[New-imc] IMC Belgium and proposed new IMC Vlaanderen

[lize]

Hi all,

 

I am lize and I am working since a year as an edito member of imc.be. I
made some reportages (sometimes together with other imc members) about
ESF Florence, about the repression of the movement in italy and I
followed up the Iraq war, the G8 of Evian and some international issues
like the situation in Argentina and Venezuela. 

I would like to give my opinion on the terrible discussion going on now
about the imc's in Belgium.

 

First. ** About IMC Belgium **

There are some true problems at imc.be. Diversity in the collective is
lacking and hence the coverage of all actions of the Belgian diverse
movement against globalization. The presence of people linked to the
Belgian communist party (ptb) in the collective is dominant and other
members of the .be collective - like myself - often feel as a kind of
'diversity' excuse to cover up the ptb dominance.

 

Second. ** About proposed new IMC Vlaanderen **

The IMC.vl people seemed to turn their endless criticism on IMC.be into
a positive project by starting to become imc activists themselves. 

My enthusiasm for these newcomers is reducing rapidly when I read their
discussion list at the test <http://pingpong.piexie.net/>  site :
instead of building up imc teams and start covering, all energy goes to
what seems to be there main objective : dissolve the present imc.be
collective. Horrible words like "purifying" ("cleansing?") are used.
They also write that "the dissolution of imc.be has always been part of
'their plan' ".I don't think the aim of putting up a new Imc could be to
destroy another one. But it goes further. They even think about
withdrawing their proposal to become a new imc.vl if the imc.be
collective could be "purified", which means : they take over and throw
the ptb members out of the imc.be collective. 

 

** My conclusion **

At imc.be it was always (and still is) very difficult to get (and stay)
involved as a non-ptb member. One quickly feels isolated as there is a
lack of democratic decision making. But the door to other groups is
still open at the imc.be collective, and could solve the problem of ptb
dominance.

At imc.vl there is simply no door for ptb-linked people. Ptb-members in
their eyes seem to be '(the axis of ?)evil' and they want to 'purify'
Indymedia from ptb presence. This can not be tolerated. The ptb is part
of the movement, and at Indymedia, that's it's place : part of. Not to
be dominant, but surely not to be 'purified' neither.

 

** My  proposal **

As both 'collectives' refuse to work together, I think an additional
imc.vl site might be the best solution to get more people involved into
Indymedia making in Belgium. There are not a lot of different
independent media channels in belgium, so the more media-activists, the
better I think. 

So I would give green light to their proposal, let them work out a
'competing' imc in Belgium and let's see if in a future some
'collaboration' (e.g. by taking over some features from each other)
could be possible. 

The aim of imc.vl to dissolve imc.be cannot be tolerated. If global
Indymedia would make it possible for them to do this, there is a risk
that no good Indymedia coverage at all will be done in Belgium, as the
imc.vl people didn't prove yet a lot about their skills of Indymedia
making untill now. I really would like to see them make some coverages
and features before talking about dissolving another, after all, hard
working IMC collective.

 

That's it I guess. Sorry if we Belgians are giving you so much troubles,
but I do not feel responsible for it.

 

Kind regards,

Lize

 

Ps due to some personal problems and the fact that I urgently need to
find a job, my participation into the imc.be collective is very low at
the moment. When things get better for me, I'll be back !

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