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Alterglobalisation in Africa - WSF 2011 in Dakar, Senegal
Alterglobalization in Africa - WSF 2011 in Dakar, Senegal.
Helsinki, 28 October, 2009
Seminar report by Ruby van der Wekken, with thanks to Sofia Laine (comments) and Tuomas Ylä- Anttila (notes).
Organized by Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research, Department of Political Science, Network Institute for Global Democratization, Finnish Social Forum and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
Guest speaker: Taoufik Ben Abdallah, ENDA, Sénégal
Moderator : Teivo Teivainen, Helsinki University, NIGD.
The below report has attempted to give a thematical overview of the discussions in the session :
Why the Forum (world event) again in Africa?
Fighting to get the Forum to Africa, and the tensions post Nairobi
(African) Citizenship and the Forum
The function and future of the WSF: Locus of resistance, alternatives, public relations, or global political party building?
Power relations, visibility and the issue of documentation in the Forum process
The Inclusiveness (of youth) of the Forum
Funding and ownership of the WSF
Why the Forum (world event) again in Africa?
Dakar 2011 will be the 3rd time of a WSF world event in Africa, after the polycentric forum of Bamako in 2006 and Nairobi in 2007.
Taoufik mentioned three objectives why the Forum should be held again in Africa:
- First of all, Global connections give strength and energy to African civil society. WSF contributed to social movements and their agenda and to create political momentum. It’s a huge opportunity for people to speak out, to exist politically.
- Secondly, The world order is changing. There is talk of emerging countries, multipolarity. Where is Africa on that map? Africa is not visible. We must think of the new world and Africa's place in it. Africa must not be left aside once again.
- Thirdly, we need more platforms. We have seen the creation of for instance strong Brazilian and Indian networks, we need to enhance this on a more global level, and in the new context. The WSF is not another Bandung: The world of 1955 is not the world of today. We need to redefine our place in the world. As we put forward already in the process toward Nairobi: In Africa, there are one billion people. 90 per cent of them are still not citizens; they don’t enjoy full political and social rights. Before we speak of anything as United States of Africa, we need to build African citizenship. For Africans to become the subject of their development. And the WSF is an important tool for this.
Fighting to get the Forum to Africa, and the tensions post Nairobi
Taoufik mentioned how in the International Council of the WSF it had been a fight to get the world event of the WSF return to Africa in 2011. At first only a few voices in favor. "Why this silence on Africa?" questioned Taoufik. "We want to provoke global civil society to have the Forum in Africa. To take on that global perspective, as much as a challenge as it is."
Taoufik continued on the criticisms following the Nairobi 2007 WSF. "We did not think the Forum was a failure, but it was organized at a time when political tensions in Kenya were getting worse. We had to minimize the risks for civil society. If the Forum would not have taken place in Nairobi, the whole situation of the Kenyan society would have been worse."
Taoufik elaborated on one of the main criticisms of the Nairobi forum, which was that the poor could not fully participate. "This was exaggerated (mainly by trotskyists of the IC who thought that the solution is to identify the culprits and kick them out of the IC) but to some extent it was true". He explained that the steering committee was also mainly from Nairobi. "This is still a challenge of the WSF. We need to make the poor part of the preparatory process of the WSF. In the Senegalese organizing committee there are 120 entities, some of a very local nature who do not speak French at all. There are also some key movements along, like a network of farmers, who are allied with Via Campesina, MST etc. So also Trade Unions.
Taoufik also addressed the WSF International Council regarding Nairobi, and said the IC had not taken on its responsibilities sufficiently. He also spoke of the need to resist the IC when necessary in the process towards Dakar. "It was the Resource Commission of the WSF IC who decided the entrance fees for the Forum were to be set high in order to cover costs. However, the poor of course could not pay for such fees."
Taoufik also stated that the Forum must go there where the problems are - and this in criticism to the supposed lack of confidence present among WSF IC member that the Forum could "afford" to return to Africa. The way the forum report is now this could easily fit under for instance the section of the fight to get the forum to Africa.
(African) Citizenship and the Forum
The participants continued on the issue of citizenship on different instances throughout the session.
Silke Trommer (Centre of Excellence Helsinki University) commented how from her research on African trade negotiations and by her observations during her stay with Enda in Senegal, for her what stuck out was how She observed this way of "debrouiller", of getting by in order to fulfill basic needs, yet at the same time introducing novel ways of doing so.
Liisa Laakso (Helsinki University) commented that Africa has big contradictions, in particular between the urban and rural. She commented how people have been able to get organised and develop extensive networking skills. In the local setting then there is the largest scope for political action. Linked to this is also the politisation of ethnicity. How much then is the notion of strengthening citizenship connected to a weakness of the state?
Taoufik answered that in the Charter of the WSF world citizenship is mentioned. State citizenship is often colonial. A state might be not respecting citizens rights. World citizenship might be too large a concept here, but the Forum can be instrumental in citizenship building.
Ruby van der Wekken (NIGD) noted how the notion of the WSF as citizenship builder was also applicable to the last Forum world event held in Brazil. Whilst Brazil is often characterized as having strong movements, the main impact of the last forum in Belem is perhaps to be seen as having been among the local Amazonian people. Many Amazonian people do not have legal documentation. As they say in the Amazonas, so far from God, so far from Lula. For them to participate in the forum, and to encounter with people from different countries and regions experiencing similar issues, was in fact given them a notion of (world) citizenship, a possibility to speak which nationally unknown of.
Kari Karanko (State Department) noted how also for African indigenous peoples the Forum process will be an important instance of subject building, such as for the pygmies in Kameroen, the Masai in Tanzania. These are minority groups whose rights are not well defended. There are also many conflicts among groups and also in this respect the Forum can play a positive role.
Taoufik commented that the issue of indigenous peoples in Africa is very different from the examples coming out of the forum process in Latin America. "We in Africa have been a prisoner of the drive towards the building of national identity. Achieving basic needs for all has been a main goal, and the erasing of cultural differences, indigenous to make place for national values have been thought processes of which we all have been victims. Now things are changing as groups are demanding so."
Thomas Wallgren (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) engages in the forum process as a defender of the Open Space, to strengthen the participation of the weak, and to address the crises of civilization. He asked Taoufik whether this engagement was correct with regards to the process to Dakar. Taoufik responded that there is a need to elaborate different ways of bringing the poor to participate in the WSF process.
The function and future of the WSF: Locus of resistance, alternatives, public relations, or global political party building?
Haana Laako (Helsinki University) spoke of how she had concluded from her participation in the forum process on the Latin American continent, that in fact the Forum was most important for its participants in putting forward the forms of resistance building. She experienced there to be different levels in the forum process, one of them as it were concentrating more on technical aspects. How then can the different forms of resistance building be at the centre in forum of Dakar?
Tuomas Ylä-Anttila (Helsinki University, NIGD): "I see two sides to the WSF, which lead to different futures. A first is a "WSF lite": I refer with this to meetings of global civil society networks that would take place anyway, but which are brought together at the WSF. In this way Cross-fertilization, a saving of carbon emissions and money takes place, and it serves as publicity. The objective for this WSF is to come to concrete proposals like the currency transaction tax or reform of the IMF or whatever. The second side to the WSF has as objective to overcome the neoliberal wave and move the world public opinion and electoral outcomes to the left. Its future is to head towards a public opinion PR office or Global political party, or sidekick of national leftist political parties. This has been particularly the case in Latin America especially, where Lula and the PT got a nice boost from the social forum process. Chavez of course wanted to adopt the forum and there was a electoral wave of left victories in Latin America, including others like Morales. There are problems with both sides. One: the energy comes from the possibility of a big change, small technical reforms are steps towards it. Two: Oxfam professionals are better at PR than the poor, and there are no global political parties and the party political game is different from civil society game.
The combination of the two has been important to the WSF. The problem is that camp 2 has a vision of where WSF should go. But is the open space going anywhere? Its logical endpoint would be WSF lite. But if they want to play with camp 2, they risk not going anywhere. Open space has no objective. It can be a means for different objectives, but does not have one in itself. It could work like that forever but I don’t think it will. How does this play out in Senegal? Does one idea or the other dominate? Or do they have to live together? Are there alliances with political parties?
Power relations, visibility and the issue of documentation in the Forum process.
Mikko Sauli (Attac, NIGD) drew attention to the issue of power relations in the forum process: The WSF should reconsider its relations to political parties and form alliances where necessary, like it has been in Brazil. The parties should not be, of course, given a possibility to dominate the forum, and neither should big, rich northern NGOs like Oxfam. He advocated for the Forum process to develop more explicit relations with political parties.
Ruby linked on to this by saying that : just as in the WSF IC NIGD has recurrently put forward the need to recognize that there are power relations in the IC, and a democratization needs to be furthered by addressing the issue of for instance decision making in order to avoid a structurelessness serving the powerful, so with the Open Space of the WSF. One recommendation is for the WSF to develop a more permanent set of themes which reflect the current political, social and economic situation, under which outcome and actions would take place. Besides this methodological development, a documentation of outcome and actions taking place under the themes is to follow throughout the Forum process. Documentation can thus be a key to besides enhance alternative building also address power relations, by making all voices visible.
Mikael Böök (NIGD): There should be a severing of the ties between the WSF and the Library. He will participate in the next meeting in Dakar in 16th of November. The documentation of the WSF process is important, and first tried by the librarians in the WSF Nairobi. (see www.wsflibrary.org)
Barry Gills (University of Newcastle) commented how it would be important for the Forum to make key principles permanent, as it were constitutional. "There will always be this tension between the forum as an Open Space and the Forum as a political actor. This need not be exclusive. Regulation is important: Laissez faire always means that those who are already powerful stay so and those who are not stay so. And the sessions moderator Teivo Teivainen (Centre of Excellence Helsinki University, NIGD) reminded of the work of the feminists in the seventies, who spoke of the tyranny of structurelessness.
Taoufik pointed out how the Charter of the World Social Forum is not always respected and as such does not guarantee visibility to the weak, and to alternatives.
The inclusiveness (of youth) of the Forum
Sofia Laine (Helsinki University, NIGD, Finnish Youth Research Network) commented that: "One interesting way to expand the participation possibilities is through the internet and web-conferences. This was tried out in Belem Expanded -project and I wish to see this form of interaction and networking taking place also in the WSF Dakar. This point has to do with the potential of the social media and Web 2.0 tools in the Internet and how the WSF could benefit from using them in many different ways. These are in particular also good tools to engage youth."
"As the WSF space takes always place in some local surrounding, as it will happen next time in some district of Dakar, the interaction between the neighborhoods of the forum and the forum space should be developed. One of the most fascinated events in the WSF Nairobi were the Slum walks, where the young active residents of the nearest slum area took WSF participant by foot to their living area and explained about their projects as well as daily lives and struggles. These youth also reported that the WSF had been important empowering experience to their community."
Funding and ownership of the WSF
Taoufik told how for the Brazilian world events of the WSF 50% of the funding came from the government, 20% from Novib. "We had real negotiations with the Mali government who donated 300.000 USD to the process. We have started the discussion in Senegal, as also with Cote D'Ivoir, the richest neighbor, as well as for instance with the African Development Bank. We need good strategies for the negotiations"
Sofia Laine proposed how a WSF membership could be one possibility of fund raising: "there could be an annual fee for the membership. The amount of the fee should be different for the individuals and groups or associations. As well the fee should depend on the person’s status as well as the country of living (or nationality). Not all the supporters of the WSF have the possibility to travel to the forum location but the membership could be a way to support the process."
Helsinki, 28 October, 2009
Seminar report by Ruby van der Wekken, with thanks to Sofia Laine (comments) and Tuomas Ylä- Anttila (notes).
Organized by Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research, Department of Political Science, Network Institute for Global Democratization, Finnish Social Forum and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
Guest speaker: Taoufik Ben Abdallah, ENDA, Sénégal
Moderator : Teivo Teivainen, Helsinki University, NIGD.
The below report has attempted to give a thematical overview of the discussions in the session :
Why the Forum (world event) again in Africa?
Fighting to get the Forum to Africa, and the tensions post Nairobi
(African) Citizenship and the Forum
The function and future of the WSF: Locus of resistance, alternatives, public relations, or global political party building?
Power relations, visibility and the issue of documentation in the Forum process
The Inclusiveness (of youth) of the Forum
Funding and ownership of the WSF
Why the Forum (world event) again in Africa?
Dakar 2011 will be the 3rd time of a WSF world event in Africa, after the polycentric forum of Bamako in 2006 and Nairobi in 2007.
Taoufik mentioned three objectives why the Forum should be held again in Africa:
- First of all, Global connections give strength and energy to African civil society. WSF contributed to social movements and their agenda and to create political momentum. It’s a huge opportunity for people to speak out, to exist politically.
- Secondly, The world order is changing. There is talk of emerging countries, multipolarity. Where is Africa on that map? Africa is not visible. We must think of the new world and Africa's place in it. Africa must not be left aside once again.
- Thirdly, we need more platforms. We have seen the creation of for instance strong Brazilian and Indian networks, we need to enhance this on a more global level, and in the new context. The WSF is not another Bandung: The world of 1955 is not the world of today. We need to redefine our place in the world. As we put forward already in the process toward Nairobi: In Africa, there are one billion people. 90 per cent of them are still not citizens; they don’t enjoy full political and social rights. Before we speak of anything as United States of Africa, we need to build African citizenship. For Africans to become the subject of their development. And the WSF is an important tool for this.
Fighting to get the Forum to Africa, and the tensions post Nairobi
Taoufik mentioned how in the International Council of the WSF it had been a fight to get the world event of the WSF return to Africa in 2011. At first only a few voices in favor. "Why this silence on Africa?" questioned Taoufik. "We want to provoke global civil society to have the Forum in Africa. To take on that global perspective, as much as a challenge as it is."
Taoufik continued on the criticisms following the Nairobi 2007 WSF. "We did not think the Forum was a failure, but it was organized at a time when political tensions in Kenya were getting worse. We had to minimize the risks for civil society. If the Forum would not have taken place in Nairobi, the whole situation of the Kenyan society would have been worse."
Taoufik elaborated on one of the main criticisms of the Nairobi forum, which was that the poor could not fully participate. "This was exaggerated (mainly by trotskyists of the IC who thought that the solution is to identify the culprits and kick them out of the IC) but to some extent it was true". He explained that the steering committee was also mainly from Nairobi. "This is still a challenge of the WSF. We need to make the poor part of the preparatory process of the WSF. In the Senegalese organizing committee there are 120 entities, some of a very local nature who do not speak French at all. There are also some key movements along, like a network of farmers, who are allied with Via Campesina, MST etc. So also Trade Unions.
Taoufik also addressed the WSF International Council regarding Nairobi, and said the IC had not taken on its responsibilities sufficiently. He also spoke of the need to resist the IC when necessary in the process towards Dakar. "It was the Resource Commission of the WSF IC who decided the entrance fees for the Forum were to be set high in order to cover costs. However, the poor of course could not pay for such fees."
Taoufik also stated that the Forum must go there where the problems are - and this in criticism to the supposed lack of confidence present among WSF IC member that the Forum could "afford" to return to Africa. The way the forum report is now this could easily fit under for instance the section of the fight to get the forum to Africa.
(African) Citizenship and the Forum
The participants continued on the issue of citizenship on different instances throughout the session.
Silke Trommer (Centre of Excellence Helsinki University) commented how from her research on African trade negotiations and by her observations during her stay with Enda in Senegal, for her what stuck out was how She observed this way of "debrouiller", of getting by in order to fulfill basic needs, yet at the same time introducing novel ways of doing so.
Liisa Laakso (Helsinki University) commented that Africa has big contradictions, in particular between the urban and rural. She commented how people have been able to get organised and develop extensive networking skills. In the local setting then there is the largest scope for political action. Linked to this is also the politisation of ethnicity. How much then is the notion of strengthening citizenship connected to a weakness of the state?
Taoufik answered that in the Charter of the WSF world citizenship is mentioned. State citizenship is often colonial. A state might be not respecting citizens rights. World citizenship might be too large a concept here, but the Forum can be instrumental in citizenship building.
Ruby van der Wekken (NIGD) noted how the notion of the WSF as citizenship builder was also applicable to the last Forum world event held in Brazil. Whilst Brazil is often characterized as having strong movements, the main impact of the last forum in Belem is perhaps to be seen as having been among the local Amazonian people. Many Amazonian people do not have legal documentation. As they say in the Amazonas, so far from God, so far from Lula. For them to participate in the forum, and to encounter with people from different countries and regions experiencing similar issues, was in fact given them a notion of (world) citizenship, a possibility to speak which nationally unknown of.
Kari Karanko (State Department) noted how also for African indigenous peoples the Forum process will be an important instance of subject building, such as for the pygmies in Kameroen, the Masai in Tanzania. These are minority groups whose rights are not well defended. There are also many conflicts among groups and also in this respect the Forum can play a positive role.
Taoufik commented that the issue of indigenous peoples in Africa is very different from the examples coming out of the forum process in Latin America. "We in Africa have been a prisoner of the drive towards the building of national identity. Achieving basic needs for all has been a main goal, and the erasing of cultural differences, indigenous to make place for national values have been thought processes of which we all have been victims. Now things are changing as groups are demanding so."
Thomas Wallgren (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) engages in the forum process as a defender of the Open Space, to strengthen the participation of the weak, and to address the crises of civilization. He asked Taoufik whether this engagement was correct with regards to the process to Dakar. Taoufik responded that there is a need to elaborate different ways of bringing the poor to participate in the WSF process.
The function and future of the WSF: Locus of resistance, alternatives, public relations, or global political party building?
Haana Laako (Helsinki University) spoke of how she had concluded from her participation in the forum process on the Latin American continent, that in fact the Forum was most important for its participants in putting forward the forms of resistance building. She experienced there to be different levels in the forum process, one of them as it were concentrating more on technical aspects. How then can the different forms of resistance building be at the centre in forum of Dakar?
Tuomas Ylä-Anttila (Helsinki University, NIGD): "I see two sides to the WSF, which lead to different futures. A first is a "WSF lite": I refer with this to meetings of global civil society networks that would take place anyway, but which are brought together at the WSF. In this way Cross-fertilization, a saving of carbon emissions and money takes place, and it serves as publicity. The objective for this WSF is to come to concrete proposals like the currency transaction tax or reform of the IMF or whatever. The second side to the WSF has as objective to overcome the neoliberal wave and move the world public opinion and electoral outcomes to the left. Its future is to head towards a public opinion PR office or Global political party, or sidekick of national leftist political parties. This has been particularly the case in Latin America especially, where Lula and the PT got a nice boost from the social forum process. Chavez of course wanted to adopt the forum and there was a electoral wave of left victories in Latin America, including others like Morales. There are problems with both sides. One: the energy comes from the possibility of a big change, small technical reforms are steps towards it. Two: Oxfam professionals are better at PR than the poor, and there are no global political parties and the party political game is different from civil society game.
The combination of the two has been important to the WSF. The problem is that camp 2 has a vision of where WSF should go. But is the open space going anywhere? Its logical endpoint would be WSF lite. But if they want to play with camp 2, they risk not going anywhere. Open space has no objective. It can be a means for different objectives, but does not have one in itself. It could work like that forever but I don’t think it will. How does this play out in Senegal? Does one idea or the other dominate? Or do they have to live together? Are there alliances with political parties?
Power relations, visibility and the issue of documentation in the Forum process.
Mikko Sauli (Attac, NIGD) drew attention to the issue of power relations in the forum process: The WSF should reconsider its relations to political parties and form alliances where necessary, like it has been in Brazil. The parties should not be, of course, given a possibility to dominate the forum, and neither should big, rich northern NGOs like Oxfam. He advocated for the Forum process to develop more explicit relations with political parties.
Ruby linked on to this by saying that : just as in the WSF IC NIGD has recurrently put forward the need to recognize that there are power relations in the IC, and a democratization needs to be furthered by addressing the issue of for instance decision making in order to avoid a structurelessness serving the powerful, so with the Open Space of the WSF. One recommendation is for the WSF to develop a more permanent set of themes which reflect the current political, social and economic situation, under which outcome and actions would take place. Besides this methodological development, a documentation of outcome and actions taking place under the themes is to follow throughout the Forum process. Documentation can thus be a key to besides enhance alternative building also address power relations, by making all voices visible.
Mikael Böök (NIGD): There should be a severing of the ties between the WSF and the Library. He will participate in the next meeting in Dakar in 16th of November. The documentation of the WSF process is important, and first tried by the librarians in the WSF Nairobi. (see www.wsflibrary.org)
Barry Gills (University of Newcastle) commented how it would be important for the Forum to make key principles permanent, as it were constitutional. "There will always be this tension between the forum as an Open Space and the Forum as a political actor. This need not be exclusive. Regulation is important: Laissez faire always means that those who are already powerful stay so and those who are not stay so. And the sessions moderator Teivo Teivainen (Centre of Excellence Helsinki University, NIGD) reminded of the work of the feminists in the seventies, who spoke of the tyranny of structurelessness.
Taoufik pointed out how the Charter of the World Social Forum is not always respected and as such does not guarantee visibility to the weak, and to alternatives.
The inclusiveness (of youth) of the Forum
Sofia Laine (Helsinki University, NIGD, Finnish Youth Research Network) commented that: "One interesting way to expand the participation possibilities is through the internet and web-conferences. This was tried out in Belem Expanded -project and I wish to see this form of interaction and networking taking place also in the WSF Dakar. This point has to do with the potential of the social media and Web 2.0 tools in the Internet and how the WSF could benefit from using them in many different ways. These are in particular also good tools to engage youth."
"As the WSF space takes always place in some local surrounding, as it will happen next time in some district of Dakar, the interaction between the neighborhoods of the forum and the forum space should be developed. One of the most fascinated events in the WSF Nairobi were the Slum walks, where the young active residents of the nearest slum area took WSF participant by foot to their living area and explained about their projects as well as daily lives and struggles. These youth also reported that the WSF had been important empowering experience to their community."
Funding and ownership of the WSF
Taoufik told how for the Brazilian world events of the WSF 50% of the funding came from the government, 20% from Novib. "We had real negotiations with the Mali government who donated 300.000 USD to the process. We have started the discussion in Senegal, as also with Cote D'Ivoir, the richest neighbor, as well as for instance with the African Development Bank. We need good strategies for the negotiations"
Sofia Laine proposed how a WSF membership could be one possibility of fund raising: "there could be an annual fee for the membership. The amount of the fee should be different for the individuals and groups or associations. As well the fee should depend on the person’s status as well as the country of living (or nationality). Not all the supporters of the WSF have the possibility to travel to the forum location but the membership could be a way to support the process."
