[WSF-Discuss] Response to Walden Bello's article "At Crossroads"-Frontline

[CK VISHWANATH]

On 9/29/07, CK VISHWANATH <ckvishwanath at gmail.com> wrote:
> What Sanil wrote is correct.The main problem is the relationship
> btween intellectual elites and grassroot level reality.Feminists have
> severly criticised WSF due to all mens social forum.Hardt and negri's
> optimism of this type has been an overethusiatic one.
>
> On 9/27/07, MN sanil <mn_sanil2003 at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
> > Walden Bello's observatios on the WSF and its praxis is relevent in every
> > respect.As a student of sociology,the world social forum could not make any
> > impact on marginalized communities like the Dalits and Adivasis of India,The
> > non governmental organizations of the post globalized India used WSF as a
> > space to articulate their interests.But,the ngoization of grassroots
> > assertions created a kind of apolitical and cynical culture among the
> > impoverished Dalits and Adivasis.Dalits are facing day to day caste based
> > discriminations through out the different parts of India.Dalit think-tanks
> > like Indian Institutue of Dalit studies paved a new directionsa to the
> > economic and identitarian struggles of India.But,the majorioty of the
> > illiterate dalits do not have any access to the debates related to the
> > policy making.Due to the lack of social democracy,dalits have to face
> > discriminations within the spheres of political democracy like Panchayatraj
> > institutions.Dalit women have to face the draconic dicriminations that based
> > on their dalit women identity by their non-Dalit male/female
> > counterparts.Tribals are facing the brutal face of the development induced
> > displacements through mining in ,national parks etc.
> >            Poverty and unemployment create criminilization of labopur and it
> > becomes the reason for the lumpen communal forces.The othering of the
> > Muslims became a part of the normalised-hindu cultural lifestyle of the
> > mainstream cum brahmanic India.
> >              Feminization of labour and case based inequalities restrucutred
> > the life of the majority of the women.The media induced patriarchal culture
> > too streotype women in the public and private sphere of India.
> >       The question of the marginalized voices of sexual minorities become a
> > abberation in the homophobic cultural milieu of India.The sexual minorities
> > are haunted by the cultural police of the rurual and urban spheres.
> > Minorities like Muslims,Sikhs and Christians suffer from the majoritarian
> > claims of the Hindutva forces.The so called academic rhetoric of secularism
> > is not a panacea to solve thie identity crisis.
> >  Farmers in India are committing suicide due to the advent of the neoliberal
> > reforms.The peasantry of India is also stratifies on the basis of
> > caste,religion ,region and gender.The alliance among them becomes a wild
> > goose chase because of their dominant and subordiante identities.
> >         Most of the above mentioned streams of India witnessed the political
> > spectrum of WSF,Mumbai social forum,Kerala social forum etc.But,the mere of
> > tropes of global civil society do not attract them.Most of them cherish WSF
> > as a space to fulfill their dreams about the equity and justice.They believe
> > in the radical transformation of the exisitng cum inequal statusquo through
> > new forms of ideology and collective assertions.Their aspirations which are
> > coloured by the neoliberal culture too becomes impediment to make networks
> > among the wretched of the world.The neutral and radical social movements too
> > could not transcend the existential dilemmas of the above mentioned
> > powerless mass.The dearth of new ideology that can challenge the existing
> > system is lacking in the discourses related to the World Social Forum.A kind
> > of re-reading ogf the existing framework of the world social forum should be
> > done by the people and collective assertions.It should try to create a
> > healthy dialogue with the exisitng paradigms of world social forum.
> > In Solidarity
> > Sanil.M.N
> > Research Scholar
> > Centre For The Study of Social systems
> > School of Social sciences
> > Jawaharlal Nehru University
> > New Delhi
> > India
> >
> >
> >
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