WORLD SOCIAL FORUM:
Civil Society Meet Draws University-Educated Elite
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 9 (IPS) - A study aimed at finding out who attends civil
society's annual World Social Forum gatherings shows that participants tend
to be young, university-educated, anti-imperialist and independent of
political parties.
The new ''Profile of Participants'' released Thursday in Rio de Janeiro
also reports that the vast majority of those attending the first three
editions of the WSF, held in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre,
were Latin American.
But that should change radically at this year's edition, scheduled for
Jan. 16-21 in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India.
The plan to hold civil society's annual gathering against ''neo-liberal
globalisation'' in India represents an important step towards making ''the
global gathering truly global,'' according to Brazilian sociologist Cándido
Grzybowski, a member of the WSF International Council and one of the main
organisers of the meetings in Porto Alegre.
The Profile of Participants, based on the registration records from the
2003 WSF and surveys among 1,500 participants, found that the imbalance in
representation is both ''geographic and sociocultural.''
Nearly 86 percent of the 170,000 officially registered people who took
part in the first three WSF gatherings in Porto Alegre were Brazilian, and
the biggest foreign delegations came from other Latin American nations,
especially neighbouring countries in the Southern Cone region of South
America, the report indicates.
''Only around 200 people came from Asia, which is nothing when you're
talking about a continent that has half of the world's population,'' said
Grzybowski, who is also the director-general of the Brazilian Institute of
Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), and who was in charge of the study
coordinated by the WSF International Secretariat.
The fourth WSF, in India, should turn that participation around, with
many Asians and few Latin Americans, which ''is good for mobilising other
continents'' in a tendency that should continue in 2006, when the global
meeting will be organised in Africa, said Grzybowski.
But next year, the WSF will return to Porto Alegre, under an agreement
reached by the International Council, according to which the venue will
alternate between that southern Brazilian city, the symbol of the WSF, and
countries in other regions.
The Profile of Participants also found that 73.4 percent of people
attending last year's WSF had gone to the university, although not all had
completed their degrees. Of that total, 9.7 percent had done some
post-graduate coursework.
But among the delegates - representatives of non-governmental
organisations and social movements who formally take part in the WSF
seminars and workshops - 17.8 percent had graduate degrees or had studied
in post-graduate programmes.
The results show that ''it is an elite that attends the WSF,'' where the
poor and excluded, like slumdwellers, peasant farmers or indigenous people,
are not represented, said Grzybowski.
The study also highlighted the heavy presence of young people, given that
62.7 percent of people attending the gathering were under 34. But most
stayed in the Youth Camp or were ''non-delegate'' participants, which means
young people make up ''the WSF's main social base, while they lack the
proportionate means of expression in the debates,'' said the expert.
In India, where the poor are more numerous, and better organised, than in
Brazil, taking part in movements that have millions of members, the
participation of socially marginalised sectors is expected to be much
broader and more direct.
''We hope the Forum will have a great impact on Indian society, with
strong local participation,'' another WSF organiser, Jorge Saavedra, the
president of the Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organisations
(ABONG), commented to IPS.
This year's edition should also expand the WSF's ''spectrum of
alliances,'' he added.
In addition, a ''happy coincidence'' accentuates the importance of
holding the WSF in India this year, said Saavedra, referring to the
agreement reached by the governments of India and Pakistan Tuesday to
negotiate an end to the border conflict that has dragged on since the two
countries were divided on religious grounds in 1947.
That could generate ''positive synergy'' with the ''WSF agenda'', one of
whose top priorities is world peace, he said.
The WSF is also facing the challenge of bringing closer together the
agenda proposed by the International Council and the numerous activities
scheduled by participating organisations. There is a major thematic gap,
''as if they were two separate forums,'' said Grzybowski.
The ''most creative, vital part are the activities organised
independently by the social movements, but they are also anarchic, and we
haven't come up with a way to make them more visible,'' he said.
According to Grzybowski, the Profile of Participants study increases the
WSF's understanding of itself, which will help it move towards its
objective: the strengthening of civil society.
The report shows, for example, that only 35 percent of participants in
2003 were members of a political party.
That tends to neutralise pressure to politicise the WSF, exercised by
leftist groups that want it to adopt political resolutions and positions.
Grzybowski underlined that ''we are not an organisation, but a forum,
whose strength lies in the diversity of thought, where we don't disqualify
any argument, and discrepancies are not a problem.''
The study also surveyed WSF participants on their views regarding certain
questions. For example, more than 90 percent of respondents wanted greater
participation by civil society in public policy-making, 81 percent said
globalisation aggravates the inequality between rich and poor, and 68
percent said globalisation ''is just a new name for imperialism.''
(END/2004)
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