11. Whither Africa?
The African Social Forum has grown in stature and can now meet IC criteria required for an entity to be seriously considered to play a leading role in the convening of the annual global meeting that parallels the Davos World Economic Forum.
In my opinion, the main one was the ASF role in strengthening and mobilising social movements in Africa to participate in WSF as part of the process leading to consolidation of the world social movement.
Its processes saw the building of an African space for the formulation of concerted alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation, based on a diagnosis of the latter's social, economic and political effects.
The Forum helped define social, economic and political reconstruction strategies, including a redefinition of the role of the State, the market and citizens' organisations.
Armed with two basic documents crafted in Bamako (Mali) in 2002, and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in 2003, those pursuing anti-capitalist struggles within the framework of WSF will acknowledge that ASF has opened new avenues to define citizen control procedures to ensure that political change promotes the expression and implementation of alternative, credible and viable responses to corporate-led globalisation.
The Mumbai Africa meeting failed to consolidate this foundation and found itself bogged down in process issues that should have been addressed before all proceedings. In my reading of the programme, some of the concerns should have been captured in the first session. We would have been briefed of developments in the IC and what issues Africa was chasing in the context of Mumbai.
This would have been the moment to emphasise that after Addis, the ASF recommendations, placed emphasis on the following working themes and strategies: promoting national, sub-regional and thematic forums and making sure that these spaces, initiated in a decentralised and autonomous way, are organised by national and sub-regional social and grassroots movements.
Secondly, it would have been prudent to reiterate that emphasis was now being placed on promoting the participation of organisations of the African social movement in the World Social Forum through activities, alliances and a marked presence, and finally, encouraging alliances between components of the African social movement and international social movements, especially those in the south.
Thirdly, we should also have been told that the African social forum activities being held in the context of Mumbai 2004 have resulted from a number of processes on the continent and scenarios had emerged after organising two Forums in Africa, that our context (distance, local priorities of the movements, multiplicity of agendas both at continental and international levels, poverty) compels us to define a more appropriate pace to link up with the global movement without competing with continental and regional priorities.
Fourthly, the organising committee of the African Social Forum should have outlined how it had come to the conclusion that it was preferable for the global forum to serve as a space for the convergence of decentralised and autonomous initiatives rather than a repetition of continental events.
Good arguments existed to back their decision for not holding the annual meeting, but were not communicated to the rank and file, raising serious questions about how members of the Steering Committee relate with their various constituencies in terms of sharing information and finalising strategies.
While it makes sense to argue that meeting at the global forum in Mumbai minus the continental meeting would meet the goal of strengthening national forums and reflect better the wealth of the social movements of the continent, the Secretariat should have anticipated that others might interpret that to mean that governance structures of ASF must be reviewed to establish whether they were still relevant for the above task.
For those who did not read or see the Secretariat position with regard to mobilising for India, it was outlined that: "Like the 2002 and 2003 editions, African Social Forum activities in Mumbai are intended to consolidate the African expression in the World Forum and give greater visibility to African organisations and movements."
Further, it was hoped that Mumbai will see African visions and perceptions of another world being integrated in discussions on alternatives to neo-liberalism and this also entailed strengthening alliances built with Brazilians, Latin-American movements and most importantly, give Africa an opportunity to express solidarity with the Asian people and movements in their struggle against neo-liberalism.
As the Mumbai WSF demonstrated, these alliances are now essential since the international context is characterised by the revival of south-south alliances within the framework of international trade talks for example, and by a situation in which multi-lateralism is being questioned.
An interesting development worth noting about Mumbai, was the relatively large presence and role of Africans who were not mobilised under the ASF. Most of them found politics of how the African Social Forum is being organised more exciting than what issues Africa sought to mainstream in WSF.
The WSF organised panels recognised the role ASF has played in the fight to rebuild another world and actively stalling neo-liberal ascendancy. Literally, every African participating in the WSF panels is closely associated with the ASF. The big challenge for such comrades, who are now seen as Africa's ambassadors, is to translate that individual recognition into organic links with mass movements that are active on the ground.
This will help us shape the discourse on the role of intellectuals, NGOS and social movements and perhaps reduce the tension arising from fears that some cooperating partners are now hijacking WSF through sponsoring our ambassadors and placing less emphasis on social movements who in most cases are not well structured to secure adequate funding from cooperating partners or NGOs for that matter.
Finally, in our search for consolidating and entrenching democracy in the African Social Forum, we must make sure that the latter's operations conform with the realistic set of procedures that guide for example, the IC whose work is now organised around six commissions that deal with strategies, content, methodology, expansion, communication and finances respectively. It has been recognised that as the WSF process expands, this opens new opportunities and creates new challenges, which require changes in the linkages and planning of activities. The ASF should embrace new ways of organising and adopt a framework that is necessary to guarantee that it operates and fulfils its responsibility as an open space.
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