Manifesto for civil liberties

Voltaire at his desk with a pen in his hand. Engraving by Baquoy, ca. 1795. Wikicommons/ Public domain.When a
month ago the ‘Manifesto for Civil Liberties in Spain and Europe’ was launched in Madrid, it followed the shift from
shock to outrage over the ‘case of the puppeteers’: the High Court had ordered the incarceration of two
puppeteers for performing a play in which the police plant a banner with the
text “Alka-ETA” to incriminate a social activist.

What
the play set out to denounce became a sordid reality: the puppeteers standing
accused of inciting terrorism hours after the staging of their play, thereby becoming
the main protagonists in a national theatre performance, with media outlets acting
out as the puppets of conservative power and its vulgar, yet sophisticated,
ruse of political pressure for electoral interest.

At
stake was the democratic right to freedom of expression. Internationally, the refugee crisis was already evident, even though we had so far
paid scant attention to the problem communicated through the images circulating
on our screens: the Idomeni refugee camp on the border between Greece and
Macedonia becoming a quagmire in which tens of thousands of people were waiting
to continue their journey to other countries within the European Union.

Elaboration and dissemination of the manifesto

The
manifesto for civil liberties was thus born out of a concern for the increasing
restriction of rights fundamental to any democratic life, namely civil rights. The
manifesto calls for their defence as an essential precondition for democracy
and focuses on the multi-level crisis which engulfs Europe today. Austerity has not led to the promised recovery of economic
growth, and stagnation manifests itself in increasing inequality and the concentration
of wealth in the hands of the very few. The manifesto states:

“in the
face of the growing unrest of citizens, many EU countries have openly opted for
repressive policies. This can be seen in the reduction of institutional
tolerance towards protest, in the repeated construction of the figure of the
‘enemy’ and the centrality of the ‘war on terror’ as a substitute for the
legitimate principle of the right to security”.

And
this attitude directly affects both the management of the refugee crisis and
the exercise of rights by European citizens.

The signatories

Dozens
of activists, academics and elected officials, led by the American philosopher
Noam Chomsky, the Italian writer Toni Negri, the founder of New Left Review,
Tariq Ali, and feminist thinker Silvia Federici signed the manifesto, which has
amassed approximately 2,500 signatures in the first week of its release.

The
manifesto is another sign of the times in which we live in the way in so far as
it was produced as a collaborative initiative promoted by a group of people
from different backgrounds, people affiliated to a greater or lesser extent
with different social movements and activist groups, of different ages and
sensibilities.

The
contact between these activists took place in the streets, in social movements
and public debates. They were perfect strangers just a few years ago. In the
course of a couple of meetings, two meals with long after-lunch talks in a
couple of taverns in the city centre, ‘collective intelligence’ was put at the
service of our common preoccupations; the group was organised and coordinated
in a simple and rational way.

The
knowledge and capabilities of each – depending on their personal interests and
experience – were shared and valued in common and gradually turned into the
essential pieces of the machinery that produced the manifesto and its web
platform. What is more interesting is that this was an open and collective
learning process through which the group had the opportunity to observe first-hand
the way the manifesto developed, was diffused, and was introduced to its signatories
and its readers. In a practical way it became possible to monitor the virtues and
defects of our relationships through social networks and the media, the new possibilities
for online activism and public debate as well as the challenges and difficulties.

Clicktivism?

Some
commentators are unconvinced that this new activism through the Internet  is capable of changing anything, limited as it
may be to sofactivism and clicktivism. Some speak of a “digital swarm” that has no common
soul and cannot become a single voice, or about the compulsive and even naive
use that does not allow a thoughtful debate on complex realities or the chance
to raise awareness. The socio-economic context may provoke defensive reactions
that sometimes lead to more fear and hostility replacing openness to dialogue. Social
cohesion is weakened and replaced by large social networks that are merely superficial.

Other
commentators suggest that there is still interest in public issues and that
digital media allow new creative forms of activism, organising and
communicating, that work in synergy with an increase in popular participation
in demonstrations, the gathering of signatures off-line and a critical attitude
towards politicians, the financial sector and the capitalist economy. For
example, many people received information through their digital networks regarding
the murder of Berta Cáceres and signed online petitions to end violence or heard the call for demonstrations.

Without
falling into a techno-utopian vision and without forgetting the traditional
media and the streets, we need to critically analyse media technologies and
take advantage of the communicative and participatory possibilities offered by
the digital revolution.

Besides
being one of the causes of the new political cycle that has opened up new spaces for politics and closed
down others, the 15-M movement has implemented ways of relating in the city
that had been weakened through successive years of economic growth, when it was
not yet clear how illusory the safety and welfare of the middle class were.

We have
witnessed the development of these connections in which inter- (generational,
racial, national…) dialogue may lead not only to the salvation of civil
rights, but to deepening their practical applications in the context of the
crisis of the current democratic model. Perhaps it is time to dare to have a
serious dialogue.

As we
move forward, the past history and present day of Europe can be understood, not
so much as a linear progression, but as a set of processes involving forces and
counterpowers that either promote or hinder the progress of social rights and
civil liberties. The present times demand a plural alliance of all democratic
forces that are conscious of our past and preoccupied about the future of
Europe, the planet and humanity.

A short history of the struggle for civil liberties in
Europe

It is
time to reaffirm our human dignity, with the memory of the past as a guide for
the present and for the exercise of freedom in building a future where people
and nature come first. We can learn from the historical processes that have
improved the protection of civil liberties in Europe and better understand the
counterforces that have limited them.

Historical
memory is useful to remember the positive results of intercultural exchange against chauvinism and fanaticism or that solidarity
improves societies in the face of fear and hatred.

The
advance of freedom and gender equality in our societies would benefit from
greater knowledge and understanding of the history of the witch-hunt, without forgetting, for example, the courage
displayed by Porete in her defence of freedom of thought and expression.
This develops in us a greater appreciation for the historical processes that have
shaped us and fosters a sense of common humanity.

The
hypocrisy of our democracies betraying their own principles is reminiscent of
the double standard of Calvin when he began to act against the principle of
freedom of conscience to which he had dedicated himself. His discourse could
not hide the crime perpetrated against Servetus. Castellio spelled out the obvious and was punished for it: “When I reflect
on what a heretic really is, I can find no other criterion than that we are all
heretics in the eyes of those who do not share our views”.

Bruno’s words can be useful to remember the power of freedom of
expression and truth against repression: “Perchance you who pronounce my
sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it”. The disregard for evidence
and the primacy of power remains in force, but already Galileo had said, “and
yet it moves”.

Classical
liberalism and the Enlightenment taught us that “no-one can compel me to be
happy in accordance with his conception of the welfare of others, for each may
seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he does not infringe
upon the freedom of others”, in the words of Kant. We learned that we learn to be free by living in freedom
and that freedom of thought is the basis of an emancipatory use of freedom of
expression. We also learned about the value of geographical mobility.

Voltaire told us that the idea of freedom of expression lies
in defending it for opinions which we disagree with. The French Revolution
established academic freedom as a fundamental principle of public education
that would be a key axis in the dissemination of knowledge oriented to the
development of humanity, liberty, equality and fraternity.

But
Bonaparte arrived and guided the country’s modernisation and education under
state control for the benefit of the political and economic elites. In
opposition to this model, Humboldt promoted a national public education system
based on the principle of academic freedom and cooperation. But soon after, Fichte
favoured a state education system based on Prussian patriotism, linked to the
creation of an authoritarian and nationalist nation-state. Absolutist
governments cracked down on Enlightenment groups, accusing them of being “Demagogues”.

During
industrialisation, a government of the intellectual aristocracy was prompted in
the service of a minority of proprietors. The working class opposed this
project by developing the view that the emancipation of workers and of humanity
can only be realised through collective solidarity and equality: I am free
because we are free.

In
Spain, Krausists and the Second Republic put academic freedom and free speech
at the centre of a cultural programme for social change. But these projects
were aborted by fascism. At the University of Salamanca, legionnaire
Millán-Astray interrupted Rector Unamuno by exclaiming “die all intellectuals
and long live death.” Unamuno’s axiom – “you will win but you
will not convince” – should today become, ‘we will convince and we will win’;
a democratisation of culture connected with a democratisation of political and
economic systems.

The
memory of the horrors of fascism and the post-war social consensus allowed
greater legal, political, cultural and economic protection of rights and freedoms
in the golden age of European democracies. In the United States, the civil
rights movement promoted the democratisation of society and respect for
cultural diversity. However, economic and political elites soon reacted in the
1970s with projects to counter the “democratic surge” of the 60s, as stated by
the Trilateral Commission. If the problem was an “excess of democracy… needed
instead is a greater degree of moderation in democracy”, establishing
“desirable limits” through tighter economic and ideological control of cultural
institutions. The programmes of massive surveillance and the cases of Assange,
Snowden and Manning provide contemporary examples of the limits to freedom of
information on a global level.

Threats to civil
liberties in Europe

Today, flaunting cruel
indifference, Europe abandons the African and Middle Eastern populations to
their fate – and sometimes to their death in
the Mediterranean. The lack of solidarity with
populations who are fleeing atrocities originated in imperial adventures
(Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya) or sponsored by sinister allies such as Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf Emirates and by the European arms
industry itself, is a demonstration of hypocrisy and cruelty we thought would
happen never again. As if this were not enough, gestures of solidarity with the
victims are punished, as has been seen in the case of the Sevillian
firefighters arrested and tried
in Athens, accused of people trafficking while they were supporting the refugees.

Women and girls carry the greater risks of suffering violence in the
European refugee and migrant crisis. At the same time, austerity policies undermine women’s rights and increase the threat of gender violence.

France a
laboratory

In Europe, a regression towards increasingly
authoritarian regimes has become apparent. France itself, once a space for the conquest
of freedoms and rights, has become a laboratory of a new militarist and
repressive model. In response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the first movement
of the (Social Democratic!) government was the activation of the Vigipirate system, designed in 1978 and whose ultimate refinement
dates from 2015.

The terrorist attacks of November 13 (Bataclan, etc.)
led Hollande to claim that it was “an act of war of the Islamic State”,
although it is public knowledge that the attackers were born in Belgium and
Paris. In terms of foreign policy, France acted violently, bombarding Raqqa
(Syria), where the Islamic State was held to have its bases, brushing aside the
criticism that civilians were being killed. ‘Put out the fire with gasoline’ seems to have been the
slogan of Hollande’s government. Domestically, the government responded by
declaring its State of Emergency: closing schools and universities, the general suspension
of rights and guarantees, the deployment of the army in the streets and harsh border
controls.

Belgium has acted in the same way after discovering that several of the terrorists
were from its territory: it suspended New Year’s Eve celebrations and, for
several days, Brussels remained paralyzed by repressive action that included
the suspension of rights and guarantees. How distant seem those times when
States responded to the threat of declared enemies by trying to reassure their
societies. They have completely reversed that logic, adopting what Naomi Klein
has called “The Shock Doctrine”: there is nothing more effective for the implementation
of policies oriented to subtract economic, social and political rights from its
population than keeping it terrorised by external threats, thereby appearing as
the putative guarantor of the survival of our
way of life.

Spain a spearhead

Spain is no stranger to this strategy of increasing the
restriction on rights and freedoms. In fact it has been spearheading this trend.
After the state of mobilisation and self-organisation initiated by the
15M-movement, and continued by the Mareas
(Tides), platforms and social movements, the Establishment tried to restore
consensus to address what they call the second Transition (it is worth
remembering the assertion “the second time as farce”).

Behind this scenery of redundant theatricality, the
escalation of repression continues: the enactment of the Gag Law that includes penal classifications more characteristic of a narrow-minded
dictatorship than a democracy, the four-year prison sentence for Alfonso
Fernández Ortega –‘Alfon’–
without substantiated evidence, the pending trials of many activists who
participated in different demonstrations (the Marches of Dignity, squats,
etc.), the prosecution of Raúl Capín, a photographer whose ‘crime’ is to have registered the
constant police arbitrariness in the street, and the threat to the right to
strike that became apparent in the trial of the ‘Airbus 8’ workers.

Among the latest victims of this storm are the two
puppeteers who dared at the carnival of Tetuán to dramatize an argument that
challenged the repressive actions of the State. Appealing to a well-known strategy,
they are accused of “exalting the terrorism of ETA and Al-Qaeda”.

Democracy in Europe is also being restricted by media
concentration and manipulation and by the growing marketisation of the
university
system. In response, social mobilisation has begun, for example, to carry out
campaigns for media reform or in defence of the
public university in the
UK.

The 15-M and the Occupy movement are attempts to put
into practice the principle that, in the current historical moment,
organisation and citizen participation are necessary to reverse the direction
taken by governments and build a democracy that ensures the freedom of citizens
to meet their own basic needs, and one that protects the exercise of the rights
of all. A new cycle of collective struggle at a European level is awaiting us.

Support the
Manifesto

The Manifesto for Civil Liberties in Spain and Europe
is a collective response to increasing social inequality, the violation of
human and social rights and setbacks in fundamental freedoms. It exists because
we believe that only together we can build a Europe of the citizens that is
democratic and protects the rights of all. You can read and support the
manifesto here: http://www.porlaslibertadesciviles.org/

You can also visit us at https://www.facebook.com/porlaslibertadesciviles/ and https://twitter.com/libertad_civil