The Birth of Lulaology

By Sanjay Suri

The opening debate on globalisation at the Gigantinho made it clear that everything at the WSF really began at the end of October with the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil.

Lula did not attend the opening debate on globalisation, the bedrock debate of the forum. He did not have to, given the spell he seemed to cast within the Gigantinho. The gathering applauded every time his name was mentioned, which was often. The sentiment was that his success at the polls underlined and amplified everything being said at the Forum, transforming the desirable into the doable.

The former union leader won on the slogan of a "decent Brazil", director-general of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Juan Somavia said. "And decent Brazil means decent jobs for its people."

I wish to congratulate the Brazilian people for their democratic courage," Somavia added. "The financial markets had been trying to intimidate Brazilians, but the people were able to show their will. What the Brazilian people have done has to be done now by people from other countries around the world."

Lula’s victory "shows the kind of tensions we have in this system of globalised capitalism," said Nicola Bullard, of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South. "It shows the democratic demands of people in conflict with the undemocratic pressure from financial markets and institutions."

What usually goes by the name globalisation has "failed to generate employment", Somavia continued. About 80 per cent of people of working age have no income security. "This model of globalisation does not respond to the needs of families and communities," he said. "We must change it."

That change is possible everywhere, he added. "We changed the dictatorship in Chile, and we will change this kind of globalisation," he said. "That's what is coming out of a meeting like this."

Somavia's key word is multiplication. "This is where people gather for ideas to be multiplied," he said. "People here must organise social forces for change within their regions and within every region. We need a big world union against globalisation. That's not easy. But if we just hold big strategic debates in our own corners, then the result will be the same as the result against dictatorships -- they lasted much longer than they should
have."

The WSF is seeking to give concrete shape to that sentiment. "We must deconstruct and reduce the power of the international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and the WTO and build a new democracy at the international level," said Bullard.

"The most important thing we are doing here in this debate at the WSF and over the coming years is to build a common language for democracy at the international level so that we can find the space, consensus and a common perspective to reduce the power of these undemocratic institutions."

Bullard is not content to just speak out about them. "We have to attack these institutions, dismantle them, dissolve their power," she said. "We have to challenge the assumptions that the only way to growth is to open your markets to foreign investors. We have to use the resources of our people to re-establish people's sovereignty over key economic decisions."

If Lula can do it, so can everyone else, was the implicit message of speaker after speaker.