CALLING ALL GRASSROOTS, ANTI-CAPITALIST MOVEMENTS, GROUPS AND COLLECTIVES......

The 3rd European conference of the Peoples` Global Action (PGA) network: from the 23rd until the 29th of July 2004 in industrial zone around Belgrade, Post-Yugoslavia

Peoples Global Action is a global network of local struggles, worldwide network that works towards a durable political, social, borderless and directly democratic alternative to capitalism and all systems of oppression. It is a place where anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist initiatives meet.

PGA hallmarks:

The purpose of PGA exchanges and the PGA network is to connect local groups that agree with the PGA’s hallmarks:

1. A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation.

2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings.

3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker.

4 A call to direct action and civil disobedience, support for social movements’ struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism.

5. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy.

PGA is a tool for coordination, not an organization. PGA has no members and does not have and will not have a juridical personnality. Nor organisation or personality represents PGA.

Drugaciji Svet je Moguc! (DSM!) coalition is the European convener of the upcoming PGA conference. DSM! invites all friends from Europe to take part in organization process.

We would like to emphasize that at this point we are sending a call, while more detailed information on thematic areas, travel, etc. will be available soon online or in newsletters.

Why?

-Because it is important, in the time of military interventions and increasing militarism to organize an alternative European conference of radical political networks, instead of accepting the false dilemma posed by new European nationalism and Eurocentrism.

- Because it is equally important not to accept the false choice of defending national state economies against the economy of the United States or of the United Europe.

- Because of the Eastern European political struggle: since the level of organizing among East European groups working in accord with PGA principles is still scarce and unconnected, we are sure that staging the next conference in the part of ex-post Yugoslavia is going to be very beneficial for the PGA process in this region. We think that it is about time to leave summit hopping behind us and to link networking and local struggles. There is hardly a better place to do this than in Eastern Europe- and Post-Yugoslavia in particular.

-Today, (ex-post )Yugoslavia is a country with 250,000 people that were killed in the war (from 1991 to date), while a million and a half internally displaced people did not return to their homes, meaning that their repatriation remains politicaly impossible. The number of people who have emigrated is close to this figure and always rising, as people prepare every day to cross the border of the new Berlin wall [into] the Shengen state, which separates the new Roman empire from the "Barbarian menace". The number of missing people fluctuates on a daily basis , with the exhumation of mass graves and remains of the unidentifed victims lying in white body bags, pushed from one administrative form to another to get their "case closed" (Tuzla).

The most important news are not the ones on the cover pages, but tucked away in the back of newspapers, somewhere between the sports and culture section, in the array of classified adds: legal and illegal visas, human trafficking, laid-off people accepting any avialable job, renting a workforce, as well as offers in human organs (it is often the case that the invisible offer their kidneys for sale in order to provide their children with education, - an commerce that is still legally prohibited in Yugoslavia). Many of those who have committed crimes are still free and at large, while the agents of the "civil society" (read: burgeois middle class) and their chief promoters - foreign NGOs fighting for "human rights" - are exactly those who would have to pay for the change in status quo and the real improvement of life conditions in our country, with the loss of their several hundred thousand jobs and mega-wages; in one word "nonsense as a political category" rules our lands.

This brings the paradox to its pinnacle, because capitalism brought "peace" (the western media and the international community off corse have made a great effort to present the model liberal-capitalist, in whose times the greatest initial robbery of public property, privatization and fortune making took place - i.e. Slobodan Milosevic, as the "last communist of the century", connecting his overthrowing with the importation of liberal democracy, even with the use of bombs).

Despite 10 years of isolation and a large amount of enthusiasm for a decisive capitalist "liberation", 45% of the population on the last elections went boycotted parlamentarian democracy as an option.

For all these reasons, confusion is at its peak in Yugoslavia today.

The civil war, military aggression (by the own military in the own country), embargo, NATO aggression, NATO occupation, reconstruction, parliamentarianism, negationism, rampaging capitalism, ethno-fascism, modern atavism, atavistic modernism, mass destitution, in one word - the most black dream of European reality, are only a few of the reasons for the Yugoslavs' feeling of complete misunderstanding with the rest of the "normal world", that has not experienced a civil war and the listed political nonsenses in the past ten years.

The absurd feeling of returning into something that already existed, the bloody breaking up of the United Yugoslav states in order to enter the United states of market Europe, are but another element of the average Yugoslav's feeling of hopelessness, driven into the "joyful expectation of the civilized Europe".

That's why we feel it is of extreme importance to promote direct democracy and self-organisation as legitimate resistance and possible "alternative way(s) and direction(s)" , spreading among our population the idea that behind big and unanimous propaganda fleg, exist another side of capitalism.

-Because our country has been put up for sale and faces mass deregulation of worker’s rights, which is, paradoxally, something that the citizens of West European countries have to worry about as well.

- Becasue DSM, as the convenor of the next PGA conference in Europe, feels that our country has been given the role of a filtering corridor and courtyard before the gates of Schengen Europe. According to the last UNHCR statistical data, the population of Serbia and Montenegro rank third in the world in seeking asylum in other countries! For this reason, this location is adequate common ground for tackling the crucial issue of immirgation, which is equally important for East and West.

- Because it is high time to shift the European radical movement from place of occasional victories (Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil...) to the ground of its total defeat - ex (post) Yugoslavia

When and Where?

July 23 to 29, 2004 IN RESNIK, RAKOVICA, INDUSTRIAL ZONE AROUND Belgrade (Post Yugoslavia)

Do we need your involvement?

Oh yes! Our local context, as our guests from the last meeting (October, 2003) are now aware of, is very troublesome in many regards. We cannot do this alone.

But who are we?

Many of you still do not know us. So who are we? DSM is a group of groups, collective of collectives united under the slogan "Drugaciji Svet je Moguc!". Together, we are striving to create a new political space unaffiliated with political parties or the so-called non-governmental sector. This new space prefers direct political action to generally accepted forms of engagement, such as lobbying or voting. We insist on a social dialogue that is different from the one proposed by our government and the NGO sector. The horizontal social dialogue we would like to be part of involves marginalised social groups that are systematically prevented from exercising their basic rights. We also distance ourselves from the concept of civil society and instead suggest the concept of a "participatory society".

Despite being a relatively young movement, DSM has managed to attract a significant number of persons with various social and professional backgrounds. Our diversity provides us with a steady flow of ideas, which we have started to carry out through short and long-term projects and activities.

Our country has been under isolation for a very long time and what the people need most is a wake up call. And this is what we are doing and will continue to do - by providing information, through direct action and an open-minded approach that will try to convince people to co-operate in building a new society, rather than to compete for the crumbs contemptibly tossed to them by the ruling oligarchy.

In conclusion, we hope that all who are concerned can trust our incentives and positive plans for action and could get involved to organize a successful conference in our ex-future country.

The next preparatory meeting will take place January 10 - 12, 2004. in Belgrade

We expect to have the goals and thematic areas defined before the scheduled date of this preparatory meeting. A more detailed application form for participating groups will be available soon.

Mail to: drugacijimejl(at)yahoo.com

(Administered by: SUS Collective, member of DSM! coalition)

-- GiovanninaCoccola? - 19 Jan 2004