20.10.2004

Paying the price

ESF protests: Paying the price The London ESF was characterised by unprecedented levels of open dissent and protest against the bureaucratic stage-management of the whole event - inside and outside the official ESF structures. Mark Fischer reports

The leader in The Guardian of October 18 was spot on when it observed that each European Social Forum “tends to reflect the prevailing politics and tensions of the host country”. Given the deeply fractious nature of the left in Britain, it was not hard to predict that, in contrast to Florence and Paris, the 2004 ESF would be marked by protests and a widespread feeling of exclusion. A number of groups went so far as to organise their own event rather than participate in what they saw as a Livingstone jamboree: There was the ‘Beyond ESF’ event of the anarchist Wombles group in Middlesex University; people around the London Social Forum set up a ‘Solidarity Village’ in Conway Hall; and Indymedia organised their own four-day event in Camden Centre.

Minority rule
The October 15 plenary, ‘End the occupation of Iraq’, was abandoned after a small group staged a loud, but shambolic protest against the presence on the platform of Subhi Meshadani, the general secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. A 40-strong contingent led by a small group of Iraqis and including a good number of Workers Power comrades headed for the centre aisle and advanced, chanting, on the platform. (I was confidently assured by a leading SWPer that the Iraqi comrades were “Mike Marqusee’s lot” - ie, the Iraq Occupation Focus. I checked with the IOF - they were not).

The group was stopped by stewards and a 20-minute stand-off ensued, with the protesters refusing to allow the meeting to continue while Meshadani remained on the platform. A compromise was proposed by Sami Ramadani, a member of the Arab Media Watch’s advisory committee. Before making his proposal, the comrade emphatically underlined that he was an opponent of the occupation, that he supported the Iraqi people’s right to resist and that he passionately disagreed with the invitation to the IFTU apparatchik - all to the obvious discomfort of some of the British people on the platform.
Having established these credentials, he suggested that those who wanted to register a protest at Meshadani’s presence should stage a walkout when it was his turn to speak rather than wreck the whole meeting.

There was no coherent response from the protesters, but the simple fact that they stayed put settled the question. Their position was made weaker by the plain fact that the vast bulk of the 800-strong meeting was in favour of hearing the man speak. The hostility to this small minority increased after two votes clearly indicated that the overwhelming majority wanted them to end their action and the meeting to resume. The votes were also reinforced with some extremely hostile chanting and heckling directed against the protesters.

There is confusion about what happened next. The few WP comrades I subsequently spoke to insist that these votes were respected by their organisation and that their comrades began to make their way to the back of the hall. I have to say, from my vantage point, standing on a chair some eight metres from the action, I did not see any signs of this - certainly not immediately after the votes themselves (although it was certainly difficult to work out exactly what was going on in the tight-pressed scrum).

Also, it does not seem to have been the impression of comrades who had the advantage of viewing the whole debacle from the stage. Sabah Jawad, billed to speak from the Iraq Democrats Against the Occupation and also associated with Arab Media Watch, expressed justified frustration with the action of this very small minority. It meant that he was not able to expose the treacherous role of the IFTU. Also, he quite correctly expressed concern that this clumsy protest might enable Mashadani to present himself as a victim of the ESF’s “lack of democracy” (see www.arabmediawatch.com).

Comrades from Workers Power in particular might like to reflect on the competence of tactics that allowed Lindsey German to pose as a brave champion of the meeting’s democratic rights and won her a roaring standing ovation from the vast majority of those present for her brave confrontation with the forces of censorship. Not a clever night’s work, comrades.

Wombles’ revenge
Many comrades will know something of the take-over of the Saturday night plenary session, ‘Stop fascism and the far right in Europe’, by an anarchist hit squad of 200-plus. As theatre, the action had impact and was certainly not without a political justification of sorts. Many in the audience were enthused by the invasion and - in their own inarticulate way - the anarchists succeeded in articulating frustrations with this tightly-controlled jamboree.

However, we should be critical of this manifestation of the ‘alternative’ ESF. The traditions of anarchism are no more organically democratic than those of the SWP or those GLA satraps, the wretched Socialist Action sectlet.

It was common knowledge well in advance that an anarcho-hit squad was on its way. Obligingly, they announced it 24 hours in advance on an e-list. Also, the City Hall building was fly-posted on the morning of the stunt, just in case Livingstone was unaware of their intentions (he was supposed to speak in the session, but was diplomatically absent on the night). There were pretty detailed rumours circulating among delegates all day concerning what was being planned, the numbers involved and an approximate time.

So when it actually happened, the stunt was about as unanticipated as Christmas. Clearly they had inside help, though. They were able to storm through previously locked side doors. Their speeches condemning Livingstone and the commercialisation of the ESF were met with a good deal of sympathy. In stark contrast to the disruption of the Iraq meeting the night before, the anarchos actually struck a chord with the majority of the audience, who shared, at least in part, their resentment. Meanwhile the majority of the SWP were nowhere to be seen. They were far away in Friends Meeting House at the Respect rally.

A representative of Babels, the international network of volunteers that provides the interpretation and translation for all plenaries and seminars, also indicated their dissatisfaction in a formal statement - later read out throughout the event. It spoke of the “many opportunities of experimentation and innovation [that] have been missed during the organisation of this forum resulting in the exclusion of many people, organisations, networks, groups and even countries”. The London ESF had instead been characterised by “neoliberal practices of organisation, management and service delivery … with the result that the forum has been entirely dependent on the state”.

This statement - from a group that has been central to the success of previous ESFs - totally undercuts the nonsense from the self-serving GLA apparatchik Lee Jasper and others that the disruption of the Saturday night plenary “had nothing to do with how the event was organised” and that - farcically for any comrade who has followed the detailed reports in the Weekly Worker - “no viewpoint was excluded”. Predictably, given his job as a well-paid professional anti-racist, Jasper was at pains to characterise the demonstrators as “an exclusively white group of anarchists” engaged in harassing “black and Jewish speakers” (The Guardian Letters, October 19).

Entertainingly, he was effectively slapped down the next day by members of some of Britain’s leading official anti-racist campaigns, including Suresh Grover of the National Civil Rights Movement, Piara Power of Kick It Out and Ashika Thanki of the Newham Monitoring Project.

They bluntly stated that the man was engaged in nothing more than a “crude attempt to portray as a ‘racist attack’ what was effectively a protest against the lack of democracy and consensus by the GLA in the organisation of this year’s European Social Forum”. Jasper was attempting to smear the protest - which was “supported by large sections of the audience … using accusations of racism to provide political cover for what was clearly political dissent aimed at his employer, the GLA, and the mayor of London … Whatever the rights or wrongs of such protests, Lee Jasper and the GLA must not play ‘the race card’ to silence these voices ” (The Guardian Letters, October 20).

Quite right - but Jasper’s smears are unfortunately typical of the poisonous atmosphere of crude denunciation and censorship that has been fostered in the London ESF by the likes of him and Livingstone’s shield-carriers, Socialist Action.

The fallout
Predictably, arrests immediately followed as the main body of protesters withdrew. (the meeting on anti-fascism and anti-racism actually restarted after the anarchists’ withdrawal).

In a preparatory meeting for the Assembly of Social Movements which took place simultaneously, Pierro Bernocchi of the Italian trade union confederation, SinCobas, condemned the involvement of the police and urged the meeting to demand the immediate release of those lifted. There was enthusiastic applause - apart from the SWPers present and the leading SA honcho and well-remunerated Livingstone employee, Redmond O’Neill. These comrades looked decidedly grumpy and exchanged some significant glances. Indeed, comrade O’Neill attempted to speak on this question. To oppose comrade Bernocchi’s principled call, perhaps? To support the arrests, even?

Sadly, we will never know. Rahul Patel, the SWP chair of the session, thought better of letting the man in - possibly one of the SWP comrades’ more diplomatically astute acts of censorship.