[New-imc] Re: Imc Wvl & Liege proposal for Belgium IMC's

[han]

This is a first ³personal² response to the proposal made by Bart &
turlututu.

I think the imc.be collective features different problems.

1. Sectarian attitude
We have to deal with this since the beginning of IMC belgium (and a lot of
other IMC's the case).
We are a collective with a common goal : "giving a voice to all those
resisting capitalist globalization" we do not pronounce ourselves in favor
of one solution or another.  We are not afraid of working with people from
different backgrounds and with different views on how this other world
should look like.  We do not not want to exclude opinions and people, we
want to include as much people as possible who resist "capitalism".

There are some commies who feel sick about all the virulent attacks they
receive on indymedia.be and who see indymedia.be as one of the main voices
of anti communism in Belgium.  I think those people exaggerate but some of
them do not want to post anymore on the website (LSP-MAS, VONK) others are
trying to build their own website (solidair.org www.PTB.BE),...

Then there are anarchists who do not want to work in a collective together
with commies.  They feel they had to many troubles working with people from
the PTB or LSP or ... And they do not want to be confronted with problems in
indymedia.be.  Some of them say IMC belgium is controlled by the PTB, but
those allegations are totally false.

And then there is the right wing of the movement (attac en co.) who wants to
destroy indymedia.be because indy make's it impossible for them to get a
grip on the movement.  They started a real witch hunt in Attac against
radical left wing people and publicly by the voice of Jaap Kruithof
announced that they would finish indymedia.
They also claim that indymedia.be is controlled by the PTB. This is good way
to create a division between the radical left. (There are some documented
precedents in US during the sixties were right wing used this tactic to
dissolve radical left media collectives at Berkley)

So as you can see this gives a pretty explosive cocktail as you can
understand with all kind of very strange alliances that can change from day
to day.

2.
There are some people who really do want to build local collectives, some of
them work already (W-Vl) others want to start,... The .be collective is in
support of such local collectives.
We do not see any contradiction with local collectives and the Belgian site.
Some people from local collectives decide only to work local, others combine
this with working in both collectives.   The .be collective never maid a
point about this we even encouraged this.

Personally I feel that the the proposal by Bart, Joerie and turlututu (the
proposal was not adopted yet by the w-vl collective neither by the Liege
collective) is not such a good idea.  But we will discuss the proposal on
our next General assembly in September.

3. There are some problems of thrust between individuals.
Some people feel I used the IMC for promoting myself for elections and
pushing my personal political agenda.  Even if I think such allegations are
crazy (we all have our personal political agenda's, most of all those who
claim they do not have one) I understand that it makes feel some people
uncomfortable.  Even if still believe in elections as a strong form of
activism, I think it was wrong for me to present myself on that list.  I am
a media-activist and even if that means that first of all that means I am an
activist, nobody understands that notice.  We are so conditioned by the idea
that "journalists" are supposed to be independent (what of course they never
are) that you can not be a media-activist and a political-activist at the
same time. 
But that said, the whole elections made some people distrust each other.  I
think you can compare this with the US presidential campaign.  (IMC being
the Ralf Nader campaign website).

I think this problem can be solved because the main actors in this want to
sort out the problems and get on with making "alternative mass media".

4.  What is indymedia all about
A lot of problems we feature are also due to different and even opposite
concepts of what indymedia should be.

A. the IMC.be concept
The .be collective since it beginning (may 2000) had as a goal to make
alternative mass media by using every possible media it could lay hands on
(website, video, print, audio, ...).  In one of our first meetings we
adopted that the main purpose of the IMC would be to "Give a voice to all
those opposing and resisting "capitalist" globalization."
We also stated that we want to make "alternative mass media", that means
that want to reach an broth audience and not only the hardcore activist
community.

The .be collective still has those two principals as its main base and is
looking for ways to reach a  brother audience and get more people involved.
We did a lot of work with the media-circus involving 100 new volunteers the
last couple of months (migrant people, union workers, youngsters, ....).
We still are in the beginning of that work (reaching about 10.000 people on
a regular base).
It must be known that indymedia.be is already one of Belgium most visisted
website, we have about 10X to 100X more visitors that the Attac website or
websites from Belgiums main NGO's.  Only big commercial webiste's have more
visitors then indymedia.be and some of them have less. But as said before we
feel we are just in the beginning of that process and think there is a huge
potential.

B. The left wing portal website
I think that concept is buried. The idea was that there should be an
indymedia editorial board with a representation of the different parts of
the movement.
As for me I suggest to everybody who wants to try such a project to go ahead
with it, but I do not want to be part of it.  I will provide PROZAC for the
people who want to go ahead with such an project.

C. The portal of the collectives

In fact such a website in belgium already exists : www.collectives.net
This idea was first worked out for a model of indymedia.be by Gunther
Lippens I think a little more than one year ago.  I do not believe in such a
model for indymedia, first of all there already is such a website and others
trying to make one for  Vlaanderen: (grassroots.be)
I think there is a need for such a website, but I feel a little sad that
people who are unable to build their own project want to use indymedia to
push their idea.  This idea is clearly forwarded by some people who want to
build the Vlaanderen website.


5. My conclusions as for now:
So as you can see all this is a very complex situation, and I think that we
will need time to solve things out.
I think that pushing things will inevitably lead to a split or the end of
indymedia.be.  It took us more than 3 years to be were we are now, I think
it would be crazy to flush this down down the toilet.

Personaly I see no reason why it would be impossible to start building those
local collectives already if people feel like it : w-vl & Liege.  It could
be a testcase to see if this is the way to go yes or no.

For Vlaanderen I think that is something different.
I would say that they start working on their website (they have a website,
they have the technologie) and we will see during the process what happens.
I think it is difficult to work together people who use terms like "purge
indymedia.be" or "dissolve indymedia.be".
I see no reason why it would be impossible for them to start their project.
If the claims they make are true within a couple of months this should be
the reference website for the movement against globalization in Belgium.
I sincerely wish them all the luck.  I see it in the near future possible to
work together on projects when the urge to "purge" and "dissolve"
indymedia.be has weakened a little.



Greets

                    han
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
>  
> [NL]
> Ik wil hier niet onmiddellijk in de fond op reageren. Dit is wel iets wat het
> collectief van imc-be op een AV moet kunnen bespreken. De eerste AV na de
> vakantie is op 5 september. Dat zal de eerste keer zijn dat we echt serieus
> kunnen vergaderen en iedereen de kans kunnen geven om aanwezig te zijn.
> Aangezien dit over het voortbestaan gaat van het collectief vind ik dat
> iedereen het recht heeft om daar minstens zijn zeg over te doen.
>  
> Ik vind het overigens vreemd dat de collectieven van West-Vlaanderen en Luik
> vinden dat ze dergelijke evoluties niet hoeven voor te leggen aan al hun
> medewerkers tijdens een fysieke vergadering...
>  
> [FR]
> Je ne veux pas réagir ici sur le fond de l'affaire. Mais il me semble que
> c'est qq chose sur le quel le collectif de IMC-be doit pouvoir discuter en AG.
> Le premier AG après les vacances aura lieu le 5 septembre. Ce sera la première
> fois que ce sera possible de donner la possibilité à tout le monde de
> participer. Puisqu'il s'agit de l'avenir du collectif, je trouve que le
> moindre qu'on puisse faire c'est donner à tout le membres l'occassion de
> s'exprimer sur cette proposition.
>  
> En fait je trouve ça meme un peu bizar que les collectifs de WVL et Liège ne
> trouve ça pas nécessaire de présenter de telles propositions à leurs
> collaborateurs...
>  
> [EN]
> I don't want to react immediately on this proposal. But I think that it is
> something that need to be discussed during a General Meeting of IMC-be. The
> first GM after the holidays will take place on friday, 5th of september. It'll
> be the first time that all the volunteers of the collectif will have the
> possibility to participate in this discussion. Since this is about the future
> of the collectif, I think the least we can do is give everybody the chance to
> speak out about this proposal.
>  
> In fact I even find it a bit strange that the collectifs of Liege and
> West-Flanders don't think it necessary to talk about this at a meeting with
> their volunteers...
>  
> Sincerely,
>  
> Christophe Callewaert
> 
> 
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