On 28/08/18 09:27, Bernhard E. Reiter wrote: > Hi Daniel, > > Am Dienstag 28 August 2018 09:25:08 schrieb Daniel Pocock: >> When council included a motion in the agenda of the extraordinary >> general meeting calling for the immediate termination of my membership, >> that was not "being excellent to each other". > any organisation(+) reserves the right to exclude members that heavily > obstruct the way it works. There is a point where this has to be done just so > that people can go seperate ways.
I would agree with that, but normally that involves a process of mediation and then a specific communication with the member about it. The FSFE constitution requires a member be given a reason for exclusion and an opportunity to appeal. Those processes were not followed. What happened in May smells more like a conspiracy of kindergarten children trying to kick somebody out of the playground. It was attempted in a very underhanded and juvenile manner, an administrative motion tacked onto the last page of a 9 page notice (attached), reading "The current Fellowship representatives' membership ends immediately after the this extraordinary General Assembly." Some people didn't even notice it was buried in the document, some people felt it wasn't intended to be noticed. When I asked council to explain it before the meeting, they gave no explanation or response. In cricket terms, this is underarm bowling but then it just isn't cricket, is it? It isn't sportsmanlike. On a personal level, this is behaviour that is poisonous. It is cruel and disrespectful in so many ways. I'm calling this out not only for myself, but for any situation where there may actually be a legitimate reason to exclude a member, it should not be forgotten that the person is a human being and they should be treated like one. I understand there are some cultural differences in Germany and maybe that explains some autocratic and impersonal tendencies but in this case, I just don't see how Matthias and the rest of the executive could not understand that this motion was toxic. What's more, FSFE is an organization that relies heavily on a volunteer community so treating any one member of the community this badly suggests those in leadership are not qualified for their roles. If people had differences of opinion with me, there have been many opportunities to discuss that with me at events but for the record, I'd like to make it clear no other member ever did so. However, even though I agree with you for the general case that a member may need to be excluded from time to time, in this case we are talking about an elected representative. Only the most serious grounds, such as criminality, should be reason to recall an elected representative and even then it should be a decision for fellows, not a group of 9 members of FSFE e.V., almost half of them staff, at a clandestine meeting in Berlin on a Saturday. Also, it is not correct to moan about a democratically elected representative "obstructing" anything: it is their responsibility to speak up. An elected representative would have no reason to exist otherwise, would they? It seems some of the FSFE staff want the representative to be a cheerleader who pats them on the back when they do something good and keeps their mouth shut about everything else. If fellows wanted a puppet like that, they made a mistake voting for me. What your email also suggests is that some people did see the motion as a way to attack me personally, not just as an administrative side effect of the constitutional change. That is really chilling stuff for an organization that promised democracy to the community and raised hundreds of thousands of Euros from fellows who believed in that democracy. >> Council has unleashed this poison into the community and only the >> president can drag us out of that by resigning. > It would be unhelpful for a president that is supported by the majority > of e.V. members to resign. Matthias is doing very good work for Free Software > and FSFE, in my eyes. So why is FSFE afraid to allow the full community to vote for president or allow anybody from the community to nominate for the role of president? I am not seeking to nominate myself either but I have to ask, even if Matthias is a good president, can we be certain that any of the 1500 fellows might also be equally good or even better at the job? > Unfortunately I feel that many of your inputs over the last months have been > overly bureaucratic and in cases unrespectful about other people within FSFE > and their work. So it maybe better if you would leave FSFE. Could that simply be an inevitable reflection of the way things were done at the extraordinary meeting in May and the persistently bad behaviour towards the fellowship before that? Ever since the week after I was elected fellowship representative people have been talking about eliminating the elections. How could anybody feel welcome in that environment? As I wrote in my original email, I am reviewing the effort I would contribute to FSFE after my term as fellowship representative finishes. I also thought about resigning from the position of fellowship representative as I don't want to perpetuate this shallow imitation of democracy, but as there is no way for somebody to replace me, I feel a duty to see out the term for the benefit of those people who don't have a voice in our general meetings or don't even get invited. Regards, Daniel
egm-notice.pdf
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