[Imc-lwg-general] Re: [Imc-uk] object to image on Belgium story

[andi@syndicate.org.uk]

hi all,

sorry about this long mail but this is about politics. i'd rather
not engage with richard in such a silly way but i feel forced to.
here you have it.

richard said:
>... how different groups can work together on the UK site 
>hasn't been worked out - but it is going to have to be.

richard,

i agree with this sentence. but it's not up to you to decide on your
own how this is going to happen. i agree it's not solely up to the
current imc-uk collective either but you *cannot* just simply
declare the existing imc-uk group redundant. and the way in which
you bring things forward is absolutist, righteous and exclusive, 
in short: entirely counterproductive.

i'd love to see *groups* working *together* for the uk site. but the
only other indymedia group i know of are in bristol and they haven't
shown any interest yet in collaborating on imc-uk. i hope they will.
but i think you're just pressing your individual agenda of having a
big ego and claiming to be oh-so-inclusive. do you aim to be a
functionnaire? if you claim to 'represent' other people, like 'the
readers of indymedia' then legitimise yourself with some 'roots'.
who is with you, except toni? if you're acting as an individual then
i think you have no right to sidestep a working collective. i think
the basic unit *must* be a collective, not an individual. otherwise
we just get yet another 'representation' system where the
'strong-opinioned' individuals assume power.

please don't try to tell me that you and toni are a collective or a
group only because you have created an indymedia email list.
congratulations to your third member who subscribed in digest form!
have you had contact yet? i haven't seen any communication on your
list except various constitutions by yourself. come back with
demands when you've established some collaborative working practice.

oh, and why do you think that you can write a constitution for
decision-making in imc-uk by yourself? the only real political
document of imc-uk was the mission statement over which a great
number of people debated for months. you took part in it, you
accepted the final wording, and you accepted the idea that in a
collective you can't have it your way all of the time. but then you
and toni leave the collective and start a campaign against this
group, claiming to be the sole holders of 'the truth'. i hope you
will not just implement your ideas on what and how to change on
imc-uk. you cannot just create a to-do list for two people claiming
responsibility for working practices for the whole uk and even 
ireland... as outlined in your 'constitution' on
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-london-wg-general/2001-Decemb
er/000004.html

i bet you want to legitimise yourself with the fact that you have
engaged on global lists like process, editorial and new-imc. good
you did manage to keep up with the amount of traffic there and i'm
sure you've made many new friends via email and chat. but please
note that this gives you no right to impose anything on the people
who have worked more locally - the less so as you have never
reported back anything to the 'lower echelons'.

the global lists goes work through a mechanism which a smart person
has dubbed "volunteerarchy": there is a number of people involved in
global lists who have a lot of technical knowledge, and/or the means
and the time to be online a lot, and/or a loud enough voice or way
of writing, and/or simply enough stamina to bore others to death; so
some 'supervolunteers' steer the debates more than others.
everything is being talked about only in english, to the extend that
people from brazil have announced nearly a year ago that thay will
disengage with global lists as they are monopolised by traffic of
mainly americans and english.

i acknowledge that many (especially the techies) actually *do*
things. i acknowledge that *some* decisions can be made via email
but not the fundamental ones. for questions like "open newswire"
there was thankfully an acknowledgement that local collectives
should have the last say. this is needed to counter the informal
power structure of the professionals and the techies. reading what
you propose in your email list i fear that your vision is as
exclusive as it gets, even if your rhetorics are the opposite. if
indymedia is going to become 'professionalised' it will just be
another green party and i'm out of it. the only strenght we have is
being do-it-yourself, having an open posting system, solidarity, and
not the least to share the knowledge on how to maintain the system.
but it starts to get problematic if the social system tries to copy
the open source techie practices too literally - they are fantastic,
but they are still hierarchically organised as the enlightened king
linus has to give his placet in the end to include something in a
new release. it works for software and has immense merits but such a
model *cannot* just be a model for *every* aspect of social group
interaction or taken as a model for self-organised social systems.
i think you are too much on that abstract trip.

i acknowledge that you have *done* things and i do acknowledge that
imc-uk could be far more collaborative over regions and with many
more people. you need to acknowledge that we *are* holding public
meetings (half of the members currently active came to imc-uk
through such a meeting). we are working hard on outreach and i want
you to respect this. and please respect that this group has chosen
to work on a face-to-face approach for decision making. you can not
just change this by setting up an 'alternative' imcuk email list and
declaring us as 'exclusive club', 'abusing', 'unaccountable' etc.

oh, and don't implement anything of your to-do list regarding the
imc-uk site without *proposing* it to the collective. don't think
you have a right to just implement it anyway. the fact that you have
a password to change the middle column doesn't give you the right to
unilaterally invent your own rules. if you want a working practice
to be changed then you can propose it. you *are* subscribed to the
features list so why don't you engage there, or in process in a
concrete way instead of blairing out on global lists, and the
general imc-uk list?
Richard Malter wrote on 12/14/01 11:03 AM:

>Really sorry to provoke peoples' anger.
>
>To explain, the logic applied is that the "London based collective"
>(as Andi described it) - regardless of all the work it does - does
>not 'possess' the countrywide website called "IMC-UK". I am not
>obliged to abide by this collective's agreed protocol (24 hour rule
>or anything else) because i am not in that collective; I am one of
>Indymedia UK though. If i organize within imc- london-working group
>or even independently and decide to put up a feature i can.
>
>I have no wish to impose my views on anyone. But this is not a
>'conflict', it is just that there is no 'monopoly': i am not in
>your group; and you do not control or own any website called
>"IMC-UK".
>
>
>How different groups can work together on the UK site hasn't been
>worked out - but it is going to have to be. For reasons of
>democracy it is unacceptable that one collective has 'possession'
>of a site named "IMC-UK" and what follows dislikes that they aren't
>the sole administators of that site; now and again i fix typos etc
>in the middle column - it's too small to report about it so i don't
>bother - but i already work on the site independently, and
>london-wg has plans to work on the site too - see the published
>TODO list on the list.
>
>I drop the case about the image, it will disappear down the bottom
>anyway, but it is a big turn-off; getting out of the 'activist'
>ghetto factor=0.
>
>Richard 1 of Indymedia UK (london-wg)
>
>
>
>Quoting Maqui <maquis@syndicate.org.uk>:
>
>>President Richard Malter wrote:
>>>objection.
>>>
>>>puerile and obscene. I've taken it off.
>>>
>>>Richard 1 of Indymedia UK (london-wg)
>>
>>Hi all, Well ... since seeing this fucking mail i had some time to
>>cool off. I tried to reply it straight away but i hate to say that
>>it made me so angry, so furious that i don't think i could have
>>managed anything better than 'fuck off Richard'! Now i still mean
>>the same, but i calmed down a bit and i try to say something more
>>that that. Well... shit, in fact i still feel the same negative
>>feeling of uncontrolable anger, but it's more about the fact that
>>someone like Richard can bring me to such a primitive state of
>>mind. Probably this is what he wants; to kind of stalk the
>>Indymedia-UK collective to submission, to submit us to his
>>righteous truth of some vage politics (can i call them that?!!) of
>>openness, participation and political correctness... all in all a
>>massive mental wank from my point of view.
>>
>>Anywhay, ... what is this all about then?  Ok, for those of you in
>>the collective who may not know what i'm talking about, and for
>>anybody else who is out there in this list, President Richard
>>today came down from his heavenly, self-styled, god-like,
>>oh-so-righteous reality and unilateraly decided to CENSOR the
>>indymedia-UK front page.  In his self explanatory mail above, he
>>talks about the picture we had put in the EU-Brussels feature.
>>
>>His Majesty Malter... well now i'm not so sure whether i should
>>call him President or Majesty,... probably a hybrid of both,
>>Majesty for his self-styled rigthness, President for his
>>compulsive control-freakness and authoritarian attitude.  Anyway
>>...Majesty goes... so His Highness has used his powers given by
>>some higher awarenness and political correctness, and decided to
>>take the image off from the Brussels Eu feature in the front page.
>> His Majesty's sensibility was upseted, so off it went.
>>
>>What His Majesty didn't realise, it seems, is that the picture is
>>the official image of the D16 Eu-Summit protests in Laeken,
>>Brussels.  It's the 'logo' that the whole planet (that is the real
>>and phsysical planet His Majesty seems to have left some time ago)
>>use and  has been using for the last three months for the actions
>>against the Laeken Eu-Summit. His Majesty may or may not have
>>realised that the three main websites reporitng and covering the
>>actions (Belgium-IMC, d16.de, bruxxels.org) use or have used this
>>image. The same goes for the german, barcelona and italy
>>imc-sites.
>>
>>So what does His Majesty think we shoul do now?  Should we start
>>one of these global virtual debates about the obscenity and
>>puerility of that image (in irc or email, of course) that His
>>Majesty enjoys so much?  Or maybe better, should we just delete
>>them from all other front pages?  I mean,  His Majesty could stalk
>>these collectives too, until they submit to His vision of right
>>politics.
>>
>>Whether His Majesty likes this image or not, doesn't come near to
>>the point here... whether His Majesty thinks it is puerile and
>>obscene its His fucking bussiness and i don't give a shit (pardon
>>my french here!), ... and wheteher His Majesty thinks that he has
>>got the right to decide if and when to take it down from the page
>>without any notice, discussion or debate ... well i would say that
>>this requieres some serious collective action here.
>>
>>How the fuck His Majesty believes that he can impose his views on
>>a working collective, on his own, from his computer, without never
>>engaging with the alredy existing collective, and still override
>>the work orthers do?  His Majesty is becoming more and more a
>>seriuous pain in the ass, his attitude is increasingly becoming
>>more and more authoritarian, disruptive and fascist, and believe
>>me i don't use this word lightly. I DO call the existing admin
>>collective to stand for our rights to autonomy, decission making
>>and modus operandi.
>>
>>President Mr Richard Malter, you can try it as hard as you want,
>>but you won't submit us.  The picture goes back up. The work on
>>the Indymedia-UK website goes on, the really democratic
>>uk-indymedia project won't put up with this sort of authoritarism.
>>We are stronger than that, we meet, we share, we debate, we
>>engage, we interact, we think and act collectivelly, and that's
>>TOO strong for His Majesty. Those of us that have met His Highness
>>are aware of His inability to operate in a real, non-virtual
>>collective situation;  well i used to be sorry about that, i used
>>to like Richard Malter, but I definitelly dislike His Majesty...
>>could that be anything to do with my republican upbringing??
>>
>>jordi (one of the imc-uk collective) PD. I am NOT interested in a
>>long, pseudo-theoretical debate with His Majesty here, I had
>>enough of it, so I won't engage on one. From my personal pint of
>>view, His rants about who is or who it is not IMC-UK, what is
>>IMC-UK, and his obsession with His own ideas of structure and
>>working practices are extremelly boring, not to say dodgy at
>>times. All in all a bit too liberal and vague for my personal
>>liking.