More than 100 representatives of various organisations met in the City Hall, London on 13-14 December for the first preparatory assembly for the 2004 European Social Forum. A wide variety of trade unions from Britain and the continent, NGOs, local and national social forums, and political organisations participated in a lively – indeed at times stormy – debate. The presence of militants and representatives from the RMT, Unison, the T&G etc. was a big step forward and their contributions added a note of practicality into the proceedings.
The sharpest disagreements came from within the British ,movement0/00. The latter term has to be put in inverted commas because it is plain that nothing remotely approaching an organised movement yet exists in Britain. No united forums for debate or action exist either on a local or a national scale. To build for the London ESF will require improvising from scratch.
Globalise Resistance is no more than a threadbare cover for the Socialist Workers Party – which however refuses to build either national or local social forums. Now they will have to build something like them – call them ESF mobilising committees if they will – to create sufficient resources and activists to make a London ESF a success.
In addition the SWP strictly abides by the reactionary ban on parties imposed by the Porto Alegre principles. SWP members appear with their GR masks on. This only fuels the suspicions rife beyond their ranks, of their manipulation and control freakery, some of it justified but much of it sheer paranoia and anti-party phobia.
It is noteworthy that whenever the speakers from the League for the Fifth International and other organisations denounced this provision no one replied on behalf of Porto Alegre, defended the ban or tried to enforce it.
Good! But only lack of political courage can explain why prominent members of the Socialist Workers Party (and the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire too) do not defy this doubly undemocratic provisions. Their meek behaviour has not prevented the right wing in Attac from witch hunting them.
The party ban is double offence to democracy because it infringes not only the rights of members of political parties, without which this movement would not even exist, but the right of the many non-party activists to know who is really speaking to them, who is representing them, who is organising things. It fuels paranoia and fear of manipulation.
The first discussion was a balance sheet drawn of the last ESF in Paris. Some points made by delegates were nearly universally agreed. The four-centre venue made it difficult to get an overall impression of the size and vibrancy of the event, certainly as compared to Florence. The programme was over-dominated by plenaries with too many platform speakers, whereas the seminars were felt to be much more satisfactory. The forum has to be made much more accessible to and representative of women, the ethnic minorities, the socially excluded, youth.
The first and most heated debate erupted from within the “British delegation.” This has been going on since before the Paris ESF. The London and Manchester Social Forums have been bitterly opposed to holding the ESF in 2004 and in London. These forums are in fact very small bodies mainly dominated by libertarian individuals, deeply hostile to the SWP and seeking to thwart what they clearly believe is a conspiracy, with London Mayor Ken Livingstone, to ensure that the ESF excluded them. It should be noted that “Red” Ken did not show up to welcome the ESF to his City Hall.
The point of contention was the viability or not of London bid. Certainly a major problem exists with holding the ESF in London – the most privatised capital in Europe with the most rabid pro-Bush and de facto neoliberal government. The Labour majority on the Greater London Assembly and the London boroughs are totally Blairite. This means they will be far more hostile to the ESF than Chirac was!
The cost of putting on the ESF in Paris was 5-6 million euros. But much financial support (3 million euros) came from, local, regional and even national government funds. The same was the case in Italy, as far as the city of Florence and other municipalities and regions were concerned. In both cases the local authorities opened schools and sporting facilities to provide sleeping accommodation. Even this will be difficult if not impossible in marketised London.
Clearly, apart from the much more limited resources of the Mayor, no such “official” support will be available in London. Mayoral officials, present at the assembly, had costed putting on the event at a big single venue such as Alexandra Palace, at between £500,000 and £750,000.
With hired interpretation equipment and all other necessary facilities etc, the cost would be far more than would be covered by attendance fees. Overall it would cost up to £1.5m. Whilst a number of unions are, so it seems, likely to give some material support, this too will be limited. Clearly a massive campaign of fund raising, in the unions, in the local communities, will be necessary and this needs to begin now.
The most heated debate was over whether to hold the forum in London at all, where there is at least some limited “official” support, or as the London and Manchester social forum people suggested, in Manchester or even in a number of different cities, the venues obtained by squatting, occupying colleges etc.
These suggestions are totally unrealistic if you want to draw 20,000 people from abroad to the forum. In reality this is a proposal not to have a social forum at all. Unfortunately the ridiculous consensus model of decision-making (sic) resulted in the compromise that the decision will now be finally taken on March 6-7th at the next European preparatory assembly, also to be held in London. The mayoral team will meanwhile produce a report on its financial viability.
In the meantime too there will be another UK assembly on January 24th. Hopefully this wretched debate about nothing will not be repeated. If it is then the majority of organisations seriously committed to the ESF should absolutely refuse to let it be vetoed by a few self-important individualists. But it should do so openly and publicly, not by means of a few “movers and shakers” from the SWP and the GLA making facts behind the scenes.
Indeed the UK assembly needs to adopt some democratic standing orders that enable resolutions to be submitted, properly debated and voted upon, so that everyone knows if there really is a “broad consensus"; i.e. a clear majority in favour of a proposal or not.
The working groups held on the ESF programme, practicalities, culture, expanding participation and the future ESF/Social Movements Assembly process were much more positive and practical than the preceding plenary. There was widespread support for the idea – put forward by the League for the Fifth International – that the seminars should be organised by networks of activists, campaigns and other organisations already at work in various fields, and that there urgently needs to be a mechanism whereby proposals for action, policies etc, which emanate from discussions at these seminars, can be put to the Assembly of Social Movements.
The final assembly passed another weak consensus resolution noting the fact that the ETUC had called actions against the attacks on workers social gains for 2-3 April and repeating the Paris call for action on these issues. In short it does not endorse the date for joint action.
This fudge was the result of objections made by Cobas and SinCobas representatives to any declaration of support for the ETUC call. This despite the fact that it represented the direct pressure of the ESF on the ETUC as mediated through unions like IG Metall, ver.di and the left wing of the ETUC and despite the fact that the ETUC represents the overwhelming majority of Europe’s workers.
British union representatives present from the RMT and Unison indicated that their unions will press the TUC in Britain to support it. They pointed out just how important this day could be for drawing in the unions into the ESF movement. This day of action is thus far more important this year than yet another antiwar day of action (the Italians said the 20 March mobilisation would be disrupted by the ETUC one on 2-3 April).
If the ETUC bureaucrats have been obliged by the rising tempo of class struggle to call a Europe-wide day of action and demonstrations this should be seized with both hands and used by the movement to call for further decisive action. Cobas and Sincobas’s position is sectarian.
Giving in to it made the resolution of the preparatory assembly a rotten compromise. It added nothing to the Paris declaration beyond noting the ETUC call.
In Paris just such another rotten compromise meant that no date was called for this day of action but it was left to the unions. Now – thanks to the efforts of rank and file militants in the German and other unions – the ETUC has in fact named a day – sectarians want to walk away from it because the ETUC is too right wing and bureaucratic. In doing so they are walking away from a battle on a crucial issue at a crucial moment.
These questions of strategy and tactics of the class struggle will more and more put themselves onto the agenda of the ESF. This is excellent. But the movement will rapidly have to discover a method of facing and resolving them – not fudging them in the name of consensus.
We do not need rotten compromises – a lowest common denominator of inaction. The ESF will either become an organising centre for working class resistance, it will take bold steps towards transforming itself into an International, or it will fall victim to its own impotence. There is no third way.