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 --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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