Newsletter 52

November 2012

Compte Rendu de la Conférence du 12 Novembre 2012

"Community Organizing"

Mis en ligne par : Francis Feeley . Mise à jour: 1 December 2012.

The November 12 Conference on “Community Organizing” Compte Rendu

(Nanterre, 2012)

A. Round Table Discussion #1 :
Moderator : M. Francis Feeley, Professeur à L’Université de Grenoble.
1. Didier Giraud ……..……
2. Kawthar Guediri ….…...
3. Rehan Majid …...……….
4. Dominique Jégou …...…..
5. Hugo Persillet ……..……
B. Round Table Discussion #2 :
Moderator : M. Ronald Creagh, Professeur émérite à l’Université de Montpellier.
6. Kathy Coit …………....…
7. Jordi Forcadas ….………
8. Alexandre Lefebvre …….
9. Christophe André …….…
10. Nicolas Haeringer …...….
C. Round Table Discussion #3 :
Moderator : M. Hugo Persillet, Activiste avec l’association L’ORAGE, un coopérative d’éducation population à Grenoble.
11. Marielle Giraud ………....
12. Christine Majid ……….....
13. Habib El Garés ..................
14. Simon Morin ………….….
D. Michael Albert’s Presentation of Parecon and IOPS.

The Conference opened with Francis Feeley describing some of the contradictions in his life, which in many ways have determined his ideas and behavior over the years. He had acquired anti-organization biases from his experiences as a youth in South Texas, where the Hispanic population living around him were harshly discriminated against by what sometimes seemed as a hyper-organized phalanx of prejudiced people, a convivial community of white middle class bigots who presided over many varieties of physical, economic, and psychological violence against the Hispanic majority where he grew up on the Mexican border. He experienced the truth of the old adage: “The only thing worse than a nigger is a nigger-lover.” In south Texas, if you were ‘white” and didn’t share the prejudices toward Hispanics, you were worse than a “Mescan.” In polite society these feelings were not articulated, but they were nevertheless expressed. This racist community had to be disorganized from top to bottom before it could be reorganized to accommodate the legitimate human needs of all residents. The Civil Rights Movement across the United States, and later the massive anti-Vietnam War Movement were two important political forces which helped to achieve this transition toward a newly organized society where prejudice played a less important role, many years after his departure from the region.

At the First Roundtable Discussion on November 12, speakers referred to Martin Buber’s notion that community appears to always imply an external threat –real or imaginary— which serves to bring people into cooperative relationships. The central question addressed at this first meeting, between 10h and 12h30, was: What is the role of the organizer in formulating aims and making people conscious of their motivations? Dominique Jégou began the discussion by expressing a certain skepticism about the role played by “outside agitators.” What gives an outsider the right to enter a community and manipulate peoples’ emotions in order to achieve a chosen end, even if he thinks his goal is morally superior to what actually exists in the community? After a brief reflection on this question of principle, Dominique shared with us his experiences living in solidarity with harshly persecuted Rom families in Grenoble during the winter of 2010-2011, where many were repeatedly rendered homeless due to violent police actions and widely held public indifference.
Didier Giraud, following Dominique, described his activities in a small town in Brittany, defending Basques (who were not terrorists) and later the “Voyageurs” in the region who, for Didier, represented a necessary social diversity which must be preserved and protected. The homogeneity of French social life is, he said, a threat to life itself, as the population becomes more paralyzed by a pathological desire to conform to some imaginary "Norm" (which can never be achieved, anyway). In this spirit, he described his experience of taking a group of 20 people on a field trip across the region to visit a series of concentration camps used by the Germans during World War II to clean up French society by rounding up the Roms, who were forced to sell their belongings, with the hope of staying alive a little longer, to the local population looking for "good bargains".
After Didier, Kawthar Guediri described in some detail her experiences with organizing Palestinians in Gaza, where each setback produces greater solidarity. The heartbreaking descriptions of personal losses, were followed by descriptions of warm reunions and new discussions of strategies and tactics to remain in the struggle against Israeli apartheid, selective assassinations, and massive violence against innocent communities.
Then, Rehan Majid described his experience in Leeds, working with the UK network, Coalition Against the War, and the diverse ethnic groups who oppose militarism. His experiences in Kashmir, where the Indian military have played a heavy-handed role in security and surveillance for many years now, made him conscious of the psychological effects of being an object of suspicion in what can only be described as an armed camp of military personnel., who have usurped all feeling of human dignity and left most residents highly vulnerable to the caprice of men with deadly weapons.
Finally, Hugo Persillet spoke about the very real form of popular education, not just for the tranfer of information, but also for the experience of sharing. Referring to the works of Paulo Friere, Hugo insisted that the teacher-student relationship in popular education is completely dissolved, and community sharing becomes the new norm, where each participant is both teacher and student. This, he argued, is the most efficient way to transfer information and ideas, because it does not construct artificial barriers between people which inhibits the immediate practice testing new ideas. This empowerment of ordinary people in popular education is necessary for constructing an authentic community in which everyone has a vested interest in good decision-making that produces autonomy, independence, and solidarity, and reduces alienation.
At 12h30 discussions continued over lunch.
We returned to the Amphitheater B-2 shortly after 13h30. The Second Roundtable was moderated by Ronald Creagh, who quietly organized the ground rules of 15-minute presentation, with a 7-minute Q&A following each presentation. The discussion at this second meeting revolved around experiences confronting obstacles and constraints while engaging in community organizing. What are the consequences of “reductive thinking” when trying to mobilize a community with specific strategies and tactics? What is the difference between an “community organizer” and a “community leader”?
Christophe Andre began this discussion by explaining his motivation for organizing Utopian Festivals in Grenoble. The coming together of creative people to compare their experiences and to talk about projects –past, present, and future—constitutes a source of energy by which many more people become inspired. This experience of synergy has a multiplying effect, providing new ideas and energy to an ever-growing community. He uses interpersonal relationship techniques to replace traditional leadership formations with collective consensus, o that new relationship are encouraged and opportunities to express solidarity are plentiful throughout the days of the Festival. He is particularly interested in broadening the use of films in generating group discussions.
After several questions, Kathy Coit followed Christophe by describing her experiences organizing a Squat in 14th Arrondissement of Paris in the late 1970s. Her motivations for entering into the area, the solidarity she discovered with the residents of the neighborhood over the issue of a municipal plan to build a highway through the neighborhood, and problems she confronted with the ever-changing type of residents in the Squat over a period of a year-and-a-half. There was much discussion on changes within the political environment since Paris in the 1970s.
Summary by Katharine Coit.
THE REVOLT OF THE POPULATION OF THE 14th ARRONDISSEMENT TO A PROGRAMME OF URBAN RENEWAL
In 1975 a few of us found out that there would be a program of urban renewal in a working class part of the 14th arrondissement of Paris similar to that which had demolished a large part of the 13th arrondissement to rebuild hi-rise apartments far too expensive for the former inhabitants, sending them out to the distant suburbs. We held a meeting to inform the population of the 14th concerned. Out of this meeting a committee was created to spread the word and to find ways to prevent or modify this program. The inhabitants were encouraged to refuse any offers of rehousing or payment for their homes. In some cases building were squatted to prevent their destruction. In spite of no recognition from the city of the association defending the inhabitants, this action was partially if not fully successful in the long run. The city was obliged to devise a new program that was much less destructive, saving the street pattern and some of the buildings, allowing some of the population to remain.

Next, Alexandre Lefebvre followed Kathy talking about his experiences organizing the community where he lives in Grenoble. The “outside threat” which served to bring the community together was the municipal plan to make a huge tunnel a nearby mountain and build a highway through the community, along the Isère River. The fear derived from the well-known practice of wealthy individuals and large corporate interests coming into this area and violating laws such as the building codes, with the calculated cost of the fine as part of the total expense. Historically, legal prohibitions have not always been effective, and the anxiety of waking with a construction site at your front door was a real concern. This fear facilitated the organization of resistance, which eventually won the right for a municipal referendum, which defeated by popular vote the project of building a high way through the Ile Verte district of Grenoble. In the discussion that followed, Alexandre also described his interests in a software exchange project, in which new software is actually designed for specific purposes and exchanged free of charge for other services.
Summary (Fr. and Eng). by Alexandre Lefebvre.
L’association Vivre en Ville est née à l’initiative d’habitants du quartier de l’Ile Verte préoccupés d’une part par les dérives qu’ont provoqué le nouveau Plan Local d’Urbanisme - PLU (nombreux projets d’immeubles en lieu et place de petites maisons, frénésie de densification à Grenoble, troisième ville la plus dense en France, dans une agglomération où les communes immédiatement périphériques sont bien moins denses) et du projet de rocade nord. Rapidement, d’autres habitants d’autres quartiers nous ont rejoint, motivés par les mêmes questions.
Un premier recours ayant permis d’annuler un permis nous a motivé et encouragé à continuer.
Nous nous sommes documenté en profondeur sur les questions d’urbanisme.
Les pétitions ont permis aussi de faire bouger les institutions.
Nous avons aussi privilégié le dialogue et rencontré la mairie de Grenoble, qui nous a écouté, et qui a retenu certaines de nos propositions dans une révision du PLU.
Concernant la rocade, nous nous sommes ralliés à plusieurs associations dans un collectif.
Si plusieurs membres sont devenus inactifs une fois la rocade (définitivement ?) enterrée, d’autres ont continué à être actifs, en particulier concernant l’urbanisme.
L’association a depuis rejoint un collectif plus large, Vivre à Grenoble, qui continue à se battre contre des projets jugés excessifs en termes de densification. Localement, Vivre en Ville continue à soutenir des habitants s’opposant à des projets de constructions jugés déraisonnables.

— -0---

The Vivre en Ville community was created by inhabitants of the Ile Verte area in Grenoble. Their main motivations were the negative consequences of the new local building regulations (numerous projects of buildings replacing houses, excessive densification in Grenoble, 3rd most densely populated town in France, in an area where the neighbor towns are much less dense), and also the project of a north ring road. Quickly, other inhabitants from other Grenoble areas have joined the community, motivated by the same questions.
A first successful opposition to a building permit has motivated us and encouraged us to move forward.
We have learned about urbanism in detail.
Petitions have also had an impact on local authorities.
We have tried to open dialog and met with the Grenoble town officials, who have listened to us, and have kept some of our proposals in a revised local building regulation.
Regarding the ring road, we have joined other communities in a larger anti-ring road movement.
Some of Vivre en Ville’s members have stopped being active once the ring road has (definitely?) been abandoned. Others are still active, in particular regarding urbanisation.
The community has since joined a larger community, Vivre à Grenoble, which fights against construction projects which we judge excessive. Locally, Vivre en Ville still supports inhabitants in their opposition to unreasonable construction projects.

Nicolas Haeringer, editor of the journal Movement, described his coverage of “Occupy Wall Street”. Working in Marseille, he gained access to major players in the Wall Street movement and followed them closely as the movement split off into many different factions. Occupy banks, occupy house mortgages, and occupy student debt are only three of the dynamic factions that have evolved across the North American continent, mostly, but not limited to large cities. Nicolas described the new tactic called "Rolling Jubilee," to buy distressed student debts from financial firms, and then canceling it so that borrowers do not have to repay. Public fundraising events provide the capital to purchase these debts, often for pennies on the dollar. This was just one of the many creative tactics of taking back public space and public services, such as education, which should be free.
Jordi Forcadas followed Nicolas by describing his experiences organizing street theater in Barcelona, and going into Squats regularly to recruit actors. The scripts are developed by the actors themselves, and the theater is performed to an unsuspecting audience in public places. Rarely is the public informed that what they have just witnessed is theater. The goal of this popular art is to raise public consciousness of important social issues. Jordi insists that success is measured by the quality of change in people after experiencing these events, the transformation from the role of passive victim to consciously oppressed, thereby joining a group or class identity and learning to push back against identified oppressors.
Résumé par Jordi Forcadas.
La conférence a essayé de faire une approximation à la méthodologie proposée par le théâtre et la pédagogie de l’opprimé (Augusto Boal et Paulo Freire).
Nous avons donc questionné l’actuel système éducatif, celui où deux cents personnes sont assises devant une autre, appellé professeur, qui lit ses cours d’un cahier. Ceci est une éducation monologique où, comme disait Freire, l’éducation devient bancaire et nous sommes dépositaires de connaissances sans pourtant avoir développé un esprit critique.
Pour mieux comprendre la situation en Espagne, nous avons repris deux concepts essentielles du théâtre de l’opprimé: victime et opprimé. Notre situation actuelle mène un grand nombre de citoyens à se sentir victimes d’un système, où l’envergure de l’oppression structurelle est si importante qu’il est très compliqué de la changer. Tout cela entraîne une impuissance qui peut devenir une résignation inopérante.
Notre méthode prétend récupérer une attitude politique à partir d’une conscience critique. Être opprimé veut dire ne pas accepter les impositions arbitraires et exiger une justice et une éthique plus humaines. L’objectif est une recherche collective d’alternatives, tout en regroupant la plus part de profils sociaux possibles.
Pour continuer le débat, nous avons proposé un exercice plus pratique. Parmi le théâtre image, le corps des assistants a représenté par moyen d’images les concepts de politique et activisme.
À travers les interprétations suggérées par les images, nous avons établi un parallélisme entre les deux mots, leurs points en commun et leurs divergences. La politique est mal vue par la majorité de citoyens, surtout par les jeunes. Cela est dû à la situation actuelle et au rôle que les hommes et femmes politiques ont adopté pour servir avec soumission la sphère économique.
Pour finir, nous avons énuméré ce qui a été consolidé depuis le 15 mai 2011:
Groupes de lutte contre les hypothèques, groupes de dénonce à travers l’art et d’autres groupes de résistance. Organisations locales qui travaillent chez leurs communautés suivant une ligne de résistance.
Les défis les plus urgents à faire face sont les suivants:
Consensus de différents groupes qui sont liés au mouvement des indignés.
Être capables de choisir des représentants avec pouvoir de décision qui puissent rentrer dans un dialogue social avec tous les agents et institutions.
Maintenir les groupes existants afin qu’ils ne perdent pas leur élan initial dû à l’usure et au passage du temps.

Following the discussion around Jordi’s presentation we broke for coffee and cake; then we gathered for the third and final Roundtable Discussion at 16h30. At this table we continued our discussion on challenges to community organizing: What compromises and alternatives have had to be invented to resolve unexpected problems. How have the solutions to local problems affected larger global concerns, such as environment, war, health, and growing rates of poverty?
Hugo Persillet moderated this discussion. He invited Marielle Giraud to begin the discussion by describing her experience with the international community of Esperantists, of which she has been a member for many years. Psycho-linguistic resistance to nationalist ideology occurs when you speak Esperanto; you simply find yourself feeling and thinking differently, she explained. She gave the example experiences on two different trips she had made to China. Traveling with a French friend, she found herself entirely integrated on a bus heading into the mountains in China. Beside her sat an old man in his 80s. As they talked she became aware that he was a famous physician, for whom a medical center had been named in the city of …..
A little more than a year later, she hosted him at her home in a village in Brittany. In his retirement, he had taken up art, and was particularly fond of sculpting in wood. In a rather remarkable way, he was able to fashion his own tools for working the wood. He also made appliqué panels with sand, wood, leaves, and any other materials which happened to catch his fancy. The point Marielle thought it important to note was that individual creativity was as base a collective experience. The inspiration, the encouragement, the innovation came from social relations, and the international language of Esperanto tapped new experiences, and new sources of energy which crystallized unexpected and often delightful expressions. It represented a successful amalgam of unity in diversity –one language, many experiences.
Résumé par Marielle Giraud.
RESISTANCE LINGUISTIQUE ET ESPERANTO
Une élite de possédants, une classe moyenne, la masse des deshérités : cette représentation pyramidale de l’ordre mondial proposée par Alinski s’applique tout autant à l’état mondial des langues.
Sous l’égide d’une langue dominante, une quinzaine de langues contrôlent l’essentiel de la communication linguistique. Une centaine d’autres sont officiellement reconnues. Parmi les autres - environ 6000 - 90% sont actuellement menacées. Leur extinction, prévue au rythme moyen d’une langue par semaine pendant un siècle, signifie la perte d’un patrimoine essentiel sur les plans scientifique, culturel et humain.
Au cours de l’Histoire, les rapports de domination entre les langues ont largement contribué à la manipulation identitaire des masses par les Etats en quête d’éléments constitutifs d’ identités nationales exploitables, notamment en matière de patriotisme. C’est en réaction à ce phénomène que le Dr L. Zamenhof, né en 1859 au cœur des conflits ethniques en limite de l’Empire russe, entre Polonais, Lithuaniens, Allemands, Russes et Juifs, créa la langue internationale Esperanto, conçue comme instrument d’un pacifisme concret entre les hommes.
Destiné à permettre entre les individus des contacts égalitaires directs, exempts de conflits nationalistes, ethniques ou religieux, tout en contribuant à la sauvegarde de la diversité linguistique, l’Esperanto, « langue sans frontières », a pris place désormais parmi les outils pratiques d’une résistance originale contre l’ordre planétaire dominant.
Christine Majid described her experiences founding and directing an association designed to help the destitute population of immigrants living in Leeds. The Project Manager for Positive Action For Refugees and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS) began as a desperate attempt to find food and shelter for Christine’s neighbors who were loosing the benefits of a dying system of social services. The “reforms” of Margret Thatcher were in full swing, and these people simply had no place to go. Her efforts aimed literally to keep as many as she could alive, and then to involve them in the process of pushing back, so that they would not regress into a passive dependency. She does this by inviting them to join her in administrative and political work, soliciting funds and commodities for the more prosperous population and remaining visible on the streets of Leeds. Their contribution to the community is to remain poor so that others can become rich, and they demand a recognition and an allowance for their services, as the Commonwealth degenerates into private property held by the few.
Habib El Garés followed Christine’s discussion with a presentation on Arab Spring in Tunisia and its aftermath. He talked about the events that led up to the Arab spring in Tunisa beginning in December er 2010. On December 17, 2010, at 11h30, Mohamed Bouazizi, a young a street vendor, emulated himself in front of a government office in the rural Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. The local police had confiscated his cart and the vegetables he had purchased the day before. Before his death on 4 January, Tunisia’s President Ben Ali made a televised visit to the hospital room where Bouazizi lay in a comma. Bouazizi’s last words on the street corner before he lit the match were: “How do you expect me to make a living?”
The history of Tunisia, according to Habib, is a history of colonization, wave after wave for the past 2,800 years. The Phoenicians crossed from the Eastern Mediterranean to establish Carthage around 800 B.C. Between the 5th century and the 3rd century BC, Greeks challenged the Phoenician dominance of the area; then in 201 BC, the Punic wars with Rome began, ending with the complete destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. In 439 AD, the Vandals invaded the region; then came the Byzantines in 533. In 670 they were invaded by the Arabs; then Turkish pirates came and stayed beginning in 1574. In 1881, Tunisia became a French Colony, negotiating its independence only in 1956. This colonial history speaks to a collective experience of organizing a community form the top down. The invaders brought a kind of social order, based on economic and/or military might; the indigenous population adapted as best they could each time to the new order imposed on them, but, as Habib pointed out, this adaptation was not a passive acceptance; instead the indigenous population were challenged to learn the rules of a new game, and to play it as best they could to their own advantage. This explains the resilience, the resourcefulness, and the creativity of the Tunisian people today, who are faced with a regressive regime attempting to impose new constraints on the population in guise of religious dogma. We may anticipate that the new resistance will take many forms.

The Third Roundtable Discussion ended with a discussion by Simon Morin, who participates with the international group “Post K,” which concerns itself with post-capitalist economics, and the Grenoble associations, “Antigone” and “Faranches.” Simon described his experiences working with economic theory and trying to make theory relevant to the everyday lives of people living in the community where he is active. The need to act and to analyze the effects one is having in the community requires clear communication with people one can trust and interact with directly. When problems arise of many different kinds, the need to have the vocabulary, concepts, and categories necessary to resolve problems, whether in interpersonal relations or with factions within the community, is of primary importance. Simon’s experience has taught him to share the problems he confronts and to rely on discussions with other members of his community to find solutions that go beyond his private interests and meet the social interest of the community for the maximum benefit of himself and the group of which he is a part.

We concluded the day on Community Organizing with a talk by Michael Albert on “Participatory Economics” and the recently established association, The International Organization for a Participatory Society (IOPS). In a very original encounter, Michael provoked his audience with seemingly aimless questions, which soon crystallized to make apparent to everyone that democracy in our lives is sorely lacking. He went on to explain the principles of Parecon and the practicalities of how to make it work in everyday life. His presentation was conducted in an unorthodox manner, with much humor and occasional self-criticisms. Likewise, the introduction he made to the new international network which he and others from the ZNet Collective initiated about six months ago, was compelling. Already some 4,000 people, representing local chapters in cities and towns in over 90 countries, have joined IOPS. [The home page of IOPS can be found at: http://www.iopsociety.org/.] Michael described the motivations behind this organization, and the outline of its mission. It is essentially a bottom-up organization, based on consensus decision-making. One of its guiding principles is to nurture an environment of DIVERSITY, so that alternative forms of social interaction can be invented and develop to prosper in the future. The future should be determined by those who live it; we today should aim at improving our own lives with the intention of also contributing to the well being of future generations, when possible. In the Q&A after his talk, he emphasized that IOPS was not a political party, that the political tradition of Democratic Centralism must be reformed to encourage alternative formations within a consensus to assure the general well being. Imaginary threats to this collective well-being, and other manipulations which attempt to legitimate the adoption of authoritarian “security measures” must be exposed and dealt with, if diversity is to prosper. Without mentioning it by name, Michael Albert invoked Robert Michel’s famous political theory, “the Iron Law of Oligarchy” (1911) and suggested that by adopting specific measures in decision making, which are now being promoted by IOPS, such a social division of labor could be averted.
Following the conclusion of Michael Albert’s two-hour presentation, Francis Feeley concluded the conference at 21h, with a few words, thanking the participants for their generosity in sharing valuable experiences at this meeting, from which many valuable ideas were drawn. The proceedings of the entire conference were filmed and will be published on the Internet before Christmas.
The next move was our rendez-vous at Le Restaurant Bouillon, Belle Époque restaurant in the Latin Quarter of Paris; there we gathered to continue our conversations over good food and drink, until after midnight.