Horizontalism as a strategy: “taking over the state doesn’t lead to real liberation” (I)

By Dmitri Prieto

HAVANA TIMES — Marina Sitrin is a lawyer and has a PhD in sociology, but she prefers to define herself as “a writer, dreamer, and revolutionary”. She is well known among the emancipatory activists for editing the book Horizontalism on self-organization in Argentina after the 2001 collapse. Recently, she authored They Can’t Represent Us!: Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy. We met first during her stay in Cuba.

HT: You lived in Cuba during your youth…

Marina Sitrin: Well, it was not really my youth as much as my young adulthood. Likewise, I did not live constantly in Cuba, but visited my mother and her husband regularly for around 15 years, coming to Cuba once or twice a year, often for long visits. I did live in Cuba from 2008 to 2009, but that was different — Since I have been mainly living in the US and only visiting Cuba for periods of time I cannot reflect on what life was like for Cubans except by regular observation.

For me it was a wonderful experience in many ways, opening my imagination to many possibilities (as well as problems) revolutionary struggles have when taking over the state is ‘the’ strategy.

As far as observations, my time in Cuba began during the end of the “special period” so it was also a challenge for many reasons – most of all in what I observed in the hard time people had of just trying to survive. So difficult in fact that many of my friends from those first years in Cuba have since left, not so much for political reasons as economic.

The 1990s were so hard – basic necessities were even a challenge then, not to mention other things. Despite these challenges, most everyone I met was in various ways a supporter of the revolutionary process of Cuba, and quite proud of the accomplishments. That is not to say that people were uncritical – almost every single person was also critical of some or many things – they just also were revolutionary. I know that does not make sense to many people outside Cuba, but it was a sort of joke almost, where if I said really supportive things about the revolution everyone who I said it to would respond with harsh criticisms, and if I were critical they would respond in defense of the revolution — this is still true today.

HT: Your work on Argentina and Horizontalidad… another way of contesting oppression, of dreaming, of doing left-wing politics?

MS: I lived in Argentina after the economic collapse and during the early years of the construction of popular power in parts of society. I moved there after learning about this widespread phenomenon – horizontalidad. I had never heard the word in any language, not used as a social relationship as it is in Argentina (and now many other parts of the world).

After December of 2001 (when people responded to the economic crisis beating pots and pans and forced out five governments) people in Argentina spoke of creating another sort of power and new social relationships. Actually, before they spoke of it they just did it.

The thousands and hundreds of thousands who had been in the streets on the days of the popular rebellion reflect how they did not want to take over the state so as to make change – that that sort of politics had already taken place in many places and in their opinions did not lead to real emancipation.

People again and again would tell me that power lies elsewhere and has to be constructed by the people together. How that was and is done was also something new. People did not organize in political parties, with unions or even in traditional left groups – they came into the streets and from there organized assemblies together, standing in circles on street corners and in unemployed neighborhoods. They did not want to have power over one another, and wanted to make sure all opinions were heard and counted, organized in what they called horizontalidad.

Later people spoke of this as a non-hierarchical and directly democratic form, but at first it was part of a rejection of another way of doing politics and creating a new way to relate together.

I had moved there intending to write some articles and after meeting with people in the various movements and witnessing and participating in this horizontalidad, I decided to stay longer and record the history of what was taking place in people’s voices – thus the book, Horizontalidad: Voces de Poder Popular was born in 2005, printed in a recuperated workplace. And then published in English in 2006, and most recently in Greek – translated collectively by people in assemblies there so as to be a tool for the movements.

HT: Occupy Wall Street…

I was a part of the NYC General Assembly movement, that became OWS once we occupied for more than a day in Zucotti Park. It was an incredible experience and in some ways a total shock, and in others it made and makes total sense. We are not represented – this is what people all over the world are saying in the various new movements (post 2011). We are not represented and we don’t want any ‘better’ representation, we want to decide things for ourselves. That is why Occupy took off in over a thousand cities, towns and villages in the US.

Yes of course it was inequality and oppression in our daily lives – but the use of the “no!” to that oppression was to look to one another and begin to talk and imagine how things might be different – what it might look like if ‘we’ make the decisions that matter in our lives. And yes of course, this was really really messy, for all sorts of reasons.

But it was an incredible and beautiful first step – a moving of a muscle that had been laying dormant for so long it is still not really strong. But we have begun. Occupy continues in all sorts of ways in all sorts of places. Not often in the occupation of plazas as before, but in direct action housing groups, in the Strike Debt movement, in the resurgence of labor organizing from below, and most recently, just weeks ago, in Detroit where people are refusing to have their water shut off for non-payment (something that is beyond outrageous in the richest country in the world. That people would have all water cut off during the summer for non-payment … there is so much so horribly wrong with this I cannot even begin to address it here) so neighbors together with supporters are turning it back on – using collective direct action.

There are a myriad of examples of Occupy – it is not a thing but something that is relational – that is relationships and is seen in our ways of organizing and relating to one another – creating new worlds and smaller revolutions all the time.