By Roberto Savio
January 2004
In Mumbai, the World Social Forum reaches its highest level of expansion. The three previous Forums held in Porto Alegre w ere a huge success of image and attendants that nobody dared t o expect in the summer of 2000 when the idea of organizing a meeting in the pacific city of Rio Grande Do Sul to state that an alternative to Davos was possible, was first born. The numbers speak for themselves: though 10,000 assistants were anticipated in January 2001, 50,000 people attended the Forum. This number increased to 75,000 in 2002, and 100,000 in 2003. At the same time, parliamentary, trade union, education, justice an d local authorities forums were organized and all attended by thousands of participants. More important than the numbers is the fact that a myriad of organizations, of different kinds and levels, have come together to state that "another world is possible (now, other worlds). Up to this moment, these people have been more and more harassed every day by the one- thought of the ruling system, with its financial, informative and military architecture. In Porto Alegre, these people have gone through exiting moments, feeling part of a world movement trough which everyone could proclaim the economic and social failures and injustices caused by neoliberalism in a globalisation that is more merciless every day. This movement has been ignored by a political system that is every day more disconnected from citizens, in a more restricted democracy in the hand s of a class of professional politicians. This is proved by the different reactions towards the peace demonstration carried out on February 15 last year by more than a hundred million people all around the world. Aznar ignored it; Blair said they were wrong; Berlusconi said numbers were exaggerated by international communism; and Bush said it was a "focus group", meaning the study and reaction groups used in marketing for the launching of new products.
It's worth wondering why the electoral power of these politicians hasn't diminished, even though the citizens were showing their disagreement with their vision. In my opinion, this is the problem the WSF will have to face after Mumbai. It's true that Mumbai will be quite different from Porto Alegre, but probably this difference won't answer the previous question. Historically, Mumbai represents Asia's incorporation to the Civil Society Movement; and this is very important. Not only does Asia represent the majority of the world's population, but duri ng this century the centre of economical power will change fro m Europe and the United States to this region. Today, the Unit ed States in the most indebted country in the world and two- thirds of its debt correspond to Asian countries, especially China.
Europe will have to think carefully about a complex expansion to find a common voice and identity, and when it accomplishes this it will probably be too late to form part of the world race. The Mumbai Forum has been an extraordinary endeavour. Th e Forum takes place in a city with a very rightist administration. Tough there was a strong division between the different Indian organizations, they have made an unparalleled effort in the country's history to create a united and coherent organizing committee. The World Social Forum has shown that its formula based in participation and a space open to everyone who believes that another world is possible has united the divided Indian world towards a common space. In Mumbai, participation will be limited to 75,000 attendants and work will be carried out in more than twelve languages to include Indian local languages used by social activists, of whom only a small portion speak English. The Forum will be carried out without any kind of! support from the city, the region or the government, and most of it is financed with contributions from participants. Wit h Mumbai, the WSF shows its universal viability. It's simply amazing that this could be accomplished in only four years. It's still premature to know what impact this will have in t he Indian political scheme, but probably it won't be very important. The problem is that the WSF is a very gratifying event for all participants, and this can only be understood by those who have attended the different Forums. During a few days there are rich and lively debates where there exists no differences between old and young people, farmers and intellectuals, m en and women, and the different political positions. Everyone leaves the Forum with stronger ideals. And today, this is not easy. But all this doesn't impact on the political world or the international institutions. There is the risk of the WSF turning into a Festival della Unita (that Bernard Cassen from Attac calls Festival de l'Humanite), that offered similar gratifying moments to the leftist militants that used to get together every year to dream that the world they were waiting for was possible. If for the next WSF in January 2005 in Porto Alegre! the architecture is not reformed somehow, the Forums could be useful only for their attendants. Although it is important to exchange ideas, share experiences and feel part of a universal movement, it is necessary to find a way to include this in the political and institutional reality in which we live ever y day, whether we like it or not. This was a very strong feeling in the last European Social Forum in Paris where many participants had an uncomfortable feeling of "déjà vu".
The problem is that in order to accommodate so different experiences we had to avoid not only discussions but, above all, any serious attempt to adopt organizational and institutional formulas. What I mean is that we cannot continue considering t he Forums only according to the number of participants or their geographical expansion; they have to produce elements to car ry out an action in the world that surrounds us, so that another world might be possible.
The movement has three equally important challenges: participation (that every day is more scarce in the political system) , mobilization (that has a huge existential and public value), and elaboration (elaboration of plans of action and answers t o the countless disasters related to the neoliberal system). These challenges cannot be dealt with simultaneously in the World Social Forum. There will never be enough participants fo r the WSF to be really universal. In Porto Alegre most of the attendants were brazilians. In Mumbai most of them will be Indians. The problem of participation in the WSF process will onl y be solved with the explosion of thematic, regional and national Forums. Having more World Social Forums with an infinite n umber of participants, since the number increases in each Forum, doesn't solve the problem of a universal participation.
The second challenge is mobilization. This cannot be solved with a demonstration in the WSF. Paris, is an example. The previous year, in Florence, the final demonstration gathered one million people. In Paris there were less that 100,000. The way to follow is the one opened by the peace demonstration carried out last February: an annual gathering related to something that is the common feeling of citizens, a gathering in which o ur issues are shared by millions of people that are tired of national and international decisions that don't represent them.
It also implies great participation regarding our ideas and huge educational and political value.
The third challenge is elaboration. Since the first World Social Forum I have participated in a great amount of debates, and in the last Forum in Porto Alegre I coordinated the discuss ion on communication and culture. I have been related to this issue since the debate of the New Information Order of Unesco in the seventies. If we had the energy and the experiences seen in the WSF, the process would have been different. Last December we witnessed the World Summit for the Information Society, which is a new attempt to create another International Information Order, this time for companies and not for the citizens.
Our capacity for interaction and proposals, as WSF, has been quite insignificant. To a great extent, the Civil Society plat form has been carried out without our participation and has le ft the platform more isolated and weaker. Regarding communication, there hasn't been an interaction and continuity effort between Porto Alegre and Mumbai, and there hasn't been any with! Paris either.
Obviously, the elaboration issue creates gaps between participants. We have very different positions and though it is simple to make common proclaims, it is far more complicated to agree on alternatives. But the water issue proves something: thank s to the activities carried out by a group of colleagues with the coordination of Petrella, the WSF has reached a common platform on the defence of water as a common good that cannot be only a market element. Today, this platform is used as the foundation for this debate around the world. In the different meetings regarding the water issue there have been debates and conflicting positions, but the finding of a common platform was the result of this debate and gives it more power than if it w ere the technical result of Petrella's team, that had enough expertise on this issue to consider itself self-sufficient.
Actually, we're all afraid of arising the latent opposition between the first generation of the civil society, the NGOs that appeared on the issue of development (women, environment, human rights), the second generation of civil society, that was born to fight globalisation (such as Attac), and the so called social movement, their main difference being a more radical vision, more than a real institutional difference, that includ e NGOs and popular movements. In my opinion this is a necessary debate and we will reach agreements and find common platform s because we all know that wasting the great asset of a common idea only benefits our main enemy. Anyway, if we don't do this, the WSF could become an "aggiornata" vision of the Festival de la Unita' (or Humanite, to suit the French though it was always much smaller.) But there is no process with inertia, not even the status quo one. And this is what I worry about. The WSF doesn't have clear governance mechanisms. The International Committee, that continues expanding without clear participation and functioning rules, doesn't have the physical capacity to initiate an analytical debate anymore, when we're happy if we get to speak for three minutes. Now, we have passed governance on to commissions. Though it's still too early to judge results, getting to something global from them is far from possible.
I don't understand people immediately talking about bureaucratisation and bylaws when it is necessary to discuss whether t o vote by majority or consensus, and when it is necessary to vote. The International Committee cannot continue formally calling hundreds of thousands of people without offering the mini mum governance elements. Saying that due to the fact that the World Social Forum has no rules, the International Committee cannot have them is, in my opinion, a romantic expression that tends to ignore the objective responsibilities of the International Committee. It worries me that after Mumbai we will find ourselves in Porto Alegre again without having advanced in the discussion regarding the WSF architecture while the system follows its implacable and devastating process, and millions of people suffer its exploitation. I am afraid that some day we will be judged because the actual process is only a passive one; it's not even a option arising from our debate. Then, we will be accused of having thrown away a magical moment, unparalleled in our personal life.
