[Imc-uk-process] RE: Tony Gosling & Bristol / UK IMCs: feedback please

[kyra]

Things seem to have come to a natural crux regarding Tony Gosling and 
Bristol IMC, prompted by himself, so I am emailing here what my 
perspective on the situation is, in the hope that others will then have 
a clear picture and/or provide other views.  Apologies for the length of 
the following, but I want to be accurate in order to *hand over 
responsibility for dealing with this to the whole Bristol IMC group* 
rather than just a few of us.  I also thought it would be useful for all 
the UK people who've questioned us about this to have a clear overview 
of the present situation. Hopefully we can get all this in the open now, 
sort it out, and then swiftly move on.
[not urgent, so dont worry if you cant get back to me for a few days, i 
appreciate its a lot to read, but should be mostly familiar]
Kyra
_____________________________________________________________

Last Thursday I saw Tony-G at the Dialect broadcast, and he asked how 
the last Bristol IMC meeting had gone.  Tony maintained that he wants to 
be able to communicate better with Ian F. - I suggested that goading Ian 
F. by regularly, and wrongly, accusing him of "taking over" B-IMC wasnt 
helpful to this, and we had what I thought was quite a positive 
discussion about the Tom Rintoul article [student journo does hatchet 
job on B-IMC] and the now infamous/comedy "Easton anarchist clique" 
allegations, which Tony-G acknowledged to be false.  Tony-G said that he 
had only wanted to get back at Ian Bone - when pressed, he acknowledged 
that (as he well knows) Ian Bone is not and has never been part of B-IMC 
and so in badmouthing B-IMC he knew he was only harming us, and not 
affecting Ian Bone at all.

During this conversation, Tony-G didnt mention that, the day before, he 
had sent the following email to London-Tony, (as I am calling him for 
purposes of clarity... and not Croatian/London-Toni, for those whose 
minds reach that far back, he's not around anymore, and this is a 
different Tony, who has also been involved with UK/London IMC for 
years... confusing i know):

"I'm always interested to hear any gossip that might be circulating 
behind my back - Mike from Bristol here came back from a London IMC 
meeting recently with some horror stories  -  he siad I shouldn't take 
them seriously but I always like to know who the sources of what are and 
what theyre saying. Otherwise I can't put them straight. It's possible 
of course that some might be true    I'm not perfect, but when people 
accuse you of being some kind of Nazi when actually your exposing the 
shysters it's galling to say the least. And I like to have the chance to 
let the sources of such bullshit know their comments have got through to 
me. The other aspect to all this is that if people are prepared to go to 
such lengths to assassinate your character - you must be on to 
something." - Tony-G, 25/02/04

Firstly, Mike has not spoken to Tony-G at all about this, so it is 
disingenous to suggest that he had, and particularly to say that Mike 
said not to take the UK-IMC group's concerns seriously.

Secondly, I now feel that my discussion with Tony-G, about why people 
find it frustrating when he misrepresents them, was more relevant than I 
realised!

Thirdly, I apologise to Tony-G and the group that Mike and I havent 
handled this very well: I now think we should have fed back on the UK 
IMCs concerns formally as soon as we got back from London. To be honest, 
we've been trying to think of a way to handle this without blowing the 
whole thing out of proportion. Because really its not very interesting 
or important, and I'm aware that even by typing all this I give the 
whole issue importance above its real status.

*Obviously anyone that posts to a site can claim to be making Indymedia, 
but in maintaining a claim to represent the Bristol / UK groups, a 
person should be working with, rather than against those groups.*  Or 
choose to be an independent IMC user.

Although I dont know who told Tony-G about the UK's concerns or what 
exactly they said, I'm glad someone said something, cos at least now we 
can get all this out in the open and move on. Thanks also to London-Tony 
for keeping us in the picture.

So, to put Tony-G's email to London-Tony in context, I'll fill in what I 
know of the situation:  Several people in other IMCs in the UK are 
concerned about what they see as Tony-G's links to far-right 
organisations.  Some of these people feel very strongly about this, and 
have been pressing for action for IMC overall to formally distance 
itself from Tony-G.  This strength of feeling seems to have come about 
as a result of email exchanges between Tony-G and some in the Scotland 
IMC, and through people in Sheffield IMC - who have faced problems with 
anti-anti-racist threats - being denied support from an anti-racist 
organisation because of IMC's link to Tony-G.  These people are also 
concerned that Tony-G is active on national and international lists 
representing Bristol/UK IMCs, but is actually unaccountable, doesn't 
discuss with, or even tell, the rest of the groups what he's doing in 
our name, and is expressing positions that the rest of the group/s don't 
agree with.

On behalf of Bristol IMC, and as mentioned at the last B-IMC meeting, 
Mike & I have been asking for everyone to let B-IMC, as the local group, 
resolve issues with Tony-G constructively, and to not go over our heads 
to the global list with allegations against Tony-G.  However, since 
Tony-G himself, although apparently aware of this, has not discussed his 
position with us, but has started contacting individuals from the UK 
project about it, perhaps we were wrong to think that this was the way 
forward.

My concerns are not so much to do with the far-right-links allegations - 
I don't know what the truth of that whole thing is, and people who know 
Tony-G better than I do tend to think that this association is more to 
do with his interest in controversy than anything else, and in his email 
to London-Tony even he himself fights shy of giving a clear explanation 
- I don't intend to pass any judgement on that at all.

What I am concerned with, is Tony-G's contribution to our group: I am 
concerned that Tony-G misrepresents who we are, what we do and why we do 
it when he talks about B-IMC to others. As a professional journalist, he 
must know that what he is saying is inaccurate and plain wrong, and so I 
can see no explanation for it except an intention to cause trouble.  I 
am also frustrated that we have to spend so much time dealing with the 
fall-out of his 'involvement' in our group when he contributes very 
little to the running of the site or to any other IMC work, other than 
complaints about Ian F., meeting times etc..  I accept that he does 
occasionally post a story, but then so do many other people who don't 
cause ten tonnes of grief.

If people feel they can spare the time and that it would be worth it, I 
am happy to set up a B-IMC meeting and invite someone from the UK IMC 
along to mediate, and we can discuss constructively with Tony-G whether 
he is prepared to work with us, and stop misrepresenting B-IMC / UK IMC, 
or whether he would rather, as implied at the last meeting he came to, 
stick to investigative journalism and submit stories as an individual 
contributor separate from the group.  *Either way, we need to be clear 
that he must drop claims to speak on behalf of Bristol  / UK IMC, until 
we can be sure that he isnt just trying to stir things up for us.*

Apologies again for length of this mail, but at risk of pushing it by 
asking for more of your time, I'd really appreciate hearing people's 
responses (specially Bristol people and of course Tony-G himself) and 
for the Bristol group to now take this on.  I shall probably be seeing 
Tony-G tonight if he comes to the Dialect broadcast, but I don't intend 
to talk this out with him until I've heard back from some other people.

Thanks for your time
Kyra