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Recent articles by Manuel Baptista (personal capacity)
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anarchist movement |
debate
Thursday February 01, 2007 06:02 by Manuel Baptista (personal capacity) - «Luta Social» Colective and «AC-Interpro» Union manuelbap at yahoo dot com
We need to understand that our discourse and our phraseology are pointless to the overwhelming majority of workers...
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You raise some very important and constructive issues Manuel. Like you say, an international progam could potentially be of tremendous value. It have to be well formulated and persuading, unequivocal and clear, concise and at the same time comprehensive, and last but not least it must possess the ability to rally all libertarian communists through consensus (it must be voted upon as well, but it should be good enough for people to just adopt naturally, because of its universal application). And it should serve as the ideological foundation of a stable international libertarian communist organization.
You wrote that Anarkismo.net seems to be the ideal place, and now seems to be the ideal time, to launch this debate. Well, maybe you're right about the place, but I think you're wrong about the time (as evidenced in the few responses hitherto). The local, regional and national organizations are unfortunately still minuscule. The development and decision making process behind such a program would therefore require more of our scarce resources than what it would give back.
If someone - whether a person or group - writes such an excellent suggestion that the collectives and organizations will adopt it naturally, it would be damn nice! (the "Organizational Platform" currently works as such a rallying point, but it's obviously inadequate). However, this will probably not happen. I think we deliberately have to start such a colletive process you're talking about.
The right time for this would be when at least a few of the regional/national organizations are big enough to put aside resources for such a project (I don't want to set an artificial limit here, but at least three organizations with at least 500 active members each, seems to me to be a reasonable minimal requirement). In the meantime Anarkismo and other places work alright for informal discussion and coordination. Also in the meantime, it's each organization's responsibility to harmonize programs, names, principles, logos, graphic profiles, websites, etc. as much as possible, without neglecting local work and without sacrificing too much of their valuable time in "paper internationals" (this is a point which I think could be improved).
I think the "Building an Anarchist International" policy paper of the Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland basically puts it well (http://wsm.ie/story/848):
"[...] 6. Such an international organisation is more than a loose network of like-minded groups. It is not a paper body. It only has a purpose if it can contribute to the anarchist movement. Therefore it only becomes real when based on a number of sizable organisations. Anything less would need finance, administration, translation, publications, and conferences but would not be capable of making the return necessary to justify this expenditure of resources."
So to sum it up: I totally agree with you about the need for such a program, but I think it's premature. Do you agree?
One last point I want to address: Your claim that "We need to understand that our discourse and our phraseology are pointless to the overwhelming majority of workers..." are unfortunately true, straight to the point and can not be exaggerated(!). Here in Norway I try to formulate our tendency not as revolutionaries who want to crush the state by armed insurrection, in order to establish Anarchy (as you said: "pointless to the overwhelming majority"). I rather try to formulate our tendency as ultra-democrats who'd like to see the economic dictatorship we live in replaced by economic democracy trough a directly democratic mass strike, in order to reach a society based on direct democratic councils (at least a bit more relevant to most people, I hope).
I'd be interested in learning more about how you think the way we communicate with our fellow (non-anarchist) workers, students, residents, friends, etc. can be improved (at least that won't be premature to discuss - rather long overdue!)
Happy to discuss with you this important and relevant subject.
But why are you telling it is not the right time for it?~It seems to me that it is...
But let's discuss the thema instead of whether it is the right moment or not...
Comradly,
Manuel Baptista
(pers. cap.)