[fse-esf] Ossetian war: Barbarian Europe, Civilised Africa and ESF Crisis

[Tord Bj ö rk]

Ossetian war reveals ESF crisis and possible strength


ESF is a tool for taking effective political action in the name of those
likeminded organisations and individuals that want to do so but not in the
name of ESF. This is stated in the WSF declaration and should be a criteria
for judging whether ESF lives up to its own values and goals. Furthermore it
is hard to find another process where such a broad range of qualified
organisations from every country in Europe participates with the potential
of both carrying out a broad analysis and also be a plattform for those
concerned to start one or more initiatives for political action.

The Ossetian war poses a lot of challenges to ESF:

1. It shows that today Africa is more civilised than Europe. In Kosovo,
Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Chechnya, European powers and its allies
choosed to solve crisis by war. Contrary to what happened six years ago on
the Bakassi Peninsular that compared to the regions in Europe had much more
to fight over as it is sizable oil-rich lying between Nigeria and Cameroon.
The Nigerian government choosed against the will of the minister of defense
and much of the public opinion to take the dispute to the International
Court of Justice (World Court) for adjudication. Bakassi was long ruled by
Nigeria, but the leadership of the country swallowed its pride when the
court ruled in favour of Cameroon. Bakassi is now being turned over to the
neighbouring country. The fact that today EU have established new colonies
within Europe in Bosnia and Kosovo while all colonies in Africa are history
also shows the backwardness and lack of civilisation in Europe.

2. Official Europe looks upon itself as more advanced. The question is if
this self estimation not also is shared to some degree within the movements
carrying the ESF process thus blocking for a balance between realistic
attitude and political creativity that can result in effective movement
initiatives for political action in the case of the Ossetian war.

3. The reactions on the Ossetian war and proposals for action among popular
movements and some parties listed on fes-esf mailings and other places goes
in contrary directions. A) One comes from the Hungarian Social Forum Social
Roundtable, HSF-SR, that promotes the idea to make steps toward a common
European defense system integrating Russia and all those former Soviet
republics. The first action would be to send a delegation from "the civil
society" to EU with this proposal and protest against sending NATO or EU
troops to the area, an action also supported by activist in the Russian
global justice movement. B) The other idea brought forward on the fse-esf
emaillist by the 5th International is to demand immediate withdrawal of all
Russian and Georgian troops from South Ossetia and give the people the right
to vote for indepedence or what country the want to belong to. This is
against beleaving in EU and Russia as caretakers of security and defense,
actually in the case of EU many movements and also some countries are
against giving EU the role of being in charge of a defense system. C) The
long-experienced peace movement tend to be sceptical towards separatist
solutions and instead point at successful solutions as the Aaland islands
between Sweden and Finland with a Swedish speaking population once in favour
of joining Sweden which was ruled to belong to Finland according to
international rules 1920 and the Bakassi case in this century. Withdrawal of
all troops and respect for human rights yes, but no to separatist demands
for every region that might find this attractive without international
rule-based negotitions e.g. in the international court in the Hague. This
last well-experienced movement does not participate in the dialogue so far
on the fse-esf list which is a pity and also shows limitations of the
quality in the ESF-process. The two first proposals contradicts each other
and results in paralysis rather than effective political action, maybe a
qualified discussion could result in a more coherent action among sufficent
number of organisations to make an impact.

4. ESF could be a process were such a discussion could take place and
effective political action emerge. But than it is necessary with some
changes. One is the immediate need of a discussion forum. At present the
structure of the ESF process is closed at the political general level and a
wardrobe syndrome is promoted by overemphaisis of allocating resources for
separate seminars, small group rpeprations and other activities. When a
crisis as the Ossetian war occurs there is no structure to adequatly address
the issue within a fixed frame of seminars, an fse-esf email list which is
primarily for bureacratic messages and easily would be overloaded if
political discussions on more important political issues than the Ossetian
war regularly would be and three websites that confuses rather than helps
interested to take part in a general disussion and continous political ESF
process.

5. One immediate solution is to establish a normal discussion forum at one
of the long term esf web sites. Open to read for anyone but to write one
have to register to avoid some of the spam problem. As it is now Merlin is
doing a great job in trying to combine the activist news service at
openesf.net and at the same time have it as a discussion forum, something
that is only a temporary and bad solution. Merlin has put up much but not
all of the Ossetina war disussion on the actvist news project at
openesf.net. A discussion forum to work well need to be structured according
to themes and not only in chronological order nd with a "nes" criteria as a
limitation. Furthermore it needs to be possible to overview the content not
by running through every contribution in some alphabetical or other order or
knowing in advance the first letter in a contributed text that you are
looking for. Openesf.net might be useful for specialists interested in small
working groups or people knowing in advance what they are looking for or
being well expreienced, but for a general discussion promoting the ESF
porcess by having a continous capaicity for being an open space for
qualified reflections and subimitting proposals that might result in
effective political actions like in cases as the Ossetian war it is not. Why
there are two long-term ESF web sites is also a great obstacles to openness
and promotion of a general exchange of experiences and opinions.

6. Of immediate interest is also where the Ossetian war can be addressed at
ESF in Malmö. It is both a practical and political question. German peace
organisations and others have already plans for bringing a Southern Caucasus
organisation to ESF. The NOC European contact group have announced that
there are some resources for supporting more participants from all Southern
Caucasian countries and hope also to be able to support participation from
Northern Caucasus. For decisions on action the socia movement assembly is
one possibility although there is the risk that other more Western European
interest will dominate the agenda of this meeting. There will also be a CEE
network meeting which fits well into some of the ideas put forward. But when
it comes to seminars there has been a general lack of interest for
All-European East-West political realtions issues in the prepatory process.
There is a seminar on East-West relations but it has been merged by force.
IGSO with Boris Karagliski closely cooperating with Alla Glinchikova and
Marxist Union in Ukraine are among the forced merged into this seminar but
they never reponded during two months of they had an interest in addressing
the political East-West relations or only wanted to discuss the intergation
of Post-Soviet alter globalisation movements into European movements.
Without Russian and Ukrianian interest the seminars stands a bit wihtout
curcial cooperation partners. This is soemwhat problematic for the whole ESF
porcess as relations between East and West ought to be important at ESF and
not only relations North Souh. There are many seminars on EU relations in
general to the South, but noone on relations between EU and East, only on
some few specialised issues as feminism an d  trade unions. One  seminar has
the ossue of sovereingioty and will be a place were the Ossetian war
problably will be adressed with groups as HSF-SR, basque organmisations and
maybe some from Caucaussu. But there is a risk that the smeinar will
interest marginal movements and get bogged down i the same conflict as has
occurded on the fse-esf list. I guess that also some peace or anti-war
seminar will address the Ossetian war but the only seminar in the program so
far (which is on the website but if it also still is valid is soemthing I do
not know) is a seminar titled " Undefined situation in North Caucasus and
solidarity against proliferation conflict" organised by Association Convoi
Syndical, France and Rule of Law Institute, Russia. Hows the ESF
prpearations can respond to an immediate crisis and adjust the program
accordingly is a question of importance. There will probably be soem
seminars that will be cancelled which maybe would allow a new seminar to
take place if there is concensus for this in the European prgram group. The
organisers of the seminar on Nothern Cauacaus might be interested to extend
the content to also include South Ossetia and all of Caucasus.

7. ESF has to go beyond it Western bias and become All-European. Thois calls
for strengthening the CEE network, and have a qualified discussion on
East-West relationships inlcuding questioning of both EU and Russia, and
imperial tendecies wherever they occur.


 
Tord Björk

Finlandsgatan 2
291 31 Kristianstad
Sverige/Sweden
Tel: +46 (0)44 12 32 94
Mobile: +46 (0)738 44 68 50
E-mail: tord.bjork at mjv.se