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Hey,<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Bert<br>
<br>
<br>
On 25/08/2010 09:38, n i c o l a s wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTi=OHBVMbBWV5aCoJfYWUfgYYZb2e9a7+myJ0-4a@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Hi all,<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
ciao<br>
nic<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:43 AM, Tadzio
Mueller <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:tadziom@yahoo.com">tadziom@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
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valign="top">dear friends (and dare i say comrades ;-)),
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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...</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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 <i> the expense of</i> local bases leads
to the latter becoming subject to the whims of the former.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>solidarische gruesse</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>tadzio</div>
<br>
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Cja mailing list
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