A World Social Forum all African
... pity that we struggle to understand Africa!
It was concluded on January 25 the 7th World Social Forum, which first took place in an African country, Kenya. Participation was lower than that of previous editions, but the important fact of the Forum is that it has met in Africa. And had our own reason Sentinelli Deputy Minister when he said that this is a World Forum, especially Africa.
Yes, because the Africans were the protagonists. The Western once had to abandon part of the crocodile, the big mouth and small ears, to speak less and listen more. And how could you not listen to the African woman with a baby on his shoulder and another for the hand, said that the privatization of water is not just a matter of anti-neoliberal but it is especially vital. A short walk from
Kasarani, home of the Forum, there is the periphery Nairobi, one of the shacks and slums. Kibera, Korogocho, Dandora: locations "dangerous" in which only the participants were also curious. Places where the strength of smell is severely tested, because sewer and trash flow through open channel and cross all the lanes. And from these streets look further afield looking for a horizon, it is comforting, because you can see only landfills in which people look for something in the trash of the rich. Yet in this place cursed
meet smiling faces and joyful, like those of two children playing with the putrid water discharges, not knowing or thinking that their life expectancy is ten years. You certainly do not think those children away from the eyes, which instead chose to play the glue sniffing shoes. Those who know well the life of this place and seems to hope to sell, once again, women, sitting in the corners of streets with a pot and a handful of coal, are being invented every day for something to eat.
And then this was the Africa Social Forum who spoke and said he did not want more compassion and assistance, but understanding and sharing from the bottom and the bottom. Perhaps that message did not reach the ears of those who stayed in hotels of the City and even to those who organized the concert of the South Sound System in the slum of Dandora, well thought out with a network of separate white from black audiences. Contradictions are too big to forgive when we have other accounts from Africa to forgive us!
... pity that we struggle to understand Africa!
It was concluded on January 25 the 7th World Social Forum, which first took place in an African country, Kenya. Participation was lower than that of previous editions, but the important fact of the Forum is that it has met in Africa. And had our own reason Sentinelli Deputy Minister when he said that this is a World Forum, especially Africa.
Yes, because the Africans were the protagonists. The Western once had to abandon part of the crocodile, the big mouth and small ears, to speak less and listen more. And how could you not listen to the African woman with a baby on his shoulder and another for the hand, said that the privatization of water is not just a matter of anti-neoliberal but it is especially vital. A short walk from
Kasarani, home of the Forum, there is the periphery Nairobi, one of the shacks and slums. Kibera, Korogocho, Dandora: locations "dangerous" in which only the participants were also curious. Places where the strength of smell is severely tested, because sewer and trash flow through open channel and cross all the lanes. And from these streets look further afield looking for a horizon, it is comforting, because you can see only landfills in which people look for something in the trash of the rich. Yet in this place cursed
meet smiling faces and joyful, like those of two children playing with the putrid water discharges, not knowing or thinking that their life expectancy is ten years. You certainly do not think those children away from the eyes, which instead chose to play the glue sniffing shoes. Those who know well the life of this place and seems to hope to sell, once again, women, sitting in the corners of streets with a pot and a handful of coal, are being invented every day for something to eat.
And then this was the Africa Social Forum who spoke and said he did not want more compassion and assistance, but understanding and sharing from the bottom and the bottom. Perhaps that message did not reach the ears of those who stayed in hotels of the City and even to those who organized the concert of the South Sound System in the slum of Dandora, well thought out with a network of separate white from black audiences. Contradictions are too big to forgive when we have other accounts from Africa to forgive us!
Martino Coppola
