 Hi there, welcome to another episode of Faces of DM, our DM25, DMTV segment that brings you our members, so you get to know a little bit more about their stories and what it is that got them involved in our movement. Essentially, it's about the stories of those that came across DM25 that were inspired by the movement's message and got engaged with the project as activists on the ground, and today it's my pleasure to welcome somebody that I have known for many years, somebody that has been involved with DM for many, for a very long time, since the very beginning when we launched in 2016, our name is Claire Delstorche. Claire, hi there, welcome to Faces of DM. We met for the first time nearly six years ago in the first three days of DM25. Yeah, it's been it's been a really long time and it's, you know, from that very beginning, when we met up until now, we've gone through so much in terms of the activities that we've done together in Belgium and even beyond that, that I think it was a really good opportunity to also present you to the membership at large, because you've been active for a very long time. Even before DM, your political activism did not begin with DM, obviously, and I just wanted to ask you maybe a couple of questions about that. First of all, if you can tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, where you come from and so on, and then we'll go on to talk a little bit more about the political activism that you've started way before DM even started in 2016. So yeah, maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself first. Yes, thank you. Oh, I'm very old. I was born during the first, no, no, no, the second war. And I have always been a street activist. When I was on the age of two, I was already in the street with my mother collecting money for the Red Cross for the victims of bombings on Brussels. And my mother had to help me to to hold the books. At the age of three, I was in the street to welcome the British Army. But more seriously, in the years of fifties. Yes, I participated in the anti nuclear marches. Many young people were very interested. And I began really an activist later with the colonization of Congo, and with the Vietnam War. I have a very international family with people coming from all over Europe and from other continents, too. And my family has been involved in a lot of historical events of the events of the 20th century. The two world wars, the war in Spain, the Stalinist trials, the resistance, the, yes, the carnation revolution in Portugal, events in Haiti, and even one genocide, my family in law. I was a teacher. I've been teacher for a long time. And as a teacher, because I was I was teaching history and social sciences, I had opportunity to do green classes and to make a change with other schools with Germans, with English, with Danish, with Soviet schools. And I had many opportunities to travel, not only in Europe, but on the world. You mentioned so many things already, you know, it's it's incredible how how much you've lived, you know, and how much you've seen and not just politically, but in terms of how the world has evolved, you know, from the 60s onwards, you know, and so on. Don't you? I mean, nowadays, sometimes people think that hope is gone, there's no hope for change. And yet, you know, you've seen so much. And yet you're still active in trying to change things politically, trying to make a difference to people's lives. Because let's face it, that's the reason why people like you and I have been involved with with movements like DM 25. But after everything, after all these movements that you've seen come and go in the past, and including the 1960s, the hope of 1968, you know, that that era that now people look back and say, Well, that was the moment that things could have really taken a turn for the best. And and now, you know, we see with the onset of financialization, neoliberalism, we see more or less what what happened to that hope that it was eventually destroyed by this system that we we have in place now, which, you know, at DM 25 and including Yanis Varoufakis calls techno feudalism, in the sense that we no longer seem to live in a kind of capitalist society. It's actually gone beyond that. So my question to you is, I remember being sat with you when when the new debut protests were happening in Brussels. And I don't know if you were joking or not, but I remember a comment that you made, which was that, you know, back in 1968, the youth at the time was far less motivated, far less active than today. And maybe you were joking about that, but it really put some perspective into into, you know, my own understanding of the world and my understanding of politics and activism. So I mean, how would you, you know, why how come you're still active after so long? Do you do I guess you still have some, you know, hope that things can indeed change, right? Can you tell more about that? Yes, I witnessed a lot of events in the years of sixties, the big strike in 6061. And I began to work at school in a region with coal mines and the old coal mines closed, of course. I took part in a sixty eight. The the workers, the social movement stepped into the breach opened by the students movement. And there is a big difference because since 68, the society is more open, less authority analyst. We we gain some some freedom. That's true. But I witnessed a very strange phenomenon. I was already teacher and my pupils, when I was a student, we had no money in average, of course. But we had no money, no money to go to a pub to discuss all these restaurants, not far from the university in Brussels, they didn't exist. And if we wanted to discuss, we did it in the street in the corridors of the university or when the weather was good on the lawn of the park. And my pupils, it was just like if the consumer society took them. What exactly? Yes, they were the generation of sixty eight was against consumer society or they attacked it. And some years later, my students, they often had motorbikes. So they had to pay for for petrol. And after the school day, they immediately run to the supermarket to do a student's job and to get the money. So they were it was as if the society had recuperated them. A very strange thing. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because it's that same hope, you know, you mentioned the carnation revolution of the country that I come from in Portugal. We also had the situation in Spain in the seventies with the fall of Franco and what in Madrid they called la movida madri lena, where there was a kind of moment of emancipation. It was a moment of hedonistic, hedonistic experience. It was a moment of, you know, finally breaking free from this authoritarian grasp of the political system and being kind of swallowed up in many ways by the capitalist system at the time. You know, and it's what you're saying now reminds me of what happened also elsewhere, because it wasn't just an isolated incident in Belgium, as you very well know. And so you're right, I think that it does kind of created this hope for transformation that people would somehow transform and become politically engaged and active all of a sudden in a way that the capitalist system swallowed that up. And as you said, into, I guess, consumers in many, many instances. And because people were precarious, they also needed jobs, they needed to make a living, they needed to survive, right? They had to find a way through which to make, to put bread on the table for their children. And so it's kind of an ironic situation where you get your freedom, so to speak, from authoritarianism. And at the same time, you get swallowed up by another system that actually takes away the freedom that you need, because you're condemned to basically working all the time for slave wages, slave wages, almost in many instances. And so yeah, I think, you know, but sorry, I interrupted you. Go on. No, no, no. I just wanted to add. No, so I have, I've been, of course, as a teacher in a union. And I'm so old, but I'm still a member of the union, because I think it's a significant, it's significant, but I've never been a member of a party. Of course, I know people and I have friends in a lot of parties, but let's see. You have taken the liberals. They are right wing, right wingers, of course. So it didn't interest me. You know, yes, in every party you have good people and you have sometimes gangsters, or sometimes in the same parties. If you take the liberals, I think we can do something with them. I'll speak about later, because they are defending freedom and yes, freedom of the citizen against a powerful try to do for surveillance. So I can, I think we can do something with them, but they are right wingers. Social politics didn't interest me, of course. Social democrats, yes, but they were for the NATO. They sustained colonial policies long ago and no austerity policies. The same situation for the Greens. The Greens, they have the great merit to have put forward the climate problems, but they have no social politics. They are now in the governments in Benjamin, Social Democrats, Liberals, Greens together and they are okay with the austerity politics. So when I was young, of course, I was close to the communists and something I didn't like, it was the sectarianism. Because I was a member of a lot of movements or movements against war and so on and I was excluded of movements, so-called mass movements, because of disagreements inside the Communist Party, which I was no member. I had fun with that, of course, but in other countries and in other times, it would lead to the far spread. So I've never been a member of any party. That's interesting because you were so political and you've been so engaged for such a long time as we've been discussing and yet there was never a political party that really spoke to you, spoke to your heart, spoke to your mind as to the kinds of things that need happening and I think you're right in your assessment that the so-called social democrats in Portugal, in the social democrats when they started out and in the 1970s after the revolution, it was funny how the posters, their propaganda, it said for the people, for the land and something else, I don't remember. I mean this is the same political party that implemented the brutal austerity measures less than 30 years later on Portugal and which hurt and led to hundreds of thousands of Portuguese young people leaving the country in search of job security elsewhere, of which my family was a part and so it's strange how that even though we have parties that are called socialist parties, parties are called social democrats, it's just in name because there's nothing socialist, there's nothing democratic even in many instances about those political parties and the same goes for the Greens. They happen to have the green label, they're called the Green Party and so they are benefiting from the green wave that is running throughout Europe and has been happening across Europe and also the world for a long time especially now with the Fridays for Future protest so they've benefited politically from that but when you look deeper into it as you were saying, you realize that they actually don't have any real deep transnational program for change which is actually system changing. They disagree with each other on a key number of policies even within Europe and not to mention beyond our continent that we happen to live in so I agree with you, I share your concern about the fact and also because I was never a member of any political party either and it's for the same reasons that you've described although I'm obviously younger than you are and I've experienced far less of the world than you have but so I get what your position is on this very much so because it's like I said it's part of my experience as well but then what happened then because then DM was created in 2016 after all this and how is it that you joined DM? Why did you join DM? What was it about DM that interested you that said okay actually I think it's time for me now to join something. Maybe it's a long story because long before I have always been interested in international movements not especially Europe but international and in the years 90s it was maybe the saddest period of my life because it was the war in Yugoslavia. I woke up in the morning thinking the Belgian Air Force is bombing Belgrade. It was terrible and I did what I was able to do. It was nothing, a signature here, a demonstration there and it was impossible to demonstrate with French people in green because they had no position. The only opportunity for me was to work with the Flemish greens because they were the only ones to have some decency about Yugoslavia and then it was the war in Iraq. The first war in Iraq I've never felt so powerless in my whole life because when it was war in Vietnam we were very active but we were movements everywhere in the world chiefly in the United States of course because the young men who didn't want to go to the war they burned their military papers and we were all together and we had the feeling to have an influence on the events but when it was the first Iraq war nothing. I remember the ultimatum. I just left a Syrian friend, a doctor, he was back to Syria and he didn't know if the war will spread to the whole Middle East and if he will be mobilized and I was home. It was the eve before the ultimatum and I worked for my school listening to Mozart's Requiem. It was and then there was the second Iraq war. It was the first years of the it was in 2004 yes and the three or four yes three and young people became too weak to work and we had sometimes we were calling each other on the cell phones and on Sunday we have been 70,000 people in the streets in Brussels against the war that was on Sunday but Monday there was nothing more nothing because we had no organization so it's a good thing to have people demonstrating in the street but if we have no organization we can do nothing we can have no influence and for me it was something very very significant and then yes I was not so much interested in Europe as a teacher yes because I had to speak about the European Union of course and I went to the European Parliament with my pupils every year every year sometimes with foreign students in Brussels for an exchange so yes but I was not so much interested and then came the year 15 and the Euro crisis the great crisis it was it was something terrible but soon in my life maybe I can explain with a yes we can see it it's a picture I was demonstrating with a friend and a board it was a European Union jungle where might makes right let us change it it's exactly why I went I joined game 25 I needed exactly game 25 and I remember it was the day of the great referendum on Sunday and my neighbor called me and she told me oh the result is very good and it was happiness and on the Monday I knew Yanis Varoufakis had resigned and I understood everything immediately what was going on what would happen and I was in in the deep sadness and anger and I remember I went to a bookshop and I bought the global minotaur and I began to read it sitting on the steps of the stock exchange because I had an appointment with an African friend and it was an enlightenment the the answer to a question I was asking to me to myself first since 30 years I began to understand a lot of things because so complex concept economic concept very complex he explains with a incredible pedagogy and I was able to understand and then of course I followed Yanis Varoufakis on Twitter and I was one of the first to join Gen 25 on 9 February 16 well that's what a journey Claire it's it's amazing how despite the fact that there's so much I feel like there's so much in common in a way between everything that you're telling me because I can and my own experience because I you know for me it was very similar in as well this because I was in I was in England at the time I was living there and had been in England for 11 years more 10 years by this point and then I left to come to Brussels but during this time you know early 2010s up until 2015 as you mentioned with the the capital the U-turn the huge capitulation of Syriza which really destroyed the hopes of so many people not only in Greece but everywhere across Europe people were looking at Greece as an example of how to confront power how to confront an inane establishment which is not interested in what's good for people but more interested in what's good for private interests and the banks because that's essentially what happened and I saw my own government you know pushing through the some of the harshest austerity measures that the country had ever seen since the 1974 revolution you know since the since that moment of hope that was created and when I saw this example like you like you're referencing you know in in Greece and then I saw that referendum result by that point I was already living in I was about to move to to to Brussels if I'm not mistaken and it was really like a stab in the heart you know it was it really felt like all that hope everything that that possibility for change suddenly had evaporated and and so when DM was created like six months later on the February 9th I too was very excited about it and and I couldn't believe all the people that were involved you know in in in the in the movement at the time you know and I thought wow this is exactly what Europe needs this is what we need to be doing and it seemed just like the obvious way out you know it seemed like the obvious solution and you know for somebody like you who's you know live for so long and have experienced so much and for you to have that same experience and same thought that I was having even though you know I was let's say beginning my proper political activism if you like it really it says something right it says something about the fact that this is something that what we're experiencing today it doesn't matter what age you are it doesn't matter what background you know you come from it's all about this shared experience that we're all actually being screwed if you like by the powers that be the powerful and that the you know we have to come together but like you said earlier we need the organization without organization protest is just not gonna get us anywhere it's just good symbolically but we really need to get together we need to organize we need to come up with a plan because if anything what we've learned from the last 20 years with all the occupy the occupy movement and the new debut the arab spring revolutions in the middle east it's not enough to just be against something we need to be for something and we need to bring people together around that common objective if we don't do that I think we will always fail and that's the sad truth of it so so you know thank you for telling us about your about how you joined dm in maybe let's talk a little bit about what you've done in dm you know what is it about dm that appeals to you you know what do you find that is the most exciting things about the movement you know what what have you learned out of it I mean it's or yeah what what what have you gotten out of the movement you know and and what do you see when you see us going what do you think is needed now to to really change Europe do you think that our original mission is still worthwhile pursuit you know tell us a bit maybe about that and some of the policies or ideas that you think are we should be talking about more in dm yes we met for the first time you remember it was on april 16 in the year 16 it was in a co-working gallery gallery satir in the center Brussels and everywhere maybe 60 around 60 a lot of people are still working together like you and me and erica others they came because they were interested by the manifesto and by the character the transnational and uh yes international character of game 25 some of them came to see but we we have a contact with them because they are activists in other organizations so and the first thing we did I remember we had a meeting in the center of Brussels in open space and we we had we participated in participating in a demonstration against the purchase of new warplanes by the belgium government and we had some activities against TTIP and against austerity politics I think it was a good a good way to begin and later we worked to work to to have a program the new deal it was a long work but I think it was a very good thing to have this program and to go to the for the first time to the european elections with a common agenda for whole euro it was the first time we yes we had a million and a half people are voting for us it was only a beginning of course but it was the first time we had a program for everybody in Europe for all countries and maybe you will have a look on the new work gatherings people's gatherings are because it's to to put the local struggles to a european level that's what we did from the beginning of course for me it was a very very interesting to have to be in touch with a lot of people across Europe every day in touch with people from a lot of countries because we have the the dscs not only the local dscs but the thematic dscs and I am in a thematic dsc about migration with Travis who is very tireless and I mean yes in health health dsc public health and there is a very very active group in Italy not only in Italy but they have a very active group I'm working with Trello Trello is a translation team and for translation of course I work chiefly with french speaking people but we have sometimes zoom calls with people of everywhere and speaking all languages it's very very interesting because my son is living in Sweden he became a swedish with his family and I attended already meetings in Stockholm of the swedish dsc so this pan-european character is very very interesting for me we used no with the pandemic we have chiefly all zoom calls of course but we were used to go in different stone cities capitals in Europe we met in in Amsterdam, in Berlin, in Prada and in Athens and it strengthened the friendship among the demos for me it's something very important I remember when we went to to Rome it was in 17 there was a demonstration in Rome and we came on I don't remember which day but on the evening we had only a drink we had a drink on the on the terrace in a big pub in Rome and it was the first time I met the people of belgrade and sacred and I will never never in my life forget this evening the Serbian where it was a big group and there was a man a little older than the others and he told me I joined the game 25 because I've seen the disintegration of Yugoslavia and I fear the same thing for you I saw he was right and these Serbian friends they were very very very sympathetic and when we demonstrated in Rome the Serbians and the Croats they were together with their flags the flags of the DSC, DSC Zagreb, DSC Belgrade always together friendly and I was deeply moved because their parents were in war against each other it has been a horrible war and these young people they were believing in a better world and struggling for a better world I was very very moved by these people it was funny you remember in Rome it was very funny because we had two associations one was blue they were the people of with a different start and people are liking the European Union like it is without any question and we had another demonstration also with only red and green for another Europe and Europe a social Europe a democratic Europe and Roman authorities had managed to separate carefully the two demonstrations but when the dislocation came people from the two processions the blue the green the red we were together and the Cabinieri were so afraid they began to run to separate us but we had no intention to fight and lesser intention to demolish Rome because they are wounds in Rome it was a very interesting experience and in the afternoon we had a bigger meeting with demons from everywhere in Europe and then we launched a new deal on the evening yes this European transnational character is very significant for you yeah no you're absolutely right Claire and thanks for reminding me of some of those moments because you know when you tend to kind of forget these things unless you take your mind back a bit and remember all the things that we've actually been doing and you know you totally write about these existence of these people like the give and off stats of this world and that simply waive the EU flag as if to say the European Union is great and we should keep it and our point and I think this is what demarcates DM from almost basically everybody else is to say that yes we like the we like the idea the concept of a European Union but the problem is that right now it resembles more a European disunion than anything else and waving the European Union flag is just not enough you have to go beyond that you have to say okay what kind of European Union do we want you know what kind of you know do we want the European Union that is essentially signing deals with Turkey in order to make sure that Turkey does not allow refugees to enter the Europe the European Union space if you like do we is that the kind of European Union we want do we want the European Union that is you know shooting at migrants and refugees who are on you know drowning in the Mediterranean is that the kind of European Union that that we want it's not the kind of European Union that I want and certainly not the kind of European Union that you want Claire is you know do we want the European Union that is you know benefiting bankers and bailing them out where whilst at the same time imposing you know criminal austerity measures on the poorest of the poor and you know increasing the numbers of homeless homeless people living in our continent that's not the kind of European Union that I want so you know when I see these you know centrists the extreme centrists you know waving the European Union flag as if this is going to this European Union that we have now is the epitome of the best possible of your of European unions that we could ever have it's really a slap in the face to everybody that is you know struggling to make that to make ends meet you know to to make sure that their children have food on the table and so on so I think that's what what what you've said about the transnational character of DM by itself is already important but on top of that the kinds of things that we're fighting for the kind of European Union you know with the universal basic dividend with the agree a trans you know transformative green new deal for Europe with all the other policies that we have in terms of housing in terms of you know my you know ensuring the well-being of new arrivals from outside of the European Union space and everything else I think that's the kind of project that is worth fighting for and you know it's really a pleasure that you're in it that I'm in it that we're all in it together really to try and make that difference so you know but maybe you can say before we wrap it up I just wanted to ask you maybe to say a few words about because we often talk about universal basic dividend you know and sometimes it's difficult for we don't necessarily always explain it as we should so maybe I was wondering you know if you could what do you think about it you know what do you think about the universal basic dividend and also I want to then talk to you a little bit about what's going on in Belgium right now and also we'll end we'll end a little afterwards on what's going on in terms of your of you know what you've been what the kind of activism we've been doing in supporting Julian Assange and also because you've been very involved in with that so and I would like to to hear from you a little bit about that but yeah if you can just tell us a bit about about the universal basic dividend to begin with and then we'll move on to the rest I think a universal basic dividend is very interesting because I know with artificial intelligence and the new technologies are many jobs will disappear of course I am not a yes there is a problem with technology but it's another problem we will discuss later many people will lose their jobs and universal basic dividend is very interesting for them now we see with the pandemic crisis a lot of people are richer than ever of course but you have all these people with a little restaurant café they are bankrupt or they will be bankrupt the cultural sector is a devastated and you have a lot of people living living on on the margins they are they have jobs sometimes partly moonlighting and all these people they a lot of people don't get benefits for an employment you have of course these benefits are when you are a worker and if you have a self employed self-employed because there is a yes there are allowances for these people but you have other people without without anything so we there is a big threat to see more homeless people in the streets and you are right about migrants because how is it possible to think we can live so with homeless people sleeping in the street with a migrant pushing no a lot of migrants they are not accepted in Europe and the yes Europe is a pink Turkey to keep them we have no memory my parents in 40 they were refugees and they were taken in by a french family and we are still friends with this family if today today if we have a big accident in a nuclear power plant in Belgium in a little Belgium all Belgians can be refugees people don't think about her so yes we need something else another public social welfare centers are no full because yes and they are students they were relying on a little job to live so we have many many people it's necessary to find a solution for them and I think a universal basic dividend is a very good idea of course not a dividend and not a funding by taxes yeah that's right because there's there's something which is important to clarify there's the idea of universal basic income it's it's not something new it's been go it's been around for quite a long time and yet you now we even see the liberals and the right wingers advocating advocating for one but you know you know and people are like wow this is it's so great but then you look deeper into it and you realize that when they're advocating for universal basic income what they're really saying you know in small print is that we will cut the welfare state you know and you will have this so you know so basically it's just a replacement it's not an actual income at all and on top of that you know as as you've said and as people can check out on our website as well the dividend part of our you know why the reason why we call universal basic dividend is because it's not meant to be funded through taxation you know that's not the the purpose of it the and you can find more about it in the description of the video of this video if you want to know more about how we actually would implement universal basic dividend and how we would fund it tomorrow morning without raising any taxes whatsoever but maybe Claire we can talk a little bit about Belgium you know a little bit future perspectives you know what's going on in Belgium right now what do you see the future in in this country where where is there any hope of things transforming things changing and how you know and also as I said earlier in terms of your engagement with the supporters in the Sange like we've been doing at the M25 since the very beginning is a member of our advisory panel as well and he's still you know it's not for two years he's been in prison at Belmarsh tell us a little bit about your activism here in Belgium and and yeah your future perspectives about the future or politics in the future of this country yes Belgium is a very complicated country we have it's not a Belgian problem we can find that everywhere not only in Europe but with the Islamic terrorism threat and with the pandemic the governments used these things to concentrate more and more not exactly power but a power of control and surveillance on people I feel it very much because I left yes I was in a more free society and now the surveillance is very very close I feel it every day on the computer on the phone on the streets in the metro everywhere Belgium has a lot of reforms state reforms since a long time no because in Belgium we have two regions not only different linguistically but also politically economically and socially there are different parts in Belgium and we try to to do a better state to reform and to federalize it but the problem is we we have a terrible inefficiency so how to be more efficient but not to authoritarian that's a big problem no but because yes we are in efficiency because who is responsible for what that's a problem is it the region is it the commune is it the state and in public health for example sometimes people working for public health in hospitals they are crazy because they don't know who is responsible and that's a big problem but if we concentrate it's not exactly the same to be efficient we can be efficient and not to authoritarian but in Belgium some weeks ago we read in the news in a newspaper that all data of the Belgians were put together about health about fiscal things about social benefits and everything and the minister who is the brother of charl michel president of the council the european council he was yes he told oh i am very surprised i read it in the newspaper i don't know okay we stop it immediately but there are only some civil servants who did it without any mandate of the government and without any legal frame yes okay that's a big problem for belgium and for everybody i'm not against the new technologies of course but it's always the same problem with technology but technology itself it's something very interesting and very it's a progress but we can use it to against the many or for the many it has always been so and we are in a in a problem like this nowhere we can use it only as it is to and to let google and microsoft and so on uh become more richer and we can use it as a dividend for everybody i think it's a very big problem of our time now in belgium we can what can we do exactly we can work with a lot of people with movements of course with the trade union so with social movements movements for peace international movements with oxfam with housing committees with health committees and so on yes of course we can even work with political parties why not but in my view only on specific issues and keeping or independence that's very significant always keep or independence are we a movement yes the m25 is a movement but we have a lot of problems now in belgium because yes with the coalition so for what they call civil society in civil society you have movements you have a trade unions and so on but no political parties and sometimes we are not accepted because we've been told oh in Greece you have a party in vera so you are a party and you are no part of the civil society and we had a lot of problems recently about that yeah if i just may interrupt you for a second claire it's very interesting what you're saying because you know we're different in that sense that we you know primarily we are a movement and we have what we call electoral wings and we have an electoral wing which is a political party in Greece called meta 25 as you've just mentioned claire and the thing is it's a new it's like we're a new thing we're a new being right and on the one hand you know it's the movement that controls the party to a very large extent and although of course the party is based on on legal and national law in terms of Greece but having said that they're intertwined they're interlinked the they can be no matter without dm and vice versa but dm is there and is the backbone of everything and we're a you know a political movement and cultural movement as well that is trying to do politics differently but really do it differently not just say that we're doing it differently and and there it has caused some confusion because as you said people are looking at us sometimes and they think well dm is a political party and we're like no i mean the very basis of everything that we do is as a movement you know to be out on the streets to put pressure to be subversive and yes when that change does not come from existing political parties then yes we will obviously do our very best to challenge those parties politically you know because we you know there's different avenues change right you know we you have to keep putting pressure at all levels not just out on the streets but also to do it in parliaments like we're doing right now with meta 25 and our nine members of parliament there in the hell ending parliament so it's a it's a constant struggle i find to keep explaining this to to to other organizations right and you've experienced that um quite a lot but you see that as actually but you see that that has impacted our our development do you think or you know how do you think we can convince these political organizations these civil society organizations that we're more than just a part and we're more than just a normal movement it's very very difficult uh you i forgot to answer about assange yes uh i am master as a demon of course member of the free assange committee belgium uh we we are very active during campaigns for assange we gather the thousands of signatures for a petition for the british authorities every monday we are in the street in the center of bruce's in front of the british or sometimes the american embassy to defend assange and the committee in the committee we are oh it's a very friendly group uh but uh we are coming from different um group of party not parties yes sometimes parties there are people of parties and we disagree uh on a lot of things but for assange we are all on the same um at the same point and uh it's working very good uh uh next monday we have uh two actions in bruce's and uh we have no problem uh because uh some are trotsky's and the other uh Stalinists of so on uh no uh everybody uh is uh working for assange i think it's a very good example uh how to work together if we don't uh uh agree on uh for just things yeah yeah you're right you're right that there has to be there has to be uh things that uh that you know that are above any difference that they can be um even because sometimes the differences they're so they're so they're not that significant you know the analysis is the same sometimes they differ about the solution um amongst the left you know and but there are instances as you said where actually collaboration can indeed happen and i think the question of assange is uh is an important one that uh you know we we've been DM you know we've been criticized for so long but we always for supporting assange but we've always stuck by assange because we always put our principles above everything else you know we're not in this for you know opportunistic political game like some political organizations are um and uh we will stick by what we believe to be right and we know we're not gonna budge and we're not gonna commit a u-turn and it's good if that other organizations can also sometimes do that um on on key topics and of course the question of the the of assange it's not just about the freedom of assange himself but it's about the future of the free press as well of course and i've been with you in some of these protests as well and back before the pandemic and uh and it was really nice to meet some of the people there um just to let's but just you know it's coming up to an hour we're initially planned to have a 30 minute conversations for those of you who are watching and it turned out into an hour conversation so i hope you're still with us um but i just just to to leave just to put a final note to it and thank you very much claire for being part of this um i just wanted to ask you one last question which is you know for the young people of today for the people out there that are maybe sitting on their sofas they're maybe not even reading a book maybe they're just you know they're they're tired maybe from work they don't see any any any um point in getting active what would you say to them you know what would you say to them in this moment or what would be your message to you were talking about the greeks i think or greek comrades are very inspiring because they are motivated uh uh i've been in a tensor for the creation of mera in uh uh 18 and then uh in 19 from the first may um sorry the first may party uh we had a demonstration in Athens and we had an opportunity to meet uh the people who became the first uh uh members of parliament of mera uh in july uh two two years ago uh they are very inspiring because there are many young people uh between them and um they were in a so difficult situation after uh the go on the series our government let all the power to the troika it was something terrible and they they had the courage to to go and to to create a new party uh of course the situation is very different in belgium but uh i think the example is very uh yes inspiring for uh us uh we need i think we need uh to democratize uh belgium and europe and uh and beyond uh because uh we have this uh surveillance problem needs are very uh important we have to to lead social and uh humanist policy and uh yes uh i think it's not so necessary to uh to give uh to give uh advices to the young people because the young people they have so uh they have a vitality in them uh um they have this uh courage they are young and they have the live just uh before the before them uh no in front of them uh i think uh they have uh the strength uh uh to struggle and to every young people maybe not individually but uh use uh ones always to have a better world than uh i have a bigger confidence to uh to the young people uh i think uh they always uh want to do something better on the on the old one and i uh want to uh say uh something else uh uh working in uh dm25 yes i'm very old no uh but uh uh as long as i have uh as it's possible i will uh work enthusiastically for dm25 and uh there is something very uh happy in dm25 in the quality of the quality of people uh um working uh uh to work with people uh so idealistic so uh um intelligent and so motivated uh uh it's a privilege first of course with uh Yanis Varoufakis i think it's a privilege to work with uh people like that uh and uh yes thank you to every gamer it's a wonderful adventure thank you so much Claire uh i think i could say the same about you it's uh you know the pleasure is all is all ours is the the pleasure of the movement to have somebody in the movement like you and for being so motivated and so enthusiastic and so engaged in everything that that you do so thank you for that really from the bottom of my heart and also for our friendship and for everything that we've done together um it's really you know a pleasure to have you on thank you for coming on uh Faces of DM and for those of you watching um i hope you enjoyed this hour it's it's like i said it was meant to be 30 minutes but obviously the conversation got the better of us um and uh do come back if you if you are not yet a member of DM35 you can join there's a link in the description of the video and um you know also remember that we're 100 funded by membership donations so we don't get any money from private interests so if you manage to have some you know a few euros that are you know lying around that you could spare for our movement um it would be very grateful for that as well and the link is also in the description of the video um on that note Claire thanks again and um Carpe diem thank you Carpe diem ciao