An International Organisation for a Participatory Society?

The following has been posted in the online edition of The Occupied Times of London. It was written collectively by myself and some other members of the Greater London Chapter of the interim International Organisation for a Participatory Society. 

 How does one approach the creation of a new world in the face of such confusion, cynicism, ignorance and alienation? The left has failed at offering an effective, unified resistance to rampant neo-liberal capitalism. Weak from the many assaults from the establishment and the constant propaganda of the corporate media, the progressive/radical movements and organisations plod along fatigued from incessant external and internal conflict. The divided strands of radical individuals and groups don’t stand a chance against the clinical structure of the elite with all the apparatus of the state at their disposal. The Occupy movement has gone some way to refresh the left and offer new hope…the Thatcherite mantra There is No Alternative has never sounded so hollow in the face of people coming together with a common purpose to show how a different, more sane way of living can emerge from the most difficult of circumstances. In this respect, the Occupy movement has much in common with (and yet can learn a lot from) much of the destitute of the world who struggle as whole communities as a means of survival. In our materialistic Western society, we often forget or underestimate the value of mutual aid, respect and spiritual health. Our egos are trained to take over our minds and put the selfish, superficial needs of the individual above all else. Even those of us who keep our egos in check and battle the predatory values of capitalism, be it the conscientious political activist, caring social worker or the wise old neighbour next door, fall victim to self-indulgence occasionally.

 How then do we overcome our own conditioning and move from an oppositional force on the margins of public discourse to a wider movement with majority support and participation? At the beginning of 2012, leading activists from all over the world (including Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, David Graeber and others) came together to attempt to answer this question and formed the interim committee of the International Organisation for a Participatory Society (IOPS). The core values of this new, ambitious organisation were agreed to be: Self-Management, Equity/Justice, Solidarity, Diversity, Ecological Stewardship and Internationalism. These values would determine the vision of the organisation which would treat the Political, Economical, Kinship and Community/Culture spheres as being of equal importance to one another as part of a philosophy of complementary holism. In other words, all aspects of life should be considered in offering a vision for participatory societies, forming a network spanning the local, national and international. Self-determination for all peoples, whether in Shrewsbury or Shanghai, Lagos or Los Angeles wouldn’t contradict cooperation between the local and global. A bottom-up structure would facilitate this network of individuals and communities, groups and projects, to form a truly participatory world where every person could reach their full potential.

 Needless to say, such an idea seems utopian to many but this is what means to think of a better world. We set the parameters; we decide our future, unhindered by what is promoted as realistic or acceptable by elites and their cronies. In April, the interim website of IOPS was launched to help fulfill this vision. Partially inspired by Occupy and the decision-making processes of its assemblies, IOPS aims to encourage people to deliberate online and face-to-face. Local, Regional and National Chapters in a framework of nested councils would link whole countries and continents showing how they can function horizontally, where real power is held by the people in a truly democratic way. We hope that in this initial stage, IOPS can help provide a platform for the Occupy movement, improving organisation and advocating the worldwide expansion of the activities and core values at its heart.

Obviously there are many challenges to such a radical, international organisation. It is our hope that existingcampaigns on many fronts can use IOPS to broaden and sustain their activism beyond local/one-off/single-issue campaigns. Being at the interim stage of the organisation and having most of the members on the interim committee from either the United States or Europe, it has a long way to go to be truly international in the sense of having the participation of members in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The website has been translated into 9 other languages so far and is continuing to look for volunteers to translate yet more. The name and logo or the site is also interim….this is all open for democratic discussion and will be open to a popular vote once there is sufficient participation internationally. There is also the issue of excluding the illiterate and those without regular access to the internet but this problem can be overcome at a later time if the organisation grows in such numbers internationally that it reaches critical mass and ensures its core values are effectively promoted to all. Once we effectively organise, the main obstacles are the governments, corporations and financial institutions. Their power is illegitimate – more and more people are become conscious of this and crying out for something that realises all their hopes. Once this becomes global, the old order would crumble under the weight of popular resistance and solidarity. Our main challenge is convincing ourselves that we are capable of winning a better world. If we do that and organise relentlessly to achieve our goals, all this may eventually become more than an impossible dream.

Freedom and Democracy in Fallujah

"The total number of victims is still unknown. In fact, many of them are not born yet." IPS

 “Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.” Independent

Remember Iraq? That country that was crippled by Western sanctions and then mercilessly attacked, occupied and thrown into sectarian strife and civil war, remember? You don't hear much about it these days, never mind the the specific details of what life entails for the unfortunate souls of certain shattered cities in the country. The US government doesn't want you to know the truth about what happened in Fallujah. This video was repeatedly taken down from YouTube without any explanation. If the horrendous consequences of the use of depleted uranium by the US military in Fallujah became widely known and understood, more people might question future wars of conquest. The lost generation in Fallujah could easily be the lost generation of Bradford or Derry or Portland in years to come. Don't think they wouldn't use this weaponry against their own populations if things got out of hand. We're heading in that direction. On the periphery of Empire, the dark-skinned people can easily be sacrificed for imperial ends, all in the name of freedom and democracy, with the corporate media largely complicit in this rendering of innocents 'non-people'. They have the power to determine what is worthy of news and what is not. But this will come back to haunt the peoples of the West when they are on the receiving end of the tyranny to come. That is unless we speak out and act now.

With 'humanitarian intervention' on the rise again and the drum beats of war beating louder for an attack on Iran, opposition to Empire is more crucial than ever. Many were fooled by the propaganda on Libya that enabled that country to be attacked and carved up by western backed militias, often aided by al-Qaeda. Many more are fooled by the message that we 'need to intervene' in Syria, as if 'we' (i.e Western elites) were interested in anything but stealing other countries' resources and keeping their populations subjugated. Fallujah shows what happens to a place that dares offer resistance to the US when it has decided to occupy a foreign country. Afghanistan is still experiencing the same brutality. Drones have killed countless civilians on the borderlands with Pakistan. Fallujah is just one tragedy in a series of tragedies on an epic scale. Obama continues Bush's war of terror without looking back on the devastation in its wake. It is inevitable that this insatiable desire for never ending expansion and exploitation will result in the entire imperial edifice crashing down, as has happened with all empires, but this time the damage to the world could be apocalyptic given the multiple environmental, economic and social crises we face. We can't afford to ignore the continued expansion of the US Empire.

Cambridge: Jolly Good Old Boy!

Isn't it scary lovely. I've spent a long time in England (mainly in Surrey and London) but being in Cambridge actually feels like you're in England... or the stereotypical version of it. Aesthetically it feels somewhat protected from the worst excesses of corporatism/neo-liberalism.Wandering around the place it's obvious that the powers that be have some respect for it, unlike most of the rest of the country where rabble like myself live. I felt I was intruding on their privileged playground, but if you ignored the fact it's a bastion of elitism (along with Oxford), there are worse places you could spend an afternoon. It's also sobering to see where the the moneyed class send their privately-educated kids to develop their superiority complexes. The stats speak for themselves.

Exile in London

A year consumed between the hours of 9 and 5. Even outside the hours of wage slavery, there is no space: underground connections, stony faced automatons, red buses, endless polluting traffic, fretting about spending. Parks and the likes offer occasional rest bite but you get spent eventually. Spending life and cash, preoccupied with the logic of the market even if you denounce it. The divisions of this city are blurred: exploitation and alienation transcend privilege and class. Although the rich often pretend otherwise, they are surrounded. The same goes for the poor. 2 cities overlapping, and it's not always easy to tell which one you're in.

'You did an excellent job. You've seen how we work. Nowhere else works like the cities,' he said. 'It's not just us keeping them apart. It' everyone in Beszel and everyone in Ul Qoma. Every minute, every day. We're only the last ditch: it's everyone in the cities who does most of the work. So if you don't admit it, it does. But if you breach, even if it's not your fault, for more than the shortest time...you can't come back from that.'...........
.........HE WAS RIGHT. I imagined myself in Beszel now, unseeing the Ul Quma of the crosshatched terrain. Living in half of the space. Unseeing all the people and the architecture and vehicles and the everything in and among which I had lived. I could pretend, perhaps, at best, but something would happen and Breach would know.
'The City and the City', pp 370-371, China Miéville

Cool, cloud covered days, the remnants of a wishy-washy winter give way to a sun blessed week. Clear skies a reminder that freedom is something more than a mere dream. Gliding through the more 'interesting' parts of the city in the mild warmth of a Saturday in Spring, the roar of the jet engines above have a more familiar, soothing sound.

A turn in the weather. A trip away from London through endless estates, suburbia and industrial waste-space. The blue skies are still there - you just can't see them for the clouds. Great dark clouds reflecting the colourless colonisation of life below.






Corrugated iron grid fences lining railway tracks and adding mediocre fortressing to the stolen land of corporations. Thousands, maybe millions of miles of it - mass produced for a mass-produced enclosure, sectoring the all-pervasive concrete. Scar on scar on a scarred environment.







Pylons, loading bays, warehouses, yards. The urban periphery and those unfortunate enough to live amongst these neoliberal ruins - they can't afford to move elsewhere. Elsewhere: somewhere away from the saturating grey.








This is progress. It doesn't have a beginning or an end - there is no memory here. Welcome to the echo chamber of banality. A Europe more vividly dull and meaningless than its continental counterpart, nearing its critical mass. The crash won't bring celebration on the streets - just panic at empty supermarket shelves and whole communities suddenly realising it's too late. The hollow, make believe world they sleepwalked through in abundant times was an illusion afterall. The shell of civilisation bruatally exposed to the coming revenge of nature.

Giving the blog another go

After a 3 year absence Fionn is back. I'll try to last longer than a month this time before getting distracted. I've yet to define a real purpose for this blog - is it a reflective personal journal for my political ramblings or a resource for those interested in radical political and creating a better world than the current 1984-like one we inhabit? Fuck knows. Maybe a mixture of both, or something more frivolous. I'm hoping with a bit of patience it'll evolve into something more coherent anyway.

It was created at a time when the deadening impact of unemployment was taking its toll - aimlessness had me in its grasp. Years of drifting across Ireland, Scotland and Spain interspersed by periods of fortnightly visits to the dole office finally pushed me over the edge and into the more tangible life of full-time work, where I'm kept busy but stressed. All the more stressed for having moved to London. I don't yearn for the dole again but having been in the big smoke for over a year, it's time I left and returned to the less materialistic life of a drifter.