Another World--decolonizing the earth
2016 Third World Action Project for a grounded global intellectual movement
In Memory of Sam MOYO (1954-2015) and CHEN Yingzhen (1937-2016)
Third World Action Project 第三世界行動計畫 台南場
1/6五 13:00-18:00
Roundtable on Creative Industry, Intellectual Thought and Cultural Movements
文創思想運動圓桌論壇
Venue: Fotoaura Institute of Photography 海馬迴光畫廊
台南市成功路83號二樓
主辦：Fotoaura Institute of Photography 海馬迴光畫廊 and Inter-Asia School Action Office 亞際書院行動辦公室
Participants:
提案
Kuan-Hsing Chen 陳光興 (Chiao Tung U; Inter-Asia School)
“批判文創實驗（工）場: 東南亞／南亞文化研究系提案”
Critical Creative Industry Lab/Factory: A proposal for setting up Dept. of Southeast/South Asian Cultural Studies
回應
Jun-shien Lee李俊賢 (Former Director of Kaoshiung Museum of Arts)
Jiang Yaoshien蔣耀賢(Founder of White House, Kaoshiung)
Yu-shien Su蘇育賢 (Artist)
J. J. Gong 龔卓軍 (Dean, Tainan U of Arts)
Away Shu 舒詩偉 (activist, writer and editor)
Young-ie 吳永毅 (Tainan U of Arts)
Guanhua Huang 黃冠華 (Yi-shou U)
MS Chen陳美霞 (Cheng Kong U)
Shuli Chang 張淑麗 (Cheng Kong U)
Yuanhui Hu 胡元輝 (Dean, Chong Cheng U)
Kai-yuan Cheng鄭凱元 (Yangming U)
C David Tseng 曾成德 (Chiao Tung U)
May Chung 鍾秀梅 (Chair, Cheng Kung U)
Statement:
Since December 2014 the Inter-Asia School (IAS) has taken up the opportunity of the sixtieth anniversary of the Bandung Conference to organize a series of events across Asia, exploring the possibility of revitalizing the notion of the “third world” as an incomplete intellectual project linking Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. To say the least, we (members of the IAS and its networks) were energized greatly by the exciting encounters and the optimism brought with it. It reaffirms the belief that the Inter-Asia School is a project connecting with the larger visions for social and political transformations.
The end result of the “Bandung/Third World 60 Years” is the draft proposal for an “Another World—Decolonizing the Earth” project, with a long term vision to move towards a “grounded global intellectual movement”. Our mission is to transform existing modes of thought, intellectual, popular or otherwise, exemplified by the so-called modern education system, where our modes of knowledge, mind and worldview have been shaped immensely to the effect of “We are all foreigners”, foreign to our histories and even living communities; our lively and sophisticated worldviews have been reduced to Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science, two normative claims overriding the real historical complexity and local conditions and historical contexts. In short, we need to “return” to histories, to our own sources of thought, to to worldviews sustained by the Minjung daily lives, mediating through institutions such as “school” (shu-yuan, or academy which has always existed, with no disciplinary boundaries before the expansion of modern state to establish modern schooling system), markets and temples where lunar/peasant calendar has operated and is still shaping everyone of us, but profoundly ignored as if these are “feudal” and out of date.
Another World’s programmatic components include building up the following five interconnected institutions: 1. setting up a Council for Social Research in Asia (prep committee now based in Seoul) to connect with other existing continental and/or regional institutions to forge new modes of knowledge production; 2. launching the Bandung School of Africa-America-Asia-Caribbean (based on China Academy of Arts Hangzhou campus) to coordinate global intellectual work; 3. Another World Center (to potentially operate in multilayered places, such as Quanzhou and Xuyi, or any place where conditions are mature enough), forging the forces already in place to articulate together “intellectual thought, critical creative industry and cultural movement”, with the hope to return to Minjung world; 4. building a Critical Creative Industry Factory/Lab (in both northern and southern Taiwan’s universities to actively bring activists and cultural workers/creators on board to work with local Minjung communities; e. developing the Agon Roundtable, a mechanism to produce our own program of global intellectual debates mediating through mainstream TV, Satellite, and the digital spheres.
With the imagination to implement these plans, taking the opportunity of the IAS’s 2016 Annual Lecture this time to be delivered by Prof. Mahmood Mamdani (Director of the Makerere Institute for Social Research, Uganda, and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, NYC), we develop a series of activities and events to move forward. In addition to the spiritual support, we call for like minded comrades and friends to work together to begin the transformative process. We need your participation in the debates to enrich our drafted proposal. We need your critical inputs and advices. In short, we earnestly invite you to be actively involved in the “Another World” (is possible) to shape the future of the globe into a more livable earth.
We dedicate the “2016 Third World Action Project for a grounded global intellectual movement” events to CHEN Yingzhen (1937-2016) and Sam MOYO (1954-2015), two visionary thinkers, activists, leaders of our time, who have been our friends, comrades, and mentors, who have inspired many generations of intellectuals in Asia and Africa. Both of these self-claimed Third World intellectuals passed away very recently, Sam Moyo on December 2015, Chen Yingzhen on November 22 2016. While mourning their leaving us for another world, we believe their spirits are still, and will also be, with us on this earth to guide what we are about to implement.