Anyone's Word and the Expert's Word: An Alliance

Affected voices and technical voices: 15M, PAH, and Mareas

May 2011. A trembling voice; words heard over street noise—or perhaps cut off by a bad Internet connection in a YouTube video: ‘It's just that you're doing things I've always dreamed about being able to do …’ A pause, the voice breaks, and applause explodes. ‘Excuse me, but I'm just …’—more applause, and little by little the older woman speaking to the assembly, bending over the microphone, hands trembling, manages to go on: ‘What I meant to tell you all is that I think you are so much more creative than our generation, and so I'd like to ask you something, something I think we all need, and it's that we not forget that …’ She falters for a moment, and then continues. ‘There's a part of the population that's not here. There's part of the population missing here. It's the population that's even lower than low, the people who don't have something to eat every day, who live in slums, the barrios—’ Applause bursts out again, interrupting her, and a hand settles on the woman's back to support her. ‘—where the average life expectancy is lower than in other barrios, where illiteracy is much higher, where people die, they're sick and they suffer in horrible situations.’ Another supporting hand appears on her back, as if sharing the weight of the words she's still trying to say. ‘And we have that in almost every town in the region, and in Murcia itself, and somehow they have to have this life, it has to fall on them. I don't know how to do it, but you do, I believe you do …’ Applause bursts out thunderously now, while the woman leaves the microphone and walks towards the people—who all stand up—and she loses herself among the crowd.

Shortly before or shortly after this, in May 2011, self-convened meetings in other plazas in cities and towns throughout Spain will see myriads of similar moments, at which so many other trembling voices will speak, often beginning with an apology.