JISCMail - CRIT-GEOG-FORUM Archives

Thanks for this detailed response - I think it neatly conjures up some of 
the key, broader issues and contexts that are brought up through thinking 
about the relationsip of the popular mobilisations against the war and 
broader questions around the counter-globalisation movemnet, to the 
organising practices of the left... I really agree about the relevance of 
someone like Ms Dynamite and this articulating the opposition to war in a 
far more engaging way...

There's been some interesting debates on the relationships between the 'old 
left' and the World Social Forum on the Open Democracy web site- which seem 
to resonate with the discussion of some of the tensions of the European 
Social Forum

see:


Another world is necessary
 Nawal El Saadawi
  20-3-2003
  From the 'DIY World' debate
  The World Social Forum is a potent liberating force, but its leadership 
risks being hijacked by the West?s old left. It must listen to women and to 
the Third World. They need exchange on an equal basis.


 http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=6&debateId=91&articleI
d=1076


World Social Forum: the secret of fire
 Peter Waterman
  18-6-2003
  From the 'DIY World' debate
  The World Social Forum in January 2003 represented a new stage in the 
unfolding project of the global justice and solidarity movement. An 
experienced observer of the WSF asks whether it can combine its multiple 
energies with the clarity needed to transcend old politics ? while 
establishing its own forms of legitimate, transparent representation? Who 
governs the WSF and where is it going?
 http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=6&debateId=91&articleI
d=1293



Dave

--On 03 July 2003 14:15 +0000 Jon Cloke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>
> For me, the role of the SWP and people such as George Galloway provide an
> object lesson in how the new politics of the post-Soviet era still have
> to overcome the legacies of the past. As a participant in the European
> Social Forum (ESF) in Florence last year and a member of ATTAC UK, both
> these organizations obstinately refuse to hierarchize and bureaucratise
> along the old party lines of the 60s, 70s and 80s, because for many of us
> the real problem with such parties is exactly that hierarchical nature;
> they are designed and built to control, rather than win debates, and the
> way they are designed they automatically gives place of precedence to
> ?charismatic leaders? who are again almost invariably white, male and
> middle class. Looking at the platform of speakers for the big anti-war
> rally of Feb 15th, which I also went to - are we really saying that
> people like Tony Benn, Tariq Ali and Geroge Galloway a) represent what?s
> going on with UK left activism these days, and b) are really the best we
> can do? Miss Dynamite was a damn sight more relevant than those old boys,
> in what she said and what she represents??
>
> Leading on from which, as Nick says, SWC/SWP people speak, and
> historically have never ?listened to other views on tactics and
> directions.? Because the fundamental truth about the SWP and their new
> incarnation as Globalise Resistance is that they already know what is to
> be done, how to go about doing it (strikes, rallies, mass mobilization)
> and so why should they take anyone else?s view on board? For them, the
> overthrow of global capitalism is the only logical end of organised
> left-orientated activism and since they are the vanguard party who know
> how this is to be done, the only end of forming coalitions and ?popular
> fronts? with anybody is so that the SWP/Globalise Resistance can lead
> them and tell everyone else what to do. To say that the SWP doesn?t build
> personal capital (if by which you mean personal power) is simply absurd;
> the SWP is a power-seeking missile that takes over by the unceasing
> activism of a minority and by a 'winning the debate' that involves
> excluding/not listening to other points of view.
>
> The mass of movements, groupings and parties that make up the ESF is
> currently having to cope with just such a tendency within its? own ranks.
> Whereas the ESF has no formal hierarchy and refuses the hegemony of
> representation at the moment, on the organisational front plainly there
> have to be meetings, groups, and people responsible for organising
> things. By a very strange coincidence, many of these people from the UK
> (Chris Nineham, who you may all remember from the Stop The War movement,
> is one example) and their counterparts abroad are from the Socialist
> International parties of France and Germany, the Rifundazzione Communisti
> in Italy, in fact the usual suspects. Those of us who have suggested
> opening up the democratisation of the ESF by setting up a separate
> discussion and debate list, and by beginning to establish a net-voting
> system online, have been slapped down. Plainly democracy and grassroots
> mobilization within the ESF is best served by holding obscure meetings
> all over Europe, which particularly those members and groups from poorer
> countries and groups are completely unable to get to, and which tend
> therefore to be dominated by the members of?. Guess which parties?
>
> Thus far organizations of mass activism and resistance in Europe such as
> the ESF are showing a remarkable solidarity in their defiance of allowing
> political parties as such to take part in the assemblies, and in
> resisting the idea of beginning the process of hierarchization; how can a
> global resistance movement begin to organize before it has properly
> become global (which is proceeding with the World Social Forum in
> Hyderabad in 2004, if you?re interested) and before a properly global
> debate has taken place concerning the function and purpose of the WSF and
> the various regional SFs?
>
> Within the UK, what might broadly be called the alliance of global
> resistance groups is comprised of a vast number of groups, some single
> issue, some more diverse in their political interests, and the
> anti-capitalist section of that alliance is only part of it; the people
> represented by groups such as the SWP/Globalise Resistance are in the
> minority, it would be my guess, and yet instead of seeking out
> reconciliation with and debate on the ideas of others, these groups are
> seeking to pretend they don?t exist and by vociferous protestation and
> the mass handing out of placards with the SWP logo on them, seeking to
> pretend that the whole movement is harmoniously led by the same
> principles which you can read every day in the ?Socialist Worker?. But
> many people in the Anti-War movement are sick and tired of the
> sectarianism and faction-fighting of 80s and 90s, for which the SWP inter
> alia was responsible ? the attitude of the SWP is now and has always been
> that *they* are the vanguard party and if they aren?t allowed to lead
> then they?re going to take their bat and their ball and go home, wrecking
> the game in the process if they can. Because as we all know, the
> universal truths about how a society should be conducted really were
> written by a middle-class, middle-age, white European bloke sitting in a
> library some 150 years ago, and arguing with that universal constant
> simply makes you a class traitor if not actually a fascist.
>
> The sins of Galloway and the SWP might well be trivial in comparison to
> the sins of the US, but that?s not really the point, is it? In terms of
> building an alternative politics of the left in the UK, if such a thing
> is possible, the attitudes and actions of people like Galloway and
> organizations like the SWP are central and crucial to the debate. When
> the Stop The War movement invited the usual suspects to stand up on the
> platform on Feb 15th and give it some about how wicked the US is, then
> plainly the implications were that these people somehow represented the
> movement and were important enough to be considered some kind of
> leadership, which I personally resent beyond my means to describe,
> particularly in the case of that self-obsessed old wrecker, Tony Benn. If
> whatever new politics currently developing are to mean anything, then
> they have to get beyond the old party-controlled, cult-of-the-personality
> bollocks that these people personally represent. I mean, haven?t we for
> chrissakes had enough white male middle-class leaders to last a lifetime?
>
> Which brings us in a roundabout way to Gorgeous George. George didn?t
> take on the post of MP for Baghdad Central because no-one else would do
> it and someone had to, he did it because he enjoys playing the pantomime
> villain and because he actually makes quite a bit of money out of it,
> irrespective of what may or may not have gone on with War On Want (and
> speaking as one of the founding members of the movement in Oxford in
> 1986, we weren?t the happiest bunnies to find that he and the others had
> bankrupted us, believe me). What with expenses from various charitable
> bodies, consultancies to this that and the other organization, plus the
> money siphoned off to him by wealthy Iraqi supporters who of course had
> nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, there were worse life-styles in the
> world to have than George?s.
>
> So for my money if what we?re really about here is building a coherent
> and united front, then what we don?t do is play my enemy?s enemy is my
> friend, and we don?t ignore the failings of those claiming to represent
> us, when those failings themselves act to undermine the movement ?
> exposing the lies means exposing all lies and being particularly harsh on
> our own, if you ask me. No movement like the Stop The War coalition needs
> a George Galloway, and taking on his self-earned problems as somehow
> emblematic of the struggles of movement not only undermines the movement,
> it degrades its? moral pretensions. In terms of leadership, I couldn?t
> agree more with Dave when he says that the inclusion of people like Benn
> and Galloway, who I would claim were irreversibly tainted by the
> arbitrary and unreasonable left politics of the last few decades, ?closed
> down the possibilities of articulating opposition?.
>
> The 15th Feb march represented a lost opportunity for me, too, but I
> would claim that this was inevitable given the absence of realism amongst
> the leadership, for whom presumably this was just another mass
> demonstration along the road to overthrow of global capitalism. The fact
> that there are still people on the left who think it such terms is
> mind-boggling, to my way of thinking, and until they demonstrate a
> capacity to engage with difference and alternatives in a constructive
> way, as well as critically appraising their own role in the failure of
> left politics in the UK over the last two decades of the 20th century,
> then they are always going to be at least a liability and more frequently
> a threat to the construction of another Europe.
>
>
> Jon Cloke
>
>
> P.S. The next European Social Forum is being held in Paris between 12th
> and the 15th of November; registration online is now open at the ESF
> website ? be there or be a pro-US imperialist?.
>
> P.P.S. A proper debate at last!
>
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