CHALLENGES, LIMITS AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 1 2004 (IPS) - The World Social Forum (WSF) has headed to India. Mumbai will be the epicentre of the annual global encounter of the planet\’s emerging citizenry that opposes neoliberal globalisation and the logic of domination that feeds it: imperialism, terror and war, writes Cándido Grzybowski, sociologist, director of Ibase and member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum. What exactly is the force that drives the Forum? What is its secret? What does it mean to be a part of it? The answer perhaps is simply to dream of what is possible, to act with faith in the potential of action itself, to seek with others, in the equality of our numerous differences, the possibilities of changing the relations, processes and structures that oppress and exclude. The most radical experience of participating in the WSF is to feel that one is in a space of freedom to think, to speak, to propose, to be heard — and to be respected for this. It is a joyful, colourful and boisterous forum for thinking about the actions we will develop in the places we live, making us part of a powerful global movement of citizens. That said, we should take a closer look at the principal challenges of the WSF today. To be global, the Forum must galvanise the world, feed itself on the most vital strengths of the different civil societies, in the framework of the Charter of Principles, maintaining the goal of re-creating globalisation on radically democratic and sustainable foundations. Beyond being against neoliberal globalisation and getting involved in imagining a different possible globalisation, another world, it is essential to recognise the major deficits in the WSF process.

The World Social Forum (WSF) has headed to India. Mumbai will be the epicentre of the annual global encounter of the planet’s emerging citizenry that opposes neoliberal globalisation and the logic of domination that feeds it: imperialism, terror and war.

What exactly is the force that drives the Forum? What is its secret? What does it mean to be a part of it? The answer perhaps is simply to dream of what is possible, to act with faith in the potential of action itself, to seek with others, in the equality of our numerous differences, the possibilities of changing the relations, processes and structures that oppress and exclude. The most radical experience of participating in the WSF is to feel that one is in a space of freedom to think, to speak, to propose, to be heard — and to be respected for this. It is a joyful, colourful and boisterous forum for thinking about the actions we will develop in the places we live, making us part of a powerful global movement of citizens.

But the WSF is also a crossroads, a confluence of the contradictions, tensions and social struggles that permeate the different civil societies of the world and mark the limits and possibilities of contemporary historic processes. This divergence, lack of consensus, lack of unified thought, itself creating a great deal of noise and not permitting the definition of common proposals and agendas, are nevertheless the basis of the WSF’s vitality. The Forum would stop being what it is at the moment it eliminates the sources of divergence, of lack of consensus, of the multiplicity of thoughts and ways of thinking.

That said, we should take a closer look at the principal challenges of the WSF today. To be global, the Forum must galvanise the world, feed itself on the most vital strengths of the different civil societies, in the framework of the Charter of Principles, maintaining the goal of re-creating globalisation on radically democratic and sustainable foundations. Beyond being against neoliberal globalisation and getting involved in imagining a different possible globalisation, another world, it is essential to recognise the major deficits in the WSF process.

A first and contradictory deficit of the Forum resides precisely in its global nature. This deficit can be diagnosed in geographic terms and in social and cultural terms. The WSF is, undoubtedly, global, but not sufficiently so. Countries and entire regions have little or no presence in the process. The move to India is a response to this challenge. We also must go to Africa, Eastern Europe and deep Asia, to Latin America’s neighbour, the Caribbean. To a great extent, the Regional Forums respond to this challenge.

In social and cultural terms, the geographical relocation of the WSF resolves in part, but not fundamentally, the deficit that we face. We must recognise, because this is our own contradiction, that we are an elite of citizen activism. The larger, more excluded sectors, although organised in social movements and networks, do not participate in a meaningful way in the Forum, whether because they lack the economic means to do so or because the Forum, because of its dynamic, does not draw them in. Or could there be another reason for the absence of a significant urban popular participation in the three World Social Forums held in Porto Alegre?

This brings me to what I call the thematic deficit of the WSF. We are a novelty in the way we come together, but we seem old fashioned in the themes we choose for centralised discussion. This is reflected in the enormous contradiction between the major events within the Forum and the numerous free activities, self-organised, that the participating delegates carry out. On the one hand, a persistent presence of an old style of leftist politics, a bit repetitive and hollow in its discourse. On the other, an anarchic force, impossible to condense in terms of common themes, that benefits from the diversity of visions, of experiences, of conditions and of proposals.

The third great deficit of the WSF is of a political order. We engage in a fully political act, but it seems that we fear its consequences. Worse, we are entangled in a false debate that confuses the necessary politicising of the Forum — the blossoming of the multiple contradictions that give it life and reason for existing — with party politics. It is clear that the WSF is a way of doing politics, and this in itself affects other political processes. It is also clear that for this same reason the Forum is the target of internal partisan disputes. So far, that is not a problem. The problem will come at the moment the WSF becomes a hegemonic arena for some partisan force. Does such a danger exist? Without a doubt! It is worth remembering some aspects in which the Forum possesses innovative potential in political terms, which must not be confused with parties. At the last Forum, in Porto Alegre, the great public embrace between Israeli and Palestinian participants, revealing a search for unity with respect to difference, was a symbolic act of the new way of doing politics that the WSF itself wants to encourage.

To try to eliminate contradictions at the core of the WSF and turn it into a more homogenous space and process for confronting neoliberalism is the aim of certain forces, inspired on the classic political partisanship of the left. I would even say that this struggle within the Forum is legitimate and deserves respect, given its visions and values. But it destroys innovation of the WSF, what it possesses in terms of potential to feed a broad and diverse movement of the global citizenry in building another world. The risk does not lie in who is seeking this, but rather in that other organisations and movements would cease to play their role as a counterpoint. In the end, conflict, in particular the democratic struggle of ideas, is what drives societies — without destroying them. It is as a space for democratic conflict that the WSF must be preserved if the Forum is to continue being what it is. We must be radically political in the process of the Forum, and each one must seek out his or her party to achieve what is necessary and possible in the society in which one lives. For this to occur it is essential, certainly, that all who believe that another politics is possible and is a condition for another possible world do not wane in their effort. And we must continue forward… (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)