Penny for the Guy Ropes

Thanks schnews, arbitrar, judge and jury. Defenders of true horizontal organising, and anarchist principles!

Grateful to Schnews for highlighting this stitch up. As a person who has given blood for the Climate camp over the years, I am feeling utterly betrayed. While this clique of over educated twits were cutting fine figures at camp meetings and in front of the media, so many other people were running kitchens, sorting out toilets, caring for the kids, cleaning up the camp .... We do it because we believe that climate chaos is the greatest threat our species faces. There has always been a problem at the camp and national gathering, with the agenda being directed by some ruling cabal and its been getting worse of late. Seems they are now fed up themselves, but instead of just leaving, they feel they have a right to pull the house down after them and appropriate any remaining resources, human and material for new campaigns that have taken their fancy.

Not too late to reclaim our camp from the death grip of these individuals. Overthrow these Climate camp Gaddafis. Rigor Mortis has not yet set in. Opposing climate change is more important than fighting irregularities in the tax system.

Just use all the networks and means available to you to communicate a new gathering and start making plans. Now that Climate Camp has been "dissolved" there is room for a new organisation called "Climate Camp", which can do what it sees fit...including organising and acting in exactly the same way as the "dissolved" Climate Camp organisation.

It's unfortunate that all the materials have been misappropriated, but that doesn't mean that you can't all reorganise and rebuild. Personally I'd suggest that you...

Its utterly hectic at the moment, with people gearing up for March 26th. We need to find a time and place slot ASAP after that to reclaim our Climate camp.

There are some factual inaccuaracies in the piece, and some missing info.

First, "When they arrived, they were faced with an agenda that was geared towards the dissolution of the collective." There was no agenda set before the meeting, the agenda was set at the meeting by all those present. This is a straightforward lie as the premise of the article.

Second, after four days of discussion, and before any formal decision on holding a camp in 2011 was made there were 5 people of the 80 who wanted to do a national climate camp in 2011.

Third, "The 'retreat' was limited to 80 people - half the normal number of individuals at national gatherings - with places allocated on a first-come, first-served basis." The size was limited by getting an affordable venue for a week. It in incorrect to state that 160 people go to most 2-day gatherings, they have been between a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 150 people attending two-day over the past 5 yrs. About 70 people attended the last national gathering in November 2010. The venue and hence its size was decided by an open working group.

Fourth, "On the first day the proposal to dissolve the shared national identity of Climate Camp reached an impasse with 6 blocks to the decision." There was no agenda on the first day, so there was no proposal. This is untrue. I think the article is referring to the fifth day of discussions, and the proposal was not to organise national gathering as Climate Camp in 2011. That is 5 days of discussion.

Fifth, "The [Metamorphosis] statement was not agreed collectively, but written afterwards by one of the group who had proposed the disbanding of the network." This statement was written by an open working group that anyone at space for change could have joined. The key points were agreed in plenary, and statement sent to the Climate Camp media team (as mandated by the gathering) for further input.

Schnews should have talked to a few people, not just one!

Lastly, on a person note, I didn't agree with stopping organising as climate camp in 2011, but there was a fundamental breakdown of vision within the group. Very crudely there were four main 'blocs' that came ready-formed before Space for Change. (1) dissolvers, (2) evolvers, ie no camp, perhaps new name, perhaps new organising structures to make decisions faster, by far the biggest group (the clue is in the name of the gathering), (3) campers, ie they loved the camps and wanted to carry them on, they resisted all other visions that didn't involve camping, (4) bloomers, ie those people who wanted to let a thousand ideas bloom and wanted no structure to the group except what may form organically.

The battle was between dissolvers and evolvers versus bloomers on even having an agenda (as this was too much structure). We spent the first day and a half only talking of this. The bloomers (with their obsession of structurelesssness) and the campers, unable to see that tactics need to change, IMO pushed the evolvers (by far the largest grouping) to become dissolvers over the week. Hence all but one person agreed that stopping organising national gatherings in 2011 was a sensible idea, despite that being a minority viewpoint before space for change. I didn't go to stop organising as climate camp, but I agreed with the decision. I don't feel I've been hijacked!

..as always, a great article.

It's totally inaccurate and biased. How did this get printed?

Surely the people at Schnews should have put something from the Climate Camp statement in the article.

The opening line:

"In 2011 the climate science is as strong as ever – and the need for action on climate change never greater – but the political landscape is radically different. As a movement, to be relevant, we need to move with the times."

Later:

"This is no retreat from organised large-scale action on climate change, rather a freeing of our energy to organise much more effectively all year round."

Penultimate line:

"Yes, Climate Camp leaves a space. What fills that space is up to us. This is a unique opportunity to work together with others to create a more co-ordinated, dynamic and stronger movement against climate change and its root causes."

This isn't some retreat from action on climate, but is a recognition that politically now is different, and the tactic of camping was becoming tired. Hardly controversial points.

For those of us who have experienced the way some groups in the climate camp have been operating recently, the Schnews article is entirely believable.

I distinctly remember when SchNews was set up, how well it showed up the corporate press for their lazy biased journalism. You've fallen a long way. Its this kind of 'facts to fit the ideology' aggressively macho ego-driven bullshit that has made progress under non-hierachical consensus processes so damn hard. Its this kind of 'privileged observer-status commentariat' condemnation that has run hard-working activists into the ground. I am offended on behalf of the 80 people who gave up so much time to try and figure this out that you would reflect their consensus decision as driven by a small bunch of knackered old timers. Its just not true.

As one of 79 individuals that attended Space for Change to whom you did not speak, I second the earlier statement about how totally inaccurate your article is.

More importantly though is the issue of Climate Camp continuing. As the statement says, no one 'owns' Climate Camp and no one is obstructing people taking up the baton. Its simply that throughout the last months its become crystal clear that there aren't the people who want to do that.

At Space for Change, no one in that room wanted to take on Climate Camp and make it happen again. Over the 4 days of discussions I attended, of all the people that thought Camp should continue - which began as a minority and decreased throughout the week as this fact dawned on them - not one person proposed that a group should continue the Climate Camp process elsewhere. The people that had time to commit to activism did not want to commit it to Climate Camp, not even those that wanted Climate Camp to keep happening. I really hope there are enough people out there who do want to continue it, I will definitely attend. But I, nor the other 79 people in the room want to, and as Space for Change was mandated by the Gathering to make such a decision, the only reasonable decision to make was to put it into hibernation FOR THIS YEAR. This gives people a whole year to go and find enough people to do the work. And if that happens, I don't doubt that all those who did the work last year will skillshare to the best of their abilities, as has happened every year.

Lastly, the fact that we don't want to do another Camp under the Climate Camp banner is a reflection of how the people in the room felt about the tactic of yearly Camps, not how we feel about the issue of climate change - as again is clear from the statement. It is again an inaccuracy to say that we are moving on to other issues of 'austerity' etc. A spectrum line during the week showed the majority thought climate change was still the most urgent issue for them, but it also reflected their view - which has always been there despite what's been said by the activist commentariat - that the struggle on climate change is an anti-capitalist struggle, and integral to the wider socio-economic struggles that anti-capitalists face. When the Camp started, the tensions between capitalism and people in the UK were not nearly so exposed as they are today. Today Campers have opportunities to challenge the system alongside many who, in 2006, were not worried about how it was threatening them. When the state and capitalism is attacking everything at once, the response has to be a co-ordinated one. This is why no one at Space for Change wanted to put work in under a model which inhibits that happening.

With groups like SchNews misrepresenting us as hostile factions with our own alienated agendas, it makes that co-ordinated response very hard to build.

Perhaps the main point is in the CCA statement text where it says:

"For local groups using the Climate Camp name, these decisions are not intended to direct them, as they have always been autonomous."

The other point would be SchNews writing about the inner wranglings of a campaign and direct action group with some views from a week long event as if it is the only truth. The "inside view scoop" if you like. Except it isn't, it's the view of some of the people there, and not the whole truth at all.

Don't get me wrong, people should always be free to write about their views, but when an alterrnative media project like SchNews starts laying down "the truth" about internal disagreements within campaigns it makes me very uncomfortable. I've been losing some respect for SchNews for a while, and I really don't think it's the role they should be playing.

For that matter I find it quite horrible that this article is a feature here on Indymedia.

Again don't get me wrong, I've been a critic of various aspects of the CCA development since Drax, but I don't think this approach to 'movement journalism' is helpful at all.

It's interesting, Laurie Penny who writes for the Guardian and New Statesman has recently come in for a lot of flac from london students and others for her articles, and some people aren't comfortable with her attending meetings as a participant as she's a journo and wannabe careerist. With SchNews taking a new interest in the internal activist arguments I'm wondering just what the agenda is. SchNews was always a trusted source of valuable information; taking sides within movement related debate and development takes it into new territory, and very much as an actor and less of a trusted reporter.

much as I like Schnews, this has the strong whiff of a very one sided cherry picked piece of misinformation.

What an unbelievable inaccurate and bizarre piece, obviously from someone who didn't get the decision they wanted (which was apparently to hold more camps). Why on earth has indymedia and schnews published this garbage, especially without asking anyone else who was at the meeting. This is worse than the usual Daily Mail crap, filled with utter lies and garbage.

Actualy, now I think about it, having this article on the frontpage on Indymedia UK is a terrible idea.

I've held Schnews in really high regard over the years. It is amazing that it's survived for so long, and while doing so it has remained pretty magnanimous and retained a sense of humor. There have always been problems with its cliquey in-joke style but given the dourness of much movement literature this was forgivable.

This article, however, is something else - since when has Schnews been so sectarian? This reads like the sort of backstabbing, nasty, dismissive comment that has made Indymedia UK such an unpleasant and disruptive space.

I wasn’t at the gathering so I can’t talk to much of what smells of dishonesty in the article, but for me the most important misrepresentation is the pretence that the world hasn’t fundamentally changed since 2005. The economic crisis, the student movement, Egypt, Wisconsin, etc, etc. To pretend otherwise by talking about the occupation of Iraq, etc is just deliberate misdirection, sorry it just isn’t a credible statement, you are writing in bad faith.

Recognising that what we are doing is no longer working can be a difficult process, all organizations have a built in tendency towards inertia, but every now something happens that is a symptom of failure that even the most stubborn can recognize. I’m sorry to say that this article, as the main article in Schnews is the symptom that the whole Schnews project needs a fundamental rethink.

to focus upon a phrase just used by A camper, alienated agendas is correct. The politics of environmentalism is indeed alienating when there is absolutely no class analysis at the heart of it. I'm not going repeat what others have said on the questionable politics of the climate camp pretty much from it's inception (issue based campaigns will only take you to the conclusion of the campaigning point you are making).

Reclaim The Streets started to make the links between working class resistance against capitalist exploitation (the dockers strike) and the environmental crisis being a direct result of the exploitative short-termism of capitalist advance. The antiglobalisation movement which sweep across the world from the mid to late 90s into the early noughties was both a impressive wave of alternative ideas and a confused rabble at times, unsurprising (it was never gonna be anything else but) since it's broad church of participants represented a range of different opinion from anarchists, solidarity groups, peace activists to those who maintained one foot in the system such as NGOs and pro-free market libertarians against excessive corporate and financial market power.

As the cuts agenda begins to bite, it is crystal clear where the battle lines are marked out - and they are where they've always been. In a field where the rules are set by global capital, the differential of power relations becames ever more stark - when parasitic economic relations between the rich and the rest are maintained to ensure the rich have their absolute share of wealth preserved (via a bailout through public money honoured as a result of it being a fait-accomplie) and with those on the margins left exposed to ever more increasing levels of precarity (debt, homelessness, workfare, general impoverishment), those battlelines are now finally in sight to the formerly materially-appeased middle classes whose material entitlement and standard of living is at risk. And whilst these various segments of society are about as common an alliance as a one-night stand with someone from the other side of the tracks, finally the common enermy is atleast more recognisable to more people.

That's not enough obviously, and the public remain both either largely hoodwinked by a largely-sycophantic, compliant mass media or compliant under duress on account of debt slavery. Still, as the pips squeek and public services get broken up to be carved up by multinationals, just perhaps a day of non-compliance is coming when we all shout a collective "NO MORE!"

If not, the ostrichs will continue to hide their heads in the sand until the tide come in and drowns them (peak oil followed by outright blatant state authoritarianism hand in hand (& in glove) with corporate dictatorship).

So, just maybe, the first stop on the quest for world revolution here in the UK - The Boycott Rupert Murdoch campaign. Reclaim the media - that and protecting our public services - foremost (in the firing line right now), the NHS & Royal Mail

Schnews,

I'm pretty shocked at this biased reporting and would like to ask Schnews if any other DA focused, grass roots (which like it or not, IS what the climate camp is) network/campaign/group had made a similiarly significant announcement, you would have reported it using only one source ?

I think not ! Usually you have higher journalistic standards, yet this article reveals your prejudicial tendencies and, lets face it, the desire to stick the boot in to the climate camp one last time.

How you can describe the camp as something that, "has done so much for environmental activism over the last 5 years", yet pour wholly inaccurate bile on the 70+ people and painstaking, sensitive, week long, process that resulted in a difficult yet clear consensus decision to - (and lets be clear about the extent of the decision) - " not organise a camp or as the CFCA in 2011", is a bizarre contradiction. Surely if you value the efforts of the CFCA in the last 5 years, you would want to fairly report a key decision like this ?

That a supposed activist resource cannot bring itself to get an wholistic picture of a significant activist event, is truly a surprise. That a publication aiming to support and share information about grass roots movements, can so eagerly write an article, that undermines and utterly misrepresents the facts, is deeply irresponsible.

You hold great power within the activist world, to perpetuate lies and the disgruntled opinions of tiny minority, without checking in with anyone that holds another perspective, ( ie. anyone else in the convergence - remember approx 70 people took the decision, there was 1 block - time to leave the group ? and 4 stand asides, that meant 65 people agreed !! ), is baised and dangerous. Destructive, even.

I agree with previous comments that this is Tabloid mud slinging of the highest order, but it's far worse as you are supposed to be our comrades !

I appeal to Schnews to write another article that more accurately reflects the events of that week and to apolgise for it's shoddy journalism.

I was not at 'Space for Change' but think this is an awful article! I cannot believe SchNEWS have published it!

One of the comments above gives what I think it probably a far more insightful account of problems not just incurred at this meeting, but organising in certain scenes generally:

"The battle was between dissolvers and evolvers versus bloomers on even having an agenda (as this was too much structure). We spent the first day and a half only talking of this. The bloomers (with their obsession of structurelesssness) and the campers, unable to see that tactics need to change, IMO pushed the evolvers (by far the largest grouping) to become dissolvers over the week. "

This obsession with 'structurelessness' and 'spontaneity' is far more interesting to explore and analyse the effects of than this nonsense SchnEWS have printed!

To everyone angry that SchNEWS published this piece - please get a grip. This is the nature of radical, open media channels and if you don't respect the opinions voiced in the article then why not submit your own piece that clears up some of the confusion.

If you think that not enough was done on the part of SchNEWS to consult those who made the decision to disband the camp, then maybe you ought to consider that not enough was done on the part of Space for Change attendees to consult non-attendees on the decision to entirely disband climate camp...

I have to say, as somebody who has been to four of the five climate camps over the years, that I was quite gobsmacked to hear of the decision. I'm not hung up on the idea of organising a camp this year either and currently am not involved in a local group as there isn't one in my area and because I live so remotely I don't think there's any point in me setting one up. Personally, I could not afford to attend the Space for Change gathering - it wasn't just the fee for the venue but also the travel costs and the fact that it lasted a week. For most low-paid working people this is not an option. Fair enough, gatherings are never completely free and people could have just turned up for a few days at the weekend but I think the point that's being made above is that, while there may not have been an agenda set before the gathering, the agenda was certainly worked out by the weekend of that week so if I'd turned up then I doubt I would have been able to radically change it, especially given that the group were happy to go ahead with the decision despite a block and several stand-asides.

In any case I strongly feel that the decision to disband the group should NOT have been made that week. If a proposal developed during the week to disband the camp then it should have been advertised through all the available climate camp channels, and, given the severity of its implications, taken to a future meeting for all interested in taking part in the decision to do so. As the article above says, to wake up one morning and find some poncy statement in my inbox about the dissolution of climate camp seemed at first like a bit of an april fools joke, and then just left me feeling really angry when I realised this was the outcome of the Space for Change gathering.

Yes the local groups that already exist will keep organising at a local level and I've heard of several cases where this has been going extremely well, but for many people this is not an option because they're not based around cities such as Brighton or Leeds or London. Oddly enough though, from what I've heard the decision was put forward by those who live in cities or regions with strong local climate camp groups. Ever thought that this is not the case for everyone? For me personally, the national camp mailing list and the mass action callouts that happened at least once a year were the only viable avenue. I thought it was a valuable network and I think it's a great shame that so little was done to involve other climate campers who couldn't attend SfC in the decision...

I’ve read Schnews for many, many years and always look forward to it arriving into my inbox every Friday. But, what a truly terrible article this is! Whoever wrote it and/or OK’d it should be ashamed to have let it run with so many inaccuracies and such obvious bias. It really is shocking. And it’s a pity, since in places the article does raise some good points. Those points however are completely overshadowed by the one sided write-up. Why not talk to a few other people at the event? Was this Schnews laziness or was it that other voices didn’t sing the same song? It’s as if Schnews, in pure tabloid fashion, wanted to get the most sensationalist story no matter what the cost. Maybe naively, I didn’t think Schnews would act as one person’s mouth piece. Divisive articles of this nature do not help us build movements, and as we know that’s no easy task. I’m very surprised and so disappointed that Schnews played it in this way. Sorry guys but you’ve lost my respect there. If I were you I would apologise to your readers.

Schnews,

I'm pretty shocked at this biased reporting and would like to ask Schnews if any other DA focused, grass roots (which like it or not, IS what the climate camp is) network/campaign/group had made a similiarly significant announcement, you would have reported it using only one source ?

I think not ! Usually you have higher journalistic standards, yet this article reveals your prejudicial tendencies and, lets face it, the desire to stick the boot in to the climate camp one last time.

How you can describe the camp as something that, "has done so much for environmental activism over the last 5 years", yet pour wholly inaccurate bile on the 70+ people and painstaking, sensitive, week long, process that resulted in a difficult yet clear consensus decision to - (and lets be clear about the extent of the decision) - " not organise a camp or as the CFCA in 2011", is a bizarre contradiction. Surely if you value the efforts of the CFCA in the last 5 years, you would want to fairly report a key decision like this ?

That a supposed activist resource cannot bring itself to get an wholistic picture of a significant activist event, is truly a surprise. That a publication aiming to support and share information about grass roots movements, can so eagerly write an article, that undermines and utterly misrepresents the facts, is deeply irresponsible.

You hold great power within the activist world, to perpetuate lies and the disgruntled opinions of tiny minority, without checking in with anyone that holds another perspective, ( ie. anyone else in the convergence - remember approx 70 people took the decision, there was 1 block - time to leave the group ? and 4 stand asides, that meant 65 people agreed !! ), is baised and dangerous. Destructive, even.

I agree with previous comments that this is Tabloid mud slinging of the highest order, but it's far worse as you are supposed to be our comrades !

I appeal to Schnews to write another article that more accurately reflects the events of that week and to apolgise for it's shoddy journalism.

Solidarity , no thanks.

Tabloid journalism is the art of writing hate as entertainmment. Schnews has given a fine example in its article on climate camp. Typically for a tabloid , they didnt let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Sorry, maybe thats unfair. Maybe schnews thinks its funny to sabotage social movements and people who are actually campaigning against capitalism and its iniquites. – maybe, but im not laughing.


At a general level, making criticisms like these, about unseen hierarchies and 'hijacked gatherings' , is deeply damaging. Together with a responsibility to analyse and hear diverse opinions there is surely also a responsibility to criticise constructively. If you have a problem with how an organisation does things, then take it up with them,.Talk to the people involved. The fact that hardly anyone wants to actually organise an event as big as the camp might have something to do with the fact that whoever does it, knows they will come in for a huge amount of flack. We have created an atmosphere of failure rather than excitement. . We need to be encouraging each other to do better, not belittling what we attempt to do.
One of the key reasons so many people are happy to move on from the camp tactic for now is that there has been a major loss of trust within the organising process. A group organising without hierarchy needs trust in order to function, but anonymous criticisms over the last couple of years and confusion over what those critics would actually propose to do instead , has led to a breakdown of process. And not because of the cops or fear of the state, but because of our own side! Is that what you want? Whose agenda is that suiting?

Some of the factual errors in the article have been pointed out elsewhere, but lets be clear about the organising process for this event. The normal C.C gathering agreed the event. The organising collective was open for anyone to join in with. That group couldnt talk about proposing an agenda for fear of being accussed of trying to skew the process, which meant there was some confusion on arrival in what people were hoping for the week. At the beginning of the week some wanted to move on from the camp tactic and name, and some didnt, many werent sure. Over the course of the 40 hour meeting, that became a very strong majority in favour of moving on to something different, for this year. That is democracy in action, not a stitch up.
The attack on the facilitators is outrageous. Due to the lack of pre planning, the facilitating team were only able to plan each session in the hour before the session started, so they had 2 extra hours of meetings and that extra pressure, every day.! Repeated calls were made for people to join the group both before and during the gathering. In addition, views about future sessions were sought from others' during mealtimes etc. Again it is surely not coincidence that facilitators get flack , and that not many people want to do it. Given that, the majority of the faciliation group were people who have joined the camp process in the last couple of years. There is no clique running it, and in fact its been remarkably successful at renewing itself. Saying otherwise is destroying our organising capacity!
All meetings were open and publicised, the debates were exhaustive and detailed. If the decision is not to your liking then argue against it, or set up a new group. Dont berate the process.
Remember that of the people who organised the 2010 RBS camp exactly none of them were involved in the Drax 2006 camp. We have actually been pretty good at skill sharing.

And then schnews has the cheek to make an aside about 'anarchist principles'. C.C has almost certainly done more to introduce new people to the reality of anarchist organising in a national process than any other group in the last few years. But if anarchism is to flourish it cannot be a dogma. Lots of us who have been involved in the process feel there are some real issues to resolve and that there is room to improve. That is not a 'kick in the teeth' to anyone, that is facing up to the fact that capitalism is still transcendant, while anarchism is tiny !
And schnews would seem to suggest that the meeting did not have the authority to make whatever decisions it wanted. By what anarchist authority does schnews presume to know better than the people who were there? How does that fit into autonomous organising?

Further, there seems to be some misunderstanding of the role of blocks in a consensus process. In fact the session that was looking at proposals at the end spent some time clarifying what our consensus process was, to avoid just this type of shortsightedness. A single block cannot be an act which just stops the desires and decision of 79 other people. We agreed that a block says that the person is so against the decision that they cannot be part of the group that takes it. And then the group reconsiders. After hearing the reasons for the block, the meeting was asked for their active consensus and a very clear majority assented, just about everybody as far as I could see. If some people leave after a difficult decision like that, that is fine, that is real democracy working. It is true that the actof 'blocking' needs a different name!
Noone has worked out the perfect organising model here, we are developing it as we go. So work with us, not against us. Or find another group that works better for you.

There are real issues to discuss , around how we organise, and power, and accountability. But again, it needs trust to have that discussion in good faith. If there is only sniping and vitriol, how can we really learn from each other? How can we hear each other if there is only shouting? And why should people have to work with others who seem to have a different agenda, just because they turn up to the meeting? How can one organise effectively if people are in the same meeting for different reasons? That is why it was time for C.C to move on. In future I want to be part of a group that tries to resolve its differences face to face, not via internet accusations.

Schnews claims some wanted to kill C.C. In fact the national process of C.C was virtually dead before we got to space for change. Ironically , it had been fatally wounded by the exact type and tone of criticisms schnews are voicing. Very few people who were doing the daily work of keeping things together, wanted to continue. Plus, the political context seems to demand a step forward, not a repeat of the last few years.
There is another, even larger irony. The people who want the C.C process to renew itself, who are accused of hijacking it, are actually trying to allow new space for new activites,people and forms of organising to develop, as the 'Metamorphosis' statement makes clear.
No doubt if we had decided to continue there would be plenty of vitriol flying round the internet claiming the old guard were addicted to their old tired tactics and couldnt they let new forms develop. In fact , sadly it is the schnews article that is the “direct attack on the autonomous grassroots collective”, and their sentence at the end : ” It shows a lack of flexibility, a willingness to allow active participation of new individuals, and an inability to allow dynamic change “ is exactly the problem with climate camp as it is, and the reason it has to change.


Remember that it is a classic state manoeuvre to sow distrust and fear in a group, because that is such an effective way of destroying movements. Instead, lets stay focused on the goal. Whatever schnews' motives, we should remember the principles of solidarity, mutual aid and support, creativity and integrity. That is the world we are trying to create, so that is the way we should behave. Those who want to spend their time campaigning on climate change and working against capitalism should get on with that, and leave the name calling to the journalists and the politicians.

Schnews used to be a brilliant part of a new social justice and environmental activism. It seems to me that either schnews is humble enough to offer some sort of apology for its unrepresentative bias in this article, its lies/inaccuracies, and its nasty tone, or it is simply no longer part of that movement but a feeder upon it. That is the nature of the old anarchist principle, solidarity.

Time for a schews response? How did they publish something thats so flawed factually that it was taken off the central thread on Indymedia?

Why take sides in a movement debate?

Is an apology in order?

Interesting article, and despite the fact I wasn't there (along with the majority of the other commenteers) and haven't yet talked much to people who were, I can tell you that it's at least partly bollocks! And bollocks with some kind of agenda - after Schnews getting it wrong on IMC and IP logging, is this a new trend?!

And why can I tell it's bollocks?

I went to the last climate camp gathering, and how Space for Change was being talked about there by all was not about planning this year's climate camp, but about re-imagining, changing, asking the hard questions of what's been good and what hasn't, and NOT just getting into organising another camp. Schnews can't have been in attendance or read the minutes, unless they're just into feeding conspiracies.

Anarchist principles do NOT mean that anyone can come along at any point in any process and block the process, sabotaging any resolution in any direction. I don't of course know that's that what happened here, but for Schnews to imply that if you don't leave every decision open to re-decision, if you don't leave every process open to anyone (infiltrator or right-on person) to block, you're not anarchist, is just BOLLOCKS. It's supporting the individualist idea of anarchy, that I can do what I want so fuck you, rather than the collective or community approach, of freedom with respect. Respect goes many directions, and that includes that if a load of people had been working on something for a long time, that I don't have the right to come along at the 11th hour and say I think the opposite and will block you moving forwards.

80 is not half the usual number at gatherings. You're just making it clear you've never been to one. So why did you go to Space for Change? To prove conclusions you already had and then write about them in the media?

Anti-block?! For fuck's sake, maybe you've never experienced consensus either! The definition you give for this is exactly what a block means. So how can you talk about conventions of consensus!

Your conclusions about lack of skill-sharing and trust are also not based on the reality of involvement. The allegation that most people involved are Oxbridge graduates is also bullshit of your own creation. And you've clearly relied on rubbish sources - the national process not encouraging localism, err, so what were the regional climate camp gatherings and the space left for those to happen and go the way they wanted?! What were the neighbourhoods and autonomous local groups about?! In fact, the more of the article I read, the more similar to mainstream parasite journo hacks you become!!

By saying it's a comfy bandwagon (for people of certain classes - I spit on them from below!?!), you are yourselves ignoring and erasing the efforts and involvement of everyone else. Thanks and fuck you too!

The reports I heard back from people who went to the Edinburgh camp paint a completely different picture to yours. Of course people have different experiences of the same event, all fine and good, but you seem to be re-writing history and feeding and creating discord for your own purposes.

To say that the Camp for Climate Action statement mean that people in local groups and other countries will feel kicked in the teeth is in fact completely not understanding, even undermining the whole autonomous nature of those groups and climate camps in different countries - that is YOU, SCHNEWS, who are doing that. That's not fucking anarchist! How come you get to be the arbiter of anarchism when throughout your article you make it clear that YOU DON'T HAVE A FUCKING CLUE ABOUT ANARCHISM!!

I've had a great deal of respect for Schnews in the past, and many readers here are reading your article through those eyes of trust. Pity you're pissing it away.

Schnews: This article has evidently caused a healthy amount of debate around the issues involved in decision making in autonomous organisations.

Schite: No, the article has caused a healthy amount of debate about the ethics and motivation for publishing a crap, error-riddled and biased article.

Schnews: The people that SchNEWS spoke to (and it was more than one!) had very strong opinions on how the weekend had been orchestrated, and were very much of the opinion that the move to shut down climate camp's national action was premeditated and not allowed to be discussed in an objective manner throughout the five days. It's also worth noting that all articles written by SchNEWS are group edited and collaborated on, so this piece is the product of several people's reactions to the announcement, and to Climate Camp's 'Metamorphosis Statement'.

Schite: ‘orchestrated’ was it! People weren’t ‘allowed’ to speak! How objective of you. Read the minutes of the Manchester 2010 climate camp gathering. They’re on the climate camp website. It was already proposed to stop climate camp for a while. A minority position, but still a proposal. It was partly the motivation behind doing ‘Space for Change’, to sort out why people thought that, whether we should carry on. The clue was in the title of the event and its unusual duration. And what do you think 80 people talked about for 6 days, if it wasn’t those decisions?

Schnews: There are a few points which underpinned SchNEWS’ take on this event. Firstly, claiming that the world is a very different place from 2005 is not true, and giving that as the reason for disbanding the national actions of climate camp whiffs of a cover up.

Schite: Are Schews sooo insulated from the real world that they didn’t even notice the biggest financial crisis since the 1930’s and the unprecidented cuts. Incisive analysis Schnews! Or do the trust funds mean you dont have to worry about economics? (see we can all play at the shitty slander game).

Schnews: The issues that faced us then face us today. The only clear difference is that in 2005, climate chaos was the hot topic of the moment, filling newspaper columns and keeping activists busy all over the country. Now, for obvious reasons, the economic agenda is one that is hitting the headlines and is high on the activist hit list.

Schite: news reporting on climate change peaked in 2006/2007. See Oxford School of Journalism report, from late last yr. Or use goolge news. Thats more bullship slander.

Schnews: If capitalism and economic factors are at the root of climate change issues (as those within Climate Camp are very keen to point out) then it is difficult to see why Climate Camp decided to not harness the building resistance to what is being done with both public and private sector investment to fuel climate action at a national gathering this year.

Schite: Here is the Metamorphosis statement, "This is no retreat from organised large-scale action on climate change, rather a freeing of our energy to organise much more effectively all year round."

Schnews: This was attempted at Edinburgh last year, and the opinion has been mooted that it failed because key members within the camp didn’t allow other individuals to become as involved as they may have wanted to. Of course opinion is divided on this.

Schite: Thats right, key climate campers have been trailing valiant activists stopping them organising since August 2010. Grow up.

Schnews: Another reason SchNEWS took this angle is the blatant lie within the ‘Metamorphosis Statement’. The decision was not passed with consensus.

Schite: One person blocked one decision, which means they would leave the group if the decsion stood (ironically leaving a group that was itself stopping - the irony was lost on the blockersand hence on Schnews - talk to more people before mouthing off!). After hearing the reason, people continued to agree with the proposal (not to organise as climate camp for 1 yr), which is consensus. As you say we can’t have one person stopping the whole process at every turn.

Schnews: Of course the consensus process should not be so weak as to generally allow decisions to be repeatedly halted by one renegade participant, but at a gathering which is making decisions on behalf of a large number of people, and those people are not even aware of the decision being made, this should not be allowed.

Schite: On behalf of? Climate camp wasn’t a membership organisation, and the local groups were there.

Schnews: If there was this discord surrounding the decision, why weren’t local groups notified of what was going on? Why wasn’t there a wider call out for others within the network to step in and take up the organisational mantle that others wanted to put down?

Schite: There was only one block. Hardly discord. Both remaining local autonomous groups using the climate camp name, London and South Coast, were both well represented at Space for Change. Not one person from either of thoe groups blocked the decision. The most committed people (a week of meetings!) went to S4C, and almost nobody wanted to do a camp, and of those that did, they didn’t want to organise it. Same at the previous national gathering.

Schnews: SchNEWS has attended nearly all of the past Climate Camps and found them to be effective, empowering and one of the great achievements of UK activism. There is respect for Climate Camp as a movement and it goes without saying that no-one who was involved in this article wanted to ‘stick the boot in’ to an organisation that is going through growing pains. Despite this, and however you interpret the rhetoric within the public statement made by Climate Camp after the event, there are a lot of things wrong about the way this was done.

Schite: the process was more transparent and inclusive than that used to produce the Schnews article. People in glass houses.... And not much respect for Climate Camp from Schnews on this occasion.

Schnews: We hold our hands up to the inaccuracies within the piece regarding things like what days the discussion were had on, we were relying on sources who had attended but who may have made mistakes in the specifics of timings. However, SchNEWS stands by its interpretation.

Schite: Please present the factual information to show exactly how 75 people had the wool pulled over their eyes by a machivelian secret group of say, 4, who planned this coup-to-kill last year at the Edinburgh climate camp. And remarkaly hood-winked all those gullible people for a week. Go on give us a laugh.

Schnews: It is agreed that this is one side of the argument. To redress the balance, and in the interest of open and honest journalism (which is what SchNEWS and Indymedia have always stood for) SchNEWS would like to now open it up to those who have commented on this article with a different version of events – if you would like to write us an account of the five days as you saw it, we will publish it on our website as a feature.

Schite: You should apologise for writing up one side of an argument full of factual inaccuracies. Then retract the article. Then write a balanced account.

Having attended "Space for Change" (perhaps the most inaccurately named event I have ever witnessed) I can certainly confirm that while there are a few minor inaccuracies in the article the general picture it presents is most definitely a good reflection events that transpired in Dorset. Nitpicking over details, like what the exact size of a normal national gathering is or on which day the proposal was put forward to disolved the camp, is just a load of smoke and mirrors to distract from the actual criticisms in the article (not to mention the fact that fixing those inaccuracies would paint an even worse light on the proceedings). Complaining that Schnews doesn't pump out the sort of finely crafted PR spin that can be seen in the Metamorphosis statement is rather missing the point.

I think what pissed off those of us who aren't Oxbridge-educated, Londoners who work for NGOs the most was the underhanded nature off the whole thing. If all these people who have been monopolising the decision making within Climate Camp for so long were fed up with doing it they should have just quit and left the rest of us to decide what to do. At the very least they should have said months ago that wanted to kill Climate Camp rather than bringing everyone there under false pretences that we would be discussing the future and then doing their utmost to ensure that nothing was discussed that wasn't leading towards their goal. If Monkton Wylde wasn't such a nice place I am sure that most people would be far angrier over having their time wasted like this.

This is nothing to do with whether it is a good or bad decision (given the growing disfunctionality of the national process it couldn't have limped on much longer anyway) but is all about the way this decision was reached, and on a more general level learning from how Climate Camp went wrong internally so that the exact same mistakes are not made again. The facilitation team at "Space for Change" (which was identical to the group pushing to disolve the camp), consisting of the same small number of people who always facilitate at national gatherings, perfectly illustrates how we ended up in this position. The fact that these people do not see anything wrong with treating large meetings like this as a problem to be managed by skillful facilitation to get the outcome they desire just shows how they have become disconnected from the rest of us. This is a culture that has built up over many years with the same people always doing the same jobs.

This is also not something that is necessarily going to die with Climate Camp. Some quite jawdropping statements were made by heavily involved and well connected people during "Space for Change" regarding the inefficiency of open and non-heirarchical decision making processes. It seems clear that just as the dissolution of Climate Camp had been planned well in advance, the organisation that will step in to "replace" it has also been planned (though no one has thought to reveal the details to us mere mortals have yet). Given what transpired in Dorset though it is a fair bet that it will be more closed and heirarchical, and much more like the NGOs that some many of its leaders work for (people are already speculating whether the food will even be vegan). Though of course it will have its own private army if they can persuade "ordinary" climate campers to sign up, which is perhaps the prize that has been worth all this skullduggery.

I'm amazed that nobody has mentioned the likelihood of infiltrators being involved in the cliques being referred to, after all it is documented fact that all 3 of the exposed police infiltrators were involved in the planning and organisation of previous Climate Camps!

The fact of the matter is that police infiltration continues, whether you want to accept it or not, and the hysteria over this SchNEWS article has reached such proportions that the debate has become clouded from the actual subject towards the nature of the reporting...a classic diversion tactic!

Cue the hysterics and denials, coming from a certain office formally based in Cambridgeshire...

Firstly, as someone involved in the first few Climate Camps, I welcome the decision to disband.
The process had started showing signs of being fucked two or three years ago, not because of the police pressure, but because of the disrespect for the process:
waffling & undiciplined/unfocussed discussion at gatherings; lengthly lyrical and self-indulgent proposals; and gathering attendence by the same old people.

This disrespect for the process indicated a disregard for the time and money of other participants (who would bother going to the two-day long gatherings if they were gonna be abused as forums for navel gazing, self-congratulatory pats on the back, and little in the way of progress...?)

Similarly, the dominance by the same characters, who could afford to travel to these increasingly costly gatherings every month, meant that neighbourhoods inevitably did not always get strong representation.

And when a gathering exceeds its capacity, it's ridiculous to try and persevere with the same decision-making strategy. With 150 or so people attending, it's going to be very hard to strike the balance between inviting discussion, and staying focused & attempting to reach a significant decision at the end of it.

Rather than addressing these blatant issues, the Camp attempted to continued as usual.

This and other small points aside...why all the criticism of Schnews? Because they publish an article that criticises a process rather than merely reinforces your perception of it?

First paragraph. To claim that something is premeditated when there is absolutely no evidence at all to back it up is totally irresponsible. My experience of space for change was frustrating yes. But this accusation of a premeditated coup is just ridiculous. The Metamorphosis statement was written by an open working group and was directed by key points that came from the whole gathering. If people were concerned about this statement they could and should have joined the open working group.

Second paragraph. Thinking about the global political context of the climate camp, and the changing political landscape seems to me entirely sensible. I personally was pleased to see this content in the statement. It was naturally the topic of many conversations at space for change. Apparently it whiffs of a cover up. I can’t even make sense of this point.

Third paragraph. Perhaps I should be thanking SchNEWS on their retrospective advice for climate camp strategy. Indeed it would have been great to hear your views at the gathering so we could have discussed them there. But actually what I feel is; who the hell are SchNEWS to tell a climate camp gathering what it should or should not have decided to do? And this opinion that you have heard mooted about some individuals stopping other people from focusing on the issue of investment in climate criminals. Seriously?! We camped at RBS because we were focusing on exactly that issue!

Fourth paragraph. Again perhaps I should be grateful for the lecture from SchNEWS on open consensus process. It is a tricky question; how to deal with a situation when after several days of discussion one sole person decides that they are going to block a decision in room of about 40 people? I think that anyone who has organized in large open consensus processes can appreciate the difficulties. This one person had repeatedly blocked. The minutes will explain exactly why. And after careful thought the group decided to go forward with the decision. Indeed that might mean that the person who blocked might feel like they could no longer be part of that group. It is not as if people heard the block and stepped forward to back this person up. In fact one of the things I find most disturbing about this whole thing is that these people who you spoke to did not raise their hands and make their feelings known to the whole group. If indeed there was evidence of a premeditated coup they really should have made it available to the group. I feel absolutely confident that the allegation is rubbish.

We were making decision on behalf of a large number of people yes. But so has each climate camp gathering that has decided to camp and where each year. The decision we made was only for 2011. The previous Manchester gathering had given us the mandate to make decisions as climate camp. Local and international climate camp groups can do what ever they like as always. A gathering will be held shortly to discuss future climate action ideas. Everyone will be welcome, information will be made available when it is available on the where and when of the gathering. If this rejuvenates the camp movement and loads of people come who want to organize a camp then that is what will happen obviously! But if we come up with a new better thing to do then great!

Your excuse about making mistakes about specifics of timings is lame. These mistakes were fundamental to your accusations. For example the fact that the agenda was not set in advance.

And the final paragraph. And this is the one that really makes me wretch.
“…without saying that no-one who was involved in this article wanted to ‘stick the boot in’ to an organisation that is going through growing pains. Despite this, and however you interpret the rhetoric within the public statement made by Climate Camp after the event, there are a lot of things wrong about the way this was done.”

What crap! Read your article! It is bitchy and false. It has been damaging. No doubt a alternative article will be written – but the damage has already been done - and with just a little bit of thought this was totally avoidable.

This raises real questions about the accountability of activist media. I suggest that you show some strength of character and make an apology in your next printed and online publication.

The ‘rhetoric’ you speak of came out of an open working group. If you have an issue get involved! Is everything in climate camp perfect? You must be having a laugh. The space for change I went to was frustrating yes, but what I witnesses was an overwhelmingly constructive group of people making a real effort to air differences, explore options and act with unity.

I have been feeling sad, demoralised and angry since I read the original article. I think that emotions are generally running high and I really plead with people to think a little before they write stuff and put it out on the web. I am angry with SchNEWS, and I am really disappointed with people who have helped to spread this article uncritically on line.

We seriously have to all think about the impacts of what we say and do. Words like solidarity and mutual support are banded about, but what do these mean if people who stick their necks out to participate in difficult processes and experimental projects face this type of bitchyness from within their own movement? I feel that to a large extent it is unconstructive criticism and sniping that is behind the loss of trust and decline of energy in the climate camp movement. I am very sad that we could not find another way forward. But who in their right mind would want to work in the climate camp as it was while people like the ones who wrote this article are waiting to make their next attack?

So much bitterness and bile, it seems that certain people doth protest too much!

In fact it makes me wonder what they're hiding..

@A Believer.

You are correct there has been a big response to this article.

One of the things that came up strongly over the week of Space for Change was that climate campers have bascially failed to defend ourselves from the (seemingly endless) rubbish written by some activists about climate camp.

So many people decided that we needed to tackle things like the stuff that's written in Schnews. These things were/are very damaging, so must be countered.

protester said: "So many people decided that we needed to tackle things like the stuff that's written in Schnews."

Indymedia removed the feature from the front page on Sunday, and this meant that it didn't appear in the left hand column till an admin changed it to a newswire article on Monday morning.

Despite the fact it wasn't showing on the front page, it continued to receive comments attacking Schnews.

Most likely scenario is that the url was posted to an email list encouraging people to email, or else a (very) small group (and their sock puppets) wrote all the comments, and protesters 'many' is probably an exaggeration.

We already know that you can't believe everything you read in comments. Its riddled with trolls, cops and sock puppets.

How many people actually bothered to contact Schnews with their concerns?

The comment sugggesting that there is an organised campaign against Schnews shows just how out of touch the new Schnews/"indymedia Uk" alliance really are. My attention was drawn to the article via a direct link from a friends facebook page. If people find it interesting then they share that link on their page. People use facebook, etc as a news aggregator. The link I saw was to the comment that actually corrected Schnew's mistakes, it was shared because the comment (but not the article) helped expain what had happened at the gathering. The link stayed live despite the article being taken down.

You see that's how web 2.0 works, it's not an evil conspiracy but genuine circulation of information through a distriubted network that nobody is on control of.

I was then moved to comment here because I was genuinely shocked at how sectarian the Schnews article was. I genuinely think it is well out of step with the post-student movement mood, which is much more political and less inward looking. Everyone apart from Schnews is trying to air disagreements about politics and strategy. Schnews hides from this and imputes bad personal motives by a group of manipulators.

The irony is that a supposed tech based collective such as Indymedia Uk should so fail to understand the dynamics of the technology.

Jumping on anything negative that was posted on indymedia and trying to close it down was mentioned by the climate camp media elite during the last few hours of space for change, so this isn't speculation. They said they would do this two weeks ago (also I am not seeing how organising this campaign through facebook is any different to doing it through e-mail other than it makes me have even less respect for them).

As for these cries for balance (an extremely corporate media idea), balanced by definition means wrong. You should be striving for the truth in journalism, not balance, though obviously it is always an unobtainable goal. Given that there is this fundamental disagreement between this central clique within climate camp and us plebs, of course there are going to be two stories. People who want to get to the truth need to read as much as they can about both and make up their own minds.

The lack of "balance" is that one side has a load of personal media contacts they have built up from monopolising the climate camp media for the last five years and so can get their story amplified through the guardian while the other side cannot. These attempts to make sure that only their version of the story is told at all (given that they have a much larger megaphone to shout it through) amply demonstrate how they weak they know their story of harmony is.

The fact that the article was published on social media, with or without comment (but probably with), suggests exactly what "comments are not to be trusted" when they suggested it might be an "organised campaign"!

The fact that others who were present at the meeting are saying that "jumping on anything negative that was posted on indymedia and trying to close it down was mentioned by the climate camp media elite during the last few hours of space for change" just goes to prove exactly what has been said before about an "organised campaign"...so instead of making a clown out of yourself by suggesting people don't know what they're talking about, why not see this for what it is and ask how a small clique, (even 70 people is a small clique compared to the numbers who participate(d) in Climate Camp), managed to shut it down because they decided they would!

It's also been mentioned that only those with "enough money and time" to take a week off work could participate, which is doubtless true...which leaves me conjuring images of Mark "Flash" Kennedy and other possible state funded infiltrators. As has already been said before, nobody has even considered that the highest cliques of Climate Camp could have been infiltrated, and the fact is that it only serves certain interests to act in such an authoritarian manner.

It is also interesting to note that only certain other "sensitive" topics have generated such fury and bile on IM UK, such as the "No Police Spies Campaign" and the "Anti-Kettling Campaign", which also leaves the whole thing open to question. Now, you're free to ridicule the idea of infiltration but it has happened and so to do so without proper consideration and investigation would probably suggest a hidden agenda, because it's a known fact that the state don't appreciate Climate Camps and all 3 known police spies had deep involvement with the Climate camp movement.

What is clear is that SchNEWS is a well respected media collective, whereas the inner cliques of Climate Camp have been known for their authoritarianism and manipulation of consensus decision making. Personally I know who I'm inclined to believe, and the manner in which this thread has been commented and the general hysteria suggests that there's more to it than some people want the wider world to know...

Precisely what *is* the point of comments on Indymedia UK? What good do they do anyone? Do they not just provide an anonymous way for people to post stupid/nasty/ill thought out comments? Comments that they might get pulled up on if people were discussing things in ‘real life’. The comments on Indymedia seem to have all the negative aspects of an online forum and one of the positive ones.

Having said all this, on with my comment...

I got to this article via social media too. Not part of an orchestrated campaign, but rather because that is the place I often discuss politics with friends (taboo here I know). Most people I know rarely look at indymedia, some of us do for old times’ sake, and because it is like an old habit we cannot quite kick!

These friends are mostly not involved with climate camp, though some used to be. Many of them are impressed with the ‘metamorphosis’ statement made by cfca after the ‘Space for Change’ gathering. This is because politics and movements have to *move* not just repeat themselves endlessly hoping that things will get better that way. Doing this would be dogma, and there is a lot of dogma in the activist scene already!

It has already been pointed out that climate camp was in the process of dieing anyway. Very few local groups were organising under that banner, even some of the larger more prominent ones, such as the Yorkshire neighbourhood, effectively disbanded nearly a year ago! CfCA has been trying to reflect and reinvent itself since before COP15, and largely failing it seems. Therefore the outcome of the ‘Space for Change’ gathering seems almost inevitable! Despite this inevitability I think it is admirable that the statement was brought out and attempts to change are being taken. It is all too easy for network and groups to just trundle on, often becoming more and more insignificant and out of touch with those outside of their insular circles.

As for SchNEWS, the reason so many people are angry is because a well respected, established national publication, with international distribution, is not the place to publish intergroup bitching, gossip, half-truths and outright inaccuracies! That role is fulfilled by indymedia ;-)

Can we expect the same treatment of other campaigns and movements? There must be some juicy stuff out there SchNEWS can publish as ‘news’? I’m sure the fallout within indymedia itself must be full of people who have a few words they might want to send to them? What about the AR scene?

Hang on a minute when Schnews came up with the term Conspiraloon I thought it was a critique not an admiring self description. How the fuck have your politics fallen so far?

It is a shame that people are discussing Schnews' reporting and not the CCA decision but then again that's because the reporting on Schnews has left no room for political discussion. We should be discussing the dramatic effects of the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s and then discussing whether tactics such as yearly climate camps, etc, are still relevant. It seems pretty obvious to me that they aren't, which is why the climate camp has been in decline for a couple of years, but this is a point around which people could have genuine and constructive political disagreements.

Instead of facilitating this discussion Schnews fell back on a conspiracy theory of evil manipulators pulling the wool over peoples eyes and corrupting due process. Then when people are genuinely angry about such a divisive, non-political article they are accused of being sock puppets whose strings are being pulled by evil svengalies. Sorry but when you have to magic me out of existence and construct ever more elaborate conspiracy theories to invalidate opposing views then you are through the looking glass and you need to check yourself.

I strongly disagree that this is intergroup bitching and gossip. For a start now that Climate Camp is dead there is no group so anyone can jump in and analyse its processes on an equal footing. Also Climate Camp was always supposed to be an open group that anyone could get involved in and therefore there should be no expectation of keeping its internal working secret. More importantly a public post mortem is extremely important to establish the cause of death and learn lessons for the furture. Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it and as someone who has gone to far too many Climate Camp national gatherings I can only think of the Eugene O'Neill quote "There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now.". We desperately need some actual change and unfortunately while people are unwilling to look uncritically at how our movements have ended up replicating the heirarchies of the societies they are embeded in this seems unlikely to happen.

Yes lets learn the lessons of history, while dismissing the idea that history might actually take place outside the activist scene - it is and ever shall be 2005... Crisis? I see no crisis.

So if history doesn't happen and the context of a movement doesn't change then any failings in the movement must be down to the personal failings of some set of activists or other. So the RBS camp failed to connect to the wider public because "key members" failed to let others get involved. Yes that explains why climate change has disappeared as a political issue right around the world.

Perhaps the comment by "another camper" is right, the only thing that has been holding the movement back is that we haven't had enough inward looking back-biting and bitchiness. If only activists had been brave enough to think the worst of their comrades a bit more then things might have turned out better.

Thank you.

After reading the further comments following the Schnews article: To all those critics of Space for Change/Metamorphosis: Thank you for confirming how dysfunctional the climate camp process had become.

I'm not going to spend time trawling over the S4C week as I think that is to avoid the real issue. You obviously have some major concerns with a number of people heavily involved in the C.C. You had an entire week to voice those criticisms clearly and directly, either in private or in the open meetings. You failed to do that and have instead instigated a now familiar attack on these people after the event, questioning their politics, their honesty and their attempts to organise democratically.

By doing so you have demonstrated a clear disregard for the principle of solidarity.


I believe the root of this dysfunction is twofold.
Firstly a failure to communicate clearly and directly and constructively about perceived problems in the organising process at an early stage. This could have led to an honest and friendly discussion of the situation in an atmosphere of mutual aid and unity.
Secondly, there is an issue of perceived or real social groups and a feeling of exclusion that some people have, rightly or wrongly. There are some real issues to discuss here. What is the role of social groups in a structureless organisation? What responsibility do social groups have? Why do some people feel part of a social group ? Why do some people exclude themselves/feel excluded from social groups ? Can anarchists organise without depending on social groups?
However surely it is obvious that the place to discuss these issues is in the context of a supportive environment, safe for all concerned, not in the lurid pages of the internet.

Your insistence on dealing with these issues in this way is a key reason why C.C has dissolved, probably the biggest single reason. Please re-read that sentence!
Because there was no trust there could be no resolution.

To clarify. People arrived at S4C with all sorts of different views. There was five days of discussion and intense debate. No-one was bullied, bribed or coerced into believing anything. Therefore there was no orchestration. It was democracy in action and just because you don't like the result does not change that reality. Your inability to see that reveals not a cunning insight into the secret workings of a devious conspiracy but a failure to understand the complex dynamics of the social/political terrain we are in.
Further, your failure to appreciate that the people doing the organising of C.C now are not the same social group of people as those active 5 years ago, says more about your involvement than it does about who those people are. .

Speaking personally, I have found these attacks to be far more alienating, more destructive, more depressing and more detrimental to my enthusiasm for campaigning/acting on climate change/capitalism than the police infiltration that has recently come to light. !

I'm sure we will all learn lessons from the C.C process. They don't need to be the same ones, and we don't all need to be working closely together to be in the same movement. But we do need a common respect. And if you are part of the same movement as me then please bring your problems to the table in a spirit of mutual appreciation and discovery , because trying to tip the table over will lead to us all going hungry.


malatesta

"To all those critics of Space for Change/Metamorphosis: Thank you for confirming how dysfunctional the climate camp process had become."

And thank you for offering reasons why it might have become dysfunctional, such as high level police infiltration maybe???

Not one single comment amongst all the hysterics even considers it, despite it being mentioned by some of the critics of the process of Climate Camp/Space for Change, I wonder why?

As has been said, it is a well known fact that all 3 known infiltrators had high level dealings with Climate Camp...who's to say that infiltrators acting in the "Marco Jacobs" role didn't have a major influence on the dysfunctionality you refer to?

Having attended the S4C the Schnews article brought a large smile to my face. Two weeks on from the event I'm still meetinged out, despite my high tolerance. It was horrendous, I think everyone is agreed on that.

There were inaccuracies in the article, It's been a ling time since a gathering pulled a substantial, should I say representative, number of campers. There were other things I would disagree with in the article, it fails to recognise the intractable difficulties of such a proccess, we all recognised a fair few people would walk away from CC, and recognised the loss. Nit picking the inaccuracies and objecting to the tone does not lessen the fact that the article is basicly spot on, I think more and more people will come to see this as the summer unfolds.

To blame the "old guard' is inaccurate. It is not a stable set of people, it is a cultural minority that makes up the informal hierarchy; in an evening social the question was asked of 40 people in a room, "how many of you have not gone to Oxbridge?" the answer was two. This is not a grass roots movement but a microcosm of our society with the over-confident, highly educated, priviledged few leading the many. Their bullish self worth has made climate camp inhospitable to other cultures playing any meaningful part in the inevitable power structures of the organisation. Unable to effectively challenge the hierarchy people have trickled away to the point where at Edinburgh the Oxbridgites basicly took up all the site key roles because no-one else would do them. Befrore S4C I think it was at the point where Climate camp was incapable of holding a camp worthy of the name. The possibility or need for radical reform to lead to a stronger organisation could not make it's voice heard, leaving only the inevitable decision.

I also think part of the demise of CfCA was due to two years of overt anti-capitalist campaigns. CfCA has always chosen it's targets reactively, despite all the time spent on strategising, reactionary sells (Daily Mail). Two years with no victory, other than battering the police with a legal team, doesn't sustain spirits in a muddy field and most people feel, probably correctly, they are more effective elsewhere.

The question about the future is still very much alive, the structure is waiting to be rewritten. Is it possible to reform NATIONAL Climate camp and keep an important name, or is it better for the movement to move on, learn from the past, cut it's losses and leave it behind?

so why didn't the oxbridge people who wanted to shut it down just walk away and let those that wanted to continue to do just that?

why do activists sometimes think that projects they have been involved with, or even helped create, have to be shut down if they leave?

we have seen the same thing happen with uk indymedia but thankfully there was just enough resistance to it being shutdown to force a 'fork' in the project

whos setting this agenda?

The minutes are here:

 http://climatecamp.org.uk/Minutes_of_Space_for_Change.pdf

They're acknowledged to be incomplete (for 1st 3 days), and there's an invitation for attendees to fill in the blanks.

Were there really 38 Oxbridge people ina group of 40? Seems like an incredible statistic.

I think the answer to Camper's question ("why didn't they walk away...") is that, in effect, that's what the decision was. They all walked away, apart from the 1 blocker.

Up to you now Camper. I'd love it if you organised a camp for us. Personally, I'm fessing up that I don't have it in me.

That's the weird thing about this whole issue, when you look at the decision, it is basicly only not to be climate camp for the year (10 months)

1. We will not organise a national Climate Camp in 2011.
2. We will not organise national gatherings as ‘Climate Camp’ or the Camp for Climate Action in 2011.
3. There will be another major meeting in a couple of months (for those still up for it).

Hardly dissolution @both sides of the debate. The infrastructure, seed money and good name, (for the wider public at least) of climate camp is still there. The question is what is going to come out of this process of non-dissolution that can pull Excalibur from the stone?

Its ironic that the little question we ask at the beginning of every gathering season "Are we going to do a camp this year" seems to be our downfall. Why couldn't a week of Monkton and the Meta. statement have been covered by a short "No" from Manchester?