ISF: Another World Is Nearly Here!

national | public consultation / irish social forum | feature

Wednesday October 06, 2004 20:12

by Irish Social Forum

john.finnegan3 at mail dot dcu dot ie

085-1423454

Major Debate on how to Oppose Neoliberalism

A debate on how best to oppose the forces of neoliberalism and global capitalism – and indeed what to replace it with - is set to be the highlight of this year's Irish Social Forum, which will take place in Dublin next weekend, October 8th to 10th. Another central theme will be racism in Ireland and its role in neoliberalism. Author and academic Peadar Kirby will argue for less market and more state... "What we call the Celtic Tiger is simply an Irish version of the tilt towards the market that is evident in countries throughout the world, as the state restructures itself so as to put the needs of global capital above the needs of its citizens."

However, Aileen O'Carroll of the anarchist Workers Solidarity Movement is calling for a "social revolution" to bring about "a world based on the principles of economic equality and direct democracy rather than the principle of profit. For me, the only solution is to replace this political system with one which is completely different," O'Carroll said. "I don't believe parliament will bring us the change we want. It cannot challenge the fundamental inequalities of neoliberalism. Parliament's role is to manage inequality not to remove it." The plenary, which will also be addressed by Mick O'Reilly of the ATGWU and Labour Councillor Mary Murphy, will feature conflicting views on social partnership and whether to participate in it.

Meanwhile, the role of racism in the neoliberal globalisation project will be highlighted at the other main plenary, titled Racism in Ireland. Author and Trinity College academic Dr Ronit Lentin will focus on the consequences, for Ireland, of the global migration regime. In the wake of the 2004 Citizenship referendum, Lentin will argue that "while, like all modern nation-states, Ireland is a 'racial state', at the present time of unparalleled prosperity (which, however, is accompanied by growing poverty and rich-poor gaps), Ireland is also a racist state. Ireland is creating armies of invisible migrant labourers. Looking at the stories of migrants is one alternative way to think about globalisation in today's Ireland." Also due to speak at the plenary on racism are Aisling Reidy of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Rosanna Flynn of Residents Against Racism and Jason Brannigan of Belfast-based Fascists Out Campaign.

The ISF will feature workshops hosted by more than 40 different groups from around Ireland on such topics as racism, trade unions, inner-city regeneration, trade justice, the global arms trade, Public Private Partnerships, the US military's use of Shannon Airport, female genital mutilation, left unity, incinerators, the EU constitution and the Criminal Justice Bill.

The Irish Social Forum is a gathering for everyone opposed to war, racism and the implications of corporate-led globalisation or neoliberalism. It is a space to bring together everyone who wants to see global justice, workers' rights and a sustainable society.

Lentin described the Irish Social Forum as being "dedicated to all those opposed to the neoliberal globalising forces of a regime where racial states harmonise their closure against people from the poor world."

'The ISF is a unique opportunity to build a broad movement which can challenge the dominance of pro-market sentiments and ideas throughout public discourse but especially in the media and in policy circles. As the destructive effects of the market on Irish society, and especially on the most vulnerable among us, become ever more evident building such a movement is an urgent priority.'

For some the Irish Social Forum will be a pre-cursor to the European Social Forum (ESF), which will this year be held in London from October 14th to 17th. Upwards of 50,000 activists from across Europe are expected to converge on London for this, the third ESF (www.fse-esf.org).

The Irish Social Forum was launched in July 2003, as a counter-summit to the World Economic Forum (WEF), which was due to be held in Dublin in October 2003. In the event, the WEF was cancelled, but the ISF went ahead and was a huge success, with over 400 people attending.

The Irish Social Forum 2004 will open at 7.30pm this Friday, 8th October at the St Nicholas of Myra Parish Centre, off Francis Street in Dublin's Liberties. The evening will include an introductory talk, screenings, live music and a DJ. Drinks will be served.

Saturday gets under way at 10.30am in the UCD student centre, where the workshops and the plenary will be followed by an evening of live music from Latin America workshops. An international range of food will also be on offer.

On Sunday the Forum moves to the ATGWU building in Middle Abbey Street. Full details are available at
http://www.irishsocialforum.org

PLENARY SESSIONS:

RACISM IN IRELAND
(Saturday 9th October, 2pm, UCD Student Centre, Belfield)

* Jason Brannigan, Fascists Out Campaign
* Rosanna Flynn, Residents Against Racism
* Ronit Lentin, Campaign against the Deportation of Irish Children
* Aisling Reidy, Irish Council for Civil Liberties

ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF OPPOSITION TO NEOLIBERALISM
(Sunday 10th October, 2pm, ATGWU, Mid Abbey St)

* Peadar Kirby, Lecturer, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University
* Mary Murphy, Labour Party Councillor (former National Policy Officer, SVdeP),
* Aileen O'Carroll, Workers Solidarity Movement
* Mick O'Reilly, General Secretary, ATGWU

WEBSITE:
http://www.irishsocialforum.org

ABOUT THE IRISH SOCIAL FORUM

The Irish Social Forum draws its inspiration and energy from the international movement of social forums, such as the World Social Forum and the European Social Forum, coming together to build alternatives towards a sustainable and equitable world in the belief that “another world is possible”. The forum is created by and for the movements and is organised in accordance with the World Social Forum Charter of Principles of Porto Alegre (www.fse-esf.org/en/charter.html).

The first Irish Social Forum Co-operation and Solidarity Summit was held from October 17th-19th in University College Dublin. The summit featured speakers from countries as far as Pakistan, Palestine and Italy as well as local speakers and over forty workshops. The main themes of the Summit centred on Peace, Public Services, the Environment, and Equality. The workshops were held on a variety of issues such as prison privatisation plans, intellectual property, farmers’ issues North and South, the trade union movement and young workers, racism, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), West Papua, and feminist organisations. In all, about four hundred people attended the Irish Social Forum Summit and feedback was overall enthusiastic.

This is a chance for people from around Ireland to come together to engage in debate, organize action and build networks to strengthen the global justice movement. It will also feature music and film-showings celebrating the global movement.

The Irish Social Forum is a process to assist in, and present, the articulation of the movement of movements of individuals, formal organisations and informal groups from any part of Irish civil society who are negatively affected by and are opposed to the global project known as neoliberalism. Its purpose is to express the needs felt within Irish society as a powerful statement of the "other world" that is not only possible but is already "under construction" in many areas.

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Comments (12 of 12)

Can someone explain why the S.W.P. are not involved

by uncle joe

Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:43

???

by seedot

Tue Oct 05, 2004 13:36

did you look at the timetable? The SWP are co-hosting a workshop on the Sunday with the WSM about movements and parties. AEIP (which I believe may include some SWP members ;) is doing a workshop on the Saturday about the ESF. SWP members have attended planning meetings for both this and the previous ISF.

why so quiet?

by Ping

Tue Oct 05, 2004 13:50

Why was this not advertised before. Looks like fairly interesting line up but didn't hear much chat about it so far. no posters or stickers about at all

why no posters

by liz - isf working group

Tue Oct 05, 2004 15:42

keykiet at yahoo dot com

few reasons. one is that we're way behind on publicity but we now have loads of posters & fliers & are putting them around cafes, colleges etc.
get in touch if you want some.

another problem is that due to a very dodgy dublin litter act which needs to be repealed non-election posters put up in the city get taken down by the corporation almost immediately.

we are relying on word of mouth & everybody posting the invite & schedule on mailing lists so please help with this. it's already on sustainable ireland & community exchange.

see you there.

Mary Murphy on Alternatives?

by Finglas Flyer

Wed Oct 06, 2004 14:30

Would this be the same Cllr. Mary Murphy of Labour who has refused to participate in any way in the Anti Bin Tax Campaign in Finglas, which is one of the strongest and broadest ( includes SF, SP,ISN and independent activists) in the City? Would it be the same Cllr. Murphy who said absolutely nothing when eight Finglas residents were jailed last year for participating in temporary blockades of bin trucks? Or maybe its the same Cllr. Murphy who, with her labour colleagues , made a pact with Fine Gael and the PDs on Dublin City Council.

Im all for free speech and sure let us hear how people like cllr. Murphy justifies their anti-activism/grassroots politics but please dont insult our intelligence by implying that this darling of the current Labour leadership is in some way involved in any grassroots struggle against neo-liberalism!

Mary who?

by The Identifier

Wed Oct 06, 2004 17:33

Those looking to put a face to the name, can find Mary as the new pin-up of Capitalist Labour.
No, that's her to the left (pictorally speaking) of Kim Il Rabbitte on the front of his new tome for insomniacs.

re: "another world is almost here"

by iosaf - "being relevant to the cultural and scientific needs of our future society"© ®

Thu Oct 07, 2004 01:10

I've checked my records and the candidates for "other world almost here" have not moved un-neccesarily in recent times, the asteroid Tutatis did pass within 4 lunar distances at 13h40 GMT on the 28th of September. Being the closest any minor planetary body has come to the Earth apart from the Moon of course but we are used to that.
Tutatis is shaped like a cashewnut and is about 4 kilometres long.

So-
"another world has just gone past" ©®
might be more appropriate.
i'll let you have solidarity rates :-) for that one.

How can people be so out of this world?

by normal citizen

Thu Oct 07, 2004 17:27

"A debate on how best to oppose the forces of neoliberalism and global capitalism" ...my guess is that all they can come up with is just another meaningless demonstration. And next year they will have this same debate all over again.......

These people are talking about revolution, most of them dont even know what it means because they are just stupid naive schoolkids. "Lets do revolution", "Ok, but not today, i have to go home help my mom".

None of them would have the guts to take firearms and actually do what they say. All they do is talk, talk and talk some more...

Eventually 98% of these kids will grow up to be normal citizens. When they are 60 they can remember their youth "how stupid was i back then?" I could have used the time i spent planning meaningless demonstrations and non-exist revolution to something positive.

I would really like to see these anarchist or what ever they call themselves to pick up their guns and actually try somekind of revolution. It would be massacre. No more anarchists.

after ISF- how best the network can develop

by dunk

Fri Oct 08, 2004 14:04

bellow is awaiting editorial approval on ISF website

local social fora will continue to happen but can we develop a global network with todays continoully growing technology more of the planets people can participate in the global social fora

the ESF happens the week after the ISF and for various reasons* an alternative ESF festival has been created at the same time.
we here in dublin might be participating in these processes without having to travel to london
irish media activists will participate in the (alt) ESF and attempts have been made for those unable to get to london from dublin, or wherever in the world, who still want to be filled in or even participate in the social forum process, to be able to do so
heres whats going on

an (alt)ESF live feed system, at one stage looked likely to happen with london, dublin, seattle all being connected together. now theres no talk of it here in ireland, that im aware of.
maybe its still possible, hopefully it will happen

anyway, as attempted before i was hoping that there could be 2 or more way hook ups including webstreams or/ and webconferencing type systems- i talked with imc crew here in ireland and for the most part they do not seem to be in favour of this type of system and feel it could not benefit things in anyway. i firmly disagree with this and am working on this in thesis (architecture)

at one imc-ie meeting here there was a rough agreement that webcams at either end and streaming stuff from the alternative ESF was a possibility that at least we could or would try.
some imc ireland will be over there in london next weekend and the rest will be here

when talking with some imc-ie crew they said that some of the uk groups were streaming/ webcasting stuff and doing live radio (local or on the net im not sure)

the convergence festival is still on in irlend also next weekend, they gave us a rough agreement of a space to do this "experiment" for a few hours on sunday, but seeing as saturday would perhaps be the better day due to stuff happening in london it could be changed to suit you london.

so im puttin this out still with the hope that we can set an above type system up

imc-ie is 3 next month

this was guts of email sent to
imc-uk, imc-esf, imc-ie

slán libh

dunk

link that was attempting this system

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66496&search_text=esf%20live%20feed

and later

imc'istas - indymedia united kollectives, got back to us here

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66668&search_text=social%20forum

*
mainly that the structure of the ESF is not working with the "charter of principals" layed out in brazil after world social forum
many well respected groups including indymedia london (and most uk-imc`s) and london social forum

link to (alt) ESF website

Fri Oct 08, 2004 14:23

sorry should have been above

Unofficial ESF website:
http://www.esf2004.net

and other useful
LINKS AND CONTACTS:

IMC Media Centre organising wiki website:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/UkImcEsf

Indymedia mailing list:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-esf

EFCR website:
http://www.efcr2004.net

EFCR contact:
info@(nospamplease)efcr2004.net

Indymedia UK Network:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk

Autonomous Spaces and Initiatives:
http://www.altspaces.net

Official ESF website:
http://www.fse-esf.org

Unofficial ESF website:
http://www.esf2004.net

Location + Maps of Camden Centre, Alexandra Palace and other Spaces:
http://www.altspaces.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?pagename=Main.SpacesTravel

Previous Media Labs:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/DiyMediaLabs

re "anarchy and revolution"

Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:50

dear normal citizen
i too am a "normal citizen" (whatever that means)
many believe we are going through a paradigm shift in society due to recent breaktroughs in science, mainly the technical ability to look into the structure of the atom in the 1920`s. this change has sparked paradigm shifts in other areas of society and civilisation
a result of this are new "open" spaces emerging for the free discussion of what way this world is working and how it can be improved on

anarchy perhaps might be the utopia, but maybe its unrealistic as the world stands at present. i have never considered myself an anarchist and have always used my vote.
i work with and respect a lot of people and their ideas, creativity, passion, intelligence who claim to be anarchists- i gladly work with them when it makes sense as the most creative and fun way to attempt to bring about change
im an architect and one of the greatest architects of the modern movement, alvar aalto from fiinland was an anarchist throughout his life, he fought in first world war too
i like george monbiots proposal, who also was an anarchist for a long time but who now is not, he is proposing the end of nation state democracys and the wish for one global democracy for the one species of human on the one planet. it makes sense

re revolution,
when the polish monk copernicus wrote his book in the 14th century? "concerning the movements of the revolutionary orbits" he proposed a massive idea:
the earth is not the centre of the universe, the sun is, and earth merely revolves around the sun
this took a few hundred years to be accepted, and galileo eventually proved it through science that happened due to his development of kids toys, lenses, into a telescope.
we, human species, now take it for granted that we do indeed go around the sun. but the story has developed. we live in a strange universe. thats life
for me the "revolutionary" act is allowing yourself do drop your baggage and feel alive from this there is no need for guns and violence, perhaps im naive here?
im a pacifist, i love the life
ahimsa is the jain word for non-violence, its thousands of years old, gandhi took it on as his non violent action
"action" is an artistic, political, social, spiritual thing all at the same time for me.

humour and creativity are stronger tools than violence
we, humanity, are once again talking with and listening to each other. social forum allow for that and encourage it, everyone can have their say, there are no leaders of this movement, just the dedicated few who work at it to make it happen becuase they believe in it- thanks to them

if life is allowed to continue as its going at present, our species will be killed. therefor we live in an insane age as we go against the fundamental process of life: attempting to sustain life. neoliberalism is the chief system that is driving this insane oil guzzling, kyoto agreement ripping up, racist, unfair trade ruling system. therefor something has to change
informing the worlds population is the task we must engage in. and its already happening

so normal citizen come along next time, bring your kids, meet the rest of the normal citizens
speak out without your anonymity, make friends, have a laugh and keep life alive

FUSPEY film number 1 (34 seconds)
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2003/06/273076.wmv

orange wig, tux wearing, "non violent action for better world" placard wearing, frontline luasca dancing gobsheen @ mayday 04 duboin demo
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64799&search_text=facts%20vs%20facts

black blanket- art as political act, grassroots style with grannies and babies
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65270#comment80308

indymedia feedback
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66327#comment85738

"It's like Germany in the 1930s, except this time it going global!"
FBI Seizes IMC Servers in the UK
http://easa.antville.org/stories/941049/

living
http://easa.antville.org/stories/935634/
(here you will find story and links to paradigm shift, eco cities, art and culture as political tools, ancient irish thinking, sex and sinners)

FUSPEY site (fun, sustainable, peaceful, existence)
http://www.geocities.com/fuspey/

huge thanks to ISF/ DUBLIN SF working team
sorry for not helping enough, feedback is essential for healthy living systems, there was not enough of it at wrapup of ISF2

the SOCIAL is improving
bottom line is its mostly a really enjoyable funny passionate creative crowd to get to know

the revolution is on. here and now

radio reports from ESF

Sat Oct 16, 2004 15:47

you can listen to radio report of stuff so far from (alt) ESF from here:
Http://radio.indymedia.org:8000/rampART (case sensitive).
"What's happened to Rampart radio?"

http://rampart.omxtra.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=3&forum=2&post_id=13#forumpost13

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ISF: Another World Is Nearly Here!

Comments (12 of 12)