[P2P-F] Transnational and P2P Commons Transitions

[Örsan Şenalp]

The fact that following the EU elections the murdered civilians in
critical conflicts like in Ukraine, Gazza, Syria, and Iraq rapidly
increased, is alarming. These might be the last warnings for the
approaching 'train accident', going to be caused by the elite in fight
on the steering wheel. The models and systems of managing the
status-Que does not work and as they are unable to deliver the new.
The ruling classes leading entire world in to a catasptrohpe of yet
another corrective war is inevitable. This situation is felt shared,
yet not shout out. Yet it has re-flamed (again) the discussion and
exchange of ideas and practises on the 'transition', with its
revolutionary, reformist or synthetic (Refo-lution/REvolution)
versions. To 'get it' this time is becoming more and more mortal in
every second.

So the question of solidarity, alliances, platforms, unity, front,
blocks so on is back in almost every context without exception...

It is not really clearly to some of us, where will fit the new and
influential concepts like the Commons, FLOSS, P2P, collaborative,
distributed networks, so on...

I sincerely believe that the coincidentally overlap between the final
summit of the very intriguing Free and Libre Knowledge (FLOK) Society
research and policy-formation experiment in Ecuador, and the EU
elections where some left wing parties did achieve relative success,
yet not in comparison to the success of the radical right. This shows
that currently ruling classes are losing ground. Yet does this also
mean that the discourse' or 'transition' (backward) project of the
right wing is more accessible and appealing to large portion of
societies; then the Left currently offer in Europe? What have been
learning from recent experiences, experiments, from bottom up, in the
middle, from top down.... in terms of real emancipatory change, or
change might help to make a real change...
interventions and step forwards at all levels and from all directions,
with the involvement by and engagement with actors that are potential
'peers', peer producers or collaborators, commoners of the 'commons
transitions' as flos projects and processes? Are we able to vision and
realise much brighter alternatives then the
right-wing/conservative/fascist backward going >
capitalist-revisionist > neo or post capitalist perspectives.

After some re-reading and thinking through these lines,
>Tribe>Community>Town>State>PartnerState>NonState>...

I realised that P2P Foundation, although there are important issues to
subject to criticism or discuss about, yet one need to acknowledge the
immense contribution it made by collecting resources, supporting
communities from variety of levels, and ideological political
perspectives:

Here are those, I think very remarkable examples of communities and
experiences: 1 - CIC
http://cooperativa.cat/en/
and the projects they are working on, especially this
one:http://www.coopfunding.net/

2 - Las Indias: http://english.lasindias.com/
3 - Guerilla Translation!:  guerrillatranslation.com

... and there are many more of course, not listed by P2P-F wiki, and I
do fail to mention here. Yet good to see that all these work, above,
collaborate with and supported by p2p-foundation.

the below material collected here, is quite important, for the
discussion on transitions and related questions like with or without
state, in and out of the state, bottom up or top-down, before and
after the state, with who and how, role of the market,... so on? :
http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Transition
http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_State_Approaches
since these provide variety of perspectives, and community
experiences, from anarchists, to communists, libertarians, to radical
democrats and new movements' perspectives... it is a flos resource..
open to use and contribute, modification.

It is wort to engage in deep discussion, on these materials and
information, without being harmful to each other, following hacker's
ethic. As it was the case for the parts of the discussion sparked
after the finalisation of the FLOK project in Ecuador. I suggested
that this was a living reach experiment where we can learn a lot from.
During the discussions at one point, critical questions turned back to
Michel by those who are on the list, including myself, on the issues
like 'the partner state idea', or about 'engaging with higher level
politics and state' instead of focusing totally to grassroots
empowerment and bottom up change.

I looked into the 3 examples of communities given above, which are
closely linked to P2P foundation, they support to and collaborate with
each other, and realised that these are role, prefigurative models for
Michel, and all three are visioning stateless and beyond capitalism
situation being dominant and they are engaged in building it up right
now in the urban environment, using floss tools and inventing all
sorts of freely shared ideas, projects, practises cultures.

On the other hand Michel himself openly express what he believes on
Partner state, transition and alliances. What he writes and tells
partly can be seen [in old political lexicon] as reformist. Yet he
insist on both bottom up and state level change can be engaged at the
same time. and P2P processes can play a key role in linking these to
each other. These these are valuable for me to understand the role of
advanced collaborative culture and tools in realising simultaneity and
multi- levelness of political subjectivity, its logic, and its action.

Those example communities are working in different languages, taking
to broader communities, and are open to collaborations from variety of
ideological or analytical perspectives on transition
beyond-capitalism, and thinking-imagining stateless societies.

Orsan