[imc-scotland-discussion] imc-scotland-discussion Digest, Vol 96, Issue 7

David Moncur ravemoncoeur at yahoo.co.uk
Thu May 19 12:38:48 PDT 2011 

SOmeone could always be a police plant, if an individual is not corresponding to our principles, flowing along with our developmental arc, could we block that individual's contributions.........?
If it looks like we can do without someone, we should feel justified in excluding......her or him.

From: "imc-scotland-discussion-request at lists.indymedia.org" <imc-scotland-discussion-request at lists.indymedia.org>
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Subject: imc-scotland-discussion Digest, Vol 96, Issue 7

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Today's Topics:

  1. JimDog and Mayday (Sy)
  2. Fwd: [Imc-uk-process] IMCistas and ebbing    solidarity
      (Northern Indymedia)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 17 May 2011 16:11:04 +0100
From: Sy <sytaffel at riseup.net>
Subject: [imc-scotland-discussion] JimDog and Mayday
To: imc-scotland-discussion at lists.indymedia.org.
Message-ID: <4DD29008.1030809 at riseup.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

'Yes, a meeting sounds fine to me. Sunday would be too late if we would want to
do anything against the imc northern proposal on global.

But then it would just be playing dogmatic political ping pong (Proposal -
Block...Proposal - Block...Proposal - Block...Proposal - Block...Proposal -
Block...Proposal - Block... ....) with Jim Dog who is just smothering
everybody with emails and proposals in the name of his collective until he
gets what he wants. Which I assume at the moment is power over global
indymedia decision-making process.
Me - and very likely everybody else too - have not got the time to stand up to
this full time dogmatic activist who is trying to dominate the global lists
now.

I mainly blame him for the bitter end of imc uk. Before he came along we were
all getting on along fine, respecting each other opinions and differences and
working with compromises for consensus and focusing on practicalities.'



Hi...

I met you at the January 2008 UK network meeting in Nottingham, a 
weekend which was dominated by a bitter conflict between people from 
London and a few individuals who later became part of Mayday.If you 
recall the meeting you were the person calling for calm and trying to 
rekindle a spirit of solidarity and cooperation within the UK network 
(which made you come across as a really nice person). This meeting took 
place before Northern existed as a group [1]. To claim that everyone was 
getting along fine back then simply is not the truth.

So actually before Northern imc existed there was a lot of conflict 
surrounding a few individuals within the UK network, and these 
individuals who had a conflict with London in 2007/2008 went on to have 
a conflict with Northern in 2008/9, and then pretty much everyone else 
who attended a UK network meeting in 2010, which led to a process where 
a fork was agreed (as no-one felt the differences between this group and 
everyone else could be resolved). Following this, the same group had a 
conflict with the new-imc working group which saw their application to 
become an affiliated imc blocked (by people who have nothing to do with 
the UK). Now they are refusing to comply with proposals which have 
passed through the global imc-process list with explicit support from 
imc's Bristol, London, Germany, Linksuten and Athens.

Now perhaps the problem is the collectives in the rest of the UK, and 
elsewhere within the global Indymedia network which have regular open 
meetings, apply the POU and consensus based decision making etc. Maybe 
we're all horrible people who run open publishing based Indymedia 
websites and participate in global network because we're bastards or 
something. Or maybe the problem is primarily the small group of people 
who seem to run into conflicts with every interaction with the Indymedia 
network.

In the time that I've known Jimdog he has been a dedicated activist who 
has contributed enormously to Indymedia's visibility at events such as 
Climate Camps, Hacktionlabs and the recent m26 protests. He is also part 
of a functioning collective which has regular open public meetings, and 
to which his behavior on national and global lists is accountable. 
Trying to demonise him and claim he is attempting to somehow attain 
'power over global indymedia decision-making process' doesn't make much 
sense to me.  Jimdog has posted 0 of the 14 posts on the imc-process 
list in May (JimDog is not imc-Northern England who have posted there 
twice), and 0 of 23 posts in April (with imc-Northern England also 
contributing zero posts). Of the 36 posts to imc-communication this 
month one is from JimDog (one is from Northern... which is the same as 
one of the emails to process). Of the 12 posts to imc-communication in 
April 0 were from JimDog or Northern. On the new-imc list (of which 
JimDog is a member of the working group) he has posted 3 out of 48 
emails in April and 4 out of 72 messages. I don't feel that this can 
accurately be called smothering lists with emails and proposals.

I'm sorry for intruding on to your list, but to me part of solidarity 
and being part of the global Indymedia network means standing up for 
your peers when they are (in my opinion) unfairly attacked, such as 
being blamed for the current situation with Indymedia in the UK or 
accused of trying to control global process. I also think it would be 
sad were Scotland to dissociate from the global Indymedia network.

Solidarity

Sy (one of imc-bristol)

[1] http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/2009/08/435447.html



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 11:43:30 +0000
From: Northern Indymedia <protag at aktivix.org>
Subject: [imc-scotland-discussion] Fwd: [Imc-uk-process] IMCistas and
    ebbing    solidarity
To: <imc-scotland-discussion at lists.indymedia.org>
Cc: imc-northern-contact at lists.indymedia.org
Message-ID: <eae689924b2c21240d607f3cb7cccf76 at aktivix.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"


Hi Scotland

I'm protag from IMC Northern, your immediate neighbour to the south.

I'd been hoping to meet up with some of you at the various UK Network
meetings I attended in 2010, though I realise Bristol and London were
somewhat distant, and Bradford too, perhaps.

Anyhow, I'm taking the liberty of forwarding an email from the UK-Process
list which some of you may not have seen. Most interesting to me is the
line "First of all email lists will never resolve this" - that's why I'm
interested in meeting people and working with people face-to-face
(although, t.b.h. it goes against the grain of my personality type and is
a
bit of an effort sometimes) and why I've been attending meetings like
crazy
since I saw Leeds/Bradford Indymedia was in peril in 2008 [1] (to
over-simplify somewhat).

Following on from that, I'd be interested in coming to one of your
meetings sometime in the next few months, if you can let me know when
they're scheduled. I'm not trying to spead the contagion of the UK
conflict, but I would like to _briefly_ share with you some first hand
information about what we're up to here, what challenges we face, what
successes we've had, and what plans we've got. And I'd be interested to
hear the same from you, to report back to my local IMC.

I'm not going to comment on the remarkable things that have been said here
recently about members of Northern IMC as my assumption is they were
genuinely held opinions, however odd, though I assume you may be
interested
in having the opportunity to hear from, and possibly ask questions of, one
of us first hand.

In the interests of brevity I've left out my bona fides and cv. If it
helps I'm from Aberdeen originally...


In solidarity

protag (one of Northern IMC, in a personal capacity)

*******************************

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Imc-uk-process] IMCistas and ebbing solidarity
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 10:33:10 +0100
From: arclightfire at hushmail.com
To: "UK IMC Process" <imc-uk-process at lists.indymedia.org>

[I'm also CCing this to Communication; Hi Communication, I'm not on 
your list but am a member of Bristol IMC.  I know it needs to be in 
2 languages and I apologise, but I do feel its important.  However 
I understand if not...]

Having had a bit of a read of a number of lists - this one, 
communication, uk-tech, imc-imc, global process - it is clear that 
the dispute here, far from being resolved in those forums, is 
spreading into other areas of Indymedia.  Even if one side finally 
'wins' the dispute, it will now only ever be a Pyrrhic victory.  
The question is now how much damage will be done to Indymedia 
before we arrive at that point, if we ever reach it.

It was a brave and positive thing of both Mish and Nottingham to 
propose a solution and while I did not agree with it all, I was 
minded to support it.  However I realise that sadly I don't think 
it is possible to resolve this situation in any compromise manner 
as situation currently is.  Put simply, we need consensus to 
progress (within our home collectives, within the UK, within 
global, new imc) to achieve anything and consensus is powered by 
trust.  There is almost no trust left.  If you're thinking "yeah 
but, that because of the actions [insert name of other group here]" 
then you are illustrating the point I am about to make.  

There is a theory in psychology called Dissonance Theory and its 
all about how we respond to situations to justify our own actions, 
especially where they are incompatible with how we see ourselves. 
Dissonance Theory predicts that in situations like this the 
factions will become ever more entrenched and as they do so, they 
will seek ever more extreme justifications for their actions.  For 
example; a group of 65 people were asked to write out 2 accounts 
from their past, the first where they were wronged and the second 
where they wronged another.  In the first account the problems were 
almost entirely always put down to the hurtful/conniving 
personality of person who wronged them.  In the second account 
their wrongful actions were never put down to their 
hurtful/conniving personality - instead their actions always 
mitigated by circumstances, justified by past wrongs and the like.  

We all hold a positive self-image of ourselves as IMCistas.  We all 
must do this for higher reasons cos it pays nothing and is hard 
work!  So if we want to say hurtful things, throw around wild 
accusations, act in a manner against the principles of  Indymedia 
(as we see it) - then we need to reconcile those actions with our 
self image as IMCistas.  The easiest way to do this is to blame the 
other party - after all  [insert name of other group here] arn't 
really proper IMCistas and don't really understand what this is all 
about.

So how to we resolve it?  First of all email lists will never 
resolve this.  Great for some organising, but in disputes they 
breed dissonance.  Its easy to write angry things into a faceless 
machine.  Meeting in our respective groups will not resolve this 
because they now also breed dissonance, full as they are of only 
like minds.

I suggest two possible routes (or an amalgam of both)...
1. Some sort of 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' where we 
UKistas all meet and get a space to say how we were wronged.  Get 
it out in the open, but once that day has gone, so too must be the 
past.  We draw a line under all of it.  We agree to no longer refer 
to or hold on to past grudges.  Yes transgressions will go 
unpunished and yes we will not get all of the answers we seek... 
but such things have worked before...
2. Judgement by a 3rd party - mediation has failed to resolve the 
issues. So we could present our positions to a 3rd party who then 
judges on what happens next.  Crucially we all agree to be bound by 
that judgement, even if it is not what we would want.

Yes both of these are flawed proposal, I can see the problems in 
them as I type them.... but please, either propose an improvement 
to this solution or a better one..

*********************************************


[1] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-leeds/2008-May/0527-1l.html



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