Beyond ESF: 5 Days & Nights of Anti-Authoritarian ideas and action

This event will be self-organised and we invite people to get involved in the process of organising this event. Our meetings are every Tuesday at 7.30pm at:

London Action Resource Centre (LARC)
62 Fieldgate Street
Whitechapel, London E1
(opposite derelict building)
For directions see www.streetmaps.co.uk

For information on all the other autonomous spaces, see http://www.altspaces.net/

ESF

The 3rd European Social Forum takes place in London from 14-17 October 2004. Following on from the previous social forums in Florence and Paris, it will attract tens of thousands of activists from diverse backgrounds under the banner of "Another World is Possible". Though it may be seen as a positive step by some of what has been termed by the media as ’the anti-globalisation movement’, in reality the ESF functions as a place where political parties and social democrats co-opt and dominate the new movement against capital for their own purposes.
  [ Read the full WOMBLES critique ] of the European Social Forum

During the past decades, struggles involving millions of people against the regime of capitalism and the state, have shown a rejection of the old leftist aspirations of seizing the state power, and continue to go beyond the limits of those struggles by questioning the very existence of the state and hierarchically organised power. WOMBLES, an anti-authoritarian social struggle initiative, was formed from the inspiration of this movement and continues, with projects like the Occupied Social Centre, to create similar movements here in the UK.

Therefore during the ESF, we will not participate in this act of co-option that has been sponsored by government institutions (the Mayor of London), and political parties. We do however, want to continue the radicalisation that we have seen during the recent mobilisations against the World Trade Organisation, G8, IMF and World Bank summits and call for participation in BEYOND ESF - a self-organised, anti-authoritarian event which will run through out the ESF days. We are also working with other initiatives as part of the ’Autonomous Spaces During the ESF’ to create visibility of other autonomous events. Beyond ESF

Beyond ESF will be part conference, part direct action, part celebration of cultures of resistance - an opportunity to create an alternative; a social movement with infinite imagination and creativity against the apathy of capitalist culture. We are for a new life, a new world, created from the decaying shell of the old.

All this will be happening in a self-organised space, a space where local residents, as well as thousands of people from around Europe will be able to interact, to learn and to experiment with new ways of exploring our future together. It will also be an opportunity to gather the forces of the movement, and create collective strategies,bigger than any organisation or structure. We invite all of those who work non-hierarchically to participate in these events, to propose workshops, strategy discussions and direct actions.