Main Proceedings of the May 24th 2003 Dialogue to Continue the building for the Irish Social Forum

national | public consultation / irish social forum | news report Tuesday May 27, 2003 19:54 by Barry Finnegan - (ex) interim convenor of all-island of Ireland civil society dialogue to build an Irish Social Forum john.finnegan3 at mail dot dcu dot ie www.IrishSocialForum.org

More summaries of the smaller Discussion Groups of last Saturday will be posted during the week.

Last Saturday May 24th 2003 more than 70 people from a huge variety and cross sector of civil society groups from all over the island of Ireland took part in the biggest dialogue yet to build the Irish Social Forum. The main proceedings of this event are below. This dialogue has been building for eight months now and we agreed to have another Get-Together in five or six weeks time (depending on venue availability) to move the process on. We listened, learned and shared to and with eachother for a whole day on a large variety of topics and apart from the individual and group listening, learning and sharing we established consensus on a number of issues, did not get consensus on others and created an interim structure of five working groups to carry forward the practical tasks required in order to continue the dialogue and plan for the Irish Social

Hello all,

The next Dublin based dialogue of the Irish Social Forum process will be held in the offices of Comhlamh, 10 Upper Camden St., Dublin, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. this Thursday May 29th 2003. [It is opposite the Bleeding Horse pub, beside a bakery and the front door is a few feet in off the footpath.] [It was to be in Cultivate but the Sustainable Ireland workers are taking a well deserved rest and not working evenings this week after the ten-day Convergence Sustainable Living Festival which played host to and gave us the venue for the biggest dialogue yet for Irish civil society to build the Irish Social Forum.]

If you have volunteered for one of the five Interim Working Groups you will be receiving an email later today to confirm this. Your email address will not be distributed to others. Over the next two to three days the Communications Working Group will place five buttons for the different Interim Working Groups on the website (www.IrishSocialForum.org), and will enter the relevant email addresses so you can send and receive to and from eachother. Later this facility will be advanced so that we can click for an option to just receive notice of date, venue and time of the next working group dialogue meeting and the minutes of the last instead of receiving all emails.

all the best to everyone,
may we continue working together,
in solidarity,
Barry.

- minutes written (below) by Barry Finnegan who was the interim convenor for the past eight months of the dialogue process for civil society on the island of Ireland to build an Irish Social Forum. (I am taking it that this interim position was, interim, and that the responsibilities and mandate I received last November have now been subsumed into the five interim working groups. - BF)

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Proceedings of May 24th 2003:

INTERIM TASK STRUCTURES, ISSUES OF CONSENSUS AND NO CONSENSUS OF THE IRISH SOCIAL FORUM emanating from the May 24th 2003 Irish Social Forum Open Space Information, Consultation and Planning Day:

Five Interim Working Groups (see below) have been given a consensus mandate from the plenary at the May 24th 2003 Irish Social Forum Open Space Information, Consultation and Planning Day to go ahead and start getting work done to organise a late June/early July all-island of Ireland Irish Social Forum (ISF) Get-together and for the October 2003 two to three day Irish Social Forum on the theme of CO-OPERATION as a counter-summit to the World Economic Forums (WEF) competition summit in Dublin. The groups also have a mandate to organise a family-friendly Carnival for Global Economic and Social Justice the day before the WEF summit begins. The workings, structures and proposals of these five Interim Working Groups are subject to approval and recall at the next all-island Irish Social Forum Get-Together. Elist contact buttons will be added to the website (www.IrishSocialForum.org) to assist the Working Groups activities, for them to stay in touch with eachother to organise meetings/dialogues, post minutes of meetings/dialogues etc and for the Working Groups to stay in touch with eachother also.

The following terms were chosen as Principles/Criteria for The Working Groups in which to operate:
- open
- transparent (and mean it!)
- neutral
- trust
- accountable
- inclusive
- temporary

The plenary saw the need to create a balance between on the one hand, creating a structure to allow volunteers to co-operate together in order to get cracking NOW to organise the logistics for Octobers Irish Social Forum and Carnival, and on the other hand to continue maintaining transparency, involving new groups, outreaching to whole island and co-operating together. To this end the five interim Working Groups have been established. The decisions of these Groups are subject to recall and acceptance at the late June/early July ISF Get-together.

During the day there were many Discussion Groups. The topics for these where chosen by the participants and summaries were read out and then discussed at the plenary. Individuals have taken responsibility for ensuring that the summaries of these Discussion Groups are put on our website and as such they should contact the Communications Group and/or the website (www.IrishSocialForum.org) in order to facilitate this.

A more detailed minutes of the plenary of May 24th will be available during the week. Suffice to say that there were issues where we had interesting stimulating debate out of which on some issues we had consensus and some issues we did not:

AGREED / CONSENSUS:
- We all agreed we were against neoliberalism. Some of us articulated neoliberalism to mean corporate-globalisation and/or capitalism.
- We also agreed that we are against the economic policies of the World Economic Forum and their competitiveness agenda.
- We also agreed that we needed more Get-togethers like this to continue debating, discussing, sharing views and ideas, working together and to continue debating the purposes and structures etc of the ISF.
- We also agreed that it is as important to have speakers at the October ISF from small groups and campaigns around the island which reflect the movements diversity, as well as well-known international speakers which can draw big crowds.
- We also agreed that in the interim we DO support and adopt the World Social Forum Charter of Principles for the Irish Social Forum and that in order to clarify how we felt about the need for equality during the process of the Forum and in the Social Forum itself between participants of the Social Forum who are not members of a political party and participants of the Social Forum who are members of a political party, we wish to add two further points. The main thrust of these two further points is that we should not discriminate against people who are members of a political party. (These will be written up and emailed around later in the week.)

NOT AGREED/ NO CONSENSUS
One of the most stimulating areas on which we did NOT reach consensus was whether the ISF should explicitly support single issues such as: against privatisation in general, in support of the likely nurses strike, in support of the Dublin Bus workers and against residential bin charges. Part of the reason for this lack of consensus, and agreement to continue this dialogue, was whether the ISF should be a Forum which calls on its participants to support a single issue(s). Some of the days participants felt that if the ISF came out and explicitly supported the issues listed above (as examples) then the Forum would never get anywhere because we would then have to go through every economic, social and environmental issue that every group involved with the ISF wanted to get support for. Other participants who wished for the ISF to support issues such as those listed above felt strongly that the ISF must support these workers struggles. Part of the reason why some participants held this view was that there was not much point in us all agreeing that we are against neoliberalism, while at the same time not explicitly supporting workers struggles against health, education, transport and waste cut-backs and privatisation - which is where most people on the island bear the brunt of the impact of neoliberalism in their daily lives. Yet still more participants felt that, for among other reasons, the debate was a waste of time because what should be done is participants should present, inform and debate the issues they feel strongly about so as to share analysis, learn and work together and build alliances etc, instead of insisting that the entire Irish Social Forum make special dispensation in order to explicitly support one or more particular issues or struggles. Other participants also called on people to have a good read of the Charter of Principles, and drew attention to point 6 of the Charter. [ This point 6 says that: The participants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken as establishing positions of the Forum as a body. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organisations and movements that participate in it.] Other participants on the day pointed out that contrary to this point, at last Novembers European Social Forum the participants did unite in opposition against the war on Iraq and at the end of the Forum had a million person march for peace to articulate this opposition. Finally, we were conscious that we do not have consensus on this issue and all agree to continue the dialogue.

A further point on which we did not reach consensus was the issue of what relationship does the ISF have to demonstrations and other forms of non-violent / peaceful direct action on the Monday and Tuesday 20th and 21st of October while the World Economic Forum summit on competitiveness is in session in Dublin. The variety of views ranged from:
- Being conscious that the ISF should not support any illegal activity.
- Being conscious that the ISF should provide a platform / press conference facility for the various groups which may be involved in demonstrations and other forms of non-violent / peaceful direct action on the Monday and Tuesday 20th and 21st of October which do not contravene the Charter of Principles of the World Social Forum, so that without condemning or supporting any action the ISF would help give a voice to the voiceless.
- Being conscious that if the ISF does go down the voice to the voiceless route it does not matter whether actions have ISF support or not, does not matter whether people break the Charter of Principles of not, everything that happens will be seen in the public and media eye as being part of the ISF.
- Being conscious that while the Irish Social Forum from Friday 17th to Sunday 19th of October 2003, and the ISF Carnival for the Sunday 19th afternoon are all very well and good, what was needed was a demonstration supported by the ISF which shows the strength and diversity of the movement and in opposition to the WEF, on the same day as the WEF summit is actually on.
- Being conscious that if the ISF supports a demonstration, does that mean that the ISF must then also support all other forms of non-violent / peaceful direct action as well?
- Being conscious that ISF support for a demonstration could be contentious and potentially divisive for the ISF and that if we were to go ahead with it then groups whose main tactics do not include demonstrating on the street may then be alienated form the ISF and that this would defeat the whole purpose of the ISF of being inclusive of all the sectors of civil society in the island who are against neoliberalism.
- Being conscious that if the ISF does support a demonstration on the streets while the WEF summit is on then whatever happens during the WEF regardless of whether it has support of the ISF or not will be associated in the public mind and the media as being part of the ISF
- Being conscious that we do not have consensus on this issue and all agree to continue the dialogue.

THE FIVE INTERIM TASK STRUCTURES OF THE IRISH SOCIAL FORUM emanating from consensus at the May 24th 2003 Irish Social Forum Open Space Information, Consultation and Planning Day:

1. FINANCE AND BUILDINGS WORKING GROUP:
Mandated Responsibilities:
To research and decide locations for the late June/early July Irish Social Forum Get-together.
To engage in fundraising for the Irish Social Forum.

2. OUTREACH WORKING GROUP:
Mandated Responsibilities:
To pull in other and more groups around the island to the Irish Social Forum process.
To ask for and find groups who wish to put topics / workshops into the Irish Social Forum and to put these people in touch with the Topics and Principles Working Group.

3. TOPICS AND PRINCIPLES WORKING GROUP:
Mandated Responsibilities:
To proactively encourage and facilitate participation in the generation of topics / workshops to be covered at the Irish Social Forum.
To facilitate an open space for any ideas or meetings.
No one in the Topics and Principles Working Group can propose topics for the Irish Social Forum - in order to remain neutral.

4. COMMUNICATIONS WORKING GROUP:
Mandated Responsibilities:
To be transparent and facilitate transparency within the Irish Social Forum process.
To maintain the www.IrishSocialForum.org website and to assist the posting of all relevant information to the website.
To encourage and facilitate communication between the five Working Groups.
To facilitate the relationship of the ISF to the media.
To stay in touch with local/regional Social Forums on the island and to use the website in this process.
To assist communication between Social Forum activities on the island and the World and European Social Forums.

5. THINK TANK FOR OCTOBER WORKING GROUP:
To start work now to check availability and provisionally book speakers for the October Irish Social Forum.
To start work now to check availability and book available and suitable buildings to host the activities of the October 2003 Irish Social Forum.
To start work now on other practical issues which relate to the October 2003 Irish Social Forum so as to be able to present proposals to the late June/early July Irish Social Forum Get-Together for approval and recall.