Re: <nettime> notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Pit Schultz <pit.schultz@gmail.com>]

so here i are my 2cents.. after a while. take it a duty free molotov
cocktail without the lighter.

yes, i listened to the stream, there were a few public and private
screenings, for a lower entry cost. and indeed my expectations must
have been too high, even if this volksbuehne event format successfully
shows a perceived need for mass media compatible "follow me" events,
it will later show how well it will have worked measured by its
results. "more livestreams from the EU, full access to the TTIP
files.." all in all the vocabulary was disappointingly similar to the
one of the ruling political class, NGOs and well meaning humanitarian
organisations who developed their own representational language games
of detachement combined with motivational phraseology. there were
still too many evangelists and celebrities rather than "experts" - as
if these "influencers" would trigger a larger audience to not only
join the movement, but to start risking to think critically - or
"out of the box". in this way it resembled more a talkshow on german
television and less a debate in an online discussion thread, with
its choreography of all-too-predictable statements. there were not
enough artists, hackers, activists, scientists - but instead mostly
professional mediators. to my knowledge and memory a movement is
not generated this way, it is based on an urgency of a struggle to
fight for an issue. the plethora of issues sounded too much like the
diffused radical liquid democracy outputs of the piratenpartei. so:
try harder. the event showed a sense of democracy as a search for the
lowest common demonimator which probably achieves the most likes. the
abyss of social media expected to applaude and follow made this event
almost boring and bordering the unbearable - to me at least, i wish
for the best, but learned again to expect less.

"start cooking". to go into details which could have been done better:
invite other people. from outside europe. from other struggles which
matter. from the gold mines in greece or chile. or from the neoliberal
blackhole in the uk (nina power, mark fisher) or the burned suburbs of
cizre in turkey and bring at least one of the whistleblowers onto the
panel. there is no more need for yet another "le monde diplomatique"
consensus building carnival of well meant opinions, instead there are
more than enough mind blowing suggestions and shocking testimonials to
bring up stage and document the urgency better than the introducing
stock-photo-image movie with a soundtrack by brian eno. just try
to shut up the old school double speak about more "realpolitik"
combined with the ideal of "a european supranational identity"
which made certain former leftists figures of the political class
look irreplaceable in brussels. the political horizon is global and
nothing else. if this was about basic radical democracy, then it
looked too much like the formation of a new political party than an
extraparlamentary, internationalist network of critical leftists.



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