People's Democracy

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!