The word "philosopher" does not always mean total disconnection between
the world of ideas and the world of everyday life. For the Cuban
philosophers in GALFISA (Grupo de “América Latina: Filosofía Social y
Axiología” - Group "Latin America: Social Philosophy and Axiology)
their
profession is also a way of resisting and they accompany the struggle
ledThe word "philosopher" does not always mean total disconnection between
the world of ideas and the world of everyday life. For the Cuban
philosophers in GALFISA (Grupo de “América Latina: Filosofía Social y
Axiología” - Group "Latin America: Social Philosophy and Axiology)
their
profession is also a way of resisting and they accompany the struggle
led
by grassroots movements agains neoliberalism. Such themes as
diversity,
the exclusion of women and the role of academia in the context of the
continent today were touched upon in a brief interview with Gilberto
Valdés Gutiérrez, the coordinator of GALFISA.

"GALFISA has come to the VI World Social Forum to participate in the
World
Court of Women, along with other organisations such as the World March
of
Women, the Network of Intellectuals in Defence of Humanity and the
Memorial Center Martin Luther King, Jr (CMMLK). The essence of the
Court
is to show the diverse forms of violence - economic, political, social
and
simbolic - that are generated by patriarcal civilization, which is in
itself exclusive and predatory and is something that we all want to
change. It is not only on a whim that the Court joins the Forum
through
the axis of power and struggles for emancipation. It is that we are
attempting to construct new alternatives and new paradigms and we
imagine
projects shared by women and men.

"During the Court voices of hope and their alternatives will be heard,
not
with the idea of unifying and losing diversity, but with the purpose of
weaving together the distinct forms of resistance, cosmologies and
liberating perspectives that, today, confront imperialist and
neoliberal
thought."

Expectations for the Forum

"I believe that all the organisations present in the Court know that
you
can't struggle without an identity and that it is important for the
struggles of resistance to grow out of identities. We talk about
non-atomized identities because we believe that diversity is one of the
characteristics of grassroots social movements. Although many
different
readings of diversity exist, it is not about saying "here are the
indigenous people", "here are the people of African descent", "here are
the peasants", and "here are the urban labourers". Instead, it is a
question of seeing what unifies us all and what are the challenges that
we
confront together without being irrespectful of the distinct
perspectives
and ways that exist to confront the world-colonizing powers".

Academia with its "feet planted on the ground"

“Nosotros somos un grupo pequeño de hombres y mujeres del Instituto de
Filosofía de la Habana que centra su investigación en los movimientos
sociales y las alternativas que se dan en la América Latina. Nos
vinculamos a la educación popular y hemos participado en Cortes de
Mujeres
realizadas en Asia, África y los Estados Unidos. Queremos que la
academia
no ande “por los aires”, que se vincule realmente a las urgencias y las
reflexiones del momento, y que contribuya a la articulación de todas
esas
riquezas potenciales que hoy se enfrentan al poder”.
"We are a small groups of men and women from the Institute of
Philosophy
in Havana that focusses its research on social movements and the
alternatives generated in Latin America. We link ourselves with
popular
education and we have participated in the Women's Court in Asia, Africa
and the United States. We want academia to take it's head out of the
clouds, truly link itself to the needs and thoughts of the moment and
contribute to the articulation of all this potential wealth that today
confronts the structures of power.

Trans. Amanda Procter