Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 23:53:34 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: JCR coup


This has not got through. Reposting. Mervyn

Dear Caroline,

Many thanks for all your kind words about me.

There are a few points that I feel should not go without comment.

I have never said that Council engineered a coup - I've said that the
deputy editor and his supporters, both on and off Council, have; see my
earlier posting. Given the deputy's ongoing veto of me the elected
editor (repeated on Council yesterday), it's a disgrace to Council that
he's still sitting in your midst participating in decisions from which
he personally stands to gain.

>We wanted
>to get a structure in which we could keep Mervyn,

Indeed. What wasn't sufficiently considered was that Mervyn might not
wish to be kept in a structure, in particular the one that was being
proposed - one in which he was demoted and stitched up in an editorial
collective in the composition of which he had little say.

>I cannot see that it was a 'smear campaign', though things were
>said with which Mervyn deeply disagreed.

There were defamatory statements by the deputy which he would have been
instructed by the Chair of any civilized forum to withdraw, but was not.
The statements are still on the Council record. To call what followed a
'debate' is to misuse of the English language.

>You have to understand that these two men had reached a point where
>they could not work together.

Not at all so on my part. As I have explained many times, I was working
with Justin right up to the day of his attack on me in Council, and was
fully intending to continue doing so. It was Justin who was saying that
he wouldn't work with me - indeed, that nobody at NTU would, even though
the admin staff were (the veto). 

>To
>personalise responsibility is inaccurate.

If persons are not responsible, who or what are?

With best wishes,

Mervyn



Caroline New <carolinenew-AT-blueyonder.co.uk> writes
>Dear listers,
>As a member of IACR Council, the infamous Council, supposed to have
>engineered a coup, I want to make a few comments on  Mervyn's description of
>events. I can only my own perceptions and take responsibility for my own
>mistakes.
>
>It's true that a debate on the form the editorship of JCR should take should
>never have been initiated just before the launch issue, especially without
>prior discussion with Mervyn.  If I were the editor of Alethia and then JCR,
>I too would have experienced that as a slap in the face. Yet there were no
>ill intentions on the part of the Council nor any wish to lose Mervyn. We
>have apologised for the way this was done. It was an inept attempt on our
>part to depersonalise the difficulties at NTU, to pre-empt a further
>deterioration in the relationship between our elected editor and his deputy
>by opening the possibility of getting more people on the team (which is
>normal enough). "Should we have an editor?" was the extreme possibility, the
>anarchist possibility, mentioned with a whole load of others in order to
>start debate. As a body, Council did not want to lose Mervyn. And not just
>because of his hard work, as he understandably feels, but because of his
>intelligence, his commitment, and his whole self - the man he is. We wanted
>to get a structure in which we could keep Mervyn, his deputy and the NTU
>agreement (which, like Mervyn's editorship, had been democratically
>decided). We made mistakes - that we don't deny, but the intentions were not
>as M understandably sees them.
>
>The debate in Council did not seem to me as one-sided as Mervyn's account
>suggests. I cannot see that it was a 'smear campaign', though things were
>said with which Mervyn deeply disagreed. You can be sure that Mervyn stated
>his position very articulately, both when he was in the 'information loop'
>because he was a member of Council, and afterwards. He was hurt and upset,
>and so was the deputy editor, whose own perceptions were very different from
>M's. Without first hand knowledge, Council members had to listen to and
>consider both viewpoints. I am not going to rehearse that debate, but I do
>want to say that I personally was involved in many of these behind the
>scenes phone calls. I spent hours on this painful dispute. Without
>exception, every call I made or received was aimed at mediation and
>reconciliation. There was no avid gossip, no scheming. All calls tried to
>figure out how we could handle this dispute so as not to lose Mervyn's
>invaluable work and his whole invaluable person, and the deputy editor's own
>useful contribution and the N.T.U. agreement. Call us inept, by all means,
>but I see no coup.
>
>I don't think it would be useful to go through all Mervyn's points, agreeing
>or disagreeing with him, although there certainly are alternative
>perspectives. It is because Council didn't want to do that that we have been
>so silent, although we feel that our intentions have been misrepresented.
>But I can make a few general comments.
>
>1) The General Secretary was in an impossible position in this dispute
>between two colleagues who had seriously fallen out and whose version of
>events was so much at odds. He has acted in good faith throughout. To take
>just one example, the votes were by e-mail - the General Secretary counted
>them, sure, as was his job, but he thought in advance that his good faith
>might be questioned and kept them so that they could be produced for anyone
>to see at any time. It's true that there was no debate about the two options
>once their formulations had been agreed. I don't think the Gen Sec said
>there should not be debate, I think he just said any suggestions for further
>changes to the wording of the options should be made to him privately, and
>that the votes should be private to avoid further polarisation. I had
>understood that there could be debate, and indeed had intended to send a
>public e-mail, but events in my personal life overtook me at that point.
>There's no doubt that the procedures weren't sufficiently clear. At this
>point any Council member could have stepped forward and said 'Stop! Do it
>this way!' None did. We were all confused and upset (and probably also
>exasperated), and it was not at all clear what to do. Painful feelings and
>polarised positions, and mutual accusations had been flying back and forth.
>We have to remember, as CRs of whatever sort, the structural emergent
>properties of this sort of organisation and of this sort of dispute. To
>personalise responsibility is inaccurate.
>
>(2) If you read the Constitution, you will find it is not so simple to know
>what should have been done at that point. Probably we should have had a
>by-election, if Mervyn's resignation had been accepted (which we were
>reluctant to do.) We were caught between two democratically reached
>decisions - Mervyn's position as elected editor, and the deputy and NTU
>package. It would have taken two months, according to the Constitution, to
>run a by-election, and we figured that would interfere with the production
>of JCR. You have to understand that these two men had reached a point where
>they could not work together. In retrospect I wish we had called an
>immediate by-election - wisdom in hindsight. Options 1 and 2 were an attempt
>to reach an interim solution that would permit continuity. It did not work.
>
>(3) It does take ages for Council to reach a decision. This is one of those
>structural emergent properties when you have a group of people whose jobs
>mean they are frequently away from e-mail access or perhaps too busy always
>to attend to their mail (for example I went to a remote cottage to work with
>a collaborator for the key week). This slow pace of decisions is still
>affecting us. We cannot make a statement without listening to everyone who
>wants to comment, modifying it, commenting on the modifications etc. Events
>have been moving faster than that.
>
>(4) From their contributions on the e-mail list, most of Council does not
>see the dispute in terms of antagonism between different stages of CR. I
>certainly don't see it like that. I don't believe that was behind the
>events, though no doubt it played a role in the personal polarisation. I
>don't personally find the TDCR direction useful, but I haven't the slightest
>wish to silence it or to exclude it. I want us to build structures and
>procedures that allow us to be together, to work together and discuss our
>differences.
>
>Personally I deeply regret what has happened. I hope even now we can find a
>solution that doesn't split the movement. For let's be realistic, the market
>will not bear two CR journals.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Caroline New
>
>


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