[WSF-Discuss] Central and Eastern Europe-ESF Mobilisation Tour February 2008

[CACIM]

 Central and Eastern Europe-ESF Mobilisation Tour February 2008

Tord Björk

@
http://www.nigd.org/nan/nan-doc-store/05-06-2008/central-and-eastern-european-esf-mobilisation-tour-february-2008/

A mobilisation tour held 16-21 February 2008 to the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia and Poland was initiated by the Nordic
Organizing Committee for European Social Forum 2008 on special request from
the Hungarian Social Forum. The purpose was to listen to political and
practical views on ESF, and Central and Eastern European participation to
inform the ESF-5 process.

In total 19 appointments were made during the trip, were 4 interviews with
media, a daily in Prague and Budapest and a net magazine and radio station
in Zagreb. In total more than 100 persons participated in the meetings with
different organisations. The organisations and networks hosting meetings
about ESF can be described in three main categories, one is broad national
networks engaged in campaigning against neoliberal policies from different
ideological backgrounds. Another, national networks engaged in campaigning
against neoliberal policies, racism, right-wing extremism, and against war.
The third category is different movements like environmentalists, popular
education, migrant activists, antiracists, and feminists.

An assessment of the situation in these Central and Eastern European
countries can only be very superficial from the impressions on such a short
trip. With this in mind, the fragmentation of the movements at a subjective
level is high. Most movements are declining compared to the optimistic times
twenty years ago. Interest in seeking common interest for the whole
CEE-region has declined significantly. Today many speak more about
emphasising sub-regional cooperation, for example, the Balkans,
CIS-countries or the Visegrad-4 (Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and
Poland). The interest in participating in European Social Forum have also
declined, significantly among movements not defining themselves as radical
left, especially after the London ESF 2004. The general development of civil
society has been towards a radical cleavage between top-level
professionalised NGOs and more socially oriented associations and movements
along with some environmental organisations that still maintained both
activist culture and capacity to represent civil society professionally. In
the Visegrad countries the right-wing forces have a strong impact on society
and left-wing organisations are under strong pressure.

Despite these tendencies, the interest during the mobilisation tour was
wide-spread among very different kinds of organisations. The message from
the Nordic organising committee and EPA was to prioritise new groups and CEE
countries of interest to appeal to different movements. A key factor in
widening the constituency to new groups was the possibility of using the
Friends of the Earth network. The tour was organised by the coordinator of
the NOC European contact group who also could rely on his capacity as
representative Friends of the Earth Sweden with old ties to CEE
environmental movements from the 1980s and the European participation in the
UN Conference on Environmental and Development in Rio de Janeiro.

Despite the weaknesses of the movement there were signs of objective
strength. In almost all countries mass mobilisations had taken place
recently against privatisation or militarisation. In Hungary 400 000 signed
a petition against privatisation of health insurance system, in Slovenia 75
000 signed similar protests, in Croatia 4 000 demonstrated in Zagreb against
privatisation of a public square, a demand that afterwards was supported by
the Catholic church, and in the Czech Republic mobilisation took place
against the proposed NATO radar installation. How can these different
struggles be represented and strengthened by participation in the ESF-5 is a
challenge to all European movements.

*Czech** Republic*

The tour started in Prague after hitch-hiking across Rügen from Sassnitz to
Stralsund as there was no night train. The day started in a classical cafe
with the sign, Politische gespräche verboten – political discussion
forbidden- above the table recalling old times passed in the era of the
Habsburg empire that once made Prague the third largest city in Europe after
Rome and Istanbul. Memories of the Soviet empire era were harder to find.

In Prague there was a meeting that primarily addressed two issues, the
political and the practical, such as ,translation and transport. The
political issue of most concern was militarisation. The participants at the
meeting were primarily young activists involved in planning a techno concert
against the NATO plans for constructing a radar base in Czech Republic to be
held during the world-wide anti-war action day, 15 March. The alliance
behind the initiative was interesting, they were young greens and
environmentalists, 5th international communists, and the techno music
lovers. This unification might be of interest for the future. Ten years ago
according to an article in Abolishing Borders the punk scene was strong in
Czech Republic fostering many anarchists. As these activists grew older they
saw the need to politicise their activism by taking a strong position
against un-political punk music. The result was cutting of ties to new
activists and isolation of the movement. Is there a new opening for a more
equal relationship between cultural and political expressions now? In
general the movement was very small in Czech Republic and under heavy
pressure of being labelled by the president as extremists whether left or
only environmentalists opposing global warming. The general public is
against the radar station and much of the privatisation, although very
passive.

On the practical level there was an in depth discussion on translation for
small languages. There had been examples how big languages force small
languages away from translation possibilities at the ESF. The new radio
system for translation was seen as good; Aaway to help small languages if
the program is ready in advance. Then a delegation of small languages can
bring their translators and choose a special path through the program of
interest that need translation. How translators could be paid was discussed
as well as the possibility paying half of the costs of the train with
domestic funds and half from the solidarity fund. 5 people participated in
the meeting, all from Prague.

Late at night I had my only tourist event during the whole trip. Mirek
Prokes, my host had earlier been guide in central Prague and knew all small
allies and shortcuts through the old town. We started by going through the
Slavic center, a block today consisting only of shops and restaurants with
their signs in English as if Slavic languages had ceased to exist. In the
middle of this former Slavic centre and now Anglo-American block there was a
luxury restaurant where the newly elected president Vaclav Klaus, known for
his view that environmentalists are enemies of science and democracy as they
believe in climate change, had his dinner to celebrate his victory. We
continued looking up at a high tower with the last sign still remaining from
the königlich und kaiserlich Austrian period, a tower and sign so high that
the people had not the energy to destroy it as they did to all other
Austrain symbols in Prague. We passed the cubistic architecture, original to
Prague, a special style developed both for buildings and interior design
showing that Prague have created original culture. Finally in the oldest
centre of the town we ended up at a birthday party in a very old guest house
decorated in American Wild Western design.

*Hungary*

The first meeting with more than 20 participants was organised by the
Hungarian Social Forum. The common experience that brought together the
participants was the successful subscription campaign when 400 000
signatures were gathered against the privatisation of the health security
system. The participation was very broad at this meeting, in general one
person from each organisation. There were organisation working for women,
public health, protection of youth, unemployed, poor, environment, health
food, church – Justicia & Pax, social democrat and socialists as well as
communist party youth and an organisation for the memory of the revolution
1956.

The questions discussed differed from practical to political matters. Issues
included: city-rural relationships, deforestation and air pollution with its
health damage, how to educate people to become activists, Swedish
experiences of how to make people active in popular movements, unemployment,
presence of peasants, illegal gene-banks, national minorities and how
globalisation affected Hungary including how national state property was
"privatised" by selling it to foreign state companies. One of the
participants  stressed how Israeli interests bought property in Hungary, a
point of view I reacted upon by stating that the nationality of the buyer
was not very relevant. How the EU Lissabon treaty was accepted by the
Hungarian parliament without even being translated was also addressed.

There were also many practical questions concerning how to influence the
program and how to receive help financially. It was pointed out that the
need for speakers to take an airplane was half the price of ordinary bus
service if the ticket was paid in advance, €100. 35 people were estimated to
come from this group if sufficient support could be mobilised.

An interview with the daily Magyar Nemzet focused on the political arguments
against privatisation.

The second meeting with more than 10 participants had more young people
attending. It was called by the left-wing of the Hungarian Social Forum and
Attac Hungary. Here the meeting was at first dominated by intellectual
analysis of the economic situation of Central Eastern Europe. There was also
young academics with advanced knowledge on the Hungarian and Croatian
holocaust and other social issues. After some time the young activists
started to talk about their experience; receiving phone calls from people
saying that they shall kill you twice, one time because you are a communist,
a second time because you are a Jew, was commonplace. In general the young
activists claimed that among young people in Hungary the right wing is in
fashion and to be seen as left is to be labelled weak with few supporters.
At this second meeting there was representation from the countryside. Issues
regarding how poor people could attend the  ESF was seen as crucial, as well
as the Romani people, a very repressed group in Hungary. It was estimated
that 1 or maybe even 2 buses could be mobilised by this network from Hungary
including 10 Romani people from the countryside, with 3 musicians. Issues
addressed as important at ESF-5 were: social rights and their appearance in
the EU legislation,  resistance against the privatization of public services
with special attention to consumer protection, environment protection, and
especially East Europe and the  neo-fascist danger.

The third meeting was with Erzebet Schmuck from Hungarian Conservation
society and some young green activist. The Hungarian Conservation Society
has 120 local groups all over the country and is a fairly nature
conservation and environmental focused organisation but has at times also
addressed privatisation issues. The young green activists were fed up with
the Hungarian political party system. A group of some hundred activists had
been formed to undertake the task of professionally launching a green party
with the help of NGOs, something that had not been done earlier according to
the activists. They seemed determined and focused. They had also
participated in the ESF in Florence, but had been somewhat shocked by all
communist symbols and flags.

I was very well taken care of by all in Budapest. But not all inhabitants
seemed to live a good life while others lived better than ever. When I
visited Budapest in the 1980s the city looked poor but I could not see the
extreme poverty. Now I could see a gated city with luxurious apartment
blocks surrounded by barbed wire and guards beside dwellings among some
trees close to the railway built with cardboard and other scrap material. I
left Budapest impressed by the diversity of the activists from different
strains and their willingness to do something to change the social
conditions in the whole country.

*Slovenia*

The first meeting was arranged at The Third Age University with some popular
education activists and one representative from an LGBT organisation. In
general broad popular educational initiatives were under pressure or had
already been forced to end their activity. Most adult education today was
organised by private institutions and in general the scale was diminishing
in spite of a great need. The days when it was possible to build nation-wide
popular education networks built on much voluntary work seemed to be over
being replaced by more elite NGOs and market oriented initiatives. There had
been a study circle project all over the country inspired by the Swedish
study circle tradition but that closed because funding had been temporary
project based. The Third Age University started in 1984 and its 70 000
participants survived but had problems with funding in a society that seemed
to become more and more individualistic. This Third Age University had
brought the study circle method for participants to define what they wanted
to learn with great success in the 1980s and helped  many volunteers. It is
focused on education of elderly between 40 and 85 and helped change the
image of pensioners in Slovenia (more than ¼ of the population are
pensioners).

The second meeting took place in the Roc factory, an occupied bicycle
factory with a handful of people. The factory once produced bicycles for all
of Yugoslavia and had become a neglected historical heritage. Occupants now
used it as a collective for political and cultural activities. The
electricity and water was cut off, so a diesel engine produced electricity
and a stove heating. This was the center for collective actions to support
migrants and the so called erased persons. Intense work was carried out to
find places where authorities detained refugees and to get in contact with
them. A detention center had been found and many attempts had been made to
get in contact with the refugees and confront the authorities struggling for
better conditions and the release of the detained. Confrontations were
sometimes tense. One activist was told with the police present by the leader
of the detention center that she should be sent back to China and that if he
was in government she would be sent to a concentration camp to be gassed.
The activist replied that he was a racist. Both were fined 250 Euros.

By working closely with the refugees the activists got more information
about the situation in the center and put pressure on authorities as well as
NGOs. There are many NGOs in Slovenia in the field of human rights. The
activists found out that the refugees had little or no confidence in these
NGOs. Those who should be helping them had the same view as the government.
Thus, frustration towards NGOs grew both among refugees and activists. The
many contacts with NGOs to help them in the struggle had resulted that only
one, a peace foundation was willing to be engaged. The day before I arrived,
more than 2 000 emails were sent out denouncing the condition under which
the refugees were living. The struggle sometimes meant that some detained
were let loose but without a permit to stay, although it was seen as
illegal to have them detained.

A similar paper-less condition was also the faith of earlier workers that
once contributed to both construction and industry. They came from all over
Yugoslavia and made up a significant proportion of the population, as many
as 10%. When the war started during the separation of the former Yugoslavia
they were given the chance to apply for citizenship within a short
time-period long before the situation was clear in neighbouring countries.
The majority did not apply for citizenship in time and were made paperless,
having no rights to social security, school education, housing, work or any
other rights. They live under very poor conditions and are called erased.
Some of them have been deported to Croatia. One was killed, as he, according
to the new principles,  was not Yugoslavian anymore but a Serb. When left
wing parties tried to give them status again right wing parties protested
and received the support of 95% of the population in a referendum some weeks
before Slovenia entered EU. The Roc factory collective both worked
intensively with the refugees and the erased people and had a good
relationship with both groups.

The third meeting took place in the occupied Meltoha premises and the
student home with 10 people. This was also an occupied center well
established for 15 years. Parts of the old military compound in the middle
of Ljubljana had been developed into a modern student home with meeting
facilities while others remained occupied. Here the anarchist book shop and
information center was based on the third floor. It was obvious that the
working in small groups centered at different squats was well integrated in
the student culture. The issues that concerned people were similar as at the
Roc factory. The youth activists had also participated at ESF in Florence
and other places. The difference they saw between Slovenia and the activist
scene in Italy was that there was more unity in their own country and that
it was easy at times to gather the interests of all activists for a common
cause. The Slovenian EU-presidency had not caused much of a common activity.
If something should be done the idea was to focus on one specific issue like
the erased to get maximum effect out the action. There was a clear consensus
regarding the place of Slovenia in the EU economic system. The refugees that
the activists were able to liberate from detention centers were not
interested in staying in Slovenia and struggle for change, their interest
was to move on to richer EU countries.

There were other organisations in Sloveia interested in ESF but due to
vacation a meeting could not take place with trade unions and the like. Also
in Slovenia a mass mobilisation against privatisation has taken place with
75 000 people signing a petition. I stayed overnight in the illegal squat.
Climbing high on a ladder to beds under the ceiling warmed by the stove
below in the big library and book store. It was the most comfortable squat I
ever been to. The authorities had put guards outside the squats but tensions
did not seem to be so big, the political issue in elections was not how to
close Meltojah but how to find a solution for it to continue, a solution
that seemed to be postponed every time but shows some kind of tolerance
towards cultural and political expressions that can be seen as subculture
and something for young people. The links to radical workers common in most
other countries did not exist in Slovenia, instead it was among young
students and professionals that the activists had a fairly large solidarity
network supporting them.

Early in the morning the yard between the squatted houses was cleaned by a
person paid by the squatters. I took a nice warm shower and could walk
through the town to the main railway station leaving the small country with
its more and more individualistic culture, sexism is common in advertising
posters and the hard selling newspaper Egoisticmagazine claiming interest in
the public space from everyone.

*Croatia*

A meeting was organised in the premises of Green Action in central Zagreb
with more than 20 participants. Here I was among friends. In the old
pioneers days of Green Action Nordic environmental organisations cooperated
a lot with CEE-countries with Green Action as one of the strongest partners
making international climate action days and participating in the Rio
Summit. Now Toni Vidan could show me the new office downtown with large
premises for many professionals working with both different projects and
long term commitments like helping the public informing them through the
Green phone service about environmental issues.

The meeting resulted in discussions on the possibility to participate and
bring others from the former Yugoslavia and Balkans to ESF in Malmö. There
were many young people at the meeting and some were interested in
participating. One of the experienced young activists had been asked to
complement my speech on the development of international cooperation among
movements and the ESF by describing the development from a Croatian point of
view. He said that one had to be aware of that international networking
should not be overestimated and that there had been reactions in Croatia
among activists when the attention became too  emphasised on international
campaigning and too little was done to change society at home. He himself
had started an alternative farming project. It was clear that Green Action
and like minded movements put an emphasis of both political and practical
work to change politics and to live as one preached. Green Action had not
been involved in ESF earlier but had an interest in using its Balkan network
if there was an interest also among other organisations. Others at the
meeting were a voluntary service organisations and people in common
interested of the subject.

Interviews were made with an internet newspaper and a radio station. Apart
form common questions regarding ESF information in the Prodemokratia
newsletter issued by the environmental and alternative movement assembly
that had caused many at their office to react. It was the fact the Friends
of the Earth and Via Campesina Sweden had decided to invite the Zapatistas.
This was equally surprising in tow ways to the newspaper as it was seen as
contradictory to the World Social Forum declaration as well as the general
ideology of environmental and alternative movements. Militarism in all its
form even if it was in the form of the Zapatistas in Chipas was something
that in principle was questioned. None of the arguments for inviting the
Zapatistas seemed to convince the journalist. The main general argument was
the liberation movement was invited because all liberation movements have a
strong civil component. Equally,  to parties who are omnipresent at all
international social forums with their popular education branches, think
tanks or other organisation that they dominate of course are also liberation
movements that can participate. As long as it is not certain in which form
the liberation movement will be represented there is no controversy to
resolve. Of course an invitation to the Zaptistas cannot tell the invited
movement in what form it wants to represent itself, that would be to
patronize in an unacceptable way. As politicians can be present at social
forums representing a lot more violence and military force than the
Zapatistas there should be no great problem either. In practice, liberation
movements have also attended international social forums. Finally Friends of
the Earth and Via Campesina Sweden have no intention to create controversy,
in one way or another the Zapatistas are welcome to come to Malmö as the
central inspiration representing anti-neoliberal movements all over the
world. What puzzled the journalist was the fact that in Sweden also the most
radical pacifists do not oppose liberation struggle in the South, even if it
is claimed to be a totally wrong method in Europe. It is not up to Europeans
to tell other people how to fight their battles under conditions very
different from ours, is the general belief among many popular movements in
the Nordic countries.

Green Action was the most striking example I met during the tour of an
organisation and movement that had the capacity of combining street activism
and radicalism with pragmatic lobbying and representing Central and Eastern
Europe at the global level. The anarcha-feminist book festival had last year
taken place at the premises of Green Action and some days before my arrival
the successful mass meeting against privatisation of public space in the
middle of Zagreb had been organised by Green Action with 4000 participants,
a lot for a Zagreb political protests. As in most of Europe neoliberal
politicians tries to find ways to both centralise decision making in society
making it more authoritarian and turning commons into profit assets thus
provoking protests. The action to protect public space was afterwards
supported in principle by the Catholic bishops. The Catholic Church has more
confidence among the population than any other institution in Croatia,
followed by the army in second, and  NGOs in third. Green Action also could
count on recent interest among trade unions who invited them to talk about
climate change. Earlier Green Action had appointed a chairperson in the
parliamentary committee on relationships with civil society consisting of
equal numbers of parliamentarians and NGOs. Green Action also has a long
time member in the board of Friends of the Earth International thus
influencing the strongest democratic global environmental organisation.

A more informal meeting took later place with people from Green Action and
Vesna Terselic, the director of Documenta, an NGO investigating war-crimes.
Uncommon to many NGOs in CEE countries Green Action have been able to
maintain good relationship with former leaders that now are active in other
organisations through their membership in the advisory board of the
organisation and Vesna is one of them. Documenta cooperated with other human
rights organisations in all of former Yugoslavia to document war crimes
thoroughly establishing a fact based knowledge on what happened to victims
during the war. It is hard work as little is done outside the International
Court in the Hague. In general people belonging to military units have
received more help than civilian victims. Many facts about the suffering had
been discovered, but it was harder to get any attention. Concerning Bosnia,
it established not only that the Bozniaks were more damaged than Serbs and
Croats, but  that the proportion of civilian victims in relation to soldier
victims was considerably higher for Boznikas than for the other ethnic
groups. We discussed the German exhibition about German army war crimes that
changed the perception about who committed the holocaust as it showed that
it was common soldiers that was ordered to start terminating Jews and
communists. As I am a teacher in exhibition design this German exhibition is
an example of high standard while Swedish exhibitions on similar matters
have been much less factual and instead ideologically hiding parts of the
Baltic population and SS-troups did to exterminate Jews and communists. We
concluded with that the knowledge on how Baltic and Ukrainian persons
participated in the holocaust are well known and should not be forgotten,
but could not find a strategy for how war crime knowledge could be useful
for the ESF process. If a seminar was organised on this issue Documenta
could participate.

The evening ended with good Dalmatian food and one after another drastic
histories about the bicycle adventures of the former chairman of the Green
Action, Toni Vidan. My own bicycle trip from Sweden to Dubrovnik when I was
17 was nothing compared to the adventures of Toni born on a Dalmatian
island. The more he tried to impress others on how fantastically green he
was cycling up every hill, while actually walking with the bike when nobody
saw him,  furthered this brave chairman and protected the image of the
organisation. Life is full of competing principles saving us from having
fun. The other stories are too wild to tell.

*Slovakia*

The day did not start well when I missed my train in Slovenia. There were
two trains for Maribor, I took the slow train. Due to this mistake I missed
a meeting with Friends of the Earth Slovakia/CEE Bankwatch. When I finally
arrived in Bratislava it was already dark. It was far away from the main
railway station on the southern bank of Danube.  At first it all looked
unmistakingly like old one party real socialist Eastern Europe, broad
streets, many buses, modern rectangular buildings in fairly bad shape. But
soon it felt more like Latin America on a high way cutting through large
areas with big malls with a canyon filled with cars between old houses that
could not reach each other any longer. The new human being was not any
longer the male worker but the office man and women.


At the main railway station this new modern man ceased to exists. It was
instead filled with people in common, worm clothes and sometimes very worn
clothes. Obviously it was a place to get some warmth for homeless people.
The police hat crowded the place and made small attempts at stopping people
from sleeping on the benches, but compared to my own country, are much more
tolerated.


Finally I was able to borrow a cell phone from  persons at the station and
could get in touch with my Slovakian contact. We quickly abandoned the
railway station and went to a meeting taking place in the tennis court bar
with some people from the antiracist group Enough. The chairperson of the
group just arrived from a training session with young women learning self
defence, something useful also for antiracists.

The activist described how they monitored hate crimes and right wing
extremism in Slovakia, The group was small consisting of students that saw a
necessity in doing things to counter the strong right wing forces and racism
in the country. They had received some funding from the social democratic
Friederich Ebert foundation in Germany for making a report on racist crimes
and right wing activity in Slovakia. The trend among some right wing
politicians to claim that they no longer held their recent fascist views
they saw as a question of opportunism to receive EU grants for their local
communities were they had a strong positions.

*Poland*

I arrived early in Cracow. A huge mall had been built close to the railway
station, but there was a large open space in front of the rail way station
and old Cracow with its towers and gates nearby. I found the office of the
Polish Ecological Club marked by an artistic sign in the very center of the
old town. Going through a restaurant there was a picturesque stairwell in
the backyard with the offices of many green
organisations upstairs. Here Agnietska received me. She described how the
Polish Ecological Club was constructed as a decentralised organisation with
different offices all over the country each being responsible for one issue
as their main task. The Cracow office was the head office for the
organisation in Poland but their field of special interest was environmental
education. If one was interested in agriculture this was taken care of by
the office in Gliwice, climate issues by the office in Warsaw etc. The
message was clear, there might be an interest among Polish environmental
organisations to participate in ESF-5 but then it had to be in cooperation
with other environmental organisations and with clear financial support .

The second meeting took place at the Warszawa office of Folk high school
Teremiski. This office was placed in an old modernity apartment house in one
of the big avenues reachable by Metro. Here Danute Kuron received me with
the help of young people working at the office. The story was similar to the
story told by popular education initiatives in Slovenia. Times were hard for
broad and humanistic minded educational institutions to get support. Folk
high school Teremiski main activity is in the countryside of Eastern
Poland.  The message was the same as in Cracow. There was an interest to
participate in ESF-5 but then it had to be in cooperation with like minded
popular education organisations and with clear financial support.

Due to a break down in the internet system before I left my home in Sweden I
had not been able to make the last preparations for the trip before  I left.
Somehow I saw Poland as a country very hard to find cooperative  partners.
Despite being  close to Malmö, somehow I thought  that finally I could use
the last hours on my tour just walking  around in Warsaw. That was two
mistakes. Nina Sarzani reached me before I left the Teremiski office. She
was a feminist that in an hour or two arranged meetings with different
partners and the rest of the day was filled.

It started in the Cultural Palace built during the Stalin era, this piece of
monumental Hollywood style film architecture made to impress on black and
white cinema screens is under hard attack from right wing parties stating a
needs to totally destroyed  it because it brings back memories from the
oppressive Soviet period. Instead the whole centre of Warsaw should be
dominated by simplistically modern buildings with the brand names of
different corporations shining from the top of these rectangular pillars
high above the people in common. On top of one of these sky-scrapers is the
science academy and secularism and feminism has a key position overlooking
the city beneath. Nina works at the science academy and tries un-reluctantly
to defend rational and secular interests against the church's influence on
state policies that today are a threat to many women in Poland. During the
1960s Swedish women had to secretly go to Poland for abortion, today Polish
women have to go to Sweden to do the same. That this issue was of wide
concern was confirmed when I met with a left party leader who also stated
the issue of secularism as important in Poland.

A fourth meeting took finally place in Warsaw at the cafe of the modern
Empik store with young social democrats. They also claimed secularism of
importance in Poland. What they saw as an issue to bring to Malmö together
with their sister organisations in neighbouring countries was unemployment.

When the Swedish kings came to Poland in the 17th century destroying it by
winning all battles they tried to find a place to conquer and win a
definitive battle. That was not possible. All battles were won but the war
lost. When the Polish society lost one battle it disappeared to reappear in
another place again. Contrary to the Swedish state building on the alliance
between peasants and the king to counterbalance the aristocracy which
resulted in a very strong centralised state administration Poland was ruled
by consensus such as the ESF. Any aristocratic member in the parliament had
the right to veto any decisions. This facilitated foreign interests to
influence Polish politics and the Polish nation reappeared again and again
from its decentralised roots. Confederations have in principle the same form
as Polish political culture. Until 1932 the Swedish trade union LO was a
confederation until the Social democratic party forced them to become a
centralised federation excluding any communist or other radical voices from
any leadership positions in the organisation. This strongly democratically
centralised form of organisation collectively linked to the social
democratic party proved to be very effective. From 1932 and onwards no other
country has elected workers party governments for as long as Sweden. Now
this welfare state is crumbling whether it is a social democratic government
or a right wing government. The employers have left the social contract were
they together with the trade unions had influence in many sectors of society
and turned themselves into a campaigning organisation for more profit
oriented individualism and political dominance in society. The trade unions
are on the defence. Their trade union interest in participating in ESF with
its consensus structure and new social movements is something new in Swedish
political culture. A main ally in this trade union endeavour is the Workers
Educational
Association.

The creation of the strong popular movement centralised bureaucracy and
welfare state was not only the result of sharp political differences between
reformists and revolutionaries. It was also the result of a struggle between
those that saw the need of efficient organisation able of negotiating
strongly with the employers and those claiming that the workers movement
also had a cultural task to strengthen workers social individuality and thus
change society, a position claimed by Workers Educational Association. How
much the Swedish and other trade unions will try to renew themselves by
participating more fully in ESF in Malmö and how much Workers Educational
Association can contribute to this renewal is an open question. But that
Poland not can be convinced to participate in the ESF by old Swedish
centralised bureaucratic ways of conquering the world is clear. What is
needed is much more of decentralised ways adjusting to the fact that there
is no centre to convince, only many places and movements to visit and show
how participation at ESF could strengthen both themselves, political culture
in Sweden and hopefully also the rest of Europe.

Thus my Polish meetings ended. It was about time to leave with the night
train to Berlin from the main railway station. When I arrived to Warsaw at
the platform I couldn't find the main hall. Everywhere there were small
shops selling things ending in corridors to grand new shopping centres. Used
to many countries in the world I still had problems finding my way to the
main hall to get information about international trains. I could not see any
bigger or more official signs than others in the myriad of messages of more
or less commercial importance. I was caught in a bazaar, not in a public
railway station. Here the polish people could live a whole life, if they had
the money, with the enormous main hall in modern concrete above surrounded
by even more concrete buildings celebrating foreign or Polish corporations
or the Soviet empire. At night I now knew my way, I got my couchette and
could end my Central and Eastern European tour, exhausted. I survived thanks
to the great hospitality I received everywhere. I did not dare to say it,
but due to the internet brake down I could not activate my visa card, thus
going with Swedish cash which I exchanged at a very bad rate buying tickets
a lot more expensive than I had guessed in advance. Actually train tickets
were as expensive or more expensive as in the West, and without any
discounts which is common in the West. But I did have enough to survive the
first hours in Berlin.

*Post scriptum*

Leaving Berlin I carried a Ukrainian antifascist poster in my hand given to
me by trade unionists from Kiev. A gang of young people at the train station
dressed in a way that did not tell me of what opinion they were wanted to
look at it. I rolled it up and they were impressed. Hitler was crossed and
the main figure was Charlie Chaplin, obviously a person causing people to
both think and laugh in both Ukraine and Germany. The antifascist poster
advertised with its cyrillic letters a film festival against fascism
including the picture The Dictator by Chaplin. Across all cultural divisions
this message came across well at the platform in Berlin. They asked me why I
was in Berlin and I told them that i mobilised people to come to European
Social Forum in Malmö. That seamed an easy task. It was not only antifascism
in the Chaplin and Ukrainian way but also Swedish girls that caught a lot of
interest.

It is quite clear that fragmentation and splits are common in Central and
Eastern Europe. But it is not a privilege for CEE countries. Friends of the
Earth Sweden cooperated with the small Syndicalist trade union SAC with 10
000 members when organising the European March for unemployed through Sweden
to the EU Summit in Amsterdam 1997 and continued this cooperation during the
EU Summit in Gothenburg in Sweden 2001 together with 85 other organisations.
Then LO, the mainstream trade union confederation, refused to participate
in  demonstrations claiming that it was not in the tradition of Swedish LO
to demonstrate while trade unions in the rest of Europe did participate in
Summit manifestations. In the preparations for ESF Friends of the Earth
Sweden now cooperates with LO while SAC claim that it is not interesting for
them to cooperate this time in organising the event. Between 1928 and 1999
it never occurred that SAC and LO jointly organised a manifestation. The
last time in the 1920 was when a new law should be passed giving the
employers the right to command work, a right that in the 1930s steadily came
into the hands of the employers. In 1999 Nazis murdered a member of SAC who
also was strong activist in the alternative movements as Baby food action
network. He had stopped the Nazi infiltration of the local LO branch,
something the LO trade union had not done. After his murder everyone
including the conservative party, LO and SAC and many others organised a
common manifestation. Politically there are many cleavages in Sweden as
elsewhere but this time for once they were forgotten. On the cultural level
there seems to be a difference though. Enn Kokk, the main author of the
social democratic party programme during many years also wrote a book about
Joe Hill, the most well known Swedish anarcho syndicalist activist sentenced
to death on false ground by a trial in the US 1912. The songs of Joe Hill
are still very popular in all strands of the workers movement in Sweden and
they all, anarcho syndicalists, communists, Left Party and social democrats
belong to the same Workers Education Association. By making ESF more
cultural maybe we also can bring more political unity to our movements, and
laugh together with Chaplin at both modern times and authoritarian regimes
of any kind.



For further updates on CEE Tours see Laura Tuominen
report<http://www.nigd.org/nan/nan-doc-store/05-06-2008/resolveuid/94d1196a772099cb22b5a9f4a349dba5>
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