A group of us students at Essex University have organised a big meeting on resistance to war and corporate globalisation for tommorrow.(Tues 12th). Hundreds have come to our past events last term. We have a range of speakers, a Professor, activists, etc. It should be cool.(Come along if ur in the Colchester area. 5pm, LTB3) Globalise Resistance & SWP have also been invited...we thought its only fair to have them as well, especially as they will report back from Porto Alegre & New York protests.
However, nationally, they (as GR) are now claiming that this meeting is organised by themselves as part of their 'Globalisation, War and Resistance' package deal!!! Well, thats news to the people who have been running around putting up the posters, sending out the emails, etc, who have nothing to do with GR/SWP!!!
It makes us wonder if any of the other meetings on the long and impressive list of GR forums at UK universities are in fact organised by local collectives of activists, who are having their hard work appropriated to raise the profile and credibility of GR?( others have accused GR of 'monoploising resistance'Is this true in other cases??) Attac's forum at the LSE is also billed as a GR event on this list, is this a similar case? Do the SWP leaders really belive that every act of resistance is organised by themselves? Is this ignorance or arrogance?
This is not meant to be a 'sectarian' attack. We have bent over backwards to cooperate with these people...and are happy to provide them with a platform, and a much larger audience than they would usually enjoy in these parts. (We got 40-50 to a meeting on Genoa - the SWP organised GR meeting got four!)We want to work with them, not be taken over by them! Next time we may look elsewhere for speakers.