April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

DEMBA MOUSSA DEMBELE: Certainly! The problem of democracy will be one
of the main focuses of activity – the relationship between the state and
civil society, the choosing of African leaders. We have noticed that, with
neocolonialism, the majority of African leaders tend to think that they are
more answerable to the Western powers and international institutions than
to the citizens who elected them. We want leaders who feel responsible
for and answerable to our citizens, not to the West. To this end, they must
be people close to the ideas for which the social movements stand. That is
why we want this roundtable – to bring the political leaders and the
leaders of African institutions together for discussion, to tell them: ‘Your
loyalty must be to Africa, to those who elected you and who trust you and
not to Sarkozy or Obama, to the World Bank or the IMF.’
Moreover, we want to stress the need to expand democracy, because in
our country, as in others, there are monarchist trends. Abdoulaye Wade
wants his son to succeed him – he denies it but his actions prove it. The
Senegalese have said this will not happen here. He tested the waters with
the 2009 municipal elections – he wanted his son to become mayor of
Dakar. However, the polls massively rejected him – a real humiliation. We
are, obviously, fighting for a rejection of the trend to monarchy, for a
deepening of our democracy, for leaders answerable to the people – not to
France or Brussels.
ROSA MOUSSAUOI AND CHANTAL DELMAS: How do you envisage, globally,
the importance of the World Social Forum in relation to the crisis?
DEMBA MOUSSA DEMBELE: I think that the forum should enable the social
movements taking part first of all to make an assessment of 10 years of
struggle against the neoliberal system and be proud of the victories we
have won on the ideological level. We said that all these policies of
privatisation and liberalisation, the policies of the World Bank, the IMF and
the WTO, were leading us to a dead-end, to the destruction of the
economic and social fabric. Now the system is in a deep crisis, and most of
the policies we attacked have been shown to be disastrous, just as we had
foreseen. All in all, the international financial crisis has only demonstrated
that the foundations were fundamentally bad. The forum should enable us
to deepen our critique of the system. We must not rest on our laurels and
say we are satisfied because we were right. We should say: ‘Let’s go
deeper, because the system continues to live and intends to overcome its
problems at the expense of the people.’ We must deepen our critique of
the system, above all in connection with the problems arising from climate
change. All those policies for coming out of the crisis, the co-opting of
emerging countries to accede to the G8 to make a G20 … these are all
issues that were to be re-examined during the Dakar forum. Capitalism is
in a crisis – but it is still here.
Second, in the course of the forum, we needed an emphasis on all the
anti-systemic struggles, in the North as in the South – all the struggles
against capitalism, but also against the imperialist system of all-out
intervention and oppression of peoples. We must give voice to all the
movements, all the organisations that are struggling, in their different
ways in different parts of the world, to build resistance against the system
and against imperialism.
Third, we have said that another world is possible. However, for us this is
an opportunity not only to demonstrate the bankruptcy of the neoliberal
capitalist system but also to say: ‘This is what we have proposed for this
sector’, ‘this is what we propose for overcoming the crisis’ and ‘this is
what we are proposing at the national, European and African levels – and
also at the world level.’ What new policy, what new institutions must be