The fourth World Social Forum was held at the beginning of the year in Mumbai. Originally conceived as the people’s answer to the World Economic Forum, or Davos, the WSF brings together social movements from across the world. Resistance to two basic phenomena unites them: corporate-led neo-liberal globalisation; and militarism and war. But there the unity ends.

What do diehard strands of the old Left have in common with indigenous peoples fighting forced removals to make way for large-scale dams? How does the broad range of feminist movements inform the anti-war and peace movements? In Mumbai, for example, some of the most interesting questions revolved around the conceptualisation of fundamentalism.

Some opposed addressing fundamentalism because of its almost-exclusive post-September 11 application to Islamist movements. Others, who live in various situations of communal, ethnic or religious tension saw fundamentalism as being a new and somewhat useful term for the kind of fascist tendencies that have always existed and should always be opposed–particularly in view of how they inevitably rely on notions of women’s bodies. Still others gleefully appropriated and subverted the term by applying it to the Christian Right or what they termed "market fundamentalism."

What is the point to all of this apparent splitting of hairs among those who at least agree on the bigger picture?

There are, in fact, several points. First, in the post-Cold War period, it is no longer clear how our old theories of national and global political economy apply. Second, in the absence of an overarching "big picture," most of those concerned about human wellbeing have scattered to concentrate on smaller, more manageable pictures.

Few people in their right mind would stand up today to chant "capitalism must go," really believing that that is possible – or having an idea of a workable alternative if it did. Instead therefore, people focus on resolvable issues. For example, the power of TNCs and the international system of law that regulates them over national economies, the salaries and working conditions of workers, including female workers, with TNCs or the impact of TNCs on the environment and so on.

Little steps are taken and some progress is made. The problem is that the strategies for working on those smaller pictures are often so contradictory. To explain what I mean, let us just recall one of our own contradictions. During the era of political repression, we often called for and made use of pressure from the so-called international community to force changes upon our own government. And yet, we have been vociferous in our criticism of that same pressure from that same source throughout the era of liberalisation and privatisation.

All of the above is relevant to us because Nairobi is hosting the regional lead-up to next year’s WSF, the African Social Forum, this week. In will come conflict-resolution types, development workers, environmentalists, feminists, economists and political scientists of the African Left to talk about our own experiences of working on globalisation and war, the impacts of which are evident all across the continent. How many Kenyans are without food, shelter, water? How many Kenyans experience inequities based on class, ethnicity, gender and religion? How many Kenyans have experienced internal displacement due to conflict or have been forced to accommodate and live with refugees from the conflicts all around us? How do Kenyans understand these issues as arising from not only to national but also regional and international laws, policies and practices?

So, the deliberations at the ASF may seem up in the air, but they are not. They are part of a genuine search for better answers to the question of what we should all be doing and under what forms of political-economic organisation. Try to catch some of it. Especially if you are, as we so often feel, drained in the face of our daunting challenges and in need of being re-inspired.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the African Women's Development and Communication Network (Femnet)

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