After our participation in the Ágora and 15th of Octuber global manifestation in Brussels, we have decided that our march can’t be stopped. And since our desire is to continue spreading our message and to connect with the other assemblies of the world, the International March to Athens is borned, as an open project to all who wants to support and participate in it.

We will meet in Niza on the 5th of Novembre 2011 after the G20 Summit (30th Octubre – 4th Novembre) to organize ourselves and go few days afterwards. We will pass by different villages and cities of Italy. We will cross the Adriatic Sea from Bari to reach Greece, then we will walk to Athens as final destiny. In both of Rome and Athens, we will participate in the Global Agoras the will be organized at the arrival of the marches.

The march will be formed by small groups of walkers and cyclists (12 to 25 person aprox.), that will advance by parallel routes to reach out more people on the way. The idea is to reunite in cities then to walk part of the distance together. Everytime that the number of the group reaches about 25 person, the main group will be divided in to two independent groups. And in every village the march will call for asemblies and will exchange experiance, problems and ideas.

The values that unite the different marches are the horizontality, the active participation, the no-violence, and the inclusivity of the members. We propose to continue the asambleary work and the decision making through consensus by practicing direct democracy. We will also work to reach the sustainability of the march and to convey a message of respect to the environment.

We make this march to to animate people to take the public space and meet, to talk about politics and decide for their own lives. We make this march to propose and learn, to inspire and το be enriched, to speak and listen, to give and receive. We want to reach Rome and Athens to bring a message of hope and unity. Most of all, we want to participate in the Global Agoras to in order to coordinate at international level, to prepare projects in common, to confront together the problems and create a just society for everybody.

We walk for dignity. Together we can reach the Utopia.

The LDH will hold a press conference this friday about the various human right violations suffered by the Indignés in Brussels these last weeks.

Friday, 21 October 2011 at 11 am

At the offices of LDH

Rue du Boulet 22, Bruxelles

Metro Bourse

Map: http://g.co/maps/ye946

media center bruxelles english+deutsch:             +32 492147132       castellano:                                     +32 477622191                   francais:    +32485988828

…

October 16

AcampadaBrussels @ Jubelpark

Dear people,

Yesterday’s demonstration concludes a chapter of the revolution, or maybe just the prologue. On the day after, many of us say goodbye. People go their own way. Some are returning to Spain, some are hanging around. I go up to Holland.

It has been an honour to march with these people, or most of them at least. It will be a pleasure to see them again, wherever, whenever. We are dedicated to the revolution, we are the first wave, we have a bond.

Almost five months ago I arrived in Sol, and I camped. “If this is going to be the defining moment of my generation, then I want to be there”.

Since then I have had the pleasure to witness and to document the acampada, the summer of the popular marches and the big demonstrations, the destruction of Sol. Finally the March on Brussels, the occupation of the university and World Revolution Day.

It has been an extraordinary experience. And now it’s time for me, and for many of us, to take a rest.

The first winter of the movement is at hand. Revolutionary HQ has been cleared and sealed by the police. The experiment of the free space has been too short to properly evaluate. In this week we were severely handicapped due to sanitary problems and lack of internet. The society might have seemed to be on the edge of collapse, but it could just as easily have selfregulated itself. I’m actually pretty optimistic about that. I’m convinced that we can fruitfully occupy covered spaces as a movement.

I also think these actions should have a clear goal, as opposed to the wild occupation of Revolutionary HQ. Spaces for living. Spaces for meeting. Spaces for study. Spaces for art. There are spaces enough. And together we can make them useful. All it takes is a little fantasy.

People are occupying squares in all the world. Also in Holland occupations are going on, in front of the Stock Exchange in Amsterdam and on the Malieveld in The Hague. We really did come a long way in the last five months. Even my brother, a notorious capitalist, wasn’t ashamed to walk along with the demonstration in Brussels. He doesn’t believe that something like a revolution is really possible. But he believes in evolution, in change for the better.

Now that it has started I plan to keep coveering it, but I do not know yet where and when. In the next few weeks I want to try to put my experiences, and the current expansion of the movement into perspective. Then I’ll see.

It concludes my chronicles of the march and the initial months of the 15M movement. I thank you, first of all my revolutionary brothers and sisters with whom I have had the pleasure to share this. And of course I thank you, my beloved readers. If it weren’t for all the heartwarming and inspiring comments I received I might never have been able to keep it up until the end. I thank you too for the sporadic negative reactions, because I’m convinced that if something doesn’t meet with opposition it can have little meaning. It’s the same reason why I don’t support the consensus model. If an idea is shared by absolutely everyone, it can hardly be a good idea.

I leave you with the image of our outsourced Media Center. People behind computers twenty-four hours a day. Empty bags of crisps on the table. A comrade of mine who wants to remain Anonymous, tells me how it all starts. The march, the occupations, the acampadas, the demonstrations, the whole damn thing. It starts right here.

“You know that the idea for a March on Brussels, has been circulating since February. We did that. We simply started bombing the social networks with messages about a march on Brussels. After that, people began to talk about it, it went around on Facebook, and in the end, a group of people started walking. I was overjoyed the day that the Mediterranean came by right beneath my window.”

I imagine things like Occupy Wall Street being organised in the same way. A couple of nerds behind a computerscreen on a sunday morning, eating donuts. “What shall we do today?”

“Global revolution?”

“Heck, why not? #globalrevolution it is.”

Cheers,

Oscar

October 15

Dear people,

During this week at Revolutionary HQ I have gradually moved my sleeping space up the building. From the skybox over the aula magna, to a corner in the library, and finally, on the last night, to the ‘Comisión Me la pela / Me la suda’, home of the Meseta hard core.

The commission had recently transfered its quarters from the third floor to the fifth, because of shit invading the hallway. Comrade Brina called it a ‘problem of convivencia’, people who continue to use the toilets even when they’re out of order. They have been shoveling crap every day, but in the end they gave up and moved away from the center of gravity.

“This building is killing us. You hardly know any of the people you encounter. This is not a community, it’s bloody chaos.”

I too moved up because of the invasion. Graffiti has been appearing since a couple of days. The problem with the drain was never fixed and people finally had to use dry bathrooms in the garden, accessable through the window. In the first few days, much of the electronical equipment had been plundered and interpersonal theft became a common practice.

It’s the other side of the ‘free space’ where no one decides and where no one bears responsability.

The first rumour I heard this morning was that police were going to close the university while everyone would be in the demonstration. As a precaution, many campers picked up their bags and left.

I was a bit disappointed that nobody wanted to defend the free space. But it also meant that all of us were decided to take the streets. We can occupy another headquarters whenever we want to.

Media Center 2

The people from the hard core don’t shed a tear for Revolutionary HQ. Faces are flourishing when we walk to Media Center to drop off our bags. We take our time to reunite, and by tradition we’re late. When we walk up to Gare du Nord it seems that no one is there. For a moment, in between the skyscrapers, it appears to me that all this revolution thing has only been a silly dream.

Then we hear the drums.

It’s going on. This is what we have come here for, marching all the way from Spain. Global Revolution Day, October 15. Today we are Brussels, we have to play our part on the world stage.

Fans of mine

The vibe of the crowd is good. There are many people. All types, all ages, and many different languages. I see slogans in French, English, Spanish, Dutch, German. These people are citizens of Europe, demonstrating joyfully against the lack of European democracy, right here in the capital of the empire. The sun is giving us a glorious late summer salute.

Arrival at Beus

We go to the Stock Exchange, our first stop. It’s an excellent photographic venue, but this particular place doesn’t count in the world of 21st century capitalism. The real power is down the road, in an anonymous skyscraper near our departure point. It is the headquarters of Euroclear, the ‘bank of the banksters’.

You probably have never heard of this enterprise. That’s because you are part of the 99%. You are not eligible to have an account there. You don’t need to know that they exist and that they shift billions of dollars per day in obscure financial transactions. We circle the skyscrapers, holding hands. One of our comrades had prepared a dossier on Euroclear, which was presented to the press, and flyers to inform the public. This anonymous institution probably knows a lot more about the causes of the crisis than we do.

In front a Dexia office

The crowd moves east, towards the European Quarter. At one of the Dexia offices riot police protects the building after sporadic acts of vandalism. There’s a bit of tension, but soon the march goes peacefully and happily forth.

Police don’t let us pass by the Wetstraat, the Street of the Law, which leads straight to the European roundabout. We are led around the institutions, and at sunset we enter the Jubelpark, right under the triumphant arch of the Belgian military museum. This is public space now. Park regulations are overruled by the people. We make fire, we make music, and we camp.

“Esta noche acampamos! Esta noche acampamos!” It’s the Meseta hard core. Many of us had brought tents, and those are the first to go up. In the meantime sound and internet are being installed near the Media Center van, and food is being prepared on camp fires. We made it. It has become a success. “Abrazo colectivo! Abrazo colectivo!”

Comrade Anna

“Well over two thousand people,” a police officer reports into his walkie talkie. He and his collegue retreat to the exit. The burgomaster of Brussels had ordered a complete camping ban in the whole city. But police give in, they won’t interfere with us camping tonight.

I walk down to Media Center. The rooms over there are full of people receiving and distributing the news. This is the Brussels information hub of the movement. I see pictures from Japan this morning, from Corea, from India. I see pictures from Puerta del Sol. There are half million people occupying the center of Madrid, my revolutionary home.

The barricades

I take my tent and my bagpack and I walk back, passing by the red zone for a change. To my right there is the European Council, the legislative. To my left there is the European Commission, the executive. I walk on, past barbed wire barricades, into the park. We camp here in the heart of Europe, in this theatrical scenario. We have achieved something. But only when the live connection starts, I know what it is.

Pictures from someone streaming in Berlin. A group of people is sitting down in front of the Reichstag. The police is trying to arrest them, but they are ignored. This is not television, this is us, broadcasting ourselves. I feel a shiver. History is happening everywhere, right now. We hear that 8000 demonstrators have gathered in front of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. People are camping.

We switch to New York. There are crowds in Wall Street, there are crowds uptown. Images of Time Square, taken over by the people. “Whose streets?! Our streets!! Whose streets?! Our streets!!”.

I join a group of comrades around a fire. It’s one of those gratifying tribal pleasures. And while we’re there, looking into the flames together we hear the rhythmic sound of the crowd in Times Square chanting, live, “This is what democracy looks like!”

I look up from the fire and I see the arches, and the moon rising. It’s an amazing feeling. We have become citizens of the world.

Cat on printer in Media Center

Apparently the police has damaged tents and material of the Indignados, while they were emptying the HUB building during the demonstration. Pathetic. Revenge because one of their colleagues was caught in the act at the Dexia action? Part of their misbehaviour was also filmed.

First, the cops threw away the food of the Indignados. With as official motivation hygiene and safety, they found it necessary to search all personal belongings (safety) and to trash the eco-toilets (hygiene).

The toilets of the building were already sabotaged with fast-drying concrete before the Indignados could enter the building. They (indignados) did nothing wrong. They had permission from the rector to stay in the building. Nevertheless they were chased out of the building by Pivin, the mayor of Koekelberg. Agent Provocateurs have worked hard to provide Pivin fake reasons for this.

Politicians have no answer to our legitimate complaints against a inhumane system. They knwo that there democratic representation is just a sham, en that they can only keep up appearances with more lies, more viciousness.

The Belgian newspaper De Standaard published some pictures of the building after the visit of the police. On this picture we can see how agent provocateurs, people who have nothing to do with the movement, have been spraying graffiti.

Last Friday we were in the library, the space where most pictures were taken, and at that time there was hardly any graffiti. My estimation is that at least 50 to 80 percent of the graffiti on the pictures has been sprayed there afterwards.  The Indignados don’t work with spray cans, but with colour chalk, that is easily washed away.

There were no irregularities at all during the demonstration of October 15, but the police tried everything they could to provoke riots. Two times, with no reason, barbed wire was put across the street by police with a threatening pose.

with no reason, barbed wire was put across the street by police

While most media were honest enough to also broadcast the reply of the Indignados about all that happened, VT4 runs away with the prize of stupidity. It said: “Indignados damage the HUB-building”. Tabloid journalism out of category.

Camping in the Parc Cinquantenaire in Brussels, only a few hundred meters from the institutions of the European Union, approximately 100 Spanish protesters, also known as indignado’s, were keeping the flame burning on Monday for the #occupybrussels protest.

The protest in Brussels hinges completely on the group of Spanish youngsters, who walked to Brussels from their home country during the last two months. There was no sign of local, Belgian support for this group and it remains to be seen how long the Brussels authorities will allow them to camp in the parc.

Watch Video

Will Brussels see the same type of protests like those on Wall Street?

Several hundred young people from across Europe have walked to the European capital to protest austerity packages and ineffective political approaches to the euro crisis.

Among them, these Spanish indignados that arrived in Brussels on Saturday. Indignados is Spanish for ‘those who are indignant or outraged’
They believe it is the current political and economic system that has left their country with a youth unemployment rate of 45%.

Their protest will culminate with a demonstration in front of the European Parliament on Saturday, when similar protests are scheduled for other capitals in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

So far, the movement here is Brussels is struggling to echo the demonstrations that have taken place in New York, where thousands of people have ventured the streets to make their voices heard.

But the indignados strongly believe that the global protest on the 15th of October will be a great success. They’re convinced the protests that began on Wall Street are the beginning of a major process of global change.

When the indignados arrived in Brussels on Saturday, 48 of them were arrested by the Belgian police after they refused to leave the park they were trying to camp on. It remains to be seen how the Belgian police will react on Saturday.