Just returned from a meeting at the Common Place, a social-centre in Leeds in the north of England. There was a meeting there advertised on this thread:
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/10/439730.html?c=on I am posting this for those who are interested in what happened but weren’t able to attend. Well the meeting was very well attended. There were probably about 40 people there I guess, which I understand is about 5 to 10 times the usual. The meeting and the situation it had been called to try and address had been caused by a pacifist on one of the Common Place committees blocking use of the building by an antifascist group. It was quite a long meeting, a lot was said, but apart from this one guy everyone was supporting the antifascists. He admitted that he didn’t actually know anything about the antifascist group anyway. It was agreed that what he done was wrong. It was also agreed that the committee he was a part of had had an improper understanding of concensus decision making and that one person should not have been able to block a booking by a well-established group that use the place. It was agreed that the group had as much right to use the Common Place as anyone else and that this guy couldn’t block groups like that in the future. People didn’t really feel it necessary to go through the whole violence v non-violence debate because they all agreed except this one guy (who seemed pretty confused actually.) Afterwards a lot of people were saying that they couldn’t believe the meeting took place, and that this guy is always doing something like this. I don’t know if it is all worked out, but I hope so. Common Place users seem pretty clear in their support for antifascists (as well as groups like the EZLN which were mentioned) and hopefully everyone will respect each other more in future without one person being allowed to rule everything with politics that most users reject.
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