[Campaignforrealdemocracy] campaign real democracy - actually starting to campaign!

[Mark Barrett]

Hi James

Thanks for the update!

>From my side of things:

Here in Southgate I am continuing to work on developing a long term
partnership between residents, traders, educational establishments, human
rights and humanist/faith groups, encouraging them to come together for the
accessible idea of a democratically run, and community owned street market
on a small but suitable patch of pavement. From there, for me it is a short
skip towards real local sovereignty - which I always mention in the same
context - because the right to run a street market and receive the rental
income from it (rather than it going to the Council) is a form of
sovereignty in itself. A community owned asset..

And so I agree 100% it's about working with people you wouldn't normally
consider as allies.  So far I've got some support for the idea but I need to
develop it further. Luckily I've been offered some collaboration with
Southgate College, who are stationed right next to the site in question, so
fingers crossed that will be a plus to the campaign's potential.

Local Area Forums, which you mention are definitely in need of
democratisation and if they are like the ones up here they cover three
wards. So far I've found LAFs relatively good for info gathering (altho by
no means perfect) and quite frustrating in other ways. There maybe room
for common cause around the issue of over centralisation - half the time it
seems that both Cllrs AND residents are equally frustrated by Westminster's
huge powers over and so it's hard to feel anything other than it all being a
big talk shop; an  exercise in Council being seen to be doing the right
thing but actually not that effective because no real powers. As with
consultations it's al quite top down. If you have some allies and can
present yourselves as a decent sized coalition defintely consider pushing
them to sit in the democratic fashion in a circle and all - can't wait to
hear how you get on!

Also there is now the possibility in London to create your own parish
council althought I think that's quite a procedural obstacle course. Might
be worth looking into though as PC's can raise there own revenue via
taxation (ie in our case, democratically agree ie non compulsory
subscription).

Other stuff moving forward:

(1) Theatre Project with Teresa Hoskyns and a number of pro-theatre people
aimed at getting schools involved in the great issues via the old Greek
democratic idea of Agon Theatre.. we are applying to do a show at the GLA
Scoop Space and have some schools on board already

(2) Local version of 21st Century Network in Enfield to bolster the other
work that's going on. Francis and I are developing 'Make Politics Matter'
initiative with local schools to get them interested in political issues and
community action / sovereignty and tap into their creativity and we're
getting interest from schools across the Borough. Email me for more info on
this!

(3) Dec 2 Real Democracy and Right to the City meeting with 21CN; speaking
Matt Scott of CRD and Community Sector Coalition, Teresa Hoskyns of Queens
Market defence group, Project 2012 and me. We hope to make this a launch for
a Civil Society union event in 2010 around the idea of Local Sovereignty.
Glad to have yr support  - register at
http://www.meetup.com/21stCenturyNetwork/

(4) I would like to link the local work I am doing with the Transition Towns
initiative - be grateful of someone could put me in touch with anyone
suitable in North London to talk me through what's involved. Also, did you
see the flier for 21st Nov I put round earlier. See attached. I think it
would be good to have a CRD presence there and I'm talking to Matt about
this in the context of our planned event for next year and maybe making a
short presentation there.

(5) Great to hear about the Climate Camp plans!

Mark


2009/10/11 James Holland <james at dogmanet.org>

> Hello CRD people. I've been really quiet on this list recently because I've
> been actually starting to do some campaigning groundwork for building some
> examples of real democracy.
>
> As the climate camp was in SE london, I have some connections in the area
> and there are loads of inspiring grassroots campaigns going on; I have moved
> into the area and have spent the last few weeks meeting with transition
> towns, anti gentrification campaigns, labour struggles, anti school closure
> groups, residents associations, community forums etc etc.
>
> I've learned loads already including that you have to be more pragmatic
> about who you work with and how, and to look beyond people''s labels and
> affiliations. There's good people everywhere!
>
>  I'm focusing my efforts generally on lewisham and southwark, but also on
> particular areas within those boroughs. both of these boroughs have
> council-created forums that cover a small area (1 ward or slightly larger)
> that  i think are good targets to try and increase their democracy (open
> agendas, using consensus, encouraging more people to be involved) but also
> gradually taking more power. the first steps are to talk to people already
> involved in these structures and find out what's already happening, then
> probably to get them to use some of their budgets to increase participation,
> a
>
> I'm planning to build on the definition I sent out before which was
> something like - real democracy is when all the people of a community take
> complete and equal control for doing everything their community needs, (and
> no one has any power to say what other communities should do.)
>
> I can also report that there is an idea within climate camp to arrange
> something for the lead up to the election to expose the charade of
> democracy.
>
> james holland
>
> _______________________________________________
> Campaignforrealdemocracy mailing list
> Campaignforrealdemocracy at lists.aktivix.org
> https://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/campaignforrealdemocracy
>
>


-- 
"We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet /Yet is there no
man speaketh as we speak in the street.”
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