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The Asian Social Forum | 08-01-03
THE ASIAN
SOCIAL FORUM
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
2 to 7 January 2003
Freedom
jamboree
Mari
Marcel Thekaekara reports from a regional gathering of the global-justice
movement.
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The last days of 2002, one of the most dismal, frightening years in recent decades, saw social activists, political academics and NGOs of every shape, size and colour scrambling to get on planes, trains or buses to Hyderabad, India. Their destination? The Asian Social Forum. They came from all parts of India, from Japan, Korea, Cambodia, China, the Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, from Europe and America and a few from Africa and South America too.
When I looked at the programme I thought: 'Oh no!' And when I arrived at the venue I wondered: 'Why am I here?' The organization was shambolic. On the first day nothing worked. Venues and speakers changed at the last minute. The mikes were bad.
But, after a couple of hours - and despite my inherently critical, slightly cynical reaction to jamborees of this particular kind - I was overwhelmed by the spirit of the place.
Everyone who was anyone in the development world or social-work arena was there. I overheard several comments with words like mela and tamasha - Indian words which mean a circus-like funfair. All Indians love tamashas. And the ambience was amazing. There were movements and people from every part of the country and Asia. In spite of the chaos there was a tremendous sense of purpose, of urgency, of seriousness and of people coming together and proclaiming their unity, affirming their faith in, their determination to create another world.
The Asian Social Forum - part of the World Social Forum - says no to globalization. Perhaps the reason why all these people were rushing to Hyderabad rather than celebrating the New Year was because there appeared to be little to celebrate as we ushered in 2003. Or perhaps this was the celebration. An in-your-face gathering of people from all over the globe determined to make the world a better place. There were screams of: 'Say no to globalization, capitalism and exploitation!' There were demands for justice and equality.
Clichéd, run-of-the-mill, tired leftist ravings? No doubt. But there was something else. 'Hegemony' or 'neo-capitalism', once the staple battle chant of the 'loony left', become more real, less loony to a world which watches the US decide who the good guys are, even as they finish off the bad guys with brazenness and impunity.
More ordinary people than ever before - because of television and instant reporting - are aware of the number of innocent Iraqi children who die every month because Bush and Blair decree that their brand of the murder of innocents is necessary to free the world of Saddam Hussein. Never mind that Saddam Hussein has outlived three American elections, laughed at three American Presidents while he reigned supreme. Iraq continues to be bombed and the deaths of Iraqi children don't place you in the same league as the evil beings. That happens only if you bomb New York or kill innocent Americans.
So people are desperate to at least voice their dissent. To show their anger and to protest at the gross injustice that threatens to swamp us. To say WE are not THEM. Thinking Americans are among the protesters. There is a growing number of Americans who ask in bewilderment: 'Why do they hate us?' And, as they search for the answer, Noam Chomsky and his tribe become people with answers rather than weird 'pinkos'.
There were several American speakers in Hyderabad. They denounced the actions of the Bush Government and spoke on behalf of the growing number of US citizens who are horrified at their government's foreign policy and its repercussions. It must have been painful for them to watch their flag being burnt and their country denounced. But we need to salute their efforts in a country where dissenters are marginalized and dismissed. Theirs is a tremendously difficult task. They will go down in history as the people who stood up on the side of the oppressed.
The voices on the stage at the opening ceremony were powerful. Medha Patkar, Prabhat Patnaik, Nora de Cortinas, people who bowled over their audiences with passionate pleas for a better world. Their was hope emerging from despair as an Argentinean mother spoke of her missing son: 'Our children disappeared, they disappeared fighting for justice, for a better world. We will keep their ideals alive. Keep the torch burning brightly. They did not die in vain. We can and we WILL create a better world.'
There are people from around India who have fought the good fight, raised the banner for the poor, the excluded, the victims of exploitation. There are dalits, adivasis, displaced people, the disabled, the landless, the evicted. Many of these face threats even more serious than before because of the gospel of globalization.
In 2003 dalits in Pudukottai will have their centuries-old common grazing grounds handed over to large businesses and transnational corporations. The wisdom of our ancestors earmarked common lands because they were necessary for the well-being of our poor. In 1947 we decreed, in spirit and by words enshrined in our Constitution, that we would fight feudalism and give a better deal to our dalits and adivasis, to our poor in general. We enacted laws to curb landlordism and give bonded labourers the land they had given their blood, sweat and tears for. Fifty years later, we are going back on the spirit of the Constitution as we throw out the Land Ceiling Act to accommodate multinationals and big businesses. The poor have to tighten the belts over their already shrivelled stomachs to make way for the prosperity of the country in general, for 'progress' and 'development'.
Activists who have fought land-rights battles inspired by the Constitution are a weary, dispirited lot. This is why they flocked to Hyderabad - to rejuvenate their battered spirits, to rail and rave and rant impotently, to cry on each other's shoulders and then pick themselves up and keep going. It's harder now, in the face of the global onslaught.
A panel called 'People's Voices' featured victims of globalization and exploitation. People who have personally suffered. Their voices are representative of the communities they come from. A Tamil Nadu dalit from Pudukottai, an adivasi from Narmada, a sex worker from Cambodia, the little-known Buraku people who are discriminated against in Japan, an Afghan woman whose husband was killed because she taught women to read, a Gujarati Muslim who suffered in the March carnage, an orphaned Kashmiri 14-year-old. And many more.
The Panel continued for four days and the world has been invited to listen, to comment and to interact. It's a symbolic but important event, this giving of a special place for the victims of exploitation to be heard.
Hyderabad was specially chosen as the venue. It is seen as the hub of globalization in India. The city has built the world's best roads to greet Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, the World Bank and IMF, while smaller towns lack decent latrines. It's an in-your-face challenge to Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his ilk.
The opening speaker, a gracious Hyderabadi, said: 'The World Bank and IMF have chosen Andhra Pradesh as their lab. We are now famous as an IT centre and the country is proud of this. But Hyderabad was famous for its culture, its hospitality and as an ancient centre of learning. We were the heart beat of the country's anti-feudal struggles, the struggles of the peasantry against powerful feudal landlords. History books talk about the Telegana struggles. We stand here to assert that the movement is not dead. We will recreate a better world. And we are proud to stand here in Hyderabad and declare this.'
At the end of the first day, long after the main events were over, groups huddled around discussing the state of the world. There was a coming alive of weary spirits. If Hyderbad achieves nothing else, this rekindling of spirits alone will have made it worth all the effort after all.
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Mari Marcel Thekaekara is a long-standing
contributor to New Internationalist magazine.For an extended report on the so-called Vision 20/20 - a grandiose
plan to 'modernize' agriculture and remove 20 million people from their
land in the state of Andhra Pradesh, of which Hyderabad is the capital -
see the January/February 2003 double issue of New Internationalist.
[On-line at www.newint.org/issue353/title353.htm late March 2003]
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