1.
n5m3 means Next Five Minutes Three. There must be another possible, and
easily recognisable name for this occasional event, which talks of `tactical
media' and concerns itself with `alternative', `radical', `subversive',
`democratic' or `oppositional' uses and understandings of, and projects
for, the whole range of electronic media. This event, however, is heavily
into the elusive, the imaginative, jouissance (`playfulness' obviously
lacks the required French weight). 2. The central part of the event takes
place in two famous neighbouring cultural centres in the centre of cultural
Amsterdam. There was a related but autonomous Cyberfeminist event preceding
in Rotterdam. And there are connected events taking place at a third site
in the middle of Amsterdam. And there will be following hands-on events
in Rotterdam. All of this having been set up, for the third time, by an
alliance of communication and culture people, and subsidised by Dutch,
European Union and other such funds. I missed the previous two, having
a job at the time. Having taken early retirement (my job getting in the
way of my work), I bought a three-day ticket for n5m3 but dropped the third
day in order to sort out my head and write this. I feel good about doing
this since the intensity, variety and flexibility of the event means I
can anyway check it out and contribute to it from this very machine. 3.
It's too bad my companera, Gina the Peruana, is not here, with her `que
maravilla!', and `khow can they do that Waterman?'. Gina has an infinite
capacity for wonder and delight, as well as an openness to things she may
not have previously have considered or confronted. But right now she is
stuck in the middle of a national general strike and consequent state of
emergency in a globalised Ecuador - where she has discovered a vibrant
feminist and women's movement. Gina, when she travels, usually finds herself
in institutes and agencies, in international feminist events and non-governmental
circles. Although interested in and open to cyberspace (whilst cursing
MSWord - and me for introducing her to it), this is a space of creativity,
freedom, commitment and competence that she would enjoy. 4. Threading my
way through the maze of computers, cables, videocameras, gays, punks, culture-shocked
Africans, streetwise London Blacks, Russian cyberfeminists, anarcho-something
bookstalls, and an English guy about my age (63) - with the only tie in
the event - I find myself in one of two major, dusky halls. Loudspeakers
are piled high, an immense screen for video-projection requires one to
move to the back of the hall to see it all, and tiny figures of all shapes,
sizes, abilities, ethnicities (and, surely, sexual options), look, listen
and make short, pungent, or totally confusing presentations. I am reminded
of the carnival creativity of the 1960s-70s. I think of the 1920s, when
the cultural avantgarde briefly combined with the political vanguard. 5.
I am in a condition of simultaneous chagrin and satisfaction. In 1979 I
began, with a couple of colleagues, the self-published Newsletter of International
Labour Studies, which concerned itself not simply with studies but also
the promotion of a new labour internationalism. Around 1984 I wrote a piece,
`Needed a New Communications Model for a New Working-Class Internationalism'.
For some years I worked on this theme, both academically and politically.
From the early-90s a number of international labour computer networks and
conferences took shape. But then I was distracted by the need to complete
a couple of books. And, while I blinked, the n5m took shape and took off.
6. But `What About the Workers?' There is no speaker, no demonstration,
no literature here about alternative international labour communication
by computer - though this is now booming, has challenging and professional
websites, and has interesting stories to tell. The only fulltime labour
communication activists here are, I think, Chris from LabourNet in the
UK, and Apo and Rex from the Asia Monitor Resource Centre, Hongkong. It
is not that the socialist or pro-labour computer people blinked, it's that
they are still blinkered. Their orientation to socialism, workers and organisations
(primarily trade unions) cuts them off from the feminists, the artists,
those with mohican haircuts, those who speak elusively, who play with illusion.
Equally are they cut off from those who use French words where there exists
a perfectly good English one, to show they have read French penseurs like
Foucault, Derrida and Guattari (whose disdain, or dedain?, for the working
class, labour movement, trade unions, socialism are as infinite as cyberspace).
7. Yet, surprise! surprise! much of this is present here, at least in the
interstices. To start with, there are - to judge from the accents - plenty
of British working-class people, or people of working-class origin, and
with interests in popular culture - present here. There is here more serious
talk about capitalism, particularly in its globalised networked form, than
I have heard in a dozen academic or feminist events over the past five
years. In these other events, capitalism is usually represented as `globalisation'
(OK, the latest phase of the Big C), `neo-liberalism' (OK, the latest project
of the Big C). Here the Big C is named, and its implications spelled out,
particularly by activist academic Saskia Sassen, but also by others. Here,
a globalised networked capitalism, a globalised cultural capitalism, seems
to be understood less as a threat, or a promise, than as a terrain that
one both inhabits and contests. Thus, we have attacks by the Clean Clothes
Campaign on Nike, and its ubiquitous `swoosh' (turned into a question mark,
with blood dripping from it), applauded by an audience, including those
wearing swooshes. 8. It appears that, in the new media, labour is being
not so much represented, by unions or socialist parties, it is being re-presented
by radical, democratic and maybe even small-s socialist activists: like
the CCC above, which works with open-minded unions but on consumers, not
in workplaces or union offices, but outside the stores and in the shopping
malls. Then there is Deedee Halleck, veteran of Paper Tiger TV in the US,
on on-line resistance to the prison-industrial (labour) complex - now spreading
worldwide. And those working with video with immigrants (working, work-seeking),
under the slogan `No Human is Illegal'. And Rachel Baker from the UK, with
her attempt to computer-subvert the major British supermarket chains (where
workers work and buy), by interfering with their `loyalty cards' (and getting
threatened by their lawyers for her pains). Not to speak of the now world
famous campaign of two British working-class activists against McDonalds,
which rapidly got on to the internet and video, and led this goliath to
spend millions to indict them (workers work in McD, workers eat in McD).
Not to speak of the anarcho-ecological Reclaim the Streets campaign, a
now worldwide direct-action movement, only four years old, which believes
streets should be public-human-space and not private-auto-space, and who
lent their disrespect for authority, and their capacity for making a joyful
noise, to the striking Liverpool dockworkers, at a time when their trade
unions - from the local to the global level - were finding 101 good reasons
to ignore, condemn or control it. 9. And, neither least nor last, there
was Richard Barbrook, an ivory-tower academic no less, asking `how can
digital workers organise to advance their common interests?', and answering,
`Formed within the digital economy, a virtual trade union should emphasise
new principles of labour organisation: artisanal, networked and global'.
Richard, a veteran of 1970s type alternative media, was, like most of those
who mentioned labour, rather more friendly toward unions than might have
seemed justified by their invisibility at the event. Or, for that matter,
by the story from the Dutch Intermediair, that I found and read on my train
back to The Hague last night. Subtitled `Trade Unions and CBAs [Collective
Bargaining Agreements] Advance in IT Sector', it quoted extensively from
the union officer concerned, whose own concerns were to convince the cheerfully
dismissive and ruthlessly anti-union corporation directors also interviewed
that 1) unionism and CBAs led to greater efficiency, 2) that they were
a useful weapon in inter-company competition (for workers), 3) that they
were good for the economy and…(at this point I gave up, having got the
message that Dutch trade unions provide the oil that prevents Dutch capitalism
from squeaking). Should I have read on? Or should I have returned today
to show them a union card I possess and carry around to demonstrate that
the slogan of the Dutch trade unions is less `abolition of the wages system'
than `if you can't beat them, join them, subordinate yourselves to them,
prostrate yourselves before them, become them'? What I carry around internationally,
in my hipzipbag, next to my arse (Am. Engl: ass), is a plastic union card,
which combines the real advantages of an interest or pressure group, with
the appearance of my Visa Card, the logo of a Customer Card, and the same
value as a Sainsbury's Loyalty Card has in Tacna, Peru. 10. A plastic card
for a plastic union? If this suggests a certain cynicism with respect to
the capacities of trade unionism to confront a globalised networked capitalism,
and if this would seem to be confirmed by the absence of specifically labour
representatives at n5m3, it would be difficult to explain my own continued
concern with labour questions and worker organisation. There is a line,
fine and blurred, between cynicism and scepticism. This appeared, perhaps,
in the discussion on what the event's organisers called the Post-Government
Organisation (PGO). Although intended precisely to reveal a new arena of
power struggle in the era of globalisation, and to stress the ambiguity
of the phenomenon, the audience took the term to mean Government Substitution
Organisation (GSO). The guy with the tie tended toward the cynical end
of the spectrum by showing some of the most prominent of these international
NGOs (you know, `we are the world, you are the useless third world') as
being simultaneously controlled by Western intelligence agencies and major
transnational corporations - and by then leaving it to academics to interpret
his evidence. Somebody from Greenpeace (which combines the media-awareness
of n5m3 with the publicity savvy of Benetton and the internal democracy
and openness of the Central Committee of the CPSU) took exception and argued
passionately that `we' should not permit ourselves to be divided, given
the common problems and enemies with which `we' are confronted. Yes, well…
One of the problems with which this session was concerned was precisely
that of the representativity and accountability of PGOs. 11. I share the
concern about representativity and accountability of NGOs, and, consequently,
have for 20 years or so been off the invitation lists of either the Dutch
ministry of development cooperation, or its financially-dependent development
funding agencies, or its equally financially-dependent trade union development
agencies. But I still wonder how representativity/accountability can apply
within a globalised networked capitalism. These principles seem more appropriate
to organisations rather than networks. Or to individuals who 1) speak in
the name of others, and 2) keep their sponsors, finances and procedures/structures
secret. Who was represented by the amazingly successful anti-MAI (Multilateral
Agreement on Investment) campaign? To whom is it accountable? I have the
feeling that what we (woops!) need to concern ourselves with, and be upfront
about, is who and how we re-present (exactly how we manipulate=handle),
how we function, who we are. This question arises quite dramatically within
the area of international labour CMC. 12. International trade union websites
are the least problematic: they are run by representative democratic organisations
created in, by, and sometimes against, a state-nation-based industrial
capitalism. They see the web as a `tool' or `channel', for the processing
and projection of their databanks, bulletins or magazines. Sometimes they
also call for solidarity campaigns. But the notion of cyberspace as an
agora (woops, again, but, it's in the English dictionaries) for discussion
and debate does not exist. (NB. This statement is intended to provoke counter-information,
allowing me to put my sceptical messages on optimistic international union
websites). They tend to be run by people who think that reference to their
`representative' or `democratic' nature excuses them from behaving according
to the Iron Law of Oligarchy, discovered by social-democrat Robert Michels
on the basis of studying German social democracy around 1910. They tend,
finally, to think that women's, human rights', and other NGOs should defer
to them as `the largest democratic movement in the world'. 13. `Alternative'
labour websites, lists and other services, tend to be run by individuals
or groups, with names like LabourNet, LaborNet, Labour-List, LabourStart.
Relations within, between and around these projects vary. So does the technical
quality, frequency of update, breadth of coverage…and financial or political
relation with institutionalised labour. Just as the New (or Nice) Social
Movements are often run by Old Political People, so are the new, independent,
international labour media projects often run by people from Old Vanguard
Socialist Parties (I am one of them). These may act in quite traditional
territorial, competitive, exclusive, aggressive/defensive, devious or abusive
ways. (Remember when the end justified the means, rather than the means
determining the ends?). Others seem to understand that operating in the
infinity of cyberspace allows for and even requires new modes of behaviour.
Given the infinite stretch, depth and variety of relations that cyberspace
allows, tolerance, flexibility, speed of movement, lightness of touch,
creativity, imagination all seem to be called for. A little jouissance
wouldn't be out of space here either. We need to recognise, as Hans Magnus
Enzensberger did, in his apparently forgotten post-1968 essay on the media:
The open secret of the electronic media, the decisive political factor,
which has been waiting, suppressed or crippled, for its moment to come,
is their mobilising power [...] When I say mobilise I mean mobilise...namely
to make men more mobile than they are. As free as dancers, as aware as
football players, as surprising as guerillas. 14. Enzensberger did not
say `as accountable as an international union leader', nor `as democratic
as the general secretary of the central committee of the vanguard party
of the revolutionary internationalist working class'. None of which prevents
such an individual, or group, from operating in cyberspace, though it may
reduce the number of those prepared to work with him/them, or who feel
spoken for or to. Or who are going to ask him/them awkward questions about
how he/they finance his/their efforts. 15. Enough of men already. Although
women were in a minority at n5m3, I did not hear them complaining, far
less protesting, about this. Reasons being, I suppose, that a Cyberfeminist
event had preceded ours, that Cyberfeminists opened our event, and that
a critical mass of active, creative and evidently quite self-confident
women were doing their non-feminist, feminist or post-feminist things around
the spaces of n5m3. Curiously, it was those from the second Cyberfeminist
International event who appeared most uncertain about the meaning of cyberfeminism.
It seemed a shapeless, who-knows, what-does-it-matter, do-it-yourself kind
of phenomenon or project, and possibly more revealing of an individualistic
post-feminism than with the thrust and bite of second-wave feminism. I
did not find the full range of women's needs and desires, or of the concerns
of other n5m3 women, expressed here. Fortunately, thrust, bite and challenge
could be found in the written report of the First Cyberfeminist International,
held two years previously in Kassel, Germany. 16. Consider No. 16 as a
bunch of virtual flowers offered by me to the organisers and workers (hey!)
who set up this event. They showed me what an international cyberspace
PGO should look and sound like. This was a multi-cultural event (it had
a major section on `information poor' South Asia) which did not get bogged
down in the differences present. It was a cross-class event with both popular
and avantgarde, practical and academic, elements. It seemed to both live
within and look beyond the New Capitalist World Disorder. I felt both comfortable
and marginal here. Comfortable for reasons just expressed: marginal because
I wasn't on the platforms, on the screens, in the books. But marginality
today is not the same as isolation or self-isolation. Saskia Sassen made
a similar point about the local. This is no longer to be necessarily understood
traditionally, as the end of a chain (with one end firmly grasped by transnational
capital in a core country). It is to be, or can more usefully be, considered
as one node in a global web. Like Chiapas in the Deep South of Mexico.
Like the Liverpool dockworkers in a Thatcherised UK. It is now possible
to be both marginal and influential. It depends on the relevance and quality
of your ideas, the economy and elegance of your message, your recognition
of the necessary recombination of the aesthetic and the rational. And,
of course, your ability to be as free as a dancer, as aware as a football
player, as surprising as a guerilla… PS. For the rest, check out my site
above, or n5m3 at one of the following: http://www.n5m.org info@n5m.org
[Peter
Waterman, who retired from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague,
in 1998, is author of Globalization, Social Movements and the New Internationalisms
(Mansell, London and New York, 1998) and co-editor of Labor Worldwide
in the Era of Globalization: Alternatives for Unions in the New World Order
(Macmillan, London and St Martin's New York, 1999). |
