[Imc-finance] diplomacy

[Anna]

hi all

[this is very long. i'm sorry. take your time. if translations are desired 
i'll try to find people who would go through the pain, but only then..;). 
please let me know.]

[summary: we need to be more open about what we think about each other and how 
we deal with money and the role money should play in indymedia. we really 
*need* to start talking about these issues instead of builduing up more anger 
behind each others backs]

not being a liaison what i'm saying only represents my opinion and nobody 
else's and doesn't need to be considered here (on imc-finance) - following 
the theory of how discussions take place here. i have some ideas nonetheless.

the situation around the proposal to spend 3.000 $ on the party convention in 
new york circles around some questions that go deeper, i believe.

actually i have the feeling it really is time to be open with each other 
instead of building up anger and being "nice" and diplomatic and following 
the rules of how finance proposals are dealt with. (of course i'm *not' 
against following our own consensus). i think we can observe a deep split 
concerning money issues for a while. keywords are: ford foundation, global 
south fund, 'the' book. other keywords are: paying for indymedia work, 
collaboration with 'the enemy', some european & south american vs. some US 
american imc's.

i think it's time to make some decisions. 

- a crucial point is what to spend the money on: i think there is an 
(unwritten? not sure) consensus that the global money is spent only for 
projects in the south/east. it would be good to make this a formal decision 
to avoid situations like this one where many people feel it's a provocation 
when imc's who have considerably easy access to a lot of money and apparently 
have no problems using this access to get money ask for such a big amount of 
the little money that is left. (little compared to what we had) 
(more on the italy legal money below)

- another crucial point is to talk about what to do when the chumbawamba money 
is gone (we had a donation of 50.000 US$ once - i think about 10.000$ are 
left). so far all proposals how to get more money were declined or had strong 
opposition. people who try to think of ways how to get money - mostly to 
spend it on projects in the south/east - are being adressed as if they 
planned to sell imc to microsoft the next minute. yes, i'm being polemic. 
sorry. sometimes i think exaggerating helps to make things clearer. do we 
prefer not to have money? what kind of money is acceptable? how far can the 
local autonomy go concerning this issue?

- 3rd crucial point is to talk about whether we want a network policy about 
how money is used. there is a considerable amount of anger and aggression in 
europe, south america and north america against a few US imc's who are a lot 
more 'professional' in the way they work. to my knowledge some groups pay 
large sums for rent of rooms, or have done so, some groups pay people for 
their work, some groups ask for membership fees. imc urbana champaign is 
focus of regular sarcasms in the imc chat channels for a rather singular 
role:

on the one hand one person of this imc literally manages all money 
transactions. also because they are rather institutionalized (i think). 
therefore it's easy for them to handle these things. on the other hand they 
apparently have very good access to money - they try to buy a house for their 
imc and have already collected more than 60.000$. for many imc's who use 
maybe 100$ a year this is outrageous.

this is an ideological question. is indymedia something that is based on 
volunteer work and organizing ways that avoid money, having money, 
distributing money? and why? talking to people i get the impression that this 
is something many would like to see as a principle for the whole network.
but also many imc's have some money, and don't talk much about how much 
(unless they claim to be one of the groups who have hardly any) and where 
they get it from. there are also those imc's who have money and feel it is ok 
to be a group with a somewhat formalized structure (the infamous 501(??) type 
of organisation in the US.). my impression is that this is perceived as 
something that in europe would probably be called ngo (nongovernmental 
organisation). ngos tend to be more compromising, more professional and more 
successful in achieving short term goals, but sometimes dont´notice how they 
aren't in touch with the social movements anymore. or don't care. ngos are 
perceived as a structure for those who want to make a living and/or career of 
their political interests. this doesn't have to be bad depending on what your 
interests are, but it is definitely necessary to be open about it. and 
networks like indymedia need to talk about whether this is ok within this 
network.

[this leads to the point 'how professional is indymedia?' do we want to mainly 
empower people who are no media experts or do we want to  be the better 
media? this sometimes doesn't go along well, and we'll never have an answer 
to this one of course. something we should talk about more though. i wish we 
had the money to have a global conference ;). </irony> ]

i think it would be very helpdul to have statements by those US american imc's 
who are less oriented towards using money. at the moment i see a general 
feeling against US imc's and i think this is a destructive generalisation.
also i think it would be helpful to have statements by those groups who don't 
mind using money  *and* by those who are very much against e.g. paying for 
work, or raising funds in a more organized way, about how they think 
indymedia should deal with the differences between these two attitudes.


i would very much like to start discussing some of these questions. not to 
find an answer tomorrow, but to be on the way to find some answers. these 
questions have bothered social movements for ages. we won't be the ones to 
find the solution for all. maybe it would be a good idea to do a survey to 
find out how the local groups deal with this. also to stop assuming we all 
knew 'how indymedia deals with this'. we have different ideas. if we can 
agree on some points it will help in the future.

i also think that not dealing with these issues means planting a time bomb. 
aggressions are growing visibly. the split is getting deeper and if we want 
to survive we need to at least look at this problem.

money corrupts. someone needs to work for it and so if we get it we profit of 
other people's exploitation - this is what it comes down to. solution: we 
only use what we have ourselves. and have worked for.
but then.. this means generally that only the already priviledged get to do 
indymedia work and set up nice imc's. and get to travel to summits, and get 
to have video cameras, and nice computers.
solution: we need to redistribute what is there. problem: volunteers usually 
don't feel like dealing with the 'beaurocracy' involved and so there is no 
fair distribution of resources, in general. also there might be just not 
enough there to distribute. fact is that in most imcs i know mostly already 
quite priviledged white male students do the bigger part of the work cause 
they have enough money without having to work much, plus the technical 
knowledge and hard ware. this leads to imc becoming even more high tech 
oriented, and excluding even more people who are not like that.
i very much oppose starting to dance with the foundations and liberal/leftist 
parties who so much like to be the generous big brothers of the brilliant new 
movements. just like spending all this time with the research projects i 
think we need to think twice about why there is all this interest - it's not 
there just to help us out. and if not we need to be aware of what their 
interest is.
we need to find ways to be more inclusive and still be independent. it is not 
enough to simply proclaim this as a goal.

of course my knowledge and experience within indymedia is limited - please 
proove me wrong!

to get back to the current problem:

my impression is while probably nobody doubts that the republican party 
convention is a major event and lots of work and stress for the nyc imc the 
circumstances provoke negative reactions. i hope that we all support the work 
of nyc imc facing this party convention. i can't imagine anyone wanting to 
see bush as president any longer.

1 - other cities and countries have had similarly big events and managed to 
deal with them without global money (in the north/west). many of these had 
activists from many countries. it's difficult to understand why this time it 
is different. different enough to change a common understanding that the 
money goes to the south.
2 - the fact that someone from an imc that has so much money asked for it 
makes people wonder. why - if it is only in case of emergency anyway - can't 
urbana champaign imc hold the money ready for the case it is needed? why 
isn't it possible to raise the money in a country where there is so much 
money and long traditions of fund raising? (this is not about formalities!)
3 - it is being perceived as a reaction to italy's proposal for money for the 
genoa legal team. i think we can observe fears now that the dam is broken to 
start distributung money in the north as well. many feel that the italy 
proposal was an exception because in italy the law cases are already there, 
for 3 years now. that is of course a difference to repression that hasn't 
started yet - not in the way it has in italy. many people there are facing 
long prison sentences. many are in prison already.


if there are people out there who are interested in developing a *short* 
questionaire to imc groups to find out what the attitude towards money really 
looks like, to kickstart a debate - please get in touch!

my idea is not to make money issues decisive issues. i'd rather move away from 
them towards necessary discussions about indymedia as such. i think fights 
about money are symptoms but not the cause. what we need to talk about is: 
what do we want indymedia to be like? how much autonomy vs. how much 
collective? how much individual drive vs. how much inclusion of others? how 
much of differences vs. how much centralism?

what do we need to start discussing things again? 

Anna
berlin


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