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Gigi Francisco's Intervention at the World Education Forum (Capitalist Crisis, Causes, Impact & Consequences for the World of Education)
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Gigi Francisco, representing DAWN and the International Council on Adult Education (ICAE), was on the Opening Plenary of the World Education Forum at the Thematic Social Forum. Sergio Haddad of ABONG and Nilida Cespedes of CEAAL were also in the panel in speaking on the topic “Capitalist crisis, causes, impact and consequences for the world of education.” The plenary was held in the morning of 24 January 2012 at the UFRGS Reitoria.
Gigi later joined DAWN Board member Celita Eccher, DAWN Executive Committee member Nicole Bidegain, DTI alumna Monica Novillo from Bolivia in the opening manifestation.
WORLD EDUCATION FORUM
9AM – 12 noon, UFRGS Reitoria, POA
Title: Capitalist crisis, causes, impact and consequences for the world of education
Gigi Francisco
Nelida Cespedes
Sergio Haddad
Intervention by Gigi Francisco, DAWN
1. Today, we are living in a fierce world that has changed the configuration of our social fights and, thus, also the demands on our specific struggles in education for transformation. In the time given to me, let me speak briefly about some characteristics of this fierce new world that may be relevant to us, who are educators.
2. The capitalist elites that are at the forefront of accumulation and political power are now increasingly unable to comfort the public and to effectively respond to social issues that have exploded at once, simultaneously, and with extreme consequences for whole societies found in the north, south, east and west of our planet. The social contracts that capitalists have reached with various publics and social groups everywhere- including trade unions, educators, the poor, etc- have been broken into pieces. All these have resulted from the elites’ reckless and runaway drive for financial accumulation. In their continuing search for corporate profits, capitalist elites have been further exposed by their singular preoccupation with efficiency and growth, which today has broken any pretense and accommodation in their social contracts with various publics, of the higher values for life, conviviality, rights and well-being for all.
3. Social care / reproduction together with the health of our planetary system have been condemned to a secondary role behind the market. The dominant thinking is that, first, we must extract and commercialize both natural and labor resources and that the best way to do so is through economies of scales. Only then can we talk about care and sustainable development. Feminists have long ago exposed the externalization of reproductive work to women and raised the horrific consequences on human development of the neglect of social care by a patriarchal system that operates as a distinct element in present day capitalism. As well, we must listen to our sisters and brothers from indigenous people’s movements and communities that are in the forefront of struggles over the defense of natural resource bases and the well-being of the natural world that has supported life on our planet. Hence, in addition to gender and economic justice, we should all be working on ecological justice as well. Now is the time to promote a more comprehensive and inter-related view of justice because with the uncertainties and unpredictability of our environment, we are less certain of the time we still have on this planet to do so.
4. One important aspect is the emergence of a fragmented multilateralism to which the elites of the world are responding by invoking the primacy of more accumulation using market based mechanisms and policies. There are battles everywhere in the global governance system– fractures in sustainable development that we won in Rio 20 years ago; setbacks in climate change negotiations and around the Kyoto Protocol; a looming reversal by states on their guarantees of sexual and reproductive rights that we had won in ICPD; and dismal outcomes on MDGs. Indeed, we have a huge crisis in global governance as well and Rio+20 will be a site where the public will greatly challenge the states to tell them that we cannot have business as usual; that the green economy is not about corporate rights, and that we need to, once and for all, address systemic issues and to systematically alter corporate extraction and commodification toward an alternative world.
5. There is now a direct and head-on contest between the capitalist elites that are driven by the expansion of corporate power and us, educators, whose principal commitment is to a kind of education that will drive humanity toward a sustainable future. Let me illustrate this. Corporations in the United States like Apple are still growing but are now saying that the government of Obama cannot expect them to generate jobs in the United States because the workers there have become either too educated or not educated enough to fill their labor requirements. One of these is their search for engineers that will lead in the application of technological innovations on new product development. That is one reality. The other reality is that in my country and in other parts of the developing world, there are more scholarships available for engineering – marine, microbiology, etc – than for the social and human sciences. This is because corporations are underwriting the education of more engineers to fill the demands of their global businesses. And my country’s government, which has a small budget, cannot provide the same level of incentives and public support to educate more of their people in other intellectual realms. It cannot even adequately support a public educational system for children and young people.
6. Western corporate capitalists have broken their social contracts with their governments and their publics. And they are doing this without any social conscience and a cold rational that drives all corporate capitalists. Perhaps in our countries we still have corporate capitalists that have committed to generate more jobs and that underwrite our anti-poverty programs, but let us also learn from history and from what is happening around us – corporations will stay not to fulfill lofty principles, but to make the most out of low productions cost, faster production, and more profit in the shortest possible time.
8. Given this, it is no wonder that the 99 percent of the publics in western countries are indignant and have brought their rage to the streets, opening the way for a new moment in our global resistances against corporate capitalism. My plea to educators is to imbibe the spirit of such resistances, take this forward, influence our co-activists, colleagues and trade unionists that are now in government to move with us forward, specially to resist big country bullying and corporate control in the forthcoming Rio +20.
9. In ending, I want to say that all of us from outside Brazil and Latin America have high hopes that Rio+20 will be a moment of victory for the people and for sustainable development. So on my very first day of coming back to Porto Alegre, I ask our friends from the Brazilian government to make this a reality, to continue staying with the people and to fulfill this special moment in Brazilian politics has its roots in the people’s resistances. Let us not fail the 99 percent in our part of the world.
Gigi’s response to questions and comments on the floor:
I am not so sure if money that is used and managed by cooperatives technically forms part of the capitalist elites that I was talking about. I think if there is a way to exchange goods and services outside of monetary systems that people will do so but our monetized economies are so entrenched that, by and large, we cannot spare our socially oriented economic projects from operating within it.
What system should we be thinking about and working towards? We have to create that system through the inter-linking of struggles at all levels. And as a feminist, some of the elements of that changed system are women’s human rights, autonomy and the feminist principles of inclusivity, non discrimination and non violence. The change of mindset is most important.
We now know from our experiences on the ground – not from theories - that those in power are not homogenous. They are also in competition with each other. We also know that government is not monolithic. Further that our social practices are not simply automated or captured by culture in a static way. We also learned that the process of struggle has many turns, some of them unexpected. Allies in the past may no longer be allies at the present time.
That we are all capable of reflection and reflexive processes, and that we often move from one moment of dilemma to another, assures me that the social fights for an alternative world will continue.
One area that we should endeavor to look at more closely and systematize our learning from is that of social change and social movements. This, I believe, has been energized by the processes of the WSF. Even among ourselves, we are advocating for our particular ideas and experiments to be socialized, recognized, discussed more widely, and integrated into the core of our political reflections. I believe we need to continue doing this and to always have the courage to be self-critical, to engage in resistances, and to listen to and be on the side of ordinary and discriminated people that are often the first victims of injustice.
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Gigi Francisco’s Comments on the Synthesis Report on ICAE’s Virtual Seminar, “Education in a World in Crisis: Limits and Possibilities facing RIO +20,” by Jorge Osorio
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Presented at the panel on Capitalist Crisis and New Paradigms, Working Group on Education, UFRGS-Reitoria, 14:00 – 16:00, January 25, 2012
First of all, let me congratulate the Working Group on Education and, in particular, Jorge Osorio for this incredible feat of providing a clear and rounded synthesis to a wide range of diverse ideas and proposals in the virtual seminar. His synthesis has been shared far and wide, thanks to the power of the internet. It is now a tool out there that can be used to generate further discussions and debates for catalyzing new thinking and teaching practices. I was asked to comment on his synthesis of part 1 - global context - and to link this with RIO+20 as an opportunity to deepen new paradigms. I will begin my comment by highlighting what Jorge had written about the role of education in this moment of global crisis, which is found toward the end of his synthesis paper. According to him:
“… education is understood as a process of capacity building of individuals and their communities, which enables them to organize, express themselves, speak, associate, act in networks, understand the coordinates of the current crisis and participate in the generation of a ‘global and local public opinion’ that is critical and deliberative. Education should consider as a crucial issue, the contents of a paradigmatic transformation of social thought, political and economic, to imagine and create the cultural conditions of a new way to ‘set’ the future.”
It is clear from the above that education is first and foremost about people and people’s capacities. While this may seem to be rather straightforward, in actual practice, I wonder how much of our ideas and the way we had taught were in fact driven by our concern for people – the women, men, children, old people, gays, lesbians, transgenders and transsexuals, indigenous peoples, workers, rural poor, homeless, black people, and many other social groups. I even wonder that of myself. As a teacher, how much weight have I given to the learner, as against perhaps what the educational institutions or the educational ministry or the educational experts or the government in power or the owners of private educational institutions or even the religious congregations that continue to run large universities have to say?
We are also reminded by Jorge that in the context of this fierce world:
“The theme of ‘subjectivity’ is a key aspect in the current public education. It is liberating to restore a sense of empowerment processes, understood as the development of civic and methodological resources for politics, generate knowledge, enhance knowledge and learning that occur in the democratic struggle… and the ongoing need of ‘radical-pragmatic weight’ (unpublished - possible, as Paulo Freire would say) in the definition of agreements, consensus and association with the diversity of political actors without sacrificing undisputed tests such as human rights, non-discrimination for any reason whatsoever, sexism, social ‘disposability’ due to cultural, health or religious stigmas.”
This point brings me to a small placard that I saw yesterday at the opening march of this thematic forum. After the downpour, I saw the placard lying on the ground beside a small group of young women and men who were trying to fix their very wet black colored clothes. I stopped and took a picture of the placard. The sign said “Sem autonomía das mulheres, nao ha democracia. Legalizacao do aborto JA!”
I believe this message powerfully brought home the point of what we mean by education as a process of capacity building and empowerment. Without women’s personal autonomy, which includes her right to control her body and sexuality, there could never be real democracy. As far as I can recall, women’s reproductive rights, including abortion, had been enshrined as one of the “undisputed tests of human rights” that the contributors to the virtual seminar said should not be “sacrificed”, as found in Jorge’s synthesis.
Sadly, however, I do not find enough elaboration of this concept of women’s autonomy and women’s rights in our political discourse. Instead, when it comes to signifiers of women that is repeatedly invoked, we speak of women as “nurturers,” “carers,” “workers,” and “leaders.” This is not to say that the concepts are unimportant. On the contrary, they are very important and my organization, DAWN, has raised these as well in various forums, the WSF included. So we should celebrate that these notions are now within the ambit of our progressive discourse towards alternatives. Yet, once again, we are silent about another set of rights that are of equal importance. Here, I am referring to women’s (and men’s) sexual and reproductive rights. As feminists and progessives, we have the responsibility to raise these in our debates. Or else, we will be reproducing female subjects all over again as incomplete and subordinated subjects, preferring to highlight their function as nurturers, welcoming them to share power and decision-making, but nevertheless continuing to bound their bodies and sexualities to the patriarchal control by men, state and religion.
Let me raise an inconvenient truth, to borrow a phrase from Al Gore, who by the way I have disagreements with in regards to his policy proposals. Nevertheless, the title of his documentary is quite appropriate, I believe, for what I have to say. The term “Inconvenient Truth” also makes us recall that climate change issues are going to be central to our debates on sustainable development at Rio+20.
What is my inconvenient truth?
I want to say that Brazil’s National System of Registration, Tracking and Follow up of Pregnant and Puerperal Women for the Prevention of Maternal Mortality or, for short, MP 557 issued on 26 December 2011, violates women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the autonomy to decide on when to or not to get pregnant, including the right to abortion. The reference to the “unborn child” in the law and the provision of incentives to pregnant women need to be challenged and widely debated for their implication to women’s overall status and empowerment.
Chapter Five of Agenda 21 on Social and Economic Dimensions contain relevant agreements that can be used to test the policy’s alignment with existing human rights guarantees.
Section 5.12 states, “Awareness should be increased of the fundamental linkages between improving the status of women and demographic dynamics, particularly through women's access to education, primary and reproductive health care programmes, economic independence and their effective, equitable participation in all levels of decision-making.”
Furthermore, section 5.66 states, “The recommendations contained in this chapter should in no way prejudice discussions at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, which will be the appropriate forum for dealing with population and development issues, taking into account the recommendations of the International Conference on Population, held in Mexico City in 1984, 1/ and the Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, 2/ adopted by the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace, held in Nairobi in 1985.”
Given existing national legislation and regulation, and the recent CEDAW comments on Brazil, we need to ask how will MP 557 realize this section of Agenda 21. We also need to ask what is happening in many other local places and national contexts in regard to women’s (and men’s) sexual and reproductive rights. For we cannot speak of our “agents of change the subjects who may develop a new way of democratic citizenship from the margins of the ‘establishment’, from the struggle against discrimination,” as Jorge refers to, if we continue to self-regulate our discourses by invisibilizing such inconvenient truths.
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CAIRO+20 (Featuring: The UN Dev't Agenda Beyond 2015/ICPD Beyond 2014 -- The Global Context by Gita Sen)
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Click the DOWNLOAD button below to view Gita Sen's presentation
For more resources on Rio+20 and Cairo+20, click HERE
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RIO+20 (Featuring: Virtual Exchange: Education in a World in Crisis: Limitations & Possibilities with a View Toward Rio+20)
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RESOURCES on RIO+20 & CAIRO+20 (UN Conference on Sustainable Dev't; International Conference on Population & Dev't)
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RIO+20 (United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development)
-7 Deadly Steps: Bauxite Mining in Fiji
-Civil Society Groups: Stop the Spice Project
-Cook Islands Women's NGO at the Pacific Islands Forum
-Education in a World in Crisis: Limits and Possibilities Facing Rio+20 (Comments by Gigi Francisco)
-Gender, Economic and Ecological Justice (GEEJ)
-GEEJ Pacific Input into the UNCSD Sub-Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Pacific
-Intervention by Anita Nayar at the Rio+20 Intersessional
-Intervention by Gigi Francisco at the World Education Forum
-Marketization of Climate Change
-Open Letter to the Climate Response Fund and the Scientific Organizing Commitee
-Pacific Civil Society Says: 'Slow down! Experimental Seabed Mining is not a Sustainable Deveopment Option
-Protect the Environment Through Sound Technologies
-Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives
-Top Down Planet Hackers Call for Bottom-Up Governance: Geoengineer's Bid to Establish Voluntary
Regime Must be Opposed
-Virtual Exchange: 'Education in a World in Crisis: Limitations and Possibilities with a View to Rio+20' (With Contributions from Gita Sen and Gigi Francisco)
-Women's Major Group Statement: Asia-Pacific Regional Preparatory Meeting for Rio+20
CAIRO+20 (International Conference on Population and Development)
-Africa: Preparing for Cairo+5
-Cairo+5: Poor Results
-Gearing Up for Cairo+5
-ICPD+5: Back to the Future?
-DAWN Informs Supplement on ICPD+15
-Implementing Cairo: Good News, Recurrent Bottlenecks, Challenges Ahead
-Implementing ICPD: Moving Forward in the Eye of the Storm
-Is Sexuality a Non-Negotiable Component of Cairo Agenda?
-Our Rights, Our Lives: Women's Call to Action Toward Cairo+20
-RESURJ (Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice) by 2015
-The UN Development Agenda Beyond 2015/ICPD Beyond 2014
-Weighing Up Cairo (Introduction by Sonia Correa)
Visit this PAGE for more resources on DAWN's analyses
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