Last decade was a decade of social outbreaks y mass protests In the world. From the Arab springs and the 15Mal Social outbreak In Chile, the Euromailan In Ukraine or protests in Hong Kong, Brazil o Türkiye. Millions of people took the streets with the intention of transforming society, but often they were nothing more than false sunrises, followed in some cases of long winters. This is what the American journalist and writer tells Vincent Bevins in ‘If we burn: the decade of mass protests and the revolution that was not’ (Captain Swing). A meticulous reconstruction of those revolts and the reasons why the ambicious change rarely arrived.
-In the book he states that the 2010-2020 decade was probably the decade with the most massive protests in history. Did you share any conductive thread?
-The social, economic and political contexts were very different, as well as their ideological objectives and orientations. But if you look at the repertoire of tactics or in the way they were carried out, there are enough similarities. Both for the material conditions of that decade, which allowed technology, and for the fact that some groups explicitly copied others. Tahrir [Egipto] He was inspired by the success of Tunisia and ended up being the most imitated example, reproduced in southern Europe, including Spain, but also in Hong Kong.
-Many of them, he points out, were motivated by a deep discontent towards the prevailing economic model, which you describe as neoliberal.
-He would not have to talk about a single cause because there was always a multiplicity of factors. But it is true that the prolonged consequences of the financial crisis of 2008 and the response that the elites gave were present under the surface in many of the protests. It was more evident in southern Europe, but also in many other places in the world. The other element was what some have called “generalized crisis of representation” in the global system. That “do not represent us” shouted by the outraged Spaniards.
-The trigger, however, was often state violence. In some countries it is quite frequent. What happened so that suddenly a video or image unleashed the social outbreak?
-At risk of simplifying, a typical pattern was as follows: a small group of people begins to protest with a very specific demand, but without much support. The police repression occurs below. Shock the country and, then, huge amounts of people join the protest. It happened in Brazil, in the Euromoidan of Ukraine or in Egypt, where it was a fundamental factor. The explanation is on social networks. There many things are poured, but the morally shocking and hidden for the citizen went viral very quickly during that decade.
-Have the popular revolts change a lot since May 68 or the protests against the Vietnam War?
-Definitely. In the West the political party, the union, the mass organization were family vehicles of political change until well into the second half of the twentieth century. What we saw in the 60s was experimentation with anti-warting organizational forms. The student’s figure appeared as the new agent of revolutionary change, instead of the worker. And from 1968 there was an important turn towards a multiplicity of social movements-as it was seen during the altermundist movement-many of which inherited that anti-warting and more decentralized orientation. The 2010 decade deepened in that line: mass protests, apparently spontaneous, without digitally coordinated and horizontally structured. Something that could be organized much simpler than rebuilding the trade union movement or founding a new political party.
-You conclude, however, that most popular revolts failed. Because?
-The disconcerting is that when he returned to those countries years after the apparent initial victory, people told you they were worse than before. They said there was a real regression. I believe that the tactical repertoire that became hegemonic in the 2010 generated real opportunities, but in none of the cases I analyzed were used by the protests. There was always some other actor who intervened to propose some type of resolution to the street explosion. When that actor was a declared enemy of the town in the streets -Bréin is a clear example, where Saudi Arabia crossed the bridge and crushed the rebellion -was conceived as a defeat. When they were actors related to the people, who imposed an outcome close to the demands of the people, as in the social outbreak in Chile or the protests of South Korea in 2016, it was experienced as a moderate victory, a relative success.
-It’s saying that more organized and established groups ended up stealing the revolutions.
-In the whole global system there were foreign interventions, co -optation, kidnapping of protests through internal forces … Many times by well -organized right -wing forces and connected with existing political parties, ready to act quickly and take advantage of the situation in the streets. Although there were also moderate successes, as in Chile and Korea.
-Does any essential element identified for revolutions to succeed?
-There are two elements: a truly collective capacity for action and the ability for the protest movement to represent itself. The first existed because everything that was needed was to flood the streets of humanity. The organizational mode of the 2010 allowed. But when it tried to decide what to do later – to reflect a void of power, form a revolutionary government or negotiate with the elites and act as a single body – that ability to represent. And as I said before, it was other groups that did have that organizational capacity to move quickly and make decisions that took the opportunity.
-Is there any connection between the failure of these popular revolts, many of them of progressive cut, and the rise of the extreme right that came later?
-Yeah. The rise of the populist right, which we could also define as an antipolytic or anti -democratic insurgency, is an answer to the same real question that the movements of the squares in the early 2010s: the crisis of representation. The dominant ideology of antipolytic said: “The system is broken, even a clown would do it better.” And California chose actor Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor; Ukraine, the comic Zelenski; USA, to Trump. But this right -wing populist current not only rejects the figure of the traditional politician, it also rejects the truth, the epistemological basis of society. And does not reconstruct a real representation. He tells you: “You have no power over me, but I hope you feel some pleasure to see me crush your enemies.”
-The question is why this populist right is being more successful when transforming society.
-The keys is that the changes that drive do not threaten economic elites. A very complicated problem for many of the mass protests of the 2010 was that they presented both material and cultural demands, and the economic elites did not accept more than the latter. A good example is what Hillary Clinton did in the US. Faced with a social democratic insurgency from the left of his party, he turned to identity speeches, adopting the terms that his enemies would call ‘Woke’, because that was much easier for her than responding to the demands of US citizens for a universal health.
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