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Pablo Iglesias: «Creo que solo podremos ganar si politizamos el orgullo de lo popular» | Círculo de Bellas Artes | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Pablo Iglesias: «Creo que solo podremos ganar si politizamos el orgullo de lo popular»
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is what seems most important to me
what I like the most it
is an honor to present the book of two
colleagues that I admire and that I
have known since long before all this
the guys from Madrid made models
in La Nucía
and Arantxa since she is an advisor to
terrible governments in Latin America' and
and
but I already say it
since many colleagues from
the press have come who have something to justify
justify [Applause]
being also with Cañamero he
told me something in the interview that is
in his book
first clue because I see many
young faces there is a book of a
film version of The Holy Innocents by
Mario Camus in Delibes books
what do you have to read and there you see
Juan Diego playing a young man and
Diego told me I have lived that I do
not have to see it in a movie I
have lived that I have lived what it is like for
the young men to take you on a hunt and for
you to go like a dog to catch the
pigeons or the birds that they kill and
take them and that and that is an honor because when
when
when subalternity when
suffering when humiliation
becomes politics one realizes
that in reality behind all this there is
a moral element
and thanks to Tomás Ya Cal for making
power is everywhere and it
I am famous and I appear on TV I have had
the book is full of clues
to the egg knows a lot and also and
also he has a work life that does not
fit on a page or in two or three in
four he knows what it is
not because he has seen it because he has read it it
is not a robbery which is another movie
about a guy who is allergic to
money in his hands and gets
hives when
when the Italians are very big touches it
well this book has
that you can write without writing
against anyone or against anything or that it is possible
this that I have done is not against anyone
nor is it really in favor of anything that
is impossible almost all books
thank god are against something this is
a book against I
well that is a book against the
academic left that points out in a bad way
something that is somewhat true and that is that
all those who think about liberation in
some way look for justifications
to place themselves at the center
of that liberation process
and those of us who are thinking about liberation
dedicate ourselves to working in
university institutions it is fundamental
to scholarships with low salaries and with
that change necessarily has to happen where
we are is
in art narcissism of
when you theorize something that is true
an element that defines the
characteristics of the workforce
in our country was clarified of
course the
unionized workforce and with permanent employment contracts
in which your job
became a cultural link
with the work space in which of course
that changes and then there are sectors
let's say for which precariousness is
the norm and not the exception but of course
if we force it a lot we insist on talking
about the precariousness of
university students it is true that many
have to serve drinks on the
weekends to pay for their studies it is
true that it is lost sight of and This is
another fundamental element of the book, let's
say a series of social subjects
who do not have the power of enunciation, who do
not have the microphone, who do not have
the possibility of speaking to themselves
and the book, despite what it might
seem, there is a very comical moment in which
the authors define themselves, well, I am a
Marxist-Leninist, I don't know that I am more of a
Trotskyist and despite that, the
working class has united us to write
a book, so someone could think that
these people already said it, now they like
a type of canonical working class, a type of
mythical working class, a unionized male working class
with red flags with
workers affiliated to the union and it is not
true in the book and there is another of the
clear maps, there is some reading about
Owen Jones, I'm sure you have
read him a lot and he has become famous and he
has a book that is the best,
chaves and then there is a lot of
British cinema that teaches us about chats and
even with the one that I now see Owen
Jones and we cry, pride
film that you have to see, homosexuals and
miners fighting Thatcher together
but Franz Fanon is much
less known and he has a book called
The Wretched of the Earth
in which he gives some huge beatings to the
European left and European Marxism
and he says you don't understand how
subalternity works in
third world countries what you call the
lumpenproletariat is fundamental to
understanding the possibilities of
revolutionary transformation in Africa
and Latin America. This is
an irreverent style a style that
reclaims the cultures of the subaltern
is in the book that reclaims an idea of the
working class not linked to its
political organization in fact there is a
permanent nostalgia to [ __ ] what a shame
when the working class is not organized
politically but that reclaims that
culture I will give you a personal example
to understand what he means when I
was 13 years old in Fontarrón it is a sub
neighborhood of Vallecas it is not a
day trip through terror and there are some
basketball courts like in so many neighborhoods and
there was a group of friends and from the group of
friends that we played basketball there was
one who became a neo-Nazi
if the 500 did nothing and told me that
his father was a street sweeper and that he drank a
lot and must not have been a very
nice guy he beat him up for becoming a
neo-Nazi not because the father had a
great political conscience but because he
told him son those are ideas of rich people that helps
a lot to understand what they
mean when they talk about the working class
that man who would be a drunk and
probably sexist and who
knows what political party he voted for but he
had an instinct if I saw my son
dressed up as a Nazi he beat him up
because that is what the rich people do that sounds
to me like it is what the rich people do well keep
that music playing because it is the type
of working class sometimes pretty sometimes
that cultural sense appears in many
elements that are key to understanding it
on the one hand the territorial question
what is the territory of the working class
the neighborhood and a neighborhood consciousness that does
not necessarily have to do with that
of a working class neighborhood, a neighborhood built
around factories but with a
feeling of a neighborhood in Vallecas what
could be Horcasitas what could be
the prosperity what could be Carabanchel of
course most of the people who
live there are salaried workers in the
service sector because in a
tertiary society people work in
whatever offers you a job that is not
generally let's say or only
industrial factories but there is a
neighborhood consciousness that identifies very well with
what they call the working class and that has
its musical expressions like the
working class sounds like Coldplay to us or it sounds I don't
know what hipster groups are called
this is that I don't want to mention it because
then I fall you know what I'm
referring to the working class sounds like this
for the working class it sounds like something else it
sounds like something that is
rosendo if you rush me but I feel it
as very politically correct from the
and there is cinema in the book quinqui cinema
supports lumpen the cinema of today from the
church of watching movies like navajeros that is what they
are referring to they are not
referring to what the
young red guard said tomorrow in the streets
masses in triumph will rise up before the
red guard the powerful they will tremble that let's
say that class consciousness that
existed in the 30s is not what they
are talking about in the book they are
talking about something else that can be
politicized in many directions and there is
something that they do in their book that is the
emotional part that touches your heart which
is that they recognize that the gasoline that
makes them write the book is resentment it is
is pride and rage to see in Arantxa the
pride and rage of the social origin what
makes them write the book is not a
minor issue they are two
professional intellectuals how they make a living from the pen
almost literally but having grown up
where they grew up being children of
who they are children is what drives them
to write this and it is not a
minor issue in the least because that is what
makes the book have a
special flavor a taste of revenge that what
ultimately drives you to
write the book is a pride again
an example expresses it very well also
appears in a letter of this
Billy Elliot I don't know if you have seen the
movie Billy Elliot it is the pride of
the working class because it is the pride of
the working class that the son of a
striking worker ends up dancing
Swan Lake and doesn't lose his
class consciousness and the tears that the
father sheds and that we all shed when we
see the film have to do with what
is behind that resentment that
says [ __ ] what they had to suffer
so that I could be here and I won't
forget that and
so here to empathize because that
is key when you read this book you can't
understand the working class without
empathizing I have to try to
understand that
a lifelong left-wing family
but I am the son and university student of my
mother who is there is a lawyer and my father
is a labor inspector
I have not directly experienced that
subalternity but without directly
because my mother did not know my mother
who can boast of having been a
workers' lawyer is the daughter of workers and she was
raised by two women who were two workers from
Vallecas who were the ones who
raised me with her and that leaves its mark
because the fact that they were two working-class women
from Vallecas consume the milk also
with their way of insulting an insult that
was very of my grandmother and my aunt, a bolero,
screwed a country bumpkin and you say screwed a country bumpkin it was
a way in which two ladies, daughters
of a country bumpkin from Soria who had to
emigrate to Madrid to become a baker,
was how they looked down on the poor people
of the villages who went to sell the
products of the countryside to Madrid and
however, those from Vallecas already looked down on
that culture,
that bad temper, what does that have to do with
things that you understand when you are in
the neighborhood? Does that also have to do with
the pride that you feel later when you look at
those who are children?
Well, my aunt Ángeles served in
many houses washing dishes and saying, well,
now the grandson of that woman is on the
parliamentary platform, well, cursing
their dead, to put it bluntly and well, and that being
able to feel proud of that and that
you can present that pride, let's
say, in democratic terms because
democracy is what democracy is not,
going to vote every four years,
democracy is that the son of a
manual worker can study at university
or that in the parliament of a country there can
be children or grandchildren of those who previously had to
work serving
others, that's what expresses that a
country is democratic is that every four years they
allow you to go vote or that they give you
the monarchy within the constitution
as we have found out when some of us
already knew it a few days ago that
we better put it here so that
the people don't have to vote and that is
very important to understand to
understand the book that reaches in my opinion
the two points and with this
the success ended I think that in the end
fundamentally they realize the
political importance of the middle class the
middle class is the most important thing
politically and they realize
that what has happened in Spain with the
15M is basically that they have pissed off
the middle class what
the 15M expresses is the destruction of the
expectations of the middle sectors of
our country which is what explains everything it
is what explains the political regime
of 78 also middle class is not a
sociological notion we could spend hours
discussing what is middle class and what is not it
is fundamentally a way
of self-perception that has to do with
expectations the political success of the
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in the
70s 80 is that it is capable of building a
very broad concept of the middle class in which
wage earners of all kinds say damn, I'm going to be
able to have a second home
in the village, I'm going to be able to go on
vacation for maybe a week, I'm going to be
able to drive a car and my children are going to
go to university, I am middle class,
this is what it means to be in Europe, it
only expresses it very well,
advertising always presents the
class subjects to which the viewer,
the consumer, would like to aspire, always a
little bit above,
a little bit more handsome, a little bit richer, with a dog a
little bit prettier than you, that
collapses with the 15m because you have touched
those sectors and how much is up to you, if you touch
the expectations of the middle sectors,
then the middle sectors look and they
only need someone to come along and
tell them, the political elites and the
economic elites because it's true and that
provokes enormous political changes and let's
say a new distribution of
ideological positions and this is where it comes in and
with this I'm ending the contradiction
in which we live, in which we live,
any political fight is a
political fight for the popular, before black
said left people working class
talking about working class is basically
going back to the idea of a subject of a
historical subject that is presented as
universal and that would be the
transversal subject if it is said that there is a subject
that can change things it is that it is the
transversal subject if it is said that there is an
advanced subject with whose interests
the majority of
social subjects identify it is that we speak of a
transversal subject
the transversal subject to define the
stability of the political systems in
Western Europe was the middle class
Arantxa of course that has to do with
the fear of what existed on the other side
of the Berlin Wall that is why we must create
a create something called
welfare states that builds an
awareness even in the
organized sectors of the working class of
we are the middle class we are
the centrality we are the
majority we are common sense we are
Germany we are
France we are the
people we are the country the
political fight always fight for what
ultimately serves so that
everyone identifies in the movements of
crisis that comes into dispute and suddenly
what serves so that
everyone identifies can vary and here there is
a contradiction of ours there is a
contradiction We from Podemos
have managed to politicize
sectors that were not previously politicized and
that respond very well to those
characteristics of the working class. You can see it
in the rallies, in our rallies, the
traditional left was amazed because that
was where real neighborhood people go, it
's to the Podemos rallies in
Catalonia. That's spectacular. When
we made Catalonia, yes, it's because of the
contrast that there was between the militancy
of Iniciativa per Catalunya and the
militancy of Poder. It will be like
even physically, even in the fact of
having had dental treatment
as a child or not having had it, I knew
how it could be seen, it could be seen, and above
all, how our people dressed. The people on the
left dress well, even if they
are bohemian, but well. The people from the
neighborhood circles all wear
purple t-shirts. What the [ __ ], let's go
see the ponytail. We all wear purple t-shirts,
no scarves, and that happens with
Podemos, with a type of people that is not
politicized through social networks, it is
politicized through
television. I didn't watch them tonight,
I went, but
if I have a Saturday, I don't I dedicate myself to watching them
tonight, people do and people
identify with the guy with the ponytail who says, wow,
I like that. And at the same time that we
were doing that, we were aware of having
that it is not a majority, in the book they
explain it, there are more who have to
stay here, unemployed, in shitty jobs than
those who leave. It's strange that
London happens in Germany, but
we are still in a country in which pointing out
pointing out
the thing that is also a historic victory for
the working class, pointing out those who have
also been trained and can still leave,
generates a love affair in society.
Is it more useful or is it easier to outrage your
country by talking about those great
researchers who are producing
wealth abroad instead of
producing it here instead of talking about the
chats. But that tension, which is one of
our fundamental debates, I believe
that it can only be resolved, and this will
mark what we have to discuss in
the coming months, if we bet on a
notion of transversality that is
built on the popular because if
transversality is built on a
recomposition of the concept of the
middle class from the bourgeois concept. I
think that as a middle class we cannot win we
cannot win even if we dress up
as such even if we even start to dress like that we
start to dress like the middle classes
but in that case anyone can beat us
the old parties can beat us and
Ciudadanos can beat us it's not that the
social composition nor that of the
Ciudadanos leaders is different from ours
but their aspirations yes of course they dress like
like
middle class people of course their
cultural concerns have to do with the
concept of middle class of course their
aspirations their way of understanding
even the relationship with a bank or the
relationship with owning a
home has to do with that ideology
which is the basis of sustainability of a
European state that works
relatively well I think that if we go
to that if we think that the dispute for
centrality is in taking away the
concept of middle class from those who had it I
think we will be wrong I think it does not
happen on the one hand because of the
economic conditions I think we are going to a
situation of increasing precariousness and I think
that we can only
win if we are capable of politicizing the
pride of the popular and politicizing the
pride of the popular implies being
politically incorrect it implies a
type of challenge in it you
assume that you are going to being in the minority with
respect to what is published with respect to
what they control with respect to those who
control 80 90 percent of what
you read what you see and what you hear what
we can do is going to
initially remain in the minority but nevertheless you
are disputing it in the
popular sphere the feeling that I have for
being controversial and responding to the questions
that were asked of me before is this that we have
done the famous minute of silence has
deserved a unanimous media lynching
and nevertheless I believe that in the
country there is a debate because what I
find in the streets congratulations
finally there is someone who is not a hypocrite
finally there is someone who speaks our
language finally there is someone who does it
differently of course it is risky because they
are giving you blows in each and every
one of the media that even the old
progressives of always the old
leftists of always tell you how you have gone too far
is a risk
but what is built at the level of the
people in a common sense of a lot
of people who say man, enough of
hypocrisy, enough of Hypocrisy in
this country allows for the generation of a new
common sense that I believe is gaining
ground. We will always
have it difficult. Anyone who defends the
working class will have a much more
difficult time. I respect who says
let's leave things as they are and make
small reforms, but I think we have
managed to make our way in a historic way,
precisely by saying and doing
things that almost no one had dared to
say before, and I think this book is an
explosive material that serves to make
this popular field grow, so please
read it, everyone, thank you [Applause]
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