Date:08/01/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/01/08/stories/2003010805641200.htm

National

'Time for masses to rewrite history'

By W. Chandrakanth

HYDERABAD Jan. 7. The six-day Asian Social Forum summit which concluded here on Tuesday said it was time to `rewrite history' but it should be done by the toiling masses and not by the international and national political rulers, racist, casteist and religious communal chieftains and global corporate regimes and business houses.

The summit said present history was being written by the international and national market agents and their institutions and governments which have only plunder as their goal and no concern for the commoner.

The summit began with a question ``is another world possible?'' In all 14,426 delegates, including 780 foreigners, 840 organisations, 160 seminars and 164 workshops deliberated on the question.

The insight into the struggles that people so far only heard or read about strengthened with first-hand accounts of exploitation.

Definition and negation of identities by the post-colonial State, environmental concerns, impact of globalisation on marginalised communities and Dalits, population politics and conflicts in West and Central Asia were hotly debated.

As the economic issues came to the fore, it became clear that a vast majority was suffering in silence and the responsibility of the knowledgeable ones was even greater.

A common theme in every forum was the predicament of women and children.

The summit heard the sufferings inflicted on women in social, economical and cultural spheres by the neo-liberal policies of the Governments, more so in India by the cultural nationalism of the BJP and Sangh Parivar.

The ills of imperialist globalisation discussed threw greater focus on the need for forming a global citizenship.

The summit gave names and faces to the cold statistics and `collateral damage' of market-led and capital-centric globalisation.

The meet asserted the right of the deprived and showed, how despite all the hardships, the victims of the new order are still celebrating life.

It said that a people-centric paradigm would make it possible to live life as a celebration in contrast to a life where consolidation of capital and profits robbed life of contentment and dignity.

The summit also cleared certain doubts regarding struggles being waged ``elsewhere'' in the world. The delegates left with a feeling that none of them was working on problems peculiar to them only. Whether in Pakistan or Palestine, be it Argentina or Bolivia or Sri Lanka, the struggles were all integral to their own and not independent of each other.

Noted political-economist, Samir Amin left with the hope that a Southern Front would be formed to fight imperialist globalisation and the South was told ``Don't Owe, Don't Pay''.