Below is a report on PA Network meeting held last Saturday. Any comments ?<br><div class="gmail_quote"><br>Cheers <br><br>Mark<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/assemblies-taking-off.html" target="_blank">http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/assemblies-taking-off.html</a><br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><b>Assemblies taking off </b>
<p> The People’s Assembly Network (PAN) event held in London at the
weekend took place against a dramatic background of mass actions against
existing authorities from Wisconsin USA, to Tahrir Square in Cairo.</p>
<p>In Cairo two demonstrators were killed by the military police and
many more injured, while in Madison, Wisconsin, trade unionists and
their supporters met in a people’s assembly. On a smaller scale,
protesters <a href="http://www.facebook.com/occupytraf" target="_blank">camped</a> out overnight in Trafalgar Square demanding the right to peaceful protest. <br>
<br>
As a <a href="http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/04/message-to-the-wisconsin-people%e2%80%99s-assembly/" target="_blank">powerful greeting</a> to the London meeting from the <a href="http://wisconsinwave.org/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Wave People’s Assembly</a> said clearly: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like all of you, we understand the just
cause and moral imperative of defending our democratic traditions, our
people, and our principles against a coordinated attack by corporate
elites and the politicians they own. And, like all of you, we know
that we have to do much more than fight back. We also have to advance a
genuine people’s movement that values every human being and insists
on essential public services and human rights.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This year, the message noted, opened with the toppling of
dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, which inspired the mass resistance
in Wisconsin to the attacks on public sector workers and their union
rights. <br>
<br>
PAN co-convenor Mark Barrett, said that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>assemblies were not unions, not parties or
pressure groups but an inclusive organisational strategy – the means
to build permanent, democratic, city-wide and rural structures in
various communities around the world, which can have a multiplicity of
functions. They can unite for a common alternative around the world –
permanent institutions of the ‘common’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A researcher on social movements said it was important to see
assemblies not only as “reacting” to the existing authorities but as a
way to the assertion of a new form of power.<br>
<br>
Others, including members of the <a href="http://www.ppsuk.org.uk/" target="_blank">Project for a Participatory Society UK</a>,
saw Assemblies as platforms for encouraging social participation and
as a way of developing alternatives to the capitalist system of
production.<br>
<br>
One A World to Win member said that the role of assemblies was to
express the self-determination of people, to be a voice for the
voiceless and to develop mass forms of leadership. “They are not a
left thing or a right thing, but a democratic thing in the light of
mass popular dissatisfaction with state structures and the absence of a
democratic voice.” <br>
<br>
London activist, Navid, said that assemblies could be structures
for combining the ideologies of the left and forums for debating ideas
about social transformation.
Tony Dines from Worthing Solidarity Network and Transition Town
Worthing suggested that assemblies could draw in all people who are
victims of the crisis of capitalism, including workers and small
businessmen. They could be parallel organisations to local government
up to a national level which aimed to replace the existing state
institutions. The aim should be common ownership, not state ownership,
he stressed.<br>
<br>
The meeting was encouraged by a message from the Glasgow People’s
Assemblies which has already held three meetings at the Free
Hetherington building which has been occupied by students since the
beginning of 2011. A People’s Assembly/Convention is scheduled to be
held in Lambeth, south London on May 21.<br>
<br>
PAN participants will reconvene on Saturday May 7 at the Passing
Clouds music and arts centre in east London. Meanwhile the <a href="http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/" target="_blank">website</a>
working group will contribute articles, blogs, news, photos and
comments to the website and a new group was formed to develop
connections internationally.<br>
<br>
With the Coalition government in increasing disarray and the
Parliamentary system offering no way forward, PAN’s boost for the
campaign of building people’s assemblies is timely.<br>
<br>
Corinna Lotz<br>
A World to Win secretary <br>
11 April 2011 <br></p><p>PS in addition to London and USA info, international Climate Justice Action (
youth and environment focused) colleagues in West Africa are now looking to
organise assemblies in solidarity - in Togo as well as in other
countries
with linked local groups including Benin, Dr Congo, Cameroon,
Burkina Faso, Guinea, Cote d'ivoire. Our key point of contact is <font face="Geneva, Arial, Sans-serif">ONG Jeunes Volontaires pour l'Environnement </font><a href="http://www.ong-jve.org/" target="_blank"><font face="Geneva, Arial, Sans-serif">www.ong-jve.org</font></a><font face="Geneva, Arial, Sans-serif"> </font>- more on this soon.. <br>
</p></div></div></div>-- <br>Apathy is Dead <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarider/5254770064/#/photos/solarider/5254770064/lightbox/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarider/5254770064/#/photos/solarider/5254770064/lightbox/</a><br>
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