REMAKING THE WORLD ON A HUMAN SCALE

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 1 2005 (IPS) - While the World Social Forum is a wellspring of alternatives, the process of discussion and comparison that generates them is more important than the alternatives themselves, writes Candido Grzybowski, a sociologist, director of IBASE (Brazilian Institute for Socio-economic Analysis) and member of the organising committee of the WSF.. In this article, the author writes that the WSF asserts the primacy of politics, not markets, in human life. To this end the Forum is a process and space for democratic innovation that spurs different social subjects to participate and assert their will over state power, the multilateral institutions, corporations, and the markets. We have taken on the challenge of remaking the world on a human scale, for all human beings. We must contribute to the development of new agendas. And we must not allow warriors and terrorists, market operators and owners of corporations, and their fundamentalism, to dictate the priorities of humanity. We have to propose alternatives. We need an agenda that embraces, here and now, the world and humanity, with the greatest respect but without fear of taking risks or an intention of imposing anything. A collective construction without models or single solutions requires a radical respect for the incomplete, the different, and the plural, but also a constant search. This column is a part of the special series on \”Globalisation & Human Rights\”, a joint effort of Dignity International (http://www.dignityinternational.org) and the IPS Columnist Service.

While the World Social Forum is a wellspring of alternatives, the process of discussion and comparison that generates them is more important than the alternatives themselves.

The Forum is a sort of public square, an open space in which citizens can meet as equals, a place of information and debate, passion and joy, an original site for the invention and practice of democracy.

It is enough to participate in the forum to see how its energy connects the most different people, charging the batteries of hope. The Forum allows for the revision of ideas and strengthens the collective will, as all participant are led to believe in their own capacities and value their experiences and understanding.

It is clear that the WSF is a political experiment and a force for intellectual renewal that can inspire dreams and resolve to face the crisis produced by global capitalism. The Forum offers the possibility of devising new modes of thinking and contributing to the formation of a new political culture of radically democratic social transformation with effective proposals to create other worlds. That said, I certainly recognize the monumental difficulties that will follow in developing and implementing the ideas and processes debated within the Forum.

Today’s globalisation imposes homogeneous patterns of living and culture; it destroys, excludes, and concentrates. We respond with the affirmation of equality in diversity, of the right to inclusion of all people, and the conviction that all human rights are for all human beings, arising out of a respect for the common patrimony of life, the planet earth.

The meeting of the WSF last year in India gave us universality, but the universe is far greater and more diverse. It is essential that we go to Africa in 2007. But what about the other regions and cultures? What of Eastern Europe, inner Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, and the Arab world?

I reaffirm here that which is reflected in the statistics about the Forum: we are legitimate activists for the emerging planetary citizenship, but we are only the elite. The representatives of the common people are a minority in our meetings. How can we face this challenge with the requisite urgency and radicality? We must be capable of mobilizing beyond geographical, social, and cultural barriers. We must develop ways to actively absorb the invisible groups into our society, as they lack the resources and organisation to participate. We must recognise how far we are even from expressing the diversity of civil society and its members.

The WSF asserts the primacy of politics, not markets, in human life. To this end the Forum is a process and space for democratic innovation that spurs different social subjects to participate and assert their will over state power, the multilateral institutions, corporations, and the markets.

At the same time the WSF must draw increasingly on the strength of its participants, taking advantage of their diversity and plurality. This means going beyond the radical but passive respect for self-directed activities, which we are already beginning to do at this 2005 Forum.

This means radicalizing domestic democracy such that the different is transformed into the diverse, mere juxtaposition, the repetition and confusion of multiple activities –more than 2500– in recognition of all. We must act democratically and actively, with respect for the totality of people, seeking to build a true diversity, overcoming domination, ghettos, and protagonism, such that the plural visions and analyses obtain the maximum possible consensus and dynamizing dissent from their own democracy, which in turn requires new joint searches.

The WSF is not a project or a strategy that all must follow. We all agree on this. It can only be an open space for strategic thought, oriented towards transformative action, which leaves participants free to decide what to do, how, and with whom, according to their own possibilities, conditions, and desires.

On the other hand, we need a dose of boldness. We have awakened an enormous hope in the world. Indeed, today the WSF is the symbol of hope. We must not break the spell of utopianism. This too is politics.

We have taken on the challenge of remaking the world on a human scale, for all human beings. We must contribute to the development of new agendas. And we must not allow warmongers and terrorists, market operators and owners of corporations, with their fundamentalism, to dictate the priorities for humanity. We have to propose alternatives. The solutions that we will come up with will be necessarily provisional, temporary, and local. But we must be daring and succeed in finding solutions that will be feasible in each place. We need an agenda that embraces, here and now, the world and humanity, with the greatest respect but without fear of taking risks or an intention of imposing anything. A collective construction without models or single solutions requires a radical respect for the incomplete, the different, and the plural, but also a constant search. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)