By Andreas Speck and Javier Gárate
It seems the year 2011 will end as it began – with huge social mobilisations all over the world and ongoing social protests. It is hard to take a break and to digest and reflect on everything that has happened this year. As we write, Tahrir Square is again full of protesters as in January and February, this time demanding not just the resignation of one man, but of the military dictatorship as a structure; the Occupy Movement is still going from strength to strength in many locations all over the world, and starting to think about its next steps, the student demonstrations continue in Chile and so many other social movement expressions continue to bring hope, showing that we have had enough of this economic and political system that benefits the very few and which does not represent the people. Many of these movements are still developing, and it is hard to evaluate them in terms of achievements of their end goals. We can only look at what impact they've had so far and look at how they have organised themselves.
One thing is for sure, no one can deny that there is a huge energy for change, and not just to demand change, but to actually be it.
