12.05.2004

Privileged information

ESF: Tina Becker reports on the latest paranoid twist: basic information now being given out on a strictly need to know basis

There is at last some progress to report in the preparations for the European Social Forum, to be held in London from October 14-17. In a few days time, the ESF website will be able to accept proposals for the hundreds of seminars and workshops that will take place during our forum.

Organisations from across Europe will finally be able to start networking with other groups working on similar issues. And, thanks to our European comrades, each individual organisation will be able to submit a proposal. The main groups involved in the British ESF organisation, the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Action, wanted only pre-existing networks, with groups from at least two or three different countries, to be allowed to make suggestions. Luckily, as with a range of other issues, the SWP-SA were overruled by our European comrades at the last ESF assembly in Istanbul on April 17-18 (see Weekly Worker April 22).

Seminar proposals will have to be merged because of space restrictions - but at least this will happen through a process of open and transparent networking: everything that comes in will be put up on the website and sorted according to subject. Groups interested in organising a seminar on a similar subject can simply get in touch with the original proposers - and start trying to arrange a joint meeting.

Another advance is the fact that we will finally have a proper office space from next week. This is long overdue. Until now employees of Ken Livingstone's Greater London Assembly were the only ones, for example, to have access to the official email address - with the predictable outcome that many emails were not answered and vanished down a deep black hole. The office, which will be staffed by four people, will hopefully bring with it a degree of accountability.

The way in which the four staff have been chosen, however, leaves a lot to be desired. When members of the 'democratic opposition' previously enquired how we would arrange the staffing situation and if those working there would be paid, the SWP-SA majority on the coordinating committee always made sure this question was never really discussed. The issue was time and again referred to "the next meeting", where it always fell off the agenda.

At the last meeting of the coordinating committee on May 6, it finally became clear that the two main organisations in the ESF process had been engaged in yet more secret negotiations. It was simply announced that "four organisations would second one person each" to work in the office "for the time being". The lucky four are: Louise Hutchins from the National Union of Students (and Socialist Action), Chris Nineham and another comrade from Globalise Resistance (ie, the SWP), who will share one position, an intern from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a GLA employee. Others interested in the 'position' did not even have a chance to discuss this in their organisations, as it was never announced we were looking for seconded staff. Any proposals for other staff will now have to be presented as a hostile alternative to the four.

The plan is that "at some stage", staff will be paid by the ESF - undoubtedly, the four already in situ will have a very good chance of getting the job. When and how much they will be paid is anyone's guess, as finance (or rather the lack of it) is still a rather tricky issue. Many months ago, when Redmond O'Neill (Ken Livingstone's transport adviser and leading SA member) presented the only draft budget we have ever seen, he suggested that office staff should be paid for six months at the GLA going rate.

This now seems a little tricky, considering that London Unison's £50,000 is still the only 'official' donation to the ESF. The GLA will give a six-figure sum and there might be other donations from trade unions. However, the main bulk of our estimated expenditure of £1.5 million will have to come from individual registration - and the vast majority of that money will not start to come in for a good few months. In fact, most people will not pay for their attendance until a week or two before they make their way to London.

Instead of addressing this problem seriously and discussing openly within our movement how it could be resolved, the SWP-SA have even attempted to prevent any reporting. On a number of occasions CPGB members have been thrown out of meetings of the coordinating committee whenever the subject of finance is discussed (including registration and affiliation fees). Our crime: we openly report developments in the ESF - good and bad. Our exclusion was only reversed thanks once again to the intervention of our European comrades (see Weekly Worker March 11).

However, attacks on the Weekly Worker (and, more recently, on Indymedia) have not stopped - and we are still being used as an excuse to keep details of finance under wraps. The focus of the attacks has shifted, though. It is no longer those never specified but often-quoted "lies" and "inaccuracies" the Weekly Worker is supposed to have published about the ESF. In recent weeks, the censorship has been extended to all those who "report negatively about the ESF".

At the ESF coordinating committee meeting on April 29, Rahul Patel (London Unison and SWP) was about to give a report on how many organisations had affiliated. He began with the remark that "none of this can be reported in any shape or form". When a number of people simply wanted to know why this would have to be kept secret, members of the SWP and Socialist Action started to attack the Weekly Worker and Indymedia: "It is very bad for the ESF if these issues are reported in a negative way", said comrade Patel. Chris Nineham (SWP) thought that "it limits our ability to act if we publish details about our finances. It gives ammunition to our enemies and is very damaging to the ESF." Sarah Colborne (Palestine Solidarity Campaign and SA) thought that it was quite right "not to discuss these issues openly in front of people who want to destroy the ESF".

Oscar Reyes (Red Pepper) remarked that in Istanbul, a number of comrades from around Europe requested details of the financial situation. Why could we not simply openly report on how we are planning to pay for our event? The SWP's Jonathan Neale, however, thought that "the Europeans do not really need to know any details. We were never presented with a budget before the first ESF in Florence. And the French showed 10 people in a room a mini-budget a month before the ESF in Paris."

This is, of course, total claptrap. I remember various meetings of the European practicalities group in which the Italian comrades presented quite detailed figures about the cost of translations, etc. But for the likes of the SWP and SA, all such details are considered privileged information - only suitable for the eyes of the select few.

The meeting came to a close - without any meaningful report on affiliations. All we were told is that about 40 organisations have between them paid "several thousand pounds" in affiliation fees.