[Cja] Activist to Grassroots - Tony Andersen of Klimaforum09`

Wed Aug 25 21:21:04 UTC 2010

judging from the numbers of people attending the talk, not many people would
know about this talk by Tony Andersen, Klimaforum co-founder.

In this presentation Tony talks about the need for activists to start to
work with grassroots activists such as permaculture, transition, economic
justice and others

its the reason I actually went to Copenhagen in the first place, this talk
and also the workshop entitled 10 000 Trees: A Practical Strategy for
Grassroots

I remmeber at the time, saying to Tony, hurry-up lets bring people to this
message, but he wisely suggested folks where not ready to hear the message,
and that they needed to have their demo's, political theatre, trials by fire
and then they might come to understand and need to settle into different
levels of climate justice

http://permaculture.tv/activist-to-grassroots-tony-andersen-klimaforum-co-founder/

-- 
Nicholas Roberts
US 310 402 3513
http://Permaculture.TV
http://permaculture.coop

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Dietrich Muylaert <
dietrichmuylaert at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>  Hi,
>
> I don’t like nostalgia, nostalgia is good for when you’re retired and want
> to tell stories to your grand children. Nostalgia is worthless as a base to
> organize necessary action to avoid a grim future. So let’s not approach the
> CJA concept out of that perspective.
>
> CJA is getting defined, based upon what I read, as an ad hoc network
> towards COP15. It worked well for the Reclaim Power action, since all
> organizations and activists were *there* in Copenhagen and there was a
> clear, common goal.
>
> Since then the birds have flown home, with the aspiration of continuing
> that ability to create a joint *action* *agenda* and being able to
> mobilize for it on a broader scale. To export those dynamics at work in
> Copenhagen to the world.
>
> The experience was so great that local groups are organizing actions
> referring to CJA, clinging on to that feeling of unity, solidarity and
> having a common goal. In that context everybody wants CJA to be something
> else then these comments I’ve read about it on the net: “*… is a loosely
> connected grassroots network*”,  “*… was described to SolveClimate by one
> activist […] as ‘people printing pamphlets in their bedrooms.’*”
>
> But we’re faced with the fact that CJA is becoming a mailing list
> exchanging info and viewpoints (what is not bad on itself), and with the
> unavoidable reality check about the broader perspective and its future as an
> *action network*.
>
> On the transnational level, now, there’s the call for solidarity actions
> for the accused COP15 activists and the idea of a global day of action in
> October to revive the network.
>
> I remember the solidarity action we held at the Danish embassy in March. On
> a very short notice I collected signatures from 18 organizations and a dozen
> more from parties and individual politicians for the letter to hand over.
> The call out for action, as CJA in Belgium, then managed only to mobilize 12
> people for the action itself. There were as much cops as activists. We just
> lacked a ball for a soccer game. J Funny was that somebody from the *Belgian
> Social Forum* thought of CJA as those people who had something to do with
> *Climate Action Camp 2009* in Antwerp, not Copenhagen. Since then we *did*organize a
> *CAC 2010* which we explicitly affiliated with CJA, and with the last
> action at the embassy, last week, we managed to mobilize 35 people in a
> week’s time as CJA.
>
> This tells me in a way that the idea of a CJA network, and the necessity
> thereof, over here at least, exists and is growing. People do want to take
> (direct) action for a system change on a broader than just local scale, with
> global, common goals. And to be honest, to accomplish a system change, I
> think, that’s necessary.
>
> But, although a CJA network is a great concept it’s hardly fair to put the
> burden of organizational tasks of a network with global (or continental)
> ambitions upon the shoulders of the few who can travel across Europe to
> attend it’s meetings. Or to push them to keep doing so. So we’ll have to
> come up with a way to cope with that, if we want CJA to be something else
> than a reference to *the awareness of the necessity for global action*.
>
> The planned global day of action, 7 weeks from now, might reenergize and
> result into CJA to become less unnoted - maybe even more so if it could be
> aimed at one specific target - add weight to the network and invite people
> to become involved. But then afterwards, how avoiding the evolution of CJA
> as it did after COP15?
>
> Maybe if we could overcome the barrier of distance to debate all necessary
> issues concerning CJA, we might get closer to a solution. Also, maybe then
> it could become more then a European network, as it is right now, and easier
> to get people into it. But that’s all easier said than done.
>
> Also, I have the impression that organizations, except a few, involved with
> CJA at COP15, now have their agenda’s trump a possible joint action agenda
> in the context of CJA. But that’s just my impression, which can be totally
> wrong.
>
> As for now, my means don’t allow me anything more than getting involved in
> things, CJA related and other, in Belgium. But it give’s me a nice excuse to
> rant about capitalist pigs from time to time. J
>
> Greetings,
> Dietrich
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Bert [mailto:antistrata at riseup.net]
> *Sent:* woensdag 25 augustus 2010 11:30
> *To:* cja at lists.aktivix.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Cja] [climate09-int] CJA: the great
> fix-it-or-nix-it-debate
>
>
>
> Hey,
>
> To point out to those who have a fear of 'disbanding CJA' – it means little
> more than not having a meeting every 3 months! There has been very very
> little work done specifically by CJA over the past six months or so, even by
> those who have attended the meetings (and I include myself as a slacker).
> It's hardly like we will be winding down huge projects after months of work.
>
> The simple question is - can people can think of a European-wide project
> that requires a network form to implement it? And just saying 'stopping
> climate change!' doesn't cut the mustard I'm afraid. Unless there is an
> answer to that question, in the form of a concrete project or a broad
> political trajectory (ie. inciting communism), then there is no purpose in
> our traveling across Europe to sit in wet fields or cold squats.
>
> Bert
>
>
>
> On 25/08/2010 09:38, n i c o l a s wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> as someone involved in the attempt to set up a specific local climate
> justice campaign in London (through climate camp east London, when it still
> existed), Tadzio's suggestion makes perfect sense to me. We need to ground
> climate justice as a concept and to find out what it means in practice where
> we live. In Europe, this is not necessarily that clear - in our group, we
> decided to try to focus on the issue of fuel poverty and were trying to
> think of ways to build a grassroots 'campaign' around fuel poverty as a
> climate justice issue.
>
> But until we have a series of projects and campaigns such as this, climate
> justice will remain ephemeral - a theory that we put on banners and make
> into slogans, but without substance. I think that while the email list
> should remain, dissolving CJA for now so as to focus on finding out what
> climate justice looks like from 'below' is possibly the most useful thing we
> can do. It may be that through the CJA list we can have an ongoing
> discussion on what climate justice looks like, and how we go about achieving
> it. And at some point perhaps we can use the old network to establish
> connections between these local projects. But as Tadzio says, unless there
> are those specific moments of resistance, we risk turning into little more
> than a band of activists who come together at other peoples meetings to
> cause a little trouble and not much else besides.
>
> ciao
> nic
>
> On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:43 AM, Tadzio Mueller <tadziom at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> dear friends (and dare i say comrades ;-)),
>
>
>
> it's great, and somewhat ironic, to see that there's finally some
> discussion regarding anything CJA-related at all. maybe it's like when my
> mum wanted to throw away that dusty teddybear in the corner that i never,
> ever played with anymore. realising that it was going to go the way of all
> things, i put up a big fight, and won. it stayed. unfortunately, it also
> stayed in its corner, gathering dust, until at some point, she threw it out
> in a nightly commando-raid... wow. very religious: speaking in parables -
> apologies for that, it's early, and coffee isn't ready yet...
>
>
>
> my point, though, should be obvious: it's inspiring that people obviously
> feel so strongly about CJA. it is even more inspiring that there are
> regional/national networks that somewhat draw on a CJA(-like) identity in
> their work, and that are growing and getting stronger. but: the work done at
> regional/national levels has in principle almost nothing to do with what
> happens with CJA at the largely European level (ref. back to long debates
> whether CJA is global or european - de facto, it is european). at that
> level, the network has been largely disfunctional since before (!)
> copenhagen. in copenhagen itself, the only functioning CJA structures were
> the media group, and the reclaim power action group (though in both cases,
> they were also strongly constituted by our amazing danish friends, organised
> in the climate collective). neither of these structures exist anymore.
> meetings have been getting smaller and smaller, and more and more like
> gatherings of friends. for those who haven't been to these meetings: there's
> a very strong sense of drift, of a lack of purpose. we're not playing with
> the teddybear, as it were. it's gathering dust. it doesn't have a purpose
> right now.
>
>
>
> to be sure: this lack of purpose is not because the problem has gone away -
> but because, i suggest, right now is not really the time for global network
> building around climate justice. really, we need to engage in
> sub-global/continental capacity/power-building. global networks are only as
> good as their social base. in fact, strengthening global networks * the
> expense of* local bases leads to the latter becoming subject to the whims
> of the former.
>
>
>
> anyway: if people want to make the de facto european CJA network come alive
> again, by all means, get involved. make the structures work. create
> structures. do stuff. put in management-speak: CJA can only function if
> there's a significant 'buy-in' from people all around the continent. if not,
> all the inspiring words written on email lists won't change the fact that
> CJA is pretty much non-existent. and if that is the case, then the few of us
> who actually have been investing time and resources and affect into trying
> to make things work, traveling to distant meetings, can maybe spend that
> energy elsewhere.
>
>
>
> solidarische gruesse
>
>
>
> tadzio
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Cja mailing list
>
> Cja at lists.aktivix.org
>
> https://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/cja
>
>
>
>
>
> -.-.- Climate Justice Action Network International Coordination List -.-.
> POST TO LIST: climate09-int at lists.riseup.net
> UNSUBSCRIBE:  send a blank email to
> climate09-int-unsubscribe at lists.riseup.net
> LISTKEEPERS:  climate09-int-editor at lists.riseup.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.aktivix.org/pipermail/cja/attachments/20100825/0eaba285/attachment-0001.htm>