Articles
North-South School 2000
- Parent Category: IIRE Activities
- Category: Courses at IIRE
North-South School 2000: Focus on Africa , Islam, Women
From 4 to 25 November 2000, 18 people from
12 different countries came to the IIRE for the
We also had participants from the Middle
East - two from
The discussion in the school covered topics
from an in-depth look at the neoliberal globalization process, with its impact
on the South and the North - every participant had something to say on this
subject! - to the differing role of states in Europe and
Another interesting area of exchange was the
role of women in our political analysis and organizations. These lectures and
discussions revealed major differences between people's analysis and
experiences in different countries. Not all participants saw feminist demands
as inherent to a working class analysis, particularly given the presence of
participants from very diverse political backgrounds. This may have been the
first IIRE session at which a participant had previously had political
education in the former
In any event, the debate over feminism and
the workers' movement is always a useful one to review, especially now given
the impact of neoliberal globalization on women. There was also a women's
meeting held to share information about the women's liberation work conducted
in each country. One particularly exciting discovery was that the women from
In the final evaluations, the participants
felt that the school had been a significant experience in their political
development and wanted to continue their discussions after they had returned
home. They all took back to their countries this intense educational training
as well as the experience of living and working together at the IIRE. All were
planning on helping prepare their groups to send other participants to future
North-South Schools. The evaluation made clear that these participants will be
able to use the planned IIRE website to help with many tasks - advance reading,
follow-up study, linking up with educational programmes in their own countries
- that have always been among the trickiest for us.
Our ability to help so many participants
attend from desperately poor countries was due in large part to generous
support from the Jakob Moneta Stiftung of