There's been a flurry of articles and postings on various websites critiquing the 2004 European Social Forum in London, in particular the role of the 'verticals' ie. the Greater London Authority, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Trade Unions. In essence this incongruous triumverate* are accused of acting together to take over the ESF and dictate the wrong agenda.

My first thought is that there are more important thing to focus on, like, y'know, the war in Iraq or the growing attack on civil liberties.
[Stop the War:  http://www.stopwar.org.uk]

But since the ESF critiques insist on the importance of a debate, here's my bit. The more of these critiques I read the more it strikes me that they too are underpinned with unacknowledged and unchallenged assumptions, and it's valid to ask some serious questions about those. I'm going to set out a few briefly here:

1. Anti-war / anti-imperialism was pushed to the top of the agenda across the ESF. Clearly this is true. But hang on, why was this wrong? Can anyone actually argue that with Iraq on fire, Fallujah about to be besieged and Bush running for re-election on the War On Terror ticket, the ESF should have prioritised (say) trade justice or global warming above the war?

2. Trade Union involvement, good or bad? 'Anti-authoritarians' have contradictory attitudes to the unions, they enthuse about the need to broaden the movement and involve the millions of workers organised in unions, but too often when trade unionists turn up they denounce them for funding Labour and being hierarchical, sometimes even for being tools of the state! Union involvement in the ESF offers the prospect of involving way more people, and even some of us already involved are members of unions, y'know.

3. Opposing anti-Muslim racism. Some critiques have suggested it was a weakness of the ESF that all agreed that the headscarf ban in France and other manifestations of anti-Muslim racism are wrong, that there was no 'opposing view' put. Are we really saying we want to provide a platform for anti-Muslim arguments, like there aren't already enough in the mainstream media? This sounds too much like the sort of confused notion of 'balance' and 'inclusion' which has paralysed elements of the French left and paradoxically cut them off from most Muslims there.

4. Speeches that set out the case against war and capitalism: should we have moved on? Paul Kingsnorth says "five years ago this was useful, now it's unecessary". Well, maybe for you Paul. But the whole movement are not at the same stage. There are new people joining in all the time, and even us who've been around for years need firing up sometimes. There's always value in speaking truth about the world.

5. Diversity only if we say so. Paul Kingsnorth, again, insists on the need for a variety of speakers, but then goes on to suggest George Galloway should've been given a miss.. apparently because he was too loud, old-fashioned, made demands Kingsnorth finds unrealistic, and said nice things about Cuba! We really have to get a grip, if we claim to be for diversity and debate but exclude groups and people that annoy us, we'll be rightly accused of hypocrisy.

6. Old is bad, new/young is good and must be right. This one really irritates me. Why is an idea wrong just because it's old? Gravity, evolution, the wheel? Equally silly and perhaps even more dangerous to assume all new ideas are good, or even truly new. All principles and tactics need testing against reality, we can't just assume.

Hey ho, there ya go. Hope I haven't caused offence, not my intent. But I think we do too often challenge the ideology and assumptions of others while insisting we ourselves have no fixed ideas to challenge. Let's be honest, we do, and they are worthy of debate.


(*I can only imagine the reaction of Labour-loyal union leaders like Dave Prentis to the
suggestion that they're conspiring with the SWP!)