On 29 April 2004, I attended a discussion event on the Bridge Initiative International. The Initiative was presented by a sincerely committed Patrice Barrat (patrice.barrat@articles.fr). The Initiative wants to create a ’neutral space’ for stakeholders with conflicting views on globalisation issues with the aim to achieve an agreement on what should be done. The event was organized by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, in Stockholm, Sweden, and gathered about forty participants, amongst which a lot of media people. The presentation was commented on by Hans Abrahamsson and Helena Tagersson, both representing both Gothenburg University and Attac Sweden. The iniative is an interesting attempt to keep the lines of communication open, but the process has some inherent problems that were pointed out to in the discussion.

The Bridge initiative on globalization was created in 2001 and was originally called Davos -Porto Alegre Dialogues : a satellite debate produced by Article Z Agency between individuals in Davos (World Economic Forum) and Porto Alegre (World Social Forum). Since 2001, the initiative has expanded its mandate to cover more issues and it aims at institutionalising its presence internationally. It has also formalized its status as an internatonal, non-profit NGO in 2004 and seeks funding from different sources. International philantropist George Soros is the main sponsor of this initiative.

In its own words the Bridge is aiming at
i) finding points of agreement among the various players in the globalization debate,
ii) to create media events to publicize those points of agreements and
iii) continue to give air to the differences when agreement can not be reached.

The issues defined for future dialogues were : reform of the multilateral system itself, export subsidies, and the governance of the media world.

Limitations
Even though one can say that the supporting of a dialogue between conflicting perspectives is always positive, the Bridge process has some serious limitations:

Firstly, a precondition for a dialogue should be that both parties are engaged to listen (= to be ready to change ones position if the argument is convincing). This precondition does not seem to be fullfilled in the media programmes.

Secondly, participants do not officially engage their institutions or organizations into the negotiation,for instance Mats Carlson of the World Bank has taken part in numerous events but is he representing the World Bank or himself? . This means that participants have been cut off from their roots, and they are on the stage without a community of their own, and as such without any political standing. Individuals may be learning during the process, but is it really helping world affairs ? This is perhaps the most serious limitation of the process, as it delegitimizes the potential outcome of the dialogues.

Thirdly, the initiative is not even trying to communicate with the representatives of grass-roots, tribals, marginalized, non media attractive people of this world but considers representatives for them to be enough. It sounded as if people like Walden Bello, Susan George, etc. are representing enough of the other world to the Bridge.

The commentators pointed out that perhaps at the moment the conflicting views on globalization are too far removed from a consensus in order for a meaningful dialogue to take place. Especially when the parties would be talking from very asymmetrical power positions. Dialogues of this kind are too often actually debates in the sense of a competition between arguments and actually very little communication happens.

In order to be able to genuinely participate in a dialogue one must have a feeling that it is possible to attend and still maintain one’s political integrity intact. All the participants must have a same type of understanding of the dialogue and have the opportunity to prepare themselves accordingly. In a good dialogue a weaker party should set the agenda, and special attention shoud be given as to how and by whom the dialogue is fascilitated.

See for more also : Bridge Initiative International