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The Mouse That Roared... (ESF European Assembly comments)

Jon Cloke | 10.03.2004 17:45 | European Social Forum

This was posted to  democratise_the_esf@lists.riseup.net...

What I feel to be the massive success of this weekend has given me some ideas...

Some of you who were there on saturday came up to me afterwards, particularly after the
'Process meeting' that took place in room 1 as a workshop, and asked me whether I
thought my proposal of a permanent working group/committee on inclusivity, process or
democratization would work, would solve the 'problem'. It wasn't really until
afterwards that I realised what I should really have said, which was no, I didn't
necessarily think so although it was at least one more progressive step, but that it
didn't really matter anyway.

Because the thing is, there is no problem to solve - we are the dialectic, and what's
been going on between the Terminators and the Horizontals *is* the process of the ESF,
it's right at the heart of what should have been going on for years now, both here and
throughout Europe and here we are, finally beginning to establish that tense dialogue.
The problem is democracy, and there is no solution, nor should there be.

In case you're not convinced (and I know a lot of you disagree with me, those that don't
think I'm a complete dick and aren't listening anyway...) then let me reprise how far
we've come since last year. In Paris we heard for the first time that an unelected,
unrepresentative crew of centralizers and self-servers had put in a bid for the ESF2004
to be held in London, without consultation and really without giving a fuck about what
anyone else thought. The London Social Forum was attended by loads of us with these
concerns, only to find that the 'Big' (copyright Jonathan Neale) actors had boycotted
it en masse given, as we were informed (also by Jonathan Neale, the Dick Cheney of the
SWP, the Stepford Workers Party) that local social forums were unrepresentative and
were therefore unworthy of anointment by our Dear Leaders. We had no-one to express our
concerns to and nowhere to do so and those at the wheel of ESF2004, both here and in
Europe, were simply uninterested in the whinings of a bunch of immature anarachists,
as they see us. Game, Set and Match, so it seemed....

On Saturday, not only did we get to sit down and start to present our grievances at a
face-to-face meeting with Pierre Khalfa, Luciano Muhlbauer and Chris Nineham,
representing various levels of the ESF aristocracy, despite shooting ourselves in the
foot by seemingly being uninterested in letting our own colleagues speak (a bit more
piano, Massimo, Maria-angela and Javier, and a bit less forte, perhaps?), there we
were. And whether you believe it or not, just us being there was a massive concession
by the Terminators (even more so than actually getting Redmond O'Neill to sit in the
audience with the rest of the plebs, which must have been a blow to his ego, poor lamb)
. How much, I didn't really understand until the whooping and the shouting and the
hugging broke out after the ESF2004 proposal was accepted, and looked at the relief on
the faces of our European friends. I was extremely puzzled until I asked Dave Hillman
(one honest man amongst a bunch of thieves) "You didn't really think that we would
derail the process, did you? I mean, actually stop the London ESF?" and he told me
that after he knew of the petition that we'd put together, he was nearly convinced
that not only could we, we would.

Everybody, you should pat yourselves hugely on the back - and then get back to work. I
was so overcome with the emotion and general gemutlichkeit of the whole affair that
when Noel Douglas (he of the Imaginary Movement) came up to me and asked me if I would
stop being so rude to him in my e-mails, I nearly clasped him to my bosom, wept on his
shoulder and swore undying friendship to him. Nearly, but not quite. And then when I got
home and read more of his rudeness to our beloved Tina, the answer came to me as if
by inspiration: "Fuck you, Noel".

There are two things that can go wrong with what we've achieved so far. One is that now
the Terminators perceive the proposal for ESF2004 as being passed and that the Imperial
European Court of the ESF has anointed the Dauphin, Chris Nineham, they may feel that
they no longer have any need to pay attention to us and that we can go screw ourselves.
Which makes our active participation and attendance as a somwehat loosely co-ordinated
network at as many meetings as possible, imperative (if I can use such an authoritative
and undemocratic word amongst friends). Second is if we get all het up because our list
of 11 thingies we wanted to have put to the European Assembly didin't get the reception
we wanted and we implode, all go off in a huff and decide to go on holiday in October
instead. Dear friends, it may be that we are all a bit to close to our own concerns and
principles to understand what we achieved, which was something substantial - do you
really imagine that the likes of Pierre Khalfa would have given us the time of day if
we hadn't forced his hand? And so now the really hard work begins...

In their new book, Pete Waterman's colleague Boaventura de Sousa mentions that in Porto
Alegre many groups and networks participating do so under a refusal to be labelled as
Left-Right, which labelling they consider to be not only meaningless but hopelessly
North-centric and prejudiced against the South. I think that in our discussions we've
begun at least to tackle what that might mean here in Europe, and that what goes on
between Horizontals and Terminators is that discussion by itself. If I had a wish for
this list, it would be that we begin to realise that, apart from our insistent
participation in ESF2004, the best thing we can do is to widen that discussion amongst
ourselves and to continue to insist that the Terminators debate process with us, as the
two sides in this dialectic.

Jon Cloke

Jon Cloke

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  1. movements — Carlo