Social Forum Journey / Malmö-Belem-Istanbul
Abstract: This article looks at how the national mass protests against neoliberal regimes in Iceland, Tunisia, Egypt and other African and Arabic countries and the Wisconsin in the US are linked with the climate justice movement. Both national protests and the climate justice movement are developing unevenly. National protests in some hot spots, the climate campaigning more even all over the world. By looking at how countries like Denmark and its organized civil society acts it can be possible to understand how the struggle both for defensive goals and constructive solutions can strengthen each other by what lacked in Denmark but exists on the global level. That is solidarity against repression and building resistance which enables solutions uniting anti-neoliberal struggles in general and specific areas.
This is important both at transnational level and in countries that are more advanced in this struggle as well as those lagging far behind their objective potential like Denmark or Sweden. The challenge is how to combine the strength of the workers movement lacking a global democratic organization representing the working class also in the South and peasants, environmental, women and indigenous people who have established such global democratic organizations. The argument is that the key lies in combining the workers movements strength in defending the common interests with the offensive constructive program promoted by popular movements that have established global democratic organizations and organize solidarity against repression of all popular movements.
The commodification of all human beings and all of nature is at the core of the present development model. The resistance against this model is now enabling alternatives to emerge at both national and on specific fields also the transnational level ultimately paving the way for abolishing the present unsustainable development model. By bringing the two ways of challenging the present development model together and critically examine while also celebrating them it might be possible to find new ways of struggling and winning against the rulers of the world. Both the national uprising against authoritarian neoliberal and austerity regimes and the climate justice movement are part of the same democratic momentum questioning the global world order in all kind of countries all over the world.
The mass climate movement must go beyond the neoliberal agenda
Solutions to the climate crisis is a field were those holding on to the present development model are especially aggressive. They push for a new global land and air grabbing regime with the aim of oppressing the poor to give their fair share of the global commons to the rich and wealthy and into the hands of transnational corporations.
The incapacity of those in power due to the present development model to address global warming have caused growing wide-spread concern. In 1991 people in 70 countries on 500 places participated in international climate action days, in 2009 there were actions on 5000 places and last year 7000 places in almost every country on earth. This incapacity also have caused the rising of the climate justice movement which not only asks for action but also resistance against the present development model and promote constructive solutions beyond the limitations set by those in power.
A primary force behind this climate justice movement has been the anti-debt movement emerging from the riots against International Monetary Fund policies imposed on countries who are oppressed and been given the role of delivering their economic resources to those who already are rich owners of capital, riots that erupted in Peru in 1976 and Egypt in 1977 and since then spread all over the world.
Another force has been the resistance against development projects imposed on local communities in the interest of transnational corporations and the capitalists that owns them. This resistance erupted also at the end of the 1970s when the indigenous Katinga and Bontoc people started armed resistance with arrows and bows against the Chico dam project in the Philippines which was supposed to be financed by the World Bank. Many died in the struggle but the Katinga and Bontocs never gave up in spite of the violence and attempts at bribing their leaders gaining both local, national and international support. The conflict ended with victory paving the way for indigenous and other movements protesting against the present development model in all parts of the world. A movement of oppressed indigenous and local communities that have grown stronger and stronger which was expressed at the international Cochabamba gathering in Bolivia last year with 33 000 people calling for climate justice.
These strands in a global popular movement against the present development model together with the peasant, women’s and environmental movements formed in 2007 the Climate Justice Now! Network. Thus a system critical movement had been established as an alternative to the global coalition of well funded environmental and like minded foundations and other organizations often lacking democratic accountability like Greenpeace. A coalition that in different forms address global warming and other environmental issues as mainly technical and individual moral issues claiming that what is necessary is media attention and pressuring politicians but not changing any social order.
This coalition has been dominated by Western organizations lacking global democratic accountability while the climate justice movement builds on the oppressed peoples and global democratic popular movements like Jubilee South, Via Campesina, Friends of the Earth and Women’s World March. They all have a leadership very much from the third world and build on ideas of equal distribution of power in the movement instead of top-down management.
What is lacking is the perhaps most important movement in resisting the present development model or at least in defending peoples interests, the workers movement. But the trade union is the only larger global popular movement that has refused to build on democratic accountability towards the global working class- ITUC, the International Trade Union Confederation has instead chosen to be dominated by the working class in the rich and wealthy countries and no strong alternative to ITUC have emerged which the other popular movements can cooperate with for building a joint resistance and constructing alternatives to the present world order. ITUC promotes social dialogue with business, IMF and G-20 instead of organizing the global working class.
This was criticized at the Open World Conference against War and Exploitation held in Alger 27-29 novemeber 2010 with 400 mainly trade union participants. Abdel Majid Sidi Zaid. General secretary of the Algerian TUC (UGTA), stated in his inauguration speech that employed and people in common had disappeared from the economic agenda. The only thing that seems to count is to give tax payers money to the capitalists. Sidi Zaid criticized how ITUC gradually slipped into becoming a social partner with business, G-20 and governments instead of representing a different interest than that of the employer.
But the voices of North African and other third world working class cannot be heard in the way ITUC excludes the large working classes to have their proportionate say as only number of individual members is counting making it possible for the rich countries with smaller working class but higher percentage of enlisted member to dominate the international organization. This weakens the trade unions everywhere and so also their ability to cooperate with other movements who are independent and not necessarily sees a solution to every problem social partnership with business and government. Thus is the trade unions a problematic ally as their lack of global democracy in their main international organization effectively excludes the third world working class from influence, the same working class that is so necessary to have as allied for popular movements struggling for climate justice.
Without a strong international cooperation partner among the trade unions it is necessary to find other ways to win the majority against false solutions to the climate crisis and for a just transition. The strength of the climate justice movement so far has been several. The commitment of activists in indigenous struggles against exploitation or climate camps and other forms of struggle has a key role. That strong organizations with a multi issue interest in both social and environmental concerns have been able to cooperate in CJN is another factor. So are the well articulated arguments against false solutions like carbon trading, nuclear power or monoculture biofuel. But what is lacking is a program for solutions, for just transition of housing, industry, transport, agriculture, forestry and many other sectors. It is not enough to know what we are against. We need alos something to long for.
Such a programme is indivisibly linked with going beyond the neoliberal limitations set by the social partnership agenda. Without a clear idea of how to socially mobilize for just transition domestically and internationally the struggle for change will become fragmenticized and easy to diverge into ideas of socially neutral technological plans or moral appeals without substantial economy and social forces to enable a just transition
Protests against the general neoliberal politics
While the climate justice movement is a growing wide spread protest in every corner of the world building momentum in small and large scale it has its limitations. What is also needed is challenging the system at the general political level. That is what is going on in some countries at the moment while in many others the situation is passive. While the climate justice movement and the general concern about global warming is spreading rather steadily all over the world the mass protests against the neoliberal general politics and the strongly connected wars and occupations to control the supply of natural resources are more volatile.
In general at least in Europe antineoliberal mass movements are on the defensive and especially trade unions are under pressure if they do not accept worsening working conditions. In elections right wing parties are the dominant force on the whole continent. When mass protests occur as in Greece two years ago the result can be worsening of the situation and even more neoliberal policies put in place to save the foreign banks and make the people pay.
The solutions accepted at the national level by some popular movements causes serious problems in other countries. The German trade unions accepted wage dumping in exchange for maintaining jobs. In other countries workers were able to maintain their salaries in par with the increase of productive instead as in Germany were the productivity increase worked in favor of the owners of the companies and growing export. If every trade union had chosen to follow suit the result would have been an even deeper crisis. But finally drastic contradictions in the European neoliberal politics reached Eastern, Southern and North Western European periphery as well as North Africa and many other places. The role of the periphery is clear, to feed the banks in the richest countries and owners of capital living on speculation while living with rising food prices and social cuts as a result often of demands by IMF. This has been a problem in many parts of the world for long but have now reached also Europe. The renewed axis between Germany and France to promote even more austerity politics with the help of EU will only deepen the contradictions and crisis.
But when the neoliberal authoritarian regimes following the demands by IMF and supported by EU and the US in North Africa started to fall down like in Tunisia and Egypt and now on the way in other countries this model meet severe resistance by movements that had started to protest against their politics already in the 1970s. These uprising are now often supported from the right to the left, with some similar claims and some different, all too limited from an environmental and climate justice movement perspective.
The common statement by the right and left is that this is a struggle for democracy in the Arab region against authoritarian regimes or dictatorships. This is misleading from an antineoliberal environmental point of view. From this point of view politics, ecology and economy are indivisible. Struggle for democracy is thus necessarily linked to the ecological and economical side of the protests. It is quite clear that the neoliberal model is directly in contradiction with the food sovereignty politics demanded by Via Campesina, Friends of the Earth groups and many others. With the total industrialization of agriculture which neoliberalism aims for with the exception of a small niche production of ecological food for those wealthy enough to afford it. The sky rocketing food prices which is the result of a volatile speculation economy combined with the destruction of domestic peasants by subsidized food from rich countries agriculture industry is a devastating combination together with the general assault against working people like the textile female workers in Egypt which with their strikes is a main factor behind the uprising.
Thus the linkage between an ever growing capitalistic speculation economy and a development model based on ever growing consumption of natural resources including destruction of ecological friendly ways of domestic production of food is at the core of the conflict behind the uprisings. A politics promoted by neoliberal regimes in rich countries unto the rest of the world in alliance with authoritarian segments in oppressed countries. In the case of the Arab world this is further emphasized by the role given to the region of the rich countries with their fossil fuel based economies as a region controlled by smaller privileged nations with less population that are supported by the rich countries to see to that the countries with larger populations are kept under control by their oppressive leaders and massive intervention from the West, at times with brutal force as the help to Iraq to make war with Iran and the later war against Iraq.
From an environmental point of view the struggle in the Arabic world is thus intimitely linked to the struggle against a development model devastating nature and built on aggressive control of fossil fuel sources which for certain is not a struggle which can be limited to the Arab world but is a common task. To the environmental movement in Sweden have since decades stated that the primary solidarity struggle is to change production and consumption patterns in Sweden so that it is not based on overuse of natural resources from other countries. As long as this development model claiming that people in rich countries are entitled to use more than their fair share of the natural resources on earth is in place it is causing the support by so called democratic countries as EU member states to oppressive regimes in the whole world.
The right and the left have some differing point of views on the uprisings in the Arabic and African world now spreading to the mass protests in Wisconsin in the US. The right delinks politics from economy which is helpful for avoiding the connection to the ecological and social justice problems which are a part of the economy promoted by the rich and proclaimed democratic nations. To the right winger whether liberal or conservative democracy is a question of form and have nothing to do with content. The geographic limitations is also self evident to them and thus there is no decisive connection between formally democratic countries in the West and the oppressive authoritarian regimes in countries with a central role in seeing to that rich and formally democratic nations is secured cheap natural resources. Under all circumstances there is no reason to reevaluate the own politics at home due to the uprisings in the Arab world.
To the left winger in rich European countries the dominant view seems to be that of revolutionary romanticism, general US criticism and delinking the struggle in the Arabic world from the struggle in their own countries. Appeals are made for mass protests in Palestine against the Israeli occupation in this leftist version of constant exotism appealing to revolutions sometimes in the future or in other countries rather than to reevaluate the struggle at home and also under other conditions than utter desperation like after 60 years of occupation supported by the rich countries.
US as a main enemy of the left is also a way to avoid focusing on politics were one can make a difference at home. In Sweden the left has mass produced articles about how bad the US is with their war and occupation of Iraq. There are hundreds of left wing articles in Sweden strongly criticizing the US for making false claims on the existence of weapons of mass destruction to start the war against Iraq causing the death of hundreds of thousand people. I have seen not one article about the responsibility of Sweden causing the death as many or more people in Iraq as we and others were supporting the economic sanctions against Iraq with devastating effects on the population built on exactly the same false accusations as those used by the US to start the war. The weapons of mass destruction did not disappear suddenly the day the US invaded, they had long gone before in a time when economic sanctions caused the death of hundreds of thousands. The left seems sometimes to have become part of an international literature market were it is more important to appoint big names as enemies than to do the home work in the municipality or country you live in instead of putting all your energy into criticizing other countries or calling for Palestinians to do one more dangerous intifada. From an environmental point of view EU and its member states is as much of a problem as the US and have supported ”stability” in the Arab region and Africa in similar and devastating ways.
The struggle to change production and consumption patterns and politics at local and national level including foreign policy is of course at times not as spectacular as large uprisings in other parts of the world or omnipotent ideas about shifting EU to become a progressive political force. But it is here we need to see what we can do and how the challenges in the world model for an economy based on cheap natural resources as fossil fuel by the uprisings in the Arab or other regions also means something for the daily struggle in every corner of the world also when it is not spectacular. By simultaneous struggles at all levels combining daily struggles and organizing solidarity across borders when necessary also in less spectacular cases is an internationalistic way forward. But this seems to be outside the view of many left wing commentators. They seem to draw the same conclusion of the uprisings in many aspects as the right – Under all circumstances there is no reason to reevaluate the own politics at home due to the uprisings in the Arab world.
The successful uprising in Western Europe
This becomes clear when seeing what both the left and right excludes from their analysis but the environmental movement have to include and all other opposing the present world order. That of successful uprising against neoliberal politics in a rich European democratic country were the government had no choice but to step down or call in the military from an EU member state to survive against the confrontative demands by the people. What is going on in Tunisia and Egypt have already been successfully accomplished in a Western European country. Thus the claim that what is going on is uprisings in the Arab world is wrong, the uprisings are also going on in other parts of the world with similar form and content including the best and richest of formally democratic nations. Why the right commentators excludes this fact from their analysis is after all understandable although makes their intellectual position utterly weak. After all it was 20 years of right-centre neoliberal government that was thrown out of power with a large scale popular uprising. Why the left also is excluding this Western European country in the same way is a fact at first thought puzzling, at second thought possible to understand as the example point at the necessity of change of the form and content of left wing politics in Western Europe.
The successful uprising started in the autumn of 2008 and reached a climax in January 2009 when people after demonstrations every week broke all restrictions of the police and forced their way through the police lines and smashed more or less all the windows of the parliament making it very clear that the government had no whatsoever control of the country any longer and had to go. The actions were disciplined and no harm was made to policeman but there was no way to not understand the message, you have to go as you have no power anymore. The police force was to small to control the growing protests. For the first time since 1949 the police used tear gas but it did not help. The only choice left was to call in the military from the EU member state Denmark who were staying on ships in the outer harbour of Reykjavik. But to call in the former colonial power that gave the freedom to Iceland as late as 1944 was not a popular option so the right-centre government resigned and new elections were held which brough a left-centre government to power.
Both the form, the content and the result of this successful uprising in Iceland brings in question the left in the rest of Western Europe. One is that the uprising was disciplined and all the different strands with the anarchists and environmentalists as those most radically questioning the present development model in Iceland both in content and in the way protests were organized as well as more moderate political forces all keeping to a strict code of not using violence against people. This in contrast to the unclear notion of diversity of tactics which is splitting the movements into factions in some countries. Thus when repression hit the Icelandic movement there is a lot stronger solidarity then in other Western countries were solidarity sometimes is lacking almost totally. This becomes clear before and during the trial against the Reykjavik 9, protesters standing trial in January 2011 for a peaceful action inside the parliament in 2008. In Iceland all the main stream press have declared them guilty of violence for months and stated that what they have done have no precedence in Iceland and thus many years in prison is reasonable. The foreign minister declared the opposite in the court room. In other countries like Sweden even the most self proclaimed revolutionary left wing party either joins the police opinion and declares the activists as more or less terrorist in need of policing or gets totally paralysed due to the media accusations of violence and starts to fight each other instead of the repression.
The political result of the uprising is also a fact showing that what more or less all the left with some parliamentary power is doing in Western Europe is wrong. The Icelandic people did not only make one uprising, they made two, both successful. With the new left-centre government in place Iceland started to negotiate to come out of the economic collapse that the former government had put the country into. They tried to make a deal with several foreign countries and institutions as IMF. The people did not accept the deal and started protesting again and thus the government found a clever way out. A referendum were a clear majority rejected the deal. Now the government could go into negotiations again making a better deal than before.
What Iceland did was directly contrary to the solutions forced onto countries like Greece and Ireland. Iceland placed its biggest lenders in receivership. It chose not to protect all creditors of the country’s banks. “Iceland did the right thing by making sure its payment systems continued to function while creditors, not the taxpayers, shouldered the losses of banks,” stated Joseph Stiglitz to Bloomberg.
The successful politics in Iceland after the uprisings are seen as good also by main stream economists. So why do we not hear about this solution o the crisis? The reason might be simple. The parliamentarian left is so occupied by being respected as responsible and accepts the core of the solutions in saving the banks instead of challenging the whole model by stating Iceland as an example and pointing at the economic catastroph in for Greece and Ireland when domestic debts possible to reduce by domestic decisions are turned into international debts making the EU the powerful collector for the foreign banks. What EU does is the opposite to Iceland, to force countries and thus their tax payers to make the creditors of the banks completely irresponsible and fully paid for their speculation without risk. To stand up against this way of saving the banks by letting people pay is not what many or any left wing parliamentary parties do by pointing at the Icelandic alternative. Instead general ideological rhetoric stating we do not pay for their crisis becomes a way for these parties to avoid using the parliament as a platform to build political opposition.
What they are doing instead, at least in Sweden, is playing political theatre. This became obvious in the last election when the left party formed an alliance with the Greens and social democrats. To very many in the left party it was obvious that the political platform of this Red Green alliance had no substantial difference from that of the right wing alliance which has now for the first time since 1932 been able to govern the country for a second term. One radical left winger in the party concluded that if the left party should have formulated a stronger political platform which he sees is needed and stayed outside of the alliance between the Greens and the Social democrats the party would have been totally ignored by media and would not have been able to come into the parliament. Thus was the support from the left party of the Red Green alliance necessary.
So at least some Left parties also with a long record of being system critical and still having substantial knowledge of what political opposition is necessary are not independent political actors anymore but extensions of the mass media playing a role in their political theater. To such political parties Iceland is a threat to their image as radical and it is better to exclude this example from people’s memory and continue using anticapitalist rhetoric while not opposing the core of today’s politics in parliament.
The non-parliamentary left have equal strong reasons for excluding Iceland from their understanding of the present situation. If they see parliamentary politics only as a problem and their own role as being non-parliamentarian is it not useful to claim that the Icelandic parliamentary politics and its solution to the crisis is of interest for the rest of Europe. If it furthermore includes member of the governments that defends anarchists the identity politics of much of the non-parliament falls into pieces. Such central politicians cannot have a progressive role when the main stream press is totally against the anarchists claiming that they are violent so Iceland cannot exist. It is too much a threat to identity politics of both the parliamentary and non-parliamentary left.
Iceland is not only a threat to the identity politics of the left at the tactical level but also on the strategic. The strongest supporter of the 9 accused Reykjavik activists comes from the environmental movement Saving Iceland. And if there is a left wing strand among the accused activists it seems to be anarchistic while traditional radical left wing organizations are not a visible actor anymore, at least not presented well abroad. Furthermore it is claimed in the support brochure for the Reykjavik 9 that : ”In interviews and other coverage of the court case, the Reykjavík Nine have shown that their participation in that winter’s uprising was rooted in their opposition towards the whole system – not only the economic collapse and “the crisis”.” With other words the activists are not belonging to a single issue movement or ad hoc group but a system critical movement with more long term goals than replacing one government with another to make some shifts in the costs for the bankruptcy of the banks for the Icelandic people. This threat is fully understood by the neoliberal press who have called for hard sentences against the Reykjavik 9 and claimed that they not only were violent, but also introduced a culture of violence into Icelandic protests. Thus they are also guilty of the escalating protests that continued during the winter and finally forced the government to resign.
In Many Western European countries the non-parliamentarian left is still to quite some extent influenced by parties claiming they are revolutionary and their press. To this left Iceland is a threat showing how a new radical system critical movement is emerging, so better keep silent about Iceland. One good exception is the German MP who have actively engaged in the case. He also makes a connection between the case of the Reykjavik 9 and the recently discovered British spy that was sent into the Saving Iceland movement as well as direct action movement in many other countries and asks if this is part of a European–wide policing of movements.
The case is similar for the environmental movement. In Iceland it is the system critical direct action movement that is strong and not so much environmental NGOs which is the opposite to most other countries in Western Europe. Neither the strong solidarity between the environmental movement and the protesters against the neo-liberal regime or civil disobedience as a form of action are not what many environmental NGOs sees as important.
In spite of that the Icelandic experience is relevant for a number of political reasons it is thus largely ignored both among the left and the environmentalists.
Connecting the hot political spots and the weak
The case of Iceland becomes also interesting when seeing if there is a possibility of connecting struggles in hot spots with successful uprisings and the more daily struggle and even defensive struggle when things gradually gets worse.
Here the climate justice connection can serve as helpful. The climate struggle is going on almost everywhere helped by the fact that any emission or deforestation anywhere on earth are contributing to global warming making our destiny as a human race ultimately connected.
Thus we here can see both an issue and a struggle different in the form in terms of a more steady increase forward and less volatile as the struggle against the economic crisis.
What are than the connections? One is the political content. In both cases is antineoliberal politics at the core of protests. In the case of the climate justice movement the stand against carbon trading, in the case of Iceland a general protests against neoliberal politics. There is furthermore some deeper connection. One is that the banks that brought Iceland to de facto bankruptcy earlier were state owned and then privatized, a privatization with some consequences. One other that the Icelandic crisis have a root in exactly the same idea which is underlying carbon trading schemes, that of establishing a market mechanism for selling nature. A speculation boom like the one promoted by the privatized Icelandic banks has to built on some cash flow and this was created by the decision to allow the selling of fish quota in Iceland.
This points at two complementary ways of challenging the neoliberal hegemony by general political uprising in some countries and a world wide challenge against the expansion of a neoliberal regime in one important sector, nature.
The other connection between the hot spot Iceland and more weak struggle in many other places is the form. Here Iceland has set an example that will tear up some of the hardest resistance against challenging the neoliberal world order, the resistance among many organizations claiming themselves to be anti-neoliberal or even revolutionary.
This resistance was clearly evident during the climate summit in Copenhagen when Denmark was a host to a meeting of global importance. Every revolutionary and other left wing parties in Denmark as well as every other environmental or social organization built on membership and representative democracy chosed to claim that non-violent civil disobedience towards an assembly of legislators which is a central character of a UN conference is an impossibility in Denmark. It would automatically result in violence to be blamed on those initiating the non-violent action and was thus unacceptable in a Nordic political culture like the Danish.
This is correct in the sense that a majority of the Danish people according to opinion polls claims that the violence used by the police against non-violent demonstrators is not actually violence committed by the police but violence caused by the non-violent activist. This is totally different from lets say an Egyptian policeman beating demonstrators with his stick in Cairo to protect the stability of the state who according to the same world view now is committing violence which everyone can see as easily as she or he can see how the policeman using his stick at the Climate Summit conference building is actually not using violence as the violence is caused by the demonstrator who does not understand the self evident need of the stability if the Danish state.
It is also correct in the sense that main stream media and the large majority of the parliamentary parties in Denmark have the same view. The media uses a model for shifting chronology or placing people in false places to make believe the story about police behaving properly and those under violent attack from the police as the cause of violence.
Thus if the only stone thrown at a policeman at the Climate Summit that actually harmed a policeman causing only light injury was thrown as an reaction in another part of the city after that the police mass arrested 918 innocent demonstrators this is by the media presented as preceeding the violence of the police against the demonstrators.
Similar is the way the mass arrested demonstrators are presented as causing their own mass arrest as some few demonstrators were smashing a dozen windows at the stock exchange and foreign ministry. But this was in another section of the demonstration where the police had guided activists into the demonstration that intended to go elsewhere but the police wanted them in the demonstration. It was also in another part of the city far away from the mass arrests. By claiming that there is a connection between the section that was mass arrested and the material damage at the stock exchange and the foreign ministry media presents a model for how the violence against the demonstrators is caused by themselves.
All parliamentary parties from the most radical left to the right with the exception of the social liberal party in the center followed the same pattern in their firsts comments on what had happened. Emberessment was not directed against the totally unacceptable mass arrest of 918 demonstrators who all later in court have been found the right to receive damages as innocent and victims of police abuse. The emberessment was instead directed against stones thrown at the police fueling furthermore the false chronology and misplacing of the mass arrested section in relation to the course of events.
With other words we have a people, mass media and parliamentary parties supporting the police view that the violence used by the police is not violence but actions by non-violent demonstrators and activists is the cause of the violence for everyone to see. Such a country is not at all a police state but a police nation, a situation probably similar to that in many other countries and of importance to deal with if a simultaneous protest movement against the present social and ecological crisis should be able to emerge in more than a few countries under extraordinary circumstances.
In such a police nation it is understandable that representative democratic organizations claim that non-violent action against a UN-conference will be perceived as guilty of the violence that automatically will take place according to this logic. But it is not acceptable. Every organization have their own responsibility towards their stated goal. If the rest of the nation have turned into a police nation this is no excuse for any organization to join the band wagon and even make a principle about it. To claim that only temporary activist networks should carry the whole burden against the violence of the police nation or even see to that when this violence occurs the victims should receive no solidarity is not standing up for the truth which is the basis of our society.
The claim by all formal Danish organizations rejecting to support a non-violent direct action was that the political culture in Denmark was such that by action, non-violent or not, against an assembly of legislators would be regarded as completley unacceptable by everyone except for an isolated small group. This was wrong as such a non-violent action took place at the EU-summit in the same conference center as COP15 was held but this fact was hidden to international cooperation partners or forgotten. More important is that Denmark cannot claim that their political culture is significantly different from that of Iceland sharing history for almost a thousand year and with stable democratic institutions.
As the Icelandic people have been able to make an uprising and storming the parliament successfully in a non-violent manner, this form of action cannot in principle be said to be impossible in Denmark. Furthermore can the Icelandic popular movement show results in combating neoliberal economic politics that most or all the left wing and environmental organisations in Denmark also would like to achieve.
The key point therefore is a question that concerns any European antineoliberal organization, is the kind of non-violent action against a parliament in principle always unacceptable this also means to say not to both the political antineoliberal success and form of the protests in Iceland. As Via Campesina and others in Copenhagen showed was it possible also at a Climate Summit to do the same thing as the Icelandic popular movement did, although it had less success due to that Danish left wing and environmental organizations opposed the non-violent action. It is well argued to claim that Iceland has similar political culture as Denmark. The conclusion of this is that the left-wing and environmental organizations in Denmark are not anti neoliberal or interested to protect the environmental but prefers to be part of a police nation and protect the state when given a choice.
It is necessary in every country were these kind of organizations dominate the political space for opposition to demand clear principles that shows respect for the Icelandic people. There are always specific conditions in each circumstances but there are also a general level were similarities exists. Iceland is a long term democratic nation and their experience should be reflected in any antineoliberal organization in a Western democracy. It gives possibilities of strengthening simultaneous struggles in different countries which also are of importance at Summits when global popular movements can combine their efforts with local mobilization to challenge the present world order.
Linking climate justice to anti neoliberal general political uprisings
Many left wing and environmental organizations are today not only part of the police nation but also accepting the limitations set by mass media. They see the unity with organizations having access to media as more important than to build on clear demands against false solutions on the climate issue. In spite of that key global democratic movements as Jubilee South, Via Campesina, Friends of the Earth International and the whole Climate Justice Now network is opposing carbon trading and offsetting most organisations prefer signing such statement and go home afterwards not taking them seriously.
If it is not media attention there are other tactical reasons for not taking international declarations seriously. One is the interest in cooperating with social partnership trade unions who refuse to take an antineoliberal stand in the climate justice issue. This is why the global day of action has such a out of date watered down platform.
But the antineoliberal climate justice movement is sufficiently large today to enable a stronger uniting initiative leaving the old claim for more action and a real climate deal behind. This was attempted at the Cochabamba gathering but with some problems. One was the exclusion of the Roundtable 18 (mesa 18) which also critically addressed social changes within countries including Bolivia. Another was the rather big ideas about a global referendum but no idea on the immediate term for uniting the climate justice movement.
But this is crucial for the ability to strengthen both the climate justice struggle and the general antineoliberal uprisings and struggles. By using the capacity of the climate justice movement to be present in almost every country a real important force would be added to the general antineoliberal uprising at national level. This would also work well in reverse. By politically showing more closeness to the political energy coming from the uprisings against authoritarian regimes whether in the West or other parts of the world the climate justice struggle would also be strengthened.
The climate justice movement could also learn from the Icelandic experience concerning solidarity. In spite of that all the press was in the hands of neoliberal perspectives and nine activists put to trials were presented as violent while making an action inside the parliament the movement kept together. 705 people claimed they had done the same crime which according to the attorney should result in minimum one year in prison. The trial ended with the verdict not guilty for most of the activist, a fine for two and suspended sentence for two others. The nine activists refuses to accept the verdict claiming that only full aquittal is acceptable.
After COP15 the trials are not yet over and two spokes persons for the non-violent action have been sentenced to four months in prison, verdicts that are up in court once more in the end of May. The massive solidarity in Iceland have lacked in Denamrk, especially during COP15 but also compared to Iceland afterwards. Without solidarity, the movement dies.
The anti-neoliberal uprisings can learn from the climate justice movement work for a constructive program for both agriculture forestry, industry, rural and urban planning to solve the climate crisis in ways which also solves other social and environmental crisis. Inspiration can come from the Klimaforum09, Assembly of Social Movements at European Social Forum in Istanbul and the Cochabamba roundtable 18 declarations that focus much on social justice and constructive solutions. A popular movement cannot only be against if it shall be able to win in the long term, it also needs something to long for, something that can attract more sympatizers and bring about change.
During a long period since 1980 all the results of the productivity increase have fallen into the hands of owners of capital. This has enabled those in power to penetrate every mind and every movement with the message that the market can solve everything while others cling to the defensive hope for the state or EU to challenge the market. The uprisings in Iceland, Africa and Western Asia challenges this model for controlling societies and limiting protest to defensive demands. The key way to try to limit the effect of the uprising in Africa and Western Asia is to claim that this is only a rebellion against dictatorships limited to the Arab world. Here Iceland is an example showing clearly that this is false. Together with the uprising in Wisconsin in the US inspired by the revolt in Egypt we here have examples showing that it is all authoritarian neoliberal and corrupt economic regimes that are challenged.
Together with a global action against neoliberal solutions to the climate crisis combined with a program for just transition the uprisings and the climate justice movement can make 2011 into a springtime of the people. A year of simultaneous struggle in many countries building a solidarity across borders that can bring us a decisive step towards making another world possible.
Tord Björk is active in Friends of the Earth Sweden.
Background on the COP15 lack of solidarity and trials:
The whole world on trial http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1109
Final count down for political theater at COP15 trials
http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1846
Danish law 1243: Truth! 2010: Power? http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1800
Historic COP15 victory against summit repression http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1892
Call for solidarity actions with the accused spokespersons for the Climate Justice movement and update information: http://www.climatecollective.org/en/start/
Strategy appeal made at World Social Forum tematico in Mexico May 2010:
Climate Justice and Class Struggles after Cochabamba http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1629
Reykjavik 9 and Iceland material:
Facebook cause Support the 9 Reykjavik and COP15 Activists! http://www.causes.com/causes/567523
Background material on the Icelandic situation: https://www.savingiceland.org/tag/rvk9
Solidarity web site for Reykjavik 9: http://www.rvk9.org/in-english/
Iceland’s Decision To Let Banks Fail Gaining Appeal by Paul Nikolov http://grapevine.is/Author/Paul-Nikolov
Report from Bloombergs with quotes from Stiglitz on Icelandic example: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-01/iceland-proves-ireland-did-wrong-things-saving-banks-instead-of-taxpayer.html.