[WSF-Discuss] Invitation to help CACIM plan events at the Belem Forum : (1) The Politics, Potentials, and Meanings of the Belem Forum
Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
Tue Nov 18 07:38:54 UCT 2008
Invitation to help CACIM plan events at the Belem Forum : (1) The
Politics, Potentials, and Meanings of the Belem Forum
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Dear friends on WSFDiscuss, greetings !
We from CACIM are planning to organise – hopefully,
together with others – the following event at the Belem Forum :
v The Politics, Potentials, and Meanings of the Belem Forum : The
Significance of the Forum for the Indigenous Peoples of the World
This posting is both to give you advance notice of this event – and
to invite you to join us there then ! – but also to invite you to
help us plan for it.
Specifically, we are both attaching and pasting on below a write-up
that we have prepared for the event, and we would be very happy if
you would :
1. Let us know whether you are coming to Belem, and if
so, whether you would like to take part in this event. (Apologies to
those with whom we have already been in preliminary touch about our
events at Belem and from whom we have already heard in this regard.
But now that we have finalised our four events, please do write in
again and let us know ! Thanks.)
2. Comment on the draft outline for the event. Please
either respond here, on the List, or send us your comments in TRACKED
CHANGES on the attached version. Thanks !
3. Make suggestions for key speakers for the event, WITH
FULL DETAILS : Names, name of organisation or institution or
movement, if any, full contact details (email id, country and
preferably city / town / village location, and phone contacts),
languages spoken, and also a 100-150 word blurb on each person so
that we know a little WHY you think the person is relevant to the event.
4. Suggest appropriate organisations who might like to
co-organise the events with us (again, FULL DETAILS, please, as
above, with reasons as to why these organisations).
5. Suggest possible sources of funds for this event. We
have already raised some funds but need to augment this, especially
for this one, because aside from our own expenses, we would ideally
like to mobilise funds that can enable indigenous women and men from
South Asia - who otherwise might not be to go to Belem – to be there.
Finally : PLEASE DO REPLY ALL, so that my colleagues also remain in
the loop. Thanks !
One more point : Just so that there is no confusion, please do note
that we are proposing to organise four events in Belem, in all; as
follows. We are going to be also posting similar letters for each,
inviting you to help us with them :
v The Politics, Potentials, and Meanings of the Belem Forum : The
Significance of the Forum for the Indigenous Peoples of the World
v Critically engaging with the principles underlying the World
Social Forum
v Facing the Future : The World Social Forum, the Global Justice
Movement, and Beyond
v A Global Labour Charter for Humanity : If Not Now, When ? .
We look forward very much to hearing back from you ! And perhaps
also to meeting you there in Belem, and to your taking part in one or
more of these events.
With warm greetings
for CACIM
Jai Sen
att
The Politics and Potentials of the Belem Forum - Proposal d2 js161108
TC 1811 for comments.doc
Draft proposal – comments invited
The Politics, Potentials, and Meanings of the Belem Forum : The
Significance of the Forum for the Indigenous Peoples of the World
A Proposal for a Workshop at the World Social Forum at Belem
Proposed by : CACIM – and others to be defined through discussion
Second draft, for discussion, Jai Sen, for CACIM, November 16 2008 –
COMMENTS INVITED !
The terms under which the WSF’s International Council accepted the
holding of the WSF in Belem, and in Amazonia, in June 2007 included
several significant social and ecological objectives. (See ‘Amazon
region's candidature to host the World Social Forum 2009’, dated May
29 2007; available @ http://alternatives-international.net/
article901.html; also @ http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-
read_article.php?articleId=635&highlight=amazon%20region%27s%
20candidature.)
These include the plea that :
The Amazon region is the planet's last forest frontier. Besides, it
has the planet's most valuable freshwater resources, biodiversity and
great social diversity, which is represented by its traditional
populations and indigenous peoples. The threats upon this human
patrimony do not involve only climate changes. They are also
accelerated by current development policies that point towards the
growth of predatory activities such as single-crop farming and cattle-
breeding, exploration of mineral commodities and installation of
infrastructures that open up space to these predatory processes,
which are proved to have very little positive effect on the Amazonian
society as a whole. Therefore, hosting the World Social Forum has a
great symbolic value to the region and will reinforce various efforts
that aim at giving visibility to the importance of protecting natural
resources and respecting the diversity of lifestyles, which are being
threatened by the growth of neoliberal globalization process in this
region, one of great strategic importance to the planet.
There is no question that Amazonia is important at the world level as
a symbol of the planet’s environment and of its diversity and
fragility. Equally however, Amazonia is also symbolic at a world
level of the existence and struggles of indigenous peoples – who
have been and are under threat across the planet.[1] Given the very
special significance that the World Social Forum has come to have in
terms of the articulation at a world level of non-state voices – and
therefore, in principle, that such a meeting could have for
indigenous peoples -, but given also the complex and contentious
relationship of power between civil and incivil worlds that exists in
all societies in the world,[2] and given moreover the history of deep
controversy around the organising of the Forum at Nairobi in 2007,[3]
we believe and propose that it is extremely important to
empathetically but critically look at, interrogate, and debate the
Belem Forum as a concept and as practice; and from ahead and during
the Belem Forum, not after.
Among other reasons, while the broader ecological objectives of
organising the Forum in Belem are certainly of the greatest
importance, given the other symbolism of the Belem Forum it is also
vital to understand the manner in which these are intersecting with
the struggles of indigenous peoples in Amazonia, in Brazil, in the
Americas, and all over the world.
We therefore propose a process of debate before the Forum (ie during
December 2008 - January 2009) and then a major Workshop during the
Forum.
Context
The history of Brazil since the 15th century has in part involved a
massive extermination of the indigenous peoples of the territory that
came to be called Brazil; through the colonisation of the territory
by the Portuguese and the Spanish and then the subsequent takeover
and integration of the territory by those who came to form the ruling
classes of the new country. Though different in detail, this is also
largely true of the indigenous peoples of most countries of Latin
America. Although the indigenous peoples of these territories have in
all cases fought back, it has been the other peoples – the settlers
- who have in all cases taken over; with Bolivia being the first case
where the indigenous population of the territory have taken back the
power.
In many ways, although there were indigenous peoples once inhabiting
most of the territory now known as Brazil, the struggle over Amazonia
has been the symbol of these struggles in Brazil. On the one hand,
the basin of the Amazon and its tributaries have been the cradle of
hundreds of tribes since time immemorial; on the other, the basin
occupies about half the country’s vast total area, in one sense
right across the heart of the country, and it is also the home of
allegedly vast deposits of minerals. There could be scarcely be a
more contentious issue.
As a consequence, over the past half century, on the one hand there
has been a massive attempt to take over and colonise Amazonia -
through the construction of a Trans-Amazonian Highway, through the
construction of other roads such as BR-364 and the bringing in by the
government of hundreds of thousands of non-indigenous settlers
through land colonisation projects such as Polonoroeste; and through
the populating of the little populated north-western parts of the
country, ostensibly to defend the country against invasion, through
the Calhe Norte project.
On the other hand, since the early 1970s, and despite an experience
of massive violence inflicted on them by these incursions, the
indigenous peoples of Amazonia and Brazil have - with the support of
the-then liberationist church and of sections of national and
international civil society such as anthropologists – not only
struggled locally but also gradually come together to form
associations through which they could collectively defend and assert
their rights. (The historical enormity of this process of
convergence also needs to be appreciated; till the mid 1960s, most of
the these tribes were completely isolated – not only from dominant
society, till then largely located in south-east Brazil, but also
from each other.) And more recently, they have also come together
with other indigenous peoples in Latin America, and from some parts
of the world, to form diaphanous and still-fragile regional and
global associations. An important part of this has been campaign and
advocacy at the UN level, which has gone so far as to lead to the
declaration by the UN of 1993 as the International Year of the
World’s Indigenous People.[4]
Along with this, and in the context of the World Social Forum being a
world process, it is important to mention that much of this impetus
has come from and around the lives and struggles of the indigenous
peoples of Latin America, and to a degree Australia and New Zealand,
rather than the indigenous peoples of North America, Africa, South
Asia, Central Asia, South East Asia, East Asia, or even Europe.
Among other things, there are radically different conceptualisations
among the indigenous peoples of the world of issues such as
indigeneity and of relations to settler societies. So it is not as
if these are universally settled questions.
The period since then has seen momentous developments in the
struggles of indigenous peoples of the world. In January 1994 –
immediately after the UN’s ‘International Year of the World’s
Indigenous People’ – came the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico, led
by the indigenous peoples of Chiapas. (There are many who say that
this rebellion was the inspiration for the WSF and for the global
justice movement of which it is a part.) In the decade since then,
the prime ministers of government after government of settler
countries – New Zealand, Australia, and Canada – have apologised
to the indigenous peoples of those territories for the crimes
historically committed against them by the (white) settler
populations. And in 2003, the indigenous peoples of Bolivia, led by
Evo Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo (‘Movement Towards
Socialism’), were democratically elected to power.
Even if this is a crude sketch, and even if there is much more that
could be said in this area even in introduction, it is in this broad
context that the World Social Forum to be held in Belem needs to be
seen. The WSF has grown spectacularly over the past seven years, and
is seen by some including by some of its organisers and ideologues in
different parts of the world, as today being the most important space
in the world today for non-state, ‘civil’ actors to convene,
converge, and articulate their voices. But, and as above, the Belem
Forum has specially been convened in order to put forward the voices
and claims of indigenous peoples – explicitly the indigenous peoples
of Amazonia, but implicitly, given the embrace and scope of the World
Social Forum, the indigenous peoples of the world.
This is so even though until the 3rd WSF held in Porto Alegre in
2005, the indigenous peoples of Brazil – let alone of the world –
had virtually no place in the Forum; it was till then exclusively a
Forum for dominant civil society, for the settlers of the country and
for their equivalents around the world. The organisers of the WSF
have made major efforts to change this situation since then, but this
is the history and reality of the Forum in Brazil. And it is also a
reality that the WSF has, by the Charter of Principles it has itself
formulated, ruled out the possibility of even the Zapatistas
attending – because the Charter prohibits “military” (armed)
groups from attending. On the other hand, it could be said that
although not an exact parallel, the Belem Forum has the potential to
be, for the indigenous peoples of the world, what the 2003 Durban
Conference on Race and Xenophobia was for people of colour (and
certainly for, among others, Dalits in India).
All this is aside from the other intertwined objectives and claims
for the Belem Forum, to defend Amazon as an ecological entity. But
keeping the above in mind, this too has a complex basis. The
historical reality of Amazonia is that it is not, as is imagined by
many outsiders, populated only by indigenous peoples; to the
contrary, since the second half of the 19th century it has a history
of being settled by outsiders – through colonisation by rubber
barons, who left the region with a large population of sereingueiros
(rubber tappers), and then spontaneously by miners, loggers, and
other adventurers; and so it now, a century and more later, has a
very significant population of non-indigenous peoples – the sections
referred to in the candidacy proposal as “traditional populations”
- whose claim to Amazonia is also strong and legitimate. Since the
1980s, these different populations of Amazonia have come together in
many ways, but expectably, given the differences in their histories
and their relations to the world around them, there are also
differences in how they see Amazonia.
Our understanding is that in this complex context, it is extremely
important to empathetically but critically look at, interrogate, and
debate the Belem Forum as concept and as practice so that it does
not, eve if unintentionally, become a process of a complex
subordination, but rather what it is intended to be, an emancipatory,
liberating event.
We propose to contribute to it being this by (a) reaching these ideas
and this proposal out to organisations of indigenous peoples and
traditional populations in the Amazonian region, as well as to
organisations of indigenous peoples in other parts of Brazil, the
Americas, and the world, and asking for their collaboration; (b)
debating these issues as much as possible ahead of the Belem Forum,
on listserves; (c), organising a major Workshop on this theme at the
Belem Forum; and (d) preparing a film and a report on the Workshop
that can both carry the debate forward and also contribute to a
critical appreciation of the Belem Forum.
In proposing this event and process, we acknowledge that we are aware
of the work of Working Group on the Participation of Indigenous
Peoples in the WSF,[5] of the steps being taken to hold consultations
with indigenous peoples and traditional populations throughout
Amazonia during the current months and ahead of the Belem Forum, and
of the Solidarity Fund being established from within the WSF to
enable the participation of indigenous peoples (albeit, presumably
because of resource restrictions, from Amazonia alone) to participate
in the Belem Forum. We strongly appreciate and welcome all these
steps, but nevertheless feel – and perhaps all the more because all
this is being done - that there is a need to engage fully with the
complexity of the reality. Indeed, we feel that the debate and
Workshop we are proposing are strongly complementary to these other
activities.
We have of course already started identifying
individuals and organisations who we would like to invite to the
Workshop as Resource Persons (see attached SubAnnexure). As it
happens, one of our members has done fairly extensive research on the
history of movements and campaigns in one part of Amazonia (Rondônia
and Acre) and through that, of movements in Amazonia, and in the
course of that work, came to know several key people in this field in
Amazonia and in Brazil in general, and in Europe, North America,
Japan, and elsewhere – activists, academics, writers and filmmakers,
policy makers, legislators, and others; several / some of whom may,
we hope, be already planning to take part in the WSF in Belem. In
addition, we at CACIM are also in touch with similar people in India,
in the course of our current work. We therefore propose to draw on
this capital for enrichening the Workshop – though the resources
required for attending will of course be an important constraint.
[to be completed; comments invited]
Objectives (DRAFT – TO BE DISCUSSED AND FINALISED !) :
Especially given the history of controversy around the organising of
the Forum at Nairobi,[6] we propose the following as the objectives
of the Workshop :
1. To critically support the meaning of the WSF being
held in Belem, in terms of the socially and ecologically significant
objectives that were defined by the promoters and proposers of the
2009 WSF in Amazonia and specifically at Belem (see ‘Amazon region's
candidature to host the World Social Forum 2009’, dated Tuesday 29
May 2007; available @ http://alternatives-international.net/
article901.html sb010708; also available @ http://
www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-read_article.php?
articleId=635&highlight=amazon%20region%27s%20candidature)
2. To critically examine the actual experience and
practice of organising the WSF at Belem, in terms of the original
objectives set for it; and –
3. Insofar as Amazonia is, in addition to being symbolic
of the planet’s environment and its diversity and fragility, is also
symbolic at a world level of the existence and struggles of
indigenous peoples, to also, and in particular, critically examine
the politics, potentials, and meanings of the WSF as it is being
organised at Belem for the indigenous peoples of the world.
Notes
[1] Although the candidacy proposal cited mentions indigenous
peoples, it does so as being only one of the two main population
groups in Amazonia (the other one being “traditional
populations”). See later in this document for a discussion of the
significance of this.
[2] For a discussion of the concept of incivility, see Jai Sen,
November 2007 – ‘The power of civility’, in Mikael Löfgren &
Håkan Thörn, eds, 2007 – ‘Global Civil Society – More Or Less
Democracy?’, special issue of Development Dialogue, no 49, pp 51-68;
available for download on www.dhf.uu.se.
[3] See : Onyango Oloo (National Coordinator, Kenya Social Forum),
March 2007 – ‘Critical Reflections on WSF Nairobi 2007’. Debate
SA discussion list <debate at lists.kabissa.org> WSF-Nairobi autopsy by
Oyango Oloo. Date: 29 March 2007 1:52:31 PM GMT+05:45. Available at
http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-read_article.php?
articleId=392; Wangui Mbatia and Hassan Indusa, February 2007 –
‘The World Social Forum 2007 : A Kenyan Perspective’, on Red
Pepper Online @ http://www.redpepper.org.uk/. Prepared on behalf of
the People’s Parliament, Nairobi, Kenya; and : Gina Vargas
(Articulación Feminista Marcosur), April 2007 – ‘A look at
Nairobi’s World Social Forum’, forthcoming as chapter in Jai Sen
and Peter Waterman, eds, forthcoming, 2009 – Facing History : The
World Social Forum and Beyond [title under finalisation], Volume 2 in
the Challenging Empires series. New Delhi : OpenWord Books.
[4] It is an interesting footnote that although the concept of a
plural indigenous peoples had by then already been accepted by the UN
system, when the UN came to declare this year, it resorted – or was
forced by its member governments to resort – to referring to them in
the singular, ‘indigenous people’, implying that all indigenous
peoples of the world constitute a single monocultural bloc, different
in a singular way from ‘others’.
[5] Anon, nd, c.2008 – ‘Working Group Meeting on the Participation
of Indigenous Peoples in the WSF 2009’. Accessed mk 101108 @ http://
openfsm.net/projects/wg-indigenas/indigenous-peoples-copenhagen.
[6] See above, for references.

______________________________
Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
CACIM, A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
www.cacim.net
Ph : +91-11-4155 1521, 4155 0963 - PLEASE NOTE NEW SECOND NUMBER !
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