Monbiot in Oxford - An autonomist reports

When I heard Monbiot was coming to Oxford to talk to Globalise Resistance about Democracy and the ESF I wasn't surprised.

Monbiot, now regularly described as "the leader of the British anti-capitalist movement" by the corporate media has moved more and more towards party-political cooption in recent years. He has condemned actions of other anti-capitalists, called for a world parliament and now has been in discussion with people like George Galloway about making a new political party out of the Stop the War coalition. This may be a bit harsh I like a lot of what he has to say about what is wrong, I also like the fact that he has brought a lot of the ideas into more mainstream debates. But having experienced the anti-democratic structures of the STWC and heard about the anti-inclusive way in which the ESF had been brought to the UK in 2004 I expected this meeting to be at the very least, frustrating.

Monbiot gave his talk quite brief, maybe 20 minutes at the most, in order to make the meeting more participatory. The Audience was mainly white and middle aged, I recognised a lot of familiar faces and a lot of significant absences. i.e. it was quite self-selecting (although concious of).
He started by explaining many of the issues of the world, such as the anti-democratic nature of the IMF, World BANK, WTO, UN, US government. He talked about the destructive impact this has all had on our democracy systems that are now basically defunct.

He talked about the anti-globalisation/capitalist movement, the progress it had made etc... blah blah. He talked about "the tensions between effectiveness and diversity" (a worrying sounding statement). He then went on to offer his solution: World Parliament system to democratise the globe. New Political party for Britain. ESF as a starting point for that. He talked about the need to be democratic, open and accountable. He even emphasised the importance that the ESF does not end up as an SWP/Ken Livingston affair (I'm sure it will soon be called "Mayor Ken's European Social Forum") and encouraged more democracy in the process etc..

He then opened it up to other people to comment, ask questions, and develop the issue.
And to his credit he listened and came across very much as if he was taking note of every speaker’s points.

The points themselves started off with the usual plugs and some worrying statements about the need for the "unity" and political parties to challenge Tony Blair through the Union movement and institutionalised left. However after this the discussion turned to more divergent views and people openly criticised his idea that taking power and becoming a "state in waiting" was a desirable thing. That we needed diversity and that this was not an obstacle to effectiveness but that it could actually be beneficial. Diverse projects that did not seek power had been effective, look at Seattle or Prague or even Cancun. Power corrupts and maybe if we wanted to really challenge Blair we should form a vote spoiling campaign that offered a radical alternative process to our pseudo democratic corporate controlled parliamentary system. This received some good responses and the discussion opened up its scope, with some quite constructive interactions.

It did not end with any conclusions but I felt that we had heard many views and that by going and engaging with Globalise Resistance and the SWP at a grass roots level (the national steering committee are a lost cause) we could, to quote Marcos, constructively "challenge their Square concepts of revolution."

In my view Politics is a process not an absolute utopia and part of that process is discussion and difference. It is useless to criticise people if you are not also going to talk to them about why, even if they don't really want to talk to you.
Autonomy does not mean isolation. Democracy must be about respect and participation, not vanguardism and factionalism.

wish this was more coherent but it is really late, so please correct my report, clarify me or expand on the information. you can even be rude about me (but for that I won't say please).