This article will also soon be available in Italiano, Deutch, Espanol and (maybe) Portugues (add links to the translations on the wire).

CONTENTS:

• INTRODUCTION
• BACKGROUND
• WHAT CONSPIRED on Saturday January 2004
• CONCLUSION

ACRONYM LIST: WSF - World Social Forum, ESF - European Social Forum, SWP - Socialist Workers Party, GR - Globalise Resistence, CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UNISON - Public Services Union, GLA - Greater London Authority, G4+ - my term for those that presented the "bid" for the UK 2004 ESF, LSF - London Social Forum, CPGB - Communist Party of Great Britain.

INTRODUCTION: The WSF in Mumbai, India finished a week ago and attracted over 120,000 people, who discussed and workshoped ideas and tactics to be used against neoliberalism, war and the current form of globalisation; and for a world of justice, peace and equality. (more)

In November last year the ESF met in Paris and 60,00 people addressed the same problems from a European perspective. Currently a process is underway to assertain if London could host the ESF in late 2004 and as part of that process the first UK Assembly was held on January 24th, and will be followed by other such meetings. Then, on "Saturday 6th [and 7th] March there will be the 2nd ESF [European] Assembly in London to discuss the bids and make a firm decision about whether or not ESF 2004 will go ahead... [and] to see if the resources have been raised and the project can be achieved." (more, more)

What is clear is that the group that prepared and presented the UK 2004 "bid" is currently in control of that process. This group consists of the SWP/GR, CND, GLA and some parts of UNISON, and probably others. For the purposes of this document I will refer to them as the G4+. This G4+ is trying to implement a centralised structure that ignores or works (or not works, which can have the same effect) to make obselete the processes decided by consensus at previous meetings. What this seems to be causing is a dramatic draining of the autonomous elements that could have had some influence over this direction. The secrecy in the production and disemmination of crucial documents has resulted is an effective narrowing of opinions and viewpoints. ( more, more)

The greatest irony is that the G4+ keep talking about "openness" and "accountability" with a straight face, making it plainly obvious that they are acting hypocritically; their acts betray them.

BACKGROUND:

In Florence the ESF was reportedly controlled by two Italian parties: Democratici di Sinistra, DS (The Democratic Left) and Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation), (more). In Paris, "The process was largely dominated by a few powerful left organisations like the French Communist Party and Attac, the international campaign for reform of global financial markets and institutions." (more) And now it seems that the G4+ want to have a firm grip on the steering wheel of the UK ESF.

What makes many groups sceptical and suspicious is the behaviour of representatives from the G4+ prior to, during, and after the Paris ESF.

Before Paris the London Social Forum (LSF) drew support for its criticisms of the G4+ "bid" for the ESF to come to London in 2004: "The proposal so far lacks transparency and, crucially, the possibility for all interested organisations and individuals to fully participate in its planning." They went on to propose that, "We believe that the process must be started from scratch again if it is to be successful in making the ESF the property of all the different strands of the progressive and social justice movement in the UK . In our opinion, this cannot realistically be achieved in time to bring the ESF to the UK in 2004. Therefore, we suggest the ESF be held in 2005 in a yet to be determined city in the UK." (more)

There concerns are corroberated by discussions such as the following (reported by Tina Becker, a good source of consistent and valuable information here):

On October 19th, at the first public meeting to discuss the proposal for the 2004 European Social Forum to be held in London, hosted by the London Social Forum at very short notice, Becker reports that "Massimo de Angelis [said] 'You want to bring the ESF to London, but you are actually against the setting up of social forums in Britain,' he said. Participants in the Manchester SF [Social Forum] even report 'a deliberate campaign by SWP members to discredit us and close us down'. Asked if comrade [Jonathan] Neale would give a commitment to fight for this attitude to be reversed and for the SWP to support local social forums, he answered - with admirable candour - 'No'.

This did not go down well with comrades Beauvais and especially Hugo Braun, who attended as a delegate from the German Social Forum. 'Jesus, why did he say that??' he whispered in disbelief. In Germany there are over 50 forums, in Greece there are close to 100, and many more exist in France and Italy." (more)

Also at the meeting on October 19th,

"Jonathan Neale was asked by the CPGB's Anne Mc Shane if he would personally make a commitment to fight for the organising meetings to be open to observers from now on, to which comrade Neale replied with a breathtakingly honest 'No'. Though some 50 people heard him, the comrade claimed at the November 10 Paris assembly that he said no such thing." (more)

At the ESF's European Assembly meeting on Monday 10th November in Paris, just before the ESF itself, it was decided that the "UK will hold the ESF in 2004, on condition that an open European Assembly Meeting takes place in London on 13-14 December involving those involved in the Italian and French movements to agree on a venue, timing and, most importantly, methodology/process." The actual meeting started an hour late after negotiations were made outside first. Inside the debate between the well prepared G4+ and the UK network of activists associated with the LSF and Indymedia UK "became exactly what we have witnessed in the last few months: the ESF as a political space to be contested by groups trying to control versus groups trying to open up... it wasn't about building a movement, it was about holding an event." (more)

On December 3rd the second UK public meeting to discuss the hosting of the 2004 ESF was held. However Becker notes that:

"Rather than allowing for space where those left out could have aired their frustrations, the agenda of the two-hour meeting was crammed with detailed organisational tasks... [It] was not helped by the fact that there was no pre-published agenda available - and no written one on the day either. So joint chairs ... just read out the agenda once from the top table. Pre-chosen speakers opened on the various subjects, often giving rally-type speeches." At this meeting "The organised left was certainly in a minority, with green/anarchist groups considerably outnumbering us." (more) These numbers would seem to decline at the next meetings as the G4+ disregard for open and inclusive processes continued as before.

At the European Assembly of Decmber 13-14 the meeting agreed to continue to organise as if the ESF is going to take place in London. A number of working groups - programme, practicalities, process, enlargement and culture - had been set up and met, although "a conflict [emerged] between two different models of democracy, representative and consensual, as symbolised by the Oxford initiative to put all the chairs in a circle. Mysteriously all the chairs had been put back respectfully facing the platform the following morning."(more, more, more, more, and an (almost complete) transcript of this meeting is on the web at: more)

Javi talked to the webmasters for the Paris ESF who told him that "they had been approached by Chris Nyneham from STWC/SWP, who asked them to meet in Paris next weekend to take over the website with a team from a comms coop (what is this?) linked to the GLA. The people from France put some excuses and declined to meet. They want to give the passwords to a more inclusive group that comes out of the practicalities meeting taking place on Thursday at LARC [London Action Resource Centre], which is just common sense."

Unfortunartely, Javi's conclusion from the December meeting - "my feeling is that the bidders will not instinctively respect the existence of the work-groups and will continue to plot behind everyone else's backs" - has proved accurate. (more)

WHAT CONSPIRED on Saturday January 2004:

At the meeting the room was organised in the traditional manner and there were familiar G4+ faces at the "head table". They had their first item for the agenda, a proposal "For a UK Organising Committe to host the ESF in London" (read the full proposal - and some proposed ammendments here). This had apparently been produced in the last 48 hours and since then negotiated with a few unions and other NGOs, outside of the process decided upon in December - i.e. closed, unaccountable and secretive. Furthermore, "A document which came out of the process working group, with suggestions to make the meetings and structures more democratic, respectful and efficient was totally ignored. At no point was it mentioned or even referred to." (read more recollections of this meeting)

This produced a predictable response resulting in someone sitting on the "platform" in protest, after trying to speak to the audience but being howled and slow-clapped off the microphone. It was a chaotic start but since there seems to be no agreed mechanism for dealing with procedural complaints like this it is hard to see what else to do.

However, it did seem to inflame the situation, and resulted in nearly three hours of 3 minute contributions from the floor that varied widely in content and intention: some debating process, some addressing the proposal, some ranting about whatever they wanted.

What this meant was that nothing else was discussed or presented - no reports from the working groups (to me this should have been first and essential), and of course none of the items from other groups later on the agenda. Finally, as it was clear that consensus would not be reached, the platform asked for an expression of intent (or something like that). It would appear that about 75% of the room of approximately 200 people fully supprted the proposal as is, no one rejected it vocally, and the rest wanted to see amendments made.

Where to go from there was unclear so the chairs listed (their interpretations of) the proposed ammendments and declared that they would be addressed at the first meeting of the UK Organising Committe which would take place in about a week at a time and place to be specified. They invited all that wanted to affiliate (become members/delegates/representatives - its not clear from the proposal) with the Organising Committe to place their name, organisation and email address on sheets they had prepared. From here the bets are on as to when and who will set the agenda and choose facilitors/chairs of the next meeting, and when notice of it will be given. A comment just received: "I was told during the assembly that this meeting will take place on Thursday, 6.30pm at the GLA or Natfhe building. Of course it could have been announced at the meeting, but I guess it wasn’t supposed to public knowledge quite so quickly."

CONCLUSION:

As one of the main purposes of the ESF is to bring the anti-globalisation/anti-neoliberalism/anti-war/etc etc movements together it is unfortunate that the way in which the G4+ still refuses to present its proposals openly to the whole movement has been driving people away. Of course, they have publicly and repeatedly committed themselves to working by consensus, and even if it hasn't happened much in practice yet, it is still crucial to opening up the debates. As noted in Paris "the powerful could generally be checked through the ESF's golden rule of consensus decision-making." (more) However, so far what we have seen "is a problem of the concept of consensus decision making being hugely misused and misunderstood." (more)

On a positive note I would like to stress that in my opinion what the G4+ has done and organised so far - almost certainly brought the ESF to the UK in 2004, attracted committed support from a range of unions, and also organised meeting venues and staffed registration desks etc etc - is important work that should not go unrecognised. However, it is the still closed, unaccountable and secretive way that they have done these things, and their attempts at imposing their own structure on proceedings and processes that is damaging and distressing. Can they change there ways? This is yet to be seen, and will not be seen by many who have already given up.