• WG about future

questions about Chico's contribution

from "Francine Mestrum" on Dec 19, 2012 03:40 PM
Dear Chico, Gina, Rita and all the others,

Many thanks Chico for your contribution. It shows there still are people who
care about the IC and its future. I think this is a very important
discussion and we should try to intensify it.

Gina is glad, Rita is worried, or so I understood, I have mainly questions.
I've read the text in French, English and Portuguese, each time hoping to
find the answers in another language version, but I did not.

So please Chico, allow me to ask for clarifications.

I totally agree with you on one point: if the IC has no clear objective  and
not enough really committed members, it can as well be dissolved. But in
what way will the 'new movement' be different? 

Why would it be possible to have a strategy(p. 5) if the IC cannot have one
(p. 3)?

Who would be the members of such a movement?

Why would the need of an 'assembly of assemblies' disappear?

Why would the 'horizontalism' of the 'new movement' have less damaging
results as the one of the IC? (See also below)

Why would it be possible to develop a 'new political culture' in the 'new
movement' if it was not possible in the IC? (see also below)

Why would the WSF as 'space' disappear and why can there not be a
transformative action if there is only space (p. 5)?

If I understand correctly, it would be a loose movement, with decentralized
secretariats, and the General assembly of the movement would meet in let us
say Tunis, after the WSF, and take decisions on the next WSF in, let us say,
the US or India or Latin America? But if it is all decentralized, with own
funding, will there not be a majority of people from the Maghreb taking
decisions on a forum in the US, India or latin America?  Is that a desirable
situation?

All these things are not clear to me.

Allow me also to spell out a couple of my 'convictions':

1)      I think we are too much focusing on definitions: space or action;
space or movement; facilitators or coordinators. As a linguist, I know the
importance of words and what they can 'do', but I also know it is people who
give their meaning to words, and it is what we do or want to do that is most
important. And whether we call it 'IC' or 'new movement' will not change
anything if we have no clear objective and or strategy;

2)      I think this is the greatest deficit of our 'IC' and WSF: what is
our objective? 'Surpass neoliberalism' is far too abstract to be practical.
Do we want to make one global movement? (but then we should not
decentralize); Do we want to have one ideology? (but then we should focus on
convergence); do we want to have common actions? (but then we should
organize more discussions on our agendas). I strongly believe that as long
as we have no clear objective, we can indeed have no strategy, and then our
meetings of the past have been useful but the potential of the WSF formula
is now exhausted.

3)      I have serious doubts about the horizontality: it either means that
nothing happens, since no one feels responsible for organizing anything; or
it means hidden power relations and undemocratic decision-making. If things
in the past have worked well, from IC to LC, it was because one or more
persons did feel responsible and took things into their hands. That is what
we need, in a democratic and participative way.

4)      We do indeed need a new political culture, and we still do not have
it: it means democracy and transparency, gender equality, responsibility .

5)      And we need committed people, ready to do practical work in a
responsible and open way. This is also what is now missing. 

6)      As I have been able to say before: the 'process may be going well',
but this can only be satisfactory for people who think the action is more
important than the results. And while, at the theoretical level,
neoliberalism already lost the battle, at the practical level, politically,
we are losing . this makes me sad.

Hope my questions are not seen as undemocratic or as aggressive. I do my
best.

Francine



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