The #Occupy and #15o movements have declared the 14th and 15th of January as days of mobilization and reflection upon direct democracy. The #15o movement in Ljubljana, which has occupied public spaces for almost three months now to resist the dictates of financial capitalism and to construct alternatives to representative politics, is joining this mobilization. For this reason we are preparing on Thursday, January 12, a public discussion on the topics of transnational Europe, direct democracy and the experience of #15o. The discussion will start at 15.30 and will prolong into the assembly of the #15o movement starting at 18.00. Both will occur on the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana. On Saturday, the 14th January, we are planning common manifestation with #OccupyTrieste.

The public discussion named Living democracy (Solutions from Below against Problems from Above) will be an opportunity to reflect on direct democracy in the context of exhaustion of the neoliberal project of European integration and in the context of the approaching referendum on family code in Slovenia valorizing practices of direct democracy in the framework of global movement #15o and #Occupy.

The neoliberal project of European integration that privileges interests of financial markets over interests of global generation of producers of social wealth, has brought Europe to the brink of disintegration and the rise of national egoisms. National political elites and European technocracy completely handed over scenarios of exit from the crisis to financial markets. In 2012 we are expecting a race to the bottom, fierce competition among individual European nation states and monetary and fiscal blocs to appease financial markets regardless social and ecological costs. Can the European global generation, faced with policies of austerity, translate localized experiences of direct democracy in movements, into new project of building transnational Europe from below, into a new European federalism?

Everywhere in the world on the 15 October we renounced the dictates of financial capitalism and representative politics. The slogan “No One Represents Us” means that we organize our actions for dignified life for everyone in the forms of direct and participatory democracy. We do not understand democracy as formalized decision making detached from our everyday life and struggles. We envision it as the organization of social relations that valorize, consolidate and that protects original, self determined, autonomous, plural forms of life. Direct democracy, which is living democracy in the movements, has nothing to do with a referendum’s tyranny of majority against minority. Moreover, it is the only efficient arm against such tyranny. While the shameful referendum on the family code approaches, we asks ourselves how can we (having in mind rich experiences of direct democracy in the movements) reject both forms that alienate our rights and powers: representative democracy and direct democracy as the practice of denying minorities’ rights.

Practices of direct democracy in #15o have to be continually reflected upon; the principle of democracy of direct action was adopted to allow articulation of minority voices and by this to unleash the expansivity and openness of the movement and to root our actions in everyday life experiences. Since then, the movement allowed for the opening of numerous issues, struggles, and new forms of solidarity were built. On the 15th October we invested our bodies and we started to compose new and bigger bodies. The last part of Thursday’s discussion will therefore be aimed at assessing where we are and how to proceed.

The points for discussion were drafted by the preparatory workshop for the discussion and assembly about direct democracy in the framework of 15o on FDV and 15o at Boj za.