WORLD SOCIAL FORUM OVER, ALL REVERTS TO THE WAY IT WAS

By Lucio Flavio Pinto Reprint | | Print |

This column is available for visitors to the IPS website only for reading. Reproduction in print or electronic media is prohibited. Media interested in republishing may contact romacol@ips.org.

BELEN, Feb 5 2009 (IPS) - Belen is one of the cities with the least green space in Brazil, despite the fact that it is the gateway to the Amazon, which contains one third of the planet’s tropical forest. The largest of these green areas are located on the campus of the two federal universities that hosted the week-long ninth World Social Forum, which concluded on February 1.

The fields of the campus are surrounded by the most crowded and dangerous neighbourhoods of the city, Gauma and Terra Firme, which hold ten percent of the city’s 1.4 million inhabitants and 14 percent of its crime. Gauma was swelled by the arrival of migrants from the interior of the country expelled from their native lands by the eruption of new settlers who introduced ranching and logging, the primary causes of the largest destruction of forest in the history of humanity: an area three times the size of the state of Sao Paulo in just forty years. Meanwhile Terra Firme bloated as a result of the proliferation of miserable rooming houses that house the workers recruited to raze fields stolen from the indigenous peoples.

Preparatory meetings of the Forum were held in Terra Firme, and a session was held to allow its inhabitants to participate, but the potential of this event was undercut by the lack of personnel and the prohibitively high four-dollar sign up fee.

Not one of the problems of the immense and chaotic outskirts of Belen was discussed at the Forum, though it is here that Brazil’s largest horizontal favela, Paar, (with 140,000 inhabitants) is located. After Recife, it is the most violent state capital in the country.

Although international participants of this Forum, held in Belen to highlight the problem of the Amazon, did not overcome the police barriers that sealed off the two feared neighbourhoods, there was movement in the opposite direction, though it was not to attend the hundreds of planned meetings or to mix with the visitors but rather to sell something. This is easy to understand given that in Belen unemployment and the informal economy are among the highest of all Brazilian cities.

From the beginning of the preparatory phase of the Forum the neighbours did their best to breach the walls that closed off the universities, with tables, plates, and food to offer the public. Afterwards with the increase in police protection, those interested in crossing over began stealing Forum passes and shirts, mostly from the 2000 WSF volunteers. The shirts were another way to control admission to the event, and in some cases they were sold by volunteers who couldn’t pay for the bus. This is how the outskirts of this Amazonian city benefitted from the meeting, which its organisers claimed brought together 90,000 participants, though the thousands of leftover shirts raises doubts about that figure.

It was thus the culinary needs of the thousands of participants that provided the bridge between those who were expressing their solidarity with the world marginalised by globalisation and who trusted in another, better world, and those who should be the materialisation of these utopias.

The Brazilian government dedicated 300 police officers and 22 million dollars (of a total Forum budget of USD 70 million) for security, while the state government -which like the federal government is held by the Workers Party- provided 7000 police officers in Belen and set up a security buffer around the two neighbourhoods to protect the Forum participants from the 200 crimes committed each day in the city. In those neighbourhoods thousands of people were checked every day by mobile patrols, bars had to close at ten at night, and the atmosphere was like a state of seige.

Thanks to these precautions, violence did not penetrate the atmosphere of the Forum. Cloistered thus, the participants in this giant event were able to exchange ideas and proposals to build a better world and a self-sustaining Amazon. The grim reality that preceded the Forum can reinstate itself now that the prophets, gurus, disciples, and other well-wishers have gone back to their homes, carrying with them the same thoughts and images they took to Belen. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Lucio Flavio Pinto is director of the Jornal Pessoal, which denounces corruption, impunity, and the economic and ecological consequences of the exploitation of the Amazon. He has faced dozens of court cases and numerous physical attacks and death threats.