Why did ISO hijack Berkley CA Schools Conference?
Submitted by Chuck0:by Carmenita November 12 2001, Mon, 3:18pm
Why did the ISO lie to us all and bring us up here this weekend, only to
push and build and ISO coalition. if I wanted to be in the ISO i would
have joined the organiziation.
Berkeley Conference Hijacked by the ISO
This weekend I attended the CSAW (California Schools Against War)
Conference held in Berkley. I go to school in Santa Barbara. I came to
this meeting thinking that I was going to work with other schools and
help in regard of making solid
plans to bring to our campus and help to plan. I was looking for ideas,
for suggestions, a bit of suggestion and also I wanted to know where
other students stood on the Anti-War stance.
What ended up happening was just this enormous and very upsetting event.
The conference started with a panel on Saturday morning. No other
students
from other schools spoke during this time, mainly people from Berkley.
Lunch was
served.Workshops were held and I viewed the workshops as the best thing
that came out of my traumatizing weekend. The next day on Sunday there
was a delegation meeting. The Berkeley group without asking any other
schools had decided to only allow 5 delegates from each school to be
involved in the voting and decision making process during this
conference. So 5 delegates from each school who basically named
themselves delegates were picked to make choices for their entire school
without even having a chance to speak with the other members from their
school. From the time the process of the delegation meeting started it
was doomed to fail. In NO WAY was there talk of process, all 190 people
were basically TOLD that we would have to be in a majority voting
process without it EVER being discussed. We were just told this was how
things were going to be, no discussion was even held about
this. Please remember that we have 45 schools present at this
conference, non of which were told that they had a choice between
consensus decision making process, majority voting, or other forms of
decision making. There was no access to a list server or phone
conference calls by schools, we were told that there were email list
servers, I know my schools and a few others who tried numerous times to
contact The Berkley Stop the War Coalition but our emails went
unanswered. Nothing about the process and the format of this conference
regarding how we were going to make decisions were known, and there were
many people there who were very young, and this was their first event
like this who expressed over and over they did not understand the
process and felt like they were shut down, glossed over or just plain
ignored.
Back to the conference, they asked the schools to put forth proposals
that we wanted to be voted on. There were 25 proposals in all and we had
from
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM to get through them all. The first proposal was to
establish a
coordinating committee. So basically we were asked to instead of having
5 delegates from each school which is already undemocratic, we were now
being asked to have only 1 delegate representing each school, forming
basically a body of government working within this coalition. How can
that even happen? how can we only have 1 representative from each school
communicating and bringing forth the entire schools anti-war
perspective? is this right? well we didn't think so, but that didn't
matter since we were the minority by votes and the first proposal that
started our meeting was passed. Time ticked on and all types of
proposals regarding Days of Action, consumer boycott after Thanksgiving,
March to DC, and various other “important” proposals were passed or
thrown aside… in the meantime people are raising their hand and being
told by the Facilitator/moderator that they don’t have time and they
can’t talk. Dialogue was being cut off, and discussions were told that
they could not go on because we didn’t have time. Over and over they
stopped taking stack and told people not to raise their hands, over and
over people stood up and asked for clarification, and asked to be heard
and they were shut down. A young man in the back stood up and said that
this process was undemocratic, and that people have even stopped voting,
because they did not understand what was going on, since everything was
being cut off and stopped. People were becoming frustrated and asking to
be heard, at this point the facilitator looked confused and sent
everyone to lunch. During lunch groups started to gather and the words
of confusion and being upset were in the air, groups were talking about
walk outs, and they were talking about confronting this the minute they
went back in.
Once we came back into he hall, hands went up and people wanted a
Process Point, wanted a stop to the voting so that certain things could
be said, this AGAIN was ignored, glossed over and the voting continued.
As this was going on I
watched a young lady with a few others sitting in rows behind her stand
up and walk out into the hall, about 15 minutest later they came back
and went towards the podium, and asked from a Process Point. An older
middle eastern man stood up and asked that the student groups please
please involve more middle eastern people and not ignore the things we
want to say, and to please reach out to the middle eastern groups in
regards to organizing against the war. One womin went up and asked that
there please be more discussion before we vote so that we can all know
what we are voting for, so that we can all know what information to take
back to our campus and present to the groups we were supposed to be
representing.
She also asked for a more democratic voting process, because she did not
feel
comfortable at all in the situation that was going on. After her another
young womin who was middle eastern spoke and basically pleaded with the
group to include more voice of the middle eastern people and to not
please leave them out, her voice was shaking as she was saying this, and
she said that many of her friends and comrades had felt very very
isolated from the white/academia community and felt like nobody was
listening to them. After her 2 people from the conference organizing
group stood up who were middle eastern and said that there are many
middle eastern groups that are not against the war and that’s why they
were not there.
The Facilitator said that he wanted to vote for us to either continue w/
the majority voting process or move towards a consensus decision making
process. A vote was actually taken for this, but nobody actually
explained what consensus or majority voting is, nobody said anything
about it, and again there were so many people there who had no idea what
consensus even was, so how was this a fair vote?
With a all this going on I watched as the two girls who made the process
point, two women of color I might add who had the guts to walk up in
front of a
huge group and ask for there to be a voice. They walked out of the
meeting, many people followed them, as the rest of the body continued
voting and deciding things. I was in shock basically, I have never in
the few years I have been trying to dedicate my life to organizing
around issues such as these have I seen such blatant disrespect and
undemocratic process unfold.
I ended up leaving the meeting, and outside in the hallway I heard from
the groups that had gathered that there was going to be holding a small
meeting
out on the steps of the Life Science Hall, they invited anyone who was
upset about the decision making process to come join them and voice
their concerns, since they were not being allowed to inside the meeting.
I decided to go to that meeting, and I counted 59 other people who felt
the way I did, and who also had major concerns. Women spoke about how
they the
entire was so sexist, and that they were cut off over and over when they
tried to bring up issues, people of color spoke out about how they did
not feel included in this process from day one, other schools talked
about why have both these California conferences, just happen to end up
in Berkley, why are they not rotating? People from the Queer community
talked about they felt like they did not have a space or voice to talk.
In general people talked about how they feared speaking up and did not
feel like they should, so they just bit their tongue and continued with
the process. The most interesting part was when about 5 people who were
actually part of the group from Berkley who organized this conference
came to our meeting
and told us that they had so many problems also regarding these issues,
and they had
never fixed them. A group of them continued speaking and told us that
they felt like the presence of ISO members and ISO regional coordinator
a man named Todd was what was the breaking point of this conference. New
information was revealed that the
facilitator name Snehal who has been cutting people off left and right
when they brought opposition views was an ISO member, more was revealed
when we found out the people making proposals and being put on head of
planning coordinating committees were all ISO people, that the people
who wanted to organize the march to DC were ISO members, the people in
charge of the next conference and coordinating committee were ISO
members, that the contact person from the Southern California Schools
Against War a man I think named BJ was an ISO member, and he was the
only contact the Southern California schools had been able to have with
Berkley because the Berkley folks would not return the emails of others
who were inquiring.
Personally I know we have all heard things about this group, but I don’t
belong to any affiliation, I consider myself a socialist actually, I
have never felt the need to call them out or point these issues out
about them up until now because this
was such a blatant undemocratic tactic that was used by them. I have
very
personal politics Im able to distinguish a time and a place to bring
those personal
political structural ideas forth. This conference entirely failed to do
that. Beneath a cloud of secrets, non-transparency, non-communication,
and blockade of involvement this conference was held as an ISO platform
related event disguised as an open Coalition of Schools organizing
against the war in Afghanistan. The entire platform and structure that
was designed and reinforced by forming these special committees and
assigning one delegate from each school. The entire fact that no
communist, or anarchist views or speakers were allowed to join, be
present or speak on the panel, the very idea that the people organizing
this thought that people were too stupid to be able to make a choice
between consensus and majority vote, so they made that decision for
them, they did not think that these group of students who are good
enough to outreach, organize and build a movement. But they are not good
enough to be given the choice of which democratic process they want to
use in
making decisions. Im very sad that I even have to write this long essay,
but the fact remains we are fighting a system right now, we are fighting
against a war. The US is using so many issues regarding Afghanistan to
justify their actions in bombing and killing the people in that region,
they are lying to us, they are hiding things from us, they think we are
too stupid to figure it out and make a wise decision ourselves. This is
the same thing that happened this weekend as I watched it unfold. I hate
this bickering and name calling between groups as much as the next
person, but Im able to realize that we need to do this, we need to be
able to see when this type of racist, sexist domination is being done.
When we are being told lies, and having a front group being coordinated
but behind the mask there is a
political party, and a political agenda. I never not once before this
weekend have I
attacked the ISO or had even one bad thing to say about them, but this
blatant cover up, this blatant lies and secrecy have no place in our
movement, they have no place in our lives. This group has proven to be
wonderful politician, but please try to remember it was the politicians
who have brought us all to this place, it was their lies and decent that
have become all of our problems. Enough is enough, stop the bull shit,
if the ISO wanted a Anti War School Coalition, they should have called
it the ISO Anti War School Coalition, at least I would respect them for
being honest in doing that, stop the bull shit, you can only lie and try
to trick people for so long. The “masses” as the ISO calls them are NOT
stupid.
