Our final hours in Nairobi

The internet went down in the whole Kasarani complex two days ago (shortly after my post) and so yesterday I was unable to catch you all up on the happenings. There's so much that I want to say right now, but I'm sitting without my notes in yet another cyber cafe that keeps losing connection to the internet satellite. But who needs notes when you've got memory? I'll of course add much more once I get back to NYC, but the World Social Forum has been a really fascinating juxtaposition of social activism, elitism and simultaneous challenge to corporate and neoliberal globalization with active participation in the exact system that its very nature is meant to resist. What I'm trying to say is that the WSF, a space for the world's marginalised peoples to actively challenge neoliberal economic power and violence, is being sponsored by CelTel, a global cellular technology company. Strange, no? The Kasarani stadium complex is surrounded by neighboring slum villages wherein thousands of Kenyans live in unbelievable poverty. The WSF had entry fees on a sliding scale depending on one's home country (the North paid the most), but even the 500 shilling entry fee for Kenyans was too much for the people of the slums in Nairobi and beyond and so they were denied entry into what is allegedly the very space in which they should have the loudest voice. In response to this discrimination, the youth and adults of the slums staged large protests outside of the stadium and demanded free entry, free water and free food for Kenyans. There have been so many contradictions amidst some serious discussion and spirited idea exchanges at this 7th World Social Forum. And while I have had a difficult time trying to make sense of it all, it remains clear that the need for this space and the actions that come out of the WSF make the global meeting necessary. But there is always room for dialogue about the internal tensions and the latent consequences of these kinds of meetings: who's left out? who decides what? how does this meeting reproduce the same problematic paradigms that it challenges? Tonight I'll board a plane to begin the 24 hour journey back to New York (with a nice little eight-hour layover in Amsterdam) and will use that time to reflect and think properly on how I can move forward from this phenomenal and confusing experience. And I'm sure many of you will get to walk with me through the journey of trying to understand all of this. Oh yeah: who wants to come with me to the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta this summer (27 June to 1 July)?!?