[WSF-Discuss] Re : ESF Day 1

Fri Sep 19 13:01:24 UCT 2008

Dear Jai Sen! Thanks for an insightful remark on the ESF fora. Just a

short reply on your question about the area. Yes it is true that area  
where the ESF is taking place is a (mostly former) working class and  
immigrant neighbourhood, partly affected by gentrification. As I'm  
living in Malmö I can share your implicit worries that the fora will  
not really connect to local social problems - which indeed has a lot  
to do with that Malmö is one of the most segregated towns in Sweden -  
and instead become an isolated "event" from a local perspective.  
However, at this point it is still too early to actually assess this.

All my best
Magnus Ring

19 sep 2008 kl. 08.05 skrev Jai Sen:

> From Malmö, Sweden, September 19 2008
>
>
> Dear America, and everyone, hi
>
>
> After posting your / America Vera-Zavala's message on various lists  
> yesterday, and even though appreciating very much, America, your  
> responding so fully to my request that you give us all this  
> background, I feel I need to comment on one aspect of what you have  
> said.
>
>
> In short, I think we need a much more critical engagement with what  
> each one of us says and does.
>
>
> Yes, Vandana Shiva's speech at the opening of the ESF here was full  
> of hope, and we need hope – but not, I feel, such uncritical hope,  
> and certainly not the kind of populist hope that she expressed,  
> where she almost – in my understanding – dumbed down to the  
> audience.  Which is partly what populism is about.
>
>
> Is it enough to simply say that The Giants are falling, and that  
> we, The People, will forever carry on ?  (Which is what she said !)
>
>
> Is it enough to suggest / imply that somehow, in some unspecified  
> ways, the resistances that are, yes, taking place around the world  
> to the greed of corporations have themselves led to the collapse of  
> the sub-prime market in the US, and in turn of Lehman Brothers ?
>
>
> Vandana gave a very similar, rousing, speech at Rostock last year,  
> in June 2007 (where again, she was the star speaker) – only adding  
> in Lehman Brothers this time, and maybe subtracting some  
> corporations – Cargill, I think.  Is it enough to simply put the  
> collapse of Enron and the Lehman Brothers in the same category, and  
> to suggest that both are victories for The People and of people's   
> movements ?
>
>
> Yes, everything interconnected, but I think that the Social Fora  
> are contexts where a much deeper, more nuanced engagement is  
> required.  Where we all need to struggle for this – and where we  
> should not let each other off so lightly.  My feeling anyway, is  
> that speeches like this only play to the gallery, and hugely  
> simplify the complexity of capitalism and neoliberalism and of  
> movement and resistance… I personally felt that it was a very  
> disappointing speech (though not without amusement; as usual, she  
> punched her punch lines, and waited for applause, and in one or two  
> cases, there was an embarrassing absence of applause).  I do not  
> think that speeches like this should have space at social fora, and  
> would like to urge organisers of events like the Social Fora and of  
> anti G8 demos to choose their speakers more carefully, less for  
> populism and star quality (and after all is said and done, these  
> two often go together) and more for engagement.
>
>
> And it was towards this deeper engagement and understanding that I  
> requested you, America, and before you, friends at Fronesis who  
> referred me to you, to locate the ESF in the rich social and  
> political history of this part of the world.  Thanks for doing so.   
> I hope you do not mind this rejoinder on another part of your blog,  
> and would like to urge you to, please, post more, and root the ESF  
> even more deeply in struggles in Sweden and Europe for social  
> justice !
>
>
> For instance, is it a fact that – as I have understood from others  
> – the area where the Forum is taking place is a working class and  
> immigrant area ?  In which case, how has the ESF attempted to  
> actively relate to this very local history ?   The Mumbai Forum in  
> 2004, for instance, absolutely did not; it did not relate at all to  
> the fact that Mumbai has one of the largest Muslim populations  
> among Indian cities (they were absent from the Forum), and despite  
> the presence of large numbers of Dalits, which outsiders celebrated  
> so much,  failed totally to consciously relate to mainstream  
> movements in the city… Or to the city's role as being the gateway  
> to India for global markets…
>
>
> Jai
>
>
>
>
> On 9/18/08, America <america at americavz.com> wrote: http:// 
> americavz.com/blogg/
>
> ESF day 1
>
>
>
> I meet my wonderful friend Jai Sen at Nya Tröls <http:// 
> www.nyatrols.se/>and he tells me to blog, the first thing he does.  
> We haven´t met for at least a couple of years since the last social  
> forum in Mumbai or maybe the globalisation conference in Oslo. Jai  
> Sen is an activist from India, Delhi and he is the editor, along  
> with Peter Waterman of the book Challenging Empires <http:// 
> www.blackrosebooks.net/wsf.htm>.  A new edition of the book will be  
> launched tomorrow at one o´clock at Babels, Jerico café, the same  
> place where the seminar <http://fronesis.nu/seminarium/>will be  
> Friday morning.
>
> Jai wants to know where he is. He is in Malmö, Sweden, and it is  
> day one of the European Social Forum, but that is not enough for  
> him and I can see what he means, what is the political mapping  
> today of Malmö and what is the history.
>
> I tell him that one thing I know is that at the famous  
> Möllevångstorget, there was riots during the spring of 1917. That  
> spring was the closest Sweden ever came to a revolution. There was  
> hunger and protests, riots and marches all over the country. At  
> Möllevången there was riots, women were asking for bread.
>
> Same evening, same bar. I am talking to my friend Tan Mogul, from  
> Istanbul, urban activist. He will be speaking at a seminar tomorrow  
> morning at <http://www.esf2008.org/program>9.30 <http:// 
> www.esf2008.org/program>in Rosengård. So I ask him, do you know  
> Rosengård, yes yes he tells me and points it out at the map. No,  
> the history? He has no clue he will be speaking at the Swedish  
> Saint-Denis. The suburb, centre for problems, immigrant problems,  
> social problems, unemployment problems, all kind of problems. The  
> place where Zlatan is from. They all get impressed when I tell them  
> that. No one from Istanbul asks me if it is dangerous to go.
>
> I have been on stage for hours this evening.
>
> It is the opening evening of the Euro Social Forum and I have been  
> the facilitator of the inauguration <http://www.esf2008.org/news/ 
> inauguration-of-the-fifth-european-social-forum> program. I am  
> happy that it has started. Speakers have made their visions come  
> through. Vandana Shiva gave a fantastic speech about the hope,  
> Enron gone, Monsanto will go and by saying those words she made  
> anti-capitalist struggle real.
>
> Folkets Park was filled with people. And when the first part of the  
> inauguration program was over I ran to inaugurate the Latinamerican  
> park a few blocks away. Maybe 500 persons listening to me, Ignacio  
> Ramonet and latinamerican music. Back to Folkets Park and the  
> artists. Friends ask me who is singing.
>
> Who is Mikael Wiehe, well he is the Swedish Bob Dylan.
>
> I think this is the way to explain things to our activists guest  
> from around the world.
>
> If you want to make it short.
>
>
>
> -- 
> ______________________________
>
> Jai Sen
> jai.sen at cacim.net
> www.cacim.net
> CACIM, A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
> Ph : +91-11-4155 1521, 2433 2451
>
> Check out the OpenSpaceForum @ www.openspaceforum.net
>
> Subscribe to WSFDiscuss, an open and unmoderated forum on the World  
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Dr. Magnus Ring
Department of Sociology
Lund University
P.O. Box 114
S-221 00 Lund
Telephone: 46-46-222 88 08
Fax: 46-46-222 41 00
E-mail: magnus.ring at soc.lu.se

-- 

**********************************************
CACIM, A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
Ph : +91-11-4155 1521, +91-98-1890 5316 (Mobile)
madhuresh at cacim.net / kmadhuresh at gmail.com 
www.cacim.net
Check out the OpenSpaceForum @ www.openspaceforum.net

Subscribe to WSFDiscuss, an open and unmoderated forum on the World Social Forum and on related social and political movements and issues. Simply send an empty email to worldsocialforum-discuss-subscribe at openspaceforum.net

And, NEW ! : Join CEOS at openspaceforum.net, the CEOS (Critical Engagement with Open Space) listserve for exchange and coordination on open space theory and practice and to facilitate a critical discussion of the idea of ‘open space’.  Just send an empty mail to CEOS-subscribe at openspaceforum.net

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