Extract from the article by Javier Mozas published in this issue:

Public space was for Hannah Arendt, 1906-1975, a place for Action. Arendt believed that democracy needed to be exercised in the public realm, that it was useless to enact it in the private space of the household.

Action has two very different resources: one peaceful, the other violent. One using Words and the other Battle; that is, Discourse and War. The Indignez-vous movement is a protest movement whose core activity is a never-ending conversation. The tent camps, rallies, demonstrations, get-togethers, and sit-ins of the recent citizen movements in European cities have found a voice and a way of acting which are finding their place in the public spaces in democratic countries. These methods are based on language. The movements to occupy streets and squares which were inspired by the 15M Movement and which are fully aware of the influence they gain from the social visibility of their protests, are a type of peaceful struggle which, from public space, advocates greater political control over the absolute power of the financial markets. However, the uprisings in North Africa moved on from being mere protests to direct action, even the instigation of wars, as a means to an end confronted with the inefficiency of words...