Pablo Iglesias - Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of Democracy in Europe

First published in English by Verso 2015
Translation Lorna Scott Fox 2015
First published as Disputar la Democracia: Poltica para Tiempos de Crisis
Introduction Alexis Tsipras 2015
Ediciones Akal, S.A 2014
Explaining Podemos and Interview: Spain on Edge first published by New Left Review
New Left Review, May/June 2015
Appendix I translation Fruela Fernndez 2015

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

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ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-335-8
eISBN-13: 978-1-78478-336-5 (US)
eISBN-13: 978-1-78478-397-6 (UK)

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v3.1

To my father, for having taught
me, as Carlo Levi used to say, that
the future has an ancient heart

When at the beginning of the 1990s the markets found the whole world prostrate at their feet, they laid a great table and invited everybody to the feast. Very few of those millions of guests understood that they themselves were on the menu. Their jobs, their pensions, their health care: their dignity and their future.

Then the great crisis came along. The markets and the banks managed to get the states to foot the bill, and the states passed that bill on to the people. Today, the system of political and economic power no longer asks us to make sacrifices for the sake of prosperity to come. It is asking us to sacrifice ourselves in order to survive. For it to survive.

Nevertheless, the traumatic changes that have come about since 2008 have shaken people out of their apathy towards politics. Apathy has given way to anger, outrage, radicalism and action. With every day that passes, greater numbers of us feel that the decisive moment has arrived, and that it is time to seek an alternative and to reflect on what it will take to make that happen, while those who still fall for the slogans and bogeys brandished by governments and the mainstream media are growing fewer. We have reached a turning point: when the masses free themselves from thought control, democracy becomes a very powerful weapon in their hands. This is certainly a great danger for the system.

Economic and political domination relies on clichs. We are told that there is no alternative, by which they mean: Well decide what counts as an alternative and what doesnt. We are told that stabilizing the economy requires sacrifices from all, when what they mean is: Stabilizing our profits requires sacrifices from you. We are told that easy but deceptive promises are a threat to stability, and by this they mean: Democracy is a threat to our power.

Against them we now stand up, all of us, to challenge those who seek to subjugate society by means of insecurity and fear. Because we are part of the forces fighting for justice, dignity and life: the authentic 99 per cent. If anything is to change in this world, it depends on us. To that end we must:

Vanquish fear: fear is their most powerful weapon. Hope and determination are ours.

Promote the principles of justice, common sense and solidarity against the wall of the unthinkable.

Be conscious of our strength: we can find it in unity, in tireless action, in mass struggle. The system trembles when people shout with one voice, when despair and insecurity are turned into resolution and tenacity.

Assert and exercise hegemony: establishing what the alternative is and what it is not depends on the balance of forces and the stability of power. Austerity, recession, the fiscal immunity of the rich, the unrestricted activities of speculators and usurers under the name of the market: none of these are commandments set in stone. If they have gone unquestioned until now, it is because we accepted the legitimacy of economic forces over and above our own lives. Today, all social struggles must challenge the stability of the dominant power.

Be stronger than the markets. An alternative exists. We must be strong enough to make it happen.

Defend democracy, fostering a greater and more active participation of ordinary people in the taking of decisions that affect them, on every level: both through existing institutions and via the creation of new ones. We must use every opportunity that democracy offers to achieve the great change we want: to turn the economy around and place it at the service of society and human needs.

The crisis plus catastrophic austerity policies are driving Europe into a blind alley. The hitherto dominant actors will not hesitate to condemn us to a new stone age so as to safeguard their interests. But we will not do them the favour of remaining frightened and passive. The response will come from the true champions of society, the forces that join the struggle with hope, vision and a clear plan.

We are many, and there are more of us every day. History is here, waiting for us. We will not cease to look it straight in the eye.

Athens, September 2014

The bulk of this book was completed by the end of summer 2013. At that time, Podemos was little more than a vague, nameless hypothesis that seemed downright improbable. Only a year ago, the project now reshaping the political landscape of our country, and which has transformed the lives of those of us who embarked on it, consisted of no more than a handful of conversations and thoughts shared among a few friends. We wanted to move on towards action, but we had no idea of just how big what we were then starting to set up would become.

As the summer faded and the obligations of the new term set in, my plan was to finish the book during the Christmas holidays. I had only recently published two works on cinema and politics, and my Abajo el Rgimen (Down with the Regime) a political conversation with Nega, the lead singer of Los Chikos del Maz had just come out. There seemed no reason to rush the next book.

But when Christmas arrived, the vortex that would spin us into those tumultuous days in January had already begun. At that point there was no way I could find the time to finish the book: as well as working on the campaign and appearing in the media, I had university classes to teach and two TV programmes to produce, La Tuerka and Fort Apache.

My pledge to the publisher has finally made me go back to this book, to revise it and complete the original manuscript. Rereading it now, I find that its meaning has completely changed. My initial aim was to share the thoughts of a left-wing university professor and director of two low-ratings TV shows, who had come somewhat to the fore in previous months as a political commentator on mainstream TV. At the time, within very particular circles, those thoughts might well have been of some interest. Now, however, they are the thoughts of a spokesman for a major political force, one that secured 1.2 million votes in the European elections of May 2014, and which all the polls place as the third political force in Spain. I am very aware of all this, and I must admit that it makes me quite uncomfortable now that I have to write again.