WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Meet Outgrows World Economic Forum – Activists

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

MUMBAI, India, Jan 20 2004 (IPS) - As the curtain comes down on the fourth World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, its organisers and its mix of activists said the movement has outgrown its original raison d’etre – becoming a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and opposing the policies of the Bretton Woods institutions.

As the curtain comes down on the fourth World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, its organisers and its mix of activists said the movement has outgrown its original raison d’etre – becoming a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and opposing the policies of the Bretton Woods institutions.

In fact, some say that the WSF, held on Jan. 16-21 and is now on its fourth year, has outgrown the WEF, an annual gathering of captains of commerce and governments that this year is scheduled to start right after the WSF ends. It will be held from Jan. 21-25.

The WSF, held for the first time in Asia, drew from 50,000 to 80,000 people from 132 countries, bringing together groups opposing a range of issues from privatisation, foreign debt, free trade, and what they called excessive capitalism.

”Frankly the thought of using Davos as a reference never entered my head this time,” Walden Bello, co-director of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, said when asked by IPS about the message WSF would send to the 33rd WEF, which is being held in the small ski resort of Davos in Switzerland.

The WSF and WEF are opposing forums that discuss economic policies and attract different groups – activists flock to the WSF while business executives and governments flock to the WEF. Among the key figures expected at the WEF are U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.

Bello said the WSF has gained ascendancy over the WEF during the course of its journey from its original home in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001 to the Indian port city of Mumbai. ”The dynamism of India’s civil society has shot new energy into the whole process, for example,” he said.

Especially valuable to the WSF in Mumbai is the participation of India’s communist parties, which brought to the table their organisational support and long experience in political and ideological opposition to ‘imperialist capitalism’. ”They (communist parties) were very important pillars,” Bello remarked.

Bello said the WEF could choose to ignore what has been happening this week in Mumbai altogether, but would eventually have to face up to the fact that India is one of the more significant countries in the region.

Not least, India has shown its clout at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations in Cancun, Mexico in September 2003, when it combined forces with Brazil and other developing countries to stop a further push on new free trade measures.

Amarjeet Caur, secretary of the powerful All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said that the Mumbai-WSF preparations had precisely been made to meet the impending onslaught of the WTO regime on South Asia, which activists call the last major region of the world left relatively untouched by transnational corporations.

”First they squeezed out Latin America by propping up banana republics, then they moved to South-east Asia and created rapacious dictators in countries like the Philippines and Indonesia who had to be removed through people power û and now they have set their eyes on the South Asian region. But we are ready,” said Caur.

Caur admitted, however, that the fight was going to be a long and hard one. Already, she said, ”predatory countries” led by the United States had shown that they were capable of using every trick in the book, including the encouragement of divisive forces in the Asian continent such as ethnicism, caste, religion and gender.

”This is why we at Mumbai we held separate conferences that dealt specifically with the special problems faced by women, tribals, Dalits (low castes) and labour under globalisation,” Caur said.

Activists also laid emphasis on the many ‘myths and lies’ used to entice whole countries and continents with such catchphrases as ‘globalisation with a human face’. Said Caur: ”The market and market forces cannot ever have a human face because they are there to divide, plunder and demonise…”

The WSF also heard insights here from former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, who spelled out what he says really happens in the process of capitalist-led globalisation. ”Foreign investment enters a country and produces an economic boom. But soon the investment moves out, leaving the country with worsened economic and political conditions.”

For instance, Stiglitz said, ”In many countries, international financial institutions encourage countries to privatise social security but what they are really doing is to enforce adoption of their objectives and thereby open the way for TNCs.”

Stiglitz warned that attempts by the IMF to reform social security in some countries end up eroding the already meagre protective measures that workers have. ”Protecting social benefits and economic policy cannot be delegated to the technocrats of international financial institutions, but should be at the centre of democratic debate in each country.”

Said Laura Tavares, a social security expert from Brazil: ”The IMF and World Bank create stability for finances, not for people.”

According to Caur, the Bretton Woods institutions are not going to have an easy time pushing their policies in Asia because while ”they hold the capital, we have the people with us and anyone who does not believe it only has to look at the 100,000 people who turned up for the WSF after traveling long distances and facing hardship and discomfort”.