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D e u t s c h :ALTERNATIVE ECONOMICS, ALTERNATIVE SOCIETIES
ein Projekt von Oliver Ressler
Kunstraum der Universität Lüneburg
Scharnhorststr.1, D-21335 Lüneburg
Eröffnung: Donnerstag, 08.01.04, 20 Uhr
http://kunstraum.uni-lueneburg.de
http://www.ressler.atNach dem Verlust eines Gegenmodells zum Kapitalismus - wie der real
existierende Sozialismus bis zu dessen Zusammenbruch eines bildete -
haben es zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts alternative Konzepte einer
ökonomischen und gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung schwer. "Alternativen"
werden in den Industriestaaten nämlich nur dann breiter diskutiert, wenn
sie die bestehenden Machtverhältnisse im kapitalistischen System und in
den repräsentativen Demokratien nicht in Frage stellen. Andere
sozio-ökonomische Ansätze werden hingegen als utopisch bezeichnet,
abgewertet und von einer ernsthaften Auseinandersetzung ausgeschlossen,
so sie überhaupt wahrgenommen werden.
Im Rahmen der themenspezifischen Installation "Alternative Economics,
Alternative Societies" werden unterschiedliche Konzepte, Modelle und
Utopien für alternative Ökonomien und Gesellschaften fokussiert, deren
Gemeinsamkeit die Zurückweisung des kapitalistischen Herrschaftssystems
ist. Zu jedem Konzept wurde ein Interview geführt, aus dem im Rahmen des
Projekts jeweils ein Video in englischer Sprache produziert wurde. Diese
20 bis 37 Minuten langen Einkanalvideos werden in der Ausstellung auf
getrennten Monitoren gezeigt und bilden die zentralen Elemente der
künstlerischen Installation.
Im Rahmen des Projekts werden alternative Gesellschafts- und
Ökonomiemodelle wie "Inclusive Democracy" von Takis Fotopoulos (GB/GR),
"Participatory Economy" von Michael Albert (USA) und "Freie
Kooperationen" von Christoph Spehr (D) vorgestellt. Nancy Folbre (USA)
spricht über ihr Konzept "Caring Labor", Marge Piercy (USA) über die
feministisch-anarchistischen Utopien ihrer Social Fantasies. Als
interessante historische Modelle werden von Todor Kuljic (SCG) die
Arbeiterselbstverwaltung im Jugoslawien der 60er und 70er Jahre und von
Salomé Moltó (E) die Arbeiterkollektive während der Spanischen
Revolution (1936-38) in der Ausstellung thematisiert.
Aus jedem Video wird ein für das jeweilige alternative Modell
signifikantes Zitat ausgewählt und als mehrere Meter lange Textarbeit
direkt auf dem Boden des Ausstellungsraumes angebracht. Diese mit
Klebefolien ausgeführten Bodenbeschriftungen führen die
AusstellungsbesucherInnen direkt zu den entsprechenden Videos,
überschneiden einander aber auch und unterteilen den Raum in
unterschiedliche Segmente.
Das Ausstellungsprojekt soll in den kommenden Jahren kontinuierlich um
weitere ökonomische und gesellschaftliche Konzepte erweitert werden.
Diese bilden einen unhierarchisch gegliederten Pool, der Anregungen und
Vorschläge zum Nachdenken über gesellschaftliche Alternativen und
Handlungsmöglichkeiten anbietet.
Die Installation "Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies" wird in
den folgenden Ausstellungen realisiert:
Galerija Skuc, Ljubljana (SI), 30.10. - 23.11.2003 ("Alternative
Economics,...")
Espace Forde, Genève (CH), 06. - 19.12.2003 ("There is no Alternative")
Kunstraum der Universität Lüneburg (D), 08. - 16.01.2004 ("Alternative
Economics,...")
Transmediale.04, Berlin (D), 31.01. - 15.02.04 ("fly utopia!")
O.K - Center for Contemporary Art, Linz (A), 11.03. - 02.05.2004 ("Open
House")
Wyspa Progress Foundation, Gdansk (PL), 01.05.04 - 30.07.04 ("Health and
Safety")
Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna (A), 16.06. - 24.07.04 ("permanent produktiv")
Sorlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand (N), 06.07. - 15.08.04 ("Detox Tour")"Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies" ist ein Projekt, das im
Rahmen von republicart realisiert (www.republicart.net) und von der
Galerija Skuc, Ljubljana und dem Kunstraum der Universität Lüneburg
produziert wird. Das Projekt wird unterstützt vom EU-Programm Kultur
2000 und der BKA-Kunstsektion.

================================================
02 Depot-Programm von 8.bis 16. Jänner
From: depot-news <depot-news at depot.or.at>
Donnerstag, 8. Jänner, 21.15
Film und Theorie: Das Blaue vom Himmel
In der Glut des Südens
Der Redensart entsprechend - nach der "das Blaue vom Himmel erzählen" lügen
bedeutet - inszeniert das Liebespaar Bill (Richard Gere) und Abby (Brooke
Adams)
eine kleine Unschuldskomödie, welche die harte Feldarbeit "in der Glut des
Südens" (so der deutsche Verleihtitel) zugunsten einer langen Reihe
sorgloser
"Days of Heaven" überwinden soll. Dennoch geht es weniger um die moralischen
Aspekte der Lüge als um intensive Ausdrucksveränderungen, die sich der
Komödie
nur als Vehikel bedienen. Im Zentrum des Films steht die Farbe des Himmels
zur
Blauen Stunde: als Zeichen der unüberwindbaren Grenze zwischen Sehen und
Sagen.
Vrääth Öhner, Film-, Medien- und Kulturwissenschafter
In der Glut des Südens (Days of Heaven, USA 1978, R: Terence Malick) wird um
19.
00 im AudiMax der TU gezeigt.

Freitag, 9. Jänner, 19.00
FIFTITU%
Präsentation einer Kulturinitiative
Die IG Kultur Österreich vergibt einen Förderpreis für Initiativen im
Bereich
politischer Kulturarbeit. Dazu präsentiert sie einige exemplarische Ansätze.
FIFTITU% ist eine oberösterreichische Vernetzungsstelle für Frauen in Kunst
und
Kultur und eine feministisch orientierte Pressure-Group. Der Name FIFTITU%
weist
darauf hin, dass 52% der Weltbevölkerung Frauen sind und dementsprechend
repräsentiert sein sollten. Über Projekte wird die Vernetzung von Frauen in
Kunst und Kultur vorangetrieben, denn "Frauen, die nicht fordern, werden
beim
Wort genommen, sie bekommen nichts." (Simone de Beauvoir)
Gabriele Heidecker, Obfrau FIFTITU%, Architektin, Linz
Andrea Mayer-Edoloeyi, FIFTITU%, KUPF Vorstand, Linz
www.fiftitu.at

Montag, 12. Jänner, 19.00
Die TVideopolitik von Godard
Buchpräsentation
Anfang der 70er-Jahre gründete Jean-Luc Godard zusammen mit Anne-Marie
Mi?ville
die Produktionsfirma Sonimage. Sonimage war ein Abschied von 1968, aber auch
der
Abschied vom Film (wenn auch nur vorübergehend). Godard wollte sich von den
Mechanismen der teuren Filmproduktion und den damit verbundenen Zwängen
lösen
und wandte sich einem anderem Medium zu: Video ermöglichte neue Formen von
Wahrnehmung, die mehr mit Zurückweisung (Rejektion) als mit Projektion des
Bildes zu tun hatte.
Ausschnitte aus France Tour /Detour, Six fois deux u.a.
Florian Zeyfang, Herausgeber, Künstler, Berlin
Elisabeth Büttner, Autorin, Filmwissenschafterin, Wien
Gareth James, Florian Zeyfang (Hg.): I Said I love. That is the promise
Berlin: b_books 2003

Dienstag, 13. Jänner, 19.00
ATTAC_liest: Marx & Co
Lesekreis
Mit dem Zusammenbruch des Realsozialismus galt Marx als erledigt. Doch seine
Kritik von Arbeit, Wert und Geld wird erst jetzt so richtig aktuell. Der
Lesekreis beschäftigt sich in verdaulichen Happen mit Marx und Theorien, die
an
ihn anschließen.

Donnerstag, 15. Jänner, 19.00
Ballesterer goes Africa
Zeitschriftenpräsentation
Jede Woche zeigt der ORF mehr als fünf Stunden Fußball aus der europäischen
Champions League, deren Klubs kaum noch ohne afrikanische Spitzenspieler
auskommen. Wenn sich diese Stars jedoch zu Afrikas bedeutendster
Fußballgroßveranstaltung zusammenfinden, ist üblicherweise Sendepause.
Anlässlich des Ende Jänner beginnenden African Nations Cup widmet
Österreichs
einziges Fußballmagazin Ballesterer 25 Seiten seiner aktuellen Ausgabe dem
afrikanischen Fußball - in Afrika und in Europa.

Freitag, 16. Jänner, 19.00
Feindbild AsylwerberInnen
Radio Stimme Diskussionsforum
Seit Ende der 80er-Jahre haben sich die Bedingungen für Asylwerbende in
Österreich drastisch verschlechtert. Rechte wurden minimiert, Unterkünfte
gestrichen, Asylwerbende kriminalisiert. Obwohl die Thematik in allen Medien
präsent ist, finden zahlreiche Fragen keinen Eingang in die Debatte. Warum
lässt
sich mit unmenschlicher Asylpolitik und der Stigmatisierung von Asylanten
zum
Feindbild so vortrefflich Politik machen? Welche Rolle haben NGOs dabei
übernommen: Sind sie Helfer in der Not oder unfreiwillige Gehilfen der
Regierung? Was lässt sich aus europäischer Perspektive über die
österreichische
Asylpolitik sagen? Braucht es neue Grundsätze für eine (gesamt)europäische
Flüchtlingspolitik?Anny Knapp, Asylkoordination
Andreas Lepschi, Caritas
Wolfgang Taucher, Innenministerium
Rainer Bauböck, Akademie der Wissenschaften
Moderation: Alexander Pollak, Radio Stimme
--
Depot
Breite Gasse 3
A-1070 Wien
tel. +43 1 522 76 13
www.depot.or.at

================================================
03 Veranstaltungsreihe zur Politischen Kulturarbeit
From: IG Kultur<office at igkultur.at>
|||
||| IG Kultur Österreich
|||
- ---------------
|||
||| Veranstaltungsreihe zur Politischen Kulturarbeit
|||
||| 9. Januar 2004: Präsentation FIFTITU%
|||
Die IG Kultur Österreich wird im Frühjahr 2004 Initiativen im Bereich
der politischen Kulturarbeit mit einem eigenen Förderpreis würdigen.
http://www.igkultur.at/kulturpolitik/1071827254
Eine Veranstaltungsreihe stellt im Wiener Diskurszentrum Depot
beispielhafte Projekte vor und diskutiert die eingesetzten Strategien
und Methoden.
http://www.igkultur.at/kulturpolitik/1067246660 ||| Fr., 9. Januar 2004, 19.00 Uhr
- ---------------
||| Depot, Breite Gasse 3, A-1070 Wien
Präsentation FIFTITU%
Die oberösterreichische Vernetzungsstelle FIFTITU% bietet Frauen in
Kunst und Kultur Service wie Information und versteht sich als
feministisch orientierte Pressure-Group zur Schaffung von
Geschlechtersymmetrien.
FIFTITU% steht für das Faktum, dass 52% der Weltbevölkerung Frauen sind.
Über Projekte wird die Vernetzung von Frauen in Kunst und Kultur
vorangetrieben, denn "Frauen, die nicht fordern, werden beim Wort
genommen, sie bekommen nichts". (Simone de Beauvoir)
Gabriele Heidecker, Obfrau, Künstlerin, Architektin, Linz
Andrea Mayer-Edoloeyi, Mitarbeiterin, KUPF-Vorstand, Linz
http://www.fiftitu.at/ |||
||| Rückfragen
|||
- ---------------
|||
||| IG Kultur Österreich
||| Gumpendorfer Straße 63b
||| A-1060 Wien
|||
||| Tel: +43 (01) 503 71 20
||| Fax: +43 (01) 503 71 20 - 15
|||
||| http://www.igkultur.at/
================================================

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KOMMENTARE - MELDUNGEN
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04 INDIA: WILL ANTI-CAPITALISM BE WELCOME AT WORLD
SOCIAL FORUM?
From: Workers Power Global, London
>>INDIA: WILL ANTI-CAPITALISM BE WELCOME AT WORLD SOCIAL FORUM?
Workers Power Global, London
The fourth World Social Forum is set to open in Mumbai, India on 16
January. One month ahead, 52,000 people from all continents have already
registered to take part. Organisers expect that anything from 70,000 to
100,000 may actually take part in the forum.
The shift to an Asian venue for the WSF presents the possibility for a huge
involvement and integration of workers, poor peasants and popular
organisations in the world-wide movement against global capitalism and
imperialist war. An assembly of youth will also take part at the forum as
will a whole series of other meetings of campaigning bodies.
As at the previous three WSFs, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, large scale
conferences will take place on several key themes: Land, water and food
sovereignty; Militarism, war and peace; Wars against women, women against
wars; Globalisation, Economic and social security; Exclusions and
oppression - Racism and Caste based discrimination; Labour and the world of
work; Religious, ethnic & linguistic exclusion & oppression.
These huge assemblies have their limitations. Hopefully they will allow the
voices of key figures in recent struggles in Asia to join those of Europe
and the Americas which have dominated the WSF so far.
But the key issue is how much space is accorded to meetings where speakers
from the floor can make proposals on policies for fighting global
capitalism and imperialist wars and whether any mechanism can be brought
into existence to launch common actions in the year ahead.
The whole history of the WSF means we can't be optimistic on this.
The WSF- whatever its organisers claim - is not synonymous with the
anti-capitalist movement born in the late 1990s. Bernard Cassen's recent
memoirs about the movement he insists on calling "altermondialist" are
actually called "It all began in Porto Alegre". This is a lie. Indeed,
Seattle 1999 - not Porto Alegre - is often taken as the starting point. But
even this is not true. Seattle certainly created a world-wide focus on the
"new movement" and launched a series of mobilisations to the gatherings of
the global capitalist elite. In fact far left organisations like the LCR
and anarchist, radical ecologist and populist forces like RTS, People's
Global Action (inspired by the Zapatista encuentros) had begun to mobilise
from 1996 onwards. The French journal Le Monde Diplomatique and
Attac-France (founded in June 1998) belong to this period too, but they
cannot claim to monopolise it.
The WSF's origins lie in January 1999 in an "anti-Davos" counter-conference
in Switzerland organised, among others by Attac. The next anti-Davos event
in January 2000, brought together groups like the World Women's March, the
Brazilian MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, composed of
landless rural workers).
After this, Bernard Cassen, chairperson of Attac and director of Le Monde
Diplomatique, met in Paris with Francisco (Chico) Whitaker, of the
Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission (CBJP), to discuss the possibility
of holding a world forum, like the Davos events, at the same time as the
World Economic Forum was meeting. There was a powerful motivation to avoid
the confrontation with the WEF on the streets of Davos or Zurich. It was
agreed that it should be held in the southern Brazilian city of Porto
Alegre and should be called the World Social Forum.
The first WSF in January 2001 attracted some 5,000 registered participants
from 117 countries as well as many thousands of Brazilian activists. At the
second forum, the figures had more than doubled, rising to over12,000
official delegates from 123 countries and tens of thousands of total
participants, from Brazil. The third forum in January 2003 was even more
massive, with over 20,000 official delegates and roughly 100,000 total
participants.
The key force behind this was the Brazilian PT, in power in both the city
and the state. In 2002 the Porto Alegre municipality provided approximately
$300,000 and the state of Rio Grande do Sul $1 million for the event.
Though it appears that the "investment" of the Brazilian organisers yielded
a profit nevertheless the dependence of the WSF on huge donations from
reformist parties and their cultural and front organisations determined the
progressive conservatisation of the official results of the WSF.
In addition the WSF, as a body, receives funds from agencies, closely tied
to corporate interests and outright imperialist, like the Ford Foundation.
"He who pays the piper calls the tune" is an old principle and one to which
the Ford Foundation has devoted its existence, co-opting radical movements
and representatives for decades using Detroit dollars. As long as the WSF
is bound to such funders then it is inconceivable that it should become a
body devoted to overthrowing just these interests. It seems that the
funders were amongst those insisting on the exclusion of all political
parties per se and on especially all organisations involved in "violence" –
violence against capitalism and imperialism naturally: French imperialist
ministers were welcome, of course!
Since then there have been thematic and regional social forums: one on
neoliberalism held in Argentina in August 2002, the first European Social
Forum in Florence in November 2002, the first Asian Social Forum in
Hyderabad in January 2003 and the second ESF held in Paris in November.
These formed part of a semi-official forum calendar, maintained and
controlled jointly by the Organising Committee/Secretariat and the
International Council.
Naomi Klein has characterised the structure of he first World Social Forum
as "so opaque that it was nearly impossible to figure out how decisions
were made". In fact, WSF, decisions are made by a tiny number of
organisations, but with considerable financial resources. The WSF
gatherings are focussed on a few celebrities of the NGO world - Susan
George, Walden Ballo, Bernard Cassen - who propagate the NGO worldview.
While they talk passionately about "another world being possible" the
alternatives they propagate are policies for implementation by reformed
bodies of the existing system, rather than the overthrow of the system
itself.
That is why these academics and journalists hate the term for the movement,
taken up on the streets of London, Seattle, Prague, Genoa: anticapitalist.
After juggling with terms like "global citizens movement" they coined a new
French word - "altermomdialist" - which does not even translate into
anything meaningful beyond the unintentionally self critical "otherworldly".
Formal decision-making power was originally in the hands of the Organising
Committee (OC), consisting of the Central Trade Union Confederation CUT
(Central Única dos Trabalhadores), the MST and six smaller Brazilian civil
society organisations.
The other main body of the WSF, the International Council (IC), was founded
in Sao Paulo in June 2001. The OC decided who to invite to the founding
meeting. In April 2002, the OC was transformed into the WSF Secretariat As
of June 2003 the International Council consists of 113 organisations,
though in practice many of them have not participated.
The IC was assigned an only an advisory role but it has grown in importance.
The decision-making mechanism at IC meetings - as throughout the WSF- is
the famed "consensus". However the power of initiative lies with the
Secretariat. It submits a proposal and the IC debates it. If no clear
consensus emerges, the Secretariat will have a separate meeting and
reconsider its original proposal. In some cases, it will then (typically on
the second day of the two-day meeting) present a new proposal taking
earlier discussion into account. Normally, the new proposal will carry the
day with everyone agreeing, more or less.
The precondition of this method is that the World Social Forum is not a
deliberative body aimed at deciding common action, that it will not take
political positions and that it therefore needs no decision-making
procedures.
The parallels of this form of decision making with the oppressive chicanery
of the WTO in Geneva are so stark that it can only be a unique form of
doublethink that prevents the great crusaders against globalisation from
drawing it.
This all suits the Brazilian reformist organisations, Le Monde
Diplomatique, the unelected bigwings of Attac and the NGOs down to the
ground. The WSF in their view must remain a "space", a "forum", an "event"
and not a movement or political actor. But by no means all the participants
agree with this.
Michael Albert - author of Parecon - a libertarian and key figure in
movement in the USA, has proposed that the annual WSF gathering should be
made a delegate event. The WSF could be attended by 5,000 - 10,000 people
"delegated to it from the major regional forums of the world". He has even
talked of it becoming an International, like the First International (as
imagined by anarchists and above all "not a Comintern!").
The Italian organisers of the European Social Forum, in Florence in 2002,
wanted to use a social movements declaration drafted by WSF participants as
the foundation-stone of the ESF's own forum. The WSF Secretariat vetoed
this on the grounds that the Porto Alegre Charter of Principles can be the
only official basis for events organised within the WSF umbrella.
At the Bangkok meeting in August 2002, Bello argued that the International
Council should produce a public statement calling on movements around the
world to take part in protests in Cancún in 2003. In the Porto Alegre
meeting of the council in January 2003, delegates argued in favour of
making a public statement against the imminent war in Iraq. In both cases,
consensual decision-making was used to "decide" not to issue any such
statements. This shows the absolute impotence of the WSF if it remains
within the framework of the Porto Alegre Principles and under its present
leadership.
According to its Charter of Principles, the WSF is "a plural, diversified,
non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context". The bloc of the
Brasilian PT leaders and the leaders of Attac have strictly policed these
principles - principles never debated or adopted by any democratic
assembly. In August 2002 the Secretariat vetoed the plans of the Italians
to invite political parties to take part officially in the European Social
Forum
As Cândido Grzybowski of the Secretariat put it, "political action is the
responsibility of each individual and the coalitions they form, not an
attribute of the forum". Chico Whitaker attacked the "self-nominated social
movements" that "seek to put the forum inside their own mobilising
dynamics, to serve their own objectives." And who - we ask-nominated these
self-appointed and inflated bureaucrats to speak for the anticapitalist
movement?
The only partial breach in this ban on politics was the historic call for
anti-war demonstrations of 15 February 2003 that many movements gathered in
the WSF 2003 in Porto Alegre agreed to "make public". Chico Whitaker
protested against these, fearing that "the media might consider them
semi-official". The media? Or the Ford Foundation, perhaps?
There have been even more radical critics at the ESF, though the organisers
have done all they could to sideline them. During the first WSF there was a
large, militant youth camp, many of whom issued a denunciation of the
organisers crapulous reformism and elitism. A group of young and angry
participants from this camp burst into the posh all-glass VIP room where
the leaders and important guests were being expensively entertained.
The WSF 2004 in India takes place at a crucial moment in the history of the
movement. Certainly it offers the possibility spreading the movement
against corporate power, imperialism and war a much wider spread. This will
be reflected in the radicalism of activists present. On the other hand, the
power and domination of the NGOs and the thinly disguised reformist
parties, especially the Communist Party of India (Marxist) will weigh
heavily in favour of continued impotence.
That is why revolutionaries need to raise in every meeting within the forum
the demand for a real deliberative assembly, for the rejection of the Porto
Alegre Principles, for the "legalisation" of political parties, for no
privileges to the reformist bureaucrats or journalistic bigwigs. We must
call for an end to funding by US and EU imperialist agencies and state
bodies. We must call for social forums in every major city, in every
country and a process of delegation to the continental and world forums,
with the European and North American movements raising the funds to enable
the Asian African and South Americans to be fully and fairly represented,
wherever it is held.
Corporate globalisation and the war on terrorism imperiously demand the
maintenance and development of a huge world movement to fight them and to
overthrow them. This demands another major step forward: the creation of a
mass International of the workers and poor peasants - a Fifth International.
FOR MORE ON WORLD AND EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUMS AND ANTI-CAPITALIST MOVEMENT
SEE:
http://www.workerspower.com/wpglobal/ESFParis-index.htmlhttp://www.workerspo
wer.com/wpglobal/globalisation-index.html

================================================
05 CHINA: NEW RULERS CREATE THEIR OWN GRAVE DIGGER
From: Workers Power Global, London
>>CHINA: NEW RULERS CREATE THEIR OWN GRAVE DIGGER
Workers Power Global, London
The west is waking up to China. This year it will become the world's fourth
biggest economy; by 2040, according to bankers Goldman Sachs, its GDP will
surpass that of the USA -that is if both go on growing at their present
rate. In the last 10 years it has become the literal workshop of the world:
the number one producer of TVs, DVDs, PCs and mobile phones, the number one
consumer of steel.
China is swallowing large chunks of the west's surplus capital whole: at
$53bn a year, China is the world's number one destination for foreign
direct investment (FDI). And with it goes jobs – tens of thousands of
manufacturing from Europe and America have moved to China. Not even the
cheap labour hotspots of Latin America can compete: over 200 Mexican
sweatshops have closed and moved production to China.
For years, China watchers have been concerned with the impact of capitalism
on China: could it happen without bloodshed, would the Communist Party
dictatorship stay in tact through the restoration of capitalism? Now these
questions are being subsumed in a larger question: the impact of China on
capitalism.
For in the process of capitalist restoration, China has not become a
subservient satellite of America – no matter how many of the new middle
class and top bureaucracy find their way to a place at a US business
school. China is becoming both an economic and political power to be
reckoned with, and the decisions taken behind the high, closed gates of its
ministries will have a significant impact on the class struggle, economic
policy and international relations in the west.
Who rules China?
In October 2002 the so called "Fourth Generation" of Chinese bureaucrats
took over. Led by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the impact of
their accession was initially seen in the western press as a matter of
"presentation". But the rise to power of Hu was significant. It signalled
the growing power of a faction for which completing the transition to a
full-blown capitalist economy is the number one priority, even over and
above maintaining the rule of the party.
Hu wishes the CCP to become a party of the Chinese bourgeoisie, while
maintaining a social safety net that keeps the masses from revolt and binds
a layer of the better off workers to the party. The hope is, that after a
decade or two, Hu's China will be a developed capitalist country and the
CCP will be a cross between the US Democrats and New Labour.
Hu and his allies definitely continue one tradition: that of the faceless
bureaucrat. Hu was hand picked for his mediocrity and – as leaked documents
from the Chinese CP show – passed an arduous process of selection whose
main purpose was to weed out anyone who had ever done anything out of the
ordinary and thus represented a risk to the course set by the retiring
leaders.
Since Chinese politics are conducted wholly in secret, with the masses
having to search for hidden meanings in the pages of the People's Daily,
it's impossible to gauge the true tempo of Hu's economic policies. But
their direction is clear. At the 3rd Plenum of the 16th Congress of the
CCP, in October 2003, the party decided to speed up the closure or
privatisation of all China's remaining state-owned enterprises. It also
ratified changes to the Chinese constitution aimed at guaranteeing the
rights of private property owners.
This is not just the last phase of the destruction of the Stalinist
economy: it is a work of construction – namely the construction of a
normatively functioning capitalist economy, with businesses entitled to
expect the rule of law, at least in the economic sphere. In addition Hu has
speeded up the process of recruiting the bourgeoisie to the party.
However the construction of a normal functioning capitalism does not mean
China will adopt the neo-liberal model – the so-called "Washington
consensus" – even though that is what it is urged to do by every Financial
Times and Wall Street Journal article that touches on the subject.
In the first place China faces a linked series of strategic obstacles to
completing the transition. The first is the land question. Two thirds of
the population lives on the land, earning less than a dollar a day, the
majority on plots of land no bigger than the centre court at Wimbledon.
This means the domestic economy cannot become the motor of Chinese growth
were foreign investment to falter. Nor can China become a truly modern
economy, since in regions of dirt roads and shoelessness it is hard for the
central bureaucracy to control the actions of local crooks, businessmen and
regional bureaucrats – let alone for western-trained accountants to audit
the books.
At present the land question is "solving" itself by propelling 10 million
young peasants a year off the land and into the cities, where they have to
live as second class citizens under the remnants of China's strict system
of residency permits. There are 150 million migrant workers, mainly in
their 20s, the vast majority working in China's new capitalist sweatshops
under strict work discipline and living in dormitories. But a full solution
to the land question will involve the automation of agriculture, the
creation of big farms and the expulsion of – Chinese experts believe –
about another 250m adults from the rural workforce.
Since this cannot happen without the continued breakneck expansion of
Chinese industry, this dictates the whole of the rest of the domestic
economic policy. Far from reigning in its attempts to attract FDI, China
must increase them. As one Chinese official said on BBC Newsnight, "in the
west you are always worrying about what if all the manufacturing jobs go to
China. Our problem is: what if all manufacturing jobs come to China – it's
still not enough". Hence, for China's policymakers, maintaining growth at
the official rate of 9% a year is a minimum requirement.
The problem is not just how to do this, but the kind of capitalism that is
created in the process. Western capitalism, for all its booms and bubbles,
is so sclerotic that it cannot even comprehend the idea of growth without
inflation. China can have double digit growth without inflation, due to the
massive deflationary power of its surplus labour force to keep wages down.
Hence, for economic policy it has adopted a kind of crude Keynesianism –
pump-priming public spending projects of which the Three Gorges Dam and the
2008 Olympic Games infrastructure projects are just the tip of the iceberg.
This is combined with a heavy dose of protectionism, notwithstanding its
accession to the WTO.
To a western banker, China's economic policy looks dysfunctional: there are
massive bad debts in the largely state-owned banking system. The banks
mobilise the savings of the Chinese masses and pour them into loss making
private enterprises. The property boom, which rivals that of Japan in the
1980s, is another sign that a fully-functioning financial system – with
solvent banks and a transparent stock market – do not exist.
Capital flows to wherever it can to make a surplus, but it cannot safely do
so through the financial system. However to the Chinese bureaucracy these
policies are functional and form the core of the Keynesian growth strategy
outlined by Jiang Zemin's finance minister Zhu Rongji and maintained by Hu.
It is easy to see how all this might break down: if foreign investment were
to dry up, or Western consumption of Chinese exports were to falter – both
conditions that would arise from a US/Europe recession – China would be
faced with the obligation to "take the strain" for the world economy. In
order to do that it would have had to create a fully functioning domestic
consumer market. But although to the eyes of western visitors this seems to
exist, in the shopping malls of the seaboard cities, it does not
predominate in the Chinese hinterland. Chinese economists believe a fully
modernised consumer economy is two or three decades away.
But the ultimate problem facing the Chinese leadership is the need to
extricate the party from the economy.
It is not just that the bureaucracy has its fingers in the pie of the
nationalised sectors: it is enriching itself greedily in the private sector
as well. Yet there is no external supervision: when it comes to a drug
company, the man that owns it can be in the party that runs the health
system which buys it and the regulatory system that certifies the drug as
safe.
The only external supervision is the party itself, since the press is not
free and criticism and exposure of corruption, unless sanctioned by the
party, is met with prison. This, both Hu and his friends in Washington
agree, is dysfunctional. The aim is some form of "separation of powers"
which allows the judiciary and civil service to discover the many hidden
Enrons in Chinese capitalism without bringing the system down.
Amid all this what is happening to the Chinese working class?
It is undergoing a traumatic process of destruction and recomposition. In
the north-east provinces where Mao concentrated industrial investment in
the 1950s and 60s it is going through hell. Huge factories, which stand at
the centre of economies the size of Leicester or Derby, are being closed on
the orders of the bureaucracy: whole populations of workers are thrown out
of work. Protests occur in these towns almost daily, according to the
Chinese website China Labour Bulletin, and repression is severe.
Independent unions are forbidden in China.
The fate of two union organisers, Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, both men in
their 50s is demonstrative. They led protests against the layoff of
millions of workers in Liaoyiang, north-east China. They were sentenced to
seven and four years respectively, time they are serving in a penal colony
so harsh that both men have been hospitalised since October and are feared
to be in danger of dying. This in a country which has signed up to the
United Nations International Labour Organisation, and whose stooge union
the ACFTU sits on the governing body of the ILO.
While the protest movement is said to be growing in north-east China the
scale of repression means it has been virtually impossible for foreign
activists and journalists to raise solidarity or to report it at the time.
Hence, as far as the British media and Tony Blair's government are
concerned, it does not exist.
In the "new" China, things are different. Whereas the typical workforce in
Manchuria is older, well trained and possesses strong self-organising
tendencies, the workforce in the south is largely new. In Shenzhen, the
Manchester of the 21st century, the typical factory employs mainly young
women from the rural provinces of the south-west. They live in dorms, are
subject to heavy supervision and forced pregnancy testing.
Their wages can be five times what they could earn at home. These massive
workplaces full of first generation urban workers are the new Putilov
factories of the Chinese revolution – but they have a long way to go before
self organisation takes root. Indeed the availability of masses of
replacement workers – and the high turnover (average career length for a
young woman worker is five years) means it will take a wider social
upheaval to break the hold of the line managers here.
Right now the political watchword both of the bureaucracy – and even the
independent workers' leaders – is reform. The bureaucracy will use friendly
internal criticism, combined with a ban on independent organisation, to
nudge the party away from the horse trough it has been feeding from since
the 1990s. In return - maybe in a decade or so there will be an
independent labour bureaucracy that acts as broker between the big
employers and the workforce.
The Chinese workers need to break this policy which will condemn them to
decades of super exploitation. What is needed is a real Chinese communist
party – a revolutionary workers party that can mobilise the billions of
exploited and oppressed to settle accounts with Chinese dictatorship and
establish the power of the workers and poor farmers. Only then can the
Chinese masses harness their enormous energy and potential to benefit all
in society through establishing a soviet China, a real workers state.
FOR MORE ON CHINA SEE:
http://www.workerspower.com/wpglobal/linksasia.html#Anchor-China-52467

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06 Power Transfer in Iraq Starts This Week
From: WADI e.V. Wien, <wadi_wien at hotmail.com>
Power Transfer in Iraq Starts This Week
4. 1. 2003 washingtonpost.comBy Robin Wright and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post Staff Writers
After eight months of debate and delay, the United States this week will
formally launch the handover of power to Iraq (news - web sites) with the
final game plan still not fully in place.

The United States begins the complicated political, economic and security
transfer with a general framework and a June 30 deadline for completion. But
critical details are still being negotiated between the Iraqis and U.S.
administrator L. Paul Bremer, some of which could determine whether the new
Iraqi government is ultimately embraced by the majority of Iraq's 22 million
people.
"We're open to refinement, and we're waiting to hear what people have
suggested or will suggest," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in an
interview. "What Ambassador Bremer and all of us have been doing in our
conversations is listening and hearing and [saying], 'Are there better ideas
that would make the plan more refined, better and more acceptable to a
broader group of individuals and leaders within Iraq?' " Besides figuring
out who will rule in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s wake, Iraqis over
the next two months will have to answer a host of deferred and potentially
divisive questions: What kind of government will Iraq have? What will be the
role of Islam? How much local rule will ethnic, tribal or religious groups
have?
The deadline is Feb. 28 for agreement on these and other basic questions,
due to be codified in the recently renamed Transitional Administration Law,
the precursor to a constitution.
A month later, Iraqis have to determine their relationship with U.S.
troops -- and therefore the United States -- after the handover. One of the
thorniest issues will be giving U.S. troops immunity from prosecution for
any action they may take, a standard U.S. demand when it deploys troops
abroad. But Iraq presents a different set of issues than what American
forces face in peaceful environments such as Germany, Italy and South Korea
(news - web sites) inasmuch as U.S. soldiers could still be fighting in a
country not under U.S. control.
Iraqis, who like to note that they have less time than the U.S. founding
fathers did to come up with a constitution and new government, are already
worried -- and predicting problems. "This is the decisive period -- and we
will probably go to the brink a few times before we make those decisions," a
prominent Iraqi politician said.
U.S. officials say Washington plans to resolve many of these remaining
questions in negotiation with the Iraqi Governing Council, whose initial
incompetence precipitated the delays that forced the United States to design
the Nov. 15 agreement. The accord outlines the multiphase process, centered
on provincial caucuses, to select a provisional government.
Seven weeks after the accord, however, the council has been unable to close
the wide differences of opinion among rival Iraqi leaders, ranging from
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to the Sunni community once protected by
Hussein.
Sistani, a Shiite Muslim cleric who has a larger public following than any
other Iraqi, has demanded elections to pick Baghdad's post-occupation
government. But no compromise has been reached, despite a stream of
communications among Sistani, Bremer and the Governing Council -- leaving
the legitimacy of the process in doubt, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
As the effort to turn over power begins in earnest, symbolic actions are
planned: town halls to launch a nationwide political dialogue, graduation
this week of an Iraqi army battalion, completion of the new currency
exchange, the first cell phone system.
"This next month, we have a thousand things going on. We're drinking out of
a fire hose," a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said.
Washington wants to begin transferring specific duties to Baghdad so that
inexperienced Iraqis do not suddenly find themselves assuming total
responsibility in six months.
In a step pivotal to the transition, Iraq will also once again be the focus
of debate at the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 19, when the Iraqi council
will appeal for the world body to return. But senior members of the U.S.-led
Coalition Provisional Authority may not attend the meeting, despite a
personal summons by Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites).
Repeatedly burned at the United Nations (news - web sites) on Iraq,
Washington wants the Iraqis to make their own case to the United Nations
this time, U.S. officials say.
"It's time that Iraqis begin representing themselves -- and that the world
recognizes that fact," a State Department official said.
The toughest task facing the United States now, many U.S. officials say, is
figuring out a way to broaden political participation, the core issue in the
debate over elections. The Bush administration refuses to budge from the
Nov. 15 agreement, in part for fear that further demands could delay the
transition.
To bring more Iraqis into the process, the United States is tinkering with
the formation of new Iraqi political bodies -- often creatively but also in
piecemeal fashion, based largely on local factors and preferences rather
than a uniform standard nationwide.
As a first step, the United States has begun to reconfigure dozens of local
city councils originally appointed by U.S. military commanders or
provisional authority officials in the field. Some councils have been
virtually dissolved, whereas others have only had new members added. The
approach usually depends on local politicians and input from the Iraqi
Governing Council members from the area.
The United States faces another crucial step in the process of selecting a
government this week with the creation of coordinating committees. That
selection process could last two months.
In each of Iraq's 18 provinces, 15-member committees are to select members
for caucuses, which will in turn pick legislators for a new national
assembly. The exact number in parliament, and whether it has one chamber or
two, is another issue to be determined. The legislature will then pick the
government.
U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad are exploring ideas that will
combine this formula with some form of elections, again perhaps differing in
key areas, to accommodate Sistani's demand. The administration believes it
can find common ground.
"The ayatollah has raised issues with respect to how you do the caucus
elections, and I think it's safe to say that we are in a dialogue with him
and with others who have an interest in how one actually goes about
selecting a transitional assembly and a transitional government," Powell
said.
One idea being discussed is having quick local elections for some delegates
to the coordinating committees. Under the current formula, in each province
five of the 15 members are appointed by the Governing Council, five by the
provincial council and one from each of the five largest cities. One
problem, however, is whether elections for only five of the delegates from
major cities would satisfy Sistani's call for public input rather than
appointment.
The future of the 25-member Governing Council, handpicked by Bremer, must
also be decided. Some members argue that it should be preserved as the
second chamber of an Iraqi legislature, an idea U.S. officials and many
Iraqis oppose. The United States continues to be frustrated by council
members, their personal ambitions and their divisive politics, although U.S.
officials give them credit for making a more earnest effort recently.
"Ambassador Bremer has a strong working relationship with the Governing
Council, and we are eager to move forward on the November 15 political
agreement as signed and published," said Dan Senor, the U.S. spokesman in
Baghdad. Washington hopes that the various town halls -- one has been held
in Basra, another will take place in Mosul soon -- will help generate ideas
and feedback for "refinements" in the plan.
"We're engaged in a robust effort to get all parties engaged in this
process. We're going to be doing a lot of things over the next few weeks.
There's a lot that needs to happen, given the timeline to get all the
critical parties to buy into the political process," a senior U.S. official
said.
But as the countdown begins to the formal handover, time is also running
short.
"We have a six-month marathon ahead of us, so we're lacing up our shoes and
getting ready to roll. It's not one thing or another dominating the agenda,"
the senior administration official said. "It's keeping all the balls in the
air and jogging forward at the same time."------------------------------------------------
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07 Pretty Blöd
From: 11ie. 11ie at chello.at
Erfreut darüber, dass nicht nur ich als Atheistin das so sehe, nachstehenden
Leserinnenbrief aus dem profil:
Pretty blöd
Kolumne von Elfriede Hammerl
Als angesprochene Muslimin nehme ich es persönlich, wenn von Frauen der
islamischen Glaubensgemeinschaft Österreichs das Tragen eines Kopftuches als
"normale" und folgerichtige Ausübung des Islams dargestellt wird. Das ist es
nicht! Im Koran ist vorgeschrieben, während ritueller Handlungen, wie zum
Beispiel dem Gebet, Haare, Schultern, Arme und Beine der Frau zu bedecken.
Aus einem 500 Jahre alten Text jedoch Regeln abzuleiten, wonach Frauen sich
ebenso in allen öffentlichen Lebenssituationen zu verhüllen haben, kann nur
als Fundamentalismus bezeichnet werden. Das Tragen des Kopftuches im 21
Jahrhundert in Europa entspricht einer fundamentalistischen
Religionsauslegung, und dem ist keine Präsenz im öffentlichen Sektor
einzuräumen. Wenn das als Ausgrenzung einer ganzen Glaubensgemeinschaft
hochstilisiert wird, in der Populismus leicht zu erkennen.
Ilkim Erdost

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