The associations supporting the manifesto include the following: IPES, OlatuKoop Cooperative Group, TEKSarea, Iratzar Foundation, Ipar-Hegoa Association and Manu Robles Arangiz Foundation. But the manifesto is open to adhesions and from here you can offer yours.

The manifesto presented "is no more than a starting point", according to the promoters, but at the time of the presentation, it says in its Basque version (also in Spanish and French):

MANIFESTO

In recent decades, phenomena such as globalization, global precariousness, the privatization of democracy, the depletion of fossil fuels, climate change, the crisis of care have accelerated... In the midst of all this, enormous technological development has made a qualitative leap in the last century. This has already aroused many concerns around the world: Where does digitization take us? What changes will it bring to democracy and its realization? Will work and the areas of education change? What consequences will digitisation have in terms of sustainability? Are we facing a violent change in the way we relate to human beings? Are we, in short, facing a leap from the era that will change humanity? Those of us who launch this manifesto believe that the digital challenge is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. But we're not technophiles or technophobes. We believe that technology can be used in favour of the financial elites, but also in the service of society. The issue is very complex and affects at least four areas: democracy, labour, education and the human one.

Digital democracy

Digitalization has influenced the articulation of political power, the way of working, the governance and the nature of local and private institutions, changing the structure of society. Technology has brought efficient and close services both in the market and in the management of citizenship, but at the same time have reinforced global capitalism based on data accumulation, new digital structures pribatizatuz.Teknologia and the digital divide, above all, have an impact on the models of society and democracy and citizenship today, which have become the condition for decision-making of citizens’ rights. Therefore, it is essential that digital resources and services are common: more than at the service of markets, being a technology at the service of society.

Reflection on work and robotization

In recent years, capital has accelerated digitalization guided by public money to increase its profits, reinforcing the technological monopoly, extending platform capitalism, increasing the loss of jobs and the deterioration of working conditions, increasing control over workers, multiplying psychosocial risks… In short, Industry 4.0 has left the reproductive sector or shadow surveillance, focusing automation only on the productive sphere. In this area too, we believe that these tools and processes should be made available for a dignified and collective life, extending robotization also to the scope of surveillance tasks, combining automation with the reduction of working hours.

Digitisation of education

Since the end of the twentieth century, education has been immersed in a profound transformation, centered on two axes: education in competences and competences. Digitisation has reached schools and the pillars of the old model have been called into question with the development and dissemination of ICT. In addition to putting upside down the transmission of content, this has brought with it new languages and paths of relationship with the environment, with consequences difficult to evaluate in cognitive development and in the maturity process of young people. The digital sphere of education has become widespread and has generated new concerns, for example, regarding the subject of the digital environment and the guarantee of the right to education. Digitalization also raises new questions in education to respond to the old challenges.

Digital humanities

Digital humanity is based on the intersection between computer technologies and humanities disciplines. Despite being a fashionable term, it seems to us that the concept that will be devised and elaborated from Euskal Herria, used by large corporations, has many possibilities. This question is of great interest to us: What does it mean to think about the knowledge, creation and culture of new and changing technological resources and capabilities? What implications does it have on the processes of subjectivity? What implications in the areas of memory, history, heritage, language, education and research? This large space, which leads us to ask uncomfortable questions, leads us to think about the technological and energy infrastructure, the limit and ethical horizon of research and knowledge, in creations and creators, in the use of storing and interpreting information, and in many other challenges.

What to do?

In view of these four areas, with this project we intend to present the challenge and open the debate. We want to think of a technology at the service of a society based on sovereignty and radical democracy. Because technology is not neutral, we know in the hands of who it is and in favor of who, but we don't refuse to support this process to fight for a society that seeks a dignified life. We therefore appeal to think and open an alternative to digital capitalism, that is, to analyse the main keys to the debate, to ask ourselves and to articulate a network that puts forward proposals for action.

> More information: https://euskalherriadigitala.eus