File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-06-08.010, message 196


From: glevy-AT-acnet.pratt.edu
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 10:33:56 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Berlin Congress 


From: Profit Margin <pmargin-AT-xchange.apana.org.au>
From: cube-AT-glas.apc.org
Sender: news-AT-xchange.apana.org.au

CONGRESS IN BERLIN

>From May 31-June 2 the First European Meeting for a Humane
Society and Against Neo-liberalism took place in Berlin.
The Congress, which was initiated by a call by the EZLN to
create an "intergalactic dialogue", was attended by 2-3
thousand people from the left spectrum. Almost 50 workshops
were held in two days at various centers in Berlin; there
were also large opening and closing meetings which filled
two auditoriums to capacity, a meeting in a radical circus,
cultural programs, parties and demonstrations. A number of
anarchists from Europe and the Americas attended and gave
some workshops.

Although often people felt obliged to make connections
between the topics of their workshops and the Zapatistas,
(quite a heated discussion sprung up on whether Chiapas and
Kosovo could be compared, for example), and many took pains
to examine the topic of neoliberalism in new ways (with the
Slovenian anarchists hosting a workshop on "Neoliberalism
and Intimacy"), the topics were of an extremely diverse
nature. As can be expected, much uncritical leftist politics
were heard, but also there were a great number of people
with radical perspectives who contributed much discussion to
the various topics.

Obviously much debate was heard about the real politics of
the Zapatistas. People questioned their use of the term
nationalism, the Mexican flag, how they are organized and
whether or not their political goals were reformist. An
interesting discussion took place after the Congress at A-
Laden, an anarcholocale, on exactly these questions.
Although their were many different opinions, everyone agreed
that there is no need to romanticize the Zapatistas but
instead to look crtically at them, (some people said we
should critically support them, others said its better to
support more radical projects) and try to find out more
information and keep others abreast of these findings.

Concerning anarcho-news, a national gathering of anarchists
>from the former Yugoslavia will take place this month and
the next East-West syndicalist meeting will take place in
the Czech Republic. Activists from FAU and the CFA are also
working on a project to buy a house in Praguw which will
serve as a meeting point for East and West.

Akai




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