[Imc-communication] IMC-Belgium & the conflict with the local IMC's in Belgium.

[han at indymedia.be]

IMC-Belgium & the conflict with the local IMC's in Belgium.
by the imc-belgium process team -  imc-belgium-process at lists.Indymedia.org

A html version of this txt can be found here:
http://docs.indymedia.org/twiki/pub/Local/ConflictInBelgium/Indy_BE_TXT_02.html


*Content*

1 Introduction
2 Our vision
    2.1 Diversity
    2.2 Alternative mass media through Open Publish
    2.3 Belgium
    2.4 Mature beyond the weblog
3 Some key moments in our history.
    3.1 Preaching to our own church
    3.2 The summer of 2003
    3.3 3000 jobs lost at Ford Genk
    3.4 Elections (spring) 2004
    3.5 The angry nurses
    3.6 The ESF in London
    3.7 Bush in Belgium
    3.8 Euromanif in Brussels (19.03.2005)
    3.9 Remaining problems
    3.10 Note:
4 The conflict between belgian IMCs
    4.1 "Alternative mass media through open publishing" or "open
           publishing by and for the alternative incrowd"
    4.2 Diversity
    4.3 Building consensus takes time.
    4.4 What about the local IMCs
        4.4.1 2001 => 2002 imc-wvl
        4.4.2 2002 => 2003 imc-ovl
        4.4.3 Imc-liege
        4.4.4 Imc-antwerpen?
        4.4.5 Limburg, Brussels, Molenbeek, MediaCircus, ...
    4.5 A Stalinist plot?
5 Conclusions



1 Introduction

Writing this text was not an easy challenge for
imc-belgium. It is the first time we speak out as a
collective on the local IMCs operating in Belgium. We
refrained to do so until now out of respect for the
autonomy of those IMCs. Most of this text therefore
speaks about imc-belgium and our vision on Indymedia.

Our vision can be very briefly summarised: We think
that Indymedia has the potential to become a global,
non-commercial, media network that can compete with the
best wire services in the world. Imc-belgium wants to
develop alternative mass media by giving a voice to
social movements at large.

The conflict with the local IMCs in Belgium became part
of the way we developed our vision on Indymedia and the
network. During this conflict it became clear that
there are different visions / approaches / ... of
Indymedia within the network and Belgium. We think it
is rather sad that this leads to an endless battle
within and beyond the Indymedia network and instead
feel the need to create spaces were IMCs can exchange
experiences.

Some people tried to reduce this conflict in Belgium to
a conspiracy theory of a stalinist/maoist takeover of
imc-belgium. Not only is this theory by no means a
reflection of the reality, we also came to think that
those who are spreading this theory actually know that
this is plain fiction as they now start their wild
theory with: "You should really understand that this
takeover is not visible itself in the content of the
newswire or the features, ..." More and more do we
think that this theory is used on purpose as an
effective tool to avoid the real issues and to gain
support within the international network.

With this text we hope to give a better understanding
of the real grounds for the conflict between the
different IMCs in Belgium.


2 Our vision

2.1 Diversity

Diversity is probably a point of discussion within the
whole Indymedia network (and beyond). It is most
certainly for imc-belgium. To handle this problem in a
proper way, imc-belgium makes a distinction between:

# The IMC collective

In our mission statement we confirm that our principles
are based on an anti-capitalist origine and attitude.
We feel this enables us to define ourselve as a
collective and the way we want to produce media.
'Anti-capitalist' is a notion that has a large
definition and that can be embraced by a wide variety
of people, groups, ...

We also rely on Indymedia's Principles of Unity (PoU)
to define ourselves and our way of functioning. We can
only confirm that those PoU can be used as a common
ground by a wide variety of people, even if we as a
collective feel the need to explicitly confirm our
anti-capitalist roots.

# The website

We defined the website and our media productions as
places for news coming from social movements. However,
we do not say that those movements have to be
anti-capitalist inspired social movements:

"Indymedia.be provides regular, trustworthy reports on
all manner of events and stories happening in society.
Reliable news from and information about social
movements is finding less and less space within
corporate media. Indymedia.be fills that void.

Independence is the most important trump card we have
against a media landscape where commercialism is the
norm. Because Indymedia.be exists on the support of its
readers and volunteers it doesn't have to take into
account the interests of share holders or advertisers."

# Social movements at large

This approach enables us to have a large diversity of
people with a large diversity of backgrounds to be
involved in imc-belgium. Our mission statement does not
say that people should be anti-capitalists to be
involved in imc-belgium, it defines anti-capitalism as
an origine of our media approach, our way of
organising, ...

We do not think that the IMC should or can be claimed
by one exclusive group within the movement. The need
for alternative mass media giving a voice to social
movements is not exclusive to radical anarchists,
Maoists, union activists, ... It is a need that is
large and is felt in almost all social movements.

2.2 Alternative mass media through Open Publish

We see open publish as a tool to build genuine
alternative mass media but not as a goal as such. Open
publish enables us to get more people involved, to work
decentralised, ... It became an essential tool in
building imc-belgium.

Still, if we would rely only on open publish,
belgium.Indymedia.org would in no time become the usual "
left wing radical intellectual media outlet", and there
are plenty of those already. Therefore the Belgian
imc'istas invest a lot of time and energy in organising
workshops to enable more people to participate in the
process of building alternative mass media.

Imc-belgium has a large editorial team that does a lot
more that managing the website. We try to create
physical an virtual spaces were imc'istas can discuss
what they want to cover, why and how they would like to
do so, ...

2.3 Belgium

Imc-belgium has always operated on a national and
multilingual base, this has always been an aware
choice. Belgium.Indymedia.org is one of the only media
outlets in Belgium where the different language
communities are confronted with each other on the
website and other media productions. It is for sure
about the only media outlet where French & Dutch
speaking people work together daily on the same media
project. This multilingual approach also expresses our
aversion for French & Dutch(Flemish) chauvinism.

The question of working on a national level also
enables us to set up multilingual teams with people
living all over Belgium. Most projects & teams (edito,
process, video, audio, web/tech, ...) consist of people
living in different parts of the country. Our national
approach is no fiction: when we write this very
paragraph there are people from Ghent, Brussels,
Zottegem, Leuven in the office and on IRC we are joined
by somebody from Antwerp. During meetings, in our
mailing lists and on the website this diversity covers
almost the whole country.

Imc-belgium does not oppose the idea of people working
locally, some people actually do work together locally
within imc-belgium, even if this rather occasionally,
mainly to cover events. When the imc-belgium was asked
to disband itself into local IMCs in 2003, this was
rejected by consensus, mainly because imc'istas thought
this would weaken Indymedia in belgium. Having a closer
look at the dynamics of the local IMCs makes us only
feel comfortable that was the right decision.

2.4 Mature beyond the weblog

    "A weblog (or blog) is a website run by one or more
    people which provides personal 'news', commentary and
    links, updated frequently, usually displayed as one
    paragraph after another in chronological order. Many
    Indymedia's are best described as collaborative 'blogs'
    produced by IMC editorial groups with an additional
    anonymous, moderated bulletin board system (BBS) called
    newswires.

    This reality conflicts with Indymedia's broader
    potential: an international networked wire service of
    amateur, professional, and independent journalists and
    media producers dedicated to in-depth, on-the-ground
    coverage of deeply significant news and events. We
    believe SF-IMC and the network-at-large needs to be
    less about small clubs of friends running a weblog and
    tackle the challenges of being a global, non-commercial
    media network. We want to kickstart a shift towards
    maturing into a real media network that can compete
    with any of the best wire services in the world."

This statement coming from sf-imc (posted on
sf.Indymedia.org in august 2004) led to a new dynamic
within imc-belgium. We feel it's a pretty good
expression of our own vision on creating alternative
mass media, in contrast with maintaining a 'radical
left wing' weblog.

3 Some key moments in our history.

We feel the best way to explain the development of our
vision is to describe our history. This vision on media
activism and Indymedia is not based on theoretical
concepts, it is mainly based on our practice.

# Take off

Inspired by imc-seattle and our own experiences,
imc-belgium took off in May 2000. Right from the start
we stated we wanted to build alternative mass media.

We live in a country were more than 70% of working
people are member of a union and more than 50% are
active in social movements. Along with that, about 80%
of the Belgian population does not trust the media, and
they are right.

Belgium used to have large independent media, closely
linked to social movements. Although it happened a
little slower then in the US, the UK or France, mostly
all Belgian media are now part of / linked to the 6
global media monopolies
[[http://www.corporations.org/media||http://www.corporations.org/media]].
Public media are being
forced by the government to work according to the same
"rules" as corporate media, and more and more public
media content is produced by corporate media companies.

3.1 Preaching to our own church

Imc-belgium (through people involved in the IMC) played
an active and sometimes crucial role in different
movements (Belgian delegation in Prague, 019, D14,
RESIST, STOPUSA, Lappersfort, ...). Sometimes this
involvement was received with great enthusiasm and
sometimes it led to huge debates within our collective.

This had a major effect on the way the IMC developed.
It was becoming more and more a resource for activists,
a place were activists had huge debates on what
strategies to follow: violence vs non violence,
elections vs boycott, Arab nationalism vs Islamism (and
the dynamic cocktail mixing those), post-modernism
(Negri, ...) vs modernism, ...

Those days we reached about 10.000 unique ip's a month.
People were preaching to their own church, even though
it was not such a small and a rather diverse one.

3.2 The summer of 2003

In the summer 2003 we received more and more signals
that a lot of people were becoming alienated from the
dynamic within imc-belgium and on the website. Yet at
the same time we toured with the MediaCircus, giving
workshops to all kinds of different movements. During
this tour we discovered that the need for alternative
mass media was huge, but also that people did not see
imc-belgium becoming such a medium, as they considered
it to be activist media for convinced activists.

A bunch of Belgian imc'istas decided to put some things
on hold and to go out to talk with people of different
movements to see how they felt about imc-belgium's
potential and to ask them about their critiques,
suggestions, ...

A small group of imc'istas didn't have the patience to
go through this process and left imc-belgium. They
tried to force their vision upon the whole Belgian
imc-community by proposing to dismantle imc-belgium:
[http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-process/2003-July/005008.html||http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-process/2003-July/005008.html].

This led to a general assembly in september 2003 where
we rediscussed and reaffirmed our mission statement.

3.3 3000 jobs lost at Ford Genk

*Not only radical activists feel the need for alternative mass media.*

On 01.10.2003 Ford Belgium announced that they would
cut 3000 jobs in their factory in Genk. Imc-belgium
imc'istas went to Genk to cover the struggle of the
workers in Genk. This was our first genuine encounter
with union workers. They used belgium.Indymedia.org as
a means to tell the world about their struggle.
Articles and photo reports on belgium.Indymedia.org
were printed by workers and handed out at the picket
lines. Instant media activism workshops were given at
the picket lines to enable people to post pictures on
the website, to write stories, to voice their opinion, ...

Union leaders gave interviews to imc'istas and were
glad that finally some media wanted to listen to them
and tell their story (even if some imc'istas did not
always agree with what they said).

We discovered in real life that not only radical
activists feel the need for alternative mass media, but
that most social movements feel that need.

3.4 Elections (spring) 2004

*Giving a voice to social movements at large.*

# Social elections:

Every 4 years belgian unions organise elections in
factories, offices, ... About 2 million working people
are able to elect their representatives in the union.

This massive democratic process is by no means an issue
in corporate media as it represents everything they
hate (workers organising their democratic process and
electing their representatives). If mainstream media do
pay attention to this process, it is to ridiculise it
and to try to prove that unions do not represent
working people.

Belgian imc'istas were able to participate in the whole
process of those elections and were enabled to report
from within. Imc-belgium was the only media outlet that
gave that much room to these social elections and to
give a voice to those involved. Belgian imc'istas also
organised a media watch that became a real tool for
union activists.

# Political elections

Not even one year after the 2003 elections that caused
so much discussion within imc-belgium and the whole
belgian activist community, we were confronted with new
elections.

In the 2003 elections some imc-belgium imc'istas were
candidate in several progressive alliances: RESIST &
MARIA. During a general assembly before the 2003
elections imc-belgium decided that it would give a
voice to all radical left wing groups participating in
the elections and to those opposing electionsIn belgium people do not
only have the right but also
the obligation to vote. One is infraction with the law
if he/she does not go to vote.
. We also decided not to give a voice to the green
party or the social democrats as they were in government.

With the 2004 elections things were different.

Those imc'istas who were on lists in 2003 were not in
for another 'electoral adventure'. This was their
personal decision yet it was certainly inspired by the
debates within the collective during the summer of
2003.

As some green party members and social democrats were
(and are) active in social movements we decided not to
exclude them from the website. Some imc'istas went on
an interview quest to have interviews with people
presenting themselves in lists and having links to
social movements.

The more elections came close, the more it became clear
that there was real boycott in corporate media on all
'dissident' voices, so belgium.Indymedia.org became a
place were all those voices had a place.

Whether we liked it or not, we also discovered that
most social movements pay a lot of attention to
political elections. Not only unions, but also
movements like bomspotting, NGO's, ... make memorandums
to politicians with their wishes for the next term.
Imc-belgium became a place were social movements could
express their vision, formulate their critiques and
wishes in relation to politics, parliament, ...

3.5 The angry nurses

*The IMC as an empowering tool for social movements.*

During the spring of 2004 the nurses and all those
working in healthcare (more than 200.000 people)
started to prepare themselves for a long battle: they
wanted better working conditions, better wages and more
staff. As it is often the case, corporate media only
paid attention to one side of the story, for instance
that of the belgian minister of work calling the
movement "sovjets" (as this movement also opposed
privatisation of healthcare and the huge profits of the
pharma business).

Imc'istas started to report on this movement right from
its beginning. Not only did imc'istas report, they
encouraged people to post their own reports of actions
on the belgium.Indymedia.org website. This was a
decentralised movement with actions in several towns
and provinces. Nurses and health workers posted reports
from all over Belgium. Imc-belgium became a tool for
nurses and health-workers to empower and support their struggle.

http://www.Indymedia.be/news/2005/02/93813.php

3.6 The ESF in London

*The no global movement in all its diversity*

Imc'istas from imc-belgium went to the ESF in Londen
and focused on getting articles, reports, ... about and
from the belgian activists and social movements in
London. This resulted in a wide variety of posts,
reports, ... that showed the diversity in and around
the ESF in London.

http://www.Indymedia.be/news/2004/10/89210.php

3.7 Bush in Belgium

*Collective infrastructure to enable more people to participate.*

Bush's visit to Brussels (NATO & EU) in February 2005
brought together a large coalition of peace and social
movements who all wanted to express that "Bush was not welcome"
. This was the first time we turned our new offices
into a media center. This center was used by more than
30 people, who used the infrastructure to produce
audio, video, photo and written reports. The use of
this space and its infrastructure (network and some
computers) made it possible for different people to
participate and produce media.

Day1: http://www.Indymedia.be/news/2005/02/93167.php
Day2: http://www.Indymedia.be/news/2005/02/93297.php
Day3: http://www.Indymedia.be/news/2005/02/93612.php

3.8 Euromanif in Brussels (19.03.2005)

*Sharing resources, know-how, ... with other media activists & groups*

On 19.03.2005, about 80.000 people came to Brussels to
protest the EU policies, Bolkenstein, the EU
constitution, ... Imc-belgium not only organised a
media center, it also shared its center, know-how,
infrastructure, ... with other (belgian and european)
media activists. Media activists from different
belgian & european alternative media used the Indymedia center to
produce and send out reports of the demonstrations.

http://www.Indymedia.be/news/2005/03/94835.php

3.9 Remaining problems

One of the biggest remaining problems within
imc-belgium is the *lack of formality*. There have been
general assemblies without reports (the first two
years). There are people working on video, audio, tech,
... but there is no 'formal' video, audio-, tech-, ...
team. This lack of formality is understandable as we
all hate bureaucracy, yet this lack of formality also
leads to lack of transparency and makes it sometimes
difficult for people to understand how they can
participate. People form team, groups, ... mostly on an
informal base, they meet during an assembly or in the
office, and start working together on a project. There
are groups of people within imc-belgium that operate in
Brussels, Liege, Antwerpen, Gent, Leuven, ... This
happens on an informal basis (e-mail, have a drink,
...). It will be a challenge to formalise all of this
to enable more people to participate without installing
a bureaucracy. This document as such can be a first
step in installing some formality, as it was an
exercise to reach consensus in the imc-belgium-process
team on some key issues.

3.10 Note:

There are a lot more actions, activities, ... in which
imc-belgium imc'istas took part and that contributed to
the process of developing a vision on Indymedia and to
developing imc-belgium itself. The above summation is a
shortlist. It should not be understood as some
mechanical process. The above summation is what we feel
we learned as a collective from those experiences, most
people feel they learned much much more from those moments.

4 The conflict between belgian IMCs

We think that the conflict between the different IMCs
in Belgium finds its roots in a different vision on
Indymedia. This might not have not been so clear in the
beginning of this conflict, but it is getting obvious
now, even if this debate seems to be a taboo for the
local IMCs in Belgium.

4.1 "Alternative mass media through open publishing" or
  "open publishing by and for the alternative incrowd"

    "The imc-ovl team is aware of its rather small role in
    the dynamics of imc-ovl. The website functions
    according to the open publish philosophy and is shaped
    by those who post on the website. The most important
    task and role of the collective is implying the mission
    and applying the editorial policy of imc-ovl and create
    the technical facilities to do so."
    http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-ovl/2005-April/0407-a7.html

A visit to ovl.Indymedia.org learns you where this
approach leads: a newswire filled with copy/pastes,
press releases, translations and some people using the
site as their blog.

This concept of Indymedia is shared by most local IMCs
in Belgium: imc'istas should refrain from reporting as
much as possible, their main role should be to "facilitate"
 a website that can be used.

Imc-belgium has a team of reporters that meets
regularly (in real life and IRC) to discuss what they
want to cover, ... The imc-belgium-edito and
imc-belgium list are used to involve a larger group of
people in reporting on events, actions, social
struggles, ... Before and during large events (Bush in
Brussels, Bomspotting, Euromanif) imc-belgium organises
briefings with the organisers. Imc'istas discuss how
they want to cover the event and look for different
angles, different approaches, different stories to
tell, ... We look for ways to involve as much people as
possible in reporting.

4.2 Diversity

For imc-belgium, 'diversity' not only relates to the
people involved in the IMC but also to the topics,
movements, issues, ... reported on. Diversity also
relates to the different possible ways of looking and
covering an event. Diversity also relates to the way
people participate and organise within the IMC.

Most people involved in the belgian local IMCs would be
welcome within the Belgian IMC, just like most features
on belgian local IMCs' websites. But it is clear that a
lot of people, topics, ... in and on imc-belgium would
not be welcome in and on the belgian local IMCs. Maybe
we are wrong about this, yet we can only confirm that
there is a larger diversity of people and topics, ...
on and in imc-belgium then there is on and in the
belgian local IMCs. The diversity on and in imc-belgium
sometimes leads to aggressive attacks against
imc-belgium in the newswires of some local IMCs.

4.3 Building consensus takes time.

Part of the conflict between the different IMCs in
Belgium relates to how people deal with building
consensus. We all make mistakes and sometimes mistakes
are made collectively. It takes time and experience to
enable most people to understand the mistakes they
made; for a collective it only takes more time and
experience to do so.

Ironically the conflict between the different IMCs was
part off the process to develop our own vision in IMC.
It forced the belgium-imc as well as the local IMCs to
develop a vision, it forced imc-belgium to take into
account criticisms formulated on and by the local IMCs.
We think we have a different vision and approach of
Indymedia then the local IMCs operating in Belgium.
That does not mean we feel we have the right of being
the one and sole real IMC. It is clear that different
approaches are and should be possible within the
network. Part of of this conflict is that some people
want to impose there vision upon the whole IMC
community in Belgium and probably also global the
network. Imposing the global network to take a stand on
the situation in Belgium (with deadlines / procedures /
...) is in essence forcing the network to speak out on
a certain vision/approach of IMC (far beyond the PoU).

4.4 What about the local IMCs

4.4.1 2001 => 2002 imc-wvl

Imc-wvl started after D14 (the EU summit in Brussels on
14.12.2001). There were different appreciations of the
way we handled this summit, the media center in Cinema
Nova, the website, ... During the spring of 2002 most
of the belgian imc'istas were recovering from a
hangover. We all invested loads of energy in D14.

In June 2002 the issue of imc-wvl was discussed for the
first time during the general assembly of imc-belgium.
The project was objected by some people as it was not
clear whether imc-wvl wanted to be a (seperate) local
imc or a local part of imc-belgium. At the time, there
were different opinions about working locally.

People objected to the argument of starting imc-wvl
because of differences in vision on Indymedia. They
felt that would open the door for anyone who thinks
differently to start their own IMC. This was called "
emotional blackmail" by those who wanted to start imc-wvl.

Imc-wvl formally denied that the reason to start a
local IMC were differences in vision. They always
stated clearly that the reasons were: working locally
and being more transparant to local people involved.

Most people of imc-wvl remained active in imc-belgium
and we looked for ways to cooperate on several
occasions. This wasn't always a smooth operation, but
at least the intentions were there.

 A rather dormant IMC until...

Imc-wvl became a rather dormant IMC. Their last general
assembly was announced on their website and should have
happened on 07.03.2004. The meeting never took place
and is still anounced on the frontpage of the imc-wvl
website (21.05.2005).

Already in September 2003 one of the founders of
imc-wvl expressed that imc-wvl should question is
existence:
http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-wvl/2003-September/000816.html

This debate was quickly burried and the IMC revived to
start the first virulent attack on imc-belgium. This
has been the life cycle of imc-wvl ever since. A
dormant IMC that only wakes for the next attack on
imc-belgium:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-wvl/2005-April/0430-en.html

4.4.2 2002 => 2003 imc-ovl

Imc-ovl started off in the summer of 2003. It was
supposed to become imc-vlaanderen (Vlaanderen is the
Dutch speaking part of Belgium) and started off in the
uttermost secrecy.

They developed a very particular vision on media
activism that implies that the role of imc'istas should
be reduced to managing the website, and that imc'istas
should refrain from reporting. This leads to a website
mostly filled with press releases and copy/pastes from
other websites and IMCs.

Imc-ovl introduced an editorial policy that prohibited
any post from people being active in a hierarchical
organisation or movement, therefore they removed posts
by union workers, Attac, NGO's, ... They changed their
editorial policy as it seemed not workable.

4.4.3 Imc-liege

Imc-liege started off in September 2003. As far as we
can understand, it has a real dynamic. There are
clearly differences in vision, approach, ... with
imc-belgium that, according to us, mainly come from a
different concept of diversity.

4.4.4 Imc-antwerpen?

It is very hard to have any understanding about the
functioning of imc-antwerpen. As far as we can
understand, their last meeting took place on 10
November of 2004 with only 1 person present: Emmanuel
Paulus. It seems that everybody left the collective and
that the imc-antwerpen website becomes more and more
the personal blog of Emmanuel Paulus.

4.4.5 Limburg, Brussels, Molenbeek, MediaCircus, ...

There is a list of Indymedia projects the never took
off because of different reasons: imc-brussels,
imc-limburg (another province in Belgium),
imc-molenbeek (a town in the Brusssels area) and
MediaCircus are all such projects. The reasons for the
failure of these project are different. As we mentioned
earlier, the MediaCircus did indeed happen. It just
didn't happen within the imc-network (as it was blocked).

4.5 A Stalinist plot?

According to some, imc-belgium is part of a Stalinist
plot to gain control over all alternative media in Belgium.

It is interesting to note that this story is rather
new. The origine of this story can be found in
different anonymous posts on IMCs and other websites.
The first time this story was used by belgian local
IMCs to try to convince the international network, was
in September 2004. We are not sure if the people
spreading this story actually believe it themselves or
if they actually know it is flat out untrue.

The way in which lists are made up to prove that
certain people would be PVDA/PTB (communist party of
Belgium) members, or would be linked to that party,
makes us feel that people producing those lists
actually know that it is plain fiction.

The notice that: "You should really understand that this
takeover is not visible itself in the content of the
newswire or the features, it's a takeover on the
control of the Imc and on its way of working", only
makes us feel that the authors now what they are doing.

It is interesting to note that turlututu (imc-liege),
who is one of the most active promoters of this theory,
never talked of this so called takeover in his "I quit"
mail he sent out to the imc-belgium-process list:
http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-belgium-process/2003-August/001526.html

He actually speaks of "parties". And there is some
reality in that: people with affinity for different
political parties are active within imc-belgium. We
know that during elections and the months before
imc-liege bans every post that would favor a vote for
whatever party. We feel that is playing the game of
mainstream media, where most radical left wing groups
have no voice, not even the more radical politicians
within tradititional parties. Imc-belgium makes a clear
choice to give a voice to all people involved in social
movements who share our call to boycott political
elections. And yes for sure some people active in the
PVDA/PTB are also active in imc-belgium.

It seems that the whole story about this so-called
takeover is made up on purpose, as it is an efficient
way to convince people to take a stand against
imc-belgium.

5 Conclusions

We are aware that there are different visions of
Indymedia within the network and in Belgium. We feel
that those differences should not lead to eternal
battles within the network (or Belgium). The concept
and spirit of Indymedia should enable us to have those
differences coexisting within the same network. Rather
then fighting each other it would be much more fertile
to create spaces to share experiences, to learn from
each other, ... This seems way more important to us
than the several attempts made the last couple of
months to install an Indymedia-bureaucracy and to turn
the Principles off Unity into the Principles of
Exclusion, as imc-paris noted.

We would also like to express our wish to create places
for a positive exchange of experiences and visions. We
only learned by accident about sf-imc's intentions to "
kickstart a shift towards maturing into a real media
network that can compete with any of the best wire
services in the world". The inspiring project of
UC-IMC's post office only came into the picture due to
a flamewar on the communication list. The IMC during
the ESF in London was very inspriring and we are sure
it will be even better for the G8, but how can other
IMCs be inspired by it if they were not in London or
will not attend the G8? The same goes for the WSIS? We
Seize! event in Geneva (12.03): it was a fantastic
occasion to meet other media(h)ac(k)tivists, to
experiment, ... but it was hardly noticed from the
outside. Global mailing lists and wiki's are great
tools to share and document these experiences, but it
remains very much an insider thing. We think these
experiences could be reported on more publicly to show
the world what we are doing and how we are doing it.

As we wrote in our introduction, we think that
Indymedia has the potential to become a global,
non-commercial, media network that can compete with the
best wire services in the world. It is this challenge
imc-belgium wants to tackle the coming years. We as
imc-belgium want to develop alternative mass media to
spread the story of social movements as wide as
possible. Along with that, we want to build an equally
wide network of alternative media producers.