 Welcome back to Placemaking in the Solar Punk. With a slight delay, I give a big welcome to our speakers for this session, Louis Yen and Shavi. Grassroot movements, Transforming Politics is the title of our conversation now. Last year has been a year full of movements, but there's also a lot of experience from movements before. And I look very much forward to hear this juicy conversation, but how about you guys have just a quick introduction of who you are. And then I would like to ask Shavi to give a short presentation. Louis Yen, do you want to start? Yeah. Hi, Shavi, it's nice to meet you. So my name is Louis Yen and I'm based in Kotsdam, which is close to Berlin. And I'm a free candidate for the next federal elections, which are happening next year in September. So I'm running without a party. My background is in Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace. So, but yeah, I think due to my year in the climate movement, I'm really inspired to use this energy and bring it into the next elections. The stakes are really high in Germany. I mean, like everywhere, if we don't switch towards 1.5 degree limit and the next legislative period, the ship has say it. So it is my main mission to bring this objective into federal politics because so far what we've seen in Germany is that all our big parties, they are not committing to hard objectives enough, which are sufficient. Everyone is talking about climate neutrality in 2050, but that's not enough as we all know. So as a free candidate, I can want to build new coalitions in this electoral area, which has roughly 200,000 people. I need 50,000 votes to win the direct mandate. And so that's like a quantitative challenge. But my slogan, you can see left on the right side of me is called Einfachmachen. It means more or less just do it or make it easy. Like it's a wordplay or a double meaning. It means that I would like to offer people easy ways to engage with the classical politics, especially people who are kind of turned off or disappointed by regular party politics, who find it too hierarchical and too patriarchical and so on. And the machen, the doing, I think is really important. And I learned this during Extinction Rebellion. I think there are so many solutions and great initiatives and grassroots energy there. We just have to make it bigger and like scale it up and bring more energy to it. And we don't have to reinvent the wheel. So the assumption is everything is there. We need to find out where are the resources in the community, bring it together and like create this movement during the next year. And yeah, to kind of make a statement, but also in the election. So over to you, I would say. Except if you have questions you need for your background, maybe then let me know. Do you have a delay? I think Jakob, go for it. Yes, Javi, please just go ahead. And great intro, Lujan. After this great and inspiring intro, I think mine will not be that great. I'm Javi Ferrer from Barcelona. I am a founder member of Barcelona and Como, which is what I am explaining afterwards. And my background is basically like grassroots movements, squats. My framework is the Thapatista movement, World Social Forum and the globalization. And a couple of years ago after being involved in the housing movement and evictions and all this stuff. And we decided in Barcelona together with many other activists to jump into formal politics and to official politics and run for office. And we won. And this is the crazy thing. And now I'm working. I was working a couple of years for the organization that won the elections for Barcelona and Como. And now I'm working for the city of Amsterdam, trying to do something similar and to creating some municipalist movement in Europe. That's super impressive. You've been an inspiration with Barcelona and Como. I also saw the documentary about Ada Colau and like the whole thing. It's like very inspiring. So you want me to go on with the presentation that I prepared, Jakob, or how you want to do it? Yes, please. I'm going to share the screen. I prepared some presentation to make it a bit more because I don't like, like, at least I'm very tired with this looking at faces all the time. So I did this. I think like this. Okay. So first I'm going to explain the framework in which we are the context in which we decided to do something this crazy because for us, for people like me who always hated and still hate if I'm honest, parties and formal politics. And it was a crazy leap to do. 2007 we already know this big economic crisis. 2009 in Spain. I think it was pretty different in Northern Europe, but in Southern Europe, it started to be pretty crazy, this social crisis and with social crisis I mean like crazy evictions and a lot of violence perpetrated by the state, by the institution. Some people who killed themselves when they were about to be evicted. And we started to see something crazy like people who never got together or who never fight started to do it. I like this picture because it makes people from different colors, which is something that it was, it never happened before in Spain. And in 2019 we had our, our occupy, which was called 15 M. And this was very important because this changed the this open the debate of whether what we had was an actual democracy. And we had this like big mobilizations and all this stuff. And this this created a shift. And then in 2014 we said, hey, like, next year we have election local elections in Barcelona and also national elections. So we thought, maybe it's the right moment to think about something like this. We decided to launch this idea and, and we won the elections is we decided to run for office and we won as I said earlier. I'm patient to show this and the night when when we had the results. And I'm going to explain a little bit and very quickly because I think it's more about conversation, but the process in which we created Barcelona and Como. We launched the idea of like, okay, we never thought about mixing our energies and when they say our I mean people from the streets, social movements NGOs with political parties. But we thought that maybe that that was the right time so we launched this idea why don't we create something new that gathers all the energies. We said very explicitly we don't want to create another lefty party that sums to the infinite list of leftist small parties. So we want to gather all these all these energies. And, and we said, do our people interested in this and we said if we collect 30,000 signatures, then this was the first step. If we collect 30,000 signatures in three months, then we'll go on. Otherwise we'll be back to our housing environmentalist feminist or whatever movements. And with it, we collected them. So we said, okay, let's go. We invited all kind of parties to join all kind of organizations and also all kind of people. This was the key factor. If we were able to engage people who were never in politics. So what we did the first one once we decided to go on was to create this cause of ethics, which maybe in Germany or in other places and not that important, but in Spain, there was, there is still is a lot of corruption and this all these things. It's very important to say, okay, the way we are doing politics is not only about the ideas or the goals, but the way we are doing this is going to be different. Our agendas are going to be public, we are going to have a maximum wage. So there's some sort of things that we're going to be very differently. But we are not working for the big love is big corporations or the big powers, but we are working in a very open source way with in the hackers movement, maybe it's a very common thing, but definitely in the party politics now at all. So this was the first thing we did. The second thing was participatory program. So we basically created an online platform where everyone was able to, you know, to promote to promote to, I don't find the words are to propose an idea, something to do in the city could be something a big idea or something very specific in your neighborhood or whatever. And we did also some physical meetings, because there's people who are not very useful to work on online. And we put all that information together in this online platform and then we were like putting together different ideas like adding, and there was, it's a long process, there's no time now to explain this. Once we had the program. So the what after the how then we have the, the what. And then it's like, okay, how are we going to do this like technically not logistically we need money we need some people working on this. So we were like also talking like we don't want money for big organizations, we're going to make public all our numbers and blah, blah. And, and this what we did with it next. Oh, sorry. Yeah. And, and then what we did the last was the, so I had a problem. Can you see properly the Yes, we can see. Yes. Okay, because they had something. And the last thing, and we didn't in this order because we thought it was, if we would have started thinking who would running because then that would be very difficult, we just started with how we're going to do it and what we're going to do it and then who is not the most important thing and always create some tensions because there's ego, there's people who really like to be in some concrete positions. So this is the last thing we did. And, and yeah, so what then we started the campaign, and it was very good because we won. I will hear some ideas of what I think would like key factors of the success, but it's too long. Maybe we can go through this later in the conversation, but I will like to focus on three points that defines what municipal is the approach because as I said earlier, we had national elections and local elections and we had a long debate for three months we were debating what to do. And we decidedly finally to run for local elections. Based on based to be honest also in logistics and practical reasons, but also thinking that the real level is much more difficult to get in. There's the big powers are more powerful there. And it's much easier to gather people and to understand each other and to talk about concrete problems locally. So, we, we embrace this municipal list strategy, which we summarize in three points, local focus. So we are working locally with people with the neighborhoods, which allows much more normal people to get involved. Then the idea of conference, which is pretty critical, at least in Spain it was, we wouldn't we wanted to put together parties and geo social movements artists and scores and people from the academy. People who are usually don't like each other or sometimes hate each other. Like, let's put the focus on the things that we want to do. And let's let ourselves. Yeah, know each other and collaborate with each other. And then the third point, which is very important is about the network because this idea of local can be interpreted in a very nationalist way, like it's about us. And it's definitely not about we are trying to solve global problems. We need the network when we did this in Barcelona, Madrid, Coruña Valencia, many other cities in Spain did something similar. Some of them also won the elections, but much more than Spain is the weird talking about solving problems that are like historical patriarchy, exploitation, growth, all these things that are global. So when we focus on the local is not because we forget this, but because the way we create this big power that we need to change these things is focus on the local but we keep the global approach. And then very quickly, I want to talk about two projects that we are working on. One of them is the European means people is network. It's a project. Actually, the name we are not a network or we are creating this network now. There's four activities that we're doing. We are mapping local initiatives. We are, there's a group of organization of politics, thinking how to feminize the way we treat each other, the way we think it will be collaborated with the way we do politics. Another activity is dissemination. So communication, but also writing in general about we are working with with people from the academy, people from journalists and others. And then the municipal school, which this, this event, this talk could be included in this like we want to spread, we want to, to share our experiences not from different municipalities organizations in Europe. So this one project. And this is going on. Everyone is invited is a totally open project. And then the other one is a forum that we're organizing in May next year. And we, we take a little bit the soul of the whole social forum, maybe some of you know from about it. And, but we want to do this in a decentralized way. So we want to take most likely April and May, two months for as many cities, town and villages in Europe to organize a two or three days conference for thinking how is the city or the village or the town of the future. That we want. So which, which is the transition that we need to start to walk through, and which is the division that we have of the field of this future. And we want to do it as you can see here like without owner, you know in a very open source way. We want to, you know, frame it, of course with the COVID thing with the environmentalist movements that rise top in the last years. And, and pretty focus on this idea of transition, different transitions because it's towards sustainability towards the colonize the colonizing towards feminization and towards the digitalization, and maybe some others. But one important thing, and I think I can finish with this is the way we want to work. We want to do politics in a different way. So it's not about your personal ego, but also your organizational ego because sometimes like I want the brand of my, the logo of my organization to be in the center. Let's put this away. And let's really some forces. So, yeah, everyone is invited to contact us and to to organize an event in their municipality to do this will also use the CD, which is an online platform in which each of the organizations will use it for organizing their own event but also will use it to federate the results of the different events, the different local forums. There's much more to explain but I don't want to make it longer. This is a bit of a joke. But, but since the ring in Germany in lipstick this year, and you lose, lose your name or Lou Yen, I don't know. You're thinking about this and organizing this for post them. I was making this joke, but in general, of course I'm doing this because jack up contact me and I think this is what we have to do spread and collaborate and everything. I'm a very internationalist. But I'm also doing this collaborating with this because because we need you and when I say you. Now I was focusing a bit in northern Europe. I think in something Europe there are many things happening also because of the crisis is more obvious. But the centrality and the energy that you have them, the power, let's use the right word that you have if we would have been live sick post up Berlin or Munich or Amsterdam or one of the big important cities in northern Europe. If we would have a major as we have in Barcelona. That said, two weeks ago, please citizens of Barcelona don't buy in Amazon. It's killing our street, our shopkeepers is killing our economy and our city. If this would be said by the mayor of Berlin. It would be like, you know, the mayor of Berlin has the telephone of the mayor of New York, Beijing or whatever, whatever. So yeah, it's also an invitation for you all to do this. Yeah, and maybe thinking I did it a bit longer. Sorry. Amazing storytelling. And then the end, please, any questions. This is your, your time. Yeah. Oh, I want to pick up your initiative. And maybe we can talk about, you know, just play through how would that look like a local transition forum and put them. So I think one big challenge, which you always have is like, okay, you need a digital infrastructure, how to get people on there, what kind of infrastructure is there, how can people, you know, what, what do you give them what what is existing what kind of templates or guidelines or other things resources to you provide. And what needs to come from the local. We are doing this in an, for some people, this would be a weakness for me, this is a strength in an extremely open way. So we are, we still don't have a government for this project. So the more people joins the more, you know, okay, let's take decisions together. And it's the same with them with this idea of the template of how a local forum could look like we are working on this. It's an open document. We can share this with with you or whoever would be interested. So the idea, which we want is to, to, we are actually asking people what they need locally, we are in some cities that we know more people, we're trying to put people together, like people. What we think is that the main, and that's why I explained at the beginning the context in which we decided to do this in Barcelona, because without them. Without the broth, you can't do that. No, you need, you need a strong social civil society. If you don't have this, and this where everything has to be based on so we are inviting people. I'm making now this, this example with with Budapest, because we have this call a couple of days ago. We have all the people that we know from Budapest from different movements, we made a call with all of them, hey, do you want all together without any fight without anything, we don't have to agree on and on everything. But we have with the main idea. So let's organize something in which we can debate this and we can bring these debates more mainstream. And what do you need. And we are now working with the city and trying to set this platform, because this is something that people said that they would need. But in general, for example, now we are also thinking about communication. So today, we are thinking that each local group would have their own communication and their freedom to to set the program in the way they would like. But also, it would be interesting to have a common communication with a common name, so that it's clear that we are part of the of something together. Someone said, I guess it's three minutes. So, yeah, I don't know whether I answered the question. What we ask in one sentence would be openness, generosity and actual will to do something that is useful for the movement in a broad way. Yeah. So what we offer is, okay, we are nine people in Amsterdam working on this. We have a strong network strong big network at least of people here and there, and we are inviting all of them, or kind of, I don't know, think tanks. We are talking with extension the value in UK for example this are one of the guys who will be involved. Definitely. I don't know. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe then it makes sense if we talk after this call because this will be over in a couple of minutes. Maybe just want to give you some feedback about. Yeah, or maybe just a last question on Barcelona in common actually you said you had a platform there to do the participatory program. What kind of platform was that I don't remember I can but I can share. I can, I can search that information because the link, the website must be still there, but I can also ask and put you maybe in touch with the right people or whatever I will do that. Yeah, okay, thank you. And just about the timelines when you were presenting. Like, can you remember from when to like before you started the campaign how much time went into the preparation process of from signatures to list from signatures to list. Since we got the signatures until the list was something like eight nine months. Okay. Because right now we are nine months away from the election. So we need to move really really fast now. Yeah, and I think maybe a difference to Barcelona is that I'm running for the federal parliament. There's kind of a mixture, like you want the people from one electoral area to vote for one direct candidate, and then bring it into the federal government so there is this link between national politics and local politics I think like I need to go down the global problems into local tangible projects and then identify where is the national challenge here. So that can, you know, be a transmitter between the words. Yeah. But yeah, these talks always go by too fast. I feel very scratched the surface, but it was nice to meet you and yeah, we can pick it up later on.