Items of agreement for the plural manifesto prepared during the morning of the 18th of May in Puerta del Sol.

Those assembled in Puerta del Sol, aware that this is an action in progress and of resistance, have agreed to declare the following:

1. After many years of apathy, a group of citizens of different ages and social backgrounds (students, teachers, librarians, unemployed, workers…) ENRAGED by their lack of representation and by the betrayals that are being conducted in the name of democracy, have met at Puerta del Sol with regard to the idea of Real Democracy.
2. Real Democracy is opposed to the gradual discrediting of institutions that claim to represent them, which have become mere agents of administration and management, in the service of the forces of international financial power.
3. The democracy that is promoted from corrupt bureaucratic apparatuses is simply a collection of sterile electoral exercises, in which the participation of citizens has no effect.
4. The discrediting of politics has brought with it the capture of words by those who cling on to power. We must recover words, restore their meaning so that language cannot be manipulated with the end of leaving the citizenry defenceless and incapable of cohesive action.
5. But the examples of manipulation and the capture of language are numerous and constitute a tool of control and disinformation.
6. Real Democracy means putting proper names to the infamy we are living through: International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank, NATO, European Union, ratings agencies such as Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, Partido Popular, PSOE, but there are many others and our obligation is to name them.
7. It is necessary to build a political discourse capable of rebuilding the social fabric, systematically rendered vulnerable through years of lies and corruption. We citizens have lost respect for the majoritarian political parties, but this is not the same as losing our critical faculties. On the contrary, we do not fear POLITICS. To stand up and speak is POLITICS. To seek alternatives of citizen participation is POLITICS.
8. One of our principal premises is a Reform of the Electoral Law that restores Democracy its true meaning: a government of citizens. A participative democracy.
9. We insist that we citizens united here make up a TRANSGENERATIONAL movement because we belong to various generations condemned to an intolerable loss of participation in the political decisions that shape their daily lives and their future.
10. We do not call for abstention, we demand the necessity that our vote has a real influence in our lives.
11. We are not here today to simply demand access to mortgages or because of shortages in the labour market. THIS IS AN EVENT. And as such, a moment capable of giving new meanings to our actions and our speeches. This is born out of RAGE. But our RAGE is imagination, strength, citizen power.

*For further information and discussion of Real Democracy NOW! see here, here, here, here, here and here. Original text of the manifesto here.

Translated by Hugh Green