The Spanish P2P Wikisprint on March 20

Gutiérrez explains the larger political and cultural importance of the Wikisprint: 

The first one:  Visualize processes that the mainstream media and western governments ignore. Spain, one of the countries hardest hit by the macroeconomic crisis, is one of the spearheads of the networked P2P world, the commons, the new horizontal logics, the collaborative economy. And the mass media ignore this reality, easily verifiable with data. Spain is the country with the largest number of co-working spaces per capita (3rd in total). Spain leads, by far, the social currencies flow. Spain, from 2010 has more Creative Commons licensed works than the United States. Spain is the fourth country in the world in number of fab labs (which does not summarize 3D printing world but it is a hint). Furthermore, copyleft culture in Spain has spread to architecture, agriculture, communication or advocacy. In Spain works the biggest alternative Wi-Fi network of the world, Guifi.net, that encourages shared nodes. And in Spain was born Proyecto Lorea, the greatest federation of free social networks.  Besides, the cross-wise 15M-Indignados movement is catapulting new commons oriented political-social-communicative processes and revitalizing the urban and rural commons.  Why does the mainstream media ignore this reality?  Why is P2P usually associated with ‘piracy’?

For the same reason that mass media hides what is happening in Greece: they have fear.  Ignored by the mainstream media, the Greeks are building a new economic paradigm around the commons, a collective world fed by the human networks and solidarity. Not coincidentally, the P2P Foundation has a version in Greek.

Gutiérrez also described the rich potential of “a techno-political alliance between southern Europe citizens and emerging Latin America”:

Possibly, Latin America has the best ecosystem to create a new world prototype. The region has, generally, left- and social-oriented Governments. Latin American has an intense history around collective ownership and collaborative work. A strong social inertia, both analogical and digital. Latin American is the only country in the world that protects Wikileaks (Ecuador). In Latin America, in Brazilian Porto Alegre, participatory budgeting  and World Social Forum were born. In Latin America many governments use free software. In Latin America, the Zapatistas began the path of hacktivism technopolitics of the 99%. In Latin America, in the collapsed Argentina of 2001, assemblies and barter were born from the ashes of capitalism. In Latin America there are still millenary practices as the ayni (Bolivia), the tequio (Mexico) or the minga (Ecuador), in total harmony with P2P networks and the commons. The crowd, the collaborative, is in the DNA of Latin America. The cosmic race, the deeply mestizo race that Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos wrote about in 1925, can save Europeans from the wild wrath of Frankfurt and Wall Street.

Here’s hoping that this rare European/Latin American Wikisprint is the start of something much bigger!