(en) Alternative Libertaire AL Bruxelles - Belgium: The street rumbles again (fr, it, pt)

(en) Alternative Libertaire AL Bruxelles - Belgium: The
street rumbles again (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]

Facing right-handed and repressive government and a socialist-liberal opposition, the 
Belgian social movement has regained the street at the end of the year. Spontaneous 
strikes in Walloon railway in October, large national demonstration of the three major 
Belgian unions in November, the great winter strikes in December... The workers and 
Belgian workers rumble more. ---- The year is ending and gives us the opportunity to take 
stock. What have we seen? We have seen our country so quiet normally, actually vibrate on 
its foundations. Power side, an alliance of bringing together employers, politicians and 
their henchmen the Flemish national movement has managed to set up a right-handed and 
repressive government as it has not seen in decades. The time of traditional tripartite 
coalitions, bringing together social liberals, Christian Democrats and Liberals is over. 
From the opposition benches, the Socialist Party (PS) screams, anyone who will listen 
that the political "Martens-Gol" is back! This majority, in place from 1981 to 1987, had 
in fact made the first big wave of neoliberal reforms in Belgium on the bottom of a 
shortness of social movements.

Yet this new government, officially led by Prime Minister-speaking Liberal Charles Michel 
and informally by the same-not-nationalist Flemish Minister Bart De Wever, is a far more 
repulsive monster. He planned to catch indeed, and in a few months, the delay that Belgium 
has caught in the destruction of its social state and the neo-liberalization of its 
economy, she was too busy to address community problems progressing to state federalism. 
Bart De Wever we replays while Thatcher by saying ' there is no alternative to our policy. "

But faced with this reactionary power, we also saw the rebirth of the Belgian social 
movement. In October, spontaneous strikes broke out in the Walloon railway. Immediately 
disavowed course by union hierarchies yet they set the tone: the workers rumble... On 
November 6, the large national demonstration of trade union front (together the three 
major Belgian trade unions), which provided a monotony boundless ends with a popular 
uprising. Dockers, metallurgists, protesters, radicals, simple inhabitants of Brussels 
central districts unite and push for hours submerged police; burning white and blue 
motorcycle, it uproots panels and paving, fire hearts overflow on public roads. The 
country woke up with a terrible hangover. It had been years that the political decorum of 
parties and parliaments officials had not been so dog-eared. Workers no longer booming, 
they bite and they really.

A general strike paralyzed the country

And then we saw strikes, big strikes of winter 2014. It announced the stillborn. " 
Flanders will happily continue the work , "said the other journos and hacks, wanting to 
believe in the image we have of the north of our country, the rich Flemish and right, 
willing to sacrifice the Walloon on altar of profit. Except that no... rotating strikes 
succeed and manage to paralyze all provinces. The general strike is really general and 
Monday, December 15 the whole of Belgium, which is stationary. Countless stakes bristling 
cities and industrial zones, schools and businesses. The sacrosanct ideology of liberal 
labor, understand released the interests of workers, is under attack. No, Belgium as a 
whole will not allow the government to tackle the straight victories so dearly purchased 
by the labor movement without reacting.

Of course, we saw the reaction and immediate attack against all the watchdogs of the 
system. Newspapers and television spit their venom to the faces of the strikers' lazy, 
criminals, alcoholics, violent, unconscious, fascists, etc. etc. ". When JT, the RTBF 
(public television), dare treat relatively neutral strikes, the Belgian pope of 
liberalism, Alain Destexhe, up to the plate and denounced the politicization of the chain. 
Francophone Liberals and the Flemish right howl wolf " bad unions are in cahoots with the 
PS! ". As if the employers' organizations had forgotten to be right and to support them 
and their anti-social policies.

The best trained doggies are not always those believed. Indeed, the first to be frightened 
of successful social movement were union hierarchies. Everywhere, they were overwhelmed by 
their bases. They wanted to moderation, they got riots, blocking stakes and huge 
solidarity among all strikers, unionized or not. With their shared fear with employers - 
fear, acknowledge it, to see the economy and its products suffer the indignation of 
working people - they immediately entered into "agreements" ridiculous. In recent days, 
"partners" social gathered and privileged tactics hot potato: instead of destroying the 
welfare state today, they convinced the owners to do it in two or three years. Splendid 
example of compromise (capitalist) to the Belgian.

The movement he will walk away with a vengeance after the holidays, in the beginning of 
the year 2015? Hard to say. The major unions will struggle to swallow their members, and 
even amount of their frames as employers micro concessions constitute a victory. In the 
majority, Prime Minister Charles Michel risk for every crumb he concedes, see Bart De 
Wever pop the Community silent, and put on the table a country demerger proposal. For 
Francophone Liberals is the plague (stay the course and risk a good old social conflict at 
the finish) and cholera (backward socio-economic and open the door to a government crisis 
on the question of the unity of the countries).

The hope of a great collective action

How to summarize what we have seen? In one word: hope. Not that a better society and a 
coming revolution, certainly not, but hope that the collective action, the expression of 
popular anger could move mountains, those of bureaucracy, employers and all his minions. 
Here we are clearly out of this period of uncertainty, this waiting period in which too 
many revolutionary languishing. The calm before the storm is broken, the storm is there.

Face it, we stand, inflated by the breath of hope. Probably our first task is to grow this 
new culture of rebellion. The government straight, by its nature, will sow the seeds in 
our anger and resentment. The compromise between capitalists and reformists, the 
compromise that has cost us so much, now reveals his true face, that of a long-term 
compromise, a social time bomb. Here is the lesson of the twentieth century: capitalism is 
not reform, he does not govern, he governs everything! Remind us every moment " is that 
being stationary back "!

The working people of our country are beginning to glimpse the future that they reserve: 
impoverishment, work to the gates of death, the collapse of organized social solidarity, 
policies and arbitrary arrests, frieze of horses and batons around the "elected" organs, 
camps for foreigners and all unwanted, proto-fascist state in the head... These same 
workers and those workers then find their natural defenses; strikes and spontaneous 
demonstrations, confrontation with the militia of the capital, the excess of union 
hierarchies, solidarity and mutual aid.

Several questions then open in this context: how radical these workers and workers which 
was instilled every passing day, the radicalism is the expression of evil? How to Extend 
Social fire to small and medium enterprises where the strike and revolt are immediate 
dismissal factors? How to hang Belgian struggles to those of all who suffer in Europe and 
in the world of the same capitalist evils? Stating these matters here is to demonstrate 
that these ambitious projects seem feasible. To us to deliver them, and give the 
revolutionary solution to its rightful place in the time of triumphant capitalism, shaking 
capitalism.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Belgique-La-rue-gronde-de-nouveau