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.