Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 18:14:35 +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 2/2


much money is enough? And if money is power, then it
presupposes powerlessness. But in Russia, neoliberalism is a
recent term, and it carries a positive meaning. Nobody understand
that in Russia people are still living neoliberalism after the
privatisation and its effect. No, every intellectual claims that we
need liberalism and after that people will be fine.  Ah, yes, the
"after" argument. Again, and in new form, in the Russian case.  Is
there a link between neoliberalism and the exploitation of women?
Or their oppression? Is there hope against this in re-tuning our
senses? For a different use of seeing, hearing, feeling. We must
have a different use of our senses, says a feminine part of our
collective brain, while the masculine one will interrogate from the
floor: "what do you mean?", "I don't understand". Enough with
the idea of yielding power on other people. Let us deal with the
taboo in our society. A taboo is what separates us, like sex, like
money. Yes money, what is it? What do we use it for? To buy
things, and this depends on our beliefs, our priorities. Why don't
we communicate, why don't we ask what does it mean to belong,
what does it mean to be lesbian, gay, unemployed, factory
worker, student, black. The feminine use of our senses, is this it?
is it identification? is this reality not as external objective but as
lived experience? We have to take minorities into account. And
there are many, many minorities, so many that their sum makes
the majority of us. We are divided, because divide and conquer is
the enemy's strategy. So we lobby, but by lobbying we accept the
taboo, our status as minority. Yes, like the minority represented
by the striking French workers in December. It was a great social
movement, in which tendencies of self-organisation developed
together with a struggle against a particular European form of
neoliberalism, Maastricht. But this social movement did not have
political expression. Besides, the politics of worsening living
condition in France started under a left wing government. We need
a different reality to counterpoise to the existing one, the one we
cannot accept. We need an autonomous government by the
workers. But who are the workers? Are the workers one of the
minorities? I mean, workers as we generally understand them.

A young part of the collective brain intervenes and says that this is
old stuff, that we will not get the youth with us if we insist on old
analyses, that we don't want to abolish capitalism, only find a new
solution. So, some don't like the word abolish. It seems more and
more an academic question. Are we for the abolishment of
capitalism or not, or for finding a solution within it? In the first
half there is the disenchantment of those who think that the
problem is with the system, that we must abolish it and then we
will be liberated. It is the old "after" argument. In the second half
there is the idea that the priority is not confrontation but needs, real
issues, here and now, that if we start from these we could
convince those with power over us to give it up. I am for a healthy
compromise. Let us start from real concrete sensuous needs and
aspirations, start to voice them, and organise around them. No,
we are not for confrontation. We don't want to ask for it.
However, will they be prepared to give up their power, their
factories, their resources, their land, their means of
communication, their means of socialisation, their means of
transport, their brain- colonising consumerist values, their
advertising agencies, their arm trade, their neoliberalist sheisse,
their boundless profit motive, their undemocratic parliamentary
democracy, their exclusion of grassroots power, their strategies to
divide us into a wage hierarchy to better conquer us? If they do,
there is no reason for confrontation. But if they don't,
confrontation is no longer an academic question. So yes, let us
start from needs, and be warned that even if we don't want
confrontation, there is a very much high chance that we may get it.
So it is better to be prepared for it.

The collective brain splits into 24 groups, into 24 workshops.  I
went to a couple of them, and this was already too much. The one
I went to was on the social movement in France and class struggle
in Europe. It was spread over two days, Friday and Saturday, and
the aim was the discussion of self organisation in Europe, how the
struggle against neoliberalism was carrying on, to connect with
each other, limits and strengths of our efforts, etc. Yet again, too
much space was given to the panellist. I voiced it, and the second
day it was better. But when in the first day the discussion finally
started, we all witnessed the parade of various Trotskyists
organisations presenting general statements about capitalism and
concluding about the needs of a workers party (This, I was told by
other comrades attending other groups, was a common problem
for many workshops, especially the first day). You may add that
all this was translated in four languages, so the pain of  the
slowness of the communication added to the pedantry of the
message. Oh, yes, the translations. I must say that a tremendous
effort was put to allow translations to occur. There were four
official languages (German, French, Spanish and English). In the
plenary translation was simultaneous, so all of us got this nice
little wireless device where we could select our preferred
language, but in the workshops it  was more artisan. We were
split into  different groups around the meeting room, and each
group had a personal translator. This slowed down the meeting
enormously, but it worked. It reduced however  the ability for
interacting. The translator may miss something, may summarise a
concept that you think should not be summarised, or give a
flavour that indeed is different from the one intended by the
speaker. Furthermore, you cannot intervene and say "hey, what
the hell you are talking about", because the translator must be told,
must agree in breaking the procedure. In other words, the fact we
have different languages in a meeting is a pain, and confines us in
rules of procedures which are difficult to act upon, but it is at the
same time very educational, because it teaches us patience.

Sergei from Russia comes to see me after the first day's meeting
and asks  what I think about all these calls for a workers party. I
say that it is indecent, that we should not come out with general
statements, that we should talk about real issues, real problems
faced by the self-organisation in Europe, and ways to overcome it.
He agrees, and tells me he is shocked to hear this stuff in Berlin,
that he knows, coming from Russia, what all that meant, that we
should forbid them to talk. I say the best way is to win the
argument and I predict for the next day their silence. After all, they
had their statements, if we ignore them they don't have anything
more to say. They are not equipped to talk about the here and
now, the concrete ways to move forward. I was right. The
following morning the real debate started. A comrade from the
French rail workers started to describe the strength of self-
organisation in France during the last autumn strikes. And we all
tuned in. Intervention from Turkey, Greece, a group of
unemployed in Paris, etc., things started to flow, trying to address
concrete issues. But wait a minute. Where were the Italians?
Anybody from COBAS? Where were the dockers from Liverpool?
How many other groups around Europe could have come, could
have brought their experience to this meeting; open up with us the
problem of their organisations, start to discuss links among us? So
I make the proposal that next time, because we are going to have a
next time, the organisation of the continental meetings should have
some national representatives in charge of the co-ordination of
national participation. This NOT in order to exclude people and
groups. On the contrary, so as to go around the country and
invite-promote-suggest-beg groups of workers-activists-trouble
makers-artists, that their presence is important, that they should
come and offer it to us, so as we can all learn and build
connections.

So these were the themes of my group: workers party; no workers
party but self-organization; general strike in Europe for a 35 hours
working week; why 35 hours? systematic reduction in the
working week; reduction of working time is good only for those
who have work, those with low wages and casual labour need
higher wages to have the power to refuse to work; proletarian
shopping and redistribution of wealth to the marginalised in Paris;
difficulty of organisation in Turkish working class communities;
circulation of struggles; social wage; class composition and
difficulty of organisation; trade union bureaucracies have betrayed
the workers in France; trade union bureaucracies have always
betrayed the working class and the point is to understand what
were the conditions that allowed this to happen; trade union
bureaucracies are incapable of internationalism so this is left to
self-organisation; Liverpool dockers as an example of modern
anti-neoliberalism struggle on a global level; how does their
struggle acquire significance for the unemployed in Paris, part-
time women workers in London, students in Berlin, factory
workers in Warsaw? Is it possible to build the circulation  of our
self-organisation on the basis of minimum concrete demands and
circulation? In other words, the topics discussed and issues raised
in this workshop were at times opposite (workers party vs self-
organisation) at times complementary (self organisation of the
French strikers - what can we learn and how to move forward). I
am sure in other workshops too there was a variety of positions
often contradictory, and  lots lots lots of energy had to go on
questions of method, of  categories used, of problems different
people felt relevant, in ways to approach the monster and make
sense of it. In my workshop on self-organisation in Europe, the
general sense I had was that the notion of the struggling subjects
was exclusively defined within the labour market and that there
was not much discussion of the relation between antagonist forms
and constitutive processes of a new realidad (the "for humanity" in
the title of the meeting).

I have to tell you something that has been very very instructive in
the frustration it has generated, and the limitation and strength of
our experience of direct democracy. On Saturday evening we had
the meeting of the delegates from the workshops. This was
supposed to be the forum within which to decide the organisation
of the final day, the content of the final plenary. How to close?
With a declaration or not, and what to write in the final
declaration? First thing to point out is of course the question of
delegates, their selection. In our group we decided quite sensibly
that we were all delegates, and so whoever wanted to go to the
meeting of the delegates was free to do so. Other groups
apparently elected delegates without raising much opposition while
in some the election of delegates among people who did not know
each other has been troublesome.  Some complained they did not
feel represented by their delegates and therefore showed up. So,
the groups of "delegates" was a mixture of people some formally
elected, some just showing up, some angry because they were no
selected, some because "I don't know who is going from my
group", some because "we are all delegates". The meeting
formally started at 8 o'clock and with the usual format allowing
for translation that slowed down communication -- one thing we
had to learn was patience, patience, patience, in order to wait for
the response -- we embarked in the decision process. . . Five
hours later we were still there in complete frustration as nothing
had been decided yet, people getting angry in Spanish, German,
French, and English, the moderator bursting into tears and saying
enough.

A Mexican comrade tells me what perhaps best describes what has
happened: "in Chiapas the indigenous population use direct
democracy as a means of survival. Here it seems it seems
artificial." Indeed, he might have been right. The difficulty was in
the very irritating obstructionism I felt came from our petty clash
of egos. Although we had reminded ourselves several times that
we could only decide simple practical things, that the general
assembly was sovereign for coming up with any general political
statement, people kept coming up with general political statements.
Back to square one. Although after an exhausting round of
intervention it was clear that the overall opinion was that it did not
make sense to elect delegates for the meeting this July in Chiapas
(after all we did not know each other) at times some popped up
saying s/he believed we should elect delegates without addressing
the opposite argument. Back to square one.  Although after
another exhausting round of interventions the need  was expressed
for a very simple, general and comprehensive declaration saying
very minimalist things such as "this European meeting is closed"
to propose to the assembly and formalise the closure of the
meeting, some popped up saying it was not up to us propose
anything and the assembly was sovereign (like anybody was
questioning that). Back to square one. The general impression was
therefore that we were not there as persons bringing our
background, experience, sensibility to help solve a problem and
move forward. No, we were there as representatives of our pre-
established fixed opinions of how to do things and it was very
difficult to communicate operationally beyond a grand statements
level.

This is something we must really start to deal with. At the end, we
were all exhausted, a new moderator was found, and we were able
to at least approve the agenda for the next day's plenary. At two
o'clock in the morning some of us (anybody who wanted, no
exclusion, but very few wanted to at that hour) went to the top
floor of the Mheringof building in the Latin American centre to
finalise the organisational aspect of the following day. Who
speaks first, when will the band play, and this sort of stuff. Good
thing they had a kitchen with few boiled potatoes so we fried and
ate. And there was plenty of fresh coffee. Still, at about four
o'clock  while the others were deciding the schedule of the
following day meeting I crashed on a mattress between two
shelves full of books on Western imperialism in Latin America and
was awaken three hours later by the sound of a fax machine in my
ear. It was a salute from Marcos . . . if only we got this earlier we
could have avoided a lot of stuff, like the question of the
delegates. He says that it is up to the national realities to decide
who goes and not up to us. Fortunately we arrived at the same
conclusion.

The final cut, the plenary.  The collective brain still working. This
time representatives of all workshops were delivering in four
minutes the results of their discussion. Any new links? Any new
organisational connection across Europe? Any new subversive
synapses sparked  in these two days?  The role of science . . .  We
want a colourful society . . . We need to talk about ourselves,
discuss our needs without pressures from industry and big
corporations . . . The meeting was a good context to build
connections, to network  with what is happening in the rest of the
world . . . Neoliberalism and individualism, we think of ourselves
as individuals at the expenses of others . . .  Competition . . . low
wages . . . fight back . . . fight forward . . . patriarchy . . .
women for a better world . . .  women against the invisibility we
are forced into . . . of our work  . . . patriarchal structure that
makes our work invisible . . .  . . . as long as there is one
oppressed woman (man, child, gay . . . ) there will not be a new
society . . . resolution for the prisoners in Mexico, 2977 political
prisoners since 1995, 500 desaparecidos. . . .  and  many other
thoughts and resolutions paraded in the last plenary. At one forty-
five the news that the police had surrounded the building. there is
the news of some arrest and it is recommended not to leave the
building alone. especially foreigners. Someone says: this is
normal, every time we have a demo in Germany we have the
police.

At three o'clock the planned demo. A thousands of us, but most of
these people were not at the conference. The final act of the ritual,
the whether turns nasty and a heavy rain replaces the three days of
heat. Many of us are marching with our bags. Enough. Too wet, I
run towards the subway on my may to the airport. The meeting is
officially closed.

    1 "Todo nosotros sabemos que "Neoliberalismo" se dice en
eleman "Scheisse"" Letter to the European Continental Meeting
Against Neoliberaism and for Humanity by Marcos.








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