Theory and Praxis 2.0

The Pop-Up Union: It's official: the Pop-Up Union a listed trade union

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:16:52 +0100

The Pop-Up Union: It's official: the Pop-Up Union a listed trade union:

Since the Pop-Up Union was formed in March this year, we have been in discussions with the Certification Officer regarding being entered onto the official list of active trade unions. We are pleased to announce we have now been entered onto the list. A news post on the Certification…

Interview with Dan Swain: Marx’s Theory of AlienationDan...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:21:05 +0100

Interview with Dan Swain: Marx’s Theory of Alienation

Dan Swain is an activist and writer. He is currently working on a PhD in Marxism and Ethics at the…

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Food Fights Against AusterityMan looking for food in a...

Mon, 13 May 2013 20:20:09 +0100

Food Fights Against Austerity

Man looking for food in a dumpster

This article was first published on Climate and Capitalism

In…

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#Marx2012 - Social Media and Social Movements

Mon, 06 May 2013 20:30:54 +0100

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Some further remarks on the Pop-Up Union at Sussex University

Fri, 03 May 2013 17:27:38 +0100

A number of people have criticized the article on pop-up unions. The main accusations levied against the article: 1) the numbers are wrong 2) The interpretation of electricians’ dispute 3) that I glorify the pop-up union.

1) When people pointed out a flawed membership number I immediately corrected it and took responsibility. However, the conclusions of the article remain the same: workers have been ill-served by Unison and found themselves having to construct novel forms of organisation. This process should not be dissmissed. This is a process many workers in struggle have had to go through.

An article on the Pilkington Strike from 1970 shows how “the rank and file committee [didn’t] start off with an ingrained hatred or even distrust of the G&MWU officials. They established their committee so as to fill in obvious gaps in the existing, organisation […]. It was only when the union moved from half-hearted co-operation with the strikers to open hostility and scabbing (when the strike was about a fortnight old) that the rank and file committee began to move against the union. (Source:
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj/1970/no044/survey3.htm)

I wonder why people are against all new forms of organisation? Is it perhaps because it threatens to upset ‘(un)healthy’ balances inside of the trade union movement…

2) It can be argued that I am ‘soft’ on Len McCluskey in the article and my interpretation missed the mark. His ‘social movement unionism’ (Kim Moody) should be welcomed - yet criticised. However, we shouldn’t define ourselves first and foremost by our difference but rather develop an analysis of the balance of forces inside of the union and the wider working class. In doing so, we can judge whether his strategy constitutes an advance or retreat. This can help us to understand what kind of forms of organisations are required and how we can apply pressure and work together.

To dismiss the entire article - or, much rather the pop-up union - because of two ‘flawed’ sentences is the cheapest trick in the hand book and will not stand the test of time.

3) I don’t glorify the pop-up union. I wish there were thousands of Unison branches across the country which would lead the fight against outsourcing, privatisation and cuts. In some localities such as London Met, SOAS and Tower Hamlets this is the case. We should remember that these are exceptions to the norm.

What I refer to as ‘zombie branches’ are indeed ‘zombie branches’. This does not however exclude the very possibility of action. As David McNally points out in his book Monsters of the Market, George Romero’s and Wes Craven’s zombie movies always end in zombie revolts. Perhaps we should organise a reading group of McNally’s book to show how capitalism/30 years of ‘downturn’ turns us into zombies, and how we can fight the ‘giant vampire squids’ of Goldman Sachs (Taibbi).

As I conclude in the article: “Political mobilisation and struggle necessarily creates new organs, tools and structures. Some of these will be premature and will fail; others will succeed. The Pop-Up Union at Sussex has strong potential to act as scaffolding for the wider struggle on campus and to transcend the narrow confines of recent trade union struggles in Britain. The future of this project is of course uncertain. But we can be sure of one thing — the fight at Sussex will remain an immediate reference point for students and university workers in the struggles to come.”

Sounds a bit too much like Rosa Luxemburg to me but I never thought that would be a crime.

http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/struggles-unions-pop-up-union-sussex-university/

cosmarxpolitan: Cosmarxpolitan, Issue 2 The Asiatic mode of...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:51:40 +0100

cosmarxpolitan:

Cosmarxpolitan, Issue 2

The Asiatic mode of production and your butt

Richard Wolff on Democracy Now!

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:20:24 +0100

Professor Richard Wolff was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. The interview is nice. You can watch it here.

If you want to know more about his work and some of its limitations you can read my review of his latest book Democracy at Work: A cure for Capitalism here.

LISBON, 25 APRIL 1974

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:22:14 +0100

LISBON, 25 APRIL 1974

New struggles, new unions? On the Pop-Up Union at Sussex...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:01:01 +0100

New struggles, new unions? On the Pop-Up Union at Sussex University

This article was first published in Ceasefire Magazine

April 18, 2013

A piece on an innovative…

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Book Review - Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:39:19 +0100

Book Review - Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

Cimora.info: London Calling – intervista a Mark BergfeldMattia...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:54:33 +0100

Cimora.info: London Calling – intervista a Mark Bergfeld

Mattia Gallo, an Italian activist journalist closely associated with my friends from UniCommon…

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M26 Trafalgar Square: A reportThis was first published on Turn...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:15:28 +0100

M26 Trafalgar Square: A report

This was first published on Turn Trafalgar into Tahrir, an initiative by students, trade unionists,…

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Portugal: Police Batons for Protesters and Rubber Bullets for...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:08:34 +0100

Portugal: Police Batons for Protesters and Rubber Bullets for the Kids of Bela Vista

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McNally’s monsters, Georgy Lukács and hegemony - Can the...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:02:40 +0100

McNally’s monsters, Georgy Lukács and hegemony - Can the Market Speak?

This book review was first published in the Berlin Review of Books on 05 April 2013

When first…

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You’re either a flower in a dustbin or that spark that lights a fire

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:07:04 +0100

I was asked to write “a populist piece” for some book that never appeared. I wrote it in May 2011 so it bears all the marks of a generation in revolt. Forgive me!

If I were to ask a call centre worker in Glasgow, a cab driver in Berlin and a bar worker in London what Johnny Rotten and Bruce Springsteen have in common they would probably give some half-hearted half-guessed answer containing the words punk and no future. Then all of them would rant about how shit The Boss is, and that they don’t understand what Springsteen finds so great about New Jersey.

If I were to ask a vegetable vendor in Tunis and a computer programming student in Alexandria the same question, they would light a cigarette, probably shrug their shoulders and continue to make ends meet.

To be fair, Johnny Rotten’s and Bruce Springsteen’s common ground is probably not the most pressing question in an (unemployed) graduates’ life. With their university degree in their pockets they drive cabs, serve pints, sell vegetables and sit at a phone twelve hours a day six days a week. The rent doesn’t pay itself, the food on the table is not free, and their university degrees probably cost as much as The Boss’s car yet are worth as much as Johnny Rotten’s piss in a beer bottle.

Johnny Rotten’s despair and hopelessness of being young and on the dole and Bruce Springsteen’s reason to rebel are two sides of the same coin. And it is years after its release that Johnny’s one-liner in God Save the Queen still expresses a new lost generation’s anger with unemployment, and a system with booms and slumps: We’re the flowers in the dustbin. It is in the same vein that Bruce’s Dancing in the Dark hints to the role that graduates and young people in despair and on the dole recently have played: You can’t start a fire, you can’t start a fire without a spark.

The flowers in the dustbin

The total anarchy of the market means that millions of young flexible graduates with transferable skills are produced in universities in order to fill no longer existing roles in the public sector. Expanding the knowledge base and investing in skills have become catchphrases in order to adapt education to the needs of private business and the state. No longer are universities about cultivating flowers that will bloom in the so-called free world. It is about preparing us for reproduction; reproducing the labour power required by advanced capitalism.

The enormous expansion of education in the UK over the last quarter of the 20^th century meant that in 1971 there were 1.7 million students in further education and 621,000 in higher education. In 2009 this had grown to 3.5 million and 2.5 million respectively. The massive expansion of higher education meant a move away from it being a preserve of the elite in society. The transformation of higher education reflected the system’s need for an increasingly educated workforce.

Undeniably it is still hard for working class children to go to university but hundreds of thousands of working class children do. Over 30 percent of students in higher education come from the lowest socio-economic classes and nearly 90 percent were educated at state schools. While in 1971 there were twice as many men in university as women, in 2006 there were more women than men in both further and higher education.

However, capitalism is rotting at its core and qualifications no longer meet what is out there. This year, one-in-five students will leave university without a job, and 200 000 successful school leavers will not get a university place. With the current economic crisis, the introduction of 9000 pounds tuition fees and the government’s austerity agenda the treadmill of low-paid administration or call-centre work has and will become the future of millions of young people. A recent study concluded that just over a quarter of workers in Scottish call centres have degree level or higher qualifications. Working in largely low-paid, inflexible and stressful jobs the system turns these graduates and young adults into flowers in the dustbin as Rotten so aptly describes.

Can’t start a fire without a spark

Whether the Arab Spring, the May Day riots in Berlin or the explosion of the British students’ movement which ritually had placards disappear into bonfires, Springsteen’s words recognize a vital lesson for the revolutionary movements however big or small they might be: You need a spark!

When a police officer confiscated a young man’s fruit and vegetable stand because he lacked a permit on December 17, 2010, the officer did not expect that the 26-year old unemployed college graduate would douse himself in petrol and set himself alight in front of a government building in central Tunisia. Even less so did the cop expect his self-immolation would spark nationwide unrest and the toppling of the Ben Ali regime.

When Khaled Said, a computer programming student, was arrested in a cybercafé and beaten to death at the hands of the police in a prison cell in Alexandria, Egypt on June 6, 2010 the police would have never thought that he would become the face that sparked the revolution. The cry We are all Khaled Said inspired millions of ordinary Egyptians to burn down police stations – the places in which they had been tortured and humiliated – and topple the Mubarak regime.

In Tunisia, a country the IMF continuously praised for its growth rates, foreign direct investment and most importantly foreign tourists, unemployment lay at 13.3 per cent (Sept 2010). In areas such as Sidi Bouzid, the epicenter of the protests 44 per cent of female university graduates and 25 per cent of male graduates are reportedly unemployed. In Egypt about one-fourth of Egyptian workers under 25 are unemployed. One might think that the problem of graduate unemployment is exacerbated in the Arab world and North Africa where more than half the population is less than 30 years old.

However, in Europe and the US the picture is not all too different. In Italy, Portugal and Spain, about one-fourth of college graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed. In the United States, the official unemployment rate for this group is 11.2 percent. And in Britain, graduate unemployment figures soared to its highest level for 17 years only fourteen days after thousands of students with no future besieged the Tory Party headquarters at Millbank.

While the ConDems are aiming to balance the budget in order to restore confidence in the market, they’re putting hundred thousands of graduates in a dustbin. In turn these graduates are losing confidence in the system and have sparked the fire through their walk-outs, occupations and mass demonstrations. The feeling of Man I ain’t going nowhere just sitting in a dump like this has meant that hundreds of thousands of students were the quickest to move into action over the ConDem cuts placing themselves at the centre of the resistance to austerity only six months into the ConDem government. In two months of struggle they learnt lessons about the state and police which trade unionists and older workers perhaps learned in their last twenty years.

In the context of mass protests against austerity and a crackdown on our right to protest – it is only a matter of time until Britain could have their own Khaled Said or Mohamed Bouazizi moment which could spur millions of workers into action and start the revolutionary fire in this country.

We’re the future – Your future

All the odds were stacked against the Class of 2010/2011. It is the one who had started their childhood with their parents watching Francis Fukuyama on TV declaring the end of history. Suddenlytheir childhood abruptly ended on 9/11 by watching two planes crash into the World Trade Centre. They are the ones whose teen years started with Bush’s War on Terror and continued into their early adult years – while at the same time they witnessed the collapse of Lehman Brothers, BearStearns and Fannie Mac and Freddie Mae. Yet all along they were being told that they would only have to work hard and succeed at education in order to attain a better future, a better life than their old folks.

But the only future for the Class of 2010/2011 is resistance to war, state violence and economic crisis. And that is why it’s kicking off everywhere! Whether its 3000 students walking-out of their university in Glasgow, 20 000 young people demonstrating against nuclear power in Berlin or 40 000 laying siege on Parliament in London on the day of the vote on tuition fees. On their protests, their marches, strikes and occupations they have tasted what another world could look like and how possible it is. The revolution in Egypt has proven their point.

Many graduates with no future might not know what Johnny Rotten and Bruce Springsteen have in common. Mohamed Bouazizi and Khalid Said though only knew too well; the students at Millbank knew too well; the occupiers at Fortnum & Masons knew too well; and the FE students who walked out of their schools and colleges knew too well: You’re either a flower in a dustbin or that spark that lights a fire – the fire this time!

Millbank protests, occupations, solidarity, strikes: Interview with ‘Freedom’

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:50:44 +0100

STUDENTS DEMONSTRATE AT THE TORY PARTY CONFERENCE, MANCHESTER IN MANCHESTER IN 2011

Recently, I rediscovered this interview from 2011. It is well worth a read given that NUS Conference is only a few days away. Special thanks to Ché and Al.

Published July 2, 2011 – Originally appeared in Freedom #7213 - Online version here

Mark Bergfeld is an education activist who has played a vital part in mobilizing – and being a part of – the student movement in London, which took every political radical by surprise last November, and ignited the anti-cuts movement here in general. In this interview Mark shares with Freedom his thoughts on the subject, the current state of the movement, as well as the coming big action on J30.

Can you speak about the inception of the Education Activist Network (EAN) and your involvement in it?

In early 2010, we saw a small yet significant number of campus struggles. At Kings College London, UCU members were at the forefront of fighting against redundancies. At Sussex, the students took the lead on fighting against cuts to courses and jobs. In Leeds, as many as 700 jobs were at threat. The particularities in these struggles had to be addressed. At KCL, lecturers were battling a vicious management. They understood that they needed the students’ solidarity and thus linked up in weekly joint-organising meetings. At Sussex, the students had mass demonstrations of a thousand plus. Yet, the lecturers lacked the confidence to take strike action. Thus, students started building a strike fund and actually managed to convince the UCU branch to go on strike. In Leeds, lecturers voted for strike action but the Students’ Union ran a horrible ‘scab’ campaign.

Thus, a number of lecturers and students decided that we needed a national network to address the ‘unevenness’ by facilitating, sharing ones experiences, co-ordinating days of action and building concrete solidarity to those fighting. I have been involved on many levels in the network. At this moment, we are building for the court hearings of students, 30 June and are starting to build for the demonstration at the Tory Party Conference in October.

EAN has done some good job in providing a forum for students of all stripes to come together by creating almost weekly assemblies. What was the idea behind these assemblies?

Whilst the movement was at its highpoint, there were many questions that we had to tackle head-on. The question of police violence and repression became a central feature of our assemblies and forums. Now, that the street mobilizations have receded we also have to re-orient the network as well as win an argument in the students’ movement that we cannot simply call for a re-run of the events of last November/December but must re-define what student-worker solidarity means. The Education Activist Network is not a formal organisation but a network. Many different organisations, campaigning groups and workers and students need to be linked up in the struggle for education. We provide such a forum to people with our meetings.

Do you think EAN has done enough to physically reach out to all students, especially outside the University of London-UCL-LSE circle?

There are EAN groups at different colleges and universities across the country. Essex, Sussex, Teesside University, Kingston Uni, Sheffield are just some examples where we have managed to provide the same kind of level of activity but also debate about the movement. At Teesside university EAN activists have been bringing out a fanzine. At Essex Uni, there have been American-style rolling teach-ins of 200+ and Kingston University, EAN activists have played a crucial role in organising 2000 strong school student walk-outs.

Let’s talk about the general student movement as such. When it all exploded in November were you expecting that to happen, especially in the way it did? Did your involvement in the NUS and in radical Left politics provide you with a special insight as to the storm that was brewing? Surely, a lot must have happened before it all kicked off?

It became very clear that NUS was investing a lot of their resources into mobilising for the November 10 demonstration. On behalf of NUS, I was travelling across the country mobilising students from September onwards. However at many campuses the mood only changed two weeks before the actual demonstration took place. I did expect a large demonstration but never would I have thought that students would storm Millbank tower and display such a high level of militancy. We saw a huge number of demonstrations in the run-up to November 10. In Oxford we saw 3000 plus demonstrating at Vince Cable’s visit. In Birmingham, students built cardboard barricades and had similar numbers. There also were some flash occupations of finance offices and other management offices.

At one NUS mobilisation meeting I said: ‘Perhaps we should learn Greek’. I never thought we would learn it that quickly. Without NUS though having mobilised 50,000 we wouldn’t have had 5000 lay siege on Millbank. For many people it was the best day of their lives. It was liberating. The events at Millbank changed my life as well – only for the better.

Where is the NUS in all this? We all know about the infamous Aaron Porter and his double-dealing. The NUS has a new President now. Is it getting any better? Do you think that institution can be redeemed politically?

At this year’s NUS Conference, we polled our best election results in living memory. However, I was still far from coming anywhere close to winning Presidency. Unfortunately, we also lost crucial votes on another national demonstration and free education. It is in that context, that Liam Burns the new NUS President ‘triangulated’ by calling for strikes and occupations on the one side, and appealing to right-wing students on the other side by labelling me a ‘violent thug who wants to bring down the government’.

Someone once said to me: ‘A right-wing bureaucrat will sell you out at breakfast. A left-wing bureaucrat will sell you out after lunch. It’s only a question of time’. I don’t know what Liam Burns is going to do, but he – in as much as me winning Presidency would have been – is not the solution to the structural problems we have mobilising.

Since the actual introduction of tuition fees this year the student movement seems to have died down here in London. Why do you think that is? And what can be done to change the situation?

Firstly, in November/December, there was a clear national focus: the parliamentary vote. Once that vote was lost, students did try to mobilise but the defeat weighed upon them. Secondly, the level of police repression and brutality on the demonstrations is unheard of and scared a lot of students who were first-time protesters. Also, the number of students being charged with ‘violent disorder’ or ‘aggravated trespass’ has forced a retreat upon us. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, we did not have a generalisation across the trade union movement until March 26. If the TUC had called a demonstration before Christmas, things would have been very different.

The EAN has sort of gone out of the picture as well. There are no more assemblies. Is it going to make a comeback? It seems crucial to me that at a time like this students need some common ground on which to meet, exchange ideas, gain confidence and support each other, and EAN was that kind of forum.

For some time, it was very difficult to get people into meetings and assemblies. We have started to put forums on again, and are planning to have one after the June 30 strike as well.

At some of the previous EAN assemblies there was some talk about taking coordinated international action. With the current social upheavals in Spain, Greece etc., do you think that kind of action is a possibility now or sometime in the near future?

We are currently in discussions with UNICOMMON, a group from Italy. We also have made some links with some Spanish organisations such as Juventud Sin Futuro. There is some talk about having a co-ordination in December. I can’t really say what is happening in detail as the international meeting in Italy ended up not being able to really take a decision. But I definitely think that we will see an international or at least European-wide day at some point in the near future.

Thankfully, June 30 is coming up. With the whole generalize the strike action being undertaken, do you think it can reignite the student rebellion? What form do you think it will take? Because even though student-worker solidarity is essential, the one place where students can make a real difference is within the educational system which is a huge battleground in itself.

The Education Activist Network has been crucial in pushing an argument around June 30, and at the same time involved itself in the J30 assemblies as well as built joint co-ordinating meetings with trade unionists. It is very possible a date that could re-ignite the student struggle. I have heard from several FE colleges across the country that there will be walk-outs the day before, as well as different actions on the day. It is problematic however that the universities are on summer holidays. Thus, a lot of students feel atomised and don’t have their usual networks.

June 30 can both deepen and broaden the resistance across the country and create a mosaic of resistance with students delivering solidarity at picket lines, trade unionists on strike taking direct action and everyone affected by the cuts making sure that they do whatever they can to turn this into a day of rage against the Con-Dem government.

Portugal: Police Batons for Protesters and Rubber Bullets for the Kids of Bela Vista

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:40:25 +0100

This article was first published on Monthly Review.

Ruben Marques, 18, died at the hands of the police in the barrio of Bela Vista, Setúbal, Portugal, on Saturday, March 16. His crime: he crossed a red traffic light with his moped.

The media blame the victim for not wearing a helmet, the Communist Party mayor blames the victim for stealing the motorbike, and the police turn the victim into the culprit

Ruben is one of many casualties of police brutality in marginalized working-class communities under siege. Just recently, the police officer who shot the 14-year-old“Kuku” at point-blank range was acquitted by the courts. Tony’s mural has remained colorful since 2002.

As news of Ruben’s death reaches more and more shacks and apartments of immigrants from Portugal’s former colonies, travelers, and the unemployed, the police station gets surrounded by people in protest. Young men and women start torching bins, vandalizing cars, and hurling rocks and glass.

All odds are stacked against a neighborhood synonymous with drugs, crime, and violence as protesters confront the militarized unit of the Public Security Police (Polícia de Segurança Pública, PSP) into the early hours of the morning.

With more than 50 percent of Bela Vista’s population living below the poverty line, the barrio has become a powder keg in crisis-ridden Portugal. A huge PSP mobilization was able to contain the situation that night, but the conduct of the police has continued to fuel the flames of discontent, exemplifying how a fractious PSD-CDS government is tearing up the post-revolutionary settlement and resorting to state terror not seen since the days of Salazar’s dictatorship.

PARLIAMENT UNDER SIEGE ON 14N GENERAL STRIKE

Tearing up the Post-revolutionary Settlement

Once known as one of the most effective secret services in history, Dictator Salazar’s secret police force, PIDE, was so despised by the working class that during the course of the 1974-75 Revolution workers and rank-and-file soldiers of the MFA chased undercover agents into neighboring Spain or underground. This cleansing process – saneamento – as well as the memory of PIDE’s abuses in supporting the regime delayed the establishment of a new civilian intelligence agency for more than a decade.

While other European countries received their first taste of neoliberalism in the late 1970s and 1980s, Portugal was establishing a welfare state as part of the post-revolutionary settlement. The compromise between capital and labor meant that police training was “civic” and inspired by the value of “loyalty to the Republic.” (The containment of the revolution, though, also meant that only one former PIDE agent faced prosecution for crimes under the Salazar dictatorship.)

Movements such as the militant student demonstrations which had an impact in bringing down the Cavaco government in 1992 saw the first big post-revolution clashes between protesters and the police. But, even then, the police would hold students in custody and release them once the demonstrations finished. Police tactics were based on not only intimidation but also the fact that the vast majority of the population consented to the rule of successive Socialist and Social-Democratic governments.

Since then, police officers have been re-educated in a militarized fashion. Wrapped in the language that calls for the “re-foundation” of the Portuguese state, policing has qualitatively changed in order to push through austerity measures and reverse the gains of the revolution.

SECONDS BEFORE POLICE STEAMROLLED THE DEMONSTRATION

14N: No turning back

The general strike on November 14 called by the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP) is seen to be a turning point in policing austerity. As protesters sang the “Internationale” and “Grândola, Vila Morena,” a dozen heavily-armed riot police protected parliament from the wrath of thousands of people. In a Greek-style confrontation, they crushed the demonstration. People were forced to hide in side streets, cafés, bars, and shops. That night, more than twenty people were arrested and kept in solitary confinement for more than five hours without being able to see their lawyers. While in the end no charge was brought against the protesters, they found their names printed in the following day’s papers.

Rodrigo Riveira, a Bloco Esquerda activist, told me: “That night one woman was arrested a kilometer away from where the protest had ended. She was there to meet her partner and suddenly found herself being charged with violent disorder. She hadn’t even been on the demonstration. In mid-March the charges of violent disorder against her were finally dropped. Currently, a civil case against the police is being prepared.”The general strike on November 14 called by the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP) is seen to be a turning point in policing austerity. As protesters sang the “Internationale” and “Grândola, Vila Morena,” a dozen heavily-armed riot police protected parliament from the wrath of thousands of people.

In a Greek-style confrontation, they crushed the demonstration. People were forced to hide in side streets, cafés, bars, and shops. That night, more than twenty people were arrested and kept in solitary confinement for more than five hours without being able to see their lawyers. While in the end no charge was brought against the protesters, they found their names printed in the following day’s papers.

While the media blamed “anarchists” from Italy and Britain for creating havoc, the daily newspaper Público discovered that more than 20 undercover police officers operated inside the demonstration. Further investigations showed that one of them threw rocks at the line of riot police and that 5-10 of them were in the front row of the demonstration, inciting other protesters. When the police steamrolled the demonstration, the undercover police officers simply jumped through the police lines.

ON THE DEMONSTRATION AGAINST ANGELA MERKEL

Splits in the Security Apparatus

No one could have foreseen the consequences of this policing operation. The following day Prime Minister Passos Coelho and the Chief of the Police were openly clashing over tactical maneuvers of the day. Beneath their public clash lay its hidden roots — a security apparatus on the verge of crisis.

On November 6, more than 5,000 local police officers marched against the government’s plans to stop early retirement and to end free public transport and healthcare for police officers. Only a few days later on November 10, 10,000 active and retired members of the military in civilian dress marched against austerity through Lisbon. Some officers complained that their salaries have been cut by as much as 25 percent. One banner read: “The military is unhappy, the people are unhappy.” Given the role that radical officers played in the 1974-5 Revolution, many people supported the military’s protest. Later on television, one member of the military went on to say, “We will do everything so that the indignation of the people will not be suppressed.”

Whenever ministers speak in public, protesters confront them and chase them off. Whenever police officers protect these ministers, they are called “fascists.” Tectonic plates are shifting inside Portuguese society. Consent to hegemony amongst the popular masses is crumbling. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the riot police received an 11-percent pay rise while Portugal’s city police, the PSP, received 13.2 percent more. The militarized GNR (Guarda Nacional Republicana, National Republican Guard) police got an extra 9.9 percent. In total, the budget for the Ministry of the Interior has increased by about 12.3 percent to €2.14 billion for 2013.

The latest announcement of further austerity measures will only translate into more policing under the banner of the “rule of law.” Ruben Marques’s death, the policing operation against the November 14 general strike, and the splits inside the security apparatus show how the “re-foundation” of the Portuguese state will increasingly replace consent by coercion, eradicating any hint of democracy. As the Troika’s policies fail, Prime Minister Passos Coelho’s motto might well become: police batons for protesters and rubber bullets for the kids of Bela Vista!

Special thanks to Rodrigo Riveira and João Carlos for some interesting discussions on the topic of policing during my stay in Lisbon.

Event: Marx is Muss-Kongress, Berlin - 9-12 May, 2013From 9-12...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 19:58:12 +0100

Event: Marx is Muss-Kongress, Berlin - 9-12 May, 2013

From 9-12 May, the network Marx21is organising its yearly 350-strong congress. I have been invited…

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