AUT: "Inside and outside ESF 2004"

[Etienne <tim_boetie@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I guess more than enough has been said about this storming in a teacup,
but I thought it would be worth forwarding a link to this article,
because it suggests some potential for positive outcomes from the
situation around this years ESF:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/10/300249.html

"We can imagine that the evaluation will be harsh, but we can also
predict that some things won?t change. It?s hard to believe that,
despite having had its most productive involvement ever, the new
European movements will be less suspicious of the Forum after everything
that went on. And it?s true that the official event in London tried
harder than ever to be a capture machine in its attempt to homogenise
discourses with immediate political goals in sight.

"But it?s precisely to the fact that the attempt at controlling it has
failed ? that is, having succeeded at Alexandra Palace only to
strengthen the position of the autonomous spaces ? that we should look
in search of a few initial conclusions.

"First of all, the inside/outside discussion, ore than ever, has proved
to be empty. What was the ESF? Alexandra Palace or Beyond the ESF, Life
Despite Capitalism, the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination? In
what seems to me to be the most correct sense, all of them. If Fora will
be capable of expressing the diversity of the movement(s) they say to
bring together and serve as a public arena, it?ll be because of their
capacity to incorporate conflict, not to subsume it under a semblance of
false consensus. To that extent, the British process, with all its many
flaws, points to a promising possibility in its recognition (tacit or
explicit, in the form of inclusion in the official programme) of other
spaces; the Forum as a constellation of related self-organized
convergence spaces without a centre seems a lot more interesting than
the present format.

"Format-wise, this edition shows the possibility of transcending the
obvious limits that Fora ? so far built around plenaries with the ?big
names?, normally resulting in generic analyses and platitudes with no
visible impact, or the two-hour seminars and workshops in which any true
convergence or common action are unlikely results ? so far have shown.
Let?s take, for instance, the experience of Life Despite Capitalism, in
its many interlocked sessions that lasted for a day and a half, or the
whole programme (not explicitly organized as such, but effective none
the same) around the issue of the precariat, in which there was a sense
of build up leading to the Assembly of the Europrecariat. To this day
the organizers have asked themselves the questions of how to make Fora
less diagnostic and more constructive, without challenging the basic
assumptions of the format. The plenaries, for instance, are living dead
left-overs from the first WSF in Brazil, which was clearly planned as a
one-off talkshop rather than a political ?process?. The London
experience points to yet new ways, although these have always been
explored in the ?periphery? of the Social Forum process (in the Youth
Camp in Porto Alegre, in the Argentinean Social Forum etc.), without
receiving the proper attention of its key players.

"Another lesson the sad spectacle of Alexandra Palace presents us with
is the necessity to incorporate the creative potency of the movement(s),
which can provide viable, effective ? and politically challenging, and
much more cooperative and participatory ? solutions to areas such as
communications, translation and catering.

"A serious issue that remains is that of finances: everyone saw the
negative effect of this year?s ?selling? of the ESF to the GLA, the only
entity able of sustaining the event in the terms in which it had been
thought. If this is the price to pay, the question is not one of
condemning the GLA, but of seriously rethinking the whole structure and
format of the Forum ? which leads us back to the two previous points.

"As strange as it may seem, the great lesson this year offers us is
still the one everyone has heard a thousand times, without really seeing
it in practice: the Forum seen as an event is useless, an empty
spectacle with no practical results; as a process, it opens up to new
deterritorialisations and reterritorialisations, combinations and
recombinations, which should be the whole reason why they are organized
in the first place.

"A problem that remains is that of the closing of the process on itself;
there seems to be, since the beginning, no remarkable renovation as
regards the participants truly involved (a criticism that could be
levelled at Social Fora pretty much everywhere), which results in an
autistic and self-referential process. The consequence this year was
obvious: the UK edition was taken over by the group that had been the
most active until then and its partners of choice. The fact remains,
however, that as long as there is any identifiable centre, like the
plenaries and the thematic axes, it won?t be enough to recite the ?no
locus of power? mantra to wish away the concentration of decision-making
in a few, well-known hands. An interesting change has been tried out by
the WSF this year, organizing an on-line consultation; why not a deeper,
grassroots, de-centred process, like the one proposed by the European
Social Consulta?"

--
     "Not just book learning - education as consumption of
      facts - but education as part of a political process
      which allows people to engage in the world around them
      and makes them feel empowered ... People should be
      inspired, they should feel hope; people should be able
      to act, they should be able to respond to the issues
      that are examined; people should be able to reflect on
      what they have done and consider how to move forward."
                                                      -- N. P. Gill
Tim                                             http://www.huh.34sp.com/




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