Jambo Everyone!

The major part of the WSF is drawing to a close, this infrequent blog has so much to say, but the internet connections here leave much to be desired. Some have been more successful at finding the place and time to write stuff online, but I’ve been a little busy. For a decent write up, I’d recommend Sasha Simic’s words on the Guardian’s comment is free website.

Initial estimates were, it turns out somewhat optimistic. At a press conference yesterday, the organisers reported 48,000 registrations for the WSF. That isn’t quite the whole picture, let me explain.

One of the most striking things about this country is the devastating poverty. Well over half the population living on a dollar or less a day. The organisers of the WSF initially set the entrance fee for a Kenyan at 500 shillings - if my maths is right that’s more than a week’s wages. This has understandably caused much anger, the Forum is about working for a better world, for inclusion and representation of the masses of the world’s poor. To prohibit entry to the local poor was a big mistake on the part of the International Council (IC), the self selected body that controls the WSF. Action was always going to be likely, and so it came to pass. On the first day of the Forum, activists from Kenya gathered at the gate, joined primarily by people from CADTM, the Belgian based anti-debt campaign. They forced their way through, past the security guards. Eric Toussaint from CADTM who is one of the best people on the IC then took personal responsibility for changing the policy on registration for Kenyans. He expects ‘harsh criticism’ at the next council meeting.

The second day saw the gates closed to unregistered local people again. An announcement came that the fee for locals had been dropped to 50 shillings. Not happy with that (the cost of simply getting up to Kasarani is prohibitive in itself) once more there was a protest and push through. By the third day, it seemed the IC had relented, and there was free access granted, apparently even a couple of members of the IC to greet the the assembling people at the main gate. The increase in participants was noticeable. The protesters then marched into the press conference suite and held their own conference, demanding answers from the IC members present. It was a rowdy affair, determined and radical, all ending in a celebratory atmosphere.

Generally the event has been very good indeed. The lower figure of attendance highlights the smaller movement in Kenya than other places the WSF has visited; Mumbai, Caracas and Porto Alegre especially, but any event having at least 50,000 people present is one to be taken seriously.
The sports stadium has given the event a focus, eerily quiet on the inside, full of noise and confusion on the out. The bottom two tiers of the seating part of the stadium have been covered and divided into 24 meeting rooms on each tier, and there are dozens of marquees and other sports buildings converted into meeting spaces in the grounds around the stadium.

The road immediately outside the stadium has stalls, some official many not and protests almost constantly marching round, frequently accompanied by drums, songs and slogans. There’ve been marches for indigenous land rights, against the bombing of Somalia, for Palestinian liberation and many other issues mostly from the Global South. Since the free entry has been achieved there has been an influx of food and souvenir stalls giving the official stalls who’d paid fees (and bribes, I’m told) to get their pitches a real run for their money.

Globalise Resistance has had a brilliant time here. We organised meeting on War and Imperialism, Mass Action is the Way to Fight Poverty and The New Scramble for Africa. Incredibly for a WSF we had a complete turn out of speakers (they often get double booked, or a meeting four miles away immediately before). We were lucky enough to have speakers including Salim Vally from S Africa, Samir Amin, the brilliant anti imperialist Author from Senegal, Walden Bello, from Focus on the Global South in the Phillipines, Femi Aborasade from Nigeria and Trevor Ngwane from S Africa, with plenty of other Africans. I think as far as western political groups go, we’ve been pretty good at providing a platform for African groups and speakers. The turn out of audience at our meetings has been pretty impressive as well, especially if you think how few people in Africa have even heard of us.

At two of our meetings we have been in a quadruple booked room. First time we agreed with the other groups to share the room, not use a microphone and be considerate. Action Aid then proceeded to use a microphone to their meeting of thirty, while we had to shout at the 150+ people listening to the discussion in our space. This was resolved with a threat to unleach Femi, the loudest man in Africa on their discussion. Last night we were faced with a similar problem, until a group of Zimbabweans attending our seminar warmed up the audience with a dance and song - strangely the other groups quickly found alternative accommodation.

A look at the programme (initially a much coveted item) showed the dominance of the NGOs I think I mentioned in the previous article. Action Aid had organised dozens of seminars and the line up of the WSF is startiung to resemble the affiliates of Make Poverty History, but there has been disquiet about their dominance. Time and again you hear calls for NGOs to stop trying to represnt5 grassroots activists in the south. The message seems to be to the northern hemisphere “Get your credit card out and you’ve done your bit” then in the south “Don’t worry, we’ll sort out your problems. Here, have a t shirt”. NGOs can mobilise thousands of people to an event, and just like Edinburgh at the G8 in 2005, they cannot control the way people think. I got given a goat for Xmas, for some one in Kenya I think - wonder if I’ll get visiting rights?

As I write I have just come from the AntiWar Assembly. At the end of the social forums, there are always thematic assemblies, followed by the Assembly of the Social Movements which tries to pull all the others together, producing a call to action, and perhaps a calendar of events for the year coming. Having actively participated I didn’t take thorough notes, but the statement produced features a call for international protests to mark the 4th anniversary of the the war on Iraq. It appears many countries have already started this process, including the UK where there’ll be a protest to mark the day. Check www.stopwar.org.uk for details. There was also demands to defend civil liberties, solidarity with Palestine and US out of Somalia. And plenty more besides.

In a couple of hours the Assembly of the Social Movements begins. Just time to grab some food and prepare. Tomorrow we have another protest this time starting in Kariobangi to Uhuru Park, in the searing African sun (we hear it’s warm in London too?). We’ll be marching singing and celebrating (but let’s spare Kenya the sight of Brits trying to dance), We’ll try to bring back the spirit of the WSF to the UK, I hope and am quite optimistic of the chance to report from tomorrow’s activities.

Kijana!