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I have felt this debate coming!<br>
<br>
So I've been churning over whether to come to Holland or not this
weekend, precisely because of these kind of questions. Given my limited
time and money, is traveling to this meeting the best way to see them
spent?<br>
<br>
I'll put this in as proviso - these are ideas flowing somewhat
haphazardly off the top of my head. They are certainly not conclusive
thoughts!<br>
<br>
The <b>first</b> question - what is the state of climate politics?<br>
<br>
In my eyes, if we were to survey the 'movement' as it currently stands,
it is dominated by a field of NGOs engaged at the policy level. To this
extent, I'm hesitant to even use the (ambiguous) term of 'movement' -
rather it now appears to be a number of policy-hacks claiming
legitimacy on the back of a non-existent 'movement' demographic. This
is sadly reflected in the trajectory of the Cochabamba Declaration,
which is now treated solely as a series of policy points that 'experts'
are concerned with writing into the UNFCCC negotiating texts, whilst
Bolivian representatives proudly pronounce that the UN is being forced
to listen to the people. A disgraceful bastardisation of any possible
'new politics' that could have been born from that Bolivian conference.<br>
<br>
My understanding is that whilst climate politics continues at the
policy level, any 'movement' will ultimately be reduced to fulfilling
the role of foot-soldiers, a crowd upon which policy-hacks feed so as
to claim some form of representative capacity within negotiations –
'look here! we have the people behind us!'. I'm not interested in
mobilising cannon fodder for ineffective UN negotiations, and I'm not
interested in bolstering this or that bargaining position. The only
possibility of this having any value is as part of a different politics
and a broader strategy that exists outside of policy negotiations. At
the moment, there isn't one - blind hope is still within the UNFCCC
despite inevitable failure. <br>
<br>
The <b>second</b> question - what would an other climate politics look
like?<br>
<br>
For all the criticism, what other trajectory could or should have been
taken? How do we create something effective, that takes as its basis
popular activity outside of policy spaces? I think we began to explore
this in our discussion of creating a different strategic space, one
that would put the emphasis on placing 'climate politics' in peoples
daily lives as opposed to in the policy realm. In other words, we need
to provide a revolutionary dream, the 'other worlds' that listen and
speak to the daily concerns of peoples lives - not some abstract
ethical drive based on PPM and Bangladeshi floods (however terrible
they may be). We will not build a movement out of voluntarist ethical
commitments to 'reduce carbon', manifesting itself within protests,
days of action, asceticism or policy-led politics. <br>
<br>
In other words, we are concerned with generating an anti-capitalist
response to climate change. We should know well enough that, to do
this, we must locate the 'place' of capital not in institutions, nor
corporations, nor banks, but at the level of control over our daily
decision making. This means that we must begin with the issues that are
the core of our lives - housing, food, healthcare, transport,
childcare, 'education' - and begin a process of strategising how people
can assume common control of these fundamental life processes. As it
stands, we predominately rely on capital for our own survival, we are
all forced to sell our labour (or to exploit the labour of others) so
as to survive. This reliance means that, however much we despise this
system or however much we personally fail to benefit from it, the
bottom line in decision making is <i>always</i> the accumulation of
capital. If we want control over 'ecological' decisions, then we must
free ourselves from our compulsion to act in accordance with capital. <br>
<br>
The purpose of this imagined conference leans towards this - how do we
base a climate politics in peoples self-interest? How do we begin a
process of empowering people to create circuits of reproduction <i>other
than and to the detriment of</i> capital? How do we ignite the
sentiment of another world, and how does do we ensure this
sentiment spread like wildfire? There is only one way - and that is
embedding politics as a struggle over the conditions of everyday life. <br>
<br>
The <b>third</b> question - can CJA initiate this other politics?<br>
<br>
Well... firstly, we would have to make sense of all this. We would have
to work out a first step for an anti-capitalist climate politics, and
how it is based in present reality. We would have to work out if there
is any difference between the aforementioned and anti-capitalist
politics <i>in general</i>. We would have to resolve contradictions
such as that between the 'green jobs'/'anti-growth' camps. We would
need to find a discursive AND practical way of delinking human
well-being from the reproduction of capital. We could perhaps forge
'directional demands', demands which seem fully plausible from the
position of human wellbeing, yet completely untenable from the position
of capital accumulation, such as that of a 'living wage for all'. I
think the strategy conference we discussed just might have some play in
this particular discussion, but it would have to go far beyond any
confines of the 'climate'.<br>
<br>
Secondly - and perhaps most importantly - we would need the bodies to
make it happen. As Tadzio and Peter have mentioned, I just can't see
where they are going to come from. Is CJA the vehicle to make any of
this happen? I really don't know. Is 'climate justice' a discourse
which can speak to this concept of generalised struggle over our own
reproduction, which is fundamentally what this is about? Or must it be
abandoned as liberal bullshit within the realm of policy-hacks?<br>
<br>
A million questions, and I feel somewhat lost.<br>
I hope someone can persuade me within the next 24 hours that I should
go to the Netherlands.<br>
<br>
Solidarity,<br>
<br>
Bert<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 24/08/2010 11:21, Tadzio Mueller wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:336227.27722.qm@web110309.mail.gq1.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
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valign="top">hey all,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>solidarische gruesse</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>tadzio</div>
<div><br>
<br>
--- On <b>Tue, 8/24/10, Peter / GroenFront! <i><a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:peter@groenfront.nl"><peter@groenfront.nl></a></i></b>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote
style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>
From: Peter / GroenFront! <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:peter@groenfront.nl"><peter@groenfront.nl></a><br>
Subject: [Cja] The Future of CJA ; dissolve or find a new course<br>
To: "climate09-int" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:climate09-int@lists.riseup.net"><climate09-int@lists.riseup.net></a>,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:cja@lists.aktivix.org">cja@lists.aktivix.org</a><br>
Date: Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 5:49 AM<br>
<br>
<div id="yiv1925530837">Dear friends,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The next meeting op Climate Justice Action should, in my
view , have just one agenda point. Dissolve the network of not. <br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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. <br clear="all">
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. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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. </div>
<div>I think it is time to face facts, and dissolve CJA as it
is at this moment. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Peter Polder </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
-- <br>
<div><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="skype:peterpolder">skype:peterpolder</a></div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
href="http://www.groenfront.nl">www.groenfront.nl</a></div>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
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