International Feminist Dialogue comes to Africa
By Brenda Zulu
This year Africa is for the first time hosting the 6th World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi, Kenya running from 20th to 26 January 2007.
Prior to the WSF is the International Feminist Dialogue to be held on 17th to 19th January 2007. This years International Feminists Dialogue theme is "Transforming Democracy: Feminist Visions and Strategies".
The meeting intends to bring together around two hundred and fifty women from different parts of the globe to deepen the intensive dialogues on feminist perspectives and strategies in addressing fundamentalisms, militarism and neo-liberal globalisation. In organizing the third Feminist Dialogues, the Coordinating Group (CG) aims to create a vital space for critical minded feminist activists to re-examine, re-imagine and move forward the vital political project of feminist movement building and new forms of democratic processes.
Feminist activists around the World are facing intense backlash, and also renewed energy to mobilize. This year will mark 12 years after Beijing, women are confronted by political-religious fundamentalisms, war and militarism, a shift from human rights to "war on terror," and an intensification of the neo-liberal agenda, including the privatization of water! The setting of the WSF in Africa in January 2007 offers a strategic space for feminists to come together in their broad diversity to explore the current moment, their differences and common ground, and their role in the larger social movements.
Feminist Dialogues (FD) is a transnational meeting of feminist networks and organizations usually held before the WSF and are one such space for this kind of strategic dialogue. The FD organized by seven international feminist networks and organizations, aim to bring together different feminist perspectives on issues of concern for women’s movements, to focus on critical analyses and diverse feminist strategies. They seek to emphasize the multiplicity of strategies that women’s movements have employed in their everyday political practice. I see the FD as contributing to movement building within feminist networks, the women’s movements and with other social movements.
In having the meeting before the WSF, they hope to achieve a two-way political exchange: firstly, to effectively intervene in the broader WSF process as feminists organizing for change, and to establish strategic and politically relevant links with other social movements. As a site of resistance, the WSF is one of the most dynamic spaces available to feminist activists and it is important to participate in it while at the same time retaining their autonomy within the FD. It is also hopeful that the idea of the FD can be used to encourage various regional level meetings or to participate in the different forums they are engaged in as part of their ongoing work of linking up with other movements.
Through the FD they do not seek to come up with unified positions or perspectives. While a certain minimum consensus is necessary to maintain the cohesion of the meeting, Feminists think that the value of meetings such as the FD lie in bringing forth debates and differences that provoke them to reflect, reassess and recast their analyses and strategies, collectively as well as individually. The FD can be a platform that strengthens the feminists’ diversities as well as their common politics.
The first FD was held in Mumbai in January 2003, as a follow-up to the Women’s Strategy Meeting held in Porto Alegre in 2002. It highlighted issues like women’s human rights, sexual and reproductive rights, inter-linkages between the local and the global and sexuality. It was attended by over 150 women from different parts of the World.
Despite various shortcomings, particularly in methodology that made it difficult for the organisers to explore convergences and divergences, after the Mumbai FD, many groups showed keen interest in continuing with this process. In a three-day evaluation of the FD in Bangkok, Thailand in May 2004, the Consultative Group critiqued and reflected upon the event, agreed to improve on its methodology and political impact, and made a general re-commitment to the Feminist Dialogue process up to 2007.
The next International Feminist Dialogue was held from 23-24 January, 2005, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Drawing from the various insights gained from the previous meeting, it was decided that the focus of the Porto Alegre FD would be the intersections of militarization and war, fundamentalism/s and neo-liberal globalization. These were explored from feminist perspectives that took into account race, ethnicity, caste, class, gender, sexualities and national origin.
During the 3rd Africa Social Forum (ASF) in Lusaka, Zambia, the first Feminist Dialogue was organised by FEMNET under the ASF banner. During this dialogue Feminists in Africa realised that they needed to launch a major awareness campaign on their women’s rights so that they enjoy their lives. These feminists had started to build a feminist movement in Africa. The FD debated on various definitions of feminism to especially African women who see it as a western influence.
Feminism is an ideology about equality, fairness and women’s rights, pointing out the wrongs of the system that a woman is born in. Being a woman and understanding women’s issues does not mean that one is a feminist. It is the idea behind making an impact on what one has done in impacting issues that affect women which make one a feminist.
The women and men after deliberating on what feminisms was decided to start strategies on how they would claim what is there’s by having a space within the ASF. The women realized that tradition was dynamic and that women have engaged in challenges. The feminist also realized that they were working with issues of resistance and that it should be put any parameters to who is a feminist.
Feminists in Africa better move from the individual concept to a collective concept. Feminists do what they believe in, if not then one is just an imposter. Feminists guard the belief with militant and advocating stance.
Stigmatisation can easily abort feminism ideology. Men become feminists through empathy and not by feeling or being subjected to a particular pain. Feminism is about resistance of being marginalized, discriminated e.t.c Tradition is always dynamic and fighting against patriotism than one that looks at negative social deviance.
The value of meetings such as the FD lie in bringing forth debates and differences that provoke them to reflect, reassess and recast their analyses and strategies, collectively as well as individually. The FD will be a platform that strengthens their diversities as well as their common politics.
Another Feminist Dialogue was held in Bamako, Mali during the Polycentric World Social Forum in February, 2006. It is at this meeting where the women’s movement who met recognised access to technologies as one of the strategies which they need to use to advance themselves as a movement. It was realised that there was need to strategies and use information communication technologies (ICTs) to their own advantage as women movement pointing out that ICTs could help a lot in what women were trying to achieve. The feminist dialogue has strategies to train women and youth in ICTs which could improve things.
Young women who have a lot of talent and ICT know how were asked to participate in the FD. Women attending the Feminist Dialogue this year must have applied using an online form. For one to apply online, automatically one had to have access to the internet and also have an e-mail address. The FD has invited everyone who applied through the online facility to attend the dialogue by e-mail. The FD has a web site and feminists who know how to read can access information from the web site.
Even the WSF application is done online which makes it difficult for grassroots women to attend and even have access to information which is running through e-bulletins. Many grassroots women will only attend the WSF or even the FD if they are in some sort of network which has access to WSF information and ICTs skills.
For Africa our challenge is the language barrier. In Bamako we had many French speakers and local langauge speakers. For Nairobi, I am expecting many Kiswahili and English speakers.
It is hoped that we have very good translations facilities like ones we had in India where Babel provided FM pocket radios which were used for translation as each person could turn to a channel with a language of choice.
In Africa many women have access to mobile phones and radio which we hope the International Feminist Dialogues would also take advantage of and use them for dissemination of information.
According to the International Feminist Dialogue inforcom plans, newtechnologies such as podcasts and radio ready interviews from the event will be uploaded to the FD website for distribution, rebroadcasting to radio networks.
FD plenaries and WSF led panels will be recorded as audio formats for radio. Audio formats will include radio interviews on various FD issues.
Many women would love to be part of the International Feminist Dialogues but have only been funded to participate in the WSF. Lack of funding and poverty may deliberately deny many African delegates from attending the FD as most people are scheduled to arrive in Nairobi by January 19th, 2007 as they are using the WSF Caravan and a few are flying.
The feminist dialogues are aimed at identifying the impacts of neo-liberal globalisation, fundamentalism(s) and militarism on African women. They are also aimed at strategising, as the African feminist and women’s movements, as to on how best to ensure that that approaches and strategies take into account that context in a manner that enhances African women’s autonomy and choice in all areas of our lives.
Neo-liberal globalisation, with attendant liberalisation and privatisation, has increased poverty and aggravated the situation of African women, depriving them of basic needs, confining them to the informal sector and exploiting their reproductive, community and productive labour. African women are the first victims of the adverse effects of globalisation, forcing many to consider migration in conditions that make them vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.
Many conflicts are thus on-going in Africa, fuelled by the degeneration in human development, human rights violations and erosions in the rule of law. Fundamentalist responses can be seen in this light as a response to increased militarism on the part of African states. But both fundamentalist and militarist responses situated in African women’s reproductive and sexual autonomy and choice in particular ways, meaning the African women bear the brunt of such conflicts.
The media also needs to help the FD by using ICTs to inform and educate people on the FD. The ASF is this year providing the African Flame Newspaper and will for the first time provide on site radio broadcasts which will be feed into other community radio stations in various African countries. The media will be able to do this through the sponsorship of the PANOS family who has sponsored media personnel to undertake the work.
The women’s movement needs training on how they can use new technologies for communication, e-trade and research. The FD should also involve men and grassroots women in a bottom up approach to help solve the FD problems. Many grassroots women are illiterate and do not have access to ICTs. Women need to learn new ICT skills to help them develop and all women should take advantage of new technologies.
While some women organisations and a lot of women have been promoting themselves there is need for them to work together in solidarity and make sure the women’s movement in Africa works together.
In Africa, we have problems of lack of communication such that some of those who went to Beijing have not done anything at home. The grassroots women are still a small minority and we not moving forward at all. This is why there is need to involve the grassroots women and make sure they are part of these strategies and also part of the women’s movement.
There is need for the FD to make sure that these many women who have not had an opportunity to attend such dialogues attend by even stretching further by seeking sponsorship for them to attend.
Men who are decision makers in homes, at national, regional and global levels as they are the ones who even sign these conventions which are not implemented also need to be educated on the dialogues.
Young women should be involved in the women’s movement as actors as there is a generation gap between the present day feminists and the young women. Young women have previously attended because they been volunteered to translate, report, take pictures e.t.c Young women need to be encouraged to participate by the older feminists who should be in the fore front giving out the information on what the FD is all about and how they would learn and acquire experience from them.
Many times young women feel intimidated when they hear older feminists speak at such events because they do not even demystify the feminist’s langauge. E.g. the application form had questions which many young women could not understand well and they had to google search some words in order to understand the questions and be able to fill in the forms.
By Brenda Zulu
This year Africa is for the first time hosting the 6th World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi, Kenya running from 20th to 26 January 2007.
Prior to the WSF is the International Feminist Dialogue to be held on 17th to 19th January 2007. This years International Feminists Dialogue theme is "Transforming Democracy: Feminist Visions and Strategies".
The meeting intends to bring together around two hundred and fifty women from different parts of the globe to deepen the intensive dialogues on feminist perspectives and strategies in addressing fundamentalisms, militarism and neo-liberal globalisation. In organizing the third Feminist Dialogues, the Coordinating Group (CG) aims to create a vital space for critical minded feminist activists to re-examine, re-imagine and move forward the vital political project of feminist movement building and new forms of democratic processes.
Feminist activists around the World are facing intense backlash, and also renewed energy to mobilize. This year will mark 12 years after Beijing, women are confronted by political-religious fundamentalisms, war and militarism, a shift from human rights to "war on terror," and an intensification of the neo-liberal agenda, including the privatization of water! The setting of the WSF in Africa in January 2007 offers a strategic space for feminists to come together in their broad diversity to explore the current moment, their differences and common ground, and their role in the larger social movements.
Feminist Dialogues (FD) is a transnational meeting of feminist networks and organizations usually held before the WSF and are one such space for this kind of strategic dialogue. The FD organized by seven international feminist networks and organizations, aim to bring together different feminist perspectives on issues of concern for women’s movements, to focus on critical analyses and diverse feminist strategies. They seek to emphasize the multiplicity of strategies that women’s movements have employed in their everyday political practice. I see the FD as contributing to movement building within feminist networks, the women’s movements and with other social movements.
In having the meeting before the WSF, they hope to achieve a two-way political exchange: firstly, to effectively intervene in the broader WSF process as feminists organizing for change, and to establish strategic and politically relevant links with other social movements. As a site of resistance, the WSF is one of the most dynamic spaces available to feminist activists and it is important to participate in it while at the same time retaining their autonomy within the FD. It is also hopeful that the idea of the FD can be used to encourage various regional level meetings or to participate in the different forums they are engaged in as part of their ongoing work of linking up with other movements.
Through the FD they do not seek to come up with unified positions or perspectives. While a certain minimum consensus is necessary to maintain the cohesion of the meeting, Feminists think that the value of meetings such as the FD lie in bringing forth debates and differences that provoke them to reflect, reassess and recast their analyses and strategies, collectively as well as individually. The FD can be a platform that strengthens the feminists’ diversities as well as their common politics.
The first FD was held in Mumbai in January 2003, as a follow-up to the Women’s Strategy Meeting held in Porto Alegre in 2002. It highlighted issues like women’s human rights, sexual and reproductive rights, inter-linkages between the local and the global and sexuality. It was attended by over 150 women from different parts of the World.
Despite various shortcomings, particularly in methodology that made it difficult for the organisers to explore convergences and divergences, after the Mumbai FD, many groups showed keen interest in continuing with this process. In a three-day evaluation of the FD in Bangkok, Thailand in May 2004, the Consultative Group critiqued and reflected upon the event, agreed to improve on its methodology and political impact, and made a general re-commitment to the Feminist Dialogue process up to 2007.
The next International Feminist Dialogue was held from 23-24 January, 2005, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Drawing from the various insights gained from the previous meeting, it was decided that the focus of the Porto Alegre FD would be the intersections of militarization and war, fundamentalism/s and neo-liberal globalization. These were explored from feminist perspectives that took into account race, ethnicity, caste, class, gender, sexualities and national origin.
During the 3rd Africa Social Forum (ASF) in Lusaka, Zambia, the first Feminist Dialogue was organised by FEMNET under the ASF banner. During this dialogue Feminists in Africa realised that they needed to launch a major awareness campaign on their women’s rights so that they enjoy their lives. These feminists had started to build a feminist movement in Africa. The FD debated on various definitions of feminism to especially African women who see it as a western influence.
Feminism is an ideology about equality, fairness and women’s rights, pointing out the wrongs of the system that a woman is born in. Being a woman and understanding women’s issues does not mean that one is a feminist. It is the idea behind making an impact on what one has done in impacting issues that affect women which make one a feminist.
The women and men after deliberating on what feminisms was decided to start strategies on how they would claim what is there’s by having a space within the ASF. The women realized that tradition was dynamic and that women have engaged in challenges. The feminist also realized that they were working with issues of resistance and that it should be put any parameters to who is a feminist.
Feminists in Africa better move from the individual concept to a collective concept. Feminists do what they believe in, if not then one is just an imposter. Feminists guard the belief with militant and advocating stance.
Stigmatisation can easily abort feminism ideology. Men become feminists through empathy and not by feeling or being subjected to a particular pain. Feminism is about resistance of being marginalized, discriminated e.t.c Tradition is always dynamic and fighting against patriotism than one that looks at negative social deviance.
The value of meetings such as the FD lie in bringing forth debates and differences that provoke them to reflect, reassess and recast their analyses and strategies, collectively as well as individually. The FD will be a platform that strengthens their diversities as well as their common politics.
Another Feminist Dialogue was held in Bamako, Mali during the Polycentric World Social Forum in February, 2006. It is at this meeting where the women’s movement who met recognised access to technologies as one of the strategies which they need to use to advance themselves as a movement. It was realised that there was need to strategies and use information communication technologies (ICTs) to their own advantage as women movement pointing out that ICTs could help a lot in what women were trying to achieve. The feminist dialogue has strategies to train women and youth in ICTs which could improve things.
Young women who have a lot of talent and ICT know how were asked to participate in the FD. Women attending the Feminist Dialogue this year must have applied using an online form. For one to apply online, automatically one had to have access to the internet and also have an e-mail address. The FD has invited everyone who applied through the online facility to attend the dialogue by e-mail. The FD has a web site and feminists who know how to read can access information from the web site.
Even the WSF application is done online which makes it difficult for grassroots women to attend and even have access to information which is running through e-bulletins. Many grassroots women will only attend the WSF or even the FD if they are in some sort of network which has access to WSF information and ICTs skills.
For Africa our challenge is the language barrier. In Bamako we had many French speakers and local langauge speakers. For Nairobi, I am expecting many Kiswahili and English speakers.
It is hoped that we have very good translations facilities like ones we had in India where Babel provided FM pocket radios which were used for translation as each person could turn to a channel with a language of choice.
In Africa many women have access to mobile phones and radio which we hope the International Feminist Dialogues would also take advantage of and use them for dissemination of information.
According to the International Feminist Dialogue inforcom plans, newtechnologies such as podcasts and radio ready interviews from the event will be uploaded to the FD website for distribution, rebroadcasting to radio networks.
FD plenaries and WSF led panels will be recorded as audio formats for radio. Audio formats will include radio interviews on various FD issues.
Many women would love to be part of the International Feminist Dialogues but have only been funded to participate in the WSF. Lack of funding and poverty may deliberately deny many African delegates from attending the FD as most people are scheduled to arrive in Nairobi by January 19th, 2007 as they are using the WSF Caravan and a few are flying.
The feminist dialogues are aimed at identifying the impacts of neo-liberal globalisation, fundamentalism(s) and militarism on African women. They are also aimed at strategising, as the African feminist and women’s movements, as to on how best to ensure that that approaches and strategies take into account that context in a manner that enhances African women’s autonomy and choice in all areas of our lives.
Neo-liberal globalisation, with attendant liberalisation and privatisation, has increased poverty and aggravated the situation of African women, depriving them of basic needs, confining them to the informal sector and exploiting their reproductive, community and productive labour. African women are the first victims of the adverse effects of globalisation, forcing many to consider migration in conditions that make them vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.
Many conflicts are thus on-going in Africa, fuelled by the degeneration in human development, human rights violations and erosions in the rule of law. Fundamentalist responses can be seen in this light as a response to increased militarism on the part of African states. But both fundamentalist and militarist responses situated in African women’s reproductive and sexual autonomy and choice in particular ways, meaning the African women bear the brunt of such conflicts.
The media also needs to help the FD by using ICTs to inform and educate people on the FD. The ASF is this year providing the African Flame Newspaper and will for the first time provide on site radio broadcasts which will be feed into other community radio stations in various African countries. The media will be able to do this through the sponsorship of the PANOS family who has sponsored media personnel to undertake the work.
The women’s movement needs training on how they can use new technologies for communication, e-trade and research. The FD should also involve men and grassroots women in a bottom up approach to help solve the FD problems. Many grassroots women are illiterate and do not have access to ICTs. Women need to learn new ICT skills to help them develop and all women should take advantage of new technologies.
While some women organisations and a lot of women have been promoting themselves there is need for them to work together in solidarity and make sure the women’s movement in Africa works together.
In Africa, we have problems of lack of communication such that some of those who went to Beijing have not done anything at home. The grassroots women are still a small minority and we not moving forward at all. This is why there is need to involve the grassroots women and make sure they are part of these strategies and also part of the women’s movement.
There is need for the FD to make sure that these many women who have not had an opportunity to attend such dialogues attend by even stretching further by seeking sponsorship for them to attend.
Men who are decision makers in homes, at national, regional and global levels as they are the ones who even sign these conventions which are not implemented also need to be educated on the dialogues.
Young women should be involved in the women’s movement as actors as there is a generation gap between the present day feminists and the young women. Young women have previously attended because they been volunteered to translate, report, take pictures e.t.c Young women need to be encouraged to participate by the older feminists who should be in the fore front giving out the information on what the FD is all about and how they would learn and acquire experience from them.
Many times young women feel intimidated when they hear older feminists speak at such events because they do not even demystify the feminist’s langauge. E.g. the application form had questions which many young women could not understand well and they had to google search some words in order to understand the questions and be able to fill in the forms.
posted by Brenda Nglazi Zulu at 3:33 AM
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