? I am or have been involved in several different groups and stuggles: In the last year I was involved on the organization of street protests in Porto. I help out at the community centers in my neighbourhood (es.col.a, casa viva), in the hope of helping to create real alternatives to the neo-liberal system - be it organizing to resist privatizations or evictions, helping with a free shop or facilitating assemblies. I’m in a leftwing party (Left’s Bloc) since 1999, was involved in my students union, in the architecture school, then in a group of architects stuggling with the absence of regulation in our profession and the restrictions imposed by its professional order.
I worry about counter-propaganda and the passing of the anti-austerity-anti-capitalist-ideas, and I’m very unsatisfied with the numbers of people protesting, and lack of activism and participation. It’s shocks me that, despite the total failure of the austerity politics and measures and the cycle of eternal debt we are in, the official propaganda manages to manages to lower the debate to only one point of view, that they ‘discuss’ as if it were two opinions, repeated ad nauseum on the media, desguised as ‘technical’, ‘neutral’ or ‘non-political’. I believe that either its politics, and therefore negotiation, and therefore, power/class struggles... or the There Is No Alternative crap. Either... or. that shock makes me react, and so I draw and try to caricaturize the situation, or make posters to help promote a demonstration, etc. (c) What are the most important aspects of the current crisis? What is the most striking/impressive symptom of the crisis? Which are the most important/most interesting protest movements against the austerity politics during the last 4-5 years? What was the most striking/impressive experience (for you) during the protests? Symptoms of the crisis: biggest wave of emigration since the sixties, drop of the work value, increase of homeless people, children leaving school, hunger, disapearence of the social state,unemployment, polititians praising charity and a certain smell of fascism in the overall securitary political speech against protesters. Most interesting movements in the last year or so: Occupy Wall Street, in the way they made visible the concentration of power and wealth in the top 1%, or in the way how they chose non violence as a tactic, or in the way they comunicated with the rest of the people. The indignados, in the way the organized themselves, the miners and the ‘jornaleros’ in Marinaleda, in Spain... es.col.a, of course, in Portugal, as well the ‘estivadores’ struggles in the ports, or the occupation of rossio in Lisbon. And many important researches and discussions
in several fields that show the impossibility of the neo-liberal choices, the auditing of the debts, and all the present projects of alternative self-managed networks, commerce (the direct trade market in greece...), communication systems, production and distribution. The most striking experience for me: the reocupation of es.col.a on the 25th of April. (d) Activism in the time of crisis. How it works out, when you try to mobilize people? What is the relationship between the grassroot-movements and the left parties? You never know how to mobilize people. You just try and take the questions you have, and the discrepancies you see in the ‘matrix’, state them out loud and hope that the rest of the people will relate and feel motivated to act on it. I think looking for the best possible processes of working and relating, in each different group, helps to not loose people that are trying to get involved, both in parties as in other activist-groups - activism is motivated by the sense of making a difference and being able to really participate in the construction of alternatives and/or political programs. I think the final objective should be mirrored in the ways to get there - be it in the fighting excessive concentrations of power or in the striving for more direct participation and less profissional structures, the sharing of information and better decision making processes. About the relationship of the grassroot movements and the (leftwing) parties, I think it could be better. Ideally, they would parallel, intertwining in concrete actions here and there. Parties taking the movements causes and demands into law and into their programs, movements influencing and proposing new debates and paths of most resistance, parties being influenced by the new forms of organisation. In reality... Well, people in activist groups tend to suspect the ‘good will’ of political parties, and fear attempts of control, or can’t find common processes of decision. ...I don’t believe that’s an excuse, by the way - if you really try, you find ways to work with people different from
you - neither is an excuse the difficult history between most of the diferent parts of the left (from comunists to anarchists and everything in between). I think it is very dangerous to simply say ‘all parties are bad’ and/or ‘the same’ - that logic, and the shitty polititians we have been having for ages, makes more than half the population not vote: and the right wing keeps perpetuating itself in power. I know for many the left wing could be better and is not radical enough, because it proposes reform (and because it is still thinking about ‘growth’ to solve our enormous, spiralrecession). Problem is, even these simple, not-that-radicalproposals (to tax and control the banks, to end offshores, to get better legislation on work and employment etc) are not getting through - even though they should be ‘better’ for the majority of the population. Left is better than right. There’s left and right, up and down. I still think so. This is a very complex problem, of course. I’m not saying that the ‘democracy’ we have is very good - the es.col.a process, as well as the persecution of activists involver in demonstrations, prove that both justice and political representation are unfair repressive and biast. I’m just saying that I want more active democracy, not less. Political parties, as an abstract notion, are just a group of people with similar ideas and projects who get together and make programs and run for manageing the public affaires according to those programs - the problem for me is the vertical power structures that sometimes the parties evolve into (and that may also happen in other kind of political groups and structures, not only in parties). Not the concept of party in itself - I don’t think we’ll manage to not need representation any time soon. I prefer to have a say in who gets chosen than have the IMF chose... There is some difficulty in all groups in hearing other points of view, and negotiating programs. And some egos, a lot of different practices and codes, and several arenas of discussion and intervention. Despite all those problems, there have been times, this last year, in porto (general strikes, the es.col.a process, fights against privatizations, etc) where people have been able to get
together - i think it is possible, plausible, and very necessary. We need more people everywhere. In all groups, formal or informal, in all scales and social fields, demanding real change and oposing solidarity and creativity to the individualisticdog-eat-dog-capitalist-world. This is also a participation crisis.
Sara Moreira (a) Tell us something about yourself: Whats your profession, do you have any kind of income? Or: How do you sustain your life? Do you observe a change in you personal situation since the crisis (of the last 4-5 years)? It was after I came back to Porto from my second term as a Lecturer in the National University of Timor Leste, in 2008, that my attitude towards work drastically changed. I had finished my studies on Software Engineering and Computer Science in early 2006, and then worked in a web development company in Porto as a Projects Manager. One year after, I decided to embark on a teaching experience in that far-off half-island - a former Portuguese colony which freed itself from the 24 years long Indonesian occupation in 1999. The difference between life in Timor Leste and how we in the West relate with time, money, people and our surrounding environment - many times moved by misconceptions of success and prosperity - really stroke me. I then chose to start spending my time on “stuff that really matters” instead of enslaving all my hours to a full time job as an engineer. Besides, “9 to 5” jobs in Portugal, in practice, very easily become “9 to 8” occupations that totally absorb your energy and attention. I felt I had more important things to do. One doesn’t need a lot of money to survive, and by freelancing on web development once in a while I thought I would manage to pay my bills. That was when I started volunteering as an author for Global Voices Online - a non-profit citizen media initiative founded at the University of Harvard -, and I founded together with friends an all-feminine non profit NGO, Moving
Cause, whose mission was to promote “social entrepreneurship” initiatives from Timor Leste in Portugal. I was interested in understanding how cooperatives such as Bonecas de Atauro (a Timorese women’s workshop for handcraft and sewing) could not only bring means of subsistence to communities in need but also acton local social issues. [Note: Back then the word “entrepreneurship” hadn’t been adopted yet for the hegemonic discourse of nowadays, which together with “creativity”, “innovation” and some other few clichés, are presented as “bailout” tools that only give continuity for the situation we have digged ourselves in.] During that time, besides “moving causes” between Timor and Portugal, I also got involved with JUP (the Newspaper of the University of Porto), and eventually managed the association behind it for a year. That experience, together with my collaboration with Global Voices - with the mission to amplify the most interesting stories published on worldwide citizen media -, was awakening for me in political terms, especially concerning the role of the media as a weapon for social awareness. While the acquaintanceship with the University’s newspaper networks showed me an obvious lack of political awareness among the Portuguese youth in that time, Global Voices stories presented a whole new world of civic participation through online media. After volunteering for one and a half years for GV, I became the Portuguese language countries editor in May 2010. It is an exclusively virtual part time job with a modest salary that allows me to pay for my monthly bills - as well as to travel a bit every now and then to places like Chile, Brazil (2011), Greece, Timor (2010-2011), Kenya and Mozambique (2012 :) (b) What are your political activities? How you get involved in this topics? Are you going to work in this fields in the future? Are you satisfied with your political work? Whether political or not, my main activities are (and will be :): - Writing/Translating citizen perspectives which are often ignored by mainstream media: Global Voices Online high-
lights citizen stories with a focus on human rights issues and freedom of expression. Besides editing the Portuguese language countries front, I collaborate on the special coverage Europe in Crisis, by means of monitoring, writing, contextualizing and translating stories reported on citizen media about everyday living and rising alternatives in face of the “economic crisis” in European countries. - Collective participation: I am involved with several associations in Porto, such as urban permaculture and collective gardening project Horta-lá!, Transparência Hackday, Guifi. net/Porto, and recently I organized a workshop on alternative currencies that resulted in the formation of a group that is trying to create a social currency for Porto’s city center. - Training: I organized training programs for NGOs, other collectives and individuals on online strategies for more effective advocacy outreach and Free Culture and Citizen Media, in Timor in 2011 and in Mozambique in 2012. (c) What are the most important aspects of the current crisis? What is the most striking/impressive symptom of the crisis? Which are the most important/most interesting protest movements against the austerity politics during the last 4-5 years? What was the most striking/impressive experience (for you) during the protests? Many things have changed in my surroundings and in the broader Portuguese political, economic and social scenario - as well as worldwide - since 2008 until today. From my neighborhood, I see more people - especially the youth - who are unemployed, and thus have to get used to living on less money; I see the aging of the population as a big parcel of the youth emigrates in search for better conditions. Many buildings in the city are left abandoned, while a growing number of families enters default, unable to pay their mortgages. One of the most important consequences of this crisis is the fact that it has brought people together in new and renewed local associations, and more than never political debate is being brought to the
public arena. On the other hand it is impressive to see how the economic recession leads the people to a generalized state of (what I call in Portuguese) “perspectives recession�. There is lack of hope, energy and initiative to organize and react positively to the current situation. We are missing solid and resilient action groups who dedicate to create a new world to live in. There have been glimpses of important civic participation and mobilization, though. The Scraping-by Generation Protest of March 2011 was the anti-austerity mobilization kick off, drawing 150.000 to the streets, in a burst of non-partisan, non-branded, authentic citizen power. From my perspective, the whole history of the self-managed collective es.col.a da Fontinha in Porto, has been the cherry on top of the cake concerning collective action, as for the first time in a long time it enabled a national wave of solidarity for a common cause. Other initiatives seemed to be relevant and important, such as the Citizens Audit on the Public Debt and the Screw the Troika, but, once again, follow ups, dissemination of results and creation of working groups are missing.
Sylvia (a) Tell us something about yourself: Whats your profession, do you have any kind of income? Or: How do you sustain your life? At the moment I don’t have an official job. In the last three years I worked only in the school holidays outside of Portugal, via a contract, in child care. I live with little money, so manage to work little, but be able to sustain myself for quite some time. I live in a group and we recycle a lot of materials and also food (ask left overs from the market or skipping from the supermarket container). We share the rent of our home, that is very low as we have an agreement with the owner and pay little while we renovate the house. I hitch hike when I need to travel long distance and need to travel fast, otherwise I take the bike.
Do you observe a change in you personal situation since the crisis (of the last 4-5 years)? My live is changing a lot, but I don’t really connect it to the crisis. Although last year I lost my working contract and the company argumented this as a problem connected to the crisis, I think my change in lifestyle, living with less or less dependent of money (as I don’t feel that I have less luxury in my life), is mainly based on personal choice and an interest to live more autonomous. This interest is connected to my conviction that is important to prepare for worse times, as resources are running out and are not equally shared among people. We need to learn to produce our own food; take care of our own health; learn to reconstruct, built and renovate our own homes and share our knowledge, tools, materials and local resources. (b) What are your political activities? How you get involved in this topics? Are you going to work in this fields in the future? Are you satisfied with your political work? I am mainly involved with squats, self-manged projects, social centers, communal gardens and international networks of activists that use tactical frivolity, DIY or direct action as way to create and demand changes. I got involved in groups like these when I was studying, back in the Netherlands. I got inspired by the way people tried to organize themselves on a horizontal base, using consensus decision making, trying to include all people interested in reaching a similar goal, although having sometimes very different backgrounds and very different opinions. Also the international character of this movement and the interconnectedness and solidarity between people and places gives me still a lot of inspiration and energy. In the start I was looking for ways to get informed about politics and injustice outside of mainstream propaganda and learn and create together how to act in a direct way and fight dominant power structures that are reinforcing abuse, inequality and violence between people.
I will stay involved in these kind of projects, as it stays a good way to stay informed, feel connected and get empowered to take action. This will always be temporary projects and not my profession. For me it is important to stay mobile, get involved, start projects, be dedicated for the struggle, but to stay inspired and to keep on learning it is important to me to travel and visit other projects or gatherings of activist networks. (c) What are the most important aspects of the current crisis? What is the most striking/impressive symptom of the crisis? I am always a bit critical of using the word crisis, as it is being mentioned a lot and mostly used by politicians and journalists and has a economical connotation. A lot of fear is being spread among people by stating that we are now living in crisis, that things are caused by the crisis or that the worst crisis is still ahead. We are living in a time that financial markets are not stable and we will have to deal with the idea that constant (financial) growth is impossible. What I see here in Portugal is that people are afraid, afraid of loosing securities, jobs, health, houses. Mainly people that already had little are now confronted with actual losses. In the 2 years I’m here I have seen the amount of homeless people sleeping in the street grow, I saw more people skipping food at the supermarkets and people also found their way to our neighborhood center to ask to share our skip. I hear also from friends, that they have difficulties finding a job, especially one that pays well. Many of them stay living in their parents homes. The prices for food are rising fast, some basic articles are now double the price! I notice also that there is less waste in the streets to recycle, probably because people (re-)use or sell materials more nowadays or there might be more people fishing stuff out of the trash. It also seems to me that there is a sort of revival of people producing and/or selling home made products to earn a bit extra in unofficial ways. Which are the most important/most interesting protest movements against the austerity politics during the last 4-5 years?
What was the most striking/impressive experience (for you) during the protests. For me it was very interesting to come to Portugal in a time that not many things where happening and people didn’t seem to be very connected and organized. There were just a few autonomous activists and groups organizing themselves or taking part in manifestations. In Porto a lot of initiatives and projects were initiated in the last 2 years. Many people seem to go trough a development from an apathetic attitude, based on the thought that there is nothing that you can do to change things in society or fight injustice, to a more active attitude, expressing discontent about the austerity measures and finding and strengthening each other in this struggle. One of the most striking experiences I had here was the squatting action and development from the squatted neighborhood center: Es.Col.A da Fontinha. Very impressive was to see how an idea of a few people, transformed into a whole movement of people feeling connected to the project. It was a very unique experience seeing a huge variety of people trying to organize in a horizontal way without almost any experience to work together. It seemed like suddenly the time was right for people to come out and meet each other, sharing ideas, giving each other strength to act. Especially in times that the project was in danger of eviction and growing repression, more people came to actively support the project. Besides this also the big manifestations and general strikes against austerity measures of the state became huge in the last year. (d) Which role do activists from abroad play in Portugal? Is there something that people around Europe can learn from the activists in Portugal? When I arrived here two years ago, I found that there was not really an organized activist movement. Just individuals and little groups working over-hours trying to reach and involve more people. In very short time I got to know most of the active
people and got the impression that there was little experience with organizing, planning, working in collectives, dealing with press, repression, juridical consequences etc. It was very useful to have had experienced activism in other countries where the activist movement has a longer history and where there is a wide scene in which people exchange critical information and knowledge. I think bringing these experiences to Portugal is very important and can give inspiration, motivation and practical and psychological support. Because there is just few people active, people tend to feel alone and not supported. During my time here I spend a lot of time in an autonomous social center which served as meeting point for activists and critical thinkers. Almost on daily base we had contact with international activists and I think they helped a lot with bringing ideas for actions, how to organize better, even giving trainings or presentations at times about direct action or consensus decision making f.e. Some people sticked around for a bit to help start up projects here. The fact that there is almost no autonomous activist movement or alternative scene, makes that there is a very wide variety of people that participates. There is no established form yet and so for example within the Es.Col.A project many people of very different backgrounds tried to start setting up a way to organize together. In Holland f.e. If you squat a place and start a neighborhood center, you get far less attention, as it happens more often. It stays more an underground action, connected to a particular scene. Here in Porto it was the only place were people could come together, organize themselves and discuss the problems of society with others. Another thing that I found special is the sense of community, the importance of social interaction, it is very part of the culture here to socialize, to be together, especially to eat together. There is much creativity here and people seem to be good in improvising. This compensates sometimes the lack of organization and can bring chaos but also fun and creativity into actions and projects. I think this sense of community and space for improvisation and patience for things to develop in their own pace, without putting to much pressure to achieve a certain objective within an estimated time limit, is something that activists from north-western Europe
can learn from activists in Portugal. Also the fact that there is no huge organized movement makes that people will have to work together, while in the North I experienced that there is a lot of fragmentation of little groups working in niches on different items and there is less cooperation.
Bernhard Schmid
Die arabische Revolution?
Soziale Elemente und Jugendprotest in den nordafrikanischen Revolten 120 Seiten, 12.80 Euro ISBN 978-3-942885-02-7 „(…) Die Gefahr der Islamisierung gilt in der medialen Wahrnehmung oft als Totschlagargument. Gegen diesen Mainstream der medialen Wahrnehmung geht Schmid vielmehr den tatsächlichen emanzipativen Entwicklungen nach, die jenseits der vorschnellen Alternative zwischen Ancien Régime und islamistischer Machtübernahme Beachtung verdienen. (…)“ Karl-Heinz Breier, Portal für Politikwissenschaft
Jens Kastner
Alles für alle!
Zapatismus zwischen Sozialtheorie, Pop und Pentagon 120 Seiten, 12,80 Euro ISBN 978-3-942885-03-4 „Nicht die gleiche soziale Lage, sondern die Anerkennung der Differenzen und deren Überwindung im Kampf für eine »andere Welt«, macht es möglich, dass sich sehr unterschiedliche Kämpfe miteinander verbinden und die AktivistInnen voneinander lernen.“ Antje Gebel, ak
Infogruppe Bankrott (Hg.)
Occupy Anarchy!
Libertäre Interventionen in eine neue Bewegung. Reihe Systemfehler Bd. 3 152 Seiten, 9.80 Euro ISBN 978-3-942885-26-3 Mit Beiträgen u.a. von: Judith Butler, Mike Davis, David Graeber, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak sowie aus den Projekten Bureau of Public Secrets, Insurgent Notes und Team Colours Collective. Moritz Altenried
Aufstände, Rassismus und die Krise des Kapitalismus England im Ausnahmezustand Reihe: Systemfehler, Band 2 80 Seiten, 9.80 Euro ISBN 978-3-942885-10-2 „Es sind vor allem die politisierenden und über weite Teile überzeugenden Lesarten, die Altenrieds Buch interessant und zu einem notwendigen Korrektiv zum Mainstream der Reaktionen in Medien und Politik machen.“ Steffen Liebig, kritisch-lesen.de
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Portugal entwickelt sich zu einem Brennpunkt der kapitalistischen Krise in Europa. Sowohl die neoliberale „Krisenbewältigung“ als auch die sozialen Bewegungen gegen diese Politik lassen sich hier exemplarisch aufschlüsseln. Dabei wird auch die autoritäre Wende in der EU sichtbar – und die neuen Möglichkeiten sozialer Opposition jenseits von Parteipolitik und Wahlkämpfen. Hier wollen wir diese Aspekte aus der Perspektive der Menschen in Portugal, die für ein „besseres Leben“ kämpfen, zeigen.
systemfe hler
Die gesellschaftskritische Buchreihe Systemfehler meldet, untersucht und bekämpft grundlegende Fehler, ohne dessen Beseitigung ein Gegenstand oder ein Vorgang nicht funktionsfähig ist, zur Gefahr wird oder Zerstörungen hervorruft. Ziel und militantes Untersuchungskriterium ist es, ein gutes Leben für alle wieder zum Laufen zu bringen. Wieder? In der Regel gehen die Autor*innen von einem gravierenden Fehlstart des laufenden „Systems“ aus und entwickeln Perspektiven für seine Überwindung.
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