00700: To WDDM and D-Europe: Why can't DD groups get their act together ?
From:
Filia den Hollander <holla(at)xs4all.nl>
Date:
Mon, 30 Oct 2006 18:10:48 +0100
Subject:
To WDDM and D-Europe: Why can't DD groups get their act together ?
Dear everyone,
Someone wrote me a reply. For privacy reasons I will not tell you who it is (this person can come forward if s/he wishes to do so), but I’d like to share my response with you.
Kind regards,
Filia den Hollander
----- Received your note on learning by doing from the WDDM listserve. Nice note, although I'm troubled by the way that organization works. No charter, no organization, no agreements. And some who would keep it that way because they prefer cursing the darkness over lighting a small candle.
The point is that WDDM – as is Democracy Europe – is ‘just’ an internet community, with virtually no opportunities to meet in the flesh. So what happens when it comes to getting “organized” – and this has happened before – is bickering on wording(s) or on points of view of what DD means. So those who actually want to act, act. And they take the risks that are involved, such as becoming too homogenous as a group, or start projects which may not be of genuine relevance, or, internal power struggles and the loss of valuable people.
It is very hard to be flexible and to “shift” from one frame of reference to another in time and in the right (humane and clear-sighted) manner.
In Europe we had, as a DD movement, one focal point to work towards to, and this was simultaneous national referendums on one day on the EU Constitution, and, additionally, to push toward a more democratic EU Constitution. For various reasons the focal point collapsed. One reason being that the EU Convention didn’t make it in finishing the EU Constitution on its planned date (10th of June 2004, I believe), which scattered the ‘simultaneous referendums’ project. Another reason being that money resources came too much from one direction (there was power involved).
So in that sense, the European DD community is in a similar crisis as the EU institutions: no real answer to the current situation.
But the EU institutions have started to get their act together ...