European Social Forum and the SWPWent to a European Social Forum Creative Working Group meeting yesterday and - surprise, surprise - it had already been hi-jacked by the SWP, writes steve of the synergy project.I'd also heard from a friend of mine who studies these things at the Centre for the study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics that there has already been a massive split between the 'verticals' - the top-down, old-left, centralising tendency, of which the SWP are the most prominent example - and the 'horizontals', the more anarchically inclined who believe in the participatory elements of the Social Fora ethos. It really was vintage stuff - two elderly SWP members running the meeting, one chairing, the other supporting, backed by a large cadre of supporters who would jump in if anybody dared show dissent. There were some interesting people there, however, including one member of Fun-da-mental, the political black hip-hop act who set up Nation Records, Asian Dub Foundation's label. Plus someone from Survival and a Jesuit guy called Ben who together want to run a symposium on culture during the ESF weekend. Basically, the split between the horizontals and the verticals has got so bad that the horizontals are now organising separately in Bloomsbury, while the verticals do their stuff in Ally Pally. The verticals are funded by the GLA and the Unions while I don't know how the horizontals are funding themselves. Apparently, having had a bitter split with the verticals, the horizontals are now also fighting amongst themselves, with each individual group thinking more about representing their own interests rather than thinking about the wider whole. Having sat in one meeting with them, I was reminded why many people within the wider movement detest the SWP. Their tactics were so cynical, their ideology working against participation in the process in favour of a centralised approach in which the dedicated few take all the decisions. They argue that unless you follow this approach, everything gets lunched out as all the people who complain about lack of participation don't actually pull their weight. I was discussing this with my LSE friend who said that the French and Italian Communist parties, who organised the last two ESFs, were more mature in that they recognised the value of fostering diversity rather than trying to keep tight control over everything. This is one of the reasons why they were so successful. The horizontals, on the other hand, are open to criticism in that they will spend ages talking about process and not actually do anything. They are also resistant to any degree of centralisation which maybe can disempower the more focussed and active. In the end, it works out to be a democracy of action. The SWP, by virtue of their Leninist ideology, get their act together, turn up for meetings and act as a cohesive unit. The horizontals, by virtue of their more anarchic ideology, don't always act so effectively or cohesively and so a strong front to oppose the SWP rarely emerges. The horizontals get alienated, withdraw from the process, which is left in the hands of the SWP, as does the funding. The parallels with our current discussions with Synergy are interesting. At the moment we are quite centralised, though not as ideologically driven as the SWP, perhaps. But I think that now we have a solid foundation, we should start to honour the principles of empowerment through participation that lie at the heart of the alternative movement. This means those in control constantly looking for ways in which we can encourage, even nurture, others to take a more active role and so spread the power, and maybe also the workload, a little wider. As for how to deal with the SWP in the social fora, there was an interesting example yesterday of how things can work if the more pragmatic horizontals get their act together. The SWP people were trying to set up a committee of oversight - dealing with the Big Names and the final concert in Trafalgar Square, which they proposed would be made up of the two SWP people running the cultural working group, a GLA representative and one from the Unions. They justified this on the grounds that the people putting in the money would want to have control. I spoke up against limiting the membership of this committee, suggesting that principles of empowerment through participation required it to be at least open to wider participation. A quite heated debate emerged, with the SWP cadre all rallying round and no-one else from the NGOs or the unaffiliiated contributing. I asked them to compromise - make a more precise definition of the powers of the committee would be and add 3 other members to it, but they refused, also refusing to say why greater participation was not a good thing. Mayra then spoke up and said that I was the only one blocking consensus, and that the ESF rules said that I could be over-ruled and a consensus declared. She also said that I was making my-self unpopular and losing friends and should shut up, a tactic which, surprise, surprise, didn't work. It was at this point that Dave from Fundamental spoke up and said that he too thought there should be wider participation, at which point it was decided that the decision should be sent to the Co-ordinating committee of the ESF, which meets at the GLA building on Thursday and is, no doubt, also dominated by the SWP. At the end of the meeting, I had a chat with Dave (Fun-da-mental) and thanked him for his support. He's now very interested in working with Synergy in the future. My strong feeling is that if everybody, perhaps understandably, gets so pissed off with the SWP that they stop going to meetings then the SWP's discipline and cohesion, despite their horrific ideology, wins the day. But if you argue the case for inclusion and wider participation, sooner or later the unaffiliated realise that the ultra-centralising approach of the SWP is totally anathema to the spirit of social fora, and of empowering people to create a better society (as opposed to being lumpen-proletariat led by the workers party vanguard) and speak up. We also need to build and strengthen our alliances within the greener / more anarchic wing of the movement and pull together and not be so individualistic ourselves. With this in mind, I thought I'd give the Green Party members on the GLA a call and see if they up for getting involved. You would have thought they'd be on the case already, but knowing the Green Party they haven't got their act together. I guess that in a way, we have something to learn from the SWP. They
certainly pull together and support eachother, albeit towards really unhealthy
goals. I would hate to become so centralised, but it's obvious why the
more individualistic horizontals end up getting marginalised. |