(1) Koj yug los nyob qhov twg, koj nyob qhov twg, koj tau kawm dab tsi, kev ua haujlwm, tsev neeg lub neej, thiab lwm yam? Hauv luv, qhia koj tus kheej ntawm tus kheej.
I was born in england in 1970 and moved to Australia at the ripe old age of seven. I didn’t even start to think about politics until I had almost completed a double degree in engineering (manufacturing systems) and business (marketing). I worked as an engineer for 3 years after graduating, learnt how to manage large projectsto tight deadlines – and then quit and went forest blockading and got heavily involved in the grassroots environmental activist movement – which I’ve now been doing for around 10 years.
I’ve been doing both oppositional campaigning work (trying to stop bad stuff) and pro-active building of alternatives (doing good stuff) and co-founded two worker managed recycling co-operatives, both of which are roughly based on a parecon operating model. So, I have a strong entreprenuerial bent, enjoy the cut and thrust of political campaigning, and have a strong commitment to grassroots, non-hierarchical organising.
(2) What have been your main political involvements in the past? Are you involved with particular movements, projects, or organizations now? If so, which? What features would an International Political Organization have to embody to attract you? What features would repel you? In short, introduce yourself politically.
Was actively involved in Friends of the Earth Australia for many years – which is basically decentralised network of volunteer run activist groups with a strong focus on environmental justice. Through FoE I was heavily involved in the global justice movement and Australia’s version of the Seattle WTO mobilisation – at the Melbourne World Economic Forum on September 11 2000. Following on from this, I co-organised the Brisbane Social Forum – the first social forum to happen in Australia.
I currently work for Greenpeace Australia, co-ordinating the campaign against genetically engineered crops.
Features of an international political organisation that would attract me would be: participative decision making, a commitment to decentralisation, clear processes to ensure that authority is clearly delegated, accountable and recallable, and realistic/pragmatic – moving forward from where people are – not from where we want them to be. It would also need to reflect the values that we are working towards in other ways – ie gender equity, ecological sensibility etc. It would reflect modern understandings of networks and this would be integrated into any strategies for achieving change. It would reward and encourage creativity and risk taking.
The things that would repel me are dogmatism, rigid thinking, centralisation and hierarchical thinking, boring meetings, male dominance and other forms of unaccountable hierarchy and elitism.
(3) Imagine you are giving a public talk The question and answer period arrives. Someone says, "I know you are against capitalism, anti-racist, and anti-sexist. I know you believe in participation, want solidarity, require sustainability, and seek justice. Me too. But in a real world society, what institutions do you seek so as to fulfill those aims? What are your structural goals?" How do you answer? In short, stretch a bit in the directions ZSVS seeks to emphasize.
We need all kinds of institutions covering production, distribution, retail, arts, community, health, education etc…basically most of the institutions that we currently have, plus a few more and maybe minus a few others. The key thing is that we need to restructure existing institutions so that they promote and encourage democracy, solidarity and justice and so that they recognise ecological limits.
Many organisations are already finding that they function far more effectively when they abolish pyramidal hierarchies. The next logical step is to distribute ownership as well as decision making powers. So reforming existing institutions to embody real workplace democracy is a pretty good place to start. It is not realistic to have a vibrant and effective democracy when such massive concentrations of power exist. Corporate charters should be re-instated to include community and environmental values, and the size of private institutions should be limited both in terms of the number of people, and their revenue. One of the first candidates for democratisation and decentralisation should be the media.
Introducing community assemblies at a local government level, with the gradual introduction of participatory budgetting is also a potentially powerful transitional strategy. I could go on – I will at some point, but this will do for now…
(4) Koj cia siab li cas kom tawm ntawm ZSVS, tus kheej, rau koj tus kheej thiab rau koj txoj haujlwm? Rau peb txhua tus, koj xav li cas feem ntau yuav tawm ntawm ZSVS? Tsis tas li ntawd, koj cia siab li cas, hauv koj lub sijhawm zoo tshaj plaws, yuav tawm ntawm nws? Hauv luv luv, cuam tshuam qhov peb txhua tus npaj thiab ua tiav thiab lub suab peb ua nrog.
I’d like to meet others who share a similar vision and possibly find people to begin some collaborative projects with. I’d like to learn from the experience of others, so that I can continue my change work with renewed vigour and vision.
I think the likely outcome will be some stronger relationships between people with similar passions, a few collaborations – and a few more seeds planted for positive visioning of the global justice movement.
I’m interested in the radical potential that is building as a result of climate change. It creates massive and exciting opportunities and I think will be the defining issue of the next 20 years or so. The technologies that are causing the problem are inherently authoritarian in nature – their existence implies centralised systems. The technological solutions to climate change on the other hand, are inherently decentralised technologies that best suit distributed and decentralised energy systems. This creates interesting and exciting opportunites for political decentralisation. So i’m interested in talking about this, and finding others that share similar politics to explore opportunities and intersections of ideas…
