The following notes were taken at a meeting that was held under the auspices of the London Social Forum at the LSE on 28 November to review the experiences of the ESF 2004 in London . They do not reflect the collective position of all participants to that meeting, but are circulated in the interests of documenting our discussion and promoting further debate.
What went wrong with the ESF, what was problematic about it ?
• The official UK ESF organising committee was not accountable to anyone except the European Assembly, which did not and obviously cannot meet very often. Anyway the committee did not take much notice of what the Assembly said.
• The pre-selection of 5 or 6 themes for the content of meetings was restrictive. Some proposals spanned two or more themes - naturally, since linking issues and struggles is one purpose of the ESF. It would have been better to see the range of proposals without attempting to bend them to a limited range of themes, then decide the balance of the programme and links to be made between proposals once they are on the table. In some cases the pre-selection of themes led to unhappy ‘mergers' of meetings which failed to make the cross-issue links some proposers wanted. For example the civil liberties organisations were thrown together when they actually sought networking between them and migrants' groups.
· Local social forums had an inadequate part in the official programme. Unlike the Paris ESF, the costs of setting up their networking ‘space' were not covered by the London ESF ticket price or venue-finding arrangements. Local SFs had to make their own arrangements in the `alternative' spaces apart from one seminar at Alexandra Palace
· The fragmentation of venues worked badly. It would have been better to have meetings concentrated in the Bloomsbury area
· Logistics were miserable: poor food, and long queues for it; no childcare; dormitory space arranged only at the last minute and not enough of it.
· Little involvement by London residents, not least because the one-day £10 ticket was only introduced at the last minute and not well advertised
What aspects of the ESF went well ?
• ‘Alternative spaces' – the Solidarity Village in Conway Hall/LSE; ‘Life Despite Capitalism' and other events at LSE, and `Beyond the ESF' at Middlesex University , all went well. Many productive discussions have now been disseminated to e-lists and web sites. Around 5000 people are thought by the various organisers to have attended these free events.
· Also very successful was the ‘European Cultural Forum' bus which took the ESF to the streets, going around London with politics and performance for the general public
· Successful events were often based on long-term international networking, with large, participatory preparatory meetings on particular themes or topics held well in advance to expand and consolidate networks and develop ideas. For example this was how the Cultural Forum worked, as well as the several `alternative' meetings dealing with migrant issues
· However, there were some surprises in which the ESF generated important new networking. For example the Assembly of the Precariat, which promises to be rather fruitful in terms of future organisation of precarious workers, brought together some groups who had not known much about each other's plans before the ESF period. A second positive example was the alliance forged between Indian and Colombian groups working on Coca-Cola.
What could we have done instead or better ? (suggestions for next time)
• We should ensure that we ourselves, in local social forums and other ‘horizontal' movements, have structures in which there is full accountability. However, this invokes the question of what really is the ‘collective' in organisations with a loose, open membership and no delegate structure.
· The organisation of the next ESF should adopt the ‘new' WSF methodology, with much more open discussion about programme development through a web site, rather than through meetings of a programme committee.
· The extent and form of central coordination of the event needs re-thinking. Participants in this meeting were divided between two alternative models. One is the ‘Edinburgh Festival' model in which various organisations organise various events, alone or in ad hoc groupings, and determine their own ticket prices. Once they have done this they might agree to a common ticketing system so as to create one inclusive price for a `core' list of events. Whatever the financial model, some event-organisers will always want to offer their events free of charge. A second model is to have people working on ‘thematic terrains', as the WSF now does to bring the programme together, some or all of them possibly linked to ongoing networks for particular topics. These would be linked by a central coordination space which would deal with logistics (translation, getting visas, accommodation etc) and perhaps attempt to promote sessions to fill obvious gaps in the range of proposals which emerge.
· The ESF needs to be thought of as a continuing political process. It is time to ask, what have we learnt about political issues and actions (as well as about organising process) through Florence , Paris and London ? What has been achieved politically through the ESF process since 2002 ?
· The ESF should also reflect, strengthen and encourage ongoing political work at an international level throughout the year. One possibility would be to have 5 or 6 assemblies of social movements per year, each lasting 2 or 3 days. One day (preferably a Friday) would be about organising the next ESF. Then the rest of the weekend could be for the political work of thematic networks (e.g. migration, precarity).
· Networking is the essence of the ESF process. The proposal made by Phil McLeish on the ‘horizontal' circuit some months ago ( http://www.commoner.org.uk/01-12groundzero.htm ) deserves to be re-visited.
· Small working sessions should have more weight in the programme than plenaries. (It is understood that the WSF will in future lean towards seminars rather than plenaries). However, there is a space for ‘big-name' talks, partly for people new to politics who particularly want to hear them, but also to reflect major debates between thinkers and tendencies. Plenaries are best done in the form of a debate (which might sometimes have three rather than two speakers), rather than having 6 speakers who tend not to systematically engage with each other. There should always be plenty of time for discussion
· One-day or single session tickets should be available and well advertised, to attract local residents in the ESF city
· Care should be taken not to accept state or local state resources if these come with ‘strings' attached. But pragmatism is needed about accepting state funding; it had worked in Florence and Paris and the idea of never accepting state funding did not find favour with the meeting being reported here.
· We would not agree with the proposal apparently being developed by Bernard Cassen and others to formalise ESF organisation into a delegate structure. But nor should we support the ‘dictatorship of the Easyjetters' – the idea that those who have a say are the ones who can afford the air fare to international meetings. This means we need to develop a system of financial support to comrades who undertake to present our viewpoint but who cannot afford to travel – however, they would not thus become formal delegates, and would be free to present their own point of view as well.
· Several logistic issues could be tackled much better next time; more and better food, more free/cheap accommodation organised further in advance, NOMAD type translation hardware, coordinated approach to getting visas for non-EU participants.
· Childcare was emphasised as a serious logistic issue for next time. The ESF in London had none at all except a small parents' collective operating at LSE with no help from non-parents in cash or in kind, and this is unacceptable.
· Purchase or provision of support services should if possible be done within the movement. Despite the political difficulties of the ESF in London, which led to less volunteer labour than in previous ESFs, there was considerable volunteer energy about, for example in the rapid building refurbishment at Bounds Green to make a space available for sleeping accommodation – indeed working with a speed and intensity that paid contractors would not have achieved. The alternative spaces provided their own web design services and it was felt un-necessary for the official organisers to have spent a huge sum on purchasing web design from a commercial organisation.
· The political process and the procurement of support services should aim to make its own contribution to the social transformations we want – encouraging participatory, democratic, non-profit forms; feeding resources back into social movements from ESF funds rather than charging their supporters for capitalist services.