Struggling Towards African Self-Determination
A Report from the World Social Forum in Bamako, Mali
Roxanne Lawson is the Associate Coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee's Peacebuilding Unit's Africa Program.
The World Social Forum is not an organization, it is a space. In Bamako, Mali in January 2006 that space was, for the first time, truly Afrocentric. Bamako marked the first time that any World Social Forum could claim the majority of its attendees identified themselves as African or of African descent.
Until Bamako, fewer than 100 African non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had participated in the previous incarnations of the World Social Forum (WSF) despite the vibrant regional and national Social Forum movements in Africa. The absence of African civil society at the WSF has been due, in the past, in large part to the expense of travel. Sponsoring WSF events on multiple continents this year was designed to rectify the absence of indigenous people and grassroots organizers at the WSF.
Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world, hosted the Polycentric World Social Forum, from January 19-23, ahead of those in Caracas, Venezuela, and Karachi, Pakistan (postponed due to the earthquake, at press time scheduled for March 24-29). Organizers estimated that approximately 15,000 people participated. This is the first step to root the WSF in Africa and mobilize the people of the continent. Locating the WSF in Bamako recognized that Africans and African descendants are those who have been the hardest hit by corporate globalization. Bamako offered progressive forces in Africa an opportunity to lead the way and offer African alternatives to global capitalism.
"Holding the WSF in Africa will increase African awareness as far as the link between our impoverishment and globalization. Also, Africans will feel more connected to the process because it is being held here," said Dr. Aminata Dramane Traore, a Malian author, political activist, former government minister, and one of the principal organizers of the Bamako Forum.
The Bamako Forum was indeed a place for members of civil societies to meet and share their different perspectives on global political economies. This was evident in the presence of groups from around Africa who came to Bamako to articulate their concerns; the Ogoni people from Nigeria, the Yaaku community in Kenya, and representatives of civil society from both Western Sahara and Morocco (which invaded Western Sahara in 1975 and has militarily occupied it since) were all able to make their case and educate people from other parts of the world about their struggles for self-determination.
This year's themes for all three Forums were focused on debt cancellation, anti-militarization, workers' rights, fair trade, food sovereignty and security, prohibition of patents on knowledge and living organisms, ending water privatization, and migration issues.
In Bamako a particular emphasis was placed on the issues that are most central to the continent: odious debt, unfair trade that impacts food security, Africa's right to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic, farming, the rights of migrants and "informal" workers, and the impact of all of these, through the lens of patriarchy, on the rights of women.
Activists discussed the limitations and inequities of the "Group of Eight's" 2005 debt cancellation plan and mapped out strategies for increasing recognition that Third World debt is illegitimate and should be repudiated. There were also discussions of post-World Trade Organization realities and trade disparities. Those present developed strategies for campaigns against Western farming subsidies, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and bio-prospecting.
Bio-prospecting (which Vandana Shiva has called bio-piracy) involves corporations filing patents on plants that have traditionally been used as medicines so that they can no longer be used. For example, the medicinal properties of the African yellow yam have been patented by Shaman Pharmaceuticals and Nigerian scientist Maurice Iwu. The utilization of natural resources in the context of capitalism was understood and articulated as a struggle for the right to life. Those who control the world's life-sustaining natural resources -- such as food production, traditional and western medicines, and water -- control the lives (and deaths) of those who do not.
Issues of access and control in relation to the forum itself were also prominent in attendees' minds. While this Forum included village elders, local businesspeople, traditional healers, and the usual NGO types, and this represented a step forward, all were mindful that there is always room for more engagement.
Organizers admit that in the push to mobilize NGOs and their grassroots bases from across the Continent, engagement of the local population suffered. For many who live and work in Bamako outside of the sphere of political organizing, the Forum may have seemed like just another meeting of international corporate institutions.
This reality was due in large part to economics. To financially host the Forum the impoverished Malian government and the Africa Social Forum used most of their meager resources. As a result, they had very little money left over to sponsor the attendance of grassroots organizers from around the continent. Several private foundations sponsored representatives of grassroots women's organizations to attend the events in Bamako and helped to create the massive and stimulating presence of Africa's women at the gathering.
As Africa and the world prepare for the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, the same year that the world will commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and the 50th anniversary of the independence of Ghana, it is clear that 2007 will be the year of Africa.
http://www.afsc.org/pwork/0603/060317.htm
