Ruth Reitan

16 February, 2006

Dear Marko, tell us that you wrote that last line very quickly, right? Does anything seem remotely problematic about that statement, especially given mine and Ruby's cautions that we have expressed about these sorts of statements?

Not to say that Ruby and I speak for all young(ish) women, not at all, but at the same time we do share a certain sisterly anarchist sensitivity that cannot be fixed by 'gathering young women' like us to write and/or sign onto such appeals (not that we would be invited, since we would likely not cooperate).

Again, I will restate that the best (to my mind and from my research) appeals have already been written by the various networks themselves and are dynamic and in the process of revision through their own internal processes and through their concrete linking with other networks. This is what I have been studying for the past three years so I am not just guessing here. The rather longwinded Bamako appeal is simply a slightly Marxist wash on a synthesis of these networks' demands. In the next few days I will try to send out a short synopsis of those platforms (which are easily accessible on various networks' websites) so that you can compare for yourselves.

Again, I just want to underscore that I think there is a mistaken belief out there that the mass networks are remaining in their respective spheres and are not doing the necessary linking of ideas and actions from which will come a comprehensive, consensus platform, or at least loose strategy that gathers all the movements' concerns together--and this is just not so.

And again, my practical question is, where do these manifestos put rubber to road? For whom do they (purport to) speak, and to whom are they addressed? It just exists on this ethereal level, and has very little linkage to the networks, from what I can tell. Even the involvement in such appeals by people like Susan George or Bernard Cassen, who ostensibly "lead" a mass network like ATTAC, is problematic, in the sense that there are tremendous strains at the local levels of ATTACs who feel that these figures do not speak on their behalf. This is again not to say that manifestos are not appropriate at certain times in history written by specific figures (in addressing Peter's remark): But Marx and Engels being commissioned to publish a platform of a growing international Communist League--and thus naming very specifically on whose behalf they are speaking and to whom that manifesto was addressed--is a very different thing than what we've got going here.
>p> Intellectuals not embedded! Organizations speak for no one but themselves today, as it should be. If they speak as a collectivity, they should be very clear about who or what that collectivity is. My opinion is that we should either speak for ourselves, or embed ourselves within a movement or organization and assist them in some way in speaking. But do not rush to speak on behalf of the network of networks, the WSF, or the evolving Left as "we". My comments are not a neurosis with leadership or representation, but rather what I think to be a sober read on the political Left zeitgeist (about which I could of course be wrong). These manifestos are marching orders for no one; to write as if they are is to entertain vanguardist fantasies that are going to only crumble in disillusionment and accusations of false consciousnesses. While I do not like being a buzz kill, we are not going to get to a revolution with this sort of pie in the sky posturing. So if the young ladies are going to gather themselves! to make a statement, it will likely be one very different, and probably not the delusions of grandeur that these, not accidentally, older European gentlemen socialists continue to manufacture.

Again, my sincere and real apologies for the tone of this; I do not want to offend anyone--we are all comrades and that is the spirit in which I write it--but I really need to communicate, in case Ruby and I have not been understood, that this is a fundamental methodological principle that is being chased out of the WSF and other spaces. I fought a losing battle on the ESF listserv on this one, but the ESF listserv is now itself lost, in case you have been following it. Most of the life and diversity is gone out of it. And another person on this NIGD list mentioned the alienation of the PGA from the "official" WSF processes, which is symptomatic of this ongoing marginalization. I certainly have my own (insider) critique of the PGA, but all is to say that these sorts of intellectual manifestos are not productive, and make people of a certain age look really, well, old. Not wise, not mature, just old. And, I may add, irrational, both in the instrumental and the substantive sense. They will not achieve the utopian ends that they champion because there is no organic process for them to do so, and they threaten or ignore the very democratic processual principles that they purport to embody and hold as their aim.

peace (really),

Ruth