[fse-esf] Stalinist banner at the European Social Forum

[Askapena - Basque Country]

Oh my god!

And what do you think about the presence in the main banner, or speaking 
and even chairing the Assembly of SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (for example) of 
members of Rifundazione Comunista, the French LCR, german PDS (and so 
on, and so on...) ???

Let me change your last line, and say "Only without HIPOCRESY, the 
European Social Forum can remain an open space for the globalization 
critique movement!

All the best

Katu - Basque left wing




Martin Neulicher escribió:

>Stalinist banner at the European Social Forum
>Where admission of political parties can lead to
>
>The charter of Porto Alegre, formulating the principles of the
>World Social Forum, excludes political parties and military
>organisations from the social forums - their members of course are welcome
>as individuals.
>
>This years' European Social Forum in Athens unfortunately did not follow
>these principle of the charter of Porto Alegre: political parties have been
>admitted, and mainly dogmatic-communist ones came. They presented their
>slogans all over the forum. At one stall one could buy T-shirts with Stalin.
>This development culminated in a big banner of the Turkish MLKP, that one
>could not oversee: it hung above an entrance of the three main buildings.
>
>The banner showed potraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, and
>Stalin's was the biggest. To go to the workshops and seminars of the ESF
>under Stalin's portrait caused very bad feelings. Stalin was a mass
>murderer, who let murder tens of millions of people and who also made a
>treaty with Hitler, when it served to save his power. At latest with stalin,
>the emancipatory goal of the left has lost its innocence. Since then, it is
>a challenge of every emancipatory movement to have a close look and to
>oppose any kind of exploitation and terror, whoever causes these.
>
>Unfortunately, at the ESF 2006, there has not been the opportunity yet to
>discuss this development in a broader way. The organisation office replied
>to complaints concerning the Stalin banner: "every party is admitted, hence
>also Stalinist parties". For human beings that take human emancipation
>seriously, the consequence can only be to exclude parties from future
>forums, and re-install the charter from Porto Alegre. Only without parties,
>the European Social Forum can remain an open space for the globalization
>critique movement!
>
>  
>