Dakar to Detroit: Reconstructing a people-centered alternative

DETROIT TO DAKAR STATEMENT

Having deliberated on the living conditions of communities and peoples and seeing the appalling manifestation of failed neo-liberal economic policies, destructive consequences of unbridled global apartheid, poverty, lack of sovereignty and negative external influences we commit ourselves to resistance and reconstructing a people-centered alternative.

We recognize the power of many more and make a commitment to link with other progressive struggles and call on others to stand in solidarity with this cause.

Poverty in our communities is manifested through dependence on development aid, overt capital flight, odious debt repayments, a delayed reparations agenda and lack of fair trade. Because neocolonialism has negated our sovereignty we are used as a dumping ground for toxic waste damaging our environment, and causing climate change. Furthermore, this impedes on sustainable agriculture, food sovereignty, land sovereignty and family and small-scale farming.

In claiming our national sovereignty we are claiming back an authentic people driven governance and economic transformation agenda. This agenda must recognize and reject external interference and place social and economic rights as fundamental pillars of human dignity. In that regard we insist that the right to education, the right to health care, food, the right to work, the right to housing, the right to clean water are inherent and inalienable and that it is the obligation of the State to guarantee access to these rights for all. The legitimacy of the State itself must be derived from its ability to uphold and deliver these rights.

Against this background we reject militarism and police brutality and all other tools of coercion used by states to oppress, silence, dispossess, dehumanize and marginalize the people. We condemn the use of militarism by powerful western countries, principally the U.S. and its allies to undermine national sovereignty and facilitate corporate exploitation. We reject the economic, political, and climatic conditions that lead to forced migration and its sinister cousin human trafficking. The development of our nations dependence on a sustainable, diverse and well-developed skills base that we are loosing to forced migration.

The myriad global economic, political, cultural and ecological crises show the unsustainability and decay of the prevailing world order and create opportunities to imagine a new reality that places people at the center. This includes re-imagining a citizenship concept that is trans global, borderless and inclusive. In this imagination we reconnect with our essence and draw upon the richness of our indigenous knowledge, our cultural heritages, and inspiration of generations of our peoples’ struggle.

This inspires us to recreate a reality consistent with our aspirations in which healthcare, education, technology and other things essential to our being are central and guaranteed. In reclaiming ourselves we must affirm our cultures, imagery, dance, song, literature, language and resist the tyranny and imposition of western culture through global mass media. We desire and demand solutions to current dilemmas and construct a new world in which there is balance between ourselves and the earth, between men and women, between communities and peoples, between generations and within ourselves.

We call upon others to join in fighting these struggles and realizing these aspirations by building a popular global movement through:

- Deepening networks between Afrika and the Diaspora
- Strengthening solidarity between sectors, struggles and organizations and peoples movements
- Sharing information, insights and experiences
- Leveraging the collective and growing network of peoples at key moments such as the World Social Forum, Climate Conferences, WTO meetings, MDG meetings and other community, national and international moments
- Using various creative IT and media strategies to support network and alliance building
- Using good old fashioned organizing tools and methods to build awareness, solidarity and platforms of collective action

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