| | On the second day of the World Social Forum, held in Nairobi from 20-25 January, and for the first time in Africa, I was approached by a member of the Secretariat to respond to a questionnaire. One question seemed particularly urgent: did governments take any notice of it? Here we were in Kenya, where the Kibaki government is staggering under accusations of extensive corruption in the highest places and a continuing failure to transform the economy in the interests of its poverty-stricken masses. Did the arrival of 50,000 passionate and angry social movement activists from around the globe, and particularly from Africa, signify anything, or was our placement in an out-of-town stadium symbolic of our political irrelevance? Though speakers told us that the arguments against neoliberalism and imperialism had been won, Kenya is both subject of and promoter of both. |
