arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Indymedia's future, between the elite core and the global decentralized consensus process

There has been a standing critique that indymedia is developing an elite core of activists who could dominate the network. These are people who've gained respect through organizing and facilitating projects. They've accumulated some social capital and influence in the network. There is a fear that this core might take over or transform the network in to something less radical or powerful. This especially comes up as we try and address issues of money and network decisions. The party line response is that we need to replace it with some sort of global grassroots decentralized democratic consensus process.

Part of what they say is valid. There are people who play critical roles in the network and have built up social capital (Ughgh nasty term). Another way of saying it is that they've built up respect. In the same way that there are people who want to accuse the techies of holding all the power people want to have that elite conspiring to take power. The reality at least from the tech perspective is as far from that as possible. Hell we went on strike to demand that the rest of the network take power and decisions away from tech.

We have had people who were very central and big organizers who've left for more ngo-ie jobs. Jeff did a HUGE amount of the initial organizing but now is not involved on a direct level at all after he took the job as director of Media Alliance. We've also had very central and influential people step out without things falling apart. Maffew and manse are both good examples of people who've done tremendous work but had to step back to do other things.

Now, is there abuse of power? I'm not sure. For example I used the social capital I'd developed from writing features.cgi and working with many imc's, to coordinate and get through the features newswire. At the time of the features newswire proposal there was already a proposal on the table from George King. Now it wasn't a terrible proposal either but I liked mine better. Because I knew people and people had grown to respect some of my work it was much easier for me to get my proposal approved. Also because I am a techie with passwords and the ability to implement my own proposals and George is not I was able to get my proposal implemented.

The same might be said for my current project to ship computers to south American imc's. Because of the social network I knew who to ask to track down funding, help, and generally make it happen. I actually was pretty open about asking around for help. The reality is that people who have tended to come through in the past came through again. Those people who tended to have a history of not following through on past projects didn't come through on this one. It's not intentional but you do start to develop connections and provide mutual support for people who supported you.

I think this, and temporary leadership based on respect and personal accomplishment isn't inherently a bad thing. It's when it becomes a power structure, formal or informal, which is undemocratic and authoritarian that the problem develops. One of the things that has made indymedia a success is that we've created a space where we can both allow individual autonomous initiative and have collaborative projects under a broad umbrella.

My real fear isn't that we'll have a small group of people trying to take control over indymedia. My fear is that we'll not be able to communicate the solutions and functional models of what a sustainable grassroots democratic and participatory indymedia movement could be. We have too few people participating in this documentation and knowledge sharing process. Even though the biggest imc's have dozens or hundreds of active members there is almost never more than three people from any given imc participating in network work. Consistently when there has been effort to bring decisions that need to be made by the network to local imc's, the local activists aren't interested. The network is complicated and people are busy. They say that the few people who follow things can make the decision. This isn't true of ALL imc's but it's the case with a lot of them.

Sometimes I think this is really sad. Because we have a principle of making sure we have as broad and democratic decision making process as possible. If we had a stronger network we could address critical issues. We could have some coordinated way of dealing with and mediating conflicts such as what's happening right now with the Palestine imc. The reality is we don't have that kind of structure. At best we can have things explode in to long email flame wars on the global lists. Eventually we hope that the local people will be able to work it out. Somebody may have to bow out such as what happened in Russia, or a neighboring imc might have mediate such as with the devolution of the France IMC in to local city based collectives. We lack the ability to coordinate some amazing large projects which could have a global impact. We lack the ability to effectively work with many traditionally structured organizations such as AMARC. In some ways we function so differently from ngo's and other non-anarchism inspired organizations that we clash constantly. Collaborations between indymedia and Democracy Now and Greenpeace to take two examples have been failures.

Now, is this a bad thing? I'm not so sure. As much as I'd like to be able to have a solid decentralized and democratic decision making structure in place I'm not sure it would actually serve us in the long term even if we COULD implement it. What we have is a network which doesn't make decisions as a whole. It doesn't need to. We are perfectly able to operate in well over a hundred cities, in over 35 countries, 22 languages, on 6 continents without this formal process. Sure being able to develop a way to spend that $42,000 we have sitting in the mythical global fund would help. But we've been able to buy buildings, maintain dozens of offices, acquire and run over 30 servers, start radio stations, produce and air television programs, have half a dozen governments attack us in the courts, and generally cause a ruckus without that structure or money. The question is, is there a way in which we can use and approach both money and a decision making process which will reflect the qualities which made indymedia a success, embody our values, and propel us forward to continue our work on a wider scale. Even with these impressive accomplishments our work is far from done.

With the fear of an elite taking hold we have a potential reaction which could be as harmful as a centralized power grab. We could regulate ourselves in to disfunctionality. I believe it is fundamental to the success of indymedia and that we must protect it's basis in spontaneous autonomous action and projects. Most IMC's and projects started autonomously without permission or knowledge from the existing network. There is nobody to ask permission from, nobody to grant permission. No authority in the form of a leader, council, rule book, or even popular democratic assembly. Without this authority we've been able to grow a culture of creative anarchy. This essence is built not upon a democratic meeting process or consensus but arises through action. Simply put, the organizers of the Seattle imc created a model where by they facilitated the work of four hundred autonomous self managing media maker activists. When people walk in to an imc during a major action it's like walking in to the brain or never center of the movement. Like the real brain there is no single point in control, rather the intelligence and power derives from simultaneous self-coordinated actions of individuals and groups. It is the network and the links which make us strong.

Indymedia thrives when there is enough background infrastructure for a space of autonomous action to place, and dies when it the process work either dominates or is unable to construct that infrastructure. As we consider the growth and structural evolution of indymedia we need to balance the need for resources and coordination with need to build a space in which self-organization and initiative can take place. Our decision is not between an ngo like hierarchy with an elite core or a radical form of decentralized democratic consensus processes. Our path needs to be one of determining how to grow and deepen our work while maintaining the magic energy that has inspired us to get this far.