The responses of the be-collective
Over the years various people, mostly one by one, came to the conclusion that the be-collective was dominated by the
PtbPvda. When confronted with these conclusions, the PTB/PVDA-affiliated members always responded in the same patterns. NOT ONCE has there been a debate about the role of the
PtbPvda within the .be-collective, because this discussion has been deliberately sabotaged over and over again. The documentation on this party should show, however, that it is far from absurd to ask these questions. We will examine the patterns of sabotage more closely here.
1) Comparison with fascists
In Belgium this is known to be the ‘classic’ response of the
PtbPvda to accusations of totalitarianism. In attempts to ‘prove’ the point that all who criticize the .be-collective must be fascist, the
PtbPvda-affiliated members keep spreading links to fascist sites. It seems ironical that by doing this they are one of the greatest propaganda makers for these sites.
Some examples:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-communication/2005-March/0325-3d.html
http://ovl.indymedia.org/news/2004/09/3196_comment.php#3206
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcBelgiumSituation
http://ovl.indymedia.org/news/hidden.php?id=4351#4377
http://ovl.indymedia.org/news/2005/03/4892.php
http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-liege-edito/2003-November/000073.html
2) Isolation of complaints, psychological warfare
The problem of the
PtbPvda is very often waved aside as “coming from a small group of people” or “a few individuals say that…”, while over the years the problems have been explained by many people with different backgrounds. Because these people were not united in a close-knit political party like the .be-members, the isolation of individual complaints worked for a long time to maintain party-control. In this way, they were able to hold discussions of ‘5 against 1”, leading to the resignation of the minority. Over and over again, people left because they did not get a fair discussion.
3) Bureaucratisation of consensus
We can be very clear about how the PTB/PVDA-collective resolves conflict: they talk a lot and write a lot of very nice-written mails, but they never ACTED upon the problems presented to them. As is outlined in
BePOUviolation1 , imc.be actually already decided to disband itself, but these promises were later twisted into another version. It would be quite easy for them to prove their will to cooperate with deeds, but instead we notice that while the PTB/PVDA-core is talking about cooperation and mutual respect on the global lists, they continue to censor links to the local sites, they continue to spread lies and they continue vicious personal attacks on whoever they feel poses a threat to the party.
We know from facts that the PTB/PVDA-core has good reasons not to tell the truth, which means we cannot rely on the factual information they give. However, a lot can be learned if we look at the way in which they respond to accusations, which shows they don’t grasp the basics of consensus decision-making. It is important to keep in mind that the
PtbPvda look down upon base-democracy and other ‘anarchistic’ means of decision-making. They organize themselves according to the Leninist principle of ‘democratic centralism’, which boils down to a centralisation of decision-making in the hands of the people who are closest to the party.
Far from an abstract theory, we can see these principles put into practice, not only in the daily functioning of the collective, but also on the global email-lists:
- All communication between imc.be and the global network has been handled by a few ‘big mouths’: Han, Christophe, Bruno, Claudio. As BelgiumPtbPvda shows, these are all people which have close relations with the PtbPvda. It is quite absurd that all people who claim that imc.be has nothing to do with the PtbPvda are party-affiliates. Another factor is the quickness and frequency by which these ‘big mouths’ post mails on the lists. Surely, if imc.be is as diverse as it claims to be, it would take more time to formulate a consensus endorsed by the entire collective.
- Official reactions on the desaffiliation have been written by the ‘process-team’, which they refer to as the ‘management team’ in other documents. Looking at the reports and announcements of the general meetings of imc.be, we can learn that the desaffiliation-request HAS NOT and WILL NOT be discussed in a general meeting of imc.be. Valuable information is kept from the rest of the collective by this process-team. Needless to say that most, if not all, member of this process-team are affiliated with the PtbPvda.
Another way we can learn their contempt of consensus decision-making is from the way imc.be tries to turn this into a ineffective bureaucratic procedure. A few examples on the process list:
Conclusion
When we put all the above together, it becomes clear that the Stalinist core of imc.be is very good at playing games of words because they are a very organized political body. They are very active in hollowing out terms of decision –making and producing huge amounts of texts without content. They know very well that the only thing that keeps them alive is the advantage of doubt, and with this in mind try to create as much doubt as possible.
--
PimVanDenPlas - 10 Jun 2005
to top
