Reports from Nous Barris Information Table

Reports from Nous Barris Information Table
collected by Tamara Ford <tamara@home.actlab.utexas.edu>
 
 
Culture and Information Table, Catalunya

Statement at El Indiano

 
 
Foreword:
 
In 1996, in La Realidad, Chiapas, Mexico, thousands of people from around the world gathered to share the dream of making a better world and walking together, united. Just as a river unites various streams, growing stronger and wider as it flows, this is our network. It is an "electronic river" that unites all of the people of the world for humanity and for the Earth -- a river that is for the good of all, irrigating the land, providing fresh water so that everything blooms. Our network gathers and distributes information about the struggles of all people; it transmits the voices of the voiceless to all those who wish to listen, see, and love the same struggle.
 
[Note: This document was originally composed in spanish. This version has been slightly edited from the live English translation.]
 
Declaration:
 
Neoliberalism has created a homogenization of information that is a basic pillar of a system which imposes a single worldview which simplifies and reduces human beings to economic producers and consumers. Information we hear is reduced to simple entertainment. We say "Stop the show, let's talk about real life."
 
There are three major points for constructing this network.
 
1) Internal Communication (How we communicate amongst ourselves.)
2) Production and Distribution (How we gather, edit, and communicate
information.)
3) Action (How information is used to support global liberation movments.)
 
Concrete Actions
1) Break the Monopoly of the Global Media
2) Construction of a concrete system of organizing the network
3) Use a new language, clearer and more direct...resist elite or
neoliberal terminology
4) A net without a central head or hierachies, but with ways to
communicate urgent information symbolizing mobilization
5) Using ALL forms of comunicating, radio, broadcast, public television.
This is a free zone of information, you are not just in the internet, but
in the world wherever people fight for humanity and against neoliberalism
6) Participate in analysis and intervention in mass communications and
public policy in order to counteract them
7) Break the monopoly of professionals (Ed. I need original spanish to be
clearer on this.)
8) Analyze the agenices that are trying to control social movements, such
as the NSA and other intelligence agencies.
9) Create fundraising workgroups to finance our efforts and make the net
more inclusive for those who don't have access to resources.
10) Recognize the power of the official media and work to get our
information there... pursue contacts with the press.
11) Create databases of various contact information.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Purpose Statement

Culture and Information Table/Catalunya: Working Group #3

 
The purpose of this network is to communicate information of social struggles of all peoples on Earth as a way of achieving all forms of liberation and a world based on people over profit. Each of our worlds has a different reality and each communicates in its own way and it its own rhythm. Communicating and connecting with one another is a basic human right which is violated by dominant power structures. Our purpose is to breach the global media monopoly, and to link people and cultures of resistance using ALL forms of communication in order to overcome this domination. Not a goal in itself, but a way to reach goals, the network spreads the voices of our many realities and enables us, despite great distances and the oppression of neoliberal control, to reach one another, to know one another and to meet again.
 
------------------------------------------------------------------

Culture and Information Table Catalunya (Nous Barris)

Message written for, But not read to, the Plenary at El Indiano

 
Greetings and Salutations from the Barcelona Information Submesa 3 to all of you here now and to all people of the world who wish to change it. Our group produced a purpose statement and an outline of work we will do in order to extend an international network of independent communications as proposed at the first Encuentro. We will work together in four areas: Internal Communication, meaning how the network will get information within the network; Production and Distribution, meaning how the network will get information from people who need to speak to people who need to listen; and action, meaning how the network will serve as a coordinator for global liberation movements. Until we meet again we will communicate through the web page:
 
http://www.mygale.org/11/zapata
 
We wish you joy and revolution. !Alegri'a y Revolucio'n!
 
*************************
(longer version)
 
We conclude that the purpose of our international network of independent communications is to communicate information of social struggle of all peoples on Earth as a way of achieving all forms of liberation and a world based on people over profit. Each of our worlds has a different reality and each communicates in its own way and it its own rhythm. Communicating and connecting with one another is a basic human right which is violated by dominant power structures. Our purpose is to breach the global media monopoly, and to link people and cultures of resistance using ALL forms of communication in order to overcome this domination. Not a goal in itself, but a way to reach goals, the network spreads the voices of our many realities and enables us, despite great distances and the oppression of a market-based society, to reach one another and continue to meet again. This network is a revolution itself and exists to bring life to other revolutions.
 
In order to extend this international network of independent communications as proposed at the first Encuentro and Subcommandante Marcos' recentencouragementfor concrete plans we conclude that the work of building this network can be divided into 3 areas:
 
1)Internal Communication, meaning how we will exchange information within the network;
2)Production and Distribution, meaning how the network will get information it produces out into the world;
3)Action, meaning how the network will serve as a coordination system for global liberation movements around the world.
 
Until we meet again we encourage you to find out more from the following
new web page:
 
http://www.mygale.org/11/zapata
 
We wish you joy and revolution.

!Alegri'a y Revolucio'n!

BACKGROUND FROM ANDREW'S REPORT

 
On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, Andrew Flood wrote:
 
Starting work
 
The information sub-table of the culture mesa consisted of a hundred people meeting as guests of the Ateneu Popular (Popular/peoples centre) in the Nou Barris suburb of Barcelona. The first and only item on our agenda was how we were going to conduct the discussions. Put 100+ activists in a room with this alone in front of them and your asking for trouble, and indeed this resulted in an afternoon of discussion on whether we should meet as one large group or not and the following morning what areas of discussion each group should have.
 
We came up with quite a novel solution which recognised the different reasons people had in coming to the encounter and the particular needs they had. There were three topics of discussion
 
1. A critique of the existing (neoliberal) media
2. Our experiences of alternative media
3. Constructing a the network of communications between struggle
 
Rather then each group taking one of these the first group of around 25 people discussed 1, 2 and 3. The second group of around 40 people discussed 2 and 3 and the third group also of around 25 people discussed 3 only. This meant those who had come for developing an analysis or an education could join the first group while those of us in a rush to construct something practical joined the C group. Although it wasn't obvious at the time the process of reaching these decisions was in itself very useful in drawing the group of 100 or so together and defining the purpose for which we had come.
 
Over the next three days I managed to send brief reports out onto the internet, one of the strange features of this mesa was how many of the delegates sleeping on mats in school halls were equipped with portable computers, digital cameras and other playthings associated with the rich and famous. But with these we succeeded in putting up on the spot accounts and pictures of the encounter in process. The sub-group I worked with dealt with the issue of how to form the network of information between struggles. The call for this network had emerged from the previous encounter in Chiapas and was contained in the closing statement.
 
"That we will make a network of communication among all our
struggles and resistance's. An intercontinental network of
alternative communication against neoliberalism, an
intercontinental network of alternative communication for
humanity.
 
This intercontinental network of alternative communication will
search to weave the channels so that words may travel all the
roads that resist. This intercontinental network of alternative
communication will be the medium by which distinct resistance's
communicate with one another.
 
This intercontinental network of alternative communication is not
an organising structure, nor has a central head or decision maker,
nor does it have a central command or hierarchies. We are the
network, all of us who speak and listen. "
 
The group developing on this started with people from the USA, Denmark, Barcelona, Italy, Mexico, France, Ireland and Turkey and we were soon joined by others including people from Belgium and Columbia. Most but not all of these people had experience in communication, from Pirate Radio and small circulation magazines to regional TV stations. We decided to work in English and Spanish as everyone there had a working knowledge of one of these languages.
 
This seems a fitting place to comment on the purpose of the encounter. Too often such meetings are designed and judged only in terms of concrete written outcomes. So everything becomes streamlined to reach these outcomes and commonly democratic process goes out the window. This may occur directly by having a pre-set and rigid agenda and eliminating all discussion off this or in an indirect way by not allowing time for translation and understanding of what is being said.
 
It was a strength (if perhaps also at times a source of frustration) that at the information table at least this was not allowed to happen. Despite the fact that we were some 100 people speaking many different languages and from widely varied experiences, our discussions aimed at generating if not a consensus then at least the formation of a question to be voted on that was reached by seeking consensus. Perhaps using the more traditional way we would have emerged at the end of the week with a massive blueprint of intermeshing cogs in a global information network but like so many grandiose documents before it this would have represented another paper tiger destined to spontaneously combust in the heat of any real struggle.
 
What we discussed
 
We spent much of our time deciding what needed to be discussed, this in itself of course highlighted many vital questions. In time I hope some of the detailed agreement reached in these discussion will be made available on the net, for we made some effort to produce agreed documents/statements. What follows is a sketch of the discussion taken from notes and reports I
kept at the time.
 
A. What is the purpose of the network
 
How can we make sure the news/information we transmit is reliable,
what sort of guidelines can we have to also ensure it is relevant?
How can we prevent the exclusion of women and other groups from
the network?
 
We did succeed in producing an agreed statement of purpose after much debate.
 
B. The Internal organisation of the network
 
Should we be based only on local media, is this the same as
alternative media?
How can we have solidarity between different information networks,
how can we make our information reliable?
Should we have a logo to identify the network and if so which
logo?
How can we finance this work?
How can the network make 'expert' opinion and analysis available
to any and all of the nodes.
How can we defend the network?
 
Much of the discussion around the internal organisation of the network took place in a visual manner that is not easy to relate in words. We started off by rejecting the traditional pyramid structure of news media where local sources feed up to region level, which feed to national and perhaps the global level before news trickled down again to other regions. In discussing what a network without a centre could look like but in recognising that some people have more time and resources to dedicate to the flow of information then others, we came to use the human brain as an analogy. Here the many nodes have major paths that carry information between them but it is possible for any two nodes to form a connection and for any connection to improve in speed and the amount of information it can carry if this is needed. Therefore many minor paths also exist. There is also a two way flow of information and feedback on the information that is sent.
 
This image flowed out of what the network already is in practise. We considered for instance the path a communique from Marcos might take after he has written it in the heights of some Ceiba tree in the mountains of the Mexican south east. Perhaps it goes on horseback to the nearest settlement, from there by car to San Cristo'bel where it is typed onto a computer, translated and suddenly takes more paths, perhaps by fax to newspapers and solidarity groups on the one hand, on the other it jumps onto the internet and runs down the telephone lines to listserv's like Chiapas95. Here it replicates hundreds of times and make its way onto a desktop in Ireland where it jumps onto web pages and more lists but also gets printed out and stuck up as a poster in a bookshop or reproduced and distributed in the Mexico Bulletin. Simultaneously it has arrive in Istanbul, where it is also printed out and travels by bus to some distant town and a union meeting. Multiply this path by thousands and consider all the alternatives and we see the network already exists without a centre, indeed the different nodes have not only never met but can be unaware of each others existence.
 
So rather then invent and plan a new network our task was to see what
existed and see how we could, in a few days develop this existence and
improve the flow of information.
 
C. What methods of communication should we use.
 
There was a tendency to confuse the idea of the network with the internet and many people there had either no internet access or very poor internet access. So while the internet may form one of the major fibres of information flow it could only be one among many which would include printed words, fax, phone, radio and horseback messengers. We also needed to be open to use new forms of communication and indeed one of the most ambitious papers at our table called for the setting up of a global TV/Radio satellite
channel.
 
Outside of the physical methods of communication we also discussed other problems with communication.
 
How do we minimise language and cultural barriers?
How do we prevent a flood of useless information which drowns the
useful content in a sea of words?
Can we have different layers of information so more information
can always be obtained from summaries?
What sort of feedback mechanisms are possible?
 
D. Action
 
How can we show solidarity between the different nodes of
communication?
How can we develop the many media forms?
Can we construct a network of exchange of people so those
travelling can come into contact with local activists.
How do we prepare to defend the nodes of our network and the
network itself from the repression which will inevitable follow
success?
How can we arrange an exchange of skills within the network so
that people can be trained where this is needed?
 
One problem with this discussion was the different expectations people had of the network and of what was possible. Some had clearly come with the idea that at the end of the week we would have a detailed plan of a new network of communication and how it could be put into operation. But the network we have described is an organic one already in existence and already growing. Our role was more to begin a description of it and come up with ways to encourage its growth.
 
--- end Andrew's notes on Nous Barris

 

To the For Humanity and Against Neo Liberalism index

To Steves front page
To the Irish Mexico Group page
Go to the CapitolHill GeoPage