World Social Forum 2013 - the success of a method

Chico Whitaker

03/06/2013

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Article published in ALAI’s magazine No. 484: Foro Social Mundial: Momento de replanteamientos? 06/02/2014

I was asked to take stock of the WSF process, after twelve years of existence. I can't make a list of what took place during this time, which would be even tedious. Neither analyze in few pages the ups and downs of the process with the realisation – now at every two years – of more or less crowded world events, continental social forums, national and even local forums, that stay alive or have disappeared, thematic forums that are multiplying around the world; or talk of the articulations and networks, as well as new campaigns, which were born in these meetings, in the struggle for the construction of "another possible world". I will give only some elements that might allow feeling the dynamics of the process, showing what happened in the 2013 FSM in Tunis.

The least that can be said of the 2013 WSF is what was said by one of its veterans, the American political scientist Immanuel Walerstein, completing its "Commentary" no 350[i]: the World Social Forum is alive and well.

Eric Toussaint, another veteran, of the Committee for the Cancellation of Third World Debt, was more complete in an interview to Sergio Ferrari[ii]: the Social Forum, undeniably, remains as the only place and the world mark where the social movements meet. In this sense, and in the absence of any other alternative, it remains very important.

And the very title of the evaluation of the Canadian sociologist Pierre Baudet[iii] is significant: Why the Tunis World Social Forum was a success?

In fact we could say that it was a great success, and the success of a method. In world events of the WSF process a method is applied, basically expressed in its Charter of principles, which the Tunisian organizations that promoted the FSM did respect, supported by other organisations of other countries in the Maghreb, as well as sharing the responsibility with members of the WSF International Council through their participation even in organizational decisions. And they also get the Government logistical support without its interference in the event - since it is a civil society initiative, as the Charter of Principles sets.

It was then created for five days, at the University of El Manar, in Tunis, a real open space, for mutual recognition, the exchange of ideas and experiences, and the identification of convergences and possibilities of new articulations at local, regional and global level. At every world event the methodology is improved, based on the previous experiences; and it is influenced, in what concerns the content of the discussions – defined by the participants themselves through the self-organized activities they register - by the world reality and by local reality.

So Eric Toussaint could say in the interview quoted: from the WSF’s contact with a society on the move, boiling, resulted a chemical reaction, an extremely interesting interaction.(...). In a country fresh out of 42 years of dictatorship, this "chemistry" produced a widespread feeling of joy and satisfaction at the end of the Forum.

Of course there were those who did criticize the Forum, due often to an insufficient understanding of the WSF character and methodology. But it is significant that 300 people have participated, on the last morning of the Forum, of the Convergence Assembly in which it would be argued the future of the process, marked by the enthusiasm of all. This type of Assembly is one of the innovations introduced in the 2009 Forum that are already consolidated. In 2013 there were 30 Assemblies, self-organized, which discussed the continuity of articulations or where their final declarations were made, as the Forum while Forum do not adopt a final declaration.

The discussion on the next WSF, in turn, had already been opened with a new coming from India: organizations that promoted the Forum 2004 in Mumbai had gathered to reflect on the accomplishment of the 2015 WSF again in their country. In the above-mentioned Convergence Assembly we knew that mobilizations animators in Quebec also intend to suggest that the next WSF could be held in Canada. And in the WSF International Council meeting, held after the Forum, the possibility of returning to the Maghreb in 2015 was proposed.

The Forum brought together around 60,000 people (formally registered 53,000), which filled the buildings of the Faculty of law and Economics and the Faculty of Sciences. A true human anthill – the allowed area relief made possible overall views - moved up inside them and on the path between them, passing by the University restaurant or by the bars mounted for the occasion, winning queues for a typical dish, or a sandwich to take to any of almost a thousand activities that took place in three two-and-a-half hours each, over the course of each day.

Posters, tents, little tables, free distribution of pamphlets, denunciations and invitations for activities, in five languages (for the first time the Arabic was an official language of the event), groups talking where they could, created the festive environment typical of the forums. The sun always present helped increasing the joy in reunions of former participants or between members or not of the 5,085 organizations coming from 128 countries. Large delegations spread in the spaces, as the French one with 500 people, or the Brazilian one with 200 members of trade unions, NGOs and social movements, or the one from Switzerland, with 60 people including parliamentarians who participated also in the Parliamentary Forum, a World Social Forum parallel event that became traditional.

Great steps have been taken to consolidate the option to "extend" the Forum through the Internet, so that groups around the world could interact with those present in Tunis. Most of these were Tunisians, as the Tunisian women struggling in their country for gender equality. But nationals of other Arab countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, were many. All could listen to militants of other struggles, exchange and discuss freely with them. And take part in a political meeting of a new type even in the democratic world, for its horizontality, self-organization, mutual respect, diversity, in this new political culture that is being built in the WSF process. A type of encounter that was new also for those who came for the first time to a World Social Forum, such as the two-thirds of the French delegation.

There was also a significant participation of young people. Many, among the Tunisians, were students of the University, encouraged and mobilized to participate by its Rector: in addition to open the University to the FSM and obtain the Government help to carry out the necessary works on it, the University Direction captured the opportunity, in the Tunisian reality, of such type of meeting with the principles adopted by the Forum. These students participated in the activities as well as acted as volunteers to help where useful, as how to identify the locations of the meeting rooms for those lost around the campus...

In fact the Tunisian organizers held the miracle, for the first time in 12 years of the WSF, to print its program three days before its beginning. But the indication of the rooms was less clear, and many people found their rooms until an hour and a half after the beginning of the activity. But as always in the Forums, the participants took the initiative to seek solutions to the problems, in a perspective of joint responsibility from the bottom to the top.

As always the topics discussed at the Forum were numerous, from the analysis of the crisis and its effects till the issue of migration, the appropriation of land, the racism, the denouncing of the drones and of the risks of nuclear power plants or mining projects. Wallerstein, in the "Commentary" already cited, says that in all matters there were the combined feelings of fear and hope, exemplifying with debates on overcoming the capitalism or introducing palliatives against inequality, the role of political parties, the BRICS, the current program of the global left, and the "decolonization" of even the WSF process. There were also many young people coming from social movements encouraged by the Arab Spring – which started exactly in Tunisia - as the Outraged of Spain or the United States Occupy people, developing their activities freely in their "Global Square".

The concrete world confrontations existing today necessarily emerged, when for example a flag of Israel was placed on the ground to be trampled by those who wanted to protest at what is happening today in Palestine; or when Moroccans quarrelled with Sarahouis in one of the Convergence Assemblies, the one of the Social Movements, stopping the discussion and approval of the final Declaration of this Assembly. But there were also discussions with mutual respect, about the possibility of democratic coexistence, in Tunisia itself, between a political Islam and the sectors of society independent of religious options.

On the last day, rather than finish the Forum with an Assembly of the Assemblies, to give an overview of the whole discussed and proposed, presenting the results of each Convergence Assembly – a never very successful way to do it - all Assemblies were invited to move to the main avenue of Tunis, having each one 20 square meters to present their results to each other as well as to the city's population. But there was no breath to achieve this innovation. And the Forum ended with a March dedicated to the Palestinian people, whose suffering is one of the most difficult challenges in the region.

This is, in fact, a World Social Forum: a large gathering of resumption of perspectives, encouragement and commitment of those who fight for "another possible world". And it is to them and not to the Forum – a simple instrument – that it is the task of transforming the world.

So we can say that the WSF is not emptying, like would like to say those who only see the absence of news about the Forum through the mainstream media - which is only interested in novelties. Its important role became evident especially for the Tunisians, in their difficult struggle for the re-democratization of the country, in the diversity and refusing violence, two of the basic principles of the WSF Charter. Even the political forces participating in the Government were grateful to the fact that the 2013 World Social Forum was held in Tunisia - with a clear feeling of relief, after the tensions of the four weeks before, caused by a political assassination.

After the Forum, another discussion that took place in Tunis was about the WSF International Council, which lives a crisis created, according to many of its members, by its bureaucratization. It met immediately after the end of the Forum and organized work groups to study for six months these issues, as well as the proposals for the realisation of the next World Social Forum.

One of the phrases of Pierre Baudet about the Forum, in the article cited above, also applies to the IC: the WSF, or the WSFs we should say, are tools that we need to improve, in what will be a very long walk ... (author’s translation)

* Text written at the request of the magazine America Latina en Movimiento, ALAI (Agencia Latinoamericana de Información -Alainet.org) (published in Spanish in printed magazine-No. 484, April 2013 and in http: www.alainet.orgpublica484.phtml; in Portuguese at http: www.alainet.orgactive63552)

[i]Commentary No. 350, April 1, 2013,Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University,
(http://www.binghamton.edu/fbc)

[ii] Week Newsletter of the Fórum Mundial de Alternativas (FMA), april, 11, 2013 (http://www.forumdesalternatives.org).

[iii] Published in the discussion list of the WSF International Council.

https://www.alainet.org/es/node/76508