Where is Globalise Resistance going?

A contribution to the discussion by Jeremy Dewar, member of the national Globalise Resistance Steering Committee

Despite our successes in drawing in new layers of activists and pulling off some impressive mobilisations (May Day, Genoa) and a higher profile in the media than any other single anti-capitalist group, Globalise Resistance (GR) has not yet grown into a large dynamic network. Outside of London and, to a lesser extent, a few other cities and towns, GR barely exists at all. Our task is to diagnose why this is and prescribe some remedies.

GR's problems can be summarised as follows:

• We concentrate too much on summit-hopping and lectures/film showings. We are not yet a “network based on direct action”. Often we appear too centralised. At the moment GR is dominated - politically and organisationally - by the party that initiated it, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

The problem here is not the right of the SWP to push its politics in GR. All groups should have that right and I would claim the same for Workers Power. We defend that right in GR and any other anti-capitalist campaign against the anarchist attacks on “Leninist parties”. But we need to make sure we don’t allow that right to become an automatic privilege for one party over all others.

• Our local organisations in towns and colleges have disappeared in many areas. Even where they do exist they don’t have enough of the dynamism and DIY panache that has made the anti-capitalist movement in other countries such a success.

• Other wings of the movement remain suspicious of GR. While NGOs and anti-globalisation activists may enter joint actions, the attempt to set up Attac in the UK reveals their unease at working with an umbrella group that has a high proportion of revolutionary socialists in it. The anarchist and libertarian wing of the movement has broken off all relations and attacked GR as an SWP front in the red-baiting pamphlet Monopolise Resistance.

• We have failed to spread the anti-capitalist movement - either broaden it by drawing in thousands more youth, or deepen it by drawing in thousands of organised trade unionists.

How do we strengthen GR? How do we take real steps towards the objectives we have set ourselves? Here are a few suggestions.

• Any revival of GR must start by transforming our base organisations. GR should set itself up as a network for local anti-capitalist, environmentalist, anti-racist/fascist, internationalist and trade unionist campaigns, groups and even individuals to use. Regular GR meetings should combine political discussion - not just lectures, but debates, videos, Question Time formats, teach-ins, real workshops (i.e. open-ended brainstorming sessions which may lead to actual campaigning ideas) - and preparing for direct action-style campaigns.

• GR must be a direct action-based network. People will not join and remain active participants in an anti-capitalist network which only provides transport for big demos and gets speakers from around the world to large counter-conferences. It must have a staple diet of campaigning activity to sustain and nourish it, to draw in and activate ever wider layers - and, crucially, to combat capitalism!

All GR groups, especially new ones, should be encouraged to support No Sweat, which is ideal because you can take action on any high street. But it shouldn’t be the only or main activity of GR groups. GR groups should develop our own campaigning ideas and network with others to do stunts and actions. GR must be decentralised in this sense.

• It is not essential - or even desirable - for every campaign or action taken up by GR to have the GR brand. Where a pre-existing campaign is calling for support for a particular struggle then GR should build support without trying to take it over. Where a local injustice or piece of blatant hypocrisy needs to be exposed, build an alliance with other interested parties under a neutral name open to all. When building for big events like Genoa or May Day or responding to international developments like the war against “terrorism” or the Argentinian uprising, form a new committee with GR plugged into it. In other words, GR should be a network which can and should be plugged into other networks.

• Obviously some people will become GR enthusiasts. Excellent. But we should resist any attempt to turn GR into a party. We should remain an inclusive network where different parties and traditions can work together on commonly agreed goals. Of course, things happen which GR needs to take a position on - police violence on demos, civil disobedience tactics, the war against “terrorism”.

It would be ridiculous if GR was unable to respond to these events - in fact we would wither away if we didn’t. These positions should be taken by local GR groups and the national steering committee after a full discussion. What if this leads to different GR groups taking different positions? So what? It’s hardly the end of the world, and proves we’re a dynamic network, not a front organisation.

• A century of anti-capitalist struggle has seen bureaucratic monsters time and again rise up and strangle the movement, destroy its most militant elements and betray its cause - be that the USSR, or the leaderships of the mass trade unions and the modern social democratic and Labour parties.

Clearly GR is not faced by a threat on this scale and the SWP are not latter day versions of Stalin. But bureaucratism exists in all sorts of organisations. We’ve got to be aware of this and know how to combat it.

Bureaucracies don’t develop because some people are control freaks, power crazy or police agents. They develop because some people have greater opportunities and abilities than others and, in order to get things done, will short-circuit democratic debate, put things into action and then seek a democratic mandate, or even just do it “because it’s gotta be done and if I don’t do it nobody will”.

GR has not been immune to such pressures: from arranging platform speakers at events to printing up leaflets with prices set. These problems arise because the SWP is by far the largest organisation in the GR network and has placed full-time workers and numerous resources at GR’s disposal. Fine. But their responsibility ultimately rests with the SWP, not GR.

To combat this tendency we have to learn to walk on our own rather than rely on getting a piggy-back from someone who can already run. Let’s rotate the duties that confer control. Let’s put out fewer or less well designed newsletters and leaflets. Let’s wait another week before we make a decision that could not be easily unmade. GR may look less professional, but it will feel a whole lot more genuine.

In addition, let’s put in place ways to encourage horizontal communication and debate. A new more accessible e-list should be set up, the website should have pages for local groups to post, add comments, have local addresses for groups to contact each other without going through the centre. The steering committee should have its own e-group as well.

Over the next few months GR groups can establish themselves as effective networks by taking No Sweat actions in the run-up to International Women’s Day, joining in Rail Strike support activities, preparing for May Day activities and making Argentina the focus for a campaign of international solidarity. But the anti-capitalist movement also needs to take a hard look at where it’s at. GR must engage in the ongoing dialogue about where the movement as a whole needs to go.

The anti-capitalist movement has forced the capitalists onto the defensive, promoted the struggles of people in the South who are at the sharp end of globalisation’s neo-liberal offensive, and raised awareness among tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people - especially youth - about the role of capitalism in all these injustices.

But it has also come up against a counter-offensive. The detention of May Day protesters in London and Birmingham, the attempted murders in Gothenburg, the murder of Carlo Giuliani in Genoa, the drawing up of the anti-terrorist act last year and the new laws drafted after 11 September - all point to the fact that the capitalist state is trying to criminalise and terrorise our movement. At the same time, it is prepared to offer negotiations and even (cosmetic) reforms to that wing of the movement which is prepared to break ranks and denounce/ demobilise the most militant wing.

In Britain, we have additional problems: namely the disunity of the movement and the fact that the organised working class movement is led by a Labour loyal faction which will not lead a fight against privatisation, cuts and job losses.

We should look to where the movement is strongest and see if we can learn. Certainly the USA has a strong anti-capitalist movement which was built up over many years of locally-based direct action groups. But it is Italy where the movement has made great strides in the past year.

The Italian example

From a sectarian tradition of legendary proportions, the Italians have forged a unity against Berlusconi based on social forums which themselves are based on social centres. The social centres (usually squatted) are open to use by any organisation or group of people on the condition that they apply the principles of anti-racism, anti-fascism and anti-sexism in their practice.

GR should campaign for such forums - and where possible centres - to be set up across Britain. The following kinds of organisations/campaigns could join the forums or use the centres:
• Anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigners
• Trade union rank and file activists, strikers, etc.
• Anti-privatisation/PFI/PPP activists
• Anti-capitalist groups/campaigns
• Environmentalists
• Refugee support groups
• Anti-war groups
• Welfare and legal rights advisers
• International solidarity campaigns/exiled activists

By its very nature, such a campaign will involve networking with other groups - and thus breaking down some of the divisions that exist. It will also mean working with different allies and using different strategies in different areas.

Even without premises, we should attempt to get social forums up and running in Britain. These should not be limited to the existing anti-capitalist organisations and campaigns. We should approach any campaign or group that is active and supports the three principles behind the Italian social centres movement: Socialist Alliances, trade union left alliances, Stop the War coalitions, the Anti-Nazi League, black and Asian groups, school student campaigns and student unions, international solidarity campaigns.

Every area of struggle will benefit from having a network in place to support its actions. Imaginative and new methods of organising action can be exchanged, as can information. Prejudice and distrust can be broken down. Strikers can immediately call on a group of activists prepared to go out and build active public support for the services or industries at risk. Many of us could reduce the number of meetings we go to as well!

The proposal of social forums and, wherever possible, social centres should be the crowning idea with which we can relaunch GR and take the movement forward.

I hope this contribution is not taken as a “dig” at anyone. It is an honest attempt to take GR forward. I certainly believe that GR can play an important and constructive role in transforming the anti-capitalist movement and revolutionising the labour, anti-racist and women’s movements.