Thursday, July 12, 2007

BALKAN INFOTOUR SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2007


The network Peoples' Global Action is a global project inspired by the Zapatista uprising and the new forms of internationalism developed in the 90s. But
what does PGA mean?

From the 23th until the 25th of February 1998, movements from all around the world met in Geneva-Switzerland to discuss the idea of a network of
resistance against the global market and the WTO. PGA is a network based on decentralisation and autonomy, a network without representatives, members or juridical personality.

The network in Europe has already organised 4 meetings. Several hundreds of activists exchanged experiences and prospects, organised campaigns and actions, reclaimed the daily communication via internet and physical meetings. These meetings took place in Milan (Italy) 2001, in Leiden (the Netherlands) 2002, in Belgrade (post Yugoslavia 2004) and in Southern France 2006 (the centralised meeting took place in Dijon).

Many PGA meetings in Europe (3 out of 4) took place in physical autonomous spaces. That was clearly a political choice. For the people and the collectives involved in the PGA in Europe it is vitally important to support autonomous projects, spaces where people try to organise their daily life beyond the capitalistic relations of dominance.


The 5th meeting in Europe:

After a lot of difficulties and problems to find a space and a convenor to moderate the next PGA in Europe conference, activists from the Greek region launched and encourage the idea of a conference in Northern Greece. Choosing this location was the outcome of lengthy discussions which will be included in the presentation text (call out) for the 5th conference.

Not only for the needs of this conference but also for the further networking and coordination of the resistance we are starting a one-month infotour in the balkan region.

Presentation of the Balkan infotour:

Following the Belgrade European conference in 2004 there has been great enthusiasm about the beginning of a balkan network of collectives, grassroots, antiauthoritarian, anticapitalist and other groups or individuals. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm was not fruitful enough perhaps due to the lack of concrete objectives, or even perhaps some participants sensed the traditional "networking for the networking" problem.

The idea of an infotour is not a novelty. Nonetheless, it is the first time activists from a balkan country decided to visit groups and individuals who share resembling ideas and the face similar problems.

We feel necessary to stress the following concepts about the infotour:

a) Not only we begin this journey on the occasion of the European conference, which alone is a perfect opportunity to meet and act in solidarity in the future, but also we aim to discuss, perhaps for the first time, about tools and ideas that can give us ability to border on common grounds.

b) To call anti-authoritarian, autonomous anti-capitalistic and other groups to assist in the shaping and the organisation of the European conference.

c) To discuss and exchange views on the current status in the Balkans, the rise of capitalism and the state violence, especially after the wall has fallen and a series of wars have ravaged this region.

d) Finally, we want to emphasise that our call targets on groups, collectives and individuals who act and think of themselves beyond hierarchical social structures, who struggle against dominance and capitalism without consent.

A few words on the conference topics in Greece:
Although a more detailed subject list will follow in the near future, aiming to analyse issues that will either be discussed in the upcoming conference or have been discussed in previous conferences, we briefly state that we are currently working on the following subjects:
- Digital struggles and tools for an alternative flow of information / indymedia tools - radio projects etc.
- Against biotechnology of dominance and biotechnology corporate lobbies
- Autonomous spaces
- Precarity
- No border
- The Balkans
- The Middle East
- Student Struggles
- Zapatistas and indigenous spaces
- Eco-communities (land and autonomy)
- Antiglobalisation movement (g8, summits etc)
- Repression / control state and Solidarity
- Patriarchy, sexism in the activist scene
- Climate change and environmental topics
- DIY
- Food not bombs

* We consider evident enough the fact that the conference subject list is open to any additions

Working groups we wish to operate in sight of this conference:
- translation
- group for visas
- technical team
- location
- newsletter
- presentation and networking

Proposal for the discussion on the course and process of the network
*infopoint network
*global conference
*future campaigns
*future of pga
*tools of the network
*next european conference

Infotour stops:
- Istanbul
- Sofia
- Romania
- Ljubljana
- Budapest
- Zagreb

contact:infotour_ at no-log.org

berlin-infopoint.blogspot.com
hamburg-infopoint.blogspot.com