Another South Africa
Community groups, NGOs, trade unions, religious organizations and student and youth groups were all widely represented at the Forum. The Forum assembled under the slogan, ‘Another Southern Africa is possible’. Such grandiose slogans have now become synonymous with the global social forum movement. Whilst politically well founded it can often be a challenge for such powerful mantras to be filtered down to practical, and achievable, objectives that delegates can participate in.
The SASF did not really need to subscribe to this trend of the wider social forum movement. It was clear from the outset that the SASF was not about political naval-gazing, it was not about political factions bickering for a platform and it was not about theoretical debates on changing the world. There was a practical feel to the SASF. This is not to say that ideology, philosophy and political theory were dismissed altogether. There was a moral and political commitment shared by all the delegates: The commitment to work towards the development of strategies, and policies, that can lift Southern Africa out of the poverty that has blighted it for much of its post-colonial history.
Compared to other continental or inter-continental social forums the SASF was a small affair. With just over two hundred delegates the Forum had a friendly and welcoming feel. Participation could have been much wider, but financial constraints prevented many potential delegates from making the trip to Zambia. The delegation from Zimbabwe had travelled by bus to attend. What the SASF may have lacked in numbers it certainly made up for in enriched debate and discussion.
The predominant issue discussed at the SASF was the HIV/ AIDS pandemic. With one in four Southern Africans now HIV positive or suffering from AIDS, this was an issue that was discussed with a zealous commitment and urgency. In the seminars that I attended on HIV/ AIDS the first thing that struck me was the explicit determination to tackle HIV/ AIDS as a human rights issue. Previously I had always considered HIV/ AIDS to be a problem demanding a medical and scientific response. The problem does of course need a medical response. The lobbying of unscrupulous Western drug conglomerates is an ongoing battle.
The concern of delegates at the SASF was defining strategies to deal with HIV/ AIDS at a grassroots level, supporting their communities in coming to terms with this horrific phenomenon. It was clear that there was an underlying dissatisfaction with the way in which Southern African governments have approached the issue, especially the Mbeki government in South Africa. However this was balanced with the informed frustration that Southern African governments are unjustly constrained by the shackling policies of the IMF – World Bank axis.
The links between poverty and HIV/ AIDS are abundant. The discussions on HIV/ AIDS as a social issue, and set firmly within a human rights context, were harrowing but were also fuelled by a determination and an evolving optimism. Stories of people who had lost their jobs, or had been denied employment, because they were HIV positive or the lack of information that accompanies condoms which then sees young boys in some Southern African nations cutting the ends of condoms before using them; rendering them useless in halting the spread of the epidemic.
However, there were also many positive stories to be told. The Zambian labour movement, together with NGOs and community groups, had helped the development of legislation to protect workers against unscrupulous employers. Workers in Zambia can no longer be forced to disclose their medical information to their employer, or potential employers. The SASF committed itself to facilitate the building of a “peoples’ movement against HIV/ AIDS”.
This indicated the determination to grasp the initiative and to lead the fight against HIV/ AIDS, driven on by the human gravity of the issue but also by the ineffectual responses from their own governments and the international community at large. The movement would focus on the enhancement of rights for those with AIDS, ranging from access to drugs and support, protection in the workplace and fighting the paralysing stigma linked to HIV/ AIDS. Sostain Moyo, a HIV/ AIDS community worker from Zimbabwe, told me that any movement against HIV/ AIDS would have to be based on the drive to motivate the people of Southern Africa to “generate demands for their rights”.
The SASF did consider other issues, such as water, gender rights, labour and trade and debt relief. The IMF and World Bank were denounced, along with the privatisation policies driven by their neo-liberalism. The SASF closing statement made clear that the IMF and World Bank are “not welcome in Southern Africa”. The SASF closed with a practical conclusion reached, and an objective agreed, to fight HIV/ AIDS with a grassroots movement encompassing all sections of Southern Africa’s communities.
The call to “treat the people now” was made by several delegates in the concluding plenaries. Whilst the ‘Another Southern Africa is possible’ slogan remained central to the actions agreed at the SASF the closing call expressed more urgency and zeal in fighting for a better Southern Africa, delegates departed to the call that “Our time is now”. The SASF may well have been modest in numbers but its delegates, and the communities they represent, have a rich political consciousness. The movement for social change in Southern Africa may well be in its embryonic stages, but if the SASF is an accurate indication of the future, it is a movement with an exciting future.
The Southern Africa Social Forum was held in Lusaka, Zambia from the 8 – 11 November 2003.
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