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World Social Forum Diary
By Jordan Flaherty
Nairobi, Kenya January 23, 2007
This week, tens of thousands of
people, representing nearly every nation and people, are
gathered to strategize, debate and struggle for
solutions to worldwide problems of injustice and
inequality. For the first time, the World Social Forum
has come to Nairobi, Kenya. The global conference is
situated in a massive sports complex neighboring the
slum of Korogocho, where tens of thousands of Kenyans
live in abject poverty, a vivid demonstration of the
themes discussed at the Forum, and a contrast to the
wealth of many of the conference participants from the
so-called “developed world.”
As with many Nairobi slums, Korogocho
began when squatters built shacks on empty government
land. Most of these original squatters later rented
these small structures out to families who pay up to $10
per month in rent to live in a space with no running
water, stolen electricity, and the constant threat of
government eviction. Nairobi has at least 200 slums,
where almost half itspopulation lives, according to
local activists.
At a visit today to a small school on
the edge of the slum, teachers told me of the conditions
they work under. We talked in one of ten cramped
classrooms, less than 10x10 feet, with almost nothing in
the way of desks or other basic supplies. These ten
rooms, and fifteen teachers, serve 450 children. A
hubcap hanging from the wall acts as a schoolbell.
Several of the basic stone rooms have no ceiling. Many
of the students are orphans, whose parents have died
from AIDS. Sewage runs in a river just past the school.
The teachers described concerns
around security, as drug addicted armed youth roam
through the neighborhood. “We have to shift our hours
according to the threat,” Paul, one of the teachers,
told me. The police do not enter the camp, which may be
for the best, as Kenyan police inspire more fear than
the gangs. “If you see the police coming, you turn the
other way as quickly as you can,” Cynthia, a young
volunteer with Youth Initiatives, Kenya (YIKE), told
me. “If they catch you, they will ask for a bribe, and
if you can’t pay them, they will lock you up. If you
are arrested, you have no rights.” This month, sixty
civilians have been killed by the police. Thirteen last
Saturday, and seven just yesterday. There is no
oversight into police killings.
Humphrey Otieno, with the Nairobi
People’s Settlements Network, another grassroots group
active in the slums, also complains of police
harassment, “In talking about rights issues, especially
with this administration, you can be caught,
detained . . . four of our group are in prison, charged with
no proof.” These activists have been held for six
months so far, according to Otieno.
Nairobi, like many cities, is a place
of contrasts, where those who can afford it live in
gated communities, shop at gated stores, and eat at
gated restaurants, never seeing the approximately 1.5
million slum dwellers living nearby. Paul, the
schoolteacher, told me, “Some people in Nairobi, if you
mention to them Korogocho, they will say, ‘Korogocho, is
that in Kenya?’” This year’s Forum, like much of
Nairobi, is behind gates and walls, and guarded by
heavily armed Kenyan police, a source of much tension at
the conference.
Initiated in Brazil in 2001, the
World Social Forum is envisioned as an annual gathering
of grassroots movements from around the world.
Organizers describe it as “an open meeting place for
reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas… and
inter-linking for effective action.” Begun as a
counterpoint to events such as the World Economic Forum
in Davos, Switzerland, where the rich and powerful
gather to make decisions that affect the poor, the World
Social Forum is envisioned as a forum to present
perspectives excluded from such elite gatherings.
The Forum is a hectic and at times
overwhelming gathering, with perhaps a hundred panels,
cultural events, discussions, meetings, or
demonstrations happening at any one time. Walking
through the conference grounds at the sprawling Moi
Sports Center, a vast complex of tents and buildings on
the outskirts of Nairobi, it seems at moments as if the
entire world is represented. Africa, which has been
underrepresented at past forums, is definitely visible
in large numbers this year. The five day conference
begins each morning at 8:30am, and some events continue
until late in the evening.
Among the hundreds of topics
presented you can find discussions among African youth
about democracy and movement building, several
presentations on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
sponsored by the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund,
workshops on nonviolent strategy and tactics, panels of
veterans from third world liberation struggles,
teach-ins on the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara,
and much more, including a workshop called Open
Government Through Mass Document Leaking. Throughout the
conference, participants march and demonstrate on a
range of issues, including a march today against war in
Somalia, and yesterdays march of disabled Ugandan
activists chanting, “you laugh because you think we are
different, we laugh because we are the same.”
This year’s events began with a
public concert on Saturday in downtown Nairobi's Uhuru
Park. One of the first speakers was legendary
Palestinian resistance figure Leila Khaled, who called
for international sanctions against the Israeli state,
the closure of Guantanamo prison, and for an
international struggle against oppression and
colonialism. “When imperialists describe the people's
resistance, they call it terrorism, when they are the
real terrorists,” she said later. This is Khaled's
third Forum, she told me, adding, “These Forums are very
important. It’s a time when people can meet from
different parts of the world, we can network with other
movements, and build solidarity.”
Outspoken criticism of US policy and
imperialism continued throughout the weekend, as Kenyan
Forum organizer Oduor Ongwen declared “One American life
should be no more valuable than one Iraqi life. One
life of a corporate chief should be equal to the life of
one slum dweller in Kibera.” Referring to the Ethiopian
military presence in neighboring Somalia, Professor
Edward Oyugi, another Social Forum organizer, declared,
“The war next door is an American war by proxy,” Among
the demonstrations at the Forum have been daily protests
against the Forum itself, especially focused on the high
costs of attending the Forum, placing attendance out of
reach of most Kenyans. Conference organizers replied
that the Forum already has a sliding scale, where
registrants from “Global North” countries such as the US
and Europe pay $110 while Kenyans pay about seven
dollars. Organizers also claim that of the 46,000
people registered for the Forum in the first two days,
7,000 were free scholarships given to Kenyan grassroots
organizations.
Despite these assurances, protestors
remained dissatisfied, and a contingent of slum
dwellers, joined by conference participants, marched
through the gates and into the Forum. At the Forum,
everything is up for debate, including the rules of the
forum. As a Ugandan activist said at a Saturday panel
called Memories of Resistance, “The question posed here,
is do we, the people, want to be architects of our
world, or just interior decorators?” It is this hope,
the hope that a better, more just and democratic world
can be constructed through these encounters, that lies
beneath this gathering.
Jordan Flaherty is an editor of Left Turn
Magazine -
www.leftturn.org . He can be reached at
neworleans@leftturn.org
* * *
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Thousands march in Nairobi at anti-globalisation forum:
The carnival atmosphere however failed to
mask disappointment at the low turnout for the opening of a
forum which organisers hope will be attended by up to 80,000
people. "We are fighting against poverty, ignorance,
corruption and exploitation," said Zambia's founding
president Kenneth Kaunda in an address at Uhuru Park. "We
must fight together, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus,
whatever. We are all creatures of God," said the self-styled
Gandhi of Africa.
Many of
the topics on the agenda -- HIV-AIDS, debt relief and
conflict resolution—are of particular concern to the world's
poorest continent where complaints about the impact of
globalisation are often most heartfelt. Anne Nyawira, who
lives in the Soweto township on the outskirts of
Johannesburg, said Africa rarely had a chance to voice its
concerns. "The world ignores African issues and the forum is
the only way we can make them listen," said the South
African health worker.
Karen Calabria."Kenya
Globalisation"
Yahoo News
20
Jan 2007
* * *
* *
[Danny] Glover argued that the erosion of democracy had
its roots in racism. He gave the example of America
where the incumbent administration closed off voices of
dissent ostensibly to fight terrorism, but in fact to
take away and control the rights of people. "We would
never have heard about how the black people in New
Orleans were suffering after Hurricane Katrina. It would
have been swept under the carpet because the people were
black and poor. It was only because it became a national
issue and foreign media was covering it that the
government began to rouse itself to do something."
Zarina Geloo
“Danny Glover . . . Backs ‘Voices of Dissent’.”
Ipsterraviva.net
posted 24 January 2007 |
