Feminists that comprise the Coordinating Group of the 3rd Feminist Dialogues gathered together during the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya to examine the various issues they face in working across movements. What challenges have they identified in forging intermovement collaboration?

The World Social Forum brings together a diversity of perspectives on how to bring about social change. One of the more controversial issues facing social movements is the need to collaborate among change agents whose principles and ideologies might be at cross purposes. This is especially true where feminists have had to deal directly with militarisation, fundamentalism, and fundamentalist groups.

“Controversy Dialogue,” a panel organised by the Coordinating Group of the Feminist Dialogues at the 2007 World Social Forum, was designed to present the real circumstances in which feminists have had to work across movements, and the strategies they use in these circumstances. Whether the different positions are effecting unity among feminists working in the different regions was also examined.

Norma Enriquez of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM) explained that within and among movements working in different parts of the globe, some feminists have found it necessary to form alliances with fundamentalists of different types in order to face other forms of fundamentalisms.

The panel served as a space for feminists to explore the different perspectives on working across movements. Brimming issues on the complicated relationships between fundamentalists and peace and peace movements have also surfaced during the discussions.

“We have to make a distinction between conservatives who may have distinctive ideas, and fundamentalists who may have conservative ideas and impose them on other people. It may be possible to work with conservatives, perhaps even to change their ideas, but not with fundamentalists. Not all groups labeled “fundamentalists” by the War on Terrorism are fundamentalists,” warned Ayesha Imam of Women Living Under Muslim Laws.

Imam said that groups seeking to work with local movements would need to check with women’s groups, human rights groups, and progressives in the local context. She likewise warned that groups that use democratic language or human rights language may have yet fundamentalist ideologies.

Samia Allalou, of Algeria-based 20 Years Enough, recounted her country’s experience with the rise of Islamist fundamentalist groups. She recalled how the Islamist faction in Algeria initiated and created social networks in the 1980s. They then formed political party in 1992, and were able to win seats in municipal and legislative elections. When the country’s electoral body revoked their status as a political party, Islamist party members went abroad and portrayed themselves as victims in the European media and made contacts with peace movements in the region, while eventually forging stronger ties with radical violent groups. She cited this as the reason why her organisation is against cultural relativism, fundamentalism, and communitarianism.

Paola Gasparelli of Iraq-based Un Ponte Per has worked with Iraqi civil society at the beginning of the US war on Iraq. She observed how religious pressure became rampant in Iraq in from 2003 to 2004. Islamists and fundamentalists are seeking control not just in political ways but in daily life. Wearing of black abayas (chador or traditional full black dress) was enforced. Soon after the occupation of foreign forces that ousted Saddam Hussein, Iraqi women started to organise themselves. Meanwhile, the provisional government initiated an effort to revise the Family Law. Women were divided—one women’s group did not want the revisions of laws established under Saddam Hussein since these at least granted equality to women, while another group of women organised by religious leaders supported the imposition of Shari'a (which are based on traditional interpretations of Islamic law).

Some secular women retained alliances with the women who were affiliated with religious parties, continuing to dialogue with them, because they understand the role of families, communities, and religious leaders among the citizens, and the pressure towards religious ideology.

Maty Diaw of The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) recounted her experience as a Muslim, working in an African context. Once based in Senegal, Diaw said that it is still possible to work with fundamentalists. “We need to know and understand their discourse. We need to know their strategy. We need to know the defences to their arguments. And once we know how they think, we need to come up with an alternative to their discourse.”

She said she was able to talk to a fundamentalist group in Senegal regarding the reading of the Qur’an for community law, in an effort to get responses regarding the women’s human rights and to make strategic alliances with this group. One particular woman from Senegal responded to Diaw’s statement, saying that Islamic fundamentalists in Senegal would still be impossible to work with because of their insistence on their own discourse and ideology. The Islamists’ failure to put up a political party led them to lobby for changes in the family law, in an attempt to erode the advances in women’s rights that have been achieved by secular law.

The whole session was more of a sharing of issues among those who had worked within or alongside fundmentalist regimes. Issues that were raised here were brought to a strategy meeting of global campaigns that was held on January 23, 2007 at the World Social Forum (see related article on “Global campaign against fundamentalism in the offing”).