About 250 activists – from Russia to Portugal, and from Ireland to Greece – attended the preparatory assembly for the European Social Forum at the end of last month. It is clear from the reports at the meeting that the European Social Forum will be big and diverse, if nothing else. Thanks to the tireless work of the activist translators of Babel in the conference room, and the goodwill of bilingual go-betweens in the corridors we were able to meet activists from all over Europe.
A miners’ representative from Poland told us about their great demonstrations and pitched battles with the police in the past month – news that has been completely blacked out by the British media. Then there was a young agricultural activist from Portugal, part of a giant, radical farmers’ federation, a dozen or so immigrant “sans papier” representatives from the very Parisian suburbs the ESF is going to be held in, and… well, you get the picture.
By the way, everyone loved (some of) the Greeks, because they came in three separate (and warring) contingents.
An incredibly wide-ranging programme of plenary sessions, seminars and workshops has been organised – and soon available on the website (www.fse-esf.org) so you can plan your week in November. In addition there will be a day, Wednesday 12 November, put aside for women’s campaigns and issues on the one hand, and trade union networking and policies on the other. There is even a space set aside throughout the ESF for local social forum activists to come and share experiences.
There will also be debate – by the bucketful.
But beware. Unless you know some of the codes, you will waste valuable time finding out who’s who. The reason for this is because the ESF operates on rules laid down at the second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, under which political parties are not allowed to be directly represented and all decisions have to be made by consensus, that is, 100 per cent agreement. As a result, it was often difficult to see who anyone was and what their relationship was to anyone else. Activists often couched their arguments in such a way that it could mean one thing to one set of people and something else to another set, in order to reach an accord.
For example, The International Socialist Tendency – the SWP in Britain – was the largest and most united delegation at the assembly. But you couldn’t have known this from their credentials. They came declaring themselves representatives from Globalise Resistance (Ireland and UK) Agir Contre la Guerre (France) Attac (Switzerland) Genoa 2001 (Greece) En Lucha (Spain) and so on. Similarly, members of the Fourth International (Ligue Communiste Revolutionaire in France) could not come out and say which party they were speaking for.
The hypocrisy of this was spelled out by the chair at one point when she described how all the four or five trade union federations in France were tied to one or other of the workers’ parties, the Communists, the Socialists, LCR, etc. So, the ban on parties – if it was not to exclude the trade unions – could not be comprehensively implemented. And the same is true of many campaigns.
Another defect of the preparatory assembly was caused by the rule not allowing majority voting. As a result, the meeting made no decisions on what sort of demo we would have, on what action the Declaration of the Assembly of Social Movements and Actors will call for and, crucially, where and when the next ESF will be.
All decisions have to be made by consensus, that is, 100 per cent agreement. So in theory – and in actual practice when we were debating the venue of ESF 2004 – three people can block the decision of 97 others! These are rules we will have to get rid of.
The Italian delegation was very impressive with representatives from the Disobedienti libertarians through to the mass CGIL union federation. Their proposal was for a “social 15th February": a day when we could call monster demonstrations across Europe in opposition to pension “reform” welfare cuts, privatisation.
They also – more controversially – wanted to link it to the EU’s drawing up of a new, neo-liberal constitution for Europe. Some wanted us to have “another constitution for another Europe” but this would obviously be impossible to agree on. After all, would it defend private property or call for workers’ control and socialisation?
But the proposal hit the rocks in a very interesting way. The CGIL rep got up and pointed out that the neo-liberal attacks may be co-ordinated across Europe, but they were not synchronised. The rhythm varied in each country. For instance, the Italians were planning a general strike on 24 October – before the ESF! He said that workers took action in defence of or to achieve specific gains – not against neo-liberalism in general. Finally, he wanted the ESF to consult with the unions before setting any date.
All this was undeniable. But what struck us was that the CGIL was saying, “We don’t mind being part of your movement. But when it comes to working class issues we, the union official leadership, will make the decisions, thank you very much."
It was the age-old debate that has divided our movement for a hundred years: should the union bureaucracy decide working class politics, or should the socialists? Our resolution, effectively an amendment to the proposal, put us firmly on the side of the socialists. A CoBas (rank and file Italian union) representative signed our resolution during the debate.
The other big, unresolved issue was when to hold the next ESF. Some of the liberal and reformist right wing wanted to move to two-yearly ESF. They claimed they were “fatigued” by the rhythm of big international forums. In reality, it seemed they were more tired of having to speak in front of thousands of young, radical activists who might hold them to account for their actions over the year! Again, our resolution calling for more democracy and voting seemed to hit the nail on the head.
But for the answer to this – and to see how all the other important disputes pan out – we urge all our readers to come to the ESF in Paris, 12th-16th November!