Interview by: Erick Rojas Tang and Manuel Quispe Blanco.
Traslated by : Selva López.
Their ages range between
sixty and eighty years old. The majorities of them have been witnesses the
Spanish dictatorship and have been participants in the restoration of democracy
and the establishment of the pillars of the welfare state. Nowadays, not only they
are witnesses of the dismantling of the welfare state for which they fought for
so long, but, moreover, they rose again to fight against the passivity of the
majority of this society. Their weapons are their grays, banners, megaphones
and other tools that have managed to rile more than one politician or banker.
They know the effort that has been done to gain some rights that now are being
removed, and this is why they fight day after day. Their struggle is not directly related to
their own interests but, as they have mentioned in many occasions, it is a
fight for their children and grandchildren. We want to start our blog with a
brief interview to the “Iaioflautas”.
(From left to Right: Francisco Gonzáles 60 years old - Advocacy area, Alfonzo Romero
61 years old -Economic area, Felipe Aranguren 61 years old - press officer)
1.-How did the “Iaioflautas”
movement emerged?
Felipe: The movement arises out of the 15M. The 15 M was on May but we
appear on scene in October. In the first meeting we decided our name and the type
of actions that we wanted to carry on. In the beginning, we decided to do
actions of civil disobedience, not really heavy matters as we are talking about
old people. So we cannot say: “let’s get into some place and stay there forever”.
We wanted to do concrete actions supported with concrete documents for each
action. We started being 14 and at that moment we are more than 700 in
Barcelona.
2. Which positive
contributions would you underline since you became part of the “Iaioflautas”
movement?
Alfonso: For your own welfare, because you are fighting for a cause or
to reach some values that society has lost or that have been stolen and to
leave a better world to our grandchildren. That is basically our mission. We do
not ask anything for us and even for our children we are late… but we are still
on time to leave a world in conditions, as we thought we had done (….). If with
our struggle we can reach this, this will be a personal satisfaction. Moreover,
it makes you enrage again to keep fighting and claiming for what is yours and
what if from the working class.
3. When you hear that
Botín, the president of Santander Bank, owns a fortune of approximately 1.700 million
of euros, while other people do not even have money to eat. ¿What do you think
that has occurred to our society to reach this point?
Francisco: We believe that capitalism does not work even if they say
it does. Their way of make it function is sinking society, deepening more and
more in the social gap between rich and poor. Also finishing with democracy.
They are even using this crisis to put an end to the social rights that we
conquered at that time. We believe that in some way a society plunged in
violence is being set up. We are not talking about physical violence, but other
types of violence. It is violence, for instance, the fact that there exist
families eating from the bin, while others have this amount of thousands of millions.
It is violence, for instance, that some actions like the ones carried out these
days by the andalous workers union are being criminalized. While, on the other
hand, they are granting amnesty to people that defraud… the real delinquents.
Some concepts such as justice, legality, etc. are being subverted (…). In this
moment, putting on jail this people that have left a supermarket with a food
cart is considered justice (…). However, a Urdangarín (part of real family), a Matas (politician), a Camps (politician), a
Botin, or all this people do not go in jail and will never go in jail. A
society in which the values are not anymore what they used to be is being set
up, everything has been subverted.
Felipe: Capitalism has changed in the last periods of times; it moves
from “industrial” to “financial” and from “financial” to “speculative” and one
of the things that bothers capitalism is the state. The state understood as a
democratic system to serve the citizens, therefore, they want to substitute the
state and eliminate it, they want to reduce it as much as possible and, at the
end, occupy it… as they have done with Italy and Greece.
4. - What would you
advice to young people from your experience of so many years of struggle?
Felipe: I would advice them to organize themselves, simply this. We
have the impression to be learning from young people as well… they should
organize themselves and be a bit more radical, that mean not to believe the
stories and not to be individualists… Organizations in the sense of
collectivity… for the rest, we are here to support what each one of us were
already supporting in the 15 M. We just opened a new front in the struggle. I
think it is important that young people become conscious that they have a
future that is being shortened. I would tell them to become more radical. It is
my personal opinion.
Francisco: I would add that they should not be outside politics, the
one who is alien to politics is making that others do politics for him or her.
We cannot stand apart, we cannot allow that others perform for us. That is why
we should be active in what affects us, and what is affecting is called
politics.
5.- Probably most of you
have different experiences in the struggle for social rights. How do you think
that new tools such as Internet or Facebook have changed the way of fighting?
Francisco: Internet, social networks....of course they are changing
all the movements in general. It is the same as capitalism has managed to use
new tools to reach a step further in its development. We moved from capitalism
to imperialism, so there has been a series of steps and the last one has been
the adaptation of new technologies to the social process and the productive process.
Social movement cannot be outside all this. In the case of the “Iaioflautas” I
think it is a very important tool because all our actions are being sustained
by immediate communication, such as social networks. We transmit any action
that we carry out on twitter or facebook. We have even become mundial “trending topic” on twitter in many
occasions. For us, the “Iaioflautas” it wouldn’t be possible to call for
immediate actions without new technologies. We are a group of 700 people thanks
to the fact that we are coordinating 90% of the people by electronic mail, for
the rest we use the phone… Today a 15 M could not be understood without new
technologies.
Felipe: Social networks are an important communicative space but
we must remember that “Iaioflautas” are actions, therefore, once we have
communication we do not have to stay in front of the computer all the
afternoon, all the night or all the day, but we must go out after that.
Communication is a tool but I am afraid that a lot of people that twitts us or
see us on facebook stay in their houses instead of going in the street.
Therefore, going out it’s important, taking the Tahir square… things are not
carried out in the virtual space but in the real space!
6. As far as we know, you
have “occupied” some bank headquarters, some buses when the transport prices
grew and the headquarter of labour Promotion when the labor reform was adopted.
Moreover, you’ve been received for these institutions. Our question is: did you
feel any symptom of penitence or empathy from the directives when you spoke to
them and when you gave them your manifesto? What could you feel when the
directives received you?
Alfonso: I was in charge of delivering the manifesto and it was kind
of chaotic (…) when the director received us they hurried up to put the blinds
down, and I told her: “what are you doing?” and they answer me: “it is not
necessary that the press see that”. So I told them: “what’s important is not
you, neither me, what is important is that the press will capture this moment”,
to renew consciences. Banks are feeling more and more uncomfortable with the
actions of “Iaioflautas”, but what’s important is to reach as many people as
possible. What is true is that the press is covering our events, because this
is good material to feed newspapers and televisions, this is what really
matters. The manifesto is not important, it is the action itself.
Felipe: We do not do the action to convince these people (the
bankers). We think they’re a “bunch of soulless”, therefore our labor is to do
political science. We do a manifesto because we have things to say, but we
don’t do it for them. The rest is to make pressure: “or you receive us, or we
leave”, so they recieve us. I am sure that the manifesto ends in the bin, and
that these people (bankers) do not even consider it and they just go back home,
caress the dog and keep doing their selfish stuff (…)
Francisco: A curious fact of an occupation that we recently did in
Valencia happened in the Health Department. It has three floors and our
partners were there. With the bosses we had some trouble. The problem of the
bosses is that they are people “out of class”, they believe they belong to
middle class, that means that they’ve forgotten that the class struggle still
exists (…) they think they’re out of it…this people just ignores us. However,
the rest of the people were going down the stairs (…) they met us reading the
manifesto and saw our banners. A big amount of the workers started to clap to
the “Iaioflautas”, while the directives kept doing their business. And then,
there’s people like the supermarket cashier that forgets they’re exploiting
her, that they’re not paying her to control the food and she also forgets that
Mercadona is one of the companies that are doing union persecution. Not
everyone has class consciousness…
7. Is there any anecdote that
you would like to underline during this period of struggle?
Francisco: I’ve got anecdotes of curious and emotional mails. We’ve received
quiet a lot. A few time ago we received a mail from a girl, around 14 or 15
years old. She told as that she has a problem in his building, I don’t remember
very well but basically she asked us to come to her building. I told her that
it was a problem that they had to solve themselves and I invited her to our
next assembly… she never answered back. There are people that see us like if we
were Superman or something similar… we are not.
Alfonso: there is another emotional anecdote that happened to us when
we went to an almshome (…), we carried with us a power point that explained our
actions. The place was like an “elephant graveyard”, they just brought them
there to wait for their death. When the presentation finished, I still remember
the face of a man that was sitting in a wheelchair, he was in tears and I saw
that he got up of the wheelchair and he told me: “you made me remember lots of
things and I wish I would have still strength…” and then he asked me a hug… Then
the director told me that was the first time in 10 years that the man could
stand up from the wheelchair (…) I really appreciated that.
8. We would like to know
if the “Iaioflauta” responds to a concrete profile of person. Which skills must
a person have to be considered “Iaioflauta”?
Alfonso: Any specific skill. He/she just has to communicate with us,
come to assemblies, perform is she/he wants and join us. The condition…having a
certain age, because we are “Iaioflautas” (“iaio” in spanish means ‘grandpa’”
(…) being on the mood to perform but also to have fun. To sum up, in every
action, like in every movement it’s important to have fun and enjoy doing it
but also you the actions have to make sense for you, you have to feel that you’re
doing something useful.
Felipe: Some of us have finished a performance doing an appetizer.
It’s true that lots of young people say that they want to become Iaioflautas,
then I tell them: “you’ve got other fronts, other things to do, you attend
university or you’re working or you are in the unemployment lines, wherever”.
Lots of Iaioflautas have “rejuvenated” while becoming part of the movement. One
of the matters of being old is that “people alienate you from society, you’re
not useful anymore,…” but now people have seen that they still have life to
live and I think this is very important, the fact of wanting to stay young and
being active.
9. Would you like to
finish the interview with any reflection?
Felipe: My personal reflection is that we do action of civil disobedience.
I think this is becoming more and more important. We should not confuse justice
with law, law is unfair and actions
such as the one of the andalous working union give us an idea of some people
that are starting to do something and that are not afraid. I think there’re
some basic elements in the system of power: ignorance and fear. The less you
know is better and the more you are scared is also better for the powerful. Therefore the struggle is against
ignorance, the struggle is for knowledge and for participating, so you must
take your fears and put them in your pocket. I am not speaking of not being
scared at all, but it shouldn’t be a fear that makes you paralyze (…) for them
fear is fundamental.
Alfonso: Regarding the “fear” that Felipe mentions, obviously we’ve lost
it, because in our age we are less and less scared, at least we know how to
dominate our fears. We’re not scared of being fired as the majority of us are
already retired or in precarious situations, so it’s difficult to turn into a
worse panorama. So this makes you feel that when you breathe, your lungs start
swelling no matter how important is the charge of the person standing in front
of you… cause you’ve lost the fears to a possible repression that you used to
have when you were young.
Francisco: I think you must or you can be scared when you’ve got
something to lose, but nowadays they give us every time less things…so we’ve
got less and less things to lose. There’s people that don’t have anything, so
fear is superfluous (…) they’ve got to do what we do: pacific civil disobedience
as the SAT laborers: entering there and taking the shopping cart without fears
to occupy the property, cause they’ve got nothing to lose. When you’re stressed
it’s because they’re cutting you your rights, because you don’t have a job, or
a house, they’re removing you everything… in this moments it’s impossible to
justify fear (…) what must be done is lose the fears that won’t get us nowhere,
without fears we can do so many things (…) At our age we keep fighting, no
matter the age, the condition. The struggle, the dignity, doesn’t have age. You
must struggle no matter your age and the condition you are living.
