Chapter 1: Subjective Figures of the Crisis ... - Negri in English

degage!" and indeed by the middle of January, Zine el-Abidine
Ben Ali was already gone. Egyptians took up the baton and, with
tens and hundreds of thousands regularly coming out in the
streets starting in late January, demanded that Hosni Mubarak
go too. Cairo's Tahrir Square was occupied for a mere eighteen
days before Mubarak departed.
Protests against repressive regimes spread quickly to other
countries in North Africa and the Middle East, including Bahrain
and Yemen and eventually Libya and Syria, but the initial spark
in Tunisia and Egypt also caught fire farther away. The protesters
occupying the Wisconsin statehouse in February' and March
expressed solidarity and recognized resonance with their
counterparts in Cairo, but the crucial step began on 15 May in the
occupations of central squares in Madrid and Barcelona by the
so-called indignados . The Spanish encampments took
inspiration from the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts and carried
forward their struggles in new ways. Against the socialist-led
government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, they demanded,
"SDemocracia real ya!," refusing the representation of all political
parties, and they forwarded a wide range of social protests, from
the corruption of the banks to unemployment, from the lack of
social services to insufficient housing and the injustice of
evictions. Millions of Spaniards participated in the movement,
and the vast majority of the population supported their demands.
In occupied squares the indignados formed assemblies for
decision-making and investigative commissions to explore a
range of social issues.
Even before the encampments in Madrid's Puerta del Sol
were dismantled in June, the Greeks had taken up the baton
from the indignados and occupied Syntagma Square in Athens to
protest against austerity measures. Not long after, tents sprang
up on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard to demand social justice
and welfare for Israelis. In early August, after police shot a black
Briton, riots broke out in Tottenham and spread throughout
England.
When a few hundred pioneer occupiers brought their tents
to New York's Zuccotti Park on 17 September, then, it was their
turn to take up the baton. And indeed their actions and the
spread of the movements in the United States and across the