First OS in Sofala Province, Mozambique

[Artur F. Silva]

Welcome back, Bernd.

At 21:21 08-01-2002, WB-TrainConsult wrote:
>Dear oslist,
>
>I am proud to announce that the space was opened in the province of
>Sofala in Mosambique

Great experience!!! Thanks for sharing. Some comments on your ending
questions.

>Questions:
>(1) Any comments to my intervention of 19th of april?

There are others in this list with more experience of OST and it would be
interesting to have their opinions. But I don't agree with you that you have
"let the space collapse". On the contrary, if OST means passion and
responsibility and high energy - than it seams that the space was collapsing
before your intervention. And it seams that after your intervention the
energetic
situation improved, APIS have addressed some problems that existed before
but were covert and the closing was good.

It is true that your intervention was not the "standard OST facilitator style",
but I wonder if the standard style must not have exceptions in some
situations. Indeed, I think your story is very interesting as imo the cultural
situation was far from self-organization (more about that in the next question)
and the OST invitation and theme have not been able to unfreeze the situation.
It this is true than your attitude was one way to unfreeze the situation and
truly OPEN the space.

Another point: when we talk about "letting go" we are normally thinking
about letting *the others go*. I think that sometimes to let go our own gut
feelings is equally important.

Of course, that attitude can not be repeated all the times as progressively
people must take their destiny in their hands. I think it was Roger Debray
that
once wrote that the one very important thing that revolutionaries must do
in the last part ot their intervention is to make themselves dispensable. But
he was thinking about something one must care in the last phases of an
intervention; not in the first ones...


>(2) Did others who worked with OS in african contexts perceive the
>same attitude to find others who should do the work, when it comes to
>action planning?

I am not sure if we can talk about an African context common to all the
African regions and countries. Even if we consider only sub-Saharan Africa
there are very different situations depending on previous origin, colonization
culture and type.

First in a country like Moçambique (or Angola or South Africa) there are many
different original tribes with different characteristics and histories.
Than the
different colonizing countries introduced other differences. But even each
colonizer country ruled in different ways and that had consequences in
today's African culture.

For instance - contrarily to Angola or Cape Vert, the Portuguese
colonialism in
Mocambique was strongly influenced by the English way (dominant in Rhodesia
and part of South Africa) and also (specially in the North) by the Islamic
religion.
Also in the North (and specially in Gorongosa) very big agricultural labor
intensive
farms conducted natives to a situation close to slavery.

What is common in all ex-colonies is that the colonizer deprived the natives
of almost all decisions - so they get used to "follow the leaders" and expect
decisions to be made by "those officially responsible". When, as in the
majority
of Portuguese ex-colonies, colonialism was replaced by pro-sovietic parties
the same trend was still enforced.

The other characteristic is that colonialism means that the economical power
is out of the territory and so it prepares the conditions for neo-colonialism.
The economical power continues to be in the ends of foreign countries (either
exploiters or donors) and what is left to local authorities is to accept
brides -
Mocambique (like Angola) is among the countries in the world were corruption
of the politics is bigger. So the population gets used to not take decisions
that belong to others "officially responsible" as those will probably
change those
decisions if that is convenient to the external economical powers that bride
them...

A very complex situation indeed, and also a great challenge, Bernd. Good luck

Warm regards

Artur

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