DETROIT – The Detroit to Dakar delegation to the 2011 World Social Forum (WSF) held a “report out” to the Detroit community on March 1 in the Michigan Welfare Right’s Organization offices of the Central United Methodist Church.

All 10 members of the D2D delegation shared personal reflections of their experiences at the WSF which was held February 6-11 at Chekh Anta Diop University in the capitol city of the East African nation of Senegal. Delegation members then took questions from the approximately 40 community members and social rights activist in attendance.

“I’m very proud to have gone on this trip because that grassroots attitude was very strong with everybody who was in our delegation,” said D2D

Coordinator William Copeland. “We really wanted to meet the people from Dakar – whether they were from the social forum or not. It was just that attitude of building on a very real level. Even if the World Social Forum wasn’t about that, I think a lot of people in our group were about taking a grassroots approach, and I was very happy to be with them.”

The D2D delegation was comprised of 10 Detroit activists – each of whom played significant roles in organizing the United States Social Forum (USSF). The USSF was held last June in Detroit and co-hosted by the East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC), the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, Centro Obrero de Detroit, and Southeast Michigan Jobs with Justice.


In addition to Copeland, three other delegation members are affiliated with EMEAC, in Associate Director Ahmina Maxey, Greener Schools Program Director Lizzy Baskerville and Stand Up Speak Out Youth Leader Siwatu Salaama-Ra. Other delegation members are Charity Hicks of the Detroit People’s Water Board Coalition, Detroit Food Justice Task Force and Detroit Black Community Food Security Network; Marieme Ndiaye of the Senegalese Association of Michigan, Joan Smith of the USSF Faith and Spirituality Committee; Oya Amakisi of the Detroit Grassroots Hub, USSF Local Outreach Organizer Michelle Jackson of Smallville Farms and Ronald Bridges also of Smallville Farms.

During the question and answer session, delegation members began by discussing the unexpected disorganization of this year’s WSF, which drew an estimated 75,000 progressives from around the world. It got off to a slow start because of an apparent withdrawal of logistical support by Senegalese authorities in the wake of local unrest over dramatic increases in basic food supplies and the dismantling of publically funded education in the weeks leading up to the WSF. Several delegation members spoke about numerous cancelled workshops during the first three days of the social forum and the fact that most university students became alienated from the WSF.

“I think we really need to critique the whole social forum at a national and international level,” Copeland said. “We need to start opening it up to some of those comments. A lot of the Senegalese folks were very upset with the world social forum. People started off asking, ‘What is the World Social Forum?’ Then it started moving into anger. You just kind of got a sense of that.

“I didn’t know what the whole political structure was. We had (the Detroit Local Organizing Committee) and a lot of other things to put the word out about the U.S. Social Forum. I was telling them some of the things that we did as far as the works projects and just from an organizing perspective on how do you involve people. The World Social Forum was just not on that model.”

Another significant topic of discussion was how the popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt affected the WSF.

“Oya and I worked together with the People’s Movement Assembly and it was really full of emotion when it was announced that Mubarak had been ousted and everyone in the room was going crazy,” said Maxey. “When the announcement came everyone was excited.

“Later a woman from Brazil got up and said local resistance is the only way to get the movement going. She was very much talking about what was happening on the ground, but while we were there it was ripe for the movement.”

Delegation members also pointed out the obvious parallels between the struggles of people around the world against harsh economic cutbacks being imposed on the pretext of government debt. They also drew parallels with the take over attempts of public institutions as they relate to education, water, food and jobs and how those same issues are being contested in Detroit.

“There is a profound movement in the world to put austerity measures on all social programs,” Hicks said. “We have to decide how do we want to live here in Detroit. What’s our quality of life? We have to understand what we hold collectively. We have a common wealth here.

“We’ve got infrastructure. We’ve got public schools. We’ve got all this that is right now in front of our eyes being destroyed. I keep looking for our collective and communal response. Are we going to sit back and let the commons get destroyed and our wealth get obliterated by people who want to commoditize our lives?”

Smith, who previously studied in Africa, agreed. She said although the methods being employed overseas may differ, the effect is the same.

“Hiding something from people and keeping it a secret is also a form of violence to people,” Smith said. “That’s something I could also see here in Detroit with the parallels of food sovereignty and the emergency financial managers. Hiding things is a violent act.”

Maureen Taylor, a long-time advocate for social and economic justice in Detroit and state chair of MWRO said she believed the D2D delegation did the city proud.

“From what Oya, Charity, Will and other folks are saying, I can see what the political benefit is,” said Taylor. “When Charity talks about it, she calls it austerity but it’s a rise in poverty everywhere because people can no longer work.

“It sounds to me like we sent a strong delegation of blacks and whites, men and women from Detroit to Dakar, and we made a statement. I am so pleased that this discussion is like this because we didn’t go over to Africa to punk out. We went over there and people know that Detroit showed up.”