{"id":178,"date":"2017-04-06T04:49:42","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T04:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/?p=178"},"modified":"2017-04-06T04:49:42","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T04:49:42","slug":"comment-by-shirley-walters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/?p=178","title":{"rendered":"Comment by Shirley Walters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comment by Shirley Walters
\n(English<\/em>)
\n<\/em>Professor Emerita at the University of Western Cape, South Africa and the deputy president for Africa, ICAE<\/h4>\n

I was privileged to be one of the thousands of participants and presenters who converged in Montreal from 9-16 August 2016. We received a \u2018telephone directory-like\u2019 book of events, seminars, workshops, symposia, to choose from \u2013 the venues were distributed throughout a part of the city. The area of the city designated for the WSF was punctuated with large marquees, information stands, meeting points, where T-shirts were sold, pamphlets and other paraphernalia distributed, meeting areas designated, street theatre performers prepared. The scale of the event was overwhelming \u2013 how to use time effectively, efficiently, with purpose, with fun, with friends, with political intent? How to find your own venue where you were to be one of the presenters or performers or participants? Navigating the geographical, the intellectual, the political, the social spaces was challenging.\u00a0 It took planning, focus, and determination, while not losing sight of the importance of connecting socially with friends, comrades, colleagues.<\/p>\n

The WSF started in a big park where thousands gathered to begin to connect, to mobilise people to engage with \u2018their\u2019 issues \u2013 there was need to mobilise interest otherwise no people would find their way at the right time and place \u2013 those with the most marketing savvy could more easily grab the attention. We heard of at least 2000 comrades who had been refused visas by the Canadian government \u2013 there was rage and indignation. Behind our respective banners with drums rolling, chants and songs, we took over several streets of Montreal. The idea was to bring to the attention of the citizens of Montreal that the WSF was alive and well and about to take over their city!<\/p>\n

The thirteen organising streams for conversations, debates and actions, as listed by Alession Surian, indicate the complexities, the divergences and the spread of intellectual and political engagement. These mirror many of the fault lines in society. They are overwhelming and impossible to embrace with any depth \u2013 each person therefore, as in life, specialises in an area of particular interest. The streams ran in parallel, with each person mainly\u00a0 staying within their particular area of interest. There were few places where everyone came together, so that the heartbeat of the whole community could be felt \u2013 so there was no sense of the whole \u2013 there was no visible leadership. Leadership was decentralised and dispersed. This is positive on the one hand, but on the other, how is some cohesion and common vision built? How is \u2018an alternative world\u2019 envisaged collectively?<\/p>\n

The last day of the WSF was literally rained out \u2013 where everyone was invited to join together, reading out and engaging with the resolutions emanating from each of the streams, few turned up.\u00a0 Most people left with no sense of a bigger picture of \u2018where to from here\u2019. I left with an overwhelming sense of how complex it is to create any cohesion or sense of common purpose, amongst disparate groups. What the future will be of the WSF is uncertain \u2013 it\u2019s a noble idea, but what can it really achieve? What do you think its role is, if any, in helping build an alternative world? How possible is it to achieve common purpose putting into action the \u2018relational and meaning making skills\u2019 which Surian points to, across different discursive, disciplinary, or other communities of practice, who have different understandings of knowledge? How are different \u2018raced\u2019, gendered, classed, religious, language, geographical etc. communities able to \u2018share\u2019 with one another when hierarchies of power and privilege are so entrenched?\u00a0 Should the WSF survive, why and how?<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

These are the links to the AED 83\/2016 publication in three languages:
\nEnglish<\/a>
\nFran\u00e7ais<\/a>
\nEspa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n

Estos son los links para acceder a la publicaci\u00f3n en tres idiomas:
\nIngl\u00e9s<\/a>
\nFranc\u00e9s<\/a>
\nEspa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n

Voici les liens vers la publication en trois langues:
\nAnglais\u00a0<\/a>
\nFran\u00e7ais<\/a>
\nEspagnol<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow the ICAE Virtual Seminar also\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Para espa\u00f1ol favor usar\u00a0google translator\u00a0<\/a>en los casos en que el art\u00edculo no est\u00e1 traducido al espa\u00f1ol<\/em><\/strong>
\nVeuillez utiliser\u00a0google translator<\/a>\u00a0pour traduire les articles qui ne sont pas en fran\u00e7ais<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comment by Shirley Walters (English) Professor Emerita at the University of Western Cape, South Africa and the deputy president for Africa, ICAE I was privileged to be one of the thousands of participants and presenters who converged in Montreal from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualseminar.icae.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}