Minutes Of 5th Open Space Dialogue Meeting For Irish Civil Society To Build Irish Social Forum

national | public consultation / irish social forum | news report Wednesday April 02, 2003 18:12 by Barry Finnegan - - interim convenor of open dialogue to build an Irish Social Forum john.finnegan3 at mail dot dcu dot ie 01-8741223

which took place on the 21st March 2003 at The Cultivate Sustainable Living Centre, Temple Bar, D.8

The following are the minutes of the 5th Open Space dialogue meeting for Irish civil society to build an Irish Social Forum which took place on the 21st March 2003 at The Cultivate Sustainable Living Centre, Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 8. by Barry Finnegan - interim convenor of the open space dialogue for Irish civil society to build Irish Social Forum phone: 01-8741223 email: [email protected]

In attendance:

Laurence Cox - Grassroots Gathering
Davie Philips - Sustainable Ireland Workers Co-Op & The Village
Barry Finnegan - ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions to Aid Citizens)
Christian Volkmann - Friends of the Earth Ireland
Ciaran Moore - Indymedia
Pamela Hill - Friends of the Irish Environment
Mary Kinane - Comhlamh Trade Group
Veronique Bassot - Comhlamh

Unable to attend, apologies sent:

Déirde deBúrca - Green Party
Rory Hearne - Socialist Workers Party and Globalise Resistance
David Joyce - ICTU Development Education Officer
Jean Somers - Debt and Development Coalition
Colin Roche - Oxfam
Connor McLoughlin - Workers Solidarity Movement and Grassroots Gathering
Anwen Tormey - Comhlamh

Note:
1. Next meeting details at end.
2. In order to get a full picture of the wider context of these minutes I would advise people have a look at the minutes of the previous meetings which are available online. Weblinks to these minutes are reprinted at the end of this document.

The Topics Discussed At The Meeting Were:

1.: - Finish an invite letter to encourage new groups to get involved in these meetings to dialogue and build an Irish Social Forum (ISF) and/or to come to the ISF planning and information day on May 24th 2003.
2.: - What we want to do during the ISF planning and information day on May 24th 2003.
3: - The issues surrounding street carnivals, demonstrations and non-violent direct action which may be happening in Dublin on the day in October when the World ECONONIC Forum (WEF) will be meeting in Dublin and how these events may or may not relate to the one-day Irish Social Forum event planned for the month of October which will be themed on Co-operation as opposed to the WEF event which is themed on Competition.
4.: - News from around the country on groups setting up similar open space meetings to dialogue and build for creating an Irish Social Forum.

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1.: Having discussed the idea it was decided that Laurence Cox will amalgamate four different drafts of an invite letter to encourage new groups to get involved in these meetings to dialogue and build for an Irish Social Forum and/or to come to the ISF planning and information day on May 24th 2003. This will be done is such a way as to make it as accessible as possible to groups from different sectors of Irish civil society to get involved in the building and dialogue process. The invite letter will point out that between now and June 2003 the idea is to generate interest in and ideas for the ISF and that in June we will more formally create the ISF.

2.: - While not formalised or finalised, and with consideration and acceptance of the consensus decisions made at previous meetings (all available online), the participants wanted to include the following ideas and structures for the ISF planning and information day on Saturday May 24th 2003 which will take place at The Cultivate Sustainable Living Centre, Essex Street West, Temple Bar, Dublin 8 from 9.00a.m. to 5.30p.m.as part of the 4th Convergence Sustainable Living Festival:

- To introduce new people and groups to the idea of creating an Irish Social Forum.

- To introduce the work that civil society groups in Ireland have done so far in laying the groundwork to transparently build a structure where we can create an Irish Social Forum.

- To provide literature from this social forum building process in Ireland and literature on the World Social Forum (in Brazil, now in its third year) and the European Social Forum (which took place last November in Italy).

- To have smaller workshops and/or large plenary meetings for people to discuss how we want the Irish Social Forum to work, how do we want to communicate with each other (e.g.: to use open space techniques etc), what themes and events would we like to see happening at the Irish Social Forum.

- To run workshops for people to learn why the economic policies of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) are having a negative impact on democracy, the environment, human rights and sustainable development all over the world.

- To create a space where the positive and negative elements and aspects of the World and European Social Forums can be discussed and addressed openly, and also where suggestions can be made as to how we can learn from these elements and aspects.

- To create a space where (aware of the fact that the diversity of strategies used by various sectors of Irish civil society to create a better and more equitable future is our strength) we can discuss, learn about and openly address the pros and cons of street carnivals and other forms of non-violent direct action.

- To create a space for stalls where the different groups participating in the open day can display their literature.

- To hopefully show a film(s) about the European Social Forum after 5.30p.m.

- And finally ... we will not be making any final resolutions or decisions for the Irish Social Forum on this day. The proceedings of the day will be typed up, put online and distributed by email to all who want them and will help to feed in to the June get-together where we intend to more formally create the Irish Social Forum.

3: - Background to discussion about October 2003, the WEF, the ISF and non-violent direct action:
A consensus since this dialogue for an Irish Social Forum began last December has been that in order to have a one day event in October 2003 and a bigger three day event in Spring 2004 during the Irish EU Presidency, there is a huge amount logistics work to be done. For example booking rooms and lecture halls and paying for them, organising insurance, publicity, marketing the event etc etc. And that to do this effectively we need to have a number of individuals from different groups representing the various sectors of Irish civil society working together in order make it work. It has been felt that the groups who would look after this work would be well established groups with fund raising capacity, institutional capacity and would be called a secretariat or a practicalities group. Now...

The reason for having a one-day ISF event in Dublin in October 2003 themed on Co-operation is because the World Economic Forum (European section) (WEF) is planning a meeting in Dublin in October themed on Competition. This private group, the WEF, is a think-tank and policy advisor for and by the largest 500 transnational corporations in the world and for hand picked media owners and hand picked politicians. They were very active is the background to the creation of the WTO and believe strongly in an ideological view known variously as neoliberalism, corporate-globalisation or the Washington Consensus. This globally dominant profit-focused ideology believes strongly in removing the governments of the world from the provision of public services and the regulation of companies, money and the environment. According to their website:
http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Global+Competitiveness+Programme%5CReports%5CLisbon+Review+2002-2003
they view Europe as a place where there is not enough neoliberalist Competition and their October conference is all about increasing Competition in Europe. They plan to do this for example by increasing privatisation, reducing employees rights, reducing the power of democratically elected governments to enact policies which may protect the environment or improve the quality of life and thereby reduce the potential profits of large international private companies.

At previous ISF dialogue meetings it was felt that this WEF October event provided a perfect time for Irish civil society to come together and discuss a vision of our world based around Co-operation.

So the issue that civil society groups from Europe and Ireland will probably be having a demonstration against the WEF in October was raised and various opinions and ideas were discussed as to how the Irish Social Forum would relate to these events. Variously ideas discussed included that the practicalities group might condemn any demonstration or non-violent direct action that may take place during this time and that this would create bad feeling and may put peaceful protestors in danger of attack by police; also that maybe the practicalities group should not be allowed to make public comments other than publicising the ISF event; also what do we do about the fact that people might be out demonstrating on the same day or the same week as we are having our Irish Social Forum; also that elements of the media may try very hard to get the ISF to make a statement about any demonstration. So no conclusion was reached mainly because those at the meeting only represented a small group of Irish civil society and what we should do is to create a space for all the different groups to openly and transparently discuss the issue further - and because those at the meeting are not in control of the ISF, which will not be created until June it was not for us to make a decision. Finally, a strong feeling was for the ISF to stick to the focus of creating a space where civil society can discuss issues relating around themes of Co-operation and is not about going on demonstrations.

4. News from around the country on groups setting up similar open space meetings to dialogue and build for creating an Irish Social Forum:

News was that Cork seems to have individuals in three groups (PANA, Cork Autonomous Zone and UCC One World Society) that think creating the same type of transparent dialogue meetings for an ISF that we have been having in Dublin are a good idea. No action so far that we were aware of. (If anyone our there has more news please do get in touch.)

There has been word that Limerick did have a dialogue meeting for an ISF but we did not have any contact yet. (Again: If anyone our there has more news please do get in touch.)

FINALLY:

The sixth open space civil society dialogue meeting to build an Irish social forum is on Thursday 3rd April 2003 from 7.30p.m. to 9.30p.m.at Cultivate - The Sustainable Living Centre, 15-17 Essex St. West, Old City, Temple Bar, Dublin 8. [ Coming up Parliament St., from the river, it is the first turn on the right. Go along there and you will see Cultivate on your right with large plate glass windows. ]

AND WEBLINKS TO MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS:

February 2003. The minutes of the 3rd Open Space dialogue meeting for Irish Civil Society to build an Irish Social Forum on the Indymedia newswire at:
http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=30211

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February 2003. The Minutes of 2nd Open Space Meeting to establish Irish Social Forum are on the Indymedia newswire at:
http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=28604

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December 2002. The Minutes of 1st Open Space dialogue meeting for Irish civil society to discuss the idea of an Irish Social Forum are on the Indymedia newswire at:
http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=30212

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December 2002. The text of the Call to the Open Space get-together for civil society groups on the island of Ireland to discuss a proposal to create an Irish Social Forum is on the Indymedia newswire at:
http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=30214

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all the best,
Barry Finnegan
- interim convenor
Ph: 01 - 8741223
Email: [email protected]