 |
| by Liam Barrington-Bush and Jen Wilton |
In
the south of Spain, the street is the collective living room.
Vibrant
sidewalk cafes are interspersed between configurations of two to five
lawn chairs where neighbors come together to chat over the day’s events
late into the night.
In mid-June the weather peaks well over 40 degrees
Celsius and the smells of fresh seafood waft from kitchens and
restaurants as the seasonably-late dining hour begins to approach.
The
scene is archetypically Spanish, particularly for the Andalusian region to
the country’s south, where life is lived more in public than in
private, when given half a chance.
Specifically,
this imagery above describes Marinaleda. Initially indistinguishable
from several of its local counterparts in the Sierra Sur southern
mountain range, were it not for a few tell-tale signs.
Maybe it’s the
street names (Ernesto Che Guevara, Solidarity and Salvador Allende
Plaza, to name a few); maybe it’s the graffiti (hand drawn
hammers-and-sickles sit happily alongside encircled A’s, oblivious to
the differences the two ideologies have shared, even in the country’s
recent past); maybe it’s the two-story Che head which emblazons the
outer wall of the local sports stadium.
Marinaleda
has been called Spain’s ‘communist utopia,’ though the local variation
bears little resemblance to the Soviet model most associate with the
phrase.
Classifications aside, this is a town whose social fabric has
been woven from very different economic threads to the rest of the
country since the fall of the Franco dictatorship in the mid 1970s.
A
cooperatively-owned olive oil factory, houses built by and for the
community, and a famous looting of a large-scale supermarket, led by the
town’s charismatic mayor, in which proceeds were donated to food banks,
are amongst the steps that have helped position Marinaleda as a beacon
of hope.
The currency of direct action
As
the Spanish economy continues its post-2008 nosedive, unemployment sits
at 26% nationally, while over half of young people can’t find
work. Meanwhile, Marinaleda boasts a modest but steady local employment
picture in which most people have at least some work and those that
don’t have a strong safety net to fall back on.
But
more than its cash economy, Marinaleda has a currency rarely found
beyond small-scale activist groups or indigenous communities fighting
destructive development projects: the currency of direct action. Rather
than rely exclusively on cash to get things done, Marinaleños have put
their collective blood, sweat and tears into creating a range of
alternative systems in their corner of the world.
When
money hasn’t been readily available - probably the only consistent
feature since the community set out on this path - Marinaleños have
turned to one another to do what needs doing. At times that has meant
collectively occupying land owned by the Andalusian aristocracy and
putting it to work for the town, at others it has simply meant sharing
the burden of litter collection.
While
still operating with some degree of central authority, the local
council has devolved power into the hands of those it serves.
General
assemblies are convened on a regular basis so that townspeople can be
involved in decisions that affect their lives. The assemblies also
create spaces where people can come together to organize what the
community needs through collective action.
“The
best thing they have here in Marinaleda, and you can’t find this in
other places, is the [general] assembly,” says long-term civil servant
for the Marinaleda council, Manuel Gutierrez Daneri.
He continues:
“Assembly is a place for people to discuss problems and to find the
solutions,” pointing out that even minor crimes are collectively
addressed via the assembly, as the town has no police or judicial system
since the last local cop retired.
In
his time as mayor, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo has managed to leverage
considerable financial support from the state government, a feat which
Gutierrez Daneri attributes to the town’s collective track record for
direct action. “If you go ahead with all of the people behind you, that
is very powerful,” he says.
As a
result, the small town boasts extensive sports facilities and a
beautifully-maintained botanical garden, as well as a range of more
basic necessities. “For a little village like this, with no more than
2,700 people, we have a lot of facilities,” says Gutierrez Daneri.
British
ex-pat Chris Burke has lived in Marinaleda for several years, and he
explains that access to the public swimming pool only costs €3 for the
entire summer.
Burke recounts Mayor Sánchez Gordillo saying to him, “The
whole idea of the place being somewhere good to live is that anyone can
afford to enjoy themselves.” Burke adds pragmatically, “You can’t have a
utopia without some loss-making facilities.”
From occupation to cooperation
In
1979, Sánchez Gordillo was first elected as the town’s mayor. He led an
extensive campaign to change Marinaleda’s course, which began with
hunger strikes and occupying underutilized land.
Manuel Martin Fernandez has been involved in la lucha
(the fight) since the beginning. He explains how through the general
assembly process the community decided something had to be done to stem
the flow of migration from the town. They began a weeks-long occupation
of a nearby reservoir to convince the regional government to allocate
them enough water to irrigate a tract of land.
After
this proved successful, they then went on to occupy 1,200 hectares of
the newly irrigated land, which at that time was owned by an
aristocratic family. In 1991, the plot of land was officially
expropriated and turned over for local use. “It took 12 years to obtain
the land,” Martin Fernandez explains, calling their victory “a
conquest.”
Today, extensive fields of
olives, artichokes, beans and peppers form the backbone of the local
cash economy. The land is collectively managed by the cooperative El
Humoso and a canning facility has been set up on the edge of town.
“Our
aim was not to create profits, but jobs,” Sánchez Gordillo told British
author Dan Hancox, explaining why the town chose to prioritize labor-intensive crops to create more employment for local people.
Like
most agricultural employment, whether in the fields or the factory,
work in Marinaleda is both seasonal and varied from year to year. But
unlike many small agricultural towns, Marinaleda shares the work amongst
those who need it.
Dolores
Valderrama Martin has lived in Marinaleda her entire life and she has
worked at the Humoso canning factory for the past 14 years.
From the
upstairs office she explains that if 200 people are looking for work,
but they only need 40 workers, they will bring everyone together. “We
gather all of these people who are directly affected,” she says. “We
make groups of 30 to 40 people and each group works for two days.”
While
the cooperative is formed of nine separate entities, Valderrama Martin
says they collectively decide on important issues like the allocation of
work. They may even take the issue to a general assembly for wider
input from the town. But she cautions, “When there is no work they are
unemployed, like anywhere else.”
Most
of the town decries the relative lack of work, but the wider social
security net built on the principles of direct action and mutual aid
have meant that unlike other parts of the country, two months’ wages can
go a long way to keep you afloat for the year.
At the core of this is
the town’s approach to housing, which offers one of the clearest
examples of how collective effort can fill the void left by a stagnant
cash economy.
The houses that community built
When
many young people think about making their first foray into the housing
market, money is inevitably the biggest obstacle. State of the economy
aside, a down payment is always a sizable sum, even in relatively tame
markets, and is increasingly unattainable for what has been described as
‘the jilted generation.’
But high on
the list of maverick decisions spearheaded by Mayor Sánchez Gordillo,
using a combination of state housing subsidy for building materials,
free labor for construction and land given by the town, housing has been
partly removed from the free market in Marinaleda.
Instead, community
members come together with architectural plans provided by the council
to build a block of houses, with no sense in advance which home will
belong to which family.
The houses -
some 350 units in total, with twenty new builds underway at the time of
our visit - become part of a housing cooperative. Needless to say, when
citizens are only left paying €15 per month for mortgages, this has a
massive knock-on impact on work requirements.
The direct action economy
While
capitalism frames our relationships as a series of self-interested
economic transactions, Marinaleda relies on a model of mutual aid, as
locals work together to meet shared needs, with far less money
circulating.
While it can be easy to forget, money is simply a way of
facilitating action, which creates an incentive for people to do tasks
that they otherwise may not have any interest in doing.
Direct
action, on the other hand, is rooted in common interests and explores
the practicalities of what needs doing, based on who is there to do it.
Direct action eliminates the consumer-provider divide, making cash an
unnecessary intermediary in getting things done, as those who want
something done, and those doing it become one-in-the-same.
While
Marinaleda has its flaws, it reminds us that alternative economic
models are not only possible, they already exist. A striking piece of
graffiti on Marinaleda’s main road depicts a dream-catcher,
super-imposed with a hammer and sickle. The accompanying message
implores us, “Catch your dreams - utopia is possible.”
This article was originally published at Contributoria.
Liam Barrington-Bush is an activist, facilitator, and author of Anarchists in the Boardroom. He tweets as @hackofalltrades, blogs at morelikepeople.org and posts stuff on the more like people Facebook page.
Jen Wilton is
a freelance journalist, researcher and photographer based in London,
UK. Her interests include social movements, sustainable energy,
alternative economies and Latin America. She tweets as @guerillagrrl and blogs at Revolution Is Eternal
:::::::::::::::::::::::
For more on Marinaleda, check out Dan Hancox’ excellent recent book, The Village Against the World (Verso 2014), which is now out in paperback:
No comments:
Post a Comment