It took scuba diving, yoga, line dancing, bike rallies and aerial dance for Puerto Ricans to remove their governor. Next: People's Assemblies

It’s fascinating and exciting to see forms of popular, participatory power arising elsewhere in the world. In a global network society, news of good practice travels fast, and sometimes may appear “fractally” (as A/UK’s co-initiator Indra Adnan puts it).

From the Portside website, we’ve been hearing about the vigorous rise of People’s Assemblies in Puerto Rico. These follow the massive street protests against the corrupt and minorities-abusing governor of the American territory, Ricardo Rosselló, which led to his resignation on July 25th this year.

Very much in the spirit of the creative and futuristic democracy we celebrate here, the Puerto Ricans expressed their opposition in a riot of artistic and lifestyle forms, according to the New York Times. Run through the slideshow below:

Scuba Diving protestors

For this group of divers, marching on dry land wasn’t enough of a statement, so they decided to take their message underwater, where they were documented in a video posted on Twitter.

They performed acrobatics

On July 22, these two protesters dangled from street signs above the Expreso Las Américas, one of San Juan’s main highways, and performed in silks as a large crowd marched below.

They danced the Electric Slide

The four-wall line dance was puzzling and fascinating to some non-islanders on Twitter, but it is fairly common at parties, weddings and quinceañero celebrations. Here (caught on Twitter, and again, and spreading to New York’s Grand Central station) protesters were dancing to the beat of protest chants.

They drove bicycles, motorcycles and 4x4s

On Tuesday night, hundreds of cyclists rode through the streets of Old San Juan to join protesters in front of La Fortaleza, the governor’s official residence (see live footage on this Twitter video).

They boarded kayaks and water scooters

On July 21, a group organized by Ángel Jiménez set out from the Condado lagoon in kayaks and small boats and on water scooters, paddleboards and surfboards, and made their way to the stretch of San Juan Bay that the governor’s mansion overlooks.

They expressed themselves through music

Well-known musicians like Ricky Martin, Residente and Bad Bunny combined their efforts to energize the protest movement. Ordinary Puerto Ricans also expressed themselves in ways as diverse as the island’s culture, with songs played on traditional instruments with rhythms like plena and bomba, as well as more contemporary musical genres like urbano and trap. Protesters have vogued in a square in Old San Juan, and there were calls for a big gathering in front of the governor’s mansion for perreo, a reggaeton dance style. (See this Twitter video of singing in front of the Governor’s mansion)

They took to the saddle

A cabalgata, or cavalcade, is a mass procession on horseback — often staged to mark a ceremonial occasion, but sometimes as a form of protest. A group of mounted demonstrators rode from the Puerto Rico Convention Center to the Capitol of Puerto Rico, just outside of Old San Juan.

They practiced yoga

The protests in Puerto Rico have ranged in noise level from the clamor of the cacerolazo to the serenity of yoga. On the morning of July 21, a group led by Nicole Bernier, Paola Romo and Manuel Oria, did downward dogs and other yoga positions near the governor’s mansion and raised donations for a local legal defense fund and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

They banged pots and pans

Many Puerto Ricans have taken to emulating the cacerolazo, a popular South American form of protest that originated in the 1970s in Chile. People could participate wherever they were, even at home, by banging cookware and kitchen utensils at a set time, with the noise calling attention to their grievances. In Puerto Rico, people have been banging pots and pans for one minute every day at 8 p.m.

They prayed

Members of some religious communities held gatherings across the island to pray as a form of peaceful protest.

They accessorized

Another popular avenue of expression at the protests has run through the clothing, accessories and makeup worn by the demonstrators. Some people have worn body paint, slogan-emblazoned shirts and even earrings depicting and mocking Mr. Rosselló.

Face painting in protests.

As the Portside article explains:

These events crystallized for Puerto Ricans a consummation of popular power. The outcome confirmed that an organized group of citizens can exert enough pressure to force a detente on the state.

Following Rosselló’s resignation, however, many have expressed concerns about possible demobilization. Some fear that as people return to the routines of life, the fiery resistance struggles of July will gradually fade from our collective memory.

Were the protests and marches the beginning and end of this political awakening? How far can this newly acquired power be taken? 

The People’s Assemblies

Puerto Ricans now explore the breadth of these challenges with the formation of people’s assemblies. Assemblies began in August in different parts of the island, from Ponce, Mayaguez, Lares, and Utuado to Caguas, Gurabo, San Juan, and Carolina, as word spread with the help of hashtags such as #asambleadepueblo on social media.

Different sectors of civil society have convened these assemblies with the mission of reflecting on how to provide continuity to the mobilized citizenry and entering into deep conversations about governance.

These newly emerging spaces have taken different shapes, but all through an organic process where the focus is the collective. Some have opted for assemblies where people are divided into small groups—no more than 10-15 people—where everyone reflects on the questions posited by conveners, later to be shared in a plenary-style format.

This particular assembly format, which was used in places such as Mayagüez and Caguas, has been organized around questions that address what is happening in Puerto Rico, what is to be done about the different issues, and how to collectively organize.

In the case of Mayagüez, those present were asked to join one of ten facilitators who had been chosen from the audience slightly prior to the beginning of the assembly. Once in their groups, a notetaker was chosen to write down each group’s ideas, later to be shared with everyone else. 

The goal of this assembly format is to allow everyone an opportunity to voice their grievances and ideas—especially those who might be new to political activism.

Other assemblies, such as those in Ponce and Lares, have opted for an open-meeting format where those interested in participating have anywhere between two to five minutes—depending on how many people are in attendance—to reflect on the current situation or to share their concerns and proposed solutions.

In these, coordinators request that people sign up for a turn to speak, a sort of record-keeping to avoid that any one person dominate the discussion, while also holding everyone to preset time limits. Regardless of the model used, the assemblies share common principles of inclusivity, horizontality, and openness.

Organizers also make clear that this is not a space for political parties to push their political agendas, but for members of civil society as private individuals to present ideas and proposals, for the achievement of transformative social change that emerges from the people.

While many of the assemblies have participants with experience in assembly procedures—and the intricate parliamentary process—a significant number of participants are new to the scene, making for a space of innovation and experimentation within the democratic exercise….

…It is too soon to know whether this newly acquired power will lead to a radical change in the political structure of the island and, if so, what type of change.

What is certain is that the sense of empowerment produced by people’s participation in the mass mobilizations has undoubtedly led to a political awakening.

These assemblies suggest that people are beginning a process of appropriating participatory democracy—and its vectors of empowerment, self-management, and self-determination.

The shift from street demonstrations to people’s assemblies suggests “the proposal behind the protest,” a principle that challenges those mobilized by grievances to construct their own solutions and present them as alternatives to the current state of affairs….

The rise of people’s assemblies across the island and their continuous call for the state to respect the people’s voice certainly demonstrates that we are looking at the maturation of a proyecto de país: a national project for a new governance.

More here.

We also recommend, for context, this long feature from Mother Jones, which puts these exciting civic developments in a historical context - of Puerto Rico’s semi-colonial posture vis-a-vis the US; the way that Hurricane Maria served as a wake-up call to many of the islanders who presumed American assistance (which barely came); and also the specific resistance to Rosselló from diverse communities defined by gender and body politics.