the problem I feel is not GR but two different conceptions of the movement.

GR's idea of the movement is that the key to it's future success particularly in the light of the kind of State repression we saw in Genoa and the full might of US imperial power is that it is both possible and absolutley neccessary to fuse the power of working clas people (their ability to stop capitalism as seen in Seville and Italy recently during the General Strikes their) and the dynamism, energy and creativity of other kinds of mainly young activists - creating a learning experience for both and something that actually has the potential to get rid of capitalism once and for all.

This is why our emphasis is on the mass, trying to get as many people involved as posssible - this is why we put on big meetings involving other sections of the movement (including anarchists when they have agreed to speak), this is why we talk to the media, this is why we are open and why you can easily contact us. (In fact we continually get calls from new people asking for contacts for groups like the Wombles and we always try to pass them on and give them contact details.

Our steering group in London involves people form Italy who were involved in the Zapatista caravan and Ya Basta, someone who came from the WDM, green party, drop the debt, war on want, non-aligned activists from different countries and people like myself in the SWP. Local groups can do what they want, and do!

The other conception of the movement which I would say is the people that refuse to get involved because of their dislike for certain groups see the mass as not important, orient on small groups taking exemplery action -which has it's place don't get me wrong - you don't always have the mass with you when you need them, and action still needs to be taken, but the key point is having a strategy to go beyond that intial starting point-, tend to dismiss working class people as bought off or not really existing anymore, and generally try to create pockets of resistance rather than complete change. It sees direct action as an end in itself, and treats reformist activists as not worth working with. And uses very vague and unworked out ideas of words like 'autonomy' and dismiss's any attempt at leadership - which of course doesn't get rid of leadership and therefore ends up going in circles.

The anti-capitalist movement has changed a lot of the last few years , it is good that the labour movment has been affected by it, Genoa was so big becuase groups with real roots in working class communities were involved like Refoundazione Communista (this doesn't mean I agree with thier politics), the point is we don't start with a clean sheet we work with the movement as it exists and through argument and debate persuade people of our particular strategy, this is democracy!

We have many people joining GR if you don't want to far enough do your own groups - but please let's try to get some unity we desperately need it!

Let me be clear I'm not making these points to slag people off, I'm crticising certain political ideas, i hope in a fraternal way.

My worry is that an important part of the movement, namely the anarchist/direct action/autnomist etc... crowd are dismissive of things such as the forthcoming ESF because of the involvement of reformist and left groups, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to argue and debate and yes SHAPE the politics of the movement across Europe on a MASS scale, reformism doesn't go away by ignoring it, it is part of capitalist ideology, it is defeated by showin g in prctice that it doesn't work, we are still at the beginning of a very long process - imagine if out of it we get european wide action against the forthcoming war, or european wide strikes against privatisation - all of this is on the cards.

I don't believe creating another group will overcome these problems in isolation from a real mass movement, something that can help is that from the process of building for the ESF which in the UK which already has more support form major union and NGO bodies than Genoa and will be a sizeable mobilisation we can get a movement really rooted in the lives of ordinary working people and not just a few thiusand activists.

So if you don't want to get involved with GR I can't force you but please get involved in the mobilisation for the European Social Forum, it will be a major stepping stone to creating a new world, you would be foolish to miss it.
fraternally

noel

Globalise Resistance

the real problem is that the 2 camps are happy to remain seperate to maintian their identity and purpose - this must be overcome

Noel, I agree with almost everything you say. i recognise that GR wants to (and indeed already does) invovle people from loads of different backgrounds. i also agree with your analysis of the two different conceptions of the movement. However what you don't suggest is any way in which these two strands could work together. At the moment it seems that both are happy with the situation that defines them in opposition to the other. I am not happy with it. I believe that it holds our movement back. Our suggestion is for a simple slogan that can unite all strands and can bring previously reluctant groups together and build a movement that can make GR's' mass movement' look tiny in comparison

Globalise Resistance is undoubtedly a lot broader and more inclusive than previous fronts of the SWP, eg the Right to Work Campaign of the 1970s and the way the SWP ran, and closed down, the Anti Nazi League in the early 1980s. But there remains this disempowering monopolist tendency. They are a large, well-organised and resourced group so the temptation to run things in their own way is unsurprisingly irresistible. They deliver in terms of efficiency but put off so many in the process. This narrows the movement, as is already happening with the mobilisation for the European Social Forum. Compare this to, say, a group like 'No Global' in Italy.

'Another World is Possible' is a brave idea. An attempt to provide a space for the many diffrerent strands of anti-capitalism to converge, and diverge. It will work if it values pluralism and balances this with making a significant public impact. Look at the huge breadth of the anti-capitalist movement, from somebody who has picked up and flicked through a copy of 'No Logo' to a card-carrying SWp member and/or committed anarchist. There's nowhere that is effectively providing a space for all to come together in genuine dialogue. If 'Another World is Possible' can help create that conversation it will be a valuable start.

Why is it that some groups and individuals I have spoken to have been spurned by GR? It seems odd that a group that claims to be a mass movement refuses to admit certain parts of the left. The only option seems to be to find a more inclusion and open organisation.

The problem is NOT in the supposed socialist leanings of GR, but the very opposite. I mean that (as we know) GR being comprised and largely constructed by the SWP, the entire organization seeks to further the aims of the SWP, not particularly anything to do with 'socialism'.
GR was floated as a counter-weight to the @New@ left left which began to appear int he mid-1990s. But you must examine what the SWP actually is doing. Whilst POSING as an international revolutionary party , flaunting the names of Marx and Trotsky everywhere, on further examination it turns out to be an adjunct of the Labourite, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist Worker-aristocracy, with its chauvinist, bigoted, almost racialist mentality. Had the new movement been centralised, the SWP would have tried to take it over, but it found too much opposition, consequently it built an alternate structure, basing itself NOT on the radical elements and NOT on the working class, but on the ghastly little snobs of the @OXfam tendency@. Go to a GR meeting and you will find a strange dearth of ideas, an unwillingness to contemplate any matters outside their own conceited remit. What on earth are these people doing mixing with Marxists, when they should be hidden away in the Oxford Uni Icthus (Christian) Club !!! These people are ill to the bones; they are a new Fabian tendency, and the SWP want to second as many of them as possible in orderr to refresh its own ranks with, if not a radical or worker membership, then some well heeled little dimwits liable to inherit some cash from Daddy in 20 years time...

The problem is NOT in the supposed socialist leanings of GR, but the very opposite. I mean that (as we know) GR being comprised and largely constructed by the SWP, the entire organization seeks to further the aims of the SWP, not particularly anything to do with 'socialism'.
GR was floated as a counter-weight to the @New@ left left which began to appear int he mid-1990s. But you must examine what the SWP actually is doing. Whilst POSING as an international revolutionary party , flaunting the names of Marx and Trotsky everywhere, on further examination it turns out to be an adjunct of the Labourite, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist Worker-aristocracy, with its chauvinist, bigoted, almost racialist mentality. Had the new movement been centralised, the SWP would have tried to take it over, but it found too much opposition, consequently it built an alternate structure, basing itself NOT on the radical elements and NOT on the working class, but on the ghastly little snobs of the @OXfam tendency@. Go to a GR meeting and you will find a strange dearth of ideas, an unwillingness to contemplate any matters outside their own conceited remit. What on earth are these people doing mixing with Marxists, when they should be hidden away in the Oxford Uni Icthus (Christian) Club !!! These people are ill to the bones; they are a new Fabian tendency, and the SWP want to second as many of them as possible in orderr to refresh its own ranks with, if not a radical or worker membership, then some well heeled little dimwits liable to inherit some cash from Daddy in 20 years time...

Well our good friend here purports that Another World Is Possible.Then advises us to be cynical and cautious about his invitation which he assures us is "non-political".Well Im sorry,but this sounds to me exactly as the world we're living in right now!As for these suspicions about Globalize Resistance as a front organisation for the S.W.P.To be really damned nowadays is to be openly political,that is the only real crime here it seems.

Sigh ......" the dead weight of ideology that weighs like a nightmare upon the brains of the living.................."
As someone once said.......

Erm... which parts of the left are you talking about exactly? I don't seem to recall anyone on the left "not allowed" to join GR. Could you be more specific?