Minutes of North East Irish Social Forum Meeting + IAWM Call Public Meeting

July 22 2003

Below are the minutes from the last North East Irish Social Forum Meeting held in Belfast on July 22. The next meeting will take place on Tuesday August 12th at 7pm in the One World Centre.

NE Irish Social Forum Meeting

MINUTES - July 22, 2003

Present:
Desmond Donnelly, Aine Fox – BAWN, Michael Mahadeo – OWC, Emily Kawano (note-taker) – IPE, Dan Buckley – GR, Krista Holtz – GR, Sean Obaoill – Joint Ventures, Nathalie Caleyron – MCRC, Dessie Donnelly – Unison, Alistair Mullan – Tools for Solidarity, Giros, Frances Dowds – NI Anti-Poverty Network, Sean L’Estrange, Umberto Sava, Paolo Sannino, Lorenzo Bosi, Gerry Ruddy – IRSP

A. Updates
As most people have already heard, the WEF has been cancelled for October. Reason given was that not all the documents would be ready by October, but it’s likely that it was cancelled because they got wind of plans to protest the meeting.
The ISF decided to proceed with the October counter forum and the carnival anyway.

B. Working Group updates
Outreach – Detailed minutes have been circulated, but here are some highlights.
Two people attended. Discussed targeting specific groups, building links with other campaigns, developing an introductory pack which might include the audio CD from Dublin ISF, see if there’s a video on WSF or ESF, find out more about the Agenda for the Sept. WTO meeting. Also talked about showcasing a particular campaign – maybe the water tax. Have speakers for the next ISF.

October Working Group – Minutes have been circulated. Around 6 people attended. Some of the issues that this working group was to deal with have become irrelevant due to the cancellation of the WEF. Discussed transport and the possibility of booking a train, trying to find a video on other blockages, protests, etc., speakers such as Naomi Klein, John Pilger for a Belfast event.

Finance – Nothing really to report. Haven’t opened an account at Co-operative Bank yet.

Communications – Nothing to report – have just been sending emails around.

Hosting the next ISF meeting in Belfast – there was no word on whether any meeting or planning on this had gone on.

C. What next?
Having finished with the items on the agenda, we faced a choice of trying to get into the Guinness World Book of Records for the quickest meeting ever, or taking advantage of the fertile minds present to hash out some further plans. We went with the latter choice, beginning with a discussion of Outreach.

Dessie identified the three most important tasks as 1) who should we reach out to 2) how to reach out – what issues should we use 3) need to develop a basic education packet on ISF, neoliberalism, WEF, etc.

What followed was a rollicking and somewhat meandering discussion, the gist of which I hope I have captured.

1) Who – we started to brainstorm a list of groups that we should be in touch with. In the end we dispensed with this exercise because we decided that we could pretty much cover all the sectors through our own lists plus NICVA which has a mailing list (Dessie will try to get a copy), a newsletter and website.

2) How/what issues – there was general agreement that we need to start with local issues such as the water tax, privatisation, the coca-cola boycott and put on some event that links these issues to a critique of the larger framework of neo-liberalism.
Michael Moore will be at the W. Belfast Festival and the question arose as to whether he might have some rousing words on the topic of neoliberalism – maybe squeeze in an extra talk? Aine will talk to organisers of the Festival and see, but it’s a long shot.
We decided that it would be ideal if the next island wide ISF meeting were to take place in Belfast, probably in Sept. Maybe it could be combined with some action/campaign/protest that is already in the pipeline.

3) Introductory educational pack
We agreed that we needed an introductory pack that would explain neoliberalism and what is the WSF and the ISF. We also need a translation of the Charter of Principles into accessible language, free of funny typos and strange translation (such as references to Humanking). Emily agreed to take a crack at this.
We brainstormed a list of topics that are more specific and (mostly) more localised that would serve as a hook to draw people/groups in – both just to become active on the issue, as well as making the link to the larger framework of neoliberalism. The idea is to develop a one pager on the topic and how it links up with neoliberalism. In some cases these analyses already exist.
Topics included:
• water tax - Frances
• Trade unions and neoliberalism – Dessie
• textile industry/job losses
• privatisation
• sweatshop labour
• Iraq war/occupation – Dan
• poverty & the growing divide between haves & have-nots
• undocumented migrant workers
• 3rd World Debt
• Coca-cola
• TNCs in NI
• Arms trade (specifically in Bulgaria)
• Environmental destruction
• Health
• education/higher education
• AIDs

4) Those existential questions: What’s the point? What are the tangible, concrete results of the WSF, ISF? Who are we?
These questions and answers to them wove in and out of the discussion. Sometimes it seemed like we had clarity and the next moment it seemed like we had an identity crisis. Here is a summary of comments:
• It’s ok if we’re not entirely clear what the NE ISF is, or is going to do. This is only our second working meeting and also the nature of the social fora is that they develop organically and sometimes messily. It’s not as if we are answerable to funders and have to identify our activities, goals, results etc.
• The social forum process is about education/raising awareness about the system of neoliberalism. In using this framework, it brings together a multitude of issues. Instead of a bunch of single issue groups all vying with each other for resources and attention, the social forum holds open the possibility of uniting against the common root causes of these problems. We should see the educational work as enlisting people in a battle – which is no small thing, and which has concrete aims.
• We certainly hope that there will be tangible concrete results, such as stopping the water tax, that come out of our efforts to raise public awareness and mobilisation.
• The social forum process seeks to provide an open space for discussion, debate, and exchange; it serves as a clearinghouse to disseminate information about issues, campaigns, actions, etc.
• The social forum process seeks to unify as broad a base as possible, to avoid domination by one sector, or group.
• The NE ISF is a localised version of the WSF. As such we reflect the aims and principles of the WSF as laid out in the Charter of Principles, which we have agreed to support and stand by.

5) Finances - After passing the hat at this meeting, the NE ISF now has a grand total of £80.95.

6) Agenda – a question was raised about the process of generating and sticking by an agreed agenda. Our process as it stands is: send out agenda by email in advance of meeting. Anyone with additions, amendments can email them in. Changes will be made. Agenda will be shared at beginning of meetings and amendments can be made at this point as well.
We agreed on a few agenda items for the next meeting: Brief (5 minute) presentations on: the Water tax – Frances and on the Coca cola boycott – Aine.


Next meeting: Tuesday, August 12, One World Centre, 7:00-9:00