“A strongly felt and long drawn anxiety is shared by many World Social Forum organisers and supporters. Its relevance vis-a-vis global politics and even vis-a-vis global progressives seems to be unstoppably fading away after a very promising start and exhilarating first few years. Why? And what, if anything, can be done about it? These are crucial questions and questions that need careful consideration especially while approaching what promises to be one of the most inspiring WSF global events, Dakar 2011, an event that could deserve way more attention that it can, as things stand now, possibly get. An event that wishes to convene women and men, organisations and communities to contribute to the articulation of what the organisers have suggested to call “The New Universality”. “
Thus opens NIGD-member Giuseppe Caruso his reflections about the situation of the World Social Forum. Read the whole piece plus comments at Giuseppe’s blog.
(via nigd-list@nigd.org, the mailing list of the NIGD): … But is it good or bad to strive after hegemony? You mention the mainstream medias’ “hegemonic cultural politics that the WSF’s activists are actively struggling against”; but also “the WSF framework which they judged marred
by “old” hegemonic politics conducted by members of the authoritarian left”.
This leads to the question of whether there could be a “new” hegemonic politics which the WSF activists should be actively struggling for. And, perhaps, to asking whether a politics that would not be hegemonic, or would not strive to become hegemonic, would be worth fighting for at all?
My own belief is what I believe was already the conviction of Ambrogio Lorenzetti when he depicted the effects of good and bad government on the walls of the town hall of Siena. Yes, we must fight for good government,and such a government also has to be hegemonic. If not, it would not be a
government. However, since the time of Lorenzetti much water has passed under the bridges of the Arno (in Florence, I mean). So the question now is, for instance, whether an “ethical pirate” would be possible, as I tried to formulate it in my notes on Google and the library last summer (see http://www.libr.org/isc — in the most recent issue, the editorial). It is a bit like H.G.Wells’ “open conspiracy” — and thus what they used to call a contradictio in adiecto. Well, surely no hegemony can be perfect, however universal or universalist it would be in its aspirations.
Regards,
– Mikael