Six Steps the World Social Forum Must Take
Znet essay - following up on "The
Future of the World Social Forum Process" by Kim Foltz, Suren
Moodliar and Jason Pramas
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By Suren Moodliar
The World Social Forum (WSF) is at that “show-me” moment: “Hic Rhodus,
hic salta!” to borrow from a classic work.
At the start of the century, against (1) a rampant capitalism animated
by the information revolution and re-integration of China and India,*
(2) a resurgent US militarism asserting control over Central Asia and
the Middle East, and (3) in the absence of viable, national scale
left-wing projects, the WSF made sense. Its defiant assertion contrary
to both immediate experience and official propaganda that “another world
is possible” provided all that was necessary to rally a dizzying range
and depth of causes, movements and organizations to its banner. The WSF condensed earlier grassroots globalizations that rejected
treaties-from-above and global elite consensus building in unaccountable
multilateral institutions like the IMF, World Bank and the WTO. Inspired
by the fires of Seattle, imagined in Franco-Brazilian dialogues, the
forum united a world against neo-liberalism and later against US
militarism. At once it inspired comparisons to earlier Internationals,
the anti-colonial and Pan African conventions, and the Rio and Beijing
summits of the 1990s. Now, with capitalism in crisis and with its neo-liberal variant
thoroughly discredited, with the US military project resting on accords
with provincial warlords in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with significant
left-wing governments and socialist-oriented projects in Latin America,
it is necessary to consider the future value that the WSF can add to the
social change project. Framed differently, the WSF pried open the space necessary to imagine
and organize alternatives; now that the space exists and that this world
is impossible, the challenge for the WSF is to establish a new function
for itself. All of this takes place in a world of increased urgency: the timetables
are no longer mainly political: they run up against hard environmental
responses to human activities. The economic crisis and the rotation of
capitalist governments in the Global North increase the urgency for a
coherent left project. To deal with this urgency we need to (1) know who we are; (2) begin a
structured dialogue between “sectors”; (3) develop mechanisms for
coordinating actions; (4) build structures for deliberation and
accountability within sectors, (5) sharpen the differences with the
emerging Global Keynesian project while identifying areas of strategic
collaboration and competition; (6) articulate our localisms, regionalism
in addition to our globalisms. None of these foreclose on the Social Forum as an open and potentially
“horizontal” space. Indeed each of these can be executed either from
above or below. Space considerations do not allow me to propose the ways
in which to realize these through incremental, bottom-up strategies.
Also left unanswered in this note is the question of who will make this
happen: the International Council, the Movement of Movements, the
diffuse mass of attendees? This important question for everyone—how do
we make things happen within the social forum process?—is left
unanswered here. An earlier note, “The Future of the WSF Process” (see
http://tinyurl.com/wsffuture) provides prescriptions for how to approach
the forum. 1. Know Thyself: Toward Inventory of Movements**
Many commentators have rightfully celebrated the globalization of
struggles that the social forum permits. This have been particularly the
case for excluded and oppressed identities including most notably, the
case of the “outcasts” from South and East Asia and indigenous peoples.
Beyond identity-based movements, however, a vast array of civil society
groups have been using the WSF as one of several important global
platforms for coordination and organizing. Unlike the typical “interests groups” of western social science, these
organizations have been coordinating their issue-based work in ways that
demonstrate their awareness of the universal and global character of
their concerns. Outstanding movements here include those around water,
public health, alternative economics and development, debt relief,
environmental justice, gender equality, HIV-AIDS and human rights.
Ironically, class-based organizations like trade unions and even many
left-wing think tanks appear to lag behind these movements’ global
self-awareness.*** Nonetheless, these movements are now challenged to look outside of
themselves and identify their counterparts in other struggles. For
example, how does the movement that challenged tobacco corporations by
supporting the world’s first public health treaty establish its identity
with movements challenging mining practices or even mining itself? The
WSF process seems ideally placed to build an inventory of such
movements. It can also facilitate their cross-networking in deliberate
ways. 2. Structure Dialogues between Sectors
Based on an inventory of movements, the WSF can help structure
conversations between these sectors as a way to spur additional
decentralized conversations between each. These movements have developed
distinct cultures of work and organizing over life of the forum process.
A structured dialogue will permit not only a cross-fertilization of
repertoires and best practices, it will enrich the vision of that other
possible world whose existence the forum has asserted. In addition to old, tried and true techniques like joint panels, new
technologies exist for conducting large-scale conversations, including
parallel, small group conversations leading to proposals and
opportunities for real-time voting and/or consensus building. The forum
could therefore structure the dialogues to go well beyond the leaders of
these movements to include grassroots level activists. The objectives for such a dialogue should initially be to hold the
conversations itself; over time concrete achievable objectives will
emerge. The time frame for the “over time” phrase of the last sentence
must be seen in light of the global environmental and health challenges.
In the course of these dialogues, it is likely that movements will come
to understand the brute deadlines imposed by environmental destruction
and that these will guide across sectors. 3. Build the Organizing Platform
In 2003, the Global Day of Action seemed proof-positive of the WSF’s
promise as a global organizing platform. However, even a cursory review
of turnout around the world suggests that the actions were strongest
where the left and left social movements already had a strong tradition
of social protest and demonstrations. In other words, the global framing
of the day of action added some value to the organizing but it did not
signal the birth of a global actor. Instead, the movements have yet to
attain a similar degree of coordination and unanimity. In the new
context, proactive measures are needed to give coherence to the
dispersed struggles. A strengthening of the WSF’s organizing apparatus is necessary to build
the organizing possibilities of the forum. For example, old-fashioned
techniques, coupled with newer social networking tools could be used by
a WSF staff to strengthen organizing from below. The forum could proactively resource outreach to organizations with
similar proposals for the self-proposed workshops and encourage them via
telephone and e-mail to contact one another. Similarly, they could
review with them the action components of their work. These could be
used to develop deliberative conversations for action out of the
individual workshop proposals. These are all tools already used by the dispersed staffs of the various
global networks and social movements. By spreading out the WSF to a more
manageable frequency, a relatively small staff of fewer than 20 people
can catalyze the organizing potential inherent in the several thousand
proposals for activities received by the WSF for each forum. 4. Hold Ourselves Accountable
If the social forum idea has inspired its attendees with its
horizontality, aspects of its practice have generated much
disappointment. Global and institutional inequalities are reproduced
rather than challenged or even attenuated within the social forum. Large
disparities exist between the foundation-supported and command
cities-based NGOs expressing themselves not only in the programming and
physical presence at the forum but also in the informal parties and
conversations taking place at elite hotels and restaurants or is
side-excursions throughout the life of individual fora. The social forum
begins to appear much more like already-existing world. Actively encouraging the larger formations and smaller ones to present
their perspectives on matters of contention to their social forum peers
in a public way may help overcome the informal mechanisms of exclusion
and create incentives for positive working relationships. In this vein, many solutions and mechanisms to deal with inequalities
and differences elsewhere ought to be deployed within the forum. From
the First International, for example, the forum should encourage many
voices and currents as representatives, rather than selecting between
more or less legitimate tendencies. From indigenous cultures, often
reinvented often for mainstream purposes are a range of peace-making,
ombudsman-like roles for building dialogues and generating working
relations between formations. This is a valuable culture for the WSF to
nurture and diffuse across borders. Intrinsic to accountability—and an incentive for groups to submit
themselves to the judgment of others—is the prospect of resolution and
the overcoming of past obstacles to joint action. To the degree that the
forum offers these prospects, the greater its continued relevance to the
building of global social movements. Beyond these kinds of nuts and
bolts offerings, lie bigger political tasks. 5. Sharpen the Differences: Another World beyond Neo-Keynesianism
The crisis of neo-liberalism has re-awakened Keynesian thinking as an
alternative. This is the kind of thinking represented by the many
original forum protagonists and a current that has grown over the years.
The more intolerable life became under neo-liberalism, the more its
loyal opposition appeared to be the other possible world. With thinkers
like Paul Krugman representing its left edge, Global Keynesianism may
represent a step forward but it has not consolidated itself. Krugman,
for example is well to the left of the Obama administration’s economic
team. He is consistent with the kind of “fair globalization” recommended
by the corporatist thinking governing the International Labor
Organization and other international institutions. However, for the left and in the spirit the movements that animated the
social forum, it is grossly inadequate. Core issues of the traditional
left—e.g. the distribution, ownership and control of the things that
sustain life—coupled with world scale environmental urgency demand a
radical social change project. For the social forum, the challenge will
be to promote opportunities for its diverse participants to gain the
kind of intellectual coherence that the IMF provided for neo-liberals
and that the ILO provided for neo-Keynesians. For a global left that has been on the defensive since the overthrow of
Allende and subsequent imposition of corporate globalization, this means
moving beyond the embrace of diversity toward conscious strategic
choices of partners and friends in a multi-polar world with a range of
economic and political models. 6. Strengthen the Regional
Now that the “end of history” has ended, that the one-size-fits-all
assertions about appropriateness of “liberal democracy” and “free
market” institutions for the entire world have been vanquished, it is
also clear that the local, the regional and the national remain profound
shapers of life and of personal experience. Despite the very real
globalizing forces, the vast majority of people live and work within the
countries of their birth, local and regional rivalries and alliances
shape their cultural, political and social lives. More often than not,
their comparisons and references are neighboring regions and countries
rather than the global. The alternative choices for the WSF’s current Amazon venue suggest the
importance of the regional: Indonesia and South Korea. Each readily
brings to mind a distinctive set of issues. In this vein, fewer World
Social Fora will provide the space and the incentive to grow regional
Social Fora and spread the process globally. Belém, 2009 – By way of conclusion
Now in its 9th year, the Social Forum has provided a welcoming space for
the Global Left. The forum in Belém will host Lula, Hugo Chavez, Rafael
Correa, and Evo Morales among its highest profile attendees. It has also
provided sharp focus on the struggles of indigenous peoples and nature
itself in its choice of location at the mouth of the Amazon. In these
choices, the forum at once demonstrates the strengths and weakness of
its entire project: its appeal lies in the moral power—of indigenous
struggles in the case of Belém—it leverages; its ambivalent relationship
with political power—officially excluding parties from participation
while drawing in heads of state—suggests the chasm it must traverse
between its social movement/civil society base and the power needed to
address that base’s claims. The steps suggested here maintain the
forum’s moral authority while orienting it toward effective social
movement activity and even political power. ------------------------ * That doubled the size of labor power in the global labor market
without a commensurate expansion of consumption. ** Patrick Bond has suggested a global research project to review the
different progressive global networks. *** Wherever a global regulatory or process has emerged, so too have
global social movements to press their claims. This is reminiscent of
their emergence relative early state structures in Europe. This is a
positive development because global civil society is often present at
the very moment of creation of these proto-global state structures
unlike the social movements that have had to contend with consolidated
national states. ------------------------ Suren Moodliar has been active in the WSF process since 2003. In 2004 he
was among the organizers of the Boston Social Forum. This note is a
follow up to one co-written with Kim Foltz and Jason Pramas (http://tinyurl.com/wsffuture)
at the 2005 forum in Porto Alegre. He is a coordinator of Massachusetts
Global Action and one of its projects, encuentro 5 and the Color of
Water. |