16 red pepperoct/nov2007

‘Theold leftis gone. Weneed to begin to getmoreinvested in thepoor’

would then be invited to meet together in what was to become the New Orleans Survivor Council. The base structure of the NOSC is the ‘people’s circle meeting’, where poor and working people can control their own organisation and develop their ideas and their ability to implement them. There is a firm rule of equality to ensure no voice goes unheard. All present are seated in a circle and get the same amount of time to speak. Organisers help with transportation, food, childcare and assistance for elderly or disabled participants to eliminate any obstacles people may face in attending. The meeting opens and ends with a song, poem or prayer ‘to remind ourselves of who we are. We cook traditional food and sing songs and stories because it’s a powerful thing.’ The number attending varies in number from as few as five people at a time: ‘Sometimes it’s large if you find an artist – somebody well known from New Orleans. We’ve used bands, singers and athletes. There’s a philosophy among the elders that “Whoever is here are the people we’ve been looking for” and we’re going to work just as hard if it’s just five of them.’ When I ask Muhammad how the council tries to reach out to the tens of thousands that have left the city he replies emphatically: ‘We just do it! We go to New York to try and find these people. Somebody goes to Chicago to visit a relative – we tell him to go find these people there. That’s the way you do it.’

Rich elite There is a strong belief within the black community of New Orleans that the US government used the category five hurricane as a pretext to evict the majority poor black population and replace it with a wealthy white majority. By the time Katrina struck, the Wall Street Journalwas reporting that the rich white elite was already planning its new vision for the city – demographically, economically and politically. The non-partisan US website www.thinkprogress.org has reported that the main author of the New Orleans reconstruction plan is a top conservative donor and former director of the Urban Land Institute, a business-oriented group whose New Orleans proposal ‘would create a blueprint that eliminated mostly black neighborhoods’.

Muhammad agrees: ‘All the houses for the rich, middle class white people have either been completely refurbished or are being right this minute. The tourist centre is totally refurbished and the hotels totally refurbished. You can go to New Orleans and think wow, it’s been completely rebuilt.’ But he says nothing is happening where the main poor black community is located, outside the developed centre. ‘And that’s the vast majority of the New Orleans area. There’s more money in that town than is required to fix it up – it’s the gold rush! But still there’s no houses being built for the poor people. And in the meantime we are being replaced by an immigrant force of workers. They have 30,000 Mexicans in New Orleans, the new slaves.’ Immigrants from central and south America were in New Orleans within days, Muhammad says, cleaning up the toxic ruins in bare feet, without protective gear, decent housing or any sort of rights. A separate immigrant organisers’ workers centre was formed under the umbrella of the NOSC to try to bring together poor residents and these exploited incomers. The NOSC has made significant progress with virtually no financial resources. It started by prioritising the rebuilding of homes for those in most need. In the past two years 1,600 young students and other volunteers have come to help in this way. With their assistance the NOSC has been able to organise lowincome homeowners to rebuild their homes, public housing residents to reoccupy their homes, former renters to repair blighted houses and move in with their families. It has also taught building skills to survivors so they can rebuild their

homes themselves. ‘We’re working on 140 houses right now,’ says Muhammad. We’ve cleaned them up – got them ready – they’re occupiable. Sometimes we have to break in through windows and doors because they locked down the public houses with steel doors and windows.’

Direct action Further direct action has been employed in preventing unscrupulous private developers and contractors from taking over buildings. Muhammad tells of NOSC members ‘arresting’ bulldozer drivers: ‘We do citizen arrests. Sometimes we’ll be cleaning up a school and some private company has been given the right to tear the school down. All our schools are up for sale! We can mobilise 300 people in about 15 minutes to show up. We just go crazy and usually they back off.’ The NOSC has also begun a leadership training institute to provide poor blacks with the skills needed to run and manage their own organisations and to implement large development projects. ‘Hundreds of people come through it all the time. But it’s a struggle.’ Working from Muhammad’s house, the organisation’s headquarters (which will soon be relocated to an almost renovated church), letters are sent out requesting donations. ‘We have over half a million people on our mailing list so we can raise a little bit of cash. You don’t stop because you didn’t get your big budget. You work at the level of the budget you do have and keep going.’ Despite the day-to-day victories, Muhammad is keen to stress that the organisation is struggling: ‘We have got to start connecting ourselves to each other around the world and begin to move globally as our enemies move globally.’ ‘We’ve lost something from the 1960s. If we’re going to do this we’ve got to go back and capture the genius of our movements. We have a real fight and struggle going on in New Orleans right now. We have to commit to organising the bottom. Our old revolutionaries are gone. The old left is gone. So we need to begin to get more invested in the poor. The 80 per cent that ain’t got shit – they are organisable! And that is our only hope.’

www.peoplesorganizing.org oct/nov2007 red pepper

17

democracynow! Going local

constitutional protection against constant central government intervention; and creating a

For some time there have been welcome signs of genuine commitment among government ministers to popular and user participation in public services and even in policy-making. Gordon Brown has given this trend a seal of approval in his governance green paper with talk of involving people in ‘major decisions’ that affect their lives. The prospect of ‘participatory budgeting’ and similar participatory exercises hangs entrancingly in the air. But the structures of ‘local governance’ will confine participation to low-level initiatives. For a start, ‘local governance’ is not local at all. In the first instance, the local authorities that are actually involved in making ‘major decisions’ are huge and remote bodies, often serving populations of a million people and more. Secondly, these greater local authorities share major decision-making at regional level with powerful national and regional quangos in unreachable high-level ‘partnerships’ above the heads of smaller authorities. Thirdly, official government offices for the regions orchestrate policy making on behalf of their (and our) masters in Whitehall. These partnerships determine huge swathes of local priorities and distribute resources accordingly. The government’s recent decision to give regional development agencies (RDAs) the lead in determining regional economic and social policies will take this process still further out of reach of ordinary people – and contradicts the government’s commitment to participation. These quangos are stuffed with business and professional figures and are by definition not accountable downwards. The parallel decision to abolish regional assemblies is yet another sign of the government’s aversion to local and regional democracy. Ineffectual and only partially representative though they were, they were at least charged with the duty of making RDAs accountable. Even the more local district authorities are not strongly placed to respond to participatory policy-making. They are too large to be close to their local populations and they are over-dependent on central government financing, which is available only subject to central government policy prescriptions and strict financial controls. Most of the public services in their areas are in the hands of quangos, large and small, and voluntary and private contractors. To make a reality of greater participation, especially over major decisions, as promised in the governance green paper, there has to be a fundamental reversal of existing policies towards local and regional government and the quango state. This involves making local authorities smaller and considerably more autonomous; giving them

Thegovernmenttalks ofincreasing participation in publicservices. Firstitmustgivelocal authorities real powerand autonomy, writes STUARTWEIR

representative tier of regional government (not governance). Otherwise, the government’s proposals will raise people’s expectations too high, except on the margins. Take participatory budgeting. Hazel Blears, the secretary of state, has suggested that minor local decisions – for parks, play areas, ASBOs and the like – should be open to participatory budgeting (see ‘Power to which people?’, page 18). Her proposals throw into relief a striking contrast between Britain’s weak and remote local authorities and Porto Alegre, the Brazilian city that pioneered participatory budgeting. A World Bank Social Development Note states that municipalities in Brazil like Porto Alegre have ‘considerable autonomy over their revenues (raised from local taxes, tariffs and federal transfers) and expenditures’ – and it is this autonomy that makes participatory budgeting there meaningful. The World Bank note and other sources describe a sophisticated annual budgeting cycle with three distinct levels of citizen engagement through popular assemblies at regional and neighbourhood area, regional budget forums and the municipal budget council. Every citizen has the right to be directly involved through electing a representative to the neighbourhood assembly. Decisions are usually based on needs criteria and direct negotiations between neighbourhood forums that go on to monitor implementation. The budgeting process determines major regional decisions on transportation; education, leisure and culture; health and social welfare; economic development and taxation; and city organisation, as well as neighbourhood decisions. The proposal for a concordat between central government and the Local Government Association seems to recognise the need for government to give authorities more autonomy. However, the way in which it is framed in the green paper places far more responsibility upon local authorities to satisfy central government than for central government to give formal recognition to local autonomy. As part of the promised debate on moves towards a written constitution, democrats should insist that the government hold a public debate about giving local government constitutional protection on the European model and create strong and self confident local and regional authorities.