THE GREAT LIE OF THE SYSTEM

SILO 1993 (MADRID).

Everything is set up for the elites, for the leadership, for the privileged—for a mere 1% of global society. We believe it is imperative to turn this around so that everything serves the people—the entirety of the population.

This deceptive state of affairs has bred disillusionment and exhaustion among the people; they want nothing more to do with anything—they are fed up and trust no one.

These callous socioeconomic policies have triggered—and will continue to trigger, with even greater intensity—social upheavals: cathartic outbursts that serve no purpose and benefit no one. Conflict is escalating, potentially leading to a critical situation that, quite clearly, cannot be resolved through repression alone. These outbursts are an extreme (and ultimately futile) manifestation of the process of social forces being unleashed—a process currently most visible in Latin America and Eastern Europe.

From our perspective, it is indisputable that different forms of action and engagement are required—approaches that the current political leadership fails to adopt, precisely because doing so would mean having to listen to the people.

We view the crisis currently afflicting the system as significant, and we approach it in terms of how it might be leveraged. To do this, we must consider how the system is perceived: if we view it as a prison—one that is already crumbling—then our natural desire should be to escape; the sooner the walls collapse, the sooner we can be free. If, on the other hand, one perceives it as a state of absolute dependency, one might fear that the collapse of the system entails one’s own downfall. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is only those who are firmly bolted to the system—the entire spectrum of the political class and their cohorts in power, from the exploitative right to the deceitful left—who will fall along with it. They are all collapsing, because they are all plugged into the system, drawing sustenance from it; their little lives depend on their connection to the system, and they are restless because—with an animal instinct—they sense the collapse of the system from within. Consequently, every proposal they put forward is colored by this internal collapse.

This must be clearly understood. It is therefore essential that we advance our struggle—to spare others pain and violence—and it is important to realize that we are building the world to come, the world that will follow the collapse of the system. For this reason, we remain optimistic about constructing the future; we are neither collapsing like the men of the system, nor are we defeated like those who have been battered by them. —Silo