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WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Growing Pains, Growing Success

Raúl Pierri

MUMBAI, India, Jan 20 2004 (IPS) - The World Social Forum took an historic step in moving from Brazil to India this year, but there is plenty of room for improvement, say activists, convinced that the global gathering should head to Africa in 2006.

Proposals must be formalised, more sectors of society must be encouraged to participate, and greater solidarity amongst the world’s communities must be promoted, were some of the ideas presented at the fourth WSF, taking place in the western Indian city of Mumbai, a six-day event ending Wednesday.

One means of building solidarity, agree activists, is to hold the Forum in another region of the developing South.

Spontaneous applause erupted during panels and conferences each time a presenter insisted that the WSF should be taken to a city in Africa. And the idea continues to gain momentum.

“We are working to have the World Social Forum, after Porto Alegre (which will host the event again next year), in Cairo in 2006. Many organisations in Africa and in Arab countries support us. All are interested in this. This is our hope,” Egyptian author and activist Nawal el Saadawi told IPS.

The first three WSF – 2001 to 2003 – were held in Porto Alegre, and the southern Brazilian city is already gearing up to host the Forum again in 2005.

“I will work hard (to have it in Cairo in 2006), but if another African country welcomes the WSF that is also okay. But it must be in Africa,” stressed El Saadawi, founder of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association.

The notion of Africa as host of the 2006 WSF also has the backing of Portuguese sociologist Boaventura Sousa Santos, one of the leading intellectuals behind the WSF and a member of its International Council.

“I think that Mumbai has an historical significance, because it shows that the significance of Porto Alegre can be duplicated in Asia. And if it can be duplicated in Asia, why not in Africa? So, in fact, the (globalisation) of the WSF is beginning here,” Santos said Tuesday, drawing applause during the conference ‘Neoliberal Globalisation and the Significance of the WSF’.

He said, “For many people, before, the WSF was a Western and a Latin American event. Now, nobody can say that.”

But El Saadawi noted that taking the Forum to the African continent could face some big obstacles, particularly the governments of African countries.

“The local regimes are dictatorships that work for (U.S. President) George Bush. So maybe the local governments will obstruct us. Our association was closed down by the government because we stood against the Gulf War in 1991. We are still closed down now,” she said.

The WSF continues to grow, year by year. In 2001, it drew 20,000 people from 117 countries, while in 2002 there were 50,000 in attendance from 123 countries. And last year 100,000 participants came from 130 countries.

According to the organisers in Mumbai, an estimated 150,000 people are taking part in the WSF activities this time around and they hail from 130 countries around the globe.

The success is noteworthy, but many civil society representatives agree that this is not enough, that a great deal must be done to improve the WSF efforts towards a new kind of globalisation.

French activist Christophe Aguiton, a spokesman for ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transfers for the Aid of Citizens), underscored that the WSF should not be a space just for discussion, but also for coordinating campaigns amongst NGOs around the world.

Aguiton borrowed an example from the World Economic Forum, which he referred to as the “enemy”, to prove his point. The WEF begins its annual meeting Wednesday in the Swiss alpine resort of Davos, a gathering of national leaders, corporate executives, financiers and economists – most of whom are entrenched supporters of the neoliberal economic credo.

“The World Economic Forum is also a space. Global capitalism goes to Davos at the end of January, but they have all the tools they need: They have the International Monetary Fund, they have the World Bank, they have the G8 (Group of Eight most powerful countries).”

“We haven’t all these tools. For these reasons the only place in which we can organise our campaign is here,” he said.

Roberto Savio, an Italian-Argentine journalist and president emeritus of IPS international news agency, agrees. He stresses the importance of channelling the ideas emerging from the WSF “through a structure that translates them into concrete policies, alternatives to the neoliberal economic model.”

Israeli peace activist Michael Warschawski, of the Alternative Information Centre, said the WSF should serve to foment solidarity amongst various parts of the world that are suffering conflict, such as the case of Palestine and Israel.

He said the Forum has become an annual centre for information about the different social struggles occurring around the globe, and that this has given rise to “a new kind of solidarity.”

“But we have improve year to year an open and pluralistic exchange and real discussion in order to understand better the world in which we are living and also to start elaborating alternatives,” said Warschawski.

He agreed with Aguiton that the WSF must move beyond debate to guide real policies and actions, but he also proposed that special attention must be given to trade unions.

In the future, the WSF should seek ways to articulate its actions with political parties, he said, citing the example of increasing dialogue with the governing Workers Party (PT) of Brazil.

“I am not talking of being a movement of parties and even not have parties in the movement, but the articulation with the WSF and the progressive parties,” Warschawski explained.

But Aguiton was more cautious, arguing the need to maintain the WSF independent of political forces.

The political parties “are already inside, but they don’t participate in the decision-making process. I think it is good to have them in the WSF because they participate in the democratic life, but in the decisions process it is better to let the social movements decide what is the best,” the French activist told IPS.