Ping Pong / Middlesex Declaration / dESFunctionality

Kernow Craig, Greenpepper Magazine

The events at the ESF around issues of precarity were interesting. I've
given a very brief overview of it all as I'm still a little fried by it
all, maybe others that attended can extrapolate on the following...

The initial events taking place within the official european social forum
on precarity was not attended by m/any of the non union groups organising
around this, leaving the 'official' discussions to what have been
described as the political undead. This event was largely seen by those
who withdrew as a photo opportunity for the italian unions to demonstrate
how they are putting this on the eurowide agenda.The Precarity Ping Pong was a lively critical debate between those who
have worked and theorised on and around these issues with and since its
conception as a focus for struggle. One of the interesting points for me
in this event was the issue of immigration and freedom of movement placed
firmly on the map for inclusion in the precarity discussions to follow
over the weekend. I believe this event was streamed so I will try and get
the link for the list otherwise we will be making this available on the GP
site in the following weeks. The Ping Pong format of short and sharp
responses of around 5 minutes per person was successful to some point,
however it still required round 3 of the spectacle to be dropped and for
the concrete proposals which were to be covered in this round to be
discussed in the following days First Assembly of the Precariat of Europe.

The grandiosely titled First Assembly of the Precariat of Europe consisted
of a long session of introductions from groups, well versed and new, who
are organising around Precarity. The assembly consisted of many groups
from a pretty good spread of europe, however our 'spaghetti comrades' were
most visible. The ambition of this event was to set a eurowide agenda
between these groups for the following year. The outcome was largely
prefigured due to the well-networked nature of europe now and much
communication having taken place over the summer in the lead up to the esf
and other such events, both local and transeuro. Plans have been put in
place for a meeting to take place some time in January for a EuroMayday
preparatory meeting to be held in Berlin. Proposals for a single
EuroMayday in one European city was met with criticism due to it limiting
the ability for immigrants to participate because of visa issues. The
other outcome of this event was the conception of the 'Middlesex
Declaration', a statement coming from this assembly and the groups that
attended that will be further discussed on the new Euromayday email list
before being declared. The email list being another outcome of the event.

The event 'anti-dystopia' saw precarity on the agenda with Hardt
presenting. This was basically a presentation and question answer by Hardt
alongside NEAN and PreCog. There werent any particularly hard or
challenging questions put to Hardt, and there werent any particularly
challenging responses. All in all a relatively mild occassion. I did
however enjoy his definition of the Multitude:

Multitude = Autonomy + Collaboration