| October 28, 2005 Another Alaska Is Possible The Case For An Alaska Social Forum by Brian Yanity, insurgent49 Two weeks ago, I attended the second-annual Bioneers in Alaska Conference (www.sustainak.org) at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus. Founded in 1990, Bioneers is a nonprofit organization that “promotes practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring the Earth and communities”. For 15 years, “biological pioneers” have gathered together at an annual conference of the Bioneers organization in San Rafael, California. In 2002, beaming via satellite, the Bioneers made presentations to locations around North America. This year, there were 17 satellite Bioneers conferences, 16 of which are within the U.S., with Vancouver being the only location in Canada. Since 2004, Anchorage has hosted a satellite Bioneers conference. An estimated 7,000 people participate in these satellite events (which are combined with local workshops), in addition to about 3,200 at the main event in San Rafael. Last year, the first Bioneers in Alaska conference had 300 participants from 22 communities from around the state. This year’s event was slightly bigger, with 22 local workshops and 35 speakers, in addition to the beamed-in speeches. It is a wide-ranging forum, with discussions on topics ranging from green building to fighting racism to renewable energy and organic gardening. These Anchorage-only features are an impressive event in their own right. On the opening night, Mayor Mark Begich spoke, followed by the keynote address by Dune Lankard of the Eyak Preservation Council in the Copper River region (www.redzone.org). Despite some good Native presentations the first night, including a performance by the Chickaloon Ya Ne Dah Ah Dancers, and several of the weekend workshops, I found the main limitation of Bioneers in Alaska was that it almost exclusively attended by white middle class baby boomers (directly reflecting the people who made up the organizing committee). For an event hosted at a university, relatively few UAA students attended. Early registration for student, seniors, and ‘low income’ cost $40 for a weekend of the local workshops, while late registration cost the same group of people $60, or $25 a day. This fee is unrealistic for the budgets of most students and low-income workers, and reflects the class privilege of the people organizing the event. Students and low-income people should be allowed to attend the conference for free. Despite this, the conference was still the best event of its kind that I have been to in Anchorage, which says a lot about class privilege in the progressive movement here in Anchorage. The
World Social Forum
Anchorage, and Alaska, needs a far more ambitious conference, ten times the size and influence of a beamed-in Bioneers conference. A truly grassroots movement is not beamed in via satellite, so we need to bring our gatherings to the next level. Fortunately, dedicated people from around the world are providing us with an excellent example: the World Social Forum (WSF). The WSF is like a new World’s Fair, but one dedicated to change. The WSF slogan is ‘Another World is Possible’, and has also been called the “movement of movements”, due to the great diversity of the people attending and the range of politics represented. The WSF idea was started in 2000 by activists in Brazil and France as a counter-summit to the World Economic Forum, an elite meeting traditionally held each year in Davos, Switzerland. The initial organizers of the World Social Forum were the PT (Workers Party) of Brazil, the Paris-based newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, and ATTAC, a coalition of individuals and organizations who support the implementation of a global Tobin tax (such a tax, named for the Nobel Prize-winning American economist James Tobin, would tax speculative financial transactions on a global scale). 
The first World Social Forum, in January 2001, was held in Porto
Alegre, Brazil with about 15,000 people attending, mostly from Latin
America. At the time, both the city of Porto Alegre, and its
surrounding state of Rio Grande de Sul, were controlled by the PT. It
was determined from the outset that the WSF should be held in the
global ‘South’, or what was known in the 20th century as
the Third World. In January 2004, in Mumbai (Bombay), India, well over 100,000 people from more than 130 countries attended more than 1200 panels and workshops at the fourth annual World Social Forum. In 2005, the WSF returned to its home city of Porto Alegre. Among progressive movements worldwide, critics of the World Social Forum say that it is a diversion from grassroots struggles for justice. Some activists fear domination of established NGOs and wealthy Western donors such as the Ford Foundation. Also, many groups are angered by the exclusion of political parties. For example, in Mumbai last year, a counter-WSF was organized by Maoist groups from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Philippines. However, these forces were dwarfed by the main event. The year 2006 will be an exciting time for the global social forum movement. In 2006, North America will not be left out. The European Social Forum (www.fse-esf.org) will be held in Athens, Greece; and the first-ever United States Social Forum (www.ussocialforum.org) will be held in Atlanta in the summer of 2006. One of the first social forums organized in the U.S. started as a ‘counter-summit’ preceding the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The Boston Social Forum had over 5,000 people attending 575 workshops and panels over a three day period. A smaller event, the Chicago Social Forum, has now been held successfully both in 2004 and 2005. Towards
an Alaska Social Forum
By no means would an Alaska Social Forum be intended as a competition to other existing conferences such as Bioneers. Instead, its goal would be to complement other events and expand on what is already going on here in Alaska. Native activists, labor unionists, peace groups, women’s rights groups, environmental activists, independent media groups, students, community activists and other social justice groups would gather from across the Great Land to form new alliances, in order to push all of our movements forward. To achieve maximum inclusion, a wide variety of groups and people need to be involved in the organizing of an Alaska Social Forum. Combating Alaska’s shamefully high rates of suicide, sexual assault, alcoholism, corruption and unemployment is no easy task, so we need to find as many genuine allies as we can. What is also needed are lots of arts and cultural events, to bring positive energy and make it a fun event, like a progressive (and proactive) version of the Alaska State Fair or the Talkeetna Bluegrass Festival. In any case, we just need to bring a whole lot of like-minded Alaskans together to network and exchange ideas. In the same way in which world politics have already been changed by the World Social Forum, an Alaska Social Forum could leave a lasting, positive impact on Alaskan society. We also should not to forget in invite folks from around the Arctic region and the Pacific Rim, in keeping with the international spirit of the global Social Forum movement. As such, an Alaska Social Forum could serve as an effective alternative to the official Northern Forum (www.northernforum.org), which is an international organization of 24 sub-national or regional governments from the ten circumpolar countries. In practice, the Northern Forum basically serves as an international chamber of commerce for the resource-extraction industries. A realistic date for the first Alaska Social Forum would be the spring of 2007 (before the tourist rush), since sufficient time is needed to plan a sufficiently BIG event. Anchorage could host the first-ever Alaska Social Forum at UAA, the Chester Creek Sports Complex, or at one of our convention centers. Or perhaps another community such as Fairbanks or Juneau could step up to the plate. In keeping with the other Social Forums going on around the world, an Alaska Social Forum should last for at least five days. A period longer than a weekend is necessary to form lasting social networks and relationships that could lead to the kind of mass collective action needed to save the world. A social forum is not an end in itself, but a means to many ends. The WSF charter of principles can be found on the official World Social Forum website: www.forumsocialmundial.org.br Brian Yanity is a student activist and freelance journalist who resides in an undisclosed location in Southcentral Alaska. He can be reached at byanity@insurgent49.com. |
-
Columnists -
- also by this
writer -
|
||||||
| Copyright
2005
Insurgent Media. All Rights
Reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
|||||||
