ESF London October 2004

Will there be minutes/a full report posted up on Indymedia? All we are getting at the
moment is bits of information from both camps. Can someone tell us what happened?

Around 300+ attended the European Assembly. From outside the UK, countries represented included:Poland, Germany, Turkey, France, Italy, Austria, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Holland, Sweden & Switerland.

Translation was provided by volunteers. The photo in an earlier post was not us sitting passively, but listening intently to the translation in our headphones.

I expect there will be reports soon of the assembly, including the workshops.

The next European Assembly will be held in Istanbul on April 17/18.

The horizontals are a loose open network of people who share some basic concerns about top down processes, transparency, grassroots participation, etc... and an assertive attitude. Within that there are many opinions, and there is not a completely cohesive party line to toe on many of the concrete issues raised in the ESF.

One of the chairs read out a list of luminaries to be invited as guests to bring attention and publicity to the ESF. You could criticise the whole concept of personalities versus real debates, the particular names , or the fact that the list had not been circulated before and decisions were taken by crowd shouting, not a very good form of consensus. Some of the names were opposed, like Garcia Marquez, by small groups of people but come on, nobody opposed Nelson Mandela, that was pure demagogy. The main block came from foreigners like COBAS and the Greek Social Forum who thought the list should be drafted after more discussion on programm had taken place on a European level, in the next assembly. Those in London Organising Committee were horrified at waiting two extra months to start contacting people to put their names in posters and leaflets.

I agree it was a pain to take so long to on some relatively simple points, but the lesson should be that having a good process before the meetings is crucial. People travelled accross Europe just to be read out UK decisions and then expected to stamp them without deep discussions or modifications. This was the main problem throughout the weekend.

Its true that the main block on the 'list of celebrities' didn't come from the horizontals but by people of many political stripes from across Europe. The main issue wasn't with the people named but a general feeling that the list was being imposed outside of any 'normal' channels, which people were sensitive to in a context where no one really trusts the process much. A lot of the issue could have been avoided if the chair (why she introduced it I'm not sure?) had been more sensitive to the debate