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Learning for Global Democracy

On 1-3 September 2010 the Building Global Democracy programme convened a discussion in Delhi, India to explore learning processes that could enhance democracy in a more global world. The workshop was one of the main activities of BGD’s Learning for Global Democracy project.

In line with BGD’s aim to promote veritably global engagements, the Delhi discussion involved 50 persons from 28 countries spread across all world regions. The group was also richly diverse in age, culture, gender, political orientation, race and vocation.

Our findings shared

The present statement seeks to offer larger audiences a flavour of these three days of exchanges. It is impossible for any summary to capture the full breadth and depth of the conversations. Nor does this document present a consensus statement of the participants. On the contrary, the deliberations were the more interesting and productive for their many diversities and dissonances.

For a fuller exploration of the issues, this account of debates around learning for global democracy can be read in conjunction with the summary account of the preceding BGD workshop at Cairo on questions of Conceptualising Global Democracy. Other steps in the BGD journey will follow in further future workshops. 

1. Like the Cairo conversation before it, the Delhi workshop revealed much ambiguity and contestation around key BGD concepts, including in this case ‘citizenship’, ‘learning’, ‘global’ and ‘democracy’. Arguably these terms need major renovation in the context of building global democracy.
    
2. Learning does not necessarily enhance global democracy. The qualities of particular learning processes are key in determining whether or not global democracy is thereby advanced.
    
3. Sometimes unlearning is just as important for global democracy, for example, in relation to habits of prejudice, hatred, violence and ecological degradation. Unlearning anti-democratic ‘traditional values’ and/or colonially imposed knowledge is also needed in many parts of the world.
    
4. To assess the implications for global democracy of one or the other learning process it is crucial to ask a number of critical questions: what is learned; who learns it and from whom; how is it learned; for what purposes; and with what consequences?
    
5. It is particularly important, in respect of learning for global democracy, to resist ethnocentrism and neo-colonialism, where dominant forces (including some transnational NGOs) seek to ‘teach’ and ‘civilise’ subaltern groups.
    
6. Given that global democracy is at present largely weak and absent, learning for global democracy cannot be geared to sustaining the status quo and needs instead to further processes of empowering social and political transformation. In particular these learning processes can further the development of new kinds of identity, solidarity and citizenship for a more global world.
    
7. Learning exercises for global democracy need to cater to the context in which they take place. In other words, the learning needs to address the cultural, ecological, geographical, political, socioeconomic and social-psychological conditions of those who are learning. There is not a single blueprint that suits everyone everywhere, as people come to learning for global democracy from different starting points.
    
8. It is especially important in learning processes for global democracy to promote recognition, voice and influence for subordinated circles (including in terms of age, caste, class, country, culture, gender, race).
    
9. Learning can especially further global democracy when it nurtures bottom-up solidarities, mobilisations and self-determinations of subordinated circles.
    
10. Learning for global democracy can benefit greatly from the development of networks and alliances among groups.
     
11. Contemporary initiatives of learning for global democracy can draw on the rich intellectual and political experience of international solidarities in earlier times, including labour internationalism, women’s internationalism, and international anti-colonial movements.
     
12. Learning for global democracy can be more effective when the processes nurture and combine diverse practices. Informal self-organised exercises can be constructive as well as official schooling. Learning through action can complement learning through study.
     
13. Universities can play a key role in democratising learning in global politics. In particular universities are challenged to open themselves to subaltern movements. On the one hand this means making university learning more available to these subordinated circles. On the other hand it means incorporating wisdoms from subaltern movements and thereby democratising the knowledge that universities produce.
     
14. Effective learning for global democracy needs to nurture multiple literacies: linguistic, discursive, informational and media, visual, technological, financial, emotional.
     
15. Capacity to listen (in particular to diversities and opponents) is a key skill to learn for the promotion of global democracy. And this entails deeper listening which more fully hears, empathises with, and responds to the other. Veritable listening can change the listener’s understanding both of themselves and of those to whom they are listening. It means a readiness for mutual and comprehensive transformation. Such listening is a skill to be especially cultivated among persons in positions of greater power.
     
16. Critique – that is, the ability and confidence to question, to challenge, to debate, to rename – is a vital capacity to cultivate in learning for global democracy.
     
17. It is crucial to identify and critically evaluate the influences on learning for global democracy of powerful regulatory agencies (including for example the state and religious institutions) and deeper social structures (such as capitalism and modernity).
     
18. Women have major and often undervalued contributions to make in learning processes for global democracy. If women were truly heard, different priorities might be set and democratic practices might be altered to more fully include their thinking.
     
19. Learning for global democracy needs to consider the possibly distinctive perspectives, needs and strengths of youth.
     
20. Learning for global democracy should itself be a democratic process, with full participation of and accountability to those who are learning. The learners themselves play a key and wholly respected part in determining what is learned and how.
     
21. Learning along the lines sketched here can promote the fuller ideas and practices of global democracy that are pursued in other BGD projects.
     

The BGD Convening Group

September 2010

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