User:Book/BlogEntry: 2008 March 20 10:35:40 EAT

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Revision as of 07:49, 20 March 2008

Yesterday and today I have in various ways tried to protest against the still on-going (since 5 years!!) war in Iraq, but I have also participated in the yearly meeting of the Network Institute for Global Democratization, which takes place via email, because the members of the NIGD are spread over the continents. Only some ten or twenty NIGD members (out of a hundred or so; these are mostly academic activist-researchers) take part in that "virtual" annual meet. The NIGD also has a posting list for all the members. Here is what I sent to the nigd-list this morning:

Dear all,

during the on-going yearly meeting of the NIGD, and more precisely while
we are discussing our action plan (I use the present form, because the
meeting is going on in the virtual time-space, which is called writing, or
literature), Heikki (the chair of the meeting), has noted: 

"In 2008, however, I believe that the WSF process has already lost its
momentum and that the time is now ripe for more far-reaching
alternatives."

In order not to disturb the proceedings of the annual meeting, I prefer to
make my comment in this larger forum. 

In my opinion, the form which the World Social Forum was given by its
first participants in Porto Alegre, is our epochal alternative. Therefore,
if the WSF has lost its momentum, we need to build a new momentum. And if
the WSF does not reach far enough, which is true, we need to solve that
problem. I figure that the internet and the library are and will remain
very important parts of the solution.  The library, the internet and the
WSF ought to have one and the same form. 

Warm regards,

  - Mikael

PS Sven-Eric Liedman, the Swedish historian of ideas, constates that
there is a whole family of form-words. Originally, these words 
denoted the outlines of the objects. However, as soon as we start to
reflect on those words, form starts to signify something which is internal
to the object of which it is the form. "The form also becomes, as
Aristotle said, *that which makes a thing into what it is* " (Liedman:
Stenarna i Sj�len. Form och materia fr�n antiken till idag. Bonnier
poacket 2007 p 15).