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.

Demanding the Impossible: Anarchy and the real world

Man is only truly free among equally free men.
Michael Bakunin

From the way people carry on with their everyday lives you’d think the word isn’t heading towards complete disaster. It’s nearly as if climate change, economic meltdown, environmental catastrophe and all the immense suffering to come is never going to happen. Those thoughts about immanent disaster are kept safely at the back of people’s heads, although sometimes fleeting glimpses of them break out in the form of art. This can be seen in the abundance of films with apocalyptic themes (28 Days Later, Children of Men, Cloverfield, I am legend, etc), which reflect the underlying fears of our times. It’s an entertaining theme with flashy explosions and adrenalin but the fact that such issues aren’t taken seriously is evidence enough of the backwardness of capitalism. Most people recognise the down side of capitalism when it’s pointed out- it’s so obvious that it’s impossible to dispute but with this recognition comes a feeling of helplessness. A recent conversation with my friend MacAodha (to give him his Gaelic name) conveys this typical sentiment. It went something like this:

Me: Fuck capitalism: it needs to be destroyed.
MacAodha: Aye, that’s all fine and dandy Fionn, but what’s the alternative?
Me: Anarchy or Libertarian Socialsim. You know I’m an anarchist don’t you.
MacAodha: Anarchy!?! Ah come on! You have to have some rules otherwise there’s just chaos- you can’t have everyone going about willy nilly.
Me: Anarchy doesn’t mean chaos; it means ’without authority’.
MacAodha: But you need some sort of organisation going on or everything would just fall apart.
Me: You’re right but that doesn’t have to happen in an unfair way through force in the form of government and laws. It’s not beyond the bounds of reality that society could be organised on the basis of voluntary cooperation, compassion and solidarity.
MacAodha: Ah, I don’t know now. That all sounds very pie in the sky to me.

’Pie in the sky’ it may be but if you take into consideration what has been achieved by determined groups of people in the face of adversary over the past couple of centuries, freedom begins to look a lot more possible. I say ’freedom’ because that’s exactly what we haven’t got under our current system- the western world is ironically known as ’the free world’ but we’re a long way from being free. The fact that a ’western world’ separate from the rest of the world even exists is testament to humanity’s lack of freedom. The ’western world’ is just another name for rich countries that have benefited from colonialism, exploitation and slavery at the expense of poor countries. The same principle applies for the separation of people into ’upper’ and ’lower’ classes; the upper class benefits from the exploitation and perceived inferiority of the lower class leaving everyone impoverished. In a free world, the majority of people wouldn’t have a disadvantage when it comes to basic well being.

Throughout history, there have been many movements against such disadvantage but none was more inspirational or achieved as much as the anarchists during the Spanish revolution during the 1930s. They showed that it is possible to have a more equal society where everyone was mobilised to work together for the general good. Factories were taken over by the people and the land was collectivised resulting in more efficient work despite the population of Republican Spain being at war with the fascist forces of Franco. In ’Homage to Catalonia’, George Orwell described Barcelona in 1937 as being the only place he had been where, "the working class were in the saddle". In that book he gives a first hand account of the sabotage of the revolution by the communists which were backed by Stalin who cared more about destroying the hard won achievements of the people than he did about fighting Hitler’s ally in Spain. The same goes for the ’leaders of the western world’ at the time who would rather stay neutral than support the side fighting fascism. In the end, the communist attack on the anarchists resulted in a break of solidarity and defeat at the hands of Franco who remained dictator of Spain until 1973. The moral of the story: freedom is possible but those who advocate it will be attacked on many fronts. If Stalin hadn’t stuck his dirty, big authoritarian tentacle into Spain and Hitler hadn’t supported Franco, the revolution would have continued to progress. But that’s history.

I’m not saying that the anarchism in Spain at that time was perfect or getting to that stage now would be easy but it might be worth elevating our aspirations so that we’re at least on the same track as those who had the nerve to believe in something decent. Deep down, everyone holds these ’radical’ aspirations but when it comes to acting on them, understandably people prefer to turn away from the harsh truth- its easier to just accept the way things are as long as it’s not too unbearable. That’s why anarchy hardly ever gets a shout in. The conventional view of anarchy can only be broken through education and awakening.

When I think of how I used to view anarchism, it’s not so different to how I used to view sex. When I was young and first started hearing about how babies come about, I was disgusted at what a couple had to go through to procreate. For years before puberty, when I obtained an erection, apart from not knowing why it happened, it was nothing more than an uncomfortable inconvenience and the thought of having to squeeze it into a tight space filled me with horror. "I’m not looking forward to having to go through that", I would say to my friend as he explained the process of intercourse and we’d swiftly move onto less shocking topics of conversation. But over time, sexual indifference gave way to curiosity and curiosity soon gave way to desire. It wasn’t long before girls became an obsession and the idea of sex, which had once made me squirm, became pure bliss. Now, like most men, I can hardly go three seconds without thinking about it. Obviously this is a normal transition from childhood to adulthood but a similar transition took place with my ideas of anarchy. A revolution can only come through the development of knowledge and attitudes towards the world. That way, people would learn to demand the impossible.

Until we face the fact that government doesn’t work and start to think about the alternative world we want to live in and the way it should be organised, the future will continue to look very scary indeed. On those terms, such talk begins to seem a lot less idealistic and becomes more realistic.

So it begins...

With all the talk these days of recession and economic turmoil, there seems to be an even greater volume of bullshit coming from television, radio and newspapers. Misinformation lies, distortions and distractions are nothing new for the mainstream media when dealing with important issues, but at a time when jobs continue to be lost by the thousands every day, the absurd nature of the official narrative becomes ever more prominent. The worrying thing is that many people’s views on this subject are influenced by this official narrative – their apathy and/or confusion a reflection of all the twisted and irrelevant messages they are bombarded with. Same goes for the public’s opinions on most subjects – health, education, wealth, transport, relationships, community, international politics. It’s only natural that we have many taken-for-granted assumptions about all different aspects of life, considering that we are part of a system that demands our compliance and acceptance of conformity. But at a time like this, an opportunity arises to stand back and take a fresh look at what is happening around us. Is the way we live our lives sane? Are we right just to accept the way things are and try live our lives as usual? How is all this connected to the wider world? Just what the f*ck is really happening? Not easy questions to face up to, especially if the word ‘revolution’ sounds threatening to you. But it’s in all our interests to ask and genuinely attempt to answer such difficult questions. It’s easy for politicians and other fat cats to tell us that we’re ‘living beyond our means’ while they continue to set the rules of the game in their favour and fill their own pockets. But leaving the complete hypocrisy of that remark aside, they have a point. We are all living unsustainably – in terms of the costs to people and planet, we greedily consume more than our fair share without making any attempt to understand the way the system works. We only live such materially comfortable lives at the expense of others. These unseen others are savagely exploited and oppressed so that we have more. This exploitation and oppression is inherit everywhere in the capitalist system – it wouldn’t function otherwise. It perverts the way we live and think. But if you break from orthodox ways of thinking about yourself and others (both locally and globally), you’ll have a much better chance of living and contributing to a better life, free from the constraints and confusion of a sick society.

So, I’m hoping to document much of what our sick society in Ireland (and other countries) needs to face up to if it is ever to recover. I’ll be looking at how capitalism and true democracy are incompatible, how taxes are immoral and should not be paid, the need to oppose all governments, how making poverty history means making capitalism history, colonialism and exploitation of poor countries today, mutualism in society, making resistance mainstream, an explanation of the economic situation for dummies, why the mainstream media can’t be trusted to report honestly, international conflict,
and much more in an attempt to highlight important issues. If all that sounds ‘extreme’ to you, yeah – I suppose you’re right – but no more ‘extreme’ than allowing ourselves passively and ignorantly watch our whole world round us turn to shite.

I’ll also be providing links to other websites, blogs and articles that give accurate reporting and analysis of events and current affairs. All in an attempt to do my wee bit to help people get more informed...