A-Infos (en) [Pga_europe_resistance] The permanent caravan - a presentation and platform

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 > From: ni co lu <nicolu-A-chutelibre.org>
THE NEWSLETTER N° ZERO OF THE PERMANENT CARAVAN. PRESENTATION AND PLATFORM*
Introduction and brief story of the project: The permanent caravan is
basically a living space, an action project and a place to develop
various autonomies.  It's a long-term collective structure based on
non-permanence and changing participants. It will travel and stop from
place to place. It should allow individuals to live as nomads for a
certain period of time, while keeping on being involved in their usual
living spaces and their local projects.

For the moment, the permanent caravan is mostly being created inside
Sans-titre ("No-title"), a French-speaking network of groups and
individuals ("groupiduals" for the rest of the text). These groupiduals
are very diverse: some are involved in squats and urban autonomous
spaces, such as "les Marmottes" from Amiens, "l'Espace Autogéré des
Tanneries" from Dijon, "l'Ekluserie" from Rennes, "l'Observatorio" from
Toulouse, or "la Charade" from Grenoble. Some other groupiduals develop
rural projects such as "Longo Maï". Some of them are quite settled for
the moment, some already spend a part of their lives travelling around.
Most of them participate, create and struggle among militant collectives
on an everyday life basis. Some of them live in communities, others are
more partially involved in such groups. The caravan intends to be used
by people of diverse ages, appearances, of diverse militant cultures, of
diverse
opinions and living choices...

THE DESIRE TO CREATE THE PERMANENT CARAVAN WAS PARTIALLY BORN AFTER
FORMER CARAVANS AND FORMER NOMADISMS
- the intercontinental caravan, in 1999, who led 500 people from India
   and other countries into Europe, to diffuse their struggle against
   food-processing industries - the anticapitalist caravan, who set up
public debates, street
   theater and local actions, during the international mobilization
   against the I.M.F. and World Bank summit in Prague - the repeated
travels among intersquat networks and actions, among
   sans-titre or among People's Global Action network

THERE ARE OF COURSE A FEW POLITICAL BASES WE ALL AGREE ON, IN WHICH
THE PROJECT IS DEEPLY ROOTED. WE SHOULD KEEP ON PRECISING THESE BASES IN
THE FUTURE NEWSLETTERS.

Here are some of those political bases:
- to lead offensive actions against every structures of domination:
   capitalist, state, patriarchal and techno-scientist domination...
- to work on the fact that all of us have integrated those
   mechanisms of oppression and domination, that our relationships to
   others are merchandized. To try as much as we can to split with those
   alienating attitudes and change our interpersonal relationships. To
   root our militant choices in our everyday lives
- to promote concrete and direct action, disobedience and distorsion...
- to bring up criticism to passive claims, to citizenship or to
   lobbying
- to contribute to creation and interconnection of various tools and
   autonomy towards authorities: energetic, eating, cultural and
   affective autonomy,...The idea is to take back and collectivise
   spaces, ressources and time
- to set up debates, information networks and reflection over several
   different themes: from consumption to social control, from masculinity
   to feminist or queer struggle, from self-construction to self
   organization, from food processing industry to farmers struggle. to
   debate on science, ethics, industrial society or also the concept of
   "nature"
- to promote the idea that social change, radical or not, is a complex
   process sometimes very slow. to work so that social change can be, as
   much as possible, fulfilling, playful and joyful, so that it may
   encourage self-confidence, autonomy, as well as collective
   involvement
- to promote and experiment different lifestyles considered dangerous
   and repressed: communal and collectivism, nomadism, free prices
- to get out sometimes of activism and urgence to open ourselves to
   other time perceptions
- to try to stop considering ourselves too seriously and to show
   self-derision
- to react seriously towards sexist, racist and homophobic behaviors and
   towards physical, verbal and sexual aggressions

PLATFORM

The following text is here to present the objectives, activities and the
ways of proceeding
of the caravan. In any collective project tending to self-management and
horizontality, it
is primordial to present a clear and formal account of the ways of
proceeding and to have
it explained to everyone. Especially if, like in the case of this
caravan, these explanations should continually be taught to new people.
These principles are, for the moment, the result of the repeated
reunions within Sans-titre
meetings. These meetings are of course constantly evolving and should be
continually
revised.

TRAVELLING WAYS AND APPEARANCE OF THE CARAVAN: BETWEEN TETRIS AND
RUSSIAN DOLLS...

It will, of course, be very beautiful, like a big subversive and
coloured circus, a squat on
wheels, an itinerant farm or an anticapitalist maze. Later, we hope it
will be composed with
tractors and caravans. In the beginning and because of driving license
problems, we will
start with two or three big vans, escorted by bicycles and other
collective cycling
vehicules. At each stop, the caravan will unfold and open up with a
collective kitchen, a
sleeping for the caravaners, an office and workshop space, its infoshop,
freezone, projection space, domes and tents...
The rythm of the caravan and bicycles on the road should be slow, very
slow. The engines
should be transformed to escape petrol. We are working on it...

ACTIVITIES OF THE CARAVAN:

We have determined a certain number of permanent activities that we wish
could be possible whoever may be present on the caravan.
There are also non-permanent activities that corresponds to specific
envies of certain
participants and so depend on their presence or absence on the caravan
at a certain
moment. Some reference people working on the realization of these
different activities can
be contacted.
PERMANENT ACTIVITIES:
Expression and creation workshop - street happenings about the
presentation of the caravan
and about its struggles - popular food and bakery - infoshops and
infocenter of alternative
medias - expositions about the different friendly places to the caravan
- video projections
and video library - knowledge exchanges about self-sufficient activities
(energy, self-construction, autonomous eating and healing,...) as well
as the collective ways of
organizations and self-management - direct action workshops - freezone
and second hand -
creation of a newsletter - practical encyclopedia - seed library
(encouragement to autonomous
farming) - alternative pharmacy and herbalist - wall newspapers -
setting up of debate
spaces -  handycraft workshops (mecanics - plumbing - electricity -
brickwork- sewing).
OTHER IDEAS OF NON-PERMANENT ACTIVITIES:
Photo workshops - choral of distorted songs and revolutionnary popsongs
- history of
capitalism and social struggle - chill-out - yoga - relaxation -
stretching - accupuncture -
urban decorations - militant climbing...

WHY AND HOW TO SPEND TIME IN PLACES?

- To discover, live together, make new friends, experience fun
adventures.- To discover everyday management, collective ways of
organization and different places and
   networks...
- To share knowledge and abilities.
- To propose our own activities or to become integrated, for a while,
into local activities.
- To continue building and installing the caravan.
- To realize one of the hundred projects the local collective has always
dreamed of doing
   but has never had the possibility to do, because of missing time,
equipment, people,...

BALANCE IN THE EXCHANGE...

We would like to transmit a list of what we can do and explain through
the newsletter what
has been realized at each stop of the caravan. Of course we are not
proposing commercial
services. We would like to be as much as possible on an egalitarian
basis in the exchange
with the collectives who receive us, hoping that there may be a mutual
preperation and
interest.

We wish in this sense that the welcoming groupiduals may, if possible,
inform us in
advance of their abilities, desires and needs.

FORMALISM AND PASSION - ABOUT THE SUBTLE LINK BETWEEN HARD PREPARATION
AND VIVID SPONTANEITY...

We wish to propose at each stop:
- some events decided in advance and that may be publicly announced as
such- events decided and organized spontaneously and more hastely if the
caravaners and the
   people who received us wish to create something together
The events decided in advance will be rather scheduled in the middle of
the stay, so that
the caravan can settle in, meet people and get them involved in these
events. This way, it
is possible for us, according to how the adventures on the road turn
out, to arrive later
or to leave earlier. The big workshops are typical activities that need
a lot of prior organisation.

THE CARAVAN IS TENDING TO STOP IN EXTREMELY VARIOUS PLACES

rural projects - villages - action camps - squats - permanent autonomous
zones- friends
places - unknown people's places - places not yet existing that we may
help to create - the
beach...

GETTING OUT OF THE GHETTO...

The caravan will stop in places that do not label themselves precisely
around a political or
alternative engagement. Along the journey and between two bigs
stopovers, we wish to be able
to stop one day or two in villages, just long enough for a happening, a
debate, a workshop
or a popular meal. Some people could announce in advance the arrival of
the caravan and
start creating prior contacts.

GETTING OUT OF THE TRIBE...

If we are not extremely vigilant, arriving somewhere as a collective can
send out an image
of "tribe", impress and intimidate the people that we visit and build up
barriers to
communication. We don't want to take refuge in a comfortable "caravan
group" but we want to
involve ourselves as fast as possible with the people living there and
with their everydays
activities, as well as to involve the people living there, if it is
possible, with the
various activities of the caravan.

LITTLE AND BIG SPACES...

To start with, the caravan is a bunch of people who pop into your life
and need the
necessary place to rest on. from this point of view, it could be
difficult for some
relatively small collectives to see their number double for one, two or
three weeks... Some
urban places, disposing of limited space, should not be therefore
excluded from the
caravan's route. In this way, it is primordial that the caravan should
dispose of enough
autonomy (domes, tents, collective kitchen) and should be able to find
solutions to settle
down in these different situations.

FOLLOWING THE CARAVAN, EVEN WITHOUT BEING BESIDE IT...


We would like to be able to send regularly our newsletter to the caravan
contacts, and to
make it possible for the people in the places where we stopped to come
to the caravan
meetings and to participate in them. We also plan to make a big party
each year and to
create an e-mail adress and a P.O. box where the groupiduals may contact
us permanently.

NON-SPECIALISATION AND INVOLVEMENT

There will be reference people at each stop for the various aspects of
the caravan. The
purpose is that these people relay each other in order to avoid, as much
as possible, that
one same person would become a reference for too many projects and would
become too
indispensable for a certain aspect of the caravan. A process of
continual knowledge exchange
will take place so that every caravaner may master the different
abilities linked to the
permanent activities and the mecanical, legal and  medical abilities
generally useful to the
good functionning of such a project.
Of course these processes are here to fight against specialisation on
which are based the
social and salaried relationships in the capitalist society and notably
the dependance
relationships that it brings. Nevertheless, we reject total spontaneity,
and demand certain
intermediate forms of specialization and of task delegation:
- to allow ourselves to deepen and to let ourselves go to our one day or
lifelong passions
- because having clear referents can help us to find ourselves in our
internal functionning
   and especially for the external people, and to make participation
easier- because it can be quite calming and responsabilising to chose to
take care of something
   precise during a certain period of time, knowing that we may do
something totally
   different the day or the week after. This possibility of
specialisation clearly doesn't
   concern either the housekeeping, either cooking, or taking care of a
bad situation...

In particular, there will be some referent people concerning tools, or
complex, fragile or
dangerous equipment. These tools and equipment will be, at least in the
beginning, a mix of
collective possessions of the caravan and momentary loans from different
groupiduals.

COORDINATION AND PREPARATION OF THE CARAVAN ROUTE...

-THE CARAVAN COORDINATION GROUP:

They are the people who participate in the caravan at this moment as
well as all the
groupiduals who feel involved in the projects, bring infos, help at a
stopover, participate
in meetings... So this is a list of links in perpetual evolution.

-THE PREPARATION GROUPS:

This is a changing group of people getting involved in the preparation
of a few stopovers of
the caravan during a two month period. Two months is the usual length of
a typical caravan
route. Qf course, it must be people who plan to participate in the
caravan for a certain
time during those two months. They will take previous contacts with the
receiving places,
prepare the necessary logistic for the route, contact friends to know if
they are interested
in being present on the course, make sure that there will always be the
minimum amount of
people necessary during the two months, prepare eventual specific
activities to this route.
Then they will present their two month route projects to the permmanent
caravan meeting
where it is discussed and decided. After that, other people can prepare
an other route.

Each caravan route lasting approximately two months, we will have a
caravan/Sans-titre
meeting at a stopover situated in the middle of the route after a month.
It will be the
right moment to talk about this route and to present the next one. The
next route will
begin a month after the meeting  and will last again two months, with a
meeting at the half
way and so on. These meetings will be openned to everyone who wants to
take part in the
permanent caravan. Discussions and decisions will be  horizontal,
egalitarian and by consensus.
The caravan meetings should always take place in a different spot. The
caravan is actually
created inside Sans-titre and, in the beginning, its meetings will be
mixed with the
Sans-titre meetings, even if it means becoming emancipated at a given
moment, along with the
evolution of the two projects.
This model, as machiavelic as it may seem, is of course experimental and
will, without
a doubt, evolve when it will be used. As for the decisions to take
between two meetings,
the people with the caravan at the moment will do their best.

NON-PERMANENNCE AND PARTICIPATION IN THE CARAVAN...

We can imagine that the caravan will count 10/20/30 people travelling
together and arriving
somewhere. Therefore, we need a certain number of reliable people for
the different
stopovers on one route. But we also want to integrate new caravaners
more or less spontaneously during the route.
People decide themselves how much time they want to stay with the
caravan. There isn't any
minimal or maximal length, we just want to keep in mind a spirit of
non-permanence and be
able to discuss it if needed. We also want to avoid that someone may
excessively appropriate
something (things or tasks) and create a split between the "elders" of
the caravan and the
others.
The number of stopovers in a route and the time spent at each one of
them will be totally
different according to the spot, the desire to stay longer or to do
shorter stopovers...
The maximum length for a stopover will logically be two months.

AUTONOMY, LIFE PROJECT AND FINANCING...

The caravan would like to be financially self-managed and not depend on
any insitutional
or commercial subsidy. We want the everyday needs of the caravaners to
be taken in charge as
much as possible by the caravan facilities when they are accompanying
it. But we will not
either try getting into any rentability, profit or salary logics. A
collective fund for the
management of the caravaner's needs and projects. This collective fund
may be filled by
different meals, gigs, donations and other benefit initiatives.

WHEN ARE WE LEAVING ?

According to the evolution of the workshop and the gathering of the
necessary equipment, we
hope to test the structure by this autumn and to definitively get
ourselves going next spring...
We will try !

CALL TO SUBSCIPTION AND EQUIPMENT SUPPORT...

The project at it's actual point, and even with our certain propensity
for recycling,
salvage, self-constructing and collective and re-distributed harvests,
actually still needs quite a lot of money to start the caravan...
We are talking about the necessary money to buy the vehicles, some tools
and equipment that we need for the activities, to do some info about the project...
Since we don't want any subsidies or sponsors, we count on the
solidarity of anybody who may
be enthusiastic about the project and wishes that it may be realized as
soon as possible. In
this sense, it is possible to send a cheque to: "acceuil de la caravane"
and send it to caravane permanente / les tanneries 17 bvd de chicago 21 000
Dijon / france

Gigs, compilation tapes/CDs, benefit meals here and there, would be
welcome. Be sure that in return, we will keep you clearly informed about
the project's evolution.
We are also looking for video-projection, construction, kitchen,
witchdoctor, climbing,
mechanics, cycling vehicules, caravans, vans and tractors equipment...
If you have anything of this matter to restore, give, lend...contact us.

Mail: caravanepermanente@no-log.org
Postal address: les tanneries
                 17 Bd de Chicago
                 21000 Dijon
-- 
ni co lu ( nicolu @ no-log . org )
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* [Ed. Note: People adopting the antiauthoritarian direct action
social struggle mode of the PGA.]


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