Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 18:13:52 +1000
From: pmargin-AT-xchange.apana.org.au (Profit Margin) (by way of sjwright-AT-vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Steve Wright))
Subject: E;M.De Angelis: Report from Berlin 1/2


I'm crossposting in 2 parts Massimo's account of the Berlin Encuentro, as I
think it will be of interest.

Steve

Subject: E;M.De Angelis: Report from Berlin Encuentro (May 30 - Jun 2)
Message-ID: <199607120252.VAA12939-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 21:52:28 -0500 (CDT)
Sender: news-AT-xchange.apana.org.au
Reply-To: Chiapas 95 Moderators <chiapas-AT-mundo.eco.utexas.edu>

This posting has been forwarded to you as a service of
Accion Zapatista de Austin.

NOTE BENE: This is the first account we have been able to read of the
European Encuentro Continental that took place in Berlin. The Germans who
put up a web page about that Encuentro, ahead of time, have apologized
for being slow to followup with accounts of the meeting itself. I would
like to solicit any other accounts that those who attended would like to
share, and any comments on this account from other participants. There
are bits of analysis in this account which have implications for the
upcoming Encuentro InterContinental in Chiapas.

1. Among other things the
need for discussion both within the framework of the workshops and
outside, between sessions. The division of the meetings in several
different towns in Chiapas will make cross discussion between
mesas difficult. Moving from town to town is not likely to be easy under
the conditions of low intensity warfare which exist in Chiapas. Some may
feel the need to gather AFTER the Encuentro in San Cristobal or
elsewhere to have some of the discussions which are not possible DURING
the event. Such events should only be nodal points within a developing
conversation about all the topics raised. One place that conversation
can go on is on the Net in places like Chiapas-l and Zapatismo. It can
begin now, and continue after the meeting in Chiapas.

2. From what I have been able to learn, an important aspect of the
discussions in Europe leading up to the Berlin meeting concerned the
question of the applicability of the Latin American term "neoliberalism"
to the situation in Europe, from Thatcherism to Maastricht to the
present. It is my impression that there has been a growing understanding
in Europe of the parallels between capitalist policies and people's
resistance in both hemispheres, East and West (or North & South). This
is extremely important for the creation of a global movement against
neoliberalism. There have been struggles against neoliberalism
throughout the world, but the understanding the common characteristics
of those struggles has been piecemeal at best. The Zapatistas have been
saying this for two years, and the message is being heard, more and more
people are agreeing and thinking about the implications. Begin to imagine
the possible consequences of a growing portion of the struggling peoples
of the world understanding that they have a common enemy --and acting
accordingly.  At the end of month many of those at the Berlin Meeting
(including the author of this report) will be in Chiapas. We need to talk
about how we can accelerate such understanding and how it can contribute
to a global movement against the globally repressive policies of
neoliberalism.


Harry

The REALIDAD in Europe: an account of the first European
meeting against neoliberalism and for humanity, Berlin 30 May - 2
June 1996.

Massimo De Angelis


                                We Begin but we follow on
                                We follow on and yet we begin
                                We will meet again

                                (Subcomandante Marcos)


After the aseptic dinner offered by British Airways, Liona tells me
her reason for going to Berlin. She tells me she wants to find her
roots, she is meeting there with her father, cousins and other
relatives.  They will all go visit  where her grandfather used to
live, and then they will go to Dachau, to see where her grandfather
was last seen. She is a mid 40 year old Jewish woman from Israel
she is a direct descendant of the holocaust. She is angry and
uneasy  to land in Germany, where she has never been before.
She tells me she is so angry, an anger that she carries with herself
all the time,  an anger that grows all the time she addresses the
question, without finding an answer that would make sense: why?

What a coincidence! Liona goes to Berlin  to find  her roots, roots
of a family tragedy shared with other millions of people. I go to
find what are the elements of  hope for a new life, a new  human
society. Liona goes to get in touch with the tragic brutality of
Nazism. I go to get in touch with the tragic brutality of
Neoliberalism. And then, I think, wait a minute, the Nazis got to
power after the failure of Old-liberalism, when old-liberalism got
stuck in the Soviet  Revolution, the great depression, and the
world wide circulation of struggles. Nazism was German' capital
way to deal with this crisis and these struggles. This is something
to keep in mind.

Yes, Marcos was right to suggest Berlin for the European site of
the First conference against neoliberalism and for humanity.  In
Berlin East and West meet, but also North and South. In Berlin
they check  underground tickets with dogs and the police are not
only nasty (like in every other country) but also look so. In Berlin
you can stare into  the eyes of  the face of  our repression, and also
that of our consumerist contentment. But East and West,  the
police were nasty also before, still, this did not prevent the wall
>from falling. Right, the wall. It was half past one in the morning
in Alexander plaza tube station where a fifteen year old punk-
looking girl tells me there are no more trains in the direction
towards where I want to go. It turns out we are going the same
way. We walk and she tells me she was seven at the time (so long
time ago!), and her father did not like it because he was a soldier -
"no, not a high ranking one" she reassures me - and her mother
too did not like it because she was a teacher and she had to go
back to university. They are both unemployed now. Anne tells me
she now lives with her parents who don't mind her coming home
so late. Nine of them in six rooms, five brothers and sisters, and
her boyfriend., not so bad, but a weird composition for a
patriarchal nuclear family. She tells me she was just released by
the police who stopped her few hours earlier because she was
hanging around the street with some friends having fun. The
police joked about her look, and beat her head with the club. She
showed me it was swollen right there, in the shaved part of her
head. She also tells me that she has dropped out of school, but
next year she will go back. Her hope is to continue to carry on
with what she calls "street life". When I ask her what she means
by it she shake her shoulder and says "I don't know".

So this is Berlin as I have experienced it, minus the meeting, that
took most of the rest of my time. The info point was at
Mheringof, in the Kreuzberg area. This was a big building (or
two?), two courtyards one of which had  outside tables and a pub
selling nice German beer.  There was a  big boiler and a table
selling something that must have been soy stew with potatoes. It
was tasty, and a large bowl  cost  4DM, and an even larger one
6DM. Not bad.  The comrades in Berlin had put effort into making
affordable food available, although at times I was met with a
2.5DM price tag for a small, tiny somoza. "In solidarity," was the
explanation. It was 7 o'clock  on Thursday evening when I
arrived, and a big welcoming banner in several languages was at
the entrance. One thing about these meetings that always hit me is
their colour. Entering the yard in Mharingof  was like leaving the
grey tones of a black and white film and entering a colour one.
Posters, graffiti, banners, people's T-shirts, hair, eyes, skin.
(Right, skin. I must say that the there were not many blacks
around , the European population from Africa was definitively
underrepresented). And the colour hits you in a different way as it
hits you when you enter a supermarket. Apart from the Trotskists
who will abandon their disguise during the meetings in the
following days, nobody really seems to want to sell  you anything
here. Once you arrive at the meeting point you know you are
going to meet with someone who communicates on the same
wavelength as you,  and you will remember his or her colours.
And you will read a poster  and  you recognise its message and
remember the picture. Colours in this context are not a means to an
end like in  a supermarket, but they come with the end, with the
communication.

At the info desk  they have my name. They show me a map and I
realise the meeting will be spread all around Berlin (Also the
accommodation will be distributed within a large area. But, I did
not hear of anybody remaining without a roof). This, I think,  is a
bit frustrating. The nice thing about meetings is that you meet.
And you meet  especially after meeting. It is then when you
discuss, exchange opinions, ideas, laugh, try to convince each
other, joke or simply have fun.  This of course is facilitated if you
all meet in the same area. But anyway, the good thing is that
Mheriongof was a centre that everybody passed by in the evening.

This is the structure of the meeting. On Thursday there were some
organisational meetings which I missed. On Friday morning the
general plenary which officially opened the First European
Meeting Against Neoliberalism and for Humanity. Then in the
afternoon and the entire following day workshops on different
themes. Friday and Saturday evenings, the meeting of the
delegates from each workshop; so as to inform everybody else of
what was going on and decide the structure and content of the final
assembly on Sunday. After the assembly, the meetings would be
closed with a demonstration.

The plenary on Friday was therefore the first act, the public
prelude where everybody met. Even if these sort of things are a bit
boring (after all a parade of six speakers is a bit much) and don't
allow much time for intervention from the floor, debates and lively
arguments, this initial plenary provided the opportunity to hear a
selection of different approaches to a common theme. And there
were many, many, many perspectives on a common theme, many
possible "vanishing lines" starting from a same point, from the
same theme. The question of the identification of our enemy,
neoliberalism? Or capitalism? Or either plus patriarchy? Plus
racism? Or does neoliberalism, or capitalism, include these and
more? Many of us of course had our own answer, but I want to
press on, because the point is that despite our differences in the act
of making sense of our enemy, we were meeting;  we were all
trying to put a name to it. With  the act of describing our enemy
the question was: how many ways  were there to experience our
enemy? We experience neoliberlism (or whatever) in the act of
consumerist colonisation of our minds, or in the cuts in hospital
beds, or the increase in unemployment, or privatisation and
intensification of work in a Russian-Italian-German-French
factory, or increased marginalisation of women, etc. etc. How
many perspectives, how many sensuous ways are there to say this
is it, this is what our enemy is doing to us, these are the ways our
dignity is taken away from us.

Oh yes, dignity. Now, if  the city of Berlin symbolises the
geographical point of encounter of East and West, North and
South, misery and contentment, oppression and struggle, the idea
of dignity is where our experience of oppression and our drive to
get rid of it and constitute a new realidad meet.  This is I think
what  the Zapatistas have taught us, the point at which revolution
is not eternal return (like in the movement of stars and planets),
but rupture, going beyond. "En el poder pesa el dinero, en el
rebelde pesa la dignidad" "Dignity still escapes the logic of the
market and gets its weight and value where it really counts, - in the
heart. . . ". Is this petty voluntarism? Is this romanticism? I don't
think so. You had to see the show in the last plenary on Sunday.

An actor on the stage of this very nice congress hall spraying all
sort of disgusting stuff on himself, dirtying himself and his
clothes, his long black hair getting sticky and such disgusting
show got worse when he embraced the symbol of neoliberalim,
hugged it, offered himself to it, and the symbol stared at us and
him immobile, eternal, like the skeleton it was. But then, Ya
Basta, Ya basta what? Ya basta the loss of dignity. Ya basta the
dirt, ya basta being humble in front of his oppressor. A big bucket
in front of him full of water and he starts to wash. Such a
refreshing show. He washes his face, his hair. He undresses and
washes his body, while someone else, starts to pick up the
rubbish around him, and mops the floor of the stage. And a voice
says "lack of dignity is not waterproof" "neoliberalism is not
waterproof"  (now this is a good line). I never thought about that.
The big artificial monster, neoliberalism, versus water, the most
natural of the natural elements, symbol of cleaning and freshness.
It was like expressing the old radical truth in a more spiritual way,
in a way much more directed to the senses rather than to the brain:
profit and boundless work  versus needs and aspirations. It was
all so refreshing. At the end, he lights a big lump of incense,
leaves the stage and starts to walk among the public, in an act of
spiritual cleansing of our bodies,  many people offered themselves
to participate in this new improvised ritual, this game with a
political meaning, like saying yes compagneros, lets clean all this
sheisse.1  Until the security guard rushed into him and grabbed
his arms saying "Gegen die Bestimmungen der Feuerverordnung"
(Its against the fire regulation) like the people around him could
not deal with a live coal on the floor, like we were not alert, like
we needed someone invested with authority to regulate our ritual
for dignity, for humanity and against neoliberalism. We, of
course, did not let him have his way, and he, of course, was only
doing his job.

So, finally, the question, of how to go beyond our relation with
our enemy. How to be for humanity. How? How? So, here is a
selection of thoughts, which I will not attribute to any individual
person, but I like to think all come out of the same collective brain,
all come out of our collective senses, and if they look
contradictory, well then, this is not the limitation, but the condition
upon which to build our strength. Because I am the writer here
and I have the power to dismantle the introductory panel, and
make of it a new thing.

946 of us are here, the announcement comes right at the
beginning. If each of us represent only 10 people, there are almost
10,000 of us here. And what do we want? "Not to conquer the
world. Just to build another one." Of course any disenchanted
materialist would immediately argue that to make one anew we
have first to conquer it. Is it? Will the eternal question of the
assault on the winter palace always be with us? We will start to
live only after: after midnight, after the revolution, after we have
dealt with the white guard, after we have dealt with the foreign
enemies, after the war, after the peace, after the competitor has
been beaten, after the traitor has been shot, after the nazis have
been defeated, after, after, after. And to keep us in silence, and
swallow another frustrated "after", the power of an ideology
above us, above everybody: "you shall restraint voicing your
needs because there is no time now, because we have not power
yet." No, what do we need power, I mean, that power, for? This
time we start from needs and aspiration, we first start to voice
them in ways everybody can understand them, and not only those
who have been educated in radical-trotskist-anarchist-socialist-
comunist-all-you-can-eat circles. Because communism is for the
common people, for that guy rushing a hamburger down his throat
at McDonald; for that woman walking about with two children and
four shopping bags; and so many others. So many other
minorities making up the majority of us.  We start now to voice
needs and aspiration without the fear to be labelled "revisionist",
"traitors" "social-democratic", because we are beyond all this, we
are beyond the old dichotomies. We want to build another world.
Period. This is the starting point. Who will negate our right to
build another world? Will they send the army against us? Will they
build new concentration camps? Will they shoot at us in the street?
In the jungles? Of course they will. They have always done it.
Now, that will be a question of power, of a power relation of us
vis a vis them. But we don't want power for ourselves at the
exclusion of others.

Can we get out of our ghetto and enter into an offensive dialogue
with society and political parties? Some part of this collective brain
said that neoliberalism is best described as capitalism without
limit. But we people we do have a limit. But no form of capitalism
has limit. Can we ever understand this? If we could just stop and
think for a moment, the reason of being of profit making. How




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