[matilda] PGA stuff -someone please mention in meeting?

[dan at aktivix.org]

Allo,

Can't make it tonight either - dinner with poor starving Mother.

Would someone be kind enough to read my wibble and represent these views?
Particularly my suggestion in point 2, and noting the point lower down about
authority and autonomy... If not, no problem - thought I'd ask though...

PGA...

   1. Various people in MATILDA disagree with part or all of them, or don't feel
that they want to sign up to this statement. Aside from going, "Aaah go on go
on go on go on...", I don't know how that's surpassable without changing
them...
   2. The hallmarks were written by an international movement to oppose
destructive globalisation. I agree with opposing destructive globalisation, of
course! But that doesn't mean the hallmarks can be applied directly to local
action:
         1. A 'confrontational attitude' just isn't always going to work
locally! And, of course, we wouldn't do it - that needs defining more. E.g. "We
will confront exploitation and greed wherever we find it." In fact, that would
mean we could change the second point to:
         2. "We confront all forms and systems of domination and discrimination;
and we call others to direct action to oppose them / we advocate forms of
resistance which maximise respect for life and oppressed people's rights, as
well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism."
         3. "We confront" instead of "we reject..." defines exactly what we
propose to confront, rather than this vague 'confrontational attitude' - and it
fits in with a point that came from the first Wednesday's meeting - that we
should be positive. This is better than 'we reject...' because it binds us to
actually doing something about it.
         4. It also helps to show that we can have a confrontational attitude to
systems of oppression, without having an 'attitude' toward those people we
might perceive as carrying out the imperatives of that system. I think this is
vital because every one of us (as we talked about last night!) in some way
carries on the system - anyone using a computer or a laptop is helping to
perpetuate war and exploitation in the Congo
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan) for example. Should we 'confront' you? Or
should we confront the systems, history, indifference and racism ("it's just
Africans at war again: see? They can't manage their own affairs...") that make
that situation possible?
         5. I personally have no desire to go and confront everybody in the
council. Confronting them is sometimes the way forward - e.g. with the
incinerator - and sometimes not. I'd like to work with Jillian Creasy, and the
various people I hope to work with in Burngreave. I'm not going to confront
someone just because they're wearing a suit. A confrontational attitude merely
reproduces an 'us and them' vision of what local action can be - because in the
end, 'local government' should mean local self-control, and it's up to us to
fight for that. So adopting wholesale a 'confrontational attitude'...?
         
I know this is semantics - but semantics and language are vital. In fact, its
pretty much all such statements are.

Lastly:

I've heard people say things like, "well, they were drawn up at a great big
meeting with lots of really experienced Southern and Northern activists."

The implication is: "these people were much sharper than any of us here, and
they know best. It's not our place to question the result."

That's appeal to authority - I'd hate to think that the global justice movement
was ossifying so much that certain ways of doing things became the Authority.

That is also totally against the spirit of point 5: decentralisation and
autonomy. As with the social forum movement (which has a charter), differing
social forums have always adapted their way of doing things based on local
circumstance - using the charter as a point of reference, yes, but never
appealing to its authority. Well... some people do! But an appeal to authority
in not an argument for.

So why can we not adapt?

DanOlner 08:17, 30 Sep 2005 (BST)