LESSONS FROM WORLD SOCIAL FORUM
By Francisco Whitaker
In the programme "Roda Viva", produced by the public broadcasting system "TV
Culture", in So Paulo, which was recorded after the World Social Forum 2002,
Boaventura de Souza Santos was asked if the Workers Party (Partido dos
Trabalhadores - PT) had manipulated the Forum in its own interest. The
portuguese sociologist, who was an important celebrity in that meeting, answered
saying that the PT is too small for that.
In an interview given to the newspaper "Folha de So Paulo" on the same
occasion, Tarso Genro, mayor of Porto Alegre, declared that all left-wing
parties of all the world united would not be able to call together something
like the World Social Forum. Even if we only consider the numbers, the Forum was
an unquestionable success. Boaventura and Tarso's statements are based on such
verifications, but they also refer to the reasons for the success of the Forum.
Figures increased spectacularly from the first to the second meeting of the
World Social Forum. The participants, for example, went from 20,000 in 2001 to
50,000 in 2002. About 35,000 listeners from Porto Alegre, other places in Brazil
and also from the bordering countries, came along, many having to endure long
bus trips, just to see and hear in person the people they admire and to enjoy
the energizing atmosphere of this huge worldwide meeting.
But this increase is even more meaningful if we consider the increase in the
number of delegates, that is to say, the number of people registered in the
Forum as representatives of entities and movements of the civil society: they
went from 4,000 in 2001 to 15,000 in 2002, representing 4,909 organizations from
131 countries. In fact, what attracted so many delegates were the innovative
characteristics of the Forum: its pluralistic and non-directive character, which
unifies while respecting diversity; its openness to all those who want to
participate - except representatives of governments, political parties and
military organizations; and the fact of being an initiative of the civil society
for the civil society, that created a new meeting place - the first and may be
the only one of this kind in a worldwide level - without the control of any
governments, movements, parties or national or international institutions which
dispute political power.
In fact, for those delegates the Forum was really what its organizers intended
it to be: a horizontal space in which the delegates could freely put forward
their proposals and struggles - without considering any of these issues to be
more important than others and without anyone imposing their ideas or their pace
on the others -, to exchange experiences, to learn and to develop themselves
through knowing about the struggles, hopes and proposals of others, to deepen
their analysis about the issues that arise in their fields of action, to
articulate themselves at national level and especially at the worldwide level .
That is to say, to gain effectiveness and to move forward in their work of
social transformation.
There would not be so much interest in participating in this event if it were
only about taking orders, or having each one's options controlled, or being
pushed to disciplined actions and mobilizations, or having to approve statements
and motions or collective positions - which does not imply the lack of
commitment to action. This is why the organizers of the Forum wrote in its
Principles Charter that the Forum should not take positions as the Forum itself,
that no one should speak on behalf of the Forum and that in none of its meetings
should time be invested in discussing and passing "final documents".
This Charter explicitly states that the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre does
not have a deliberative character. The same happens with the World Economic
Forum, in Davos, to which the Forum of Porto Alegre is proposed as an
alternative (and to highlight aspect that it is held on the same days). To all
participants, those days simply represent a stronger and more intensive
opportunity to deepen their commitments and articulations, on a worldwide level,
within an effort which already existed and will continue to exist after the
Forum
It is obvious that behind this similarity there exists a huge difference: the
participants of Davos aim to maintain and increase the domination of the capital
- which they control - over the human beings of the whole world, as well as the
expansion of their private business. The Porto Alegre participants, feeding on
the increasing protests that come up everywhere against a globalization dictated
by the interests of that capital, want to move forward in their proposals to
build another world, centered on human beings and respectful of nature, a world
which is not only seen as possible but also necessary and urgent and which, in
fact, they are already building in their practical action.
This difference in objectives and contents lead to a difference in method, too:
the main activity developed in Davos consists in conferences and debates on
previously defined issues, to which the organizers invite great intellectual
representatives of the neo-liberal "unique-monolithic thought", the most
powerful nations' political leaders and great multinationals' owners or
executives.
In the Porto Alegre Forum an important space is also given to conferences and
debates, as well as to testimonies of people with significant experiences or
reflections. In order to do that, Porto Alegre, like Davos, invites people who
have already reflected or are already acting in domains relevant to the issues
being discussed - though in 2002, the Porto Alegre conferences have beeng
conducted not by isolated people but by great world nets. But the most enriching
activity in the World Social Forum is the one related to the workshops and
seminars freely proposed and organized by the participants themselves: 400 in
2001 and 750 in 2002.
Most journalists, for example - and this appeared in the coverage they gave to
the Forum -, used as they are to interviewing leaders and gurus or highlighting
struggles for power, did not understand why there were no "final document" or
"concrete proposals" of the Forum. They did not ask for the same in Davos, but
they wanted these in Porto Alegre. They found it hard to understand that the
World Social Forum was not a summit, but one of the bases of a social movement
that, in order to develop itself, cannot have summits or bosses.
A "final synthesis" after five days of work, with 15,000 or 50,000 people, would
necessarily mean an impoverishment and could only be approved through some kind
of manipulation; and everybody left the Forum happier than if they had had to
fight to include at least one line of their proposals in the final document...
In fact, there were hundreds of concrete proposals in the Forum, and even
specific mobilizations, like the one this year against the FTAA. Or even new
reflections, such as the one that came up this year about the inner change of
those who were fighting to change the world. This issue, which was dealt with in
several workshops and seminars, was the object of a conference that gathered
more than 2000 people. But none of those proposals or reflections was an
expression of the Forum as such.
At the same time, the decisions taken by the organizers so far aim at enabling
the appeal of the Forum to generate in other parts of the world the same
mobilization it has engendered in Brazil. The 2003 Forum will probably start
with some ten regional or thematic fora in the different geopolitical areas of
the world, from September to December 2002, before a new World Forum, to take
place once again in Porto Alegre. In September 2003, it would start in the same
way, with the possibility of finishing it with a world meeting in India in 2004.
In fact, the biggest challenge for the organizers of the World Social Forum does
not consist in defining new and better contents that could lead to even more
concrete proposals, but to guarantee the continuity of the form the Forum was
given - a case in which the means are determinant for the aim to be reached. The
contents will naturally arise from the process thus launched, within mankind's
struggle towards another world, and they will necessarily lead to the different
editions of the Forum, with matters common to all and with the specific issues
of each region of the world where it will take place.
What is most important is to ensure that that new paradigm of political
transforming action, created by the World Social Forum, is not absorbed by the
"old models". -CNF
[The writer is the Executive Secretary of the
Brazilian Committee of Justice and Peace of the CNBB, and member of the
Organization Committee of the World Social Forum]