ASIAN SOCIAL FORUM (ASF) REFLECTIONS - ISAAC

Somehow I get this uncomfortable feeling that this short article will be treated as an ASF demonization piece and that my experiences at the ASF — some of which I talk about here — will then fail to generate important ideas for those who read it to think about. But I’ll write anyway, knowing fully, that I am not demonizing, nor even apologizing to anyone.

I don’t think I have ever seen or been struck by as many paradoxes as I saw at the ASF. (I even kept a small list of paradoxes that I saw at the conference. Some of these were plastic cups and numerous disposables being thrown around eating places—perhaps underlining our consumerism? And some of the organizers driving into the venues in SUV’s—what’s the big fuss about fuel (over) consumption?)

On a personal level though, I think the most important thing that the ASF ‘brought home’ was the need (for those of us who feel strongly about what is happening today) to re-think and re-examine a couple of things. One, notions of the west –bivalency will not do anymore because as we saw at the conference, there are an elite bunch of individuals—homegrown --- extracting, from the whole anti-globalization crusade---what suits their exclusive pool of privileges---while simultaneously screaming anti-western slogans. Two, that the constant attempt to treat Globalization as a purely economic issue is both narrow and counter productive. Thinking about the multiple layers of Globalization, its ramifications, and the very important foundational/historical questions around it, etc means that we understand also the futility of imagining that we will find solutions to our problems in a forum organized in the manner that the ASF was.

So what about the way that the ASF was organized:

1. I think the time to abandon our faith in lectures as a mode of learning or even as a way of capturing our feelings about issues has come---they are too abstract, theoretical, mechanical, top-down, and time-wasting. Nobody seriously expects that they can stand in front of a podium and deliver academic jargon to the ‘masses’ (a term I have often found derogatory) and expects that a sizable number of people will have learnt anything meaningful. Just like a bunch of experts once told us that Globalization was good for us, so now we have another set of experts telling us that it is actually bad for us!! Notice that both sets of experts refuse to credit us with even an iota of intelligence to make our own experiential understanding about globalization. And I don’t think, anyway, that in this way, ‘we’ (ignore the vagueness here) are fundamentally challenging the hegemony of the social order.

2. When one organizes something as huge as the ASF, it takes on the nature of a campaign and we know how problematic campaigns are. I felt, at the ASF, that I was taking part in a mass campaign. The problem I felt then, was that of self-righteousness…feeling that I was one of the ‘good guys’ fighting the ‘bad guys’ who were somewhere out there. So then in this campaign very little time existed to self-reflect…think about whether I was part of the problem (or even contributing to the problems) I was so busy trying to solve.

3. Controlling a learning space—I don’t know how many people were truly prepared going into the conference because there is this thing I have been imagining for a long time: at every conference or gathering of this kind, what if most of us came with our own sets of ‘things to ask and learn about’…what if each of us refused to be part of the long, endless lectures (and also refused to part of the sloganeering), what if we went in trying to strengthen one on one (or group) interactions…what if we all saw such gatherings, not as anti-this or anti-that, but as learning spaces. I think most people in our part of the world feel very strongly about globalization but I am afraid that conferences such as the ASF are taking away the ‘sting’ by basically mutating all such feelings into a dead, ‘oppositional’ stance.

Obviously it is not my place to tell people how to run conferences or meetings and what I say here may be consigned to the realm of unrealistic fantasies! However if we abandon perspectives of this kind (of how best we can share our experiences about important issues today and of how best we can share stories about our strengths and potentials) then we also abandon human life to its current misery!

I think the numerous theatre acts (and documentary films) that I watched were very good and if ever a strong critique of development or of globalization was needed, then these were the places to go get them. The good thing about these was that none of them lasted very long...perhaps because the actors know already that WE KNOW.

I made several important connections — and relationships — at the conference, many of which I will continue to learn from. A few days ago one of the people I met at the conference (Uma) called me up to inquire about my work and talk about what she was doing. She’s part of a group of 8 individuals working on and screening documentary films with themes on development, globalization, etc. for me this is important because I learn about the different mediums of critiquing and how one need not feel that there is one ‘acceptable’ way of asking questions about what is going. (Naturally I will get to learn a bit more about how documentary films, etc are made, plus I have several questions around that.)

So what do I see the ASF as? I think the ASF or even the WSF is predominantly (I hope I am wrong) a bunch of individuals working within the system to build alliances for change (quite innocuous if I may)...but it was also full of people drawing immense benefits from the system while protesting/agitating against it. However, in some way I hope the ASF or even the WSF, might opt out of the system altogether ---this includes radically changing its format) and create spaces where we can learn about radical alternatives…you know to allow for people to learn more from another, dialogue more, interact more…and as a person who feels strongly about these, I would have liked to have walked in and ‘disturbed’ a few of the meetings/rallies to have people interact more, go really deeply into some of the issues…maybe then we will begin to feel less about globalization being this abstract thing ‘out’ there or even that it is THE ONLY important issue affecting us today.

But there is something else…this is something that’s been on my mind for a long time but it kind of re-surfaced during and after the ASF, especially seeing people talking, discussing, and offering what, at certain times felt like ‘cosmetic’ resistances. Coming from a country where the police have such a perverse presence in people’s lives---god you cant even ask ‘what is globalization’ before they pounce on you in a hurry, unless maybe you are asking this in the university--- I am sometimes hesitant to sit and talk because it makes me feel that I am betraying my ‘anarchist’ self. It also makes me feel that I am identifying less with regular people maybe because am very regular myself). (But there is a logic that surrounds the entire enterprise of diplomacy—which for me means basically sitting and talking over really abstract stuff) What I am saying is that violence is ‘inevitable’ (maybe not necessary but inevitable). At the ASF, there were times when I felt a level of ‘anarchist’ militancy was needed---outright disobedience (not Civil Disobedience) with a heavy dose of human scale. Whatever form this might have taken, quite frankly I do not know. Skirmishes along the way are important for getting us to the main battle...the search for grounded alternatives. It is these skirmishes that I often feel we need---again I will not tell you what form these ‘skirmishes’ must take but since I have faith in the human spirit, and above all, in human beings, I am sure something good will happen.