Another World is Possible!

As activists for social change prepare themselves for the seventh annual World Social Forum (WSF) in Kenya, Nairobi in January 2007, the women of Africa and the world must ensure that their strategies to sustain and serve life take centre stage. This is the view of Wahu Kaara, Executive Chair of the Kenyan Debt Relief Network (KENDREN), who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Challenging global inequality

January 2007 will be the first time that the forum is held in Africa and Wahu, as one of the forum's leading organisers, sees it as an opportunity for Africa to redefine its relationship with the world. "The 21st century African is crying for a new dispensation. We can scream human rights, women's rights and injustice, but we will not be instrumental as agents of social transformation if we don't address the unequal world order."

The WSF is regarded as the peoples' alternative to the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is held in Davos, Switzerland every year, attended by world leaders and their economic advisors to discuss the progress of globalisation and how to further entrench the neoliberal economic system that benefits the rich countries at the expense of the developing world. The WSF is usually held at the same time as the WEF, but since its inception in Port Allegre, Brazil, it has always been held in a 'developing' country. Unlike the WEF, the WSF is a gathering of individuals who believe that 'Another World is Possible', a world free of the negative impacts of globalisation, of unequal global power relations, and of third world debt.

The effects of globalisation on African women

But how does globalisation and third world debt affect the life of the African woman whose main priority is the survival of herself and her family? Shouldn't she rather focus on social transformation within her own country, where she has no power to govern or to bring about a socially just society?

Wahu slowly puts down her cup of Kenyan tea, a staple she takes along on all of her world travels, and states that Africa's liberation was "mid-wifed" within an international framework that does not guarantee liberation. She believes that even if we vote into power the government that we want, change won't happen because this government would still have to govern within a global system that is controlled by market fundamentalism and patriarchy. She asserts that unequal systems of power, sustained by military might and the market paradigm, have a male face, and these systems have been used to exclude and exploit. Wahu argues that women, on the other hand, use their power, strength, spirit, and skills to sustain and serve life. She defines this as the life economy.

Building the life economy

Wahu believes that the new dispensation is in the hands of women and that this continent should reassert itself from the African women's point of view. She dismisses the notion that African women must be educated in order to lead. "The bedrock of the life economy is ordinary women. What is important is the value of life and to serve humanity, not the education we have. We may manifest the feminisation of poverty, but we are rich in human spirit. We continue to play a productive and constructive role, to mobilise resources in creative ways and to manage important community activities." She maintains that women can conceptualise a new world order and should emerge as leading voices.

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The World Social Forum will be open to anyone interested in working towards a better, more equitable world. Social movements from each of the continent's regions will travel to Kenya by caravan, picking up participants at designated meeting points along the way. "We are doing this because we also want those who will not be attending to feel part of the forum as we gather in villages and towns, share the spirit of the forum, and receive their blessings. The spirit that will prevail during our journey through our Africa will be that of solidarity and belief that another world is not only possible, but necessary."