Irish Social Forum Oct 8-10

by Barry Finnegan - ISf Comm Work Group Wed Oct 06, 2004 16:05 john.finnegan3 at mail dot dcu dot ie 085- 1423 454

All,
the following URL starts with a summary view of whats happening at the ISF this wekend and is following by full programme, details, speakers, etc,

What is the Irish Social Forum?
What is a plenary? etc etc
Some Info Tips:
Transport:
Crèche:
Food: etc etc
please see:

http://www.irishsocialforum.org/newswire.php?story_id=22
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FYI ALSO:
Saturday Oct 9th: UCD Students Centre

7.30pm to 8pm

Workshop 20. Assembly of Social Movements Organising Meeting

Host: You.
Room: White Room
Details: This is a meeting for all those who wish to submit a proposal or motion for Sunday’s Assembly of Social Movements and to discuss ways in which the assembly will be organised.
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Their will be a Motion Idea Box on the registration table at the ISF so we can discuss these and decision making structures etc at the above workshop.

I presume we will all talk about it during Sundays ISF events in the T&G Hall and trash out some of decision making structures and motion making ways by 4pm!

- Barry.

by liz - isf working group Tue Oct 05, 2004 16:30

in the case of the ISF it's organised by whoever shows up to the monday meetings in comhlamh on camden st.
& all the minutes including who was there are published on indymedia to keep it open.
At the moment it's a mixture of individuals, people involved in ngo's ,grassroots community groups & people involved in political parties who are there as individuals (tho we discovered that no-one at last mon.s meeting had a party affiliation, interestingly.)

we're really lucky in that it's a very democratic process , no-one's "taken it over" & branches of social movements from Socialists through NGO's to Libertarians are involved which is really unique.
The best thing about last year's ISF for me was the mix of activists & NGO workers etc. who would not normally be at the same events or get the opportunity to share info.

ESF's, particularly in London, have had a lot of controversy about how they've been organised . So has the WSF for that matter.
The biggest difficulty in progressive movements is how to organise & make decisions.
This may be partly due to the sheer size of them. Something that big & expensive to organise tends to be taken on by people with resources, in this case The Greater London Authority. Also they tend to be organised by people organised enough to go to organising meetings.
That's not a problem if the organisation stays open & democratic & obviously is a problem if it becomes a pet project or part of someone's political agenda .
There are 2 angles to this, groups really do try to take over & groups don't get involved & then complain about how it ends up.
In the case of a large forum the only way i can see to avoid a takeover would be by large numbers of small groups co-operating to host it.
For info on autonomous space events in London Oct 13th-17th see www.wombles.org.uk .Beyond the ESF.
These events will be organised by the participants & concentrate on autonomous action.

A Social Forum is a forum for open discussion.
In the case of the Assembly of Social Movements it's something that happens after the Social Forum officially ends where people can put forward proposals arising out of what's happened at their workshops etc.
How proposals are to be agreed on, majority, concensus etc. happens there & then. It's not governed by the Social Forum charter of principles because a Social Forum can't take decisions, it has no authority to do so.
if there's something general enough for everyone/most people to agree on then it's publicised as coming from the Assembly of Social Movements not from the Social Forum because a forum is just a forum & can't take decisions. I guess the Assembly happened so that groups could publicise what broad themes came out of the forum & build campaigns around them. The problem is that people don't tend to differentiate between the 2 & assume whatever proposals are agreed on come from "The Social Forum" therefore it must be an organisation etc. Nope. Hope that helps & someone correct any fuzzy details..

by dystopian Tue Oct 05, 2004 10:36

The organisation of the ESF in London has been a complete joke - with everybody managing to unite against the organisers due to their undemocratic methods and complete subservience to Ken Livingstone. But by far the worst element is the Assembly of Social Movements. In the Socialist Worker paper dated 25th September 2004 we are told that the Assembly of Social will launch "pan-European protests against next years G8 summit in Scotland."

Now, given that no method of coming up with an agenda has even been agreed for the ASM, it is v. prophetic of the SWP to know what will be decided at a meeting that is still two weeks away.

Will the ISF be any different? Is the social forum just a brand that people use for their latest project? How will the agenda for the assmebly of social movements in Dublin be decided - since this will lend the name social forum to whatever is decided.

by Anon Tue Oct 05, 2004 02:45

There's much more to what's going on, on Saturday and Sunday than indicated above. Checkout the URL below which lists the full programme details.

Some of the workshops on both Sat and Sun look interesting and at least one or more are bound to interest everyone.

http://www.irishsocialforum.org/newswire.php?story_id=22

by dunk Tue Oct 05, 2004 02:02

really looking foreward to the REVOLUTION talk hosted by SWP and WSM

should make for a lively discussion

image from here
http://picturebook.nothingness.org/pbook/1936/display/31

meeting of four proletarian organizations -- the anarchist FAI-CNT and the socialist PSUC and UGT in the La Monumental-arena

think it will take a little more to get these numbers,
you never know though........?

1936 -- The Spanish Revolution