The World Social Forum Sprouts
Wings
Amit Sen Gupta
As we walked through the venue for the World Social
Forum in Porto Alegre at the banks of the Guaiba river,
on January 23, it all seemed so familiar. The WSF
was back in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where it had begun
in 2001 and had gained strength in 2002 and 2003,
after the interlude in Mumbai in 2004. But Porto Alegre
2005 could well have been Mumbai 2004. The same surging
crowds – over 100,000 in number, the same cacophony
of myriad voices, the same beating of drums, the same
confusion, and the same determination on the faces
of people who had come to celebrate protest and resistance.
And the same determination with which people debated
in over 2000 events, spread over four days, and organised
in the sprawling venue of makeshift tents over about
4 kms of a green verge skirting the river.
The first message from the WSF this year was: resistance
and protests that confront imperialist globalisation
today have assumed truly global proportions. Two years
ago in the WSF in 2003, the mention of India or Mumbai
was likely to be greeted with questioning looks. No
more so – after the Mumbai WSF, both are firmly on
the map of the WSF. As will be Africa which shall
hold the Forum in 2007, as will be numerous other
places in the globe as the WSF takes wings and flies
to different corners.
WE ARE NOT ALONE
The abiding memory that everybody who was in Porto
Alegre brought back was a sense of solidarity, the
feeling that “we are not alone”. A feeling that the
gross injustice that we face across the globe is being
confronted by pockets of resistance all over the world.
Pockets of resistance that are also starting to link
up, to strategise together, to form a united surge
of resistance. We saw all this happening in Mumbai,
and those who were at Porto Alegre came back with
the confidence that the movement to “globalise resistance”
is alive and growing, and that “Another World” is
indeed possible.
Bush still rules at the White House, Iraq continues
to be bombarded by a savage imperial monster, the
WTO continues to use trade as a weapon of mass destruction,
debt continues to cripple almost the entire continent
of Africa, neoliberal economic policies continue to
kill in thousands across Asia and Latin America. But
the WSF is about shared concerns, about hope, and
about belief that the tide must turn. The WSF is also
about differences – differences in what must change,
and how it must change. But it is also about a conviction
that we must join together in spite of differences.
DIVERSITY OF OPINIONS
The differences were there for all to see. Not just
in the different languages that people spoke, in the
many different ways they expressed themselves, the
different ways in which they dressed, but also in
the political articulation of the way forward. Possibly
nothing captured this as well as the massive 100,000
strong opening march of the WSF on January 23. In
2003, the opening rally was akin to a victory celebration
for the then recently installed Lula government in
Brazil. Posters of Lula and flags of the PT (the Partido
dos Trabalhadores or Workers Party which Lula represents)
dominated the march in 2003 and vied for attention
with the sea of Che Guevara posters and green Palestinian
scarves. In 2005 Che still dominated the march, the
Palestinian scarves were as prominent, but the posters
of Lula were few and far between. Instead there were
far louder voices questioning the policies of the
Lula government, some claiming that the government
was pursuing the same neoliberal policies of the previous
government. The PT was there in force with T-shirts
that had “100% Lula” stamped on them, declaiming their
support for the government. The PCDoB (the Brazilian
Communist Party) had a huge contingent that marched
behind a massive truck from where slogans were raised
that underlined their critical support for the Lula
government. The CUT (the central federation of trade
unions in Brazil) also had a huge presence, with a
prominent participation by large numbers of youth
– both men and women. Between this huge political
mobilisation of different hues marched those who espoused
a large variety of causes – anti-war and anti-Bush
protestors, anti-WTO activists, environmentalists,
for cancellation of global debt, for a sovereign Palestinian
state, a dignity rally led by the landless peasants
movement (MST) in Brazil with a large Indian participation
from dalit groups, and so many others. With them marched
artists who performed dances, skits and mimes throughout
the route, some walking on ten feet high stilts. But
not just these – one could also hear a few chants
of Hare Krishna from saffron robed men and women and
also a handful of saffron clad Ananda Marg activists.
The opening march in a way depicted the diversity
of the Forum, and possibly also brought out the dilemma
that the Forum may face. While all those who are at
the Forum (or most at least!) acknowledge the need
to come together to face the imperial power of globalisation
led by the US, the WSF “open space” continues to be
a space that is bitterly contested at the level of
ideas. The major actors in the WSF include the Left
of various shades (communists, social democrats, fourth
internationalists), religious groups (many ascribing
to the “liberation theology” positions and genuinely
opposed to imperialism) and NGOs. There are obvious
differences within all these groups regarding the
characterisation of globalisation, and the tactics
and overall strategic understanding regarding it.
So, while what knits the Forum together is an opposition
to neoliberal or imperialist globalisation (there
are differences among Forum participants even about
the term globalisation), there is no consensus on
how it is to be opposed.
CHALLENGE OF THE “OPEN SPACE”
This diversity in opinion and approach is both a strength
of the Forum, as well as its principal weakness. The
Forum derives strength from this diversity as it provides
the opportunity for a very large number of movements
and organisations to come together, each feeling that
their views have a place in the open space of the
Forum. At the same time the diverse trends and opinions
leads, often, to a sense of frustration that the Forum
is not able to hammer together a consensus regarding
both a strategic understanding and tactics to be applied.
This has led to a tendency to attempt to “force” the
Forum to take unified positions. An example of this
was the declaration of a “Porto Alegre” consensus
by a few prominent individuals this time at the WSF.
While the contents of the “consensus” suggested was
fairly bland and not objectionable, what was problematic
was the fact that this went against the grain of the
way the WSF as an “open space” functions.
The WSF was conceived as a Forum that was not designed
to lead or take decisions on behalf of movements,
but rather to provide enabling conditions for movements
to come together, exchange experiences and opinions,
and forge alliances. The WSF space cannot and should
not dictate to movements, nor should it force movements
to take unified positions unless they are willing
to do so. But the impatience to move forward is sometimes
being translated into trying to make the WSF a body
that takes decisions and positions on behalf of movements.
This is a major challenge today for the WSF: how to
accelerate the space for movements to forge common
actions and strategies, while at the same time keeping
the space friendly for everyone opposed to neoliberal
globalisation to join in. Given the complex political
entitities that form part of the Forum, an attempt
by any force within (however well meaning) to hegemonise
the Forum at the level of ideas, might well sow the
seeds of the Forum’s ultimate collapse.
The challenge for the Forum, thus, is not of how certain
kinds of ideas may dominate, but to ensure that the
Forum is truly representative of the upsurge of global
opinion against imperialist globalisation. Today,
large mass and political movements are handicapped
in their ability to participate in the Forum, because
of lack of resources. As a result the Forum tends
to be dominated by highly funded NGOs, largely from
the North. While many of such NGOs have and are playing
a major role in opposing globalisation, there is an
inherent asymmetry in the participation in the Forums.
It is critically important, if the Forum is to become
truly representative of global mass movements that
the WSF process is able to draw in a much larger participation
from such movements. This is happening to an extent
and the proactive manner in which mobilisation for
the Forum was done for the WSF 2004 in Mumbai – where
a conscious effort was made to ensure representation
of mass and political movements – has contributed
to this. But a lot has still to be done in this regard,
and if the WSF process is to be “directed” in any
manner it should be to ensure that such movements
are able to come into the process in large numbers
and also that they represent adequately all geographical
regions of the globe. If the Forum becomes really
representative, then it would really be up to the
movements to use the space provided by the Forum to
work out shared visions and actions. Clearly, the
WSF is not going to be the forum to take forward such
actions, that is something that the movements themselves
would have to decide.
GOOD BYE PORTO ALEGRE?
The 2005 Forum, while formulating the programme, had
articulated in clearer terms the direction provided
by WSF 2004 in trying to ensure that shared concerns
and themes are not discussed in dispersed events.
The attempt from the event registration process itself
was to try to ensure that events are largely organised
by combining the efforts of different organisations.
This is a process that has to be accelerated, and
the methodology used in 2005 to be evaluated to improve
upon it further. The WSF 2005 had also departed from
earlier practice by not having any events directly
organised by the WSF – i.e. all events at the WSF
2005 were organised by individual participating organisations.
The response to this innovation was mixed this year,
and many felt that the absence of some large “unifying”
events with broad political messages led to the diffusion
of the political sharpness that the Forum was able
to provide. This is again an issue that will have
to be evaluated by the International Council of the
WSF. In fact, in the absence of such unifying events,
the only two large events this year were those addressed
by President Lula of Brazil and President Chavez of
Venezuala. While these were not formally part of the
WSF programme, they drew huge crowds from WSF participants.
The International Council decided in its meeting just
before the Forum in Porto Alegre that in 2006 there
would not be a single Forum, but attempt would be
to organise dispersed Forums in different continents.
In 2007 the Forum travels to Africa, the venue for
which is being discussed within the African Social
Forum process. Mumbai had shown that the WSF can be
made to be a success in a setting vastly different
from Porto Alegre, and the WSF is now poised to sprout
wings and fly to different corners of the globe.
As we prepared to leave Porto Alegre, the question
on the lips of everybody who lives in the city was:
is this the last Forum in Porto Alegre? We do not
know the answer today. But everyone who has been in
Porto Alegre for the Forum, this year or in earlier
years, will hope that maybe the Forum will come back
again one day to this city which embraced us all with
such love and affection. Good bye to Porto Alegre
for ever? Perhaps the WSF is not ready for that yet!
Source:
www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/dinamic.php?pagina=amit |
