Statement re Italian report

Alex Callinicos: “The implication that our partners in Italy (and, according to one suggestion at the end of the report, France) should stand in judgement over the movement in Britain and decide who should 'play a central role' in Britain (particularly when the basis of who is to be preferred is that they agree with the Italian delegation) is inappropriate and divisive and would, if taken seriously, do much more damage to the movement than anything that is alleged against the majority of the British delegation in Paris.

First: the Italian report does NOT 'stand in judgement over the movement in Britain'. It comments on the actions of a small group of people.

We believe the Italian report's claims should be taken seriously - and more than this, 'London central' does not represent the movement in Britain. Certainly not the Local Social Forum movement, which the OC has ignored. (See below for more details!)

At a Sheffield Social Forum meeting to discuss the ESF on Saturday 12th (with members from London and Manchester SFs in attendance), the content of the Italian e-mail was brought to our attention.

On the question of who is doing the most damage to the ESF process:

To accuse the Italians of being divisive is, if we're being generous, amusing. To suggest that it could do more damage to the movement that anything else is far from amusing. They are articulating a deeply held view, and you dismiss them with an alarmingly off-hand flourish.

There are many people who see in their report another example of a recurring theme within the SF movement as a whole. we can only give one local example, which reflects only on the SWP, rather than the organising committee as a whole.

There is, we have found out, now something called the 'Sheffield ESF' - a mobilising committee organised by the SWP. There are equivalents in other towns and cities. The SWP have not approached present members of the Sheffield Social Forum about it. The meeting date has been arranged for after Berlin - we had ours before, so that we could put together some proposals for one of our members who will be going. (Perhaps the SWP didn't want the trouble of having to pass on the views of people who will be attending their meeting...?)

At our first meeting last year, members of the SWP were present, and they argued consistently and forcefully:

a) that we were not the 'Sheffield Social Forum.' (I'm not too sure who has the power to designate when a group is a Social Forum, but I'm fairly sure it's not the SWP!)

b) that the ONLY role the Sheffield Social Forum should undertake was to mobilise for the Paris ESF.

When it was suggested that, yes, mobilising was one obvious task, but that others in the group had things they wanted to do, the SWP member reverted to haranguing us about the fact that we were not a social forum.

We will be approaching members of the SWP to see if we can't find some way of working together. But by far the least divisive approach, surely, would have been to approach the SSF in the first place and talk about how best to mobilise. To work together.

The SWP, nationally, have not done that. Instead, there appears to be a national policy of setting up 'local ESFs', rather than talk to us or other local Social Forums. So tell me - who is being divisive? Who is being damaging?

Now, the ESF OC statement says:

"We invite trade unions, social movements, organisations, networks and local social forums who share the objective of hosting the next ESF in London on the basis of the principles of the World Social Forum to join us in this endeavour."

Given that this is the case, would you like to comment on why the SWP - a key organiser in the ESF - has set up a parallel network, and not even bothered to contact us?

Obviously, we have no monopoly on the Sheffield Social Forum. If you supported the overall ethos of the WSF principles, as we do, and as the OC claims to, you'd be all for self-organisation. Perhaps it was an oversight on the part of the SWP - if that's the case, we look forward to working openly with the SWP locally.

And I'm sure you'll also be supporting this proposal that local SFs are taking to Berlin?:

"We propose that for the whole duration of the European Social Forum events there be one dedicated space for the use of the local social forums of Europe. We believe that the interlinking of local social forums holds huge potential for positive social change in terms of learning, sharing and coordination around issue based campaigns and working methods. It is essential that those networks are created to be durable and independent of the spectacuar moments of gathering represented by ESF."

However... What we fear, and what the Italian report articulates, is this: that there are groups within the ESF who want to control it, whilst they pay lip service to its principles. The setting up of local 'ESFs', it seems to me, is pretty conclusive proof that the SWP has no truck with local social forums - or self-organised politics generally.

If others (such as in the Italian report) disagree with the OC, they are accused of being divisive and 'more damaging than anything else' - a miserable and totalitarian little tactic that we would have hoped never be heard in the SF movement. Again - who is being divisive? Who is damaging the ESF?

This e-mail, then, is a show of solidarity with the Italian report (from an individual within the SSF, not the SSF as a whole), and a call for all those who believe in open democracy to make their voices heard.

One last thing: whilst there's a lot of argument over the 'sacredness' of the WSF principles, there's one that stands out as being apt for the moment:

"[The SF movement] does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for inter-relation and action by the organizations and movements that participate in it."

Why is there so much anger at 'London Central?' Because it is becoming a locus of power. It's turning the SF movement into just another power structure, and HAS constituted itself as the only option for inter-relation for participants.

The eezee way to stop this from happening is to organise within and between the rest of the social forum movements - build webs that will mitigate against centralised power, and build computer systems that enable this. Hence the importance of the European local social forum proposal. Will you back this?

I'm shocked to see the co-ordinating committee claiming that those self-organising events in Bloomsbury for the ESF 2004 are 'undemocratic' - a familiar sounding tactic. How about the organising committee commits itself to supporting the development of an online system - already developed, we believe - that would allow self-organisation to feed smoothly into the overall ESF process?

I'd suggest that the reasons why certain elements in the OC would never back this is because it goes against their sacred principle of democratic centralism, and the need for a vanguard party to lead the rest of us. Oh sorry... am we being divisive? ;)

In solidarity,