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USA/Africa: Detroit to Dakar
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jul 9, 2010 (100709)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"We insist that the right to education, the right to health care,
food, the right to work, the right to housing, the right to clean
water are inherent and inalienable and that it is the obligation of
the State to guarantee access to these rights for all. The
legitimacy of the State itself must be derived from its ability to
uphold and deliver these rights." - Detroit to Dakar U.S. Social
Forum statement
The World Social Forum, which first met in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in
2001, will be held in Africa for the second time in February 2011.
The meeting in Dakar, Senegal comes four years after the gathering
in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2007, and will again stress the particular
importance of Africa in a new vision of a possible world based on
universality rather than exclusion.
The Dakar Forum has been preceded by a series of regional
gatherings on all continents, including the second U.S. Social
Forum, held in Detroit in June. At that forum, a coalition of
activist groups from the United States and Africa stressed
connections and parallel issues under the banner "Detroit to
Dakar." "The two cities may seem literally worlds apart," the
group notes, "but in closer examination, many of the issues
communities struggle for are similar - overcoming depressed
economies, migration, better education, and healthcare for all, and
a cleaner environment."
This AfricaFocus Bulletins contains several documents from the
Detroit to Dakar project (see also
https://sites.google.com/site/detroittodakar/) and a summary of
plans for Dakar as outlined at the World Social Forum planning
meeting in Mexico City in May.
For additional resources on the World Social Forum, see
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br (includes English, French, and
Spanish versions as well as Portuguese)
http://www.worldsocialforum.info
On the Dakar 2011 gathering, see
http://fsm2011.org (parts still under construction)
and
"Challenges of the World Social Forum 2011 in Dakar"
http://alainet.org/active/30329
On the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, see
http://www.ussf2010.org/,
http://www.ips.org/TV/wsf2010/,
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51954, and
http://www.pitchengine.com/newsroom.php?id=16732
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's Note+++++++++++++++++++++++
Detroit to Dakar at U.S. Social Forum
June 22-26, 2010
https://sites.google.com/site/detroittodakar/
Concluding Statement
We did it!
Congratulations to all organizations and individuals who made the
D2D initiative a success in Detroit! It was without doubt a great
participatory process that met its goal of strategically linking
discussions at the 2nd U.S. Social Forum in Detroit to issues and
concerns in Africa and the diaspora.
Many may recall a similar initiative at the first U.S. Social Forum
in Atlanta GA in 2007. This Africa-focused initiative gathered
energy around ensuring an Africa-inclusive process by organizing an
Africa Tent. The Tent brought together organizations and
individuals that held discussions on Africa and the diaspora and
increased visibility and commitment to affirm the need to build and
invigorate an Africa-focused movement in the U.S.
Having learned from the successes (and shortcomings) in Atlanta,
D2D brought yet again various individuals, organizations and
foundations to plan and coordinate participation at the Social
Forum in Detroit. Through our hard work we were able to achieve our
objectives:
Bringing the highest delegation of African civil society partners
that has ever participated at a U.S. Social Forum.
Our distinguished delegates included Mamadou Goita from Bamako
Mali, Mouhamadou Tidiane Kass‚ from Dakar Senegal, Liepollo Pheko
from Johannesburg South Africa, Emem Okon from the Niger Delta
region in Nigeria, Hopewell Xwayani Gumbo from Harare Zimbabwe,
Maxensia Mugherera from Kampala Uganda and Esther Mwaura-Muiru from
Nairobi Kenya. With us was also a recently re-located Nigerian
activist from Fahamu Sokari Ekine as well as Rose Williams from
South Africa and Von - Dimieari Von Kemedi also from the Niger
Delta in Nigeria. For complete listing of the partners, their
organizational affiliations and bios, see
http://tinyurl.com/383tots
Celebrating our presence and re-committing ourselves to the work at
the D2D
Breakfast Reception held on the 22nd of June at the Westin Book
Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit. The reception brought together
many activists who have been part of the D2D initiative from
beginning. It was the time we welcomed our distinguished delegates
from five African countries, Haiti and even Venezuela. The program
was opened by long-time supporter, core D2D coordinator from USA
for Africa: Marcia Thomas who MC'd the reception. Nunu Kidane,
Director of Priority Africa Network re-stated the goal of the D2D
initiative as we reviewed planned activities over the next four
days in Detroit. Emira Woods from IPS and Briggs Bomba from Africa
Action helped frame the struggle for Africa in the US, the
continuing need to focus on critical concerns of Africom, debt
cancellation, land sovereignty, gender and militarism and many
more. Other speakers included TransAfrica board chair Danny Glover
and TAF Sr. Director of Public Affairs and long term Africa
activist Imani Countess; USSF National Planning Committee member
Steph Guilloud from Project South, and Lori Robinson,
founder/editor of BLAC/Detroit magazine.
Direct engagement with African civil society at a U.S. Forum.
The participation of African civil society members in various
workshops brought the voices, knowledge and perspective of the
reality of challenges and victories for the people-led movement for
change in Africa. A representative from the Africa Social Forum and
member of Pambazuka, Mouhamadou Tidiane Kass‚ spoke at the opening
march attended by an estimated crowd of some 20,000 who came to
Cobo Hall on the first day. On Thursday, Liepollo Pheko, with the
Trade Collective in Johannesburg South Africa spoke as a panelist
at the National/International Plenary and at the closing ceremony
(see youtube of her speech at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDbmTVqRNDQ) Mamadou Goita, founder
and director of the Institute for Research and the Promotion of
Alternatives in Development (IRPAD), Bamako, Mali delivered a
statement of thanks to participants, inviting all to join us in
Dakar Senegal at the next World Social Forum.
Integrated workshops
The extensive D2D process prepared a list of workshops that related
to the themes that needed to be lifted up in Detroit. Involved
organizations were able to submit workshops relating to the key
themes of: Global economic crisis, global climate crisis, HIV/AIDS
and other health challenges, militarism, migration, democracy and
governance, media, food, water and land rights and local economies,
women power and politics, celebrating our culture - films, poems,
music, theater for social change; among others.
Highlighting key issues of concern for Africa and the African
Diaspora.
Thematic papers were prepared on each of the above themes to help
craft informed dialogue for the People's Movement Assembly. The PMA
successfully debated and crafted a one-page resolution which was
submitted to the USSF and will be taken to Detroit as the basis of
the multiple issues we want to highlight at the World Social Forum
in Detroit. [see below]
While we celebrate our success and are proud of what we achieved,
the process was not without fault nor shortcomings. It could not
realistically be otherwise. All social justice initiatives are
mired with limitations, some major some minor, that are
opportunities to learn from. D2D participants will be engaging in
an evaluation process within the next few days.
It took nearly six months of planning, coordinating and working
together to set a series of workshops, People's Movement Assembly,
reception and social activities for our involvement in Detroit
during the week of the Social Forum. While we celebrate Detroit, we
are fully aware of the work ahead on the second D - looking ahead
towards Dakar!
To those who helped behind the scene, ensuring coordination and
critical guidance, many thanks from all of us to: Mark Randazzo
from FNTG, Sarah Dotlich from Priority Africa Network, and Walter
Turner from Global Exchange, Emira Woods from the Institute of
Policy Studies, Briggs Bomba from Africa Action and Gerald Lenoir
from the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. The Praxis Project
provided logistical support in facilitating tickets for the African
delegation, thanks to Makani Themba-Nixon, Donald Jones, Salima
Salaam.
Foundation support was critical to D2D success we extensive
heartfelt thanks to the following donors: Global Fund for Women,
San Francisco, CA; New Field Foundation, San Francisco, CA;
TrustAfrica, Dakar, Senegal; USA for Africa, Los Angeles, CA;
Wallace Global Fund, Washington DC
Why Detroit to Dakar?
Detroit, is known as the city which has been hit hardest from
economic bust. USSF site quotes Detroit "has the highest
unemployment of any major city in the ?country--23.2% (March
2009)--with nearly one in four Detroiters unable to find?work.
Michigan has had the highest number of unemployed people in all 50
states? for nearly four years." It is also the city with large
African American communities who are un- or under employed. The
city has a growing population of new African and Caribbean
immigrants as well.
Dakar, the capital and largest city of Senegal, is an economic
center not only for the country but for the region. It is also a
city which has high unemployment, nearly 20% (known) with large
numbers of rural migrant workers displaced throughout the city.
Goree Island, just off of the coast of Dakar, has deep historical
significance for the global African diaspora.
The two cities may seem literally worlds apart, but in closer
examination, many of the issues communities struggle for are
similar -overcoming depressed economies, migration, better
education and healthcare for all and cleaner environment.
The key principle behind the Social Forums is to connect issues and
people across geographic and thematic divides; to come together and
strategize on action plans on the vision that
"another-world-is-possible." It is not an event but a "a movement
building process" that is dynamic and vibrant where positive
message of "we want" and "we demand" are echoed instead of only "we
oppose."
For communities organized under this D2D initiative, visibility of
Africa related issues is critical. We have taken this initiative in
order to put forth the best coordinated, planned and executed
activities for our presence in Detroit. We bring into this
conversations with key partners in different African countries in
ways that will enable us to build on our strategies for change for
the WSF in Dakar. A core aspect of our vision is furthering the
concept that Africa is more than a continent but includes the
global African diaspora in a changed vision of the world.
Detroit to Dakar People's Movement Assembly,
held on June 24th 1:00 - 5:00 pm
Prioritizing Africa & the African Diaspora: Agenda from Detroit to
Dakar (D2D)
http://pma2010.org/node/180
The following document reflects the true sentiments of the
collective body of D2D PMA participants and has been submitted to
the USSF. Thanks to all that participated in creating this vibrant
living document ! Special thanks to Liepollo Pheko, Briggs Bomba
and Mamadou Goita
D2D Statement
Having deliberated on the living conditions of communities and
peoples and seeing the appalling manifestation of failed
neo-liberal economic policies, destructive consequences of
unbridled global apartheid, poverty, lack of sovereignty and
negative external influences we commit ourselves to resistance and
reconstructing a people centered alternative.
We recognize the power of many more and make a commitment to link
with other progressive struggles and call on others to stand in
solidarity with this cause.
Poverty in our communities is manifested through dependence on
development aid, overt capital flight, odious debt repayments, a
delayed reparations agenda and lack of fair trade. Because
neocolonialism has negated our sovereignty we are used as a dumping
ground for toxic waste damaging our environment, and causing
climate change. Furthermore, this impedes sustainable agriculture,
food sovereignty, land sovereignty and family and small-scale
farming.
In claiming our national sovereignty we are claiming back an
authentic people driven governance and economic transformation
agenda. This agenda must recognize and reject external interference
and place social and economic rights as fundamental pillars of
human dignity. In that regard we insist that the right to
education, the right to health care, food, the right to work, the
right to housing, the right to clean water are inherent and
inalienable and that it is the obligation of the State to guarantee
access to these rights for all. The legitimacy of the State itself
must be derived from its ability to uphold and deliver these
rights.
Against this background we reject militarism and police brutality
and all other tools of coercion used by states to oppress, silence,
dispossess, dehumanize and marginalize the people. We condemn the
use of militarism by powerful western countries, principally the
U.S. and its allies to undermine national sovereignty and
facilitate corporate exploitation. We reject the economic,
political, and climatic conditions that lead to forced migration
and its sinister cousin human trafficking. The development of our
nations dependence on a sustainable, diverse and well-developed
skills base that we are loosing to forced migration.
The myriad global economic, political, cultural and ecological
crises show the unsustainability and decay of the prevailing world
order and create opportunities to imagine a new reality that places
people at the center. This includes re-imagining a citizenship
concept that is trans global, borderless and inclusive. In this
imagination we reconnect with our essence and draw upon the
richness of our indigenous knowledge, our cultural heritages, and
inspiration of generations of our peoples' struggle.
This inspires us to recreate a reality consistent with our
aspirations in which healthcare, education, technology and other
things essential to our being are central and guaranteed. In
reclaiming ourselves we must affirm our cultures, imagery, dance,
song, literature, language and resist the tyranny and imposition of
western culture through global mass media. We desire and demand
solutions to current dilemmas and construct a new world in which
there is balance between ourselves and the earth, between men and
women, between communities and peoples, between generations and
within ourselves.
We call upon others to join in fighting these struggles and
realizing these aspirations by building a popular global movement
through:
- Deepening networks between Afrika and the Diaspora
- Strengthening solidarity between sectors, struggles and
organizations and peoples movements
- Sharing information, insights and experiences
- Leveraging the collective and growing network of peoples at key
moments such as the World Social Forum, Climate Conferences, WTO
meetings, MDG meetings and other community, national and
international moments
- Using various creative IT and media strategies to support network
and alliance building
- Using good old fashioned organizing tools and methods to build
awareness, solidarity and platforms of collective action
Road to Dakar: The WSF towards a new emancipatory universality
Giuseppe Caruso
Network Institute for Global Democratization
http://www.nigd.org/
Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research - University of
Helsinki Network Institute for Global Democratization)
The next global event of the WSF process will take place in Dakar
from the 6th to the 11th of February 2011. It will follow the
latest event in Belem in January 2009 and will deepen and extend
its development of a new global transformative culture of politics
aimed at catalysing the construction of a better world.
For the first time the WSF will deliberately de-link from the WEF
and will take place at a different time. After ten years since its
birth it has developed beyond its initial symbolic engagement of
the WEF and it now aims towards the more ambitious goal of
catalysing social transformation with a vision of a new
universality opposed to Western modernism and its current dominant
expression, neoliberalism.
In the constant research by the WSF activists of new forms and
languages of emancipation, a new sophisticated vision is being
suggested by the facilitators of the Dakar forum, which builds on
cosmopolitan values and on emancipatory struggles to liberate the
poor, the dominated, the exploited, the wretched of the earth from
centuries of oppression.
If Western modernity was built on colonialism, slavery, capitalism,
imperialism and the hopeful but potentially enslaving thoughts of
enlightened philosophers and positivist social scientists, the
social movements and the civil society actors convening in the WSF
are appropriating a cosmopolitan outlook on life on the planet and
are turning it into a new emancipatory universality.
The new universality discussed by the Senegalese facilitators of
the next WSF, at the latest meeting of its International Council
which gathered in Mexico City on the 5-7 May, will contribute to
redefine the foundations of a new culture of politics and a new
activist mentality centred on the political recognition of
difference and privileging the values of hospitality, conviviality
and solidarity against the uncompromising individualism and the
dynamics of competition and utility maximisation at the heart of
capitalism. The urgency of such emancipatory vision is undeniable
and fully expressed by the destructive nature of the current
economic, financial, social and environmental crises.
The new universality won't be centred on the integration of the
"South" into the "North" but in the radical reformulation of the
values that organise society and people's relationships and lives.
The cultural inspirations of such vision are gathered from all
regions of the world and value diasporic experiences across them.
Migrants and women are crucial in contributing to shape the new
universality as they are among those most affected by the
alienating and atomising practices of capitalism.
The members of the Senegalese delegation presented the vision of
the Forum, the strategic axis, the general structure of the
programme, the venue, the accommodation opportunities and the
mobilisation and organisational process as it will develop in the
next months.
The 2011 edition of the WSF will be focused on the symbolic image
of the South. A South intended not merely as geographical
description but as position in a dominant relation in which one
term is made lower through material exploitation, is oppressed
politically, marginalised culturally and victimized
psychologically.
The Dakar forum will be articulated in three strategic axis. The
first will focus on the critical analyses of the current crises of
neoliberalism, as it manifested itself not only in Africa but in
the whole planet.
The second will highlight the struggles against the effects of the
crises, against the actors engaged in perpetuating the behaviours
that caused the crises in the first place and against any form of
oppression.
It will also provide an opportunity to give special stress to the
African realities of struggle and transformation with a desire to
learn also from the histories of oppression, rebellion and
transformation of the African diasporas, the struggles against
slavery and the civil rights movement, and to celebrate the
independence of the African continent the 50th anniversary of which
is for many countries this year.
The third axis of encounter and engagement will revolve around
imaginations, proposals and developments towards transforming the
world society.
Among the questions that will cut across themes and axis there will
be the current rush to the African resources, the role in the
fierce competition over those resources by new players like China,
the geopolitical reconfiguration of the world order, the role of
African countries vis-…-vis the American war on terror, the wars
affecting the people of some African countries like the Democratic
Republic of Congo and Somalia, possible ways to build and
consolidate a solidarity between peoples in the spirit of Bandung,
just to mention a few.
There will be also an important stress on African culture, not
understood as entertainment but in its most genuine political
aspects. In this sense the Senegalese forum will build on past
experiences of the WSF in Mumbai, Nairobi, Porto Alegre and Belem.
Culture will be shared, enjoyed, performed as part of the new
language of struggle and transformation.
To give louder and clearer meaning to the vision of the WSF the
Senegalese organisers are stressing the importance to extol the
uniqueness and specificity of their process, informed by the unique
political and cultural context, but they are also adamant against
attempting to assume an hegemonic role within the overall WSF
process. The new world ahead will also rely on the new culture of
politics that is aware and beware of the negative implications in
the long run of processes lead by any (even profoundly trusted,
loyal and freely chosen) world leadership.
The process towards a new world, a new civilisation, a new activist
paradigm has received a new impetus coming from a continent subject
to horrendous exploitation and oppression that is prepared now to
show that those who have been losers for five centuries can now
show the true meaning of hospitality, rally confidence, inspire
dignity, ignite transformation. This seems to be at the heart of
the vision, centred on an acute sensibility to oppression and
assertion, that the members of the Senegalese delegation
communicated to their colleagues of the WSF International Committee
and that are prepared to communicate to the global activists in the
outreach process leading to the February event in Dakar.
Whereas always acutely aware of the condition of oppression and
exploitations that are at the heart of social and political
activism, the facilitators of the WSF process seem to have put
lately a more forceful stress on the transformative potentials of
their movement. This new stress is, at the same time, a response to
those internal and external perplexities and criticisms, against
the potentially complacency of the Social Forum process in its
denial to converge towards political activism as some would like
and few still request from its spaces.
The stress of the African and Senegalese members of the organising
committee for Dakar on the powerful and emancipatory message
communicated by the WSF in its current process towards Dakar,
sounds convincing, inspiring and exciting. A cry of awareness and
a call to rally. The activists gathering in the university campus
in Dakar will share their acute awareness of injustice, oppression
and exploitation and express their creative energy to confront
them. Such a peaceful force could indeed achieve a lot. It could
reinforce the dialogic process of awareness formation among its
members and can further reinforce the virtuous cycle of exodus from
the shackles of domination towards another, transformed world. Such
powerful message is in the vision of the WSF Charter as an
aspiration. The Senegalese chapter of the WSF is making that
aspiration forcefully present and real in their vision for the next
WSF event.
The Dakar event will start on Sunday the 6th of February with the
official opening and a march along the streets of the Senegalese
capital. The following day will focus on Africa and the African
diaspora and will see a proactive involvement of the organising
committee in defining the programme. The second and third day will
revolve around the myriad of self-organised activities. The fourth
day will help build moments of thematic convergence and the fifth
day will be dedicated to the assembly of assemblies experimented in
Belem in 2009.
The process will continue in the next months leading to a technical
workshop in Dakar aiming at giving shape to the programme. This
effort will involve African organisers and their partners in the
Strategy, Methodology and Communication Commissions of the
International Council. This joint work should allow to finalise the
thematic foci while at the same time launching the agglutination
process of the self-organised activities and the registration to
the event.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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