DiEM’s Sunlight-Project as an Initial Ignition
by Dominik Schlett
Last Saturday (December 3rd) the young DiEM25 Movement walked a thin line in Berlin. It should have been the first countrywide meeting of the movement in Germany, but due to time bottlenecks the project was threatened with failure. The meeting was announced only a few days prior, and the lack of time made finding a venue, planning the schedule, integrating speakers, and not least finding a content position into a real challenge. Conclusion: we had to think outside of the box!
DiEM from the Rooftops
It wasn’t just the amazing space: a glass Penthouse is already a rarity in the middle of red Wedding.
Warmed with sunlight and inspired by the participants from every part of Germany, the project quickly picked up pace. It could have just as quickly lost its tempo, were it not for the initiative and ideas of the participants that continued to fire the discussion and the united group effort that continued to inspire. And all with a large symbolism.
Thus, DiEM doesn’t need a Reichstag copula in order to cater to alleged transparency. Here questions were answered either directly by Yanis Varoufakis over Skype, or by representatives of the Coordination Collective. The personal proximity among the participants as well as the coziness of the sun drenched room provided a familiar atmosphere. The content was correspondingly even hotter.
The Fart has no Nose
In order to turn the numerous ideas into concrete propositions the brainstorming had to be channeled into concrete work. The list of themes was as follows: best practices in DSCs, new thinking on economy, gender equality, public works, rebellious cities and the inclusion of new DSCs. None of the almost fifty participants wanted to hold back. The mobility between the groups was correspondingly high.
Thus the participants constantly changed theme areas to obtain a higher amount of information exchange. Each person had something to contribute, but never too much. All too familiar are the kind of political speakers who like to overshoot the target. We wanted to avoid that because this day was about quality and not quantity. No one took too much pleasure in smelling themselves.
Green light in the Sunlight
The representatives of the DSCs, as they found themselves in Berlin on December 3rd, had brought with them many questions, a lot of motivation, and great will. They were not disappointed. The conclusion of the closing counsel was thoroughly positive. Further meetings were universally wished for, further ideas were solidified, and further nets were spun. Above all, new acquaintances were forged.
And this is what every movement at the base shows: people want to work together with one another and improve things. Dissatisfied, rejecting the status quo, putting hope in their togetherness, and thus the capacity of changing something, but having already changed something by doing this. The exchange alone had brought at least some light for the participants over the thick, nebulous net of political complexity and recommended itself for further interaction.
The Universal Right to Capital Income
The right to laziness has traditionally been only for the propertied rich, whereas the poor have had to struggle for decent wages and working conditions, unemployment and disability insurance, universal health care, and other accoutrements of a dignified life. The idea that the poor should be granted an unconditional income sufficient to live on has been anathema not only to the high and mighty, but also to the labor movement, which embraced an ethic revolving around reciprocity, solidarity, and contributing to society.
When unconditional basic-income schemes were proposed decades ago, they inevitably met outraged reactions from employers’ associations, trade unions, economists, and politicians. Recently, however, the idea has resurfaced, gathering impressive support from the radical left, the Green movement, and even from the libertarian right. The cause is the rise of machines that, for the first time since the start of industrialization, threaten to destroy more jobs than technological innovation creates – and to pull the rug out from under the feet of white-collar professionals.
But as the idea of a universal basic income has returned, so has resistance from both the right and the left. Rightists point to the impossibility of raising enough revenue to fund such schemes without crushing the private sector, and to a drop in labor supply and productivity, owing to the loss of work incentives. Leftists worry that a universal income would weaken the struggle to improve people’s working lives, legitimize the idle rich, erode hard-won collective-bargaining rights (by empowering companies like Uber and Deliveroo), undermine the foundation of the welfare state, encourage passive citizenship, and promote consumerism.
Read more at Project Syndicate
Right-wing Lawmakers Curb Freedom of Press in Poland
The latest standoff between Poland’s right-wing party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) and the opposition is edging the country to the verge of a constitutional crisis.
Last night, protesters blocked the exits from the Polish parliament after lawmakers passed next year’s budget without the customary open vote procedures established in the country’s constitution. Speaker Marek Kuchcinski moved the vote on the nation’s 2017 budget outside of the main chamber of parliament and blocked the media from recording the vote -something that had not happened since 1989.
Local news organisations report that direct access for media to the chamber was denied, with reporters only able to observe an official camera feed.
“There is no proof that a quorum of lawmakers was present. We suspect that people who were not allowed to vote took part,” leader of the opposition Nowoczesna party Ryszard Petru said.
Warsaw police spokesperson, Mariusz Mrozek, declared the protesters’ gathering before parliament illegal starting from midnight. Several opposition MPs spent the night in parliament until this morning when police broke up the blockade.
“The PiS playbook is very clear: turn off the lights, upend constitutional rights and install an authoritarian regime.”
PiS’s attempt to curb freedom of press in Poland did not come as a surprise, however, as their plan to take aim at independent news organisations and curtail access of the media to parliament was announced last week.
“PiS’s playbook is clear,” explained DiEM25’s Collective Coordinator member Agnieszka Wiśniewska, “turn off the lights, upend constitutional rights in the dark and install an authoritarian regime.”
The worrisome extremist derive taking place in Poland echoes that of other neighbouring countries.
DiEM25’s co-founder, Srećko Horvat, stressed: “What is now happening in Poland already happened in Croatia when the right-wing government slashed financing of all independent media. Their move left mainstream news organisations either in the hands of the state or under the thumb of big capital. It is also happening in Hungary.”
“On the one hand, we have post-communist countries, which are trying to put forward the worst undemocratic measures, resembling to media blockade which preceded the 1930s. But on the other hand, we have protest movements, and one of the strongest currently flourishing where it was least expected – in Poland. What anyone who cares about media freedom and freedom of speech has to understand is that this is part of the general disintegration Europe is undergoing. This is why we have to connect more then ever, beyond nation-states, into a European movement that may bring back transparency and prevent Europe from sliding into a continent of censorship.”
According to Wiśniewska, PiS’s radicalization to the populist right has been happening for some time and is now accelerating. PiS has moved from being a moderate conservative member of the European’s People’s Party supported by nationalists and Catholics to becoming an anti-European political force pushing for an increasingly extremist agenda.
“DiEM25 is needed in Poland now more than ever. What’s happening here further underlines our warning: when transparency goes the powerful then move to kidnap the political process and strip citizens of their right to freedom of the press. This is when democracy dies. As DiEM25 denounced in its transparency campaign, democracy is a delicate flower that needs light to survive. Our first priority today is to #LetLightIn and avoid, at all costs, that extremists shut our parliament into darkness.”
This park is now closed and has gone online
By Teddy Kronthaler
There is little doubt that the most urgent issue of our time is Climate Change. Homo sapiens have become immensely efficient destroyers, at war with their own planet. The concerns to be confronted are numerous: cut down forests, rapidly melting ice caps, rising sea levels, extinct species, resource depletion, greenhouse gases, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, rapidly increasing catastrophic events around the globe.
Our future is at risk. Very serious changes are happening, many still poorly understood. I know, you’ve heard it all before; but, sorry! it has to be said again and again and again: we have pushed the planet too far. If we continue to do so we will have to face the inevitable consequences. Deniers will be made responsible. The natural environment we’ve known for 10,000 years – the one that’s supported mankind and encouraged its success – is changing; our future depends on our ability to respond.
Systems, ideologies, narratives, modes of behaviour – from political to ecological – are being defied. The world of 2016 is not a stable and predictable one; in the future, the only constant will be change. Surprise is the new normal. Human actions have their effects, there are no unrelated events; nature, politics, the economy, society – all interconnected, every link of the chain matters.
This all is getting more serious with every day passing. We are very close to the tipping point; lost control. What is at stake is protecting life on our planet, the atmosphere and mother earth itself. We can leave it or take it. Humanity needs to materialise the over and over talked, written and argued about “mind shift”: reconnecting the individual with his natural environment, societies with the biosphere, humanity with the planet. Success will require both personal commitments and the overcoming of serious political challenges.
On the political level there is but one solution: a “Green Stimulus Deal” to develop large-scale technological innovations, i.e. the targeting of public sector investments towards energy security and efficiency, low-carbon infrastructures and ecological protection – together with the provision of human resources for this urgently needed environmental reconstruction programme. The twin challenges of climate change and energy security have to be met: protecting and enhancing ecosystems is vital to economic productivity in the future; this includes substantial investments in clean technologies, sustainable agriculture and smart cities; a major investment challenge opening up vast opportunities for economic growth. Global investors have to be made to understand that sustainable solutions will not only save the planet and increase well-being globally, but create economic opportunities, paying massive dividends.
Depressingly, many people still don’t understand the risks climate change poses to global economic and social structures, and, sadly, many insist that implementing measures to mitigate the effects of climate change are too costly and inconvenient to their current way of life. Education and awareness-raising are crucial to furnish the still unenlightened with the knowledge needed to build a better future; broadening access to education would also lead to homegrown innovation and entrepreneurs spotting opportunities to address problems on the local level.
It cannot be left solely up to Silicon Valley, NASA, national and/or international institutions to develop the magic formula to all our climate and environmental problems; solutions may come from tech hubs, but they will also come from villages and cities, from farmers, manufactures and individuals with vastly different perspectives on the world around them – this will create a virtuous and energetic cycle; our environments are best protected by local initiatives that inspire and are inspired by a love of home.
All is lost! – we should not fall prey to this false belief. We need to address the fact that there’s a lot of fluff, greenwash and misleading advertising when people talk about a better, greener future, accompanied by an alarmist premise, tending to be large-scale panic, merely serving a defeatist agenda: “Everything is totally and irreversibly threatened; we must completely change our way of life”.
Although these claims need to be expressed and have a right to be heard, we more importantly need to embrace a spirit of optimism, energetic activism and hope. The human race is equipped with the tools necessary: the intelligence, creativity and technological know-how. Homo sapiens have an incredible ability to overcome even the most daunting of challenges. Even so, one thing is for certain: we have to confront NOW the risks of continuing along the current path and start creative, realistic, and profitable alternatives; business as usual is no longer an option. 9 billion people can be fed without destroying our lands and forests, our economies can be powered without burning fossil fuels.
Humankind – all of us, together in a common effort – can trigger a new wave of sustainable technological inventions, with an abundance of ideas and solutions for human prosperity and planetary stability. If we wait for another 10 more years, it will certainly be too late; a better future is possible, it is up to us to make it happen.
Originally published in Teddy Kronthaler’s blog.
For more information and insight, please visit Climate Revolution.
Yanis and Srećko do Q+A in Zagreb
Last week, Yanis and Srećko spoke at the “Philosophical Theatre” event in Zagreb, Croatia. Topics discussed: the Greek Crisis, Eurogroup, Star Trek, The Matrix, Silicon Valley, Putin, the Italian referendum, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, technology, investment, and of course… DiEM25! Give it a spin.
Brexit: An unorthodox view
DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective members, Yanis Varoufakis, Srecko Horvat and Elif Shafak to discuss post-Brexit Britain. Moderated by Owen Jones.
A troubled Britain is on its way out of a troubled European Union. Disintegration and xenophobia are in the air. The government in London is in disarray. But so is every other government in Europe, not to mention the European Commission whose authority is tending increasingly towards zero.
The only forces to be gathering strength everywhere are those of what might be called a Nationalist International, spreading their belligerent reach to Trump’s America. Bellicose nativism is on the rise propagating a thinly-veiled discursive ethnic cleansing. Even sections of the Left are succumbing to arguments in favour of retreating behind the nation-state and stricter border controls.
Srećko Horvat, a Croat philosopher, Elif Shafak, renowned Turkish novelist, and Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister, bring to this conversation an intriguing perspective. As intellectuals who know Britain well, they understand first hand the perils of nationalism, disintegration, isolationism and marginalisation. They will place post-Brexit Britain in a context informed by a view of Europe and Britain from the continent’s opposite ‘corner’, sharing insights from Greece’s tensions with Brussels and Berlin, Yugoslavia’s disintegration, and Turkey’s fraught relationship with a Europe that both courts and marginalises it.
Moderated by Owen Jones, a passionate campaigner for a quite different Britain in a quite different Europe, it promises to be an evening that restores confidence in Britain’s and Europe’s humanist and internationalist potential.
A Guardian Live Event:
Friday 27 January 2017, 8pm–9.30pm
Central Hall Westminster, London, SW1H 9NH
Buy your tickets here.
Running time: 90 minutes, no interval.
Wheelchair users and visitors who require an assistant may bring a companion free of charge. To book a free companion ticket please email [email protected]
DiEM25 Launches Appeal to EU Institutions to #StopTheDeal
DiEM25 is helping to take the shameful EU-Turkey refugee deal to court, in a bid to save the life of one man and improve the lives of millions.
We call upon Europeans and their elected representatives to overrule the EU-Turkey Agreement and end the EU’s practice of sacrificing human lives and basic humanist principles on the alter of appeasing xenophobes and ultra-nationalists.
Visit our #StopTheDeal campaign page and make this struggle yours as well!
OPEN LETTER
FAO: Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament
Donald Tusk, President of the European Council
Robert Fico, EU Presidency
Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission
Dimitris Avramopoulos, European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship
Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Fabrice Leggeri, Executive Director, Frontex
Jose Carreira, Executive Director, EASO
December 6, 2016
Dear Madam, Dear Sir,
On November 29, the European Court of Justice was presented with an Action for Annulment on behalf of Mr. Shabbir Iqbal, a refugee who, after a perilous journey, is currently in Greece at risk of deportation.
The Action asked the Court to review the legality of the March 18, 2016, EU-Turkey Agreement (the act), including the provisions therein for the “returns” to Turkey of all “irregular migrants or asylum seekers” arriving on the “Greek islands” after March 20, 2016. The action seeks to annul the act in its entirety.
We, the undersigned, believe the ECJ must rule in favour of this Action, not only on the grounds of its solid legal merits and substantial supporting evidence, but also because the members of our Union’s highest Court must ensure that all laws and treaties fully comply with European and International Law in both letter and spirit.
With this Action, the Court is being asked a simple question: Does the EU-Turkey Agreement serve its purported aim “to end irregular migration from Turkey to the EU”? Or is it a perverse and surreptitious mechanism for EU member states to neglect their responsibilities toward refugees and asylum seekers reaching our shores, turning their backs on human life and violating both the letter and spirit upon which our common space was founded?
We submit the same question to you, the representatives of the EU’s highest institutions, and appeal that you step forward and stop this infamous ‘Agreement’ at once.
Of the many proceedings the ECJ is asked to hear and determine, this might be one the most critical ever: Its decision will have far-reaching consequences for the future of our Union and the credibility of its institutions.
Thus, we urge you to act immediately to stop this Agreement. We call upon you to restore the EU’s humanist roots, its obligation to respect and protect all migrants’ human rights, irrespective of their status, and to put an end to unnecessary suffering by acting before the ECJ overrules your regretful pact with Turkey.
Signed:
Renata Ávila, Guatemalan human rights and technology lawyer
Walter Baier, Austrian economist
Anthony Barnett, British writer, founder of openDemocracy
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Italian writer, media theorist and media activist
Boris Buden, Croatian philosopher, translator and cultural theorist
Berardo Carboni, Italian director and scriptwriter
Nessa Childers, Irish MEP
Noam Chomsky, American linguist, Professor emeritus of linguistics, MIT
Cécile Duflot, French politician; former Minister of Territorial Equality and Housing
Brian Eno, English musician, visual artist and political activist
Marcelo Expósito, Spanish artist, political activist and MP
James K. Galbraith, American economist and author
Susan George, French-American global justice campaigner
Srećko Horvat, Croatian philosopher and political activist
Katja Kipping, chairperson, German Left Party
Caroline Lucas, co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales
Lorenzo Marsili, Italian writer, political activist
David McWilliams, Irish economist, writer, broadcaster and journalist
Sandro Mezzadra, Italian writer and associate professor of political theory
Rasmus Nordqvist, Danish MP
Gerardo Pisarello, First Deputy Mayor of Barcelona
Saskia Sassen, Dutch-American sociologist
Thomas Seibert, German philosopher, author, political activist
Richard Sennett, American sociologist, centennial professor of sociology, LSE
Elif Shafak, Turkish novelist, columnist, speaker and scholar
Cristina Soler-Savini, university research fellow, Paris
Barbara Spinelli, Italian MEP
Igor Stokfiszewski, Polish researcher, journalist and activist
Danae Stratou, Greek visual and installation artist
Yanis Varoufakis, economist and former Greek finance minister
Marie-Christine Vergiat, French MEP
Vivienne Westwood, British fashion designer, environmental activist
Agnieszka Wiśniewska, Polish activist, author
Slavoj Žižek, Slovenian-born philosopher and psychoanalyst
Sign the petition!
Chomsky: DiEM25 is the most constructive approach to prevent the EU's disintegration
Why should Italy vote 'No' in tomorrow's referendum
While we’re developing together our vital Progressive Agenda for Europe, EU politics continues to get shaken up, as the establishment lurches from crisis to crisis.
Tomorrow will be the next pivotal moment: Italian citizens will vote in a referendum to amend their country’s constitution, which will have a clear European impact.
At the Coordinating Collective (CC), we received numerous requests from our members for DiEM25 to take a position on whether this proposed amendment should pass, and to campaign for it.
In line with our movement’s goal to democratise decision-making in the EU, as well as DiEM25’s pan-European essence, last month we asked our members in every corner of the Union to vote on which side we should be on: ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
A majority of the DiEM25 members and DSCs who took part in our internal democratic exercise (84.54%) recommended a ‘No’ vote.
Here is why:
If the amendment passes, it would hinder the democratic process in Italy. It would concentrate more power in the hands of the Italian government, reducing the role of Parliament, and diminish plurality by guaranteeing an absolute majority to the party with the most votes. Furthermore, the amendment would reduce the power of regions, hampering local autonomy.
But more broadly, the amendment would be yet another expression of the EU’s current demand for reliable national governments that can implement technocratic decisions without the nuisance of a political opposition and organised dissent. It would ensure we see more of the same “There Is No Alternative” rhetoric that has characterised the EU’s stance post-2008.