Letters Unwelcome anarchy at the European Social Forum
Prof Miriam David, Prof Ruth Levitas, Dr Caroline New | 19.10.2004 23:11 | European Social Forum
We agree with your appreciation of the success of the European Social Forum (Leaders, October 18). However, the storming of the stage of the anti-racist and anti- fascist session on Saturday had nothing to do with how the event was organised. It was the attempt of a tiny minority who oppose the ESF and have had no involvement in it to undemocratically impose their views on the majority and suppress other views by using physical violence.
We agree with your appreciation of the success of the European Social Forum (Leaders, October 18). However, the storming of the stage of the anti-racist and anti- fascist session on Saturday had nothing to do with how the event was organised. It was the attempt of a tiny minority who oppose the ESF and have had no involvement in it to undemocratically impose their views on the majority and suppress other views by using physical violence.
It was carried out by an exclusively white group of anarchists who had no involvement in the ESF. They entered the building, stormed the platform of black and Jewish speakers, punched the black chair of the session and stole his mobile phone. The next day the same group tried to storm the stage of the demonstration, tearing down the crash barriers and assaulting ESF stewards.
We have never seen such behaviour in the progressive movement in Britain before and it should be totally condemned. The ESF was created to allow democratic discussion of the whole range of views within the social justice movement. No viewpoint was excluded and it is totally unacceptable for a tiny minority to attack that democratic process by using physical violence. That is all the more the case when they violently attack black people to stop us from discussing how to fight racism and fascism.
Lee Jasper
Secretary, National Assembly Against Racism
Ashok Viswanathan
Deputy coordinator, Operation Black Vote
Pav Akhtar
NUS black students officer
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The rhetoric of the "new apartheid" which Benjamin Pogrund criticises so lucidly (Just another swear word, October 16) dominated a packed meeting of about 2,000 delegates at the European Social Forum. We were alarmed by the lack of historical analysis and specificity in relation to the appalling situation in Israel and Palestine and by the repeated intoning of "this is apartheid". The aim seemed to be to whip up emotional energies behind both a campaign for unspecified sanctions and "unconditional support for Palestine".
While there may be arguments for European sanctions of some kind, there is also a danger of increasing Israeli defensiveness, intransigence and dependence on the US. We are all committed to a just peace and two of us are signatories to Jews for Justice for Palestinians. However, we gravely doubt whether this kind of political rhetoric will contribute to effective sanctions, Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories and a sustainable peace in the Middle East.
Prof Miriam David
Prof Ruth Levitas
Dr Caroline New
London
Conway Hall was booked and paid for and there had been an advance visit to the hall, during which the fact that we would be registering ESF delegates at the hall on Thursday 14 October was discussed with hall staff (Letters, October18). Thousands of delegates registered, queued patiently in good spirits and enjoyed the facilities provided at the hall.
Alex Gordon
European Social Forum
It was carried out by an exclusively white group of anarchists who had no involvement in the ESF. They entered the building, stormed the platform of black and Jewish speakers, punched the black chair of the session and stole his mobile phone. The next day the same group tried to storm the stage of the demonstration, tearing down the crash barriers and assaulting ESF stewards.
We have never seen such behaviour in the progressive movement in Britain before and it should be totally condemned. The ESF was created to allow democratic discussion of the whole range of views within the social justice movement. No viewpoint was excluded and it is totally unacceptable for a tiny minority to attack that democratic process by using physical violence. That is all the more the case when they violently attack black people to stop us from discussing how to fight racism and fascism.
Lee Jasper
Secretary, National Assembly Against Racism
Ashok Viswanathan
Deputy coordinator, Operation Black Vote
Pav Akhtar
NUS black students officer
-------------------------------------------------------------
The rhetoric of the "new apartheid" which Benjamin Pogrund criticises so lucidly (Just another swear word, October 16) dominated a packed meeting of about 2,000 delegates at the European Social Forum. We were alarmed by the lack of historical analysis and specificity in relation to the appalling situation in Israel and Palestine and by the repeated intoning of "this is apartheid". The aim seemed to be to whip up emotional energies behind both a campaign for unspecified sanctions and "unconditional support for Palestine".
While there may be arguments for European sanctions of some kind, there is also a danger of increasing Israeli defensiveness, intransigence and dependence on the US. We are all committed to a just peace and two of us are signatories to Jews for Justice for Palestinians. However, we gravely doubt whether this kind of political rhetoric will contribute to effective sanctions, Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories and a sustainable peace in the Middle East.
Prof Miriam David
Prof Ruth Levitas
Dr Caroline New
London
Conway Hall was booked and paid for and there had been an advance visit to the hall, during which the fact that we would be registering ESF delegates at the hall on Thursday 14 October was discussed with hall staff (Letters, October18). Thousands of delegates registered, queued patiently in good spirits and enjoyed the facilities provided at the hall.
Alex Gordon
European Social Forum
Prof Miriam David, Prof Ruth Levitas, Dr Caroline New
Homepage:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1330357,00.html
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
The Letter is a Shocking Distortion
20.10.2004 01:31
It is sickening that Jasper infers genuine anarchists and libertarians are racist thugs. That they would stoop to this sort of sickening smear tactic reflects on them, and shows why the likes of Livingston and Jasper are not fit to have anything to do with the ESF. And if the SWP types don't condemn this letter, they neither are fit to be involved in the ESF.
This is the sort of politics that the ESF was set up for to leave behind, and went on with SA, SWP, GLA and some others during the organising process. This is why there have been protests - to make sure groups like the SWP leave behind the corrupt and dishonest, non democratic polluting ways of rotten-old established politics. That's for shitful parties of Blair's and Bush’s.
The spirit for another world lies inside so many of those at the ESF, and at the Autonomous spaces. That spirit was not made less palpable by the this years ESF, but a little more. The Livingston's, Jaspers's and the SWP's are working for something of their own creation which is formless but has them in charge - it's not the another world so many of us have in mind and know is possible. Their retrogressive tactics have been exposed and can now be excluded.
See also the condemnation of the Sunday Rally Organisation by an Italian Trade Union Delegation, and how the same activists were treated :
Harry Hamlet
this is a repost...
20.10.2004 07:37
kloer
Homepage:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/10/299527.html
Not all white
20.10.2004 14:05
observer
More letters
27.10.2004 12:41
I attended the ESF session on racism and fascism, and was astonished to find the stage occupied by a bunch of masked people who claimed to be protesting against Ken Livingstone.
If they had chosen the recent New Labour conference for their egotistical and elitist outburst I would not have been bothered. But to disrupt a unique opportunity for activists from across Europe to discuss and organise against fascism is unacceptable.
The pleas of black people at the meeting were ignored, and the black chair of the event was assaulted and robbed. Luckily for the middle class anarchists involved in this stunt there were not many black people at the event. Next time there will be.
Gary McFarlane, North London
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My voice was silenced
I WAS absolutely horrified at what took place in the meeting on fighting fascism at the recent European Social Forum in London.
Many relatives on my mother’s side experienced the Nazis at first hand during the Second World War.
I now live in an area of Essex where a fascist councillor has been elected—so the meeting was of significant importance to me.
Being only five feet tall, I did not have the stature to get heard from the floor, so I made my way to the stage.
Once there I tried to express why I thought that the meeting should be allowed to go ahead.
I was physically pushed off the stage by two tall white males and told to “fuck off” because they “didn’t care”.
My right to have a voice had been taken away. As a youth worker I brought a group of young people to the ESF who were equally horrified with the events.
My union colleagues were shocked that an anti-fascist meeting had been broken up.
Beccy Palmer, East London
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