12.06.2002
Slow progress for ESF
Roughly 50 delegates representing national mobilisations for November's three-day conference of the European Social Forum met on June 10 in Rome to move ahead with plans for the programme, logistics and 'network expansion'. Results were mixed, although the groups working on logistics and drawing others into a network to provide services and assistance seemed to have most issues in hand. The programme group fell victim to a bit of disarray, with much discussion put off until the next planning meeting in Thessaloniki on July 13 and 14. With the meeting held in the offices of Italian housing and culture NGO, Arci, on a Monday, the Friday deadline for conference and seminar proposals cut things a bit tight. Neither the sponsors from the Italian mobilisation nor many others had read the vast majority of proposals. This was just as well, since some of them were vague to the point of being utopian. One seriously suggested making structural changes to the UN Security Council as a way of checking unilateralism by the United States. 'Misguided' is perhaps the most polite description. The deadline meant that debate on conference and seminar topics, titles and speakers had to begin from a quite structural level. Decisions made at the previous Vienna meeting had to be re-established. Principally, these decisions concerned the themes of the three days: liberalism, war, and rights; and a series of 'keywords' to coordinate debate over the three days: Europe in the world; resources; democracy and sovereignty; economic alternatives; and conflicts. Upwards of 25 delegates debated and occasionally retitled 15 specific conferences over the morning and most of the afternoon, rejecting a quite sensible suggestion to break into smaller groups based around the day themes and deciding to work in plenary. While democratic, the proceedings effectively validated categories decided in Vienna, allowing delegates to bask in their own contributions. Our own bit of basking involved distributing a leaflet calling for a joint approach to the European elections in June 2004, and got a positive response from several delegates. Rifondazione Comunista, a key sponsor of the Italian mobilisation and the ESF itself, saw a joint campaign fitting nicely with their programme to unify and reforge the European left. By the end of the day, speaker suggestions, mostly taken directly from unread emails, rounded off discussions. The plenary, having got back to where things started on the day, then decided to accept the suggestion of breaking up into three smaller groups based on the overall categories for the three days to prepare for Thessaloniki. The operational and network groups made more progress with a combined but smaller plenary, more focus, and issues more amenable to practical decisions less fraught with inter-group politics than programmatic issues. The July meeting will take place against a backdrop of a General Strike by the main Greek trade unions despite the votes of some of their erstwhile leaders. To its credit, the organising group agreed by acclamation to send a message in support of the strike, validating union democracy. Florence's ruling Party of Democratic Socialism has donated the conference centre for the November Forum, lots of accommodation and offered some translators, but problems have arisen in the implementation. Extensive space and support will be available for planned plenary and breakout sessions and seminars, although much of the activity will be around the outside, where virtually everyone will be able to run a session if they want. This openness by the organising committee may prove useful if programme questions continue to drag, as groups can offer what they want around the Forum without staking their participation on getting their programme goals. Web-based publicity campaigns will point up sectarian duplication of seminars, and hopefully discourage the practice. While keen to promote diversity, the organising committee was united in working to avoid tiresome duplication of topics. Further, while translation of morning sessions is on offer from the PDS, organisers feel that translators must be available for more than the morning sessions, especially the self-managed seminars 'from below' in the afternoon. Organisers plan to provide a full complement of translators for the five-eight languages in use, and for the full range of sessions. The translation issue, exhaustively (not to say ridiculously) discussed, was the closest the organising group came to the tedium of the programme group. Both groups will likely feel pressure to move forward in Thessaloniki, as November draws nearer. Monthly meetings of representatives of the national mobilisations are planned until the Forum itself, with Thessaloniki the first of these. Roland Loveless Tina Becker spoke to two members of Rifondazione Comunista. Luciano Muhlbauer is the representative of trade union federation Cobas and Marco Berlinguer is RC's programme officer You attended both World Social Forums in Porto Alegre in Brazil. It seems to me that the ESF is already far more politically ambitious than the WSF. The first WSF last year was dominated by the various social movements. It was very important to get all of these groups together for the first time. But it was only a beginning. The second meeting in February 2002 then took another step forward. We started to formulate alternatives. And we also decided to organise on a regional level and consciously build regional organisations. So there was a top-down decision to build a wider base. But this has also started a totally new dynamic. The regional movements tend to be more dominated by political organisations and are in general more radical. The ESF is no doubt far more political than the WSF - and so is, for example, the Indian Social Forum, which will meet next January. So there is also a bottom-up dynamic going on, where the regional organisations are changing the nature of the WSF. A couple of days ago, representatives of all regional bodies came together in Sao Paolo to discuss the next WSF and it was obvious that big changes have already taken place. Everybody is aware that the next WSF will be a lot more political then the first two. At first, the WSF had only one position: against neoliberalism. Now the ESF has also taken a stand against racism and against war, which is very important for us in Italy. We are in the middle of a process that is accelerating very quickly. Samir Amin, one of the main organisers of the African Social Forum, criticised the role of many NGOs who are holding back the radicalisation of the WSF (interview with the Weekly Worker May 16). I think that is true. The main task for us is to give the various WSF policies content. We have to start to formulate concrete policies in order to move forward. What do we mean by fighting against neoliberalism? Is it enough to change the system a little bit or do we actually have to take on the whole capitalist system? The same goes for war. We fight against war, because it is an expression of the neoliberal politics of this system. There will be parliamentarians in Florence who have voted in favour of going to war. We have to challenge and expose them. In Florence, and then again at the WSF in Porto Alegre, we will have these important discussions about the political direction of this movement. You were also involved in meetings with the European TUC. The ETUC has expressed great interest in coming to Florence. They have not decided yet if they will sign the call made in Porto Alegre (see www.forumsocialmundial.org.br), so they might just attend as observers. But a number of national confederations - for example in Switzerland - have already signed up. We will have official trade union representatives from Italy, France, Spain and Great Britain. But of course the ETUC is a lot more conservative than individual trade unions and we are very critical of many of the positions the ETUC has taken in the past. We have to fight for what we think is correct trade union politics. If the ETUC then signs up to our movement, great. But it is our politics they have to accept, not the other way around. If we are strong enough, we can influence the European trade union movement. Are there any concrete plans by the Italian mobilisation committee to get closer coordination between European trade unionists off the ground? One of our main objectives is to help to organise closer cooperation of European trade unionists. For example, railworkers in Italy, France and Spain share common experiences, because many of them work for the same multinational companies. A number of trade unions have already expressed an interest in organising big seminars in Florence. Also, there will be a big assembly of unemployed people in Europe. But we in Italy cannot dictate any of this. The initiative needs to come from the social movements directly. What we can do is to provide the space for this closer cooperation. I am very optimistic that Florence will produce closer cooperation of the European left on many levels. Why does the European left have to be refounded? An historic phase has come to an end. We can call it Stalinism, but that might be a simplification. We are facing a new capitalism. But we are also seeing new social forces that have taken up the fight against this system. These struggles can become more important than those in the past. Rifondazione is trying to refound a revolutionary perspective in Italy, in Europe and the world. That is our only goal. But we had to rethink the way we are trying to achieve this. We don't think the existing political parties - including ourselves - are sufficient for this huge task. We are looking to establish an alternative left. We have to openly embrace new methods of organising, new cultures, new activities - what we call 'contamination'. We want be influenced by these new movements, want to learn from them. But of course we also want to influence and 'contaminate' the movements. Unfortunately, many organisations of the traditional left have not yet changed. There is also a real danger of inward-looking nationalism. Many of the communist and revolutionary parties in Europe only concentrate on the national level and fight their own bourgeoisie. We are convinced that the left needs to fight together internationally - as a minimum on a European-wide level. Is it enough then to meet once a year in the ESF? Should we not establish closer links between the European left? This is exactly our approach. The European left needs to unite if it wants to make any difference to society. This process has now started. But we are not only looking at the traditional left parties in Europe. We can witness new methods of organising, new forms of organisation and action. Politics are becoming more fluid and we need to have answers for all these people who have been demonstrating in Rome, Barcelona and Paris. This can be best achieved if we unite on an international level. We see our role as facilitating this, in order to organise the discussion as democratically as possible. The ESF is an important part of this process. The European elections in June 2004 could play a big role in bringing together the European left. Standing together on a joint slate would require a high level of communication and cooperation. Elections are certainly one method to achieve unity and we have been exploring ways to work together with other forces for the last three-four years. We have had a lot of meetings with organisations in Spain, Germany and France. It isn't easy, because there are some big differences. For example, not all organisations think that it is important to build a strong European force. But things are moving forward. We want to organise a big open meeting in Florence, where organisations can come together to discuss the elections. This could act as a step forward to closer cooperation and we hope we will decide to meet again to work out how we can stand together. We would argue for a common programme for the European elections. A common programme really is the main task for us. I think it would start an important process: we would have to meet regularly and talk openly and democratically about what we want to fight for. Of course, we would also have to explore our differences. But elections are not the only way to achieve this important unity. There are a lot of problems with parliamentary democracy - especially with the European parliament, which is totally undemocratic. Many organisations on the left don't take calls to democratise the EU very seriously. That is a big mistake. We live in Europe. The EU is becoming stronger and stronger. How can we close our eyes to this reality? We need to challenge the ruling classes and capitalists on every level. * World Social Forum * British mobilisation for the ESF * Partito della Rifondazione Comunista * Cobas
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