[Imc-communication] about the proposal to purge Darwin-imc

[takver]

Petros, 

Mick has been lashing out for 18 months at anyone who raised objections
to his methods. The sorry story of how he destroyed the Darwin Indymedia
Collective I have pieced together and documented. In my opinion Mick has
shown that he can't work in a group where other people disagree with
him. I describe his handling of the expulsion of 4 members of Darwin IMC
in Feb-April 2005 as autocratic. He does not operate using Indymedia
internal processes, but manipulates people to get the result he wants. 
[Resolve] Questions about the Darwin Indymedia Meeting 6 February 2005
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-August/0831-02.html

Mick refused to attend the Indymedia meeting, well advertised on
darwin-imc, on April 16, 2005, which took away his administration rights
and authorised Perth (server host) to change all passwords. But Mick was
never expelled by this group. He refused to work as part of a diverse
Indymedia collective involving those people he had autocraticly
expelled. Even when it was suggested by either Stacy or Cameron from
Sydney IMC that a site could be built that integrated newswires and
features from two seperate collectives, he was not interested in ANY
compromise solution.

A lot of people in oceania have seriously attempted to resolve this
conflict, but Mick has rejected these offers of assistance, and attacked
these individuals. I am tired of fellow Oceania indymedia activists
being abused and slandered by Mick by email list and newswire posts.
Other members of the Melbourne Collective are tired of the attacks and
are slowly drifting away from Indymedia activity because of it. I
suspect this also may apply to the other Australian Indy Collectives. If
Mick stays in the network, Indymedia activism in Oceania will suffer, is
already suffering.

The new-imc recommendation to imc-process that imc-darwin be
disaffiliated but be allowed to retain its imc lists to reorganise the
collective does not recognise that Mick uses Indy lists to launch
attacks by naming activists with derogatory terms in the subject lines
of his posts, specifically so these posts will be found through internet
searches. I can provide several examples if you wish, but the latest
attack on And_ from Melbourne IMC is graphic enough:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-August/0901-fi.html
And_'s reply:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-September/0902-r8.html

See: new-imc internal version of a proposal for imc-process version 2.3
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/new-imc/2006-September/0902-px.html

With hindsight perhaps Darwin Indymedia should never have made it
through new-imc the first time given Mick's history with the initial
group that formed. A web blog used by this group for discussion and
organising is still online. Unfortunately Mick has deleted all the posts
he made to this blog, but one can infer some of the verbal attacks he
made from the posts of the other activists.
http://territoryindependent.blogspot.com

I believe the processes we use in Indymedia are very important. Mick has
shown a great disdain for those processes, and for the etiquette of
working in a network environment where discussing problems in a
non-judgemental way without personal attacks and willing to work through
conflict by email and irc is a necessity. I believe the network should
dissassociate from this person to limit the harm to the network.

I believe Conflict will remain if Mick remains in the network, with the
liklihood of several activists in Oceania leaving the network or
becoming inactive due to the inability of the network to resolve this
conflict by diss-association. If Mick is on the outside of the network,
he may choose to attack individuals or collectives, but I believe these
attacks will be less effective and efforts can again concentrate on
media activism rather than dealing with a person with a super charged
ego unwilling to compromise who has demonstrated little regard for
solidarity and media activism in a network.

Mick's level of activism on social justice issues, and his capability as
an independent journalist and feature writer, is not sufficient
justification for his membership of an indymedia collective, if he
cannot work and abide by basic Indymedia processes and decision making
in a diverse local collective and on a network level.

As a Melbourne IMC feature editor I would still welcome serious news
articles by Mick and would consider them for feature status on Melbourne
Indymedia. I suggest other Oceania IMCs would do the same. Most Oz
Indymedia sites publish features on their local region, but also
'national' significance news, and news from regions without a local IMC.
Melbourne IMC currently has 3 feature stories on the front page covering
events in Darwin and the Northern Territory:
* Communities Unite to Oppose National Nuclear Waste Dump
* Rum Jungle Inspected by Anti-Uranium Activists
* Wave Hill Strike Commemorated despite Attacks on Land Rights

in solidarity
Takver
just speaking as one of Melbourne IMC
MIMC Liason to imc-process

> 
> 
> Thank you Takver, I appreciate the clarifications you made. Some 
> aditional comments below:
> 
> takver wrote:
> 
> > As far as I am aware Melbourne Indymedia collective members have had no
> > direct contact with members of the Arafura IMC. Melbourne is also not
> > the backer of the Arafura Application. The main sponsor of Arafura IMC
> > is Sydney IMC, and the application has also been supported by the
> > Wellington Collective of Aotearoa IMC
> 
> I have also been attacked publicly by Mick Lambe. He has even used the 
> pages of Cyprus IndyMedia to attack me. But my approach to it is 
> entirely different - I see his point!
> 
> He has called me a liar, a racist, an undemocratic dictatorial person, 
> and many other things. Nevertheless, I consider that Mick is driven to 
> this insane behaviour by injustices for which *we* - the indymedia 
> network - are collective responsible. At this point Mick can not be held 
> responsible for what he is publishing.
> 
> He is only lashing out in a clumsy and disordered style - but his 
> complaints are valid. A healing, both internally and externally will 
> have to take place before his work can be harmonized again with 
> indymedia. But it is we who must find solutions for that healing to 
> happen. A political purge in violation of our own principles is not a 
> healing either for indymedia at any level (global, regional, local), nor 
> for Mick Lambe.
> 
> We don't have to agree about whether Mick Lambe is a good or bad person, 
> about whether he is a victim or a perpetrator (in the current phase he 
> is both) - there are more important values that we already agree on, 
> which bind us together as colleagues into a network. Regardless of what 
> we think of Mick, we need to be able to separate our own 
> responsibilities from his.
> 
> We have our principles of unity to uphold, and our editorial policy. In 
> order to preserve these, we need to disengage from conflict with Mick, 
> and to be supportive of the re-validation process that was set up a few 
> months ago between the new-imc group and the two groups into which the 
> Darwin group has been split. Let's give that process a chance to work.
> 
> 
> If we accept that any of the local imc collectives now can take an 
> initiative to dictate members (by name!) to other collectives at the 
> threat of the entire group's expulsion, where will this end? Tomorrow, 
> any one of our groups might face the same: "either expel this person, or 
> the whole group shall be expelled".
> 
> Instead, I ask of you, I ask of all of us, to please find some way to 
> disengage from conflict, and to exercise compassion: all, or most of our 
> local imc groups have troubled members, all of us know indymedia members 
> who, if they are harrassed sufficiently can be driven to publishing an 
> endless stream of non-sensical material. Is that enough justification to 
> purge an imc local? Or to purge a particular member?
> 
> What happened to our principle of autonomy and self-determination? I 
> believe that most of us in indymedia have a true and genuine respect for 
> it and I believe you do too. I'd like to invite you to please reconsider 
> this approach.
> 
> It's not just a slogan that we say we uphold the principle of autonomy. 
> It is a good guide to solving problems of this type. In harmony with 
> this principle, we can look for internal (local) solutions to problems 
> which otherwise if ignored, only lead to outside interventions and an 
> endless cycle of conflict.
> 
> Do we want that endless cycle of conflict? I can assure you that the 
> expulsion of Mick or of the entire Darwin-imc group is not going to end 
> the conflict: it will lead to an entrenchment of the conflict, one that 
> will be even more difficult to reverse.
> 
> Please reconsider.
> Thanks,
> Petros
> _______
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 

-- 
in solidarity
Takver