[Cja] The Future of CJA ; dissolve or find a new course

[Tadzio Mueller]

hey all,
first of all, thanks to peter for basically clarifying something that had sort of been lurking at the back of my mind, and, i suspect, other people's too. my email yesterday kind of hinted at something like that, too.
i think the point about the 'standard recipe' of the 'day of action' is especially well-taken: as someone who was involved in pushing that idea at the february meeting in amsterdam i'll be honest, it was very much an idea that emerged simply in order to keep the network alive. and that's not enough to energise people, as we've seen from the absolutely crap work we as a network have done around the day of action: we've done practically no outreach to groups and people who don't come to CJA-meetings, something we were great at in the copenhagen mobilisation; the storytelling/media-work aspect has been pretty dead, and that was one of the things where we shone in and before copenhagen.
as i think i mentioned in my last email, our local group in berlin has now started to do active outreach to groups in eastern germany, so far very, very 'empty' ground from the perspective of networked climate (justice) struggles. in a way, that's a very boring task - nowhere near as fun as hanging out with y'all lovely lot :-) but it's probably what needs to get done. the global events, we know after 10 years of experience in organising them, have their role to play. but that role is limited.
anyway, i'm starting to repeat myself, so i'll stop here. like peter, it would be great to hear loud and practical and concrete disagreement with these thoughts. but whatever we do, let's be honest to ourselves.
solidarische gruesse
tadzio

--- On Tue, 8/24/10, Peter / GroenFront! <peter at groenfront.nl> wrote:

From: Peter / GroenFront! <peter at groenfront.nl>
Subject: [Cja] The Future of CJA ; dissolve or find a new course
To: "climate09-int" <climate09-int at lists.riseup.net>, cja at lists.aktivix.org
Date: Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 5:49 AM

Dear friends, 
The next meeting op Climate Justice Action should, in my view , have just one agenda point. Dissolve the network of not. 

Climate Justice Action was formed to mobilise for Copenhagen. In 2009 it was a lively, planet wide network that was powerfull enough to make a stand in the streets of Copenhagen. In all the stress and rush to prepare for that event, we forgot to think about the future of the network itself. As a result many people dropped out after the Copenhagen summit. Discussions at the last two meetings have focused on finding a cause to keep the network alive. The standard recipe of global day of actions was brought up.  But that's not enough to keep people motivated and keep the network alive. 


The meeting in bonn only had 30 people, the next meeting in Holland looks to be even smaller. Tasks taken up  in Bonn haven't been done. 
Apperently the time and energy to keep the network alive isn't there any more. Most likely because the network is missing a concrete common goal. A battle to prepare for. 

I think it is time to face facts, and dissolve CJA as it is at this moment. 
I would be good to keep the mailing list up, to make contacts easier, or maybey organize a conference on Climate justice in Europe. But to keep dragging the burden of an international network would be a mistake. It will drain the time and energy needed elsewhere, and give people the false hope that we are able to mobilise large amounts of activist for future actions. 


I ofcourse hope to be mistaken, and see lot's of angry people at the next meeting to oppose my proposal. If not come over to have a drink at the campfire. I hope anyway to see you all on the barricades , somewhere, sometime. 


Peter Polder  

-- 
skype:peterpolderwww.groenfront.nl




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