Fundación Ideas para el progreso

At the symposium “15-m: a year after” Fernando Vallespín, Kerman Calvo, and Mariano Fernández Enguita have agree on urging the 15-M Movement to settle the dilemma of trying to find a balance between the highest level of political representation and efficiency when taking decision.  

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At the symposium “15-m: a year after” organized by the IDEAS Foundation to celebrate the first anniversary of the movement, the three experts placed a high value on citizen’s rebelliousness
that arouse the emergence of the movement, although they disagree on their assessment of its social prominence and, especially, what direction to take in the future. 

After declaring himself as a supporter of the movement, Fernando Vallespín, said he was “tough” on the 15-M Movement which he labeled as “narcissist” and “populist” and he accused them of “avoiding criticism because they place themselves out of the system.” In his opinion, the 15-M Movement “has to be just another movement in the political sphere and not “the movement.” 

After admitting that the 15-M Movement had the virtue of “objectify what we all thought” and “to politicize equality again” and, in his opinion, “it must be institutionalized like for example, the Partido Pirata, because the contrary is to avoid the tragedy of taking decisions” “It is true –he added- that they were overwhelmed by too much responsibility but, I expected more from the 15-M” which he warned on the risk of “falling into populism, characterized by a discourse which goes against the elites, and the simplification of reality to assume the representation of all.”  

Kerman Calvo and Mariano Fernández Enguita were less critical with the 15-M Movement. Calvo affirmed that society would be “very unfair if it required the 15-M Movement the capacity to find answers with the precision specific to movement with 40 years of history. The 15-M Movement is only one year old and no clarity can emerge in such a short period of time.” For Calvo, the 15-M Movement is faced with a dilemma: either to continue being visible without becoming an institution, or precisely, to become an institution. At this stage, he thinks that the 15-M “is choosing to be a hybrid child, an intermediate way on which those who follow it have learnt a lot as they go along but, they do not know yet how to address external logic of their relation to the system.” With regards to the ideology of the movement, Calvo doubted if labeling it as “with deep left-wing views.”  

Some way, the sociologist Fernandez Enguita agreed with Calvo by affirming that the 15-M is faced up to two different issues: what and why; how and with what tools? “Concerning the first one –he noted that- there is no reason fro it to wane because it has brought together a diversity of people who have managed to break the hierarchy when doing politics, discussing issues they thought was the privilege of experts.” He also noted that the pending challenge of the 15-M is the need to make their demands more specific.
 
Before the debate b the experts, there was a round table on activism and the media with the participation of Sofía de Roa and Pilar Velasco, both journalists and the activist Ferrán Pedret. De Roa, who works in Agora Sol Radio, a radio station that came into being wit the camping in Sol, noted that the 15-M Movement is independent and was critical with the image of violence some traditional media are attaching to the movement, as well as with the fact that they are ignored by others.

As for Pilar Velasco journalist at cadena SER and author of the book “No nos representan”, which is a compilation of the main proposals of the 15-M Movement, noted the nerve and the yearning for rebellion that are the inspiration of the movement which she said succeeded in surprising the media, the political parties and the trade unions.  

Finally, Ferrán Pedret, author of the book “Cuando ocurre lo inesperado” and activist at the Plaza de Catalunya, in Barcelona, noted that the 15-M is broadly a left-wing movement. Equally,
He supported the idea that the movement itself should, without external interferences, be the one to support its own future and decide if they should become or not some kind of electoral platform or continue being a citizen and social movement.