Notes on the European Social Forum 2003

Trying to describe the European Social Forum 2003, in Paris, is a bit like trying to describe a river. You can certainly get the general idea of the banks and the water, especially sitting quietly on the bank, under a tree, on a sunny day. The general direction of the flow is usually clear enough. But describing where the water came from and where it is going, the various tributaries and channels, much less the nature and behaviour of the individual eddies and currents is futile. Floods and droughts are also rather difficult to integrate into the narrative. The ESF was like that. Nevertheless, I shall give it a go. If its not obvious, I am giving a personal account.

I am assuming that most of you know the basic history of the Social Forum. No? Began in Porto Alegre, Brazil nearly four years ago. Three years in Brazil, January 2004 in Bombay. European Forum born from that, first year Florence, then Paris, next year London. Apparently now there are 100 local Social Forums in France. No doubt there is some variation, but usually Social Forums are talkshops for the entire altermondialiste movement in a particular place. From World to Europe to l’Hérault, sometimes even a city. I don’t know how this movement is growing in the USA or in Britain, or anywhere else for that matter. I suppose someday we will have a Bédarieux Social Forum. Organise one in YOUR neighbourhood!

First of all, planning the time we would be there, using the Programme on the web, was quite daunting. And naturally enough, things did not always go to plan. I love to make plans about what I will attend on Thursday morning next, but I do know that it doesn’t always happen that way. The general idea was clear from the website (and emphasised by the well laid out Programme we got when we registered). Four different locations, each maybe 30-45 minutes from the others, not counting the associated Forums in other places, like the Anarchist one, Women, Parliamentarians, Artists, Local Forums, Local Authorities, Solidarity Economy Village, GLAD and so forth. 50 Plenaries with famous and not so famous people speaking for short periods. 250 Seminars on nearly every topic you could possible imagine. And another maybe 100 workshops, self organised with no translators. In most of the plenaries and seminars (I think) there were volunteer simultaneous translators who did the major European languages, and sometimes Arabic or maybe others. By the time we took the train to Paris, I was utterly certain that this was going to be a complex event, impossible to understand fully, or to actually “go to”, in anything other than the most subjective sense. All the articles I read afterwards have failed utterly capture the event with any sort of colour or depth. Maybe I won’t either.

The train ride from the south to the north, through all the varied countryside was utter wonderful. I am becoming very fond of that ride. It only takes us 3 hours and 20 minutes to Gare de Lyon from Montpellier. I am beginning to think it is one of the best train rides I have taken. There is about an hour of it, in two bursts, that is through boring landscapes. So you can read a paper. But for about two hours, you can just stare at the passing countryside. I love seeing Ventoux, the Ardeche, the Vercors each time I pass. Except once when it was raining.

The flat we had borrowed from an ex-student of mine was in Montmartre. Quite classy location, tastily renovated by previous owner, one bedroom, up five flights of stairs. He has a bit of money, and is a friendly sort of guy, so he let us have it for free. Otherwise we could not have gone to Paris and had a private place. I am hoping that someday in the future I/we might stay there again. Although N seems to going off trips to big cities. The five flights were a bit daunting, both of us breathing heavily when we arrived at the flat. But the general situation was perfect for us. You could lean out and see the Eiffel Tower, and just look out and see Sacre Coeur. We were both feeling rather grateful to Peter through the entire stay.

Wednesday morning we went to the Women’s Forum in Bobigny. It was a bit drizzly (the only day of the ESF with rain), so we were not feeling like much walking. Here, as elsewhere, we experienced the first of many little vignettes that made up the flowing mosaic of the ESF. We registered in about ten minutes total time. That is, the ESF was well organised. I think registering 60,000 people is quite a feat, and somehow “the organisers” managed it quite well. I have waited loads longer at smaller events. Then we drifted into a large marquee, picked up our free headphones for translations and listened to some women talking about women and war. They were from Israel, Yugoslavia, Palestine, like all the workshops, the international mix was hard to grasp. It was meant to be a seminar, but it felt like a plenary. They were on the usual raised stage, and we were in the usual serried ranks. We turned around at the end and the whole marquee had filled up since we arrived. I should think over a thousand people, maybe two thousand. I fell in love with two of the translators immediately. They were all so good, and all volunteers. We went to eat in the food tent as it seemed a better idea than going home. And two more incidents occurred.

First, I found out, by chatting a bit, that the people serving the rather well prepared, nicely presented and cheap cooked lunch, were all volunteers from a vaguely left group in Bobigny. They were there all week. About 20 of them, serving hundreds of meals just because they thought it was cool. Sometimes I fill up when I get a direct experience of the basic goodness of people, and how they like to help each other out. My anarchist conviction that people can organise plenty of stuff really well if left alone to do it. We sat down to eat and along came a luncheon companion. Naturally I began to chat to her. She was one of the translators. A Franco-Lebanese woman who teaches in multicultural studies in Le Havre. She also teaches in England apparently, but we spoke in French. You have to understand that there is no “multicultural studies” in France. She is having a massive struggle to begin to get such matters into the curriculum. You see, the French believe that all French people are French. They speak French, and are French. And if they aren’t French they should be. As soon as possible. So there are no Anglo-French, no Maghrebain-French, no Franco-Vietnamese. The possibility just doesn’t exist. They don’t ask what religion anyone is, since religion is separate from the state. So they don’t know how many Muslims there are in France, not exactly. All citizens are equal under the law, and all are French. Any deviation from this is treated like AIDS, by the left and the right. Anything that smacks of community identity, of a cultural adhesion different to French, is considered “communitarianism” and is evil. Examples of how communitarianism does not work are the UK and America. This model is to be avoided at all costs. The boiling controversy over Muslim schoolgirls wearing headscarves in schools, or civil servants wearing them at work is a manifestation of this unease. Nearly all the politicians and a huge majority of the French people want a special law about this invasion of the public space by the private. So this woman trying to deal with multiculturalism is on a very sticky wicket. In fact, I have never heard the word multiculturalism used in France since I have been here. Anyway we had a very good chat and it reminded me that this sort of encounter would be going on all over the place all day and all night. And it would probably affect people more than any of the formal events.

One small but important thing I noticed. When I went to Larzac 2003 (the huge party/rally/concert in the South of France this summer) for my several hour visit (just up the road from my house), I noticed that a new slogan had emerged, and was somehow really pleased by it. Instead of “Another World is Possible”, which I first heard just before the first World Social Forum, suddenly it seemed that everywhere it was “Other Worlds are Possible”. Frankly, at the ESF, I did not notice that this slogan had taken over the discourse. In fact, I hardly noticed it at all. Since I don’t know how slogans move and change, and have some ambivalence about them anyway, I don’t know what to make of it. But I noticed it. I prefer the new slogan. I never liked the old one all that much. I kept wondering which other world. Maybe I want the wrong one. How do we know for sure what the right one is? The second slogan opens things up and keeps them ambiguous. I don’t think we really know yet, although there are loads more clues than 35 years ago.

That afternoon, the Wednesday, leaving N at the flat, I went to the GLAD space. The English translation in the Programme is Globalisation of Fights and Disobedience Actions. It actually was only 25 minutes from our flat by Metro, near the closest venue to us, La Villette. I was immediately impressed by the fact that across the front of the Big Hall, in huge neon letters, was European Social Forum. Not a banner sagging in the middle, but neon letters. I thought, this is a serious event. Nothing much was happening at GLAD, it was just setting up. GLAD people seem to be at the forefront of the movements that are a bit more disobedient, more arrest oriented, also setting up villages at sites of demos and that sort of thing. Hard core. Just as well nothing was happening, because ringing Ian’s mobile from a pay phone, I found he was at the flat, not knowing how to get in. Flats often have these elaborate security systems and you have to tell your pals the secret password or they can’t get in to ring your doorbell. And of course I lost my mobile phone two weeks or so before. I think it bounced out of an open bike bag between the newsagent and home. The one time you really need a mobile is at meetings like this. People everywhere and needing to meet. Anyway I got back in no time, and we had a good re-introduction to each other and motored on for a few hours. N was pleased to see Ian as well, as she likes both Ian and Graeme. We were meant to have a formal Shifting Ground meeting that evening. But Graeme’s flight got delayed and it was not possible. We never did have that meeting. I missed a slot once, and it just did not happen. On the other hand we had a meal and a coffee and talked about quite a bit really.

Wednesday night we had our second takeaway from the Chinese/Vietnamese we had scoped the night before. Really lovely food, and if you are careful, exceedingly cheap. Even if careless, less than a meal, and you really can pick it all by looking at the finished product. We also discovered a bakery on that rue Lepic near our flat. Lovely bakery. Les Petits Mittrons, if you are ever in that neighbourhood. I mention all this, as it was part of the trip for everyone. Everyone had to eat, and whether locally, or in the marquees, food is always important. Will the food be as good in London next year?

The next day, we did a bit of sightseeing in the morning. Like thousands of other ESF people at various times during their stays. We wandered up to Scare Coeur, which I had seen, but never walked up to. And then back down through the shopping streets, in particular scouting out Tati for a later trip of Naurika’s. During which she bought a new dressing gown and a few other exceedingly cheap clothes. We have nothing like what they have in Paris down here in little old Bédarieux.

In the afternoon, I went to my most important workshop. It was called Radical Theory. A subject that still interests me greatly, even though I don’t read academic books any more. Several people had organised the workshop as there was nothing like it and no space for it in Florence. It was also the place we had chosen by email as a meeting place for “pan”, a new group that I am in. Some people knew others, but no one knew everyone. The workshop was organised by people we didn’t know. It began as ten people, introducing ourselves in a circle. Would you believe that you could go for months in French political activity, and no one would insist on a circle where people introduce themselves? It just is not a part of the culture here. We were 60 by the time the stragglers showed up. It was a long metro ride and then a 10 minute bus ride followed by 15 minute walk to this place. So small groups were constructed. All of the pan people went to one group and we had a superb conversation. They really were as delightful as I had imagined they might be. Varied, but delightful. The pan people then went off to a coffee, and later a meal, all previewed. However, the mobile phones were on, the various people had to go here or there for this or that, and in the end, rather than 8, there were only five at the meal. Still, we had to start somewhere. I can safely say that this was the highlight of the ESF for me. Pan stands for Planetary Anarchist Network, or any other suitable name you can imagine with those initials (try it). There might be a journal that comes out of this Radical Theory meeting that is the hippest, most dialectical and activist oriented theoretical journal on earth, in English anyway. That was the other good thing from my point of view, the meeting was in English. Nearly everyone was under forty. In fact only one guy was as old as me, and he only came to the second meeting in the Mosque, where more talk about the journal happened.

I might add here that the late arrival of people at meetings was happening all over the place. This was a result of some silly political decision to have the meetings spread out in the suburbs, so that “the local people” could attend. I doubt that many did, frankly, and it just meant that all the 50,000 or more serious altermondialistes, who came from all over the world to specifically attend meetings were grossly inconvenienced. I certainly hope the London ESF tries to find venues which are fewer and closer. Spending time travelling on the metro is not what this thing is all about.

Incidentally, you might like to know about all the workshops or seminars I would have liked to attend, but could not. The plenaries I didn’t even look at. Seminars included Racism, Xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Life after Capitalism. What are the perspectives for the altermondialistes. Social economy of solidarity and political alternatives. The altermondialistes question themselves on its words, symbols and language. Global Ecovillage Network (two meetings). Sports and globalisation. Local Social Forums (three meetings). Disobedienti. Spiritual resistance to neo liberal globalisation. How do we win majorities for the ideas of altermondialism. Inhabitants, participation and associative life in communities. Local Exchange Trading Systems. Strategy of anti capitalist movements. To resist is to create a joyful existence. Really sorry I missed the last one. Organised a group I know nothing about, Le Vent dans les Steppes. And of course these are only the ones I was interested in. Others might have been even better.

The next day, N and I decided to go to a morning seminar together. There were at least a thousand people (seminar? the French!) in a new multiplex cinema in Ivry, another place in the middle of a wasteland of construction. All the distant sites seemed to be wasteland construction areas. The subject was Religions, Social Struggles and Alterglobalisation (no one knows how to translate the French altermondialistes into sensible English, I like that). We were both interested in the general subject, and wanted to see a real live talk by a guy called Tariq Ramadan. He is a very classy Muslim intellectual, born Egyptian, lives in Geneva. Seems to have used the ESF as a springboard for some serious PR. Although he has been active for many years in the suburban areas where young Muslims live, hardly anyone who is white French knew who he was two months ago. I asked several of my political pals. Now, after a tussle with some French intellectuals who happen to be Jewish and probably Zionists, and his entry into the ESF, he is known to nearly all political people in France. Quite a rise in a few months. He was even on the box the other night, having a bun fight with the Minister of the Interior, Sarkozy. Anyway although I am still learning about the French and “their Muslims”. The French seem to be particularly excited about what to do with the young French Muslims. Or is it French people of a Muslim heritage? Or is it French people who happen to practice a religion? Or is it immigrants’ children? In any case, this is very controversial just now. Should French (Muslim) lasses be allowed to wear a headscarf in school? Big controversy. The law of 1905 (?) says that there has to be a total and utter separation of church and state. So no one is meant to have an “ostentatious symbol of religion” in a state run public space. It is, of course, a country where ever ninety percent of the people are Catholic by profession. I think 7% Muslim, 2% Protestant and 1% Jewish, plus a few Buddhists and so forth. I think there are 7%, the French don’t actually specifically ask in the census. Anyway, Ramadan says he represents the liberal wing of Islam. He thinks that Muslims should not oppress women, and that although his brother has advocated stoning adulteresses to death and his grandfather founded a pretty seriously fundamentalist Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, he seems to be a genuine liberal. To the extent that a Muslim, who does not share the worship of the Enlightenment as the basis for Universal Values can be a liberal. Other people think he is a double talking, anti-Semitic, treacherous dude with a hidden agenda. I thought he was all right, but I could be wrong. Sometimes the subtleties of French language and politics escape me. However, he is not a French republican fundamentalist, like nearly every single French politician. The French believe they have had equality of women for many years, possibly since the French Revolution or maybe since they finally gave women the vote after WW2. They also believe (I think correctly), that the liberation of women is not very high on the agenda of your average Muslim lad or lass. To me it is crystal clear that neither culture has achieved anything like equality. The French, in my view, are about where England and America were in 1975,and neither of those countries is a fantastic model of accomplishment and of women’s liberation. But its probably true that the Muslims have a bit more work to do. Ramadan’s line is that there is no reason to suppose that there is only one way to liberation of women, the way invented in the Christian West. And that some Muslims are better on this question than others. And that there are many different Islams, and many different contexts for Islam nowadays. And that his job is to move the truly outrageous Muslim men and women along the path to some kind of liberation. But along the path, they might well wear veils or headscarves in public places. As to whether Muslim women can do such a thing in the schools or at work, and whether this violates the sacred tenets of “laicité”…well this is all to be sorted by the French in the near future. There are also other complex conflicts yet to be resolved, like Universal Values vs. Cultural Pluralism. Suffice it say that it was good to hear Ramadan, who is a very smart guy, but also slightly suspicious for some reason I cannot quite put my finger on. Possibly my own racism or anti-Muslim prejudice, but I don’t think so. There was a full house. The doors were closed, and there was some fighting by lads who wanted to get in and were not allowed. But both Naurika and I were delighted we went. The other speakers were interesting, but everyone was there for Ramadan, including the TV cameras. We went straight home after that. On a free shuttle bus which took us through the wasteland and back to the tube. I took a nap that afternoon.

I woke up and went back to the GLAD space to see what was going on. By now the demo was the next day, so there was much painting and postering going on. And not a lot that I wanted to stay and be part of. I also checked out the massive space at La Villette where the books, associations and so forth were. I was once again impressed with the neon. There is a big hall, what would cover a massive market in a big town in rainy England. Inside were the dozens of stalls from all sorts of groups. And yes, of course, the SWP was there, stalls and papers. Sometimes I think I am going to be haunted by that group all my political life. Most of you know that their front group, Globalise Resistance, has been a prime mover behind the European Social Forums. And they are at the core of next year’s ESF which will be in London. The politics of that organising committee should be interesting. It appears that there is a slightly anarchistic, more grass rootsy group, or at least a less stiff group than the SWP, which is a big presence in the newish London Social Forum, whatever that may turn out to be (I don’t follow it closely from here). So a conflict is brewing. Anyway the stalls were only slightly interesting. I bought three copies of a magazine called Politis. Seems to be a kind of Attac journal of some kind. Only heard of it recently. My knowledge of French politics is still quite primitive. Only the other day I found out there is existed an FSU (some kind of union with teachers in it) and a G10, which seems to be a federation of unions, maybe 10. They both have some relation to the altermondialiste movement here in France. While I am quite obviously aware that working people must be involved and are involved in this long dance we are doing, I always cringe a bit when the unions get involved. I think that help from unions usually means supplying loads of volunteers and tons of speakers, all of whom are people and then union members. Maybe in fact, it is a way of getting regular working folks into contact with hard core altermonidalistes. Anyway, the stalls were a bit boring. I then went to check out the GLAD site again. Once more my timing was off. The brutal truth is that I am probably in bed when the GLAD site gets hot. The food served by the self organised collective just didn’t appeal. Although we did meet a couple of people from the Black Radishes (Radis Noirs) who are from Montpellier. They were all under 30, dressed in appropriate clothes, with appropriate metal, and cooking up a storm. Being a bit French now, the healthy but uninteresting looking food they served, for free or donation, was not enough to make us sample it. Anyway, while I am clearly interested deeply in what GLAD does and is, and while my soul is still very much in their field, I fear that their politics is not constructed for a 58 year old with a second kidney transplant. Although no doubt I could cycle further than any of those urban looking people.

The next day, the last morning, we went out, at our leisure, to the Libertarian Social Forum. This was in an entirely other venue than any of the other ESF sites. I have yet to figure out the French institutionalised anarchist scene. But what I have discovered so far is of only passing interest to me. They seem to all be rather stiff. And not very keen to mix with other people than anarchists. And they are well rooted in the nineteenth century. I sometimes wonder now that we are actually in the 21 st century, whether they will wake up. And they all seem to have a serious pathology which rejects any world view other than materialist positivist science. All the other views seem to be delusions. And if you mention spirituality, to them they get all red and hurriedly point out that all religions are a load of shit. I don’t think the possibility that spirituality could exist outside a church has ever occurred to most of them. And Catholic has so much to do with the French anarchists. And usually they don’t mention anything about “nature” or environment, unless forced. Then they fit it into a rather boring pre-arranged frameworks. Their treatment of women is nearly as appalling as the rest of the French male population. Now the Radis Noirs and the GLAD people, they are the anarchists who interest me always. Even if they don’t call themselves anarchist. I like Black Radish much better than anarchist as a title anyway. You know they are anarchists without being so in your face and reminiscent of bombs. So the books were mostly boring there. Although I did chat with the guy lays out the anarchist journal Refractions. That is the only French anarchist journal I have yet read that I might recommend to a serious intellectual. He was intriguing. And I can actually have a vague semblance of a conversation with a guy like him, for half and hour. And we chatted with another guy on a stall who was a close friend of our local pal the anarchist renal nurse who helped us out so much early on. So even in a circle that I don’t have much to with, the organised libertarian scene in France, we are both starting to know a few people. Pretty good for immigrants. I might go to the next Refractions meeting which is sometimes in Montpellier. I don’t know why. Maybe they want a small English section? I almost forgot, Naurika (and me too a bit less) was particularly thrilled to see her first live Zapatista. She has taken a strong liking to what she knows about that group. He was a young guy, giving a bit of a presentation of Chiapas and its form of organisation. He used the metaphor of a kind of snail’s spiral shell.

We didn’t stay too long there as we had to get back to eat and to go to the demo. Actually, N had better things to do. Large crowds actually do not agree with N these days (she hates them). Anyway, I went off, with my water bottle in hand. I met up with the banner of the Americans against the War, who meet in Paris. I knew some by email. There were not many, maybe, in the end about nine or ten. I met a guy who is a keen member, who writes. Next book is about places where you can get along really well on public transport. I think he wrote one on great places to live in America. Anyway, nice guy. Keen cyclist, so we mostly talked about that before we kicked into place, and even after that. There were also several others form the AAW group that I met, but I didn’t always get a chance to chat for very long until an interruption happened. I carried the banner for a bit, and got my picture taken about forty times in the period I was carrying. I began to speculate on how many videos there were, how many digital cameras and how many mobiles beaming pictures back to somewhere, and I stopped. I guess this is just part of life these days. I kind got out of touch with how much is photographed and recorded. How much it is all a show. But I can see this going in the direction of a post modern ramble, so I stop. There were loads of people. I am sure everyone who registered must have turned up. I saw that 51,000 registered. And then they each might have been matched by the whole of France and Paris. So I figure maybe 100,000. I saw this figure a few times. Loads of people, from all over. All of them seemed to have brought their banners and puppets and uniforms to wear. I remember on one trip to GLAD going under the huge underpass and seeing maybe eight busses of people from Spain, young folks all of them. Loads of people. But it must be remembered that most of Paris was going on as usual. There was route mapped out, maybe half an hour’s walk on your own. The march took several hours. I was there for three, and then dropped out to avoid the crowds. Actually, on the Metro, even at the station at the end of the march, the train was not crowded. It was a lovely march, but well contained. We marched behind some women for a bit, which was really good, since we were in front of some communists before. Women are better to be around than communists. We missed our chance to get behind a calypso band. In terms of music, I would say it was sub par. There need to be more bands. Everyone should have the chance to march behind the music they love. While scouting about one AAW guy found the Vietnam Vets against the War, and so we marched together. There were four of them, as near as I could tell, with a good banner. They looked pretty interesting guys, but I did not speak to them. I saw much networking going on as I don’t think the AAW knew about these guys. Anyway, I met several more Americans Against the War, including some who live more than half the year about an hour from us a the beginning of the Cévennes. I might have persuaded her to come to the Montpellier meetings while they were here. They were very pleasant. I didn’t talk much to her, mostly to him. He is French. Anyway it was a pleasant way to end the ESF.

But there was more to come. I had time to nip back and take a nap before we had the dinner meeting of the group to make the new Radical Theory Journal. The setting was terrific, the Mosque in the 5 th, which is a real mosque with a resto attached. I won’t go into the impossibility of organising a group of people who are self organising, but it is hard to do. Like herding cats. Anyway we chose a terrible place to “meet”, and I still don’t know what might have come from that meeting. I had a good couscous, talked to a few people and then left early. Ian and Graeme also left early. We hope this journal initiative takes off but we really don’t know.

So now the ESF was over. It was raining on the Sunday, many people were on their way home, they had to work on Monday. We went in the rain to watch the France-England match. Mixed feelings, but I remember liking it more in the first half than the second. The result got obvious, it was clear the French were on a terrible day, in weather they didn’t like, with a kicker who was off. Not a great game, but good to see a few moments of rugby, as I like it. Although I recognise his greatness, once you have seen one conversion from a hard angle, you have seen them all. I am not a big fan of kicking in any form. Early afternoon was spent indoors napping. I made a date to see my cousin from New York, who was in Paris visiting his girlfriend who was working for six months at the OECD. I had never met here. Hadn’t seen the cousin for ten years or maybe fifteen. So went across Paris in the rain to sit in the living room and chat for three hours. It was a very good visit. I am delighted I went.

So while I was gone Naurika cleaned the entire flat, ready for our departure. Usually someone else cleans, but there were Bulgarians (the owner worked for two years in Bulgaria) coming to stay there on Monday, a few hours after we left. So an early night, up at 6.30 to make the 8.20 train at Gare de Lyon. We made it with time to spare. We had a really restful and delightful ride back. I have marked out a few bits of countryside to explore on the bike someday. There is this bit south of Paris with lovely hills and white cattle. I think it might be around Auxerre, but I must look at the route map of the TGV. Then it gets boring for a bit, and then we are in the South, mountains on the left, big hills on the right. I love that ride. Although I am also partial to the last 20 minutes from Clermont l’Hérault to Bédarieux. Good to be home.

Tom Cahill
24 Nov. 2003