30.04.2003

Bureaucracy and confusion in Berlin

Over the weekend of April 27-28 some 350 people from 180 organisations attended the latest gathering to prepare for the 2003 European Social Forum in Paris (November 12-16). This time it was the turn of Berlin to act as host. Tina Becker reports

National stereotypes - however crude and insulting they often are - reflect certain real aspects of cultures. British people are reserved and painfully polite; Italians are emotional and anything but polite and, well, Germans tell crap jokes, but at least they are efficient and well organised.

While I can confirm that in Germany trains do run on time and the streets are definitely cleaner than in Britain, the German left is unfortunately trying hard to escape the typical stereotype. Not that they have a sense of humour - if only! But the bit about efficiency has certainly been successfully dumped.

Firstly, the latest preparatory meeting took place in a different building from the advertised one, which meant large numbers arrived late. Then there were insufficient copies of proposals and discussion papers and some only arrived after they had been 'discussed' by the meeting.

To add to the chaos, the lights in the hall kept failing and comrades sat through several spells of total darkness. On the second day, the meeting was switched to a totally new venue, again without informing comrades about this properly. Many missed the brief announcement right at the end of the first day and waited patiently in front of the other hall.

In short - it was quite a mess. Not that it was the fault of the comrades from the German ESF alone. They are still in the early stages of their development and organisational responsibility always lies with the same three people. The problem was that the main discussion had taken place in the workshops, on the Thursday and Friday.

But only 100 or so people had been able to take time off work and spend four days in Berlin. The other 250 only witnessed so-called 'report-back' meetings, which quickly deteriorated into unfocused and rambling 'debates' about anything and nothing.

For most people, these meetings were the only opportunity to make their voice heard - so many spoke about matters unrelated to the particular item on the agenda. There were no standing orders on speaking time and the German chair did not dare to cut people off. This only changed on the second day, when comrade Jonathan Neale from the Socialist Workers Party took the chair: he adopted precisely the opposite policy of interrupting people after two minutes.

While the assembly itself was a pretty disappointing and boring event, some good steps seem to have been taken in the workshops that preceded it. No doubt though, the real decisions are being made on a totally different level.

The Italian comrades, most of them members of Rifondazione Comunista, the Democratic Left and the trade union Cobas, seem to have been successful in lobbying the French comrades to make some changes to their plans for the ESF 2003.

At the last assembly meeting in Brussels on February 8-9, the French and Italian comrades openly clashed over the idea of establishing permanent ESF networks. The Italians - supported by everybody else, apart from the French - argued that the successful anti-war network that went on to organise the global protests on February 15 showed the way forward.

They quite rightly stated that the left must organise on a qualitatively higher level if we want to be able to challenge the European Union - let alone stopping a war. They argued for networks of "the social movements" on a range of subjects. Incredibly, the French disagreed. French comrades argued in unison against this active approach to building networks. Led by Pierre Khalfa, official representative of Attac France (and a member of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire), the comrades stated that there were "some organisations involved in the ESF process that do not want to be part of the social movements".

Apparently, those organisations want to come to the ESF and sponsor it, but they do not want to build effective European-wide organisations that could strengthen our forces.

Under the guidance of Rifondazione, the first ESF in November 2002 was - although slightly chaotic in its attempt to bow before the 'anti-capitalist movement' - in reality a gathering of the left and sections of the European organised working class. Florence saw revolutionary parties, trade unions and large numbers of militant youth make real headway in uniting across Europe.

But rather than building on this success and further strengthening our forces across the continent, the French mobilisation committee was attempting to make the ESF 2003 more diffuse and more attractive to reformist forces, NGOs and the trade union bureaucracy (see Weekly Worker February 13).

At the Berlin meeting, the French comrades seem to have changed their tune. Comrade Khalfa presented an item on 'relationship with the movements', in which he talked about fusing the "social movements and the social forum" and called on the ESF to organise networks on a range of subjects - ie, exactly the opposite of what the comrades demanded in February.

However, there still seems to be a certain level of confusion and lack of clarity about the role of those networks. While comrades from Italy talked about the establishment of permanent networks that also function, meet and organise outside the ESF, the French comrade in charge of setting up a working group on this subject claims that "this is simply about having one meeting at the end of the forum in November, where the various social movements can assemble".

Another aspect that still awaits clarification is the role of political parties. The French comrades want to strictly implement the World Social Forum 'rule' that limits the role of parties to that of observers. A truly dishonest ban, as the WSF is being run and financed by the Workers Party of Brazil. Similarly in France, where the leading organisers of the ESF are members of the LCR, the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Socialist Party.

It seems the comrades are united in not wanting to build an international rival organisation to Attac, which has successfully taken off in a number of European countries. The LCR, PCF and SP are all involved in Attac - which, with 40,000 mostly young members, is much more successful in picking up new recruits than their own organisations.

Political parties are not allowed to take part in the French ESF mobilising committee at all - although the committee is clearly dominated by those three organisations. It seems the comrades even want to prevent workshops - last year they were really the only events in which political groups like ourselves were able to put forward our ideas. The Italian comrades, however, seem optimistic that last year's method of incorporating political parties will again be adopted in Paris: where a party is involved in the ESF process on a national level, they can take part in the ESF.

This is far from satisfactory. What, for example, if the majority of a national ESF committee does not allow a party on board? Is it inconceivable that the SWP might decide to use its numerical strength to exclude unwanted rivals from the English ESF, while wearing its 'Globalise Resistance' hat? All in the name of adhering to the 'rule' of the WSF, of course.

Also, it is far from clear that the French comrades are prepared to accept this status quo. Fortunately, the next ESF preparatory assembly will take place in Genoa on July 18-19. This might be an ideal opportunity to openly challenge their misleadership.