The political paradigm is changing. Politicians are proving once again to be slow learners, they are resisting change rather than embracing it and they will be swept away by the winds of change. Editor
On May 15, 2011, young people occupied the squares of the cities in Spain. They called themselves Los Indignados - "the indignant". I met them in Madrid where I was attending the meeting of the scientific committee that advises the Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Their declaration states: "Who are we? We are the people; we have come here freely as volunteers. Why are we here? We are here because we want a new society that gives more priority to life than to economic interest."
In the US, the ongoing "Occupy movement" commonly cries: "We are the 99 per cent". This people's protest, inspired by the Arab Spring, is directed against the unequal distribution of wealth; the "99 per cent" here refers to "the difference in wealth between the top one per cent and all the remaining citizens".
The fact that they were supported by actions around the world when they were to be evicted from Wall Street on October 14 shows that, everywhere, people are fed up with the current system. They are fed up with the power of corporations. They are fed up with the destruction of democracy and peoples' rights. They refuse to give their consent to the bailouts of banks by squeezing people of their lives and livelihoods. The contest, as "the 99 per cent" describe it, is between life and economic interests, between people and corporations, between democracy and economic dictatorship.
The organising style of the people's movements worldwide is based on the deepest and the most direct democracy. This is self-organisation. This is how life and democracy work. This is what Mahatma Gandhi called swaraj.
Those from the dominant system, used to hierarchy and domination do not understand the horizontal organising and call these movements "leaderless". More
