by Shrishtee Bajpai — shrishteebajpai@gmail.com
Two sessions on the proposal for an Earth Vikalp Sangam (EVS) / Global AlternativesAre activities and initiatives, concepts, worldviews, or action proposals by collectives, groups, organizations, communities, or social movements challenging and replacing the dominant system that perpetuates inequality, exploitation, and unsustainabiity. In the GTA we focus primarily on what we call "radical or transformative alternatives", which we define as initiatives that are attempting to break with the dominant system and take paths towards direct and radical forms of political and economic democracy, localised self-reliance, social justice and equity, cultural and knowledge diversity, and ecological resilience. Their locus is neither the State nor the capitalist economy. They are advancing in the process of dismantling most forms of hierarchies, assuming the principles of sufficiency, autonomy, non-violence, justice and equality, solidarity, and the caring of life and the Earth. They do this in an integral way, not limited to a single aspect of life. Although such initiatives may have some kind of link with capitalist markets and the State, they prioritize their autonomy to avoid significant dependency on them and tend to reduce, as much as possible, any relationship with them. Confluence (GAC)1) were organised during the International Degrowth Conference in Malmo, Sweden. The first gathering on 21st August focused on proposing the idea of the conference and getting the sense of need and feasibility of a EVS/GAC, while the second session on 24th August aimed at getting a few more inputs on what could GAC possibly look like. About 30 to 40 people attended each of these sessions, several of them representatives of various networks, diverse initiatives, groups, and social movements. The sessions had stimulating discussions on what is an alternative, need of the EVS/GAC process, underlying principles that could be used for the process, and a possible structure. The moderators however ensured that these discussions remain open-ended and exploratory, since the idea of such a Confluence is still tentative.
The Vikalp Sangam (Alternatives confluence) India process that started in 2014 was briefly introduced. The aim of VS process is to provide a platform to constructively challenge the current ‘development’ paradigm, and bring together practitioners, thinkers, researchers of alternative initiatives to learn from each other, build alliances and collectively evolve alternative practices, concepts and futures that are ecologically sustainable and socio-economically equitable.
A brief background to the need to have a similar confluence at the international level was put forth. Recognising that there are various alternatives that exist in other parts of the world as scattered movements with common threads, the GAC could enable to bring these threads together. Also to understand, how different movements are trying to reconceptualise democracy, who controls the economy, what are the values and principles of transformative alternatives.
Questions posed for discussion:
Some of the key discussions points that came up:
Some suggested principles: - Inclusive - Process oriented and collaborative - Open-minded - Sharing and caring- earth care, people care. - Self-reflection and self critical - Non –hierarchal, non- racial, non-masculine so that it could be a safe space for creation. - Trust building amongst the groups - Direct democracy. - Sense of community and ownership of the process. - Dynamic process that evolves with changing times. - Sympathetic communication, love, respect and kindness
To keep the conversation and process going, a core team was formed, consisting of: Marta Music (who will peg the core team to start with), Vasna Ramasar, Enric Duran, Tonny Nowshin, Siri Kjellberg, Adam Kajka, Shrishtee Bajpai, Ashish Kothari.
The listed tasks for the core group (these are not fixed, they are meant to evolve along the process):
Additionally, several participants volunteered to spread the idea in their networks, and inform the core team of responses. In small groups during both sessions, participants also listed other networks and global processes to which the EVS/GAC could link.