3. Beyond the Issues
The second day of the African seminar proceeded without any incidents.
The seminar focussed peace and conflicts, culture and gender. There was not enough time to deal with report backs which were deferred to day three.
In terms of developing correct and compelling analysis on global trends and neo-liberalism, the ASF has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that it is a powerhouse and has the resources that can be competently deployed to any space in WSF.
The big challenge it has to confront relates to the leadership issues, mandates and representation of its various entities. This becomes an urgent matter when one considers the fact that it has been accepted that social movements in their diversity should be mobilized with the view of making them a significant player in the process of building "Another world."
The ASF must now demonstrate its willingness and capacity to mobilise mass, people's and social organisations to articulate and work for vibrant progressive political processes through nurturing worker, peasant, youth, cultural, women's movements and dialogue about these ideas with people from across the world.
This process has started and the Secretariat has something to boast of in this respect, but it will always be confronted by representatives of social movements who have openly voiced their disapproval of NGOs playing a leading in the WSF process.
In the few instances that I have witnessed activists discussing this question, one was left in no doubt that Taoufik Ben Abdallah who has offered to house the Secretariat in Enda, Senegal will be subjected to sniper-type attacks and plots until such a time that the ASF is decentralised to an extent that he will no longer be the sole reference point for the pan-African processes.
This explains why a plethora of documents and analysis on ASF will float around and attract no response from the Secretariat because they will have been read as consisting "personal attacks", a myth which we now seek to debunk as we challenge each other to come out in the open and voice our concerns without fear or favour.
Related to this, it is anticipated that the Secretariat will be mandated and empowered to have enough personnel that can power communication, systematically collect and organise material from various national forums, disseminate alternative analysis, proposals and strategies of resistance to neo-liberalism that have come out of the forums.
The above will be difficult to achieve if our emphasis is placed on fussing and fighting with each other. We need to spend less time on agonising and start to organise. This will be a major challenge to my compatriots in Southern Africa who have remained outside the ASF process, but are always present in the annual WSF.
|
Related documents