|
|  |
A Different Netherlands Social Forum
Peter Waterman - 08.04.2004 12:42
The original proposal for the NSF (viewed briefly at the launch in Utrecht, April 2)seemed to me to more or less reproduce previous editions, both in form and content. It didn't seem to me particularly Dutch...
A Different Netherlands Social Forum is possible!
Introduction
What I bring to the following propositions are:
1) experience at three forum events, largely as an individual participant-observer-reporter;
2) 15 years writing about and involvement with 'the new internationalisms' and 'solidarity communication and culture',
3) an even-longer-standing interest in trade-union and labour internationalism (not necessarily the same thing),
4) an attempt to develop a Liberation Marxism (liberating Marxism from the Marxists and, obviously, also from Marx),
5) on-site and online observation of SF preparations in Peru, the UK and, now, in the Netherlands,
6) such activities as those listed at the bottom of this note.
I put these propositions forward with some diffidence, but in the hope that they will provoke critical thinking and creative action around the NSF proposed for November 2004.
1. Each national SF should reinvent the SF model, combining national and international features.
The original proposal for the NSF (viewed briefly at the launch in Utrecht, April 2)seemed to me to more or less reproduce previous editions, both in form and content. It didn't seem to me particularly Dutch...
Perhaps this has changed under discussion. Perhaps it will.
But depending on existing celebrities (Walden Bello, Arundhati Roy, Susan George) suggests a lack of imagination and a lack of search for local resource people. The most original idea is the hypothetical invitation of Michael Moore, the outrageous US film-maker - who would certainly awaken more media interest than Walden and Susan. But there are plenty of other international writers and activists one could invite:
'Another Alternative Celebrity is Possible'.
Why the tried and trusted format of Panels, Seminars and Workshops? Mumbai played down the massive opening panels, and I understand that these were also dramatically under-attended. Why not turn the matter round, ending with the Plenaries? There is a fatal threat of 'panelisation' at the SFs: of 5-10 'authorities' on the platform, speaking to 10-1,000 and then finding, 'oh dear, sorry, we only have time for 5 people to make 3-minute statements'. Why not turn THIS around: start with the floor and let the panel respond. Maybe it will learn something...
2. Within the WSF the only power worth exercising is that of empowerment
Initiators, as with the WSF in Porto Alegre, have enormous power from their initiating role (and their hypothetical or real possibility of giving or raising funds). However - and as some of the Brazilian initiators themselves have discovered or reveal - success lies in the capacity to give power and initiative to others.
3. The necessity for transparency and accountability: talking the talk or walking the walk?
'Civil society', national or global, is very good at demanding T&A from corporations and governments, but, even though it may have reflected on these within NGOs and social movements, they are less good at demonstrating these within the SFs themselves. This has been a major and conflictive issue in the UK, in preparing for the next ESF.
4. The necessity for address (or e-dress) to class, ethnic, religious, sexual others
In the Dutch case, the major challenges will probably be to involve (also as organisers!), unionised and unemployed people, youth, migrants, women and refugees, and muslim communities (plural). Otherwise we may find ourselves talking to ourselves - nice middle-class people (of a possible variety of political and sexual options).
5. We need to surpass the organisational/place-bound limits of the Forum process.
The WSF has been surprisingly weak in its cultural/communicational expression. The cultural explosion at Mumbai has been critiqued as allowing expression to the marginalised in India, whilst failing to provide them voice. WSF has been surprisingly under-developed in its use of computer communication. Cultural expression should not be divorced from talk events.
6. Success of the NSF depends on critical awareness of previous forum events - including awareness of debates around such.
There is an abundance of good quality analyses and debates about such on the web. They need to be reflected on by the organisers and made available to participants.
7. Surpassing 'ongización' and 'vanguardismo' (sounds better in Spanish)
Latin American feminists identified the problem of the NGOisation in and of their movement maybe five years or more ago. Independent socialists discovered the problem of vanguardism in their movement...umm...just after the Russian Revolution? However, vanguardism (leadership by an enlightened elite) is endemic to all political parties - and not confined to them. And, as the process in Mumbai, Lima and London is suggesting, it is quite possible for left political parties, unions and progressive NGOs to have a better understanding of each other than of those at the possibly unorganised social base or margins.
8. Localisation of the Forum process to supplement its 'national', 'regional' and 'global' foci.
Might be considered less necessary in a homogenous country like NL. But it should also be easier. And one could thus surpass the inevitable limitations of a one-off big-city event.
9. The 'self-organised' part of the programme should be prioritised.
Follows from Point 1 above. The WSF has no name for the other part of the programme (revealing a certain embarrassment about what should surely be called the 'official', 'institutional', or whatever, part). However, the placing of this first, and centrally, rather than later (often in a suburb, at the end of the busline, or both), allows the possibility of moving toward some kind of synthesis. And getting away from the idea that the organisers, or Celebs, need to provide orientation.
10. Another set of themes is also possible (and necessary?).
I know the 'problem orientation' was intended to surpass all-encompassing-ideologies and to precisely develop specific critiques and alternatives. It was also intended to allow for or encourage 'women' or 'labour' to address themselves to social problems more generally. But are we really going to get anything new out of 'ecological sustainability', however crucial I personally consider this to be?
Can't we think of a set of themes that is 1) more specific to NL, and/or 2) more original?
I believe, for example, that a theme on 'Decent Work and/or Liberation of Time from Work?' would not only have more bite than 'social exclusion' (which suggests the solution to be 'social inclusion' within the existing wage-force, welfare provision, etc), but could bring the unionised and the 'atypical' or unemployed labour together, but also discuss the meaning of work in another possible world.
11. (Because Marx had 11Theses on Feuerbach), I propose a theme, seminar, workshop, on 'Life After Capitalism'.
This was the name of a 'parallel forum', sponsored at WSF3 by Michael Albert of the US website, ZNet  http://www.zmag.org/lacsite.htm. This was a rather pluralistic project (from mild social-democrats to flaming anarchists), intended to surpass the merely oppositional (nix-it) or reformist (fix-it) attitudes towards neo-liberal globalisation.
(The limitations in practice on this imaginative proposal were due to the chaotic organisation of WSF3, which pushed it to the geographical periphery, and then kept changing its meeting places! Significantly, much of it is still available in cyberspace).
In so far as such a theme problematises capitalism, and tries to bring together utopian thinking with popular self-activity, it could challenge what is likely to be the dominant NSF tendency (to either return to a - partly mythical - past, or to surpass neo-liberalism by some kind of global neo-keynesianism that does not question deeply-rooted capitalist structures and processes - which will continue regardless).
That's all folks!
Peter Waterman
http://www.attac.nl/attac-nw/sf-nsf01.html
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/transparant.nsf
 Website: http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman/
|
| supplements | | | some supplements were deleted from this article, see policy | | Pseudo-marxisme | Redi Mokro - 08.04.2004 17:51
"Met de leer van Marx gebeurt nu hetzelfde als wat in de geschiedenis meer dan eens met de leerstellingen van revolutionaire denkers en leiders der geknechte klassen in hun strijd voor de bevrijding is gebeurd. De onderdrukkende
klassen betaalden de grote revolutionairen tijdens hun leven
met ononderbroken vervolgingen en ontvingen hun leer met de ruwste kwaadaardigheid, de woedendste haat en met een teugelloze leugen- en lastercampagne.
Na hun dood worden pogingen gedaan om hen in onschadelijke afgodsbeeldjes te veranderen,- hen als het ware heilig te verklaren en aan hun n a a m, tot "troost" en verdomming van de onderdrukte klassen, een zekere beroemdheid te verlenen, terwijl hun revolutionaire leer van haar
i n h o u d en van haar revolutionaire scherpte wordt ontdaan en tot een banaliteit gemaakt.
Bij een dergelijke "bewerking" van het marxisme ontmoeten elkaar thans de bourgeoisie en de opportunisten in de arbeidersbeweging. Zij vergeten, verdoezelen en verminken de revolutionaire kant van de leer,- haar revolutionaire geest".
Het NSF in wording verdiend alle steun, ook van marxisten maar niet van pseudo-marxisten in naam van het marxisme!
met revolutionaire groet,
Redi Mokro
| | lees eens iets meer over de Social Fora | Raphael - 09.04.2004 11:42
Als reactie op het bovenstaande: de kern van het ESF is openheid en democratie. Dit betekent dat niemand anderen in woorden mag uitsluiten. Een structurele multiloog is het uitgangspunt, mits mensen de noodzaak van progressieve verandering in de wereld onderschrijven (zie Charter of Principles).
Ik snap de opmerking dat het NSF geen steun verdient van pseudomarxisten uit naam van het marxisme, dan ook niet zo goed. Wie bepaalt dat ? Marx ???
Voor wie geinteresseerd is in de achtegronden en analyses van de Social Fora, lees eens enkele artikelen uit het volgende boek (dat te vinden is op deze website):
Challenging Empires
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1557.html
| | NSF | Redi Mokro - 09.04.2004 20:22
Waar ik bezwaar tegen maak is de volgende uitgangspostie van
Peter Waterman :
4) an attempt to develop a Liberation Marxism (liberating Marxism from the Marxists and, obviously, also from Marx),
en:
7. Surpassing 'ongización' and 'vanguardismo' (sounds better in Spanish
Hier staat duidelijk dat in n a a m van Marx het marxisme
voor de zoveelste keer gerevisioneerd wordt!
Wat voor een marxisme is dat, dan pseudo-marxisme?
Ik wil en kan niemand uitsluiten, maar als aanhanger van het marxisme wijs ik erop dat hier onterecht het marxisme
wordt opgevoerd,aangezien het bij punt 4 genoemde dat wel
wel die pretentie heeft.
Ik bedank Raphael voor zijn reactie, wetende dat dit geen
discussie-site is.
Indien gewenst ben ik gaarne bereid hier over verder te gaan. Zie http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linksnederlands/
| |
| supplements | |
