I know this is a very general point. But I have been thinking a lot recently about what activism is actually achieving at the minute. It seems to me that there are countless groups campaigning on countless issues, but without any real cohesive 'movement'.

Admittedly, I have only really become politically active relatively recently (I only just turned 16), but I have stuffed quite a lot into that time. What worries me is that the anti-globalisation, anti-capitalist, socialist etc (not a comprehensive list, obviously!) movements are generally pretty well organised, but what are we actually achieving? We have no widely respected mainstream political representatives, and the majority of the population have no idea about the breadth of issues on which people campaign. 'Protesters are all a bunch of trouble-makers', after all.

Seattle, Genoa, Salonika etc were all massively important events in showing the world that there are a massive number of people who won't stand for the way things are. But on the other hand, we did not stop the war, third world workers are still living a life of poverty, Palestinians are still being denied their basic human rights, and our government is still shit, frankly. Admittedly there are exceptions - I hear that Oxfam have managed to get Procter and Gamble to promise to change their trading practices. The release of Simon Chapman was also a massive victory for protest, and for common-sense. I know that none of these things are going to happen overnight, and am well aware that long-term campaigning is what is needed. But surely there is only so much that marching can achieve. More grass-roots activism is surely the way forward, educating, taking the arguments to the wider community rather than arguing amongst ourselves. The insular mindset held by some activists I have met cannot be productive.

I'm not advocating the founding of a political party to represent all of the views represented here on Indymedia, especially bearing in mind the disasters that are the SWP and others. I am, however, wondering what action we can take that will actually make a dent in the current system. I'd be interested to hear people's points of view. Cheers.

Josh