Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 15:49:16 +1100
From: "-AT-ndy" <andy-AT-xchange.anarki.net>
Subject: Re: AUT: Porto Alegre - sectarianism and the left


Thiago Oppermann wrote:

> Well, I cannot see the difference between what you are arguing and what I said.

I'm not "arguing" anything.

> Basically the criticism is over the WSF's decision making structure, which you
> don't like, perhaps for good reasons.

When did I say anything about the WSF's decision-making structure?!? I merely quoted
from an interview with the FAG's International Secretary.

> In all other respects, you and the person quoted seem to agree that the WSF is an
> overwhelmingly positive event.

I don't know enough about the WSF to describe it as being "overwhelmingly positive".
To the extent that it provides an opportunity for people opposed to neo-liberalism
and global capitalism to meet and to discuss alternatives, that's a good thing. If
it's helped build the anarchist movement in Brazil, and strengthened ties between
anarchists and other libertarian revolutionaries, that's even better.

> About you being lazy: well, there are several reasons why the PT suck. A minimal
> acquaintance with Brazilian politics would provide you with enough ammunition to
> criticize them soundly. It would be worth knowing these rather than to relying on
> third-hand reports from anarchists, who are, in my opinion, very unreliable and
> bitchy. Basically, I find the account of the PT
> being an insurmountable barrier to political organisation in Porto Alegre
> extremely implausible.

I'm not 'relying on third-hand reports from bitchy unreliable anarchists' to
criticise the PT. As a matter of fact, I haven't said a single word on the subject
of the PT, let alone why they suck. I'm also unsure precisely what "account" you're
referring to: I certainly haven't composed one, I've simply quoted from another.

> Also on the story about breaking from the parade and being controlled by the CUT
> marshals - that is not the whole story; Brazil Indymedia - a den of middle class
> anarchists - had another take on it, which was that the anarchists tried to face
> off with the incomparably larger multitude, then joined in, didn't feel welcome
> and stormed off.

OK, so there are contradictory accounts of what happened at the WSF march in 2002.
Are you saying that the account you provide above is the accurate one? Maybe it is,
I don't know. How do you know? Were you there? If not, why give more credence to
this account than the one proffered by the FAG International Secretary other than
the fact that, iyo, anarchists are bitchy and very unreliable? And what on Earth
does it mean to say that Brazil Indymedia is a "den of middle class anarchists"?

"O Centro de Mídia Independente é um site de publicação aberta. O que é publicado é
de inteira responsabilidade dos autores."

In other (English) words - and just like every other Indymedia site - anyone can
publish their opinions on Brazil Indymedia, and it's certainly not the
responsibility of some iniquitous den of middle class anarchists to defend them.

> Furthermore, one may question what the point of breaking a bank to pieces would
> have been...

Of course! When did I say otherwise?!?

> not everyone likes that sort of protest; I don't see how this was the time for it,
> and I would have also tried to discourage people from engaging in it.

Sure, and I would have supported your right to do so.

> It seems totally pointless, given that a major meeting was underway to work out
> how to break the banks for good;

It was? What does 'breaking the banks for good' mean if not the dismantling of
capitalism? If this does imply the latter, does this really reflect the WSF's agenda
at Porto Alegre? That wasn't my impression.

> it would simply alienate a society which not so long ago was torturing and killing
> anarchists.

Putting aside the question of whether or not throwing eggs and stones at banks and
at McDonald's is going to alienate others, was it "society" that was not so long ago
torturing and killing anarchists, or was it the state?

> The MST's good behaviour: The MST is nothing if not militiant; they invade farms
> every week, they carry redistribution mano a mano. Last year, they occupied
> offices in Porto Alegre for two weeks in solidarity with their mates who had taken
> over the President's farm in Minas Gerais (another state). This didn't really win
> them many friends in the city; the PT and them have a very uneasy relationship in
> this and in many other instances. I imagine this had a lot to do with them not
> being so militant in this
> specific instance. I am please to inform you that they are back to their naughty
> ways now.

Naughty... but nice.

> Andy, the conference in Melbourne went well; but you didn't really go out of your
> way to embrace the trots did you? Did you give the ISO a "role in the decision
> making structure"? Why not? Amplify that reason by about a million and you have
> the reason why the FAG, a marginal group of maybe two thousand people, were not
> involved in the WSF at the same level the PT (which has millions of members) or
> the MST (250,000 _families_). Ie. there is an intense difference of opinion
> coupled with an enormous difference of scale.

You're right. There's no comparison between the WSF and NGNM. Not only didn't I go
out of my way to "embrace the trots" in organising the conference, any offer on
their part to play a determining role would have been refused (although they were of
course free to participate in the conference itself). This is because NGNM was an
'anarchist and an autonomist conference', not a 'world social forum'. Further, the
scale is completely different; the WSF is huge, NGNM was tiny.

That said, the basis of the FAG's complaint was that they believed, and the WSF was
billed as being, "an open forum". Officially then, it wasn't a conference of the PT
or the MST, and yet (again, according to the FAG) "it turned out that it wasn't like
that at all" and "when [the FAG] arrived at the opening meetings, everything had
already been decided by people high in the ranks of ATTAC and the [PT]". In other
words, the organisation wasn't decided by 'millions' of PT members or even 'a
quarter of a million' MST families, but a relatively small group of people at the
top of ATTAC and the PT... at least, that seems to be the opinion of the FAG.

> I honestly cannot see what is supposed to be wrong.

I honestly cannot see why you assume what I think, right or wrong.

> If the core of the forum is really doing what the FAG says it is doing,

- yes, the *FAG* -

> then, if we believe that of the 60,000 people at the WSF there are a significant
> number of people that are interested in anarchist ideas, we should organise
> parallel forums. It has worked well for the last two forums.

Which will

bring

us

back

to

'd'oh'!

You wrote that "critics of the WSF never pause to think why Jornadas Anarquistas,
the parallel anarchist forum, took place in Porto Alegre". As it happened, I'd just
recently read something about why this occurred, and so I posted an extract from an
article answering exactly that question.

I honestly don't understand what it is you think we're arguing about.

> It is in my view a little ironic that anarchists should be complaining about not
> being allowed into the central organising committee of anything... why should the
> Forum have only one organising committee? Where is the anarchist justification for
> that?

Huh? When did I (or any other anarchist, for that matter) propose that the Forum
"have only one organising committee"? Are you suggesting that we have? If so,
where's the evidence?

> On the other hand, there is something more disturbing about the WSF which no one
> has mentioned yet, which is the fact that such groups as ETA, Belgian fascists

"Belgian fascists"? Did they happen to accompany the Belgian prime minister, or was
he in a separate contingent?!?

> and the FARC were excluded; this is not good. These people were also in a position
> to complain about something, since they were not given visas. Would a couple of
> fascists in a crowd of 60,000 unionists be a bad thing?

For the fascists, or for the unionists?

(Btw, is this crowd of 60,000 unionists (?) related in any way to the unionists who
declared that they were going to boycott the WSF because of its 'conservative'
agenda?)

> It was a paranoid move to exclude them. As for ETA and the FARC, these are the
> actual cases of politically motivated control of the forum, as opposed to the
> somewhat prima-dona-ish complaints of the FAG.

I don't claim to know precisely what motivated the WSF organisers to exclude the ETA
and the FARC. According to an article in the NYT, however, it was because these
groups "use violence"; a hopelessly inadequate - not to mention hypocritical -
stance. As far as "prima-donna-ish complaints" is concerned, the same article states
that:

'The forum's centrist tilt is not endorsed by everyone here. Some 300 homeless
families connected to Brazil's National Shelter Struggle occupied an abandoned
14-story building in the old city center today, draping the movement's red flags out
of broken windows.

"The World Social Forum is reformist economically, traditionalist politically and
conformist socially," said Moésio Reboucas, one of Brazil's first antiglobalization
organizers. Mr. Reboucas said he was especially critical of the role played by
socialist politicians at the forum.'

-AT-ndy.



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