Neue Debatte - Special Edition - Long Essay on Left Strategy #002 - 04/2017 | Page 7

Preface
This paper was written during spring and summer of 2016 when DI-
EM25 was in the making. The “Democracy In Europe Movement
2025” was launched in February by an initiating group around the
former Greek finance minister and professor of economics Yanis Va-
roufakis as a promising pan-European movement for democracy. I
joined and took part in the self-organising Hamburg collective (DSC).
Naturally in such a developing phase discussion was needed on the
basics of our new, grass-roots democratic movement and on how to
align the activities. Experiences advice that such an organisational
attempt can easily end as a flash in the pan, if it does not pass
through a process of clarification and consolidation. Central group
statements and policy papers as well as the obvious plurality of opin-
ions among my fellow activists showed me unformed approaches and
demanded for further balancing - not for the sake of over-discussing
but for finding out what is compatible with your own lifelong lessons
learned and what is not.
There existed an already pre-structured internal DIEM discussion
platform which implied a certain fundamental consensus I could not
share just like that. So I decided to write an open letter to Yanis Va-
roufakis because it is an open secret that his political direction and
guidelines are constitutive for DIEM25. The letter automatically grew
into a longer essay for new ideas can only develop from careful criti-
cism of old ones which might be taken for granted till now. In the
now “longer open letter” I tried to question policies with a left self-
conception, to evaluate them in their historical reference, and subse-
quently found to solutions of some political relevance. And that is
how my open letter to Yanis turned into an essay on global strategy
of some 75 pages going beyond the scope of DIEM25. It is most prob-
ably of general interest to a wider audience. I try to find answers to
burning questions of deeply worried people on the future of their
country, the world, even on Planet Earth.
For the cross-border DIEM communication I had written the letter in
English. I sent it to Yanis personally at the End of August and posted it
DIEM-internally by help of a three-page “trailer” to draw attention to
the longer essay ready for downloading. I received a friendly notice
of arrival by Yanis but that was all from his side till now. Inside the
DIEM organisation nobody took any notice of my contribution. I can-
not say why not. May be the questions raised are of no interest for
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