Tord Björk

A mobilisation tour held 16-21 February 2008 to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia and Poland was initiated by the Nordic Organizing Committee for European Social Forum 2008 on special request from the Hungarian Social Forum. The purpose was to listen to political and practical views on ESF, and Central and Eastern European participation to inform the ESF-5 process.

In total 19 appointments were made during the trip, were 4 interviews with media, a daily in Prague and Budapest and a net magazine and radio station in Zagreb. In total more than 100 persons participated in the meetings with different organisations. The organisations and networks hosting meetings about ESF can be described in three main categories, one is broad national networks engaged in campaigning against neoliberal policies from different ideological backgrounds. Another, national networks engaged in campaigning against neoliberal policies, racism, right-wing extremism, and against war. The third category is different movements like environmentalists, popular education, migrant activists, antiracists, and feminists.

An assessment of the situation in these Central and Eastern European countries can only be very superficial from the impressions on such a short trip. With this in mind, the fragmentation of the movements at a subjective level is high. Most movements are declining compared to the optimistic times twenty years ago. Interest in seeking common interest for the whole CEE-region has declined significantly. Today many speak more about emphasising sub-regional cooperation, for example, the Balkans, CIS-countries or the Visegrad-4 (Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland). The interest in participating in European Social Forum have also declined, significantly among movements not defining themselves as radical left, especially after the London ESF 2004. The general development of civil society has been towards a radical cleavage between top-level professionalised NGOs and more socially oriented associations and movements along with some environmental organisations that still maintained both activist culture and capacity to represent civil society professionally. In the Visegrad countries the right-wing forces have a strong impact on society and left-wing organisations are under strong pressure.

Despite these tendencies, the interest during the mobilisation tour was wide-spread among very different kinds of organisations. The message from the Nordic organising committee and EPA was to prioritise new groups and CEE countries of interest to appeal to different movements. A key factor in widening the constituency to new groups was the possibility of using the Friends of the Earth network. The tour was organised by the coordinator of the NOC European contact group who also could rely on his capacity as representative Friends of the Earth Sweden with old ties to CEE environmental movements from the 1980s and the European participation in the UN Conference on Environmental and Development in Rio de Janeiro.

Despite the weaknesses of the movement there were signs of objective strength. In almost all countries mass mobilisations had taken place recently against privatisation or militarisation. In Hungary 400 000 signed a petition against privatisation of health insurance system, in Slovenia 75 000 signed similar protests, in Croatia 4 000 demonstrated in Zagreb against privatisation of a public square, a demand that afterwards was supported by the Catholic church, and in the Czech Republic mobilisation took place against the proposed NATO radar installation. How can these different struggles be represented and strengthened by participation in the ESF-5 is a challenge to all European movements.

Czech Republic

The tour started in Prague after hitch-hiking across Rügen from Sassnitz to Stralsund as there was no night train. The day started in a classical cafe with the sign, Politische gespräche verboten – political discussion forbidden- above the table recalling old times passed in the era of the Habsburg empire that once made Prague the third largest city in Europe after Rome and Istanbul. Memories of the Soviet empire era were harder to find.

In Prague there was a meeting that primarily addressed two issues, the political and the practical, such as ,translation and transport. The political issue of most concern was militarisation. The participants at the meeting were primarily young activists involved in planning a techno concert against the NATO plans for constructing a radar base in Czech Republic to be held during the world-wide anti-war action day, 15 March. The alliance behind the initiative was interesting, they were young greens and environmentalists, 5th international communists, and the techno music lovers. This unification might be of interest for the future. Ten years ago according to an article in Abolishing Borders the punk scene was strong in Czech Republic fostering many anarchists. As these activists grew older they saw the need to politicise their activism by taking a strong position against un-political punk music. The result was cutting of ties to new activists and isolation of the movement. Is there a new opening for a more equal relationship between cultural and political expressions now? In general the movement was very small in Czech Republic and under heavy pressure of being labelled by the president as extremists whether left or only environmentalists opposing global warming. The general public is against the radar station and much of the privatisation, although very passive.

On the practical level there was an in depth discussion on translation for small languages. There had been examples how big languages force small languages away from translation possibilities at the ESF. The new radio system for translation was seen as good; Aaway to help small languages if the program is ready in advance. Then a delegation of small languages can bring their translators and choose a special path through the program of interest that need translation. How translators could be paid was discussed as well as the possibility paying half of the costs of the train with domestic funds and half from the solidarity fund. 5 people participated in the meeting, all from Prague.

Late at night I had my only tourist event during the whole trip. Mirek Prokes, my host had earlier been guide in central Prague and knew all small allies and shortcuts through the old town. We started by going through the Slavic center, a block today consisting only of shops and restaurants with their signs in English as if Slavic languages had ceased to exist. In the middle of this former Slavic centre and now Anglo-American block there was a luxury restaurant where the newly elected president Vaclav Klaus, known for his view that environmentalists are enemies of science and democracy as they believe in climate change, had his dinner to celebrate his victory. We continued looking up at a high tower with the last sign still remaining from the königlich und kaiserlich Austrian period, a tower and sign so high that the people had not the energy to destroy it as they did to all other Austrain symbols in Prague. We passed the cubistic architecture, original to Prague, a special style developed both for buildings and interior design showing that Prague have created original culture. Finally in the oldest centre of the town we ended up at a birthday party in a very old guest house decorated in American Wild Western design.

Hungary

The first meeting with more than 20 participants was organised by the Hungarian Social Forum. The common experience that brought together the participants was the successful subscription campaign when 400 000 signatures were gathered against the privatisation of the health security system. The participation was very broad at this meeting, in general one person from each organisation. There were organisation working for women, public health, protection of youth, unemployed, poor, environment, health food, church – Justicia & Pax, social democrat and socialists as well as communist party youth and an organisation for the memory of the revolution 1956.

The questions discussed differed from practical to political matters. Issues included: city-rural relationships, deforestation and air pollution with its health damage, how to educate people to become activists, Swedish experiences of how to make people active in popular movements, unemployment, presence of peasants, illegal gene-banks, national minorities and how globalisation affected Hungary including how national state property was ”privatised” by selling it to foreign state companies. One of the participants  stressed how Israeli interests bought property in Hungary, a point of view I reacted upon by stating that the nationality of the buyer was not very relevant. How the EU Lissabon treaty was accepted by the Hungarian parliament without even being translated was also addressed.

There were also many practical questions concerning how to influence the program and how to receive help financially. It was pointed out that the need for speakers to take an airplane was half the price of ordinary bus service if the ticket was paid in advance, €100. 35 people were estimated to come from this group if sufficient support could be mobilised.

An interview with the daily Magyar Nemzet focused on the political arguments against privatisation.

The second meeting with more than 10 participants had more young people attending. It was called by the left-wing of the Hungarian Social Forum and Attac Hungary. Here the meeting was at first dominated by intellectual analysis of the economic situation of Central Eastern Europe. There was also young academics with advanced knowledge on the Hungarian and Croatian holocaust and other social issues. After some time the young activists started to talk about their experience; receiving phone calls from people saying that they shall kill you twice, one time because you are a communist, a second time because you are a Jew, was commonplace. In general the young activists claimed that among young people in Hungary the right wing is in fashion and to be seen as left is to be labelled weak with few supporters. At this second meeting there was representation from the countryside. Issues regarding how poor people could attend the  ESF was seen as crucial, as well as the Romani people, a very repressed group in Hungary. It was estimated that 1 or maybe even 2 buses could be mobilised by this network from Hungary including 10 Romani people from the countryside, with 3 musicians. Issues addressed as important at ESF-5 were: social rights and their appearance in the EU legislation,  resistance against the privatization of public services with special attention to consumer protection, environment protection, and especially East Europe and the  neo-fascist danger.

The third meeting was with Erzebet Schmuck from Hungarian Conservation society and some young green activist. The Hungarian Conservation Society has 120 local groups all over the country and is a fairly nature conservation and environmental focused organisation but has at times also addressed privatisation issues. The young green activists were fed up with the Hungarian political party system. A group of some hundred activists had been formed to undertake the task of professionally launching a green party with the help of NGOs, something that had not been done earlier according to the activists. They seemed determined and focused. They had also participated in the ESF in Florence, but had been somewhat shocked by all communist symbols and flags.

I was very well taken care of by all in Budapest. But not all inhabitants seemed to live a good life while others lived better than ever. When I visited Budapest in the 1980s the city looked poor but I could not see the extreme poverty. Now I could see a gated city with luxurious apartment blocks surrounded by barbed wire and guards beside dwellings among some trees close to the railway built with cardboard and other scrap material. I left Budapest impressed by the diversity of the activists from different strains and their willingness to do something to change the social conditions in the whole country.

Slovenia

The first meeting was arranged at The Third Age University with some popular education activists and one representative from an LGBT organisation. In general broad popular educational initiatives were under pressure or had already been forced to end their activity. Most adult education today was organised by private institutions and in general the scale was diminishing in spite of a great need. The days when it was possible to build nation-wide popular education networks built on much voluntary work seemed to be over being replaced by more elite NGOs and market oriented initiatives. There had been a study circle project all over the country inspired by the Swedish study circle tradition but that closed because funding had been temporary project based. The Third Age University started in 1984 and its 70 000 participants survived but had problems with funding in a society that seemed to become more and more individualistic. This Third Age University had brought the study circle method for participants to define what they wanted to learn with great success in the 1980s and helped  many volunteers. It is focused on education of elderly between 40 and 85 and helped change the image of pensioners in Slovenia (more than ¼ of the population are pensioners).

The second meeting took place in the Roc factory, an occupied bicycle factory with a handful of people. The factory once produced bicycles for all of Yugoslavia and had become a neglected historical heritage. Occupants now used it as a collective for political and cultural activities. The electricity and water was cut off, so a diesel engine produced electricity and a stove heating. This was the center for collective actions to support migrants and the so called erased persons. Intense work was carried out to find places where authorities detained refugees and to get in contact with them. A detention center had been found and many attempts had been made to get in contact with the refugees and confront the authorities struggling for better conditions and the release of the detained. Confrontations were sometimes tense. One activist was told with the police present by the leader of the detention center that she should be sent back to China and that if he was in government she would be sent to a concentration camp to be gassed. The activist replied that he was a racist. Both were fined 250 Euros.

By working closely with the refugees the activists got more information about the situation in the center and put pressure on authorities as well as NGOs. There are many NGOs in Slovenia in the field of human rights. The activists found out that the refugees had little or no confidence in these NGOs. Those who should be helping them had the same view as the government. Thus, frustration towards NGOs grew both among refugees and activists. The many contacts with NGOs to help them in the struggle had resulted that only one, a peace foundation was willing to be engaged. The day before I arrived, more than 2 000 emails were sent out denouncing the condition under which the refugees were living. The struggle sometimes meant that some detained were let loose but without a permit to stay, although it was seen as
illegal to have them detained.

A similar paper-less condition was also the faith of earlier workers that once contributed to both construction and industry. They came from all over Yugoslavia and made up a significant proportion of the population, as many as 10%. When the war started during the separation of the former Yugoslavia they were given the chance to apply for citizenship within a short time-period long before the situation was clear in neighbouring countries. The majority did not apply for citizenship in time and were made paperless, having no rights to social security, school education, housing, work or any other rights. They live under very poor conditions and are called erased. Some of them have been deported to Croatia. One was killed, as he, according to the new principles,  was not Yugoslavian anymore but a Serb. When left wing parties tried to give them status again right wing parties protested and received the support of 95% of the population in a referendum some weeks before Slovenia entered EU. The Roc factory collective both worked intensively with the refugees and the erased people and had a good relationship with both groups.

The third meeting took place in the occupied Meltoha premises and the student home with 10 people. This was also an occupied center well established for 15 years. Parts of the old military compound in the middle of Ljubljana had been developed into a modern student home with meeting facilities while others remained occupied. Here the anarchist book shop and information center was based on the third floor. It was obvious that the working in small groups centered at different squats was well integrated in the student culture. The issues that concerned people were similar as at the Roc factory. The youth activists had also participated at ESF in Florence and other places. The difference they saw between Slovenia and the activist scene in Italy was that there was more unity in their own country and that it was easy at times to gather the interests of all activists for a common cause. The Slovenian EU-presidency had not caused much of a common activity. If something should be done the idea was to focus on one specific issue like the erased to get maximum effect out the action. There was a clear consensus regarding the place of Slovenia in the EU economic system. The refugees that the activists were able to liberate from detention centers were not interested in staying in Slovenia and struggle for change, their interest was to move on to richer EU countries.

There were other organisations in Sloveia interested in ESF but due to vacation a meeting could not take place with trade unions and the like. Also in Slovenia a mass mobilisation against privatisation has taken place with 75 000 people signing a petition. I stayed overnight in the illegal squat. Climbing high on a ladder to beds under the ceiling warmed by the stove below in the big library and book store. It was the most comfortable squat I ever been to. The authorities had put guards outside the squats but tensions did not seem to be so big, the political issue in elections was not how to close Meltojah but how to find a solution for it to continue, a solution that seemed to be postponed every time but shows some kind of tolerance towards cultural and political expressions that can be seen as subculture and something for young people. The links to radical workers common in most other countries did not exist in Slovenia, instead it was among young students and professionals that the activists had a fairly large solidarity network supporting them.

Early in the morning the yard between the squatted houses was cleaned by a person paid by the squatters. I took a nice warm shower and could walk through the town to the main railway station leaving the small country with its more and more individualistic culture, sexism is common in advertising posters and the hard selling newspaper Egoisticmagazine claiming interest in the public space from everyone.

Croatia

A meeting was organised in the premises of Green Action in central Zagreb with more than 20 participants. Here I was among friends. In the old pioneers days of Green Action Nordic environmental organisations cooperated a lot with CEE-countries with Green Action as one of the strongest partners making international climate action days and participating in the Rio Summit. Now Toni Vidan could show me the new office downtown with large premises for many professionals working with both different projects and long term commitments like helping the public informing them through the Green phone service about environmental issues.

The meeting resulted in discussions on the possibility to participate and bring others from the former Yugoslavia and Balkans to ESF in Malmö. There were many young people at the meeting and some were interested in participating. One of the experienced young activists had been asked to complement my speech on the development of international cooperation among movements and the ESF by describing the development from a Croatian point of view. He said that one had to be aware of that international networking should not be overestimated and that there had been reactions in Croatia among activists when the attention became too  emphasised on international campaigning and too little was done to change society at home. He himself had started an alternative farming project. It was clear that Green Action and like minded movements put an emphasis of both political and practical work to change politics and to live as one preached. Green Action had not been involved in ESF earlier but had an interest in using its Balkan network if there was an interest also among other organisations. Others at the meeting were a voluntary service organisations and people in common interested of the subject.

Interviews were made with an internet newspaper and a radio station. Apart form common questions regarding ESF information in the Prodemokratia newsletter issued by the environmental and alternative movement assembly that had caused many at their office to react. It was the fact the Friends of the Earth and Via Campesina Sweden had decided to invite the Zapatistas. This was equally surprising in tow ways to the newspaper as it was seen as contradictory to the World Social Forum declaration as well as the general ideology of environmental and alternative movements. Militarism in all its form even if it was in the form of the Zapatistas in Chipas was something that in principle was questioned. None of the arguments for inviting the Zapatistas seemed to convince the journalist. The main general argument was the liberation movement was invited because all liberation movements have a strong civil component. Equally,  to parties who are omnipresent at all international social forums with their popular education branches, think tanks or other organisation that they dominate of course are also liberation movements that can participate. As long as it is not certain in which form the liberation movement will be represented there is no controversy to resolve. Of course an invitation to the Zaptistas cannot tell the invited movement in what form it wants to represent itself, that would be to patronize in an unacceptable way. As politicians can be present at social forums representing a lot more violence and military force than the Zapatistas there should be no great problem either. In practice, liberation movements have also attended international social forums. Finally Friends of the Earth and Via Campesina Sweden have no intention to create controversy, in one way or another the Zapatistas are welcome to come to Malmö as the central inspiration representing anti-neoliberal movements all over the world. What puzzled the journalist was the fact that in Sweden also the most radical pacifists do not oppose liberation struggle in the South, even if it is claimed to be a totally wrong method in Europe. It is not up to Europeans to tell other people how to fight their battles under conditions very different from ours, is the general belief among many popular movements in the Nordic countries.

Green Action was the most striking example I met during the tour of an organisation and movement that had the capacity of combining street activism and radicalism with pragmatic lobbying and representing Central and Eastern Europe at the global level. The anarcha-feminist book festival had last year taken place at the premises of Green Action and some days before my arrival the successful mass meeting against privatisation of public space in the middle of Zagreb had been organised by Green Action with 4000 participants, a lot for a Zagreb political protests. As in most of Europe neoliberal politicians tries to find ways to both centralise decision making in society making it more authoritarian and turning commons into profit assets thus provoking protests. The action to protect public space was afterwards supported in principle by the Catholic bishops. The Catholic Church has more confidence among the population than any other institution in Croatia, followed by the army in second, and  NGOs in third. Green Action also could count on recent interest among trade unions who invited them to talk about climate change. Earlier Green Action had appointed a chairperson in the parliamentary committee on relationships with civil society consisting of equal numbers of parliamentarians and NGOs. Green Action also has a long time member in the board of Friends of the Earth International thus influencing the strongest democratic global environmental organisation.

A more informal meeting took later place with people from Green Action and Vesna Terselic, the director of Documenta, an NGO investigating war-crimes. Uncommon to many NGOs in CEE countries Green Action have been able to maintain good relationship with former leaders that now are active in other organisations through their membership in the advisory board of the organisation and Vesna is one of them. Documenta cooperated with other human rights organisations in all of former Yugoslavia to document war crimes thoroughly establishing a fact based knowledge on what happened to victims during the war. It is hard work as little is done outside the International Court in the Hague. In general people belonging to military units have received more help than civilian victims. Many facts about the suffering had been discovered, but it was harder to get any attention. Concerning Bosnia, it established not only that the Bozniaks were more damaged than Serbs and Croats, but  that the proportion of civilian victims in relation to soldier victims was considerably higher for Boznikas than for the other ethnic groups. We discussed the German exhibition about German army war crimes that changed the perception about who committed the holocaust as it showed that it was common soldiers that was ordered to start terminating Jews and communists. As I am a teacher in exhibition design this German exhibition is an example of high standard while Swedish exhibitions on similar matters have been much less factual and instead ideologically hiding parts of the Baltic population and SS-troups did to exterminate Jews and communists. We concluded with that the knowledge on how Baltic and Ukrainian persons participated in the holocaust are well known and should not be forgotten, but could not find a strategy for how war crime knowledge could be useful for the ESF process. If a seminar was organised on this issue Documenta could participate.

The evening ended with good Dalmatian food and one after another drastic histories about the bicycle adventures of the former chairman of the Green Action, Toni Vidan. My own bicycle trip from Sweden to Dubrovnik when I was 17 was nothing compared to the adventures of Toni born on a Dalmatian island. The more he tried to impress others on how fantastically green he was cycling up every hill, while actually walking with the bike when nobody saw him,  furthered this brave chairman and protected the image of the organisation. Life is full of competing principles saving us from having fun. The other stories are too wild to tell.

Slovakia

The day did not start well when I missed my train in Slovenia. There were two trains for Maribor, I took the slow train. Due to this mistake I missed a meeting with Friends of the Earth Slovakia/CEE Bankwatch. When I finally arrived in Bratislava it was already dark. It was far away from the main railway station on the southern bank of Danube.  At first it all looked unmistakingly like old one party real socialist Eastern Europe, broad streets, many buses, modern rectangular buildings in fairly bad shape. But soon it felt more like Latin America on a high way cutting through large areas with big malls with a canyon filled with cars between old houses that could not reach each other any longer. The new human being was not any longer the male worker but the office man and women.

At the main railway station this new modern man ceased to exists. It was instead filled with people in common, worm clothes and sometimes very worn clothes. Obviously it was a place to get some warmth for homeless people. The police hat crowded the place and made small attempts at stopping people from sleeping on the benches, but compared to my own country, are much more tolerated.

 
Finally I was able to borrow a cell phone from  persons at the station and could get in touch with my Slovakian contact. We quickly abandoned the railway station and went to a meeting taking place in the tennis court bar with some people from the antiracist group Enough. The chairperson of the group just arrived from a training session with young women learning self defence, something useful also for antiracists.

The activist described how they monitored hate crimes and right wing extremism in Slovakia, The group was small consisting of students that saw a necessity in doing things to counter the strong right wing forces and racism in the country. They had received some funding from the social democratic Friederich Ebert foundation in Germany for making a report on racist crimes and right wing activity in Slovakia. The trend among some right wing politicians to claim that they no longer held their recent fascist views they saw as a question of opportunism to receive EU grants for their local communities were they had a strong positions.

Poland

I arrived early in Cracow. A huge mall had been built close to the railway station, but there was a large open space in front of the rail way station and old Cracow with its towers and gates nearby. I found the office of the Polish Ecological Club marked by an artistic sign in the very center of the old town. Going through a restaurant there was a picturesque stairwell in the backyard with the offices of many green
organisations upstairs. Here Agnietska received me. She described how the Polish Ecological Club was constructed as a decentralised organisation with different offices all over the country each being responsible for one issue as their main task. The Cracow office was the head office for the organisation in Poland but their field of special interest was environmental education. If one was interested in agriculture this was taken care of by the office in Gliwice, climate issues by the office in Warsaw etc. The message was clear, there might be an interest among Polish environmental organisations to participate in ESF-5 but then it had to be in cooperation with other environmental organisations and with clear financial support .

The second meeting took place at the Warszawa office of Folk high school  Teremiski. This office was placed in an old modernity apartment house in one of the big avenues reachable by Metro. Here Danute Kuron received me with  the help of young people working at the office. The story was similar to the story told by popular education initiatives in Slovenia. Times were hard for broad and humanistic minded educational institutions to get support. Folk high school Teremiski main activity is in the countryside of Eastern  Poland.  The message was the same as in Cracow. There was an interest to  participate in ESF-5 but then it had to be in cooperation with like minded  popular education organisations and with clear financial support.

Due to a break down in the internet system before I left my home in Sweden I had not been able to make the last preparations for the trip before  I left. Somehow I saw Poland as a country very hard to find cooperative  partners. Despite being  close to Malmö, somehow I thought  that finally I could use the last hours on my tour just walking  around in Warsaw. That was two  mistakes. Nina Sarzani reached me before I left the Teremiski office. She was a feminist that in an hour or two arranged meetings with different partners and the rest of the day was filled.

It started in the Cultural Palace built during the Stalin era, this piece of monumental Hollywood style film architecture made to impress on black and white cinema screens is under hard attack from right wing parties stating a needs to totally destroyed  it because it brings back memories from the  oppressive Soviet period. Instead the whole centre of Warsaw should be dominated by simplistically modern buildings with the brand names of different corporations shining from the top of these rectangular pillars  high above the people in common. On top of one of these sky-scrapers is the science academy and secularism and feminism has a key position overlooking the city beneath. Nina works at the science academy and tries un-reluctantly to defend rational and secular interests against the church’s influence on state policies that today are a threat to many women in Poland. During the 1960s Swedish women had to secretly go to Poland for abortion, today Polish women have to go to Sweden to do the same. That this issue was of wide concern was confirmed when I met with a left party leader who also stated the issue of secularism as important in Poland.

A fourth meeting took finally place in Warsaw at the cafe of the modern Empik store with young social democrats. They also claimed secularism of importance in Poland. What they saw as an issue to bring to Malmö together with their sister organisations in neighbouring countries was unemployment.

When the Swedish kings came to Poland in the 17th century destroying it by winning all battles they tried to find a place to conquer and win a  definitive battle. That was not possible. All battles were won but the war lost. When the Polish society lost one battle it disappeared to reappear in another place again. Contrary to the Swedish state building on the alliance between peasants and the king to counterbalance the aristocracy which resulted in a very strong centralised state administration Poland was ruled
by consensus such as the ESF. Any aristocratic member in the parliament had the right to veto any decisions. This facilitated foreign interests to influence Polish politics and the Polish nation reappeared again and again from its decentralised roots. Confederations have in principle the same form as Polish political culture. Until 1932 the Swedish trade union LO was a confederation until the Social democratic party forced them to become a centralised federation excluding any communist or other radical voices from any leadership positions in the organisation. This strongly democratically centralised form of organisation collectively linked to the social democratic party proved to be very effective. From 1932 and onwards no other country has elected workers party governments for as long as Sweden. Now this welfare state is crumbling whether it is a social democratic government or a right wing government. The employers have left the social contract were they together with the trade unions had influence in many sectors of society and turned themselves into a campaigning organisation for more profit oriented individualism and political dominance in society. The trade unions are on the defence. Their trade union interest in participating in ESF with its consensus structure and new social movements is something new in Swedish political culture. A main ally in this trade union endeavour is the Workers Educational
Association.

The creation of the strong popular movement centralised bureaucracy and welfare state was not only the result of sharp political differences between reformists and revolutionaries. It was also the result of a struggle between those that saw the need of efficient organisation able of negotiating strongly with the employers and those claiming that the workers movement also had a cultural task to strengthen workers social individuality and thus change society, a position claimed by Workers Educational Association. How
much the Swedish and other trade unions will try to renew themselves by participating more fully in ESF in Malmö and how much Workers Educational Association can contribute to this renewal is an open question. But that Poland not can be convinced to participate in the ESF by old Swedish centralised bureaucratic ways of conquering the world is clear. What is needed is much more of decentralised ways adjusting to the fact that there is no centre to convince, only many places and movements to visit and show how participation at ESF could strengthen both themselves, political culture in Sweden and hopefully also the rest of Europe.

Thus my Polish meetings ended. It was about time to leave with the night train to Berlin from the main railway station. When I arrived to Warsaw at the platform I couldn’t find the main hall. Everywhere there were small shops selling things ending in corridors to grand new shopping centres. Used to many countries in the world I still had problems finding my way to the main hall to get information about international trains. I could not see any bigger or more official signs than others in the myriad of messages of more or less commercial importance. I was caught in a bazaar, not in a public railway station. Here the polish people could live a whole life, if they had the money, with the enormous main hall in modern concrete above surrounded by even more concrete buildings celebrating foreign or Polish corporations or the Soviet empire. At night I now knew my way, I got my couchette and could end my Central and Eastern European tour, exhausted. I survived thanks to the great hospitality I received everywhere. I did not dare to say it, but due to the internet brake down I could not activate my visa card, thus going with Swedish cash which I exchanged at a very bad rate buying tickets a lot more expensive than I had guessed in advance. Actually train tickets were as expensive or more expensive as in the West, and without any discounts which is common in the West. But I did have enough to survive the
first hours in Berlin.

Post scriptum

Leaving Berlin I carried a Ukrainian antifascist poster in my hand given to me by trade unionists from Kiev. A gang of young people at the train station dressed in a way that did not tell me of what opinion they were wanted to look at it. I rolled it up and they were impressed. Hitler was crossed and  the main figure was Charlie Chaplin, obviously a person causing people to both think and laugh in both Ukraine and Germany. The antifascist poster advertised with its cyrillic letters a film festival against fascism including the picture The Dictator by Chaplin. Across all cultural divisions this message came across well at the platform in Berlin. They asked me why I was in Berlin and I told them that i mobilised people to come to European Social Forum in Malmö. That seamed an easy task. It was not only antifascism in the Chaplin and Ukrainian way but also Swedish girls that caught a lot of interest.

It is quite clear that fragmentation and splits are common in Central and Eastern Europe. But it is not a privilege for CEE countries. Friends of the Earth Sweden cooperated with the small Syndicalist trade union SAC with 10 000 members when organising the European March for unemployed through Sweden to the EU Summit in Amsterdam 1997 and continued this cooperation during the EU Summit in Gothenburg in Sweden 2001 together with 85 other organisations. Then LO, the mainstream trade union confederation, refused to participate in  demonstrations claiming that it was not in the tradition of Swedish LO to demonstrate while trade unions in the rest of Europe did participate in Summit manifestations. In the preparations for ESF Friends of the Earth Sweden now cooperates with LO while SAC claim that it is not interesting for them to cooperate this time in organising the event. Between 1928 and 1999 it never occurred that SAC and LO jointly organised a manifestation. The last time in the 1920 was when a new law should be passed giving the employers the right to command work, a right that in the 1930s steadily came into the hands of the employers. In 1999 Nazis murdered a member of SAC who also was strong activist in the alternative movements as Baby food action network. He had stopped the Nazi infiltration of the local LO branch, something the LO trade union had not done. After his murder everyone including the conservative party, LO and SAC and many others organised a common manifestation. Politically there are many cleavages in Sweden as elsewhere but this time for once they were forgotten. On the cultural level there seems to be a difference though. Enn Kokk, the main author of the social democratic party programme during many years also wrote a book about Joe Hill, the most well known Swedish anarcho syndicalist activist sentenced to death on false ground by a trial in the US 1912. The songs of Joe Hill are still very popular in all strands of the workers movement in Sweden and they all, anarcho syndicalists, communists, Left Party and social democrats belong to the same Workers Education Association. By making ESF more cultural maybe we also can bring more political unity to our movements, and laugh together with Chaplin at both modern times and authoritarian regimes of any kind.

For further updates on CEE Tours see Laura Tuominen report