Dear people,

The offices of the 15M-News magazine and the Extension commission have a romantic feel to them. There are no windows, part of the tiled floors are dug up, the walls are cracked and in some points the ceiling has to be sustained. But don’t be fooled by it. Society as we know it is based on appearances and little else. Our movement is not. We couldn’t care less about appearances. It’s the substance that matters.

At this moment Madrid is very much occupied with organisation. People are organising all day long. At home behind the computer, in the bar while taking a coffee or a beer, in the offices of Extension, in the catacombs of Tabacalera. And in Sol, of course. Sol seems to be a bit like a Roman Forum or a Greek Agora, a place of social interaction. Until not so long ago it was purely a place of transit, where tourists took pictures and where occasional commercial events were organised. Now it’s a place where you go to meet people. You always encounter some familiar faces. There’s always an opportunity to gather information, to exchange ideas, to create new connections.

This is one part of the movement. The people on the popular marches have a very different point of view. They have a mission. Every day they challenge the Spanish summer sun. They are like bees, pollinating the little villages with the idea of social change on their way to Sol. The column from Sevilla prevented a family from being evicted in one of the villages the other day. At Extension we are preparing a huge celebratory event for all the marches. We sent them the idea the other day. Their answer came yesterday. They turned it down.

“These people are not walking all this way to have a party. They plan to occupy Madrid.”

Comrade Alfonso explains the situation at an assembly of Audiovisuals. The marching columns will be backed up by busloads full of people from the homefront. They want to head straight for Sol and organise an assembly of the columns where they will decide upon a political agenda.

For the organisation this could present a problem. But not for Audiovisuals. “It doesn’t really matter what they want to do. If they want to camp out in Sol, if they want to take parliament, if they want to have a party in the royal palace. It’s all fine with us. Our concern is to be there and to cover it, all of it, live, twenty-four hours a day.”

I was glad to hear that. And I start to be ever more curious to meet the heroes of the marches face to face. Their arrival will set things in motion that will set other things in motion and so on and so on. At this moment they are the driving force behind the revolution.

Oscar