“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” - Arundhati Roy, speaking at the closure of the WSF3.
The future shape of the World Social Forum (WSF) will continue to be moulded as up to 75 000 people meet in a massive “free space” between 16-21 January in Mumbai, India to discuss the ravages of the neo-liberal order on all aspects of global life. The fourth WSF will focus debate on the areas of imperialist globalisation, religious sectarianism, identity politics and fundamentalism, castes, racism and social exclusion, patriarchy and militarisation. The WSF has become an annual event that is organised as an antidote to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, seen by civil society opposition as an elite deliberation between world leaders and international financial institutions.
Several hundred members of the African Social Forum (ASF) will represent Africa at the WSF. The ASF has taken place annually, since Bamako in 2002, as a prelude to the WSF. Following the Bamako Forum and the second ASF meeting, the Addis Ababa Forum, a process of consultations have taken place around Africa to find a way of effectively exposing the current social, political and economic injustices for better government and state action. These have resulted in various regional forums designed to create a platform for interest groups of civil society to discuss issues together relating to social, political and economic justice. An example of a regional forum is the Southern African Social Forum, whose objectives are to: Provide the sub-regional platform for social activists to strengthen popular democracy and mobilization; Critically challenge the status quo; Build a regional solidarity network around issues of social, political and economical justice; and, Create a loose coalition that will guarantee effective participation in the future Southern African Social Forum (SASF), the Africa Social Forum (ASF) and the World Social Forum (WSF).
At the first ASF meeting in Bamako, more than two hundred social movements, organisations and institutions from forty-three African countries met to undertake serious analyses, shared experiences and heard testimonies on wide-ranging economic, social, political and cultural matters affecting African peoples.
A strong consensus emerged at the Bamako Forum that the values, practices, structures and institutions of the currently dominant neo-liberal order would not lead to the realisation of Africa's dignity, values and aspirations. The Forum rejected neo-liberal globalisation and further integration of Africa into an unjust system as a basis for its growth and development. In this context, there was a strong consensus against initiatives such as the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and trade liberalisation. The Bamako Forum also noted that neo-liberal globalization had further eroded the human rights of the people of Africa. “When the basic needs of the people to food, shelter, clothing, housing and sources of energy are daily under threat because of forced privatisation and opening up of Africa to multinational corporations, then neither democracy nor human rights are possible,” a statement from the forum reads.
Development, said the Forum, should be based on the human being and not on the profit of corporations. Furthermore, it was only on the basis of the satisfaction of the basic material needs and the human rights of the people that genuine democracy could be built.
At the second ASF held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from January 5-9, 2003 over 200 African women, men and young people from 40 countries participated. They represented social movements, trade unions, peasants' organisations, NGOs and research institutions, and reaffirmed opposition to and rejection of the global neo-liberal system, its institutions and clubs, namely, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the G 8 and the World Economic Forum. Presentations were made on various thematic issues, including international trade, privatization, debt, the African Union, wars and conflicts, agriculture, the question of food security, health, and African cultures. The practice of social movements in Africa since the Bamako meeting was also reviewed, as was the progress made to develop and strengthen the ASF, to consolidate its place within the world anti-neoliberal movement, and to build popular struggles for economic justice on the ground.
The Forum observed that past and present economic policies implemented by African governments have failed to improve the lives of ordinary Africans. “We concluded that only a dynamic civil society organized in strong and active social movements can and must challenge the neo-liberal political economy of globalization. The consensus was that we need to build a new African state and society, where public institutions and policies will guarantee cultural, economic, political and social rights for all citizens,” said a statement.There was also a consensus that African unity and social integration were fundamental aspirations of the ASF. Unity had to be organized and achieved through democratic mechanisms and institutions built with the popular participation of the African masses. “This is why the ASF expressed deep concern and dissatisfaction with the neo-liberal orientation of the African Union through its adoption of NEPAD as the paradigm of Africa 's development…The African Social Forum commits itself to developing, promoting and popularizing, in a participatory manner, an alternative development paradigm, based on fundamental principles of democracy, human rights, gender equality and social justice.”
The WSF offers the ASF the opportunity to consolidate links with and make input into a global platform opposing neo-liberal globalisation. In the current global political economy, it might be easy to believe that the ASF and its bigger relative the WSF are likely to have little impact on world events. But as Jai Sen, a member of the WSF India Working Committee and Coordination Team, writes: “Perhaps most importantly, the WSF has struck at the level of meaning. It has resonantly made clear that there is an alternative to economic, capitalist globalisation, there are alternatives. And that people all over the world are now mobilising to live those alternatives. In this way, the WSF – along with all the other forms of global civil action that are also taking place - is playing a profound role in freeing peoples all over the world of the shackles of the colonisation of the mind.”* Please send comments to [email protected]
The above article was compiled by Patrick Burnett, Fahamu, with material sourced from the links below:
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=12669
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=11315
http://www.enda.sn/Forum%20social/english/bamakoeng.htm
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1417.html
http://www.wsfindia.org/anotherworld.php
http://www.labournet.info/wsfbook2004/guide.doc
http://www.labournet.info/wsfbook2004/cock.doc
http://earth.prohosting.com/sasf2003/mission.htm
http://africa.oneworld.net/article/view/72788/1/
http://www.tni.org/acts/wsf/wsf4.htm
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-12/30prashad.cfm
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=21911Tagged under Governance