[D66] New World Summit: Stateless Democracy

[J.N.]

http://newworldsummit.eu/

stream:
https://youtu.be/eACkH3xJQ_0

29 – 31 January 2016
Aula Utrecht University, Utrecht (NL)

The New World Summit, in collaboration with BAK, basis voor actuele 
kunst, Utrecht University, Utrecht; Centraal Museum, Utrecht; and the 
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Brussels/The Hague, 
presents New World Summit: Stateless Democracy. This is the sixth summit 
organized by the New World Summit, dedicated to constructing 
“alternative parliaments” for stateless political organizations that 
find themselves excluded from democratic processes.

New World Summit: Stateless Democracy is a three-day assembly that 
explores the possibilities of uncoupling the practice of democracy from 
the construct of the nation-state. Core speakers are representatives of 
the Kurdish revolutionary movement, which in 2012 declared Rojava, the 
northern part of Syria an autonomous “stateless democracy” based on 
principles of self-governance, gender-equality, and communal economy.

The summit takes place at a time of rising ultranationalism, the 
strengthening of the War on Terror, and the emergence of the so-called 
Islamic State, resulting in nation-states declaring martial law, 
increasing their surveillance apparatus, and enforcing political 
exclusion in the name of “defending democracy.” In response, this summit 
brings together stateless and autonomist movements from all over the 
world to explore the potential of stateless democracy as a 
transnationalist paradigm that opposes state oppression in all forms, 
and to invest in a new emancipatory politics of the 21st century.

For this sixth summit a temporary parliament is built in the aula of 
Utrecht University. It was on this site that the Union of Utrecht was 
signed in 1579, which was to become one of the foundations of the Dutch 
state. The parliament is thus also a historical intervention, reaching 
back to the very origins of the Dutch state to engage its alternative in 
the form of stateless democracy: a space to confront our current crisis 
and occupy the imaginary of a new, common world.
Program:

Day I: Failed Democracy.
29.01.2016, 7-10 PM

Contributors include: Nancy Hollander (legal representative of Chelsea 
Manning and Mohamedou Ould Slahi); Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Pirate Party 
Iceland). Chaired by Maria Hlavajova (director BAK, basis voor actuele 
kunst, Utrecht)

Day II: Stateless Democracy!
30.01.2016, 1-8 PM

Contributors include: Amina Osse (representative Democratic Union Party, 
PYD, Rojava); Dilar Dirik (Kurdish Women’s Movement); Quim Arrufat 
(Popular Unity Candidacy, CUP, Catalunya); Jodi Dean (political theorist 
and writer); Leila Khaled (Popular Liberation Front of Palestine, PLFP); 
Jennifer McCann (Sinn Féin, Ireland); Ilena Saturay (National Democratic 
Movement of the Philippines). Chaired by: Joost Jongerden (academic and 
writer); Vincent W. J. van Gerven Oei (writer); Sana Soleiman Elmansouri 
(World Amazigh Congress)

Day III: Future Democracy?
31.01.2016, 1-8 PM

Contributors include: Richard Bell (artist, Aboriginal Tent Embassy); 
Emory Douglas (artist, former Cultural Minister Black Panther Party); 
Meike Nack (The Foundation of Free Women, Weqfa, Rojava); Suthaharan 
Nadarajah (Tamil Eelam); Simon P. Sapioper (Republic of West-Papua); 
Vivian Ziherl (Frontier Imaginaries); refugee collective We Are Here; 
Barcelona en Comú. Chaired by: Jolle Demmers (academic, Center for 
Conflict Studies); Radha D’Souza (academic and activist); Chris 
Keulemans (writer and journalist)