[fse-esf] L5I: European Social Forum Preparatory Assembly- the Left Organises

[League for the 5th International]

European Social Forum Preparatory Assembly- the Left Organises
6 November 2006

On November 3 -5 150 delegates from all over Europe met in Frankfurt for the
first meeting of the ³Preparatory Assembly² of the European Social Forum.
Martin Suchanek of Arbeitermacht, German section of the League for the Fifth
International, was there. The EPA was assembled to discuss the results of
the fourth European Social Forum held in Athens in June this year and the
way forward for the anti capitalist movement. Though as usual the main
organisations from France, Italy and Germany talked-out any serious
proposals for change in its structure, its capacity to take concerted action
against neoliberalism and war, the growth of forces calling for change and
willing to fight for it was a real step forward.

The largest delegations in Frankfurt came from Greece, France, Germany,
Italy and Turkey. The attendance from Eastern Europe including Russia has
also markedly increased. There were smaller, but active delegations from
Austria, the Basque Country, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal and Sweden, plus a
representative from Palestine. The biggest ³absence² was the British,
including a complete ³no show² from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

All the major forces in the ESF were present. On the right wing, the
European Left Party, the trade union bureaucrats, the NGOs and Attac, There
were also the more unions like COBAS from Italy.
However, the role of the ³centre², traditionally played by the centrist
forces of the Fourth International (USFI) and the IST-SWP was this time only
filled by the FI alone. All the SWP Œs sister organisations ­even Linksruck
from Germany ­boycotted the meeting.

The EPA started on Saturday morning, with a report and balance sheet of the
Athens ESF and a discussion on the ³future for the movement².
There was a general agreement, that Athens was a very vibrant, lively event
and had a very large participation from youth and radical working class
activists. Also the number of trade unions sending delegations had
increased. It had drawn in large numbers from Turkey and increased the
participation from Eastern Europe

That Athens was much more radical, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist did
not please everyone. Also the lifting of the ban on political parties was
contested. Athens also saw the emergence of an organised opposition to the
dominance of reformists and their hangers-on - an Anti-imperialist Space.

Many organisations ­ including the Creek Social Forum itself, the Turkish
organisations, immigrant organisations, some of the delegates from Italy,
the organisations from the Anti-imperialist Space ­ saw all this as a real
achievement.

Others were far from pleased. Judith Dellheim from the German PDS urged the
need to go back to the ban on parties, supposedly in order allow their
members and leaders to ³speak freely as individuals.² In reality this means
freedom from being held responsible for the deeds of their parties such as
Rifondazione¹s participation in a neoliberal and imperialist government.

Likewise representatives from Attac and ARCI (Italy) expressed their
concern, that the ESF would ³narrow² its basis and become dominated by
anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist forces and communists of all sorts.

Most of the organisations at the ESF saw the main problems of the ESF as
³lack of efficiency and transparency². Of course, we are far from denying
this. But behind these criticisms lies a political struggle, as a speaker of
the L5I pointed out.

Whilst there has been a real increase in struggles over the past year or so,
the ESF and the EPA have failed to either fully reflect this or have an
impact back upon these struggles. It is not a question whether or not
political parties are welcome as such, but what they stand for ­ for
resistance to the attacks on workers and the oppressed or for carrying out
neoliberal austerity measures and imperialist interventions. How can we
ignore the fact that parties like RC in Italy are now actively pursuing the
latter course? Nor can we ignore the fact that parties like PCF in France or
the PDS ­Left Party in Germany are heading in this direction. To be silent
on these issues is the biggest ³lack of transparency imaginable. The problem
of the ESF therefore is not that it is ³too radical² as Attac had claimed,
but because it was and is not ³radical, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist²
enough.

Speakers from the ³European Confederation of Oppressed Immigrants² or the
Turkish newspaper ³Revolutionary Proletariat² also argued that the ESF (and
the EPA) had to become organs to co-ordinate struggles and take them forward
rather than remain just talking shops.

An Anti-imperialist Network

Up to now, the more radical forces have worked in isolation from each other.
On the Friday before the ESF there was, as usual, a day for network
meetings. This time one of them was the Anti-imperialist Network formed out
of the anti-imperialist space in Athens. It gathered organisations like the
Organisation of Greece Communists, Turkish organisations of Stalinist
origin, the PFLP, the Basque nationalist Left and youth, and the League for
the Fifth International and the youth organisation Revolution.

Its aim is better to co-ordinate those who want to turn the ESF into a body
to mobilise for the struggles of workers, the immigrants, the youth, the
nationally and racially oppressed and fight the reformist parties and NGOs
who are blocking of these steps.

It agreed to call for maximum support for the Beirut International
Solidarity Conference (16-19 November) to mobilise together against the G 8
in Heiligendamm (2-8 June 2007), building a mass demonstration and an
anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist block on it, to organise its own seminars
and workshops within the counter summit.

Also it was agreed to cooperate closely with the anti-repression-network and
the anti-war network, which itself agreed on an international day of action
in support of Palestine on 17-18. April 2007.

Where is the ESF going?

In the plenary meetings of the EPA, once again as so often before, the
lightly disguised reformists and the supposed- Trotskyists of the Fourth
International and Attac dodged all the burning questions beyond the old
calls for more ³efficiency² and ³transparency². They avoided any discussion
about the Italian situation and Bertinotti and the RC leaderships¹ fight
against our movement.

Here one could see, the real existing balance of forces in the EPAs and ESFs
on show. The whole question of transparency is used to avoid political
conflict and bore people to death with vacuous debates on ³method². So an
open ³preparatory meeting² for the next Preparatory Assembly will take place
in January. It will decide the exact date and venue of the EPA. This will
meet again at the end of March 2007 to decide on the location of the next
European Social Forum. The three candidates for holding its are Austria,
Denmark-Sweden and Portugal.

The meeting showed that fears (or hopes in some cases) that ESF/EPS process
is dead are still premature. But it does remain in a comatose state ­ a
condition deliberately fostered by its undeclared and informal inner
leadership. This is not altogether surprising surprise.
The ESF (and the World Social Forum -WSF) too came into being as a result of
capitalist globalisation and as a result of the emergence of a movement
fighting against it. But this movement not only combined resistance from
different classes and strata ­ workers, peasants, youth, petit bourgeois and
middle classes.

It also included different political trajectories ­ a large part
representing petit-bourgeois forces (the NGOs, populists and libertarians)
or reformist forces, i.e. bourgeois politics, but from organisations
socially rooted in the working class (like trade unions and reformist
parties. The latter were impelled towards the anti-capitalist youth after
Seattle in 1999 by the resolute march rightwards to full-blown neoliberalism
by the big reformist parties ­ the British Labour Party, the French
Socialist Party, the German Special Democrats.

On the other had there were more radical organisations, including various
more militant unions, worker activists, youth organisation, migrant
organisation, national liberation struggles, left wing organisations from a
Trotskyist, Maoist or Stalinist origin.

Obviously, a unity between reformism and forces wanting to fight imperialism
and capitalism can only be temporary and only on the basis of agreements to
undertake serious joint action.
This is particularly so in period of intensifying class struggle.

The problem is that as the crisis for European imperialist project, in part
caused by the anti-globalist and anticapitalist movement, deepens the call
has gone out from sections of the European ruling class to co-opt some of
the ³left² reformist parties that have played a big role in the ESF. The
capitalists support new versions of the popular front ­ like L¹Unione in
Italy - and use them to derail, contain or split the resistance and
radicalisation of the masses. Obviously, one cannot have a ³united²
movement, with one part in government attacking the other part on the street
resisting.

That is what we see in the ESF today. Unity in the ESF is only meaningful as
unity of struggle against the capitalists and imperialists¹ attacks. If the
ESF is to become a body forging this unity, drawing in real struggles - like
the one in the banlieus in France or the fighters against imperialist
occupation in the Middle East - all those seeking this have to unite. That
is why the League for the Fifth International has joined the
Anti-imperialist Network and strongly advises left forces across Europe to
do likewise.
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