INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS The Future We the People Need Voices from New Social Movements in North Africa, Middle East, Europe & North America WERNER PUSCHRA & SARA BURKE (EDS.) February 2013 The outcome document from the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Develop- ment, Rio+20—entitled »The Future We Want«—does not go nearly far enough to articulate what the vast majority of people around the world need, facing a future constrained by income and wealth inequalities, volatile and fragile financial and eco- nomic systems, resource depletion, global warming, and other planetary boundaries. This publication highlights the perspectives of new social, trade union, and protest movements in regions that have experienced great social upheaval due to recent crises—North Africa and the Middle East, Europe, and North America. These move- ments have challenged the unequal state of the world and the lack of accountabil- ity of governments in Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, Greece, Spain, Ireland, the US, Canada and Mexico. They have managed to change the political discourse in ways formerly considered impossible. With contributions from 20 authors, this publication poses a number of urgent ques- tions: How can new social movements convert more of their alternative ideas into prac- tical policy? Will governments and political parties be able to adapt fast enough to tackle peo- ples’ needs? Can there be reinvention of the global governance system to enable more demo- cratic, global multilateral cooperation? WERNER PUSCHRA & SARA BURKE (EDS.) | The Future WE the People Need Contents Preface: »The Future We the People Need« . 3 Werner Puschra Introduction: »Time to Press the Reset Button on Representative Democracy? ( Or do we need a whole new operating system?)« . 5 Sara Burke Transition in North Africa and the Middle East »The Thawra and Our Duty to Invest in Youth« . 1 3 Ahmed Abou Hussein »The Revolution, Cairo’s Garbage Collectors, and Their New Syndicate« . 1 9 Laila Iskandar »UGTT at the Heart of a Troubled Political Transition« . 2 3 Hèla Yousfi »Reconciling the Irreconcilable« . 2 9 Mohamed Mongi Amami »The Israeli Social Protests and the Economy« . 3 5 Joseph Zeira »Where is Che Guevara When You Need Him? The Social Protest Movement in Israel between Civil Awakening and Political Changes« . 4 3 Nehemia Shtrasler Social Protest in Europe »›The Squares‹ Movement: Combining Protest and Solidarity« . 5 1 Theodora Oikonomides »The Debt Crisis in Greece: Birth of a New Civil Society?« . 5 7 Nick Malkoutzis »The Future is in the Making: A Year-and-a-Half After 15 May« . 6 3 Guillermo Zapata Romero »The People United Will Never be Defeated: The M15 Movement and the Political Crisis in Spain« . 7 3 Íñigo Errejón Galván 1 WERNER PUSCHRA & SARA BURKE (EDS.) | The Future WE the People Need Contents »Irish Tax Policy and Policy Capture« . 7 9 Sheila Killian »The Battle for Debt Justice« . 8 5 Nessa Ní Chasaide Awakening in North America »Political Awakening in North America?« . 9 3 Andrew Ross »Can ›Strike Debt‹ Bring Progressive Change to the United States?« . 9 9 Barry Herman »Canada: Democracy in Drift?« . 107 Trish Hennessy »Dislocated Worker Adjustment Programmes: Time for Another Look« . 115 Janet Dassinger and Sam Vrankulj »Yo Soy 132 and the Return of the PRI« . 123 Jorge Cadena-Roa and Daniela Serrano Campos »Yo Soy 132: Participatory Democracy and Youth Movements in Mexico« . 127 Rodrigo Serrano From the National to the International »From the Bedside to the Streets: Nurses Bring a Message of Healing to the Planet« . 131 RoseAnn DeMoro »A New Distribution of Income and Power« . 137 Claire Courteille Authors . 143 2 WERNER PUSCHRA & SARA BURKE (EDS.) | The Future WE the People Need Preface: »The Future We the People Need« Werner Puschra Executive Director, FES New York What started as a local phenomenon, the self-immola- people around the world. Unemployment is still increas- tion of a Tunisian street trader in a small village protesting ing, and more and more young women and men are ill treatment by local authorities, soon spread to other pushed out of the labor market. As the World Develop- countries around the world and awakened a new social ment Report 2012 makes clear, over the next 15 years an movement. This new social movement is overwhelm- additional 600 million new jobs will be needed to absorb ingly young and takes a fresh look at their future and population growth. the future of their countries and the planet. Through their actions they have discovered the power to start a Jobs certainly improve the material wellbeing of people, transformative process to change established political, as long as they are decent jobs, but it is often overlooked economic, social and cultural structures and institutions that jobs also have a societal function. They support social to make them more responsive to their plights. cohesion and a more peaceful management of conflicts among different groups. They also enable the integration We do not know yet what the outcome will be, but a of minorities and their rights and make it easier to accept process has begun in which more and more people can diversity. freely analyze, develop and express their needs and in- terests to make use of their newly-gained power. This in Despite all the advances of new social movements to itself has already transformed peoples´ lives and changed change the political discourse, many challenges remain: the political discourse around the world. How can new social movements convert more of their New social movements have challenged the unequal alternative ideas into practical policy? state of the world and targeted the high and increasing inequalities within and between societies and countries Will governments and political parties be able to adapt for direct action. They have also addressed a lack of gov- fast enough to tackle the needs of the people? ernmental accountability and are creating new spaces for political analysis, debate, mobilization and engagement Will these processes also lead to a reinvention of the through the use of social media. They are forging social global governance system in order to create an enabling networks that reach far beyond their friends, neighbors environment for a more democratic and representative and families and creating a safe space to discuss con- global multilateral cooperation? troversial topics, form new alliances, and challenge gov- ernments. In this way they contribute to help give more The new social movements do not pretend to have the people a voice and to create and recreate democracy. answers to all these problems. But they offer a new per- spective and new ways to get to answers through more Besides expressing their frustration with governments real participation and communication. This publication that do not deliver, they equally express their frustration presents 20 contributions from social movements, NGOs, with markets, which exercise more and more control over trade unions and scholars from North Africa and the Mid- people and governments, in the interest of only a few. dle East, Europe, and North America. They represent a One of their main concerns with markets and govern- broad spectrum of opinions and experiences from differ- ments alike is jobs, decent jobs.1 The global financial and ent political, economic, social and cultural backgrounds. economic crisis led to high unemployment, especially But all of them are highlighting the need for change and among youth, which is threatening the future of young the need for governments and political parties to take a more responsive attitude to the people´s needs. 1. Employment in conditions of freedom, equity, human security and dignity. 3 WERNER PUSCHRA & SARA BURKE (EDS.) | The Future WE the People Need With this publication we want to broaden the debate around the future the people want and need. We want to bring these views as inputs into discussions at the UN and Bretton Woods Institutions about new development paradigms and the formulation of the Sustainable De- velopment Goals. We also want to encourage dialogue between new social movements and traditional actors for social justice, like trade unions, progressive political parties and NGOs. Werner Puschra Executive Director Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York Office 4 WERNER PUSCHRA & SARA BURKE (EDS.) | The Future WE the People Need Introduction: »Time to Press the Reset Button on Representative Democracy? ( Or do we need a whole new operating system?)« Sara Burke Senior Policy Analyst, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung When 25 year-old Tunisian street vendor Mohamed nadian province of Quebec, and the Yo Soy 132 move- Bouazizi set himself on fire on 17 December 2010 to pro- ment in Mexico. test the harassment and humiliation inflicted upon him by local government officials, who could have foreseen The inspiration for this publication came from remarks the explosion of social protest across North Africa and made by Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the In- the Middle East in the weeks and months that followed? ternational Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). She was The ensuing events in 2011 toppled governments in Tu- on a panel at the United Nations (UN) Conference on nisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, launched major protests in Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman and Israel, 2012 (Rio+20) and had come to Rio directly from the G20 set off demonstrations in Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. She told the Rio audience Arabia, Sudan and the Western Sahara, and sparked that ITUC prepared for both G20 and Rio+20 by conduct- civil uprisings in Bahrain and Syria that have continued ing a global opinion poll. Its results paint a grim picture and escalated until today. These events mark an interna- of the state of representative democracy: only 13 per tional—if not necessarily a global—turning point, a crisis cent of those polled said they thought voters have any of social justice intensified by the financial crisis of 2007- real influence on the economic decisions of government.