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Anti-capitalism in Britain is stagnating

AWIP | 27.08.2002 13:33

Just over a year after Genoa, and people who are usually blessed with the foresight to see beyond the current world of corporate dominance, seem strangely impotent.

Anti-capitalism in Britain is stagnating.
The formation of Globalise Resistance and the involvement of the Italian Labour party in the European Social Forum has caused some people to warn that the movement that is based on creativity, direct action, and a healthy disregard for the law is being over taken over by old fashioned left wing politics, worse, they are also allowing this to be come a self-fulfiling prophecy.
The ESF and GR are actually both completely open groups that want to encourage as broad a range of people to be involved as possible, yet those critical of these groups refuse to get involved and help shape them. If GR really is a 'front' for the SWP then those behind it are surely delighted that the mere hint of their involvement keeps those with alternative views away - leaving them free to act in whatever way they please. The truth is that GR probably is, and the ESF certainly is genuine about wanting to be an independent anti-capitalist umbrella group, but that this is impossible while their image keeps people away.
GR has dismissed it's critics and not really tried to answer them, and the critics have not tried to engage properly with GR - It's a stalemate that leaves people who want make a better world frustrated.



ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE


To get over this problem we have started a campaign called AWIP. AWIP seeks to draw together all the groups and individuals who are thinking for themselves and making informed choices to influence all the big issues facing our world.

We have no political line and endorse no particular view on how the better world can be achieved, except that it won't happen until all those people that believe in it come together.

We want to make this organisation a totally simple and transparent campaign to get people to say that 'another world is possible'. and to contrast it with people who believe 'there is no alternative' . I believe that given the choice most people would choose the former.

This is an attempt to get above the GR / anti GR wrangle and is hopefully a campaign that supporters of both camps can get involved in

we have loads of ideas about how we could build this organisation and i'm sure you have as well, so we are setting up a public meeting to discuss how to go forward. - details are still not finalised
Tell everyone you know about this idea and send an email to  awip@a16.org.uk to be involved in further discussion


cheers


be cynical, be suspicious, be cautious but be involved



















what's wrong with Globalise Resistance and what's the alternative?
GR wants to be a non-political anti-capitalist umbrella organisation giving support to other organisations and campaigns and drawing more people into the anti-cap movement, this is a good thing. However people are suspicious that this is merely a front for the distinctly socialist leanings of the main people involved. in it. GR react by saying that membership and elections for it's steering committee are totally open, which is true. But those critical of the group's origins are unwilling to get involved at all - catch 22 - until those critical of GR are prepared to get involved in it, it will remain to be seen as a 'front'. it will also remain the easiest and most attractive anti-cap group for people to join, even for those that don't want to join something seen as an SWP front do so because there was no real alternative.
until now
AWIP is a truly non-political campaign aiming to unify all strands of anti-cap views under one simple slogan borrowed from the world social forum - ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE. we follow no political line and we are not a front for anyone, the best way to make sure is to get involved with us and make sure your voice is heard
We are currently planning a public meeting to discuss these issues (date and venue to be confirmed) please send an email to  awip@a16.org.uk to be
involved in further discussion


be cynical, be suspicious, be cautious but be involved

AWIP
- e-mail: awip@a16.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

SWP aren't taking over

27.08.2002 15:16

All they are doing is realising that global capitalism is contrary to what their beliefs are, and they are trying to attract some of the old-school left onto the movement. They are not trying to take over the movement, that would probably be impossible since 95% of the non-SWP part of anti-globalisation movement want to have nothing to do with the SWP anyway. Surely if we really want to smash capitalism, we need massive support by the majority of this country, which we just do not have at this time. All this is going to happen is that many socialists/Marxists/Trotskyists will by jumping on the anti-capitalist bandwagon, but the original people will still do their own thing, despite them.

GR was indeed set up by the SWP, but was intended as an umbrella group where everone, not matter what their political position, could unite against capitialism. However, many people here only have to catch a sniff of SWP involvement and they run a mile...

Thomas J

You don't seem to understand

27.08.2002 16:08

I'm confused as to where you're coming from, because you seem to have set up a potentially vast project, but with little experience or understanding of the underlying problems.

The ESF is not attempting to be an "anticapitalist umbrella group". It is the European wing of the World Social Forum in which almost all of the individuals and groups involved are pro-capitalist, and indeed there are even governing parties and heads of State involved!

Starting a new "umbrella group", AWIP, will not solve the "problem" of anarchists not wishing to collaborate with authoritarians like the SWP, Workers' Power etc.
Our aims are in direct contradiction to theirs: they wish to set up a powerful dictatorial State, and we wish to abolish all States. Even though they would like their "Workers' State" to disappear after a while, the fact is it never will and the dictatorship will remain. They are also incapable of working non-hierarchically, so co-operation is utterly impossible, unless you just decide to follow the orders of the Central Committee.

blacknred

I understand all too well (unfortunately)

27.08.2002 20:23

AWIP is not an umbrella group but a campaign that can lay the ground for future dicussion and action. It is not asking anarchists to co-operate with the SWP or vice versa, but asking both to co-operate with it - Many Anarchists and socialists will want to be involved, many won't.

awip

/

27.08.2002 22:27

One has to be very careful when one levels criticisms at the SWP because they are not open to critical dialogue. Critical dialogue seems to be an anathema in their eyes, especially in the eyes of their huge middle class contingent. These suburbanites seem to think that they are the only purveyors of truth, when in reality they are self-opinionated snobs. It about time these people ventured outside their suburban sanctuary and took a real look at the way poor people think.

I totally agree with you and support what you say. In my opinion the SWP are slowly infiltrating and taking control of these GR groups and doing as they always do, discurage direct action and scatter good working class activists to the winds. These prehistoric Marxists will not except that there are different freedom fighters on the scene now who don’t, as they do, fight by the Queensbury rules.

Like all the middle class these so called intellectuals Marxists believe that the word utopia is a blasphemy.

/
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mmm....don't appropriate our slogan?

27.08.2002 22:57

I like the phrase: "Another World is Possible" - Lots of my friends in lots of different protest movements - (who's ideas range from anarchist, socialist, ecological, feminist, direct-activist and direct democracy, alternative visionaries etc) - they like this phrase as well.

It sums up the view that there could be a different way of living, totally different from this current capitalst madness - and that this is a realistic possibility.

Yes it is an idea, a slogan, which can unite us. But I'm afraid that by proclaiming it as a the name of new organisation or movement will be seen as an appropriation of it by a small group. It will then be seen as the slogan of a particular group - others will reject its use, wanting to differentiate themselves.

AWIP seems to be a small group, or individual, proclaiming a new movement as a fait accompli. All you have to do is sign up! It already seems too pre-formed.

It would be better to try to enter into dialogue with all the different protest movements about the idea, as a joint project or process from the start. Perhaps different groups could then organise a gathering around the idea that "Another world is possible". Perhaps it would be better to try this out locally, on a modest scale.

Rather than try to launch a formal organisation, it could be the common slogan of a number of different gatherings and actions.

Re-Sista
mail e-mail: Resista@nogm.cjb.net

Real resistance will be possible

28.08.2002 00:11

I think the idea of AWIP is a good one, and one that is not *trying* to be an organisation. As the original post says, there are so few forums in which anti-capitalist people can meet each other without worrying that one group or another is trying to 'take over.' Hopefully this initiative is the first of MANY such initiatives -- to bring together the most sincere of the people attracted by recent resistance.

I think that real social forums in our local areas could be a start of building such a space where people could exchange ideas in a truly liberrtarian way -- but not like the WSF/ESF which, like red'n'black said, are part of the status quo.

Epsilon

More thoughts....

28.08.2002 00:12

The new-wave of anti-capitalism is not stagnating! Where I live in a provincial town in the South East - it is really only just taking off!

We have our first sqatted social centre, where anti-GM crop campaigners meet with anti-war campainers, anarchists, queer liberationists, musicians, artists, workers, pensioners and new generations of activists are learning to organise, etc, etc. This is happening in lots of other places.

What are lacking are more expanded networks, - that go deeper into daily community life and issues, and wider geographically and politically, connecting people in differnt towns and with different ideas etc.

The most pressing need is to generate a movement powerfull enough to mount a serious challenge our rulers agenda. The Sept 28th London protest againt War on Iraq will be huge, and may show a glimpse of the potential for such a movement in the UK.

Many serious anarchists I know will work politically in campaigns with Marxists, reformists, single issue campaigners and people without a fixed ideological position.

But some anarchists who inhabit the 'hardcore' cliques in big cities seem to want to maintain anarchist ideological purity at the expense of effective unity.

Either a campaign must run along anarchist principles, or anarchists must split off from it, and create their own autonomous non-hierarchical space.

Rather than welcoming increased participation from non-anarchists in the anti-capitalist movement, they often come to fear it. What if loads of trades unionists with reformist ideas are getting involved? Won't they also bring reformist hierachy and leadership?

The question is: "how do we involve millions of people who may have reformist ideas but stop the campaign stagnating under reformist bureacracy?"

Must these people make a complete break from their reformist ideas first, before we can work with them? Or is there a compromise position, a unity for more limited objectives, but which can show the potential of mass direct action and direct democracy as more effective strategies?

The anarchists task should be to bring the vital life-force of direct democracy and grassroots empowerment into the mass movement. This will enable it to become more politically conscious of its own interests and organised enough to outflank the reformist bureacracy.

But anarchists find themselves unable to perform this task. Instead, they marginalise themselves and surrender the movement to the reformist bureaucrats and organised revolutionary sects.

They then snear at anybody who does take part in these 'impure' campaigns. The ESF is sniffed at as 'pro-capitalist', despite the participation of thousands of anti-capitalists.

But many anarchists and radical anti-capitalists I know are going to the ESF, to create a non-hierachical space, to take part as friends and equals with all the other participants, and to help push the ESF in a clear anti-capitalist and anti-war direction.

See ya there!

Re-Sista

new ego on the block

28.08.2002 12:34

Tis bizarre that every time there is a 'New Ego on the Block', the first thing they wish to do is 'co-ordinate' everyone else...so the techkies will have networks representing networks and networking all the networks thru their given site? Is it not better to have a 'track record' where those concerned have actually accomplished something in their own back yard, ie organise locally in solidarity with your neighbours, make your own backyard a better place to live and when your neighbourhood is safe, green and healthy and free from multinational oppression and full of local alternatives....then that group can join other established networks. I would think that "A Better World Is Possible" for all, is more to the point than an 'alternative' (according to the subjective views of the 'group'?) as all that is accomplished is an ego-centric ghetto of dreamers within a larger detached neighbourhood. Usually when activists move into an area, they do not ask the local people and preexisting local groups how they can participate in a shared struggle taking into the consideration the real local needs. They impose their vegan-video - publications & whatever and expect people to see them as special! Are they really meeting the needs of the local inhabitants or are they just 'finding themselves' ?

-M.ib