Flame, shame and symbols

tim — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:03:55 +0000

It couldn’t have been more symbolic. We all strained to see the Olympic flame, barely visible, ringed by a double band of Chinese security guards and British police as it approached Downing Street.

‘Just look at them!’ said a frail and elderly Londoner, balancing precariously on the wall next to me. ‘We’ve become a police state!’ she added as officers fell upon individual demonstrators who got over the barricades.

Inside No 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was welcoming the Olympic torch – and prudently avoiding all physical contact with it. You’d have thought it was – well, not a torch but a bloodied torture baton.

But, hang on! The Olympic Games are non-political – as leading politicians keep telling us. Then why are they talking about it so much? And why did they jump on that absurd torch relay PR bandwagon?

Perhaps they know that it’s just not true. For the host country the Games are almost inevitably political. In China’s case this is especially so, as its leaders milk the opportunity for recognition of national clout – economic, political, military.

Ask the people living in occupied Tibet what that clout feels like. Ask those in the Darfur region of Sudan or those in Burma what it feels like to live under an oppressive state backed by China. Ask human rights activists, environmentalists and exploited workers within China itself, about the consequences of lack of political freedom.

As the torch proceeds around the world, the symbolism will become even more poignant. It’s due to cross the Himalayas – a route taken by thousands of Tibetans each year as they flee their country to take refuge in Nepal. As a final slap in the face, in June the torch is due to be taken into Tibet itself.

What is currently happening in the Tibetan region is, unfortunately, more than symbolism. The repression has increased since the March protests which exiled groups say resulted in 140 deaths. The Free Tibet Campaign reports that last week police in Sichuan province fired on hundreds of Buddhist monks and residents, resulting in eight deaths. Meanwhile the Chinese authorities have launched a programme to ‘re-educate’ Tibetans.

The international focus on China’s role in Tibet is greater than ever, creating a sense of possibility. ‘In Tibet too,’ one exile told me at the London demo, ‘our youth are chanting “Free Tibet” although it is very dangerous for them. If they get caught they are arrested and tortured.’

But asked to comment another Tibetan exile said: ‘I’m sorry. I can’t speak. I can’t talk to you about this. We have lost so much’

That’s what cultural genocide is about: the systematic destruction of everything that matters to a people. And for Tibetans it’s been going on for almost six decades now.

The Way to Make Another Europe?

eddie — Sun, 14 May 2006 17:00:23 +0000

Another Europe is Possible, declares the banner attached to a big blue hangar at the old Athens aerodrome where the 4th European Social Forum is being held.

Enter the building and you are faced with flanks of stalls bearing red flags, banners and posters. Groups associated with the Greek communist movement are most prominent here, followed by trade unions. A little further back is a bank of bookstalls, most of which carry exclusively Marxist publications.

To the side, a few rows back, are a sprinkling of other more diverse groups concerned with the environment, human rights, gender and sexual equality and the like.

Its not that this four-day gathering of Europes global justice movement is entirely dominated by the hard and traditional left but it has an undeniably heavy presence.

What are billed as seminars are often massive, and politicians, trade unions leaders and their respective paunches, are amply represented among the speakers.

There are other throwbacks to a less diverse era.

One seminar on Cyprus has a panel of 10 speakers and every one of them is male. This is despite the fact that, as one of the audience points out, feminist groups have taken a leading role in peace initiatives to resolve the countrys 30-year-old conflictive stalemate.

Corrina Genschel of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation observes: It seems that the more local the social forum is, the more traditional and less critical of gender roles it becomes this appears to be the case at least in Europe.

Which Europe?

So what is the other Europe which is possible?

Well, its not likely to be the Europe currently represented by the 25-member strong European Union (EU) based in Brussels. That body is one that puts business before social concerns, corporations before people.

The alternative Europe that most people here are trying to create is a social Europe; one that protects public services and workers rights and that resists their erosion within the European Union.

The target of much and repeated criticism at the Athens forum is the so-called Lisbon Strategy adopted by the European Union. This has been undermining core labour rights such as collective bargaining and contracts of employment in France, Germany and Greece.

You could add, though its not always obvious at this gathering, that another Europe needs be a committed to environmental and global justice. It also needs to be a Europe in which grassroots and peoples movements have a voice and can enjoy genuine political participation on an equal basis.

There are many calls for Europe to redefine itself, especially in its relationship with the rest of the world and its peoples.

Which kind of Europe do we want? asks Greek former MP of the Left and Ecology Coalition Nikos Konstantinopoulos. Do we want a Europe with a powerful strategic presence that questions US hegemony; that asks for new world regulations; that does not impose the Bush doctrine. Do we want a Europe that is not afraid of migrants, that is not a fortress of anti-terrorists paranoia?

Such concerns are discussed within the scores of ESF events, running simultaneously and packed into the first two days of the Forum. Topics include Islamophobia, migration, Turkeys accession to the EU, developing a European Charter of Rights, corporate power, Roma rights, climate change, womens rights, and of course, the US-led war in Iraq.

Some recent political events in Europe have helped create a climate of greater optimism. Last month Italian voters finally ousted Silvio Berlusconi albeit by a tiny margin.

More encouraging is the way Frances students rejected a new contract law denying young people core workers rights and managed to force a government climb-down on the issue.

This is seen as a great boost for the European Left and everyone, it seems, is claiming a connection to it. During one session it is interpreted several times as the sign of a strong alliance between students, the working class and trade unions.

But activist Sophie Gosselin, who works with French students active in the revolt, has a different perspective. New pacts emerged in a very spontaneous manner. There was a relationship between students and people whose job situation was very precarious. But there was also a radical critique of traditional movements like the unions. There was a rejection of unions and the way unions dealt with this.

Issues that divide

While there is much that unites the people gathered here in Athens, there are issues that clearly divide. One speaker who admits he supported a Yes vote for the EU Constitution last year, gets unceremoniously booed but is then complimented by another speaker for his honesty and courage.

The question of EU enlargement, and in particular the proposed accession of Turkey, is also fraught. Some say that Turkey should join if thats what the Turkish people want. Others say that it should not, because it would do Turkish people no good at all; Western Europe only wants Turkey in the EU for geo-political reasons and to take advantage of its large market. But those who oppose Turkeys accession may find that their strongest allies on this issue are racists and Islamophobes in the West and hardline nationalists in Turkey.

Simple it is not.

But then little is least of all trying to figure out where the European Social Forum 2006 is heading and what has been gained from it.

It is not like a conference with a final session that pulls together a plan of action or a statement of some kind. There are not even plenary sessions at the Athens Forum to kick off or conclude the event. It was considered more democratic to do away with these and the hidden hierarchies they might foster. But the current system does little to encourage a sense of unity or communication between different networks.

So who is getting what out of it?

Whats the point?

On leaving the Forum one participant tells me: I dont think we are going to create another Europe here. But its good to be in an environment where you can freely use words like anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist.

For many a cheerful troupe of Belgian trade unionists cracking open a bottle of wine prior to a protest march through Athens, for example its a jolly get-together with like-minded people.

And a little later for the handful of anarchists with more testosterone than brain cells who set fire to a car, throw petrol bombs and smash shop windows in fashionable Ermou Street, its a moment of glory in the sun. They can be sure that their actions will be the only aspect of the ESF to get coverage in the mainstream media. Bravo.

But where else is all this taking us, at a time when so much needs changing in the way Europe relates to itself and to the rest of the world? Compared with the World Social Forum in Mumbai or the anti-WTO activities in Hong Kong recently, I cannot say I have found the 4th European Social Forum a source of inspiration.

But then such events are made by their participants and that applies to everyone attending. Active participation is not encouraged, though, when all prior information is via a website that is monumentally sluggish and disorganized and which makes it nigh impossible for foreign organizations to properly plan a presence in advance.

A longer view

Perhaps, though, a longer view is called for in other ways. What is achieved by such gatherings may not always be visible at the time they happen. Information has been exchanged. While some meetings are chaotic, frustrating, starting more than an hour late because of technical problems with the translation system, and still failing to come up with anything other than tired old rhetoric others are useful and stimulating. Connections are made, networking happens, the movement is nourished.

Italian activist Marco Berlinguer has a good metaphor for it. A political movement such as the global justice movement is like a river in a landscape, he says. Sometimes the river disappears underground and you cant see it any more. It seems like it is gone. But then it suddenly re-emerges, often when and where you least expect it. And it may be larger than it was where it disappeared.

Its a hopeful image.

Less hopeful is a comparison of the ubiquitous claim: Another Europe is Possible and the organization of the Athens event itself. Not like this, it aint.

There will be a special issue of New Internationalist on the subject Europe in October.

Vanessa Baird | ukwatch.net

Flame, shame and symbols

The Way to Make Another Europe?