First Draft, 5.7.2003, Lima
Teivo Teivainen, Network Institute for Global Democratization (nigd)

The International Council of the World Social Forum met in Miami during 23-26 June 2003. The decision to meet for the first time in North America had received criticism from some IC members and frequent observers, for example Cubans who were unable to attend because of the US immigration regulations. More generally, various IC members had ambitious feelings about organizing a meeting in a country that was waging a criminal and imperial war. The justifications for holding the meeting in Miami included the importance of networking with North American civil society groups.

The IC meeting of took place immediately after a big event by Jobs with Justice, a coalition working on labor issues, made up of member organizations and thousands of individual activists. When some IC members questioned why the meetings took place in an expensive and bourgeois venue, the response was that at the Wyndham hotel the workers are unionized, unlike in many other Miami Beach hotels.

I took part in the meeting as representative of the NIGD, together with Vijay Pratap. Since much of the work was done in language-based working groups, Vijay and I were generally in different groups (English and Spanish, respectively) and therefore I assume Vijay will be able to report on issues and debates that I did not take notice of.

According to my impression, the meeting dealt with two main issues, India and rules, as well as various minor ones. As will be clear from the various reports on the meeting, there may also be other ways to identify the key debates. Mine is mainly intended to order this report and not to imply any hierarchical ordering of the issues.

Toward India

The decision made in Porto Alegre to hold the next main World Social Forum meeting in India, in January 2004, had been the most difficult decision ever made by the IC. In the Miami meeting it seemed that even those who had initially opposed the move to India were willing to support the process in India. This general feeling may have been partially strengthened by an animated exchange in the e-mail-based IC discussion list after a message mentioned a “World Social Forum Forum for Peace and Against the War”, to be held in Porto Alegre during the end of January 2004. This message, that I assume was intended to be a private exchange between two IC participants and entered the list accidentally, sparked vigorous expressions of solidarity with the India process.

Various Brazilians, including Emir Sader who had originally sent the message, soon commented by e-mail that the information was incorrect and there was no intention to hold any parallel meeting that would compete with the WSF in Mumbai. In Miami, before the meeting, one of the Brazilians who had supported moving to India from the beginning, half-jokingly commented to me that the he had been suggested, again half-jokingly, that perhaps he himself had authored the original message that seemed to pose a threat to the WSF-India process but finally helped gather more support to it.

In Miami, the representatives (yes, I am aware of the problems the term “representatives” implies) of the WSF-India process presented their initial plans for the meeting, including tentative thematic axes. It was repeatedly pointed out by non-Indians that the specific themes under thematic axes tended to rely on concepts that were “too Indian”. In other words, while it was considered important that themes such as communalism and casteism should be prominently present in the program, many felt that they were not sufficiently connected with more general concerns of the global WSF process.

The critical comments on the somewhat parochial aspects of the program did not, however, create any major divisions. At least my understanding was that the Indian organizers were willing to take these comments into account. It was also recognized that the current tentative program was the result of negotiations by a great number of organizations in India, which meant it expressed broad concerns in the country. At the same time, it was agreed that there will not be similar international thematic working groups to prepare the program of WSF 2004 as there had been last year.

An issue that at times caused somewhat heated comments was the role of the WSF Charter of Principles. The background document prepared by the Indians stated that “in India the WSF charter has been extended to include social and political realities, as they exist in the country today”. Some IC members interpreted this formulation as meaning that the WSF-India process is consciously breaking the Charter.

The main debate on whether the WSF-India process is in contradiction with the Charter of Principles focused on the inclusion of new themes. After various debates especially in the working groups, with sometimes confusing and confused arguments, there was a relative consensus that at least in this regard the WSF-India process is not breaking the Charter of Principles. Emphasis on casteism and other novel themes is clearly within both the spirit and the letter of the Charter.

Another issue that raised some doubts is the extent to which political parties are involved in the WSF-India process. As stated by the Charter, the WSF is a “non-party context”. In India, according to various reports, especially the three main communist parties are intimately involved in the WSF process. My understanding, on the basis of the explanations by the Indians present in Miami and other sources, is that in formal terms the party involvement is so indirect that it does not constitute a violation of the Charter.

Even if the parties may control some of the key organizations that form part of the official organs of the WSF-India process, the parties as such are officially not involved. While indirect involvement may according to some interpretations also violate the Charter, my understanding is that this issue is not a cause for major concern. Trying to control the connections between the civil society organizations that are legitimate participants in the WSF process and the political parties that are not would be complicated and probably counterproductive.

A potentially more controversial issue is what kinds of civil society organizations are included in the process in India. As the Indians state, they want to have not only organizations that are against neoliberalism but also organizations that are against religious fundamentalism. Assumedly, many of the participating groups will be opposed to both neoliberalism and fundamentalism, which is obviously very much the within the WSF Charter. The difficult question is, whether such groups that are opposed to religious fundamentalism but not to neoliberalism can participate as delegates in the WSF events. Some of the Indians present in Miami said these groups would not be able to participate, whereas others said they would.

According to my understanding, participation as delegates by such groups that are not opposed to neoliberalism would indeed violate the WSF Charter. The Charter, in its first article, states that the WSF s an open meeting place for reflective thinking “by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism”.

Another issue that was not really debated in the plenary discussions but that came up especially in the meeting Gina Vargas and myself had as working group rapporteurs with the Indian organizers was the possibility that Lula da Silva and perhaps also Fidel Castro would be invited to Mumbai. It seems that some of the organizers of the WSF-India process would very much like to invite at least Lula to the WSF 2004. It should also be remembered that in the meeting the WSF International Council had with Lula in Porto Alegre during the WSF 2003, Walden Bello asked if Lula would accept such an invitation (to which Lula responded, somewhat vaguely, that he would be happy to participate as a trade union leader rather than as a president).

Jai Sen sent an e-mail to the IC on the eve of the Miami meeting, arguing that Lula´s participation would ”fundamentally contradict” the Charter of Principles and moreover would mean that the WSF 2004 be “subjected to all the instruments of surveillance, intelligence, and control that the Indian state can muster”. As far as I noticed, Jai´s message was never publicly discussed in the Miami meeting. In our meeting with the Indian organizers Gina Vargas and I expressed that inviting Lula would probably cause various controversies and should be discussed openly, but such discussion never took place. The lack of debate on the issue was not necessarily due to any explicit bias or conspiracy, since the sometimes inefficient moderation of the debates meant that there was simply not enough time for all important issues to be adequately discussed.

It should be remembered that the WSF program format allows for participation of non-delegates, especially in the so-called dialogue and controversy roundtables. If the organizers want to maintain the format, the possible participation of such individuals and groups that cannot be considered legitimate civil society delegates should be treated accordingly. It is obvious that this point has been somewhat ambiguous in the Brazilian editions of the main WSF event.

As has been stated in the Frequently Asked Questions part of the official WSF homepage, “the governments that host the WSF events can be partners in organizing them”. This partially explains why it may be considered legitimate to invite Brazilian governmental authorities to address a forum organized in Brazil, but less so if the forum takes place in another country. The same source, however, leaves the possibility of inviting foreign dignitaries open by stating that “members of governments and parliaments may be invited to take part in a personal capacity, providing they agree to abide by the Charter of Principles”. The fuzziness of this issue is likely to cause various debates in the future.

Toward (At Least Some) Rules

It seems that most of the participants left the Miami meeting feeling somewhat frustrated. One of the reasons for frustration was the lack of clarity about what kinds of internal rules the International Council needs, if any rules at all. Even those who were more skeptical about the need for a detailed regulatory framework tended to agree that there should be better guidelines for facilitating the meetings. All in all, the debate about the rules was the other key theme of the Miami meeting.

One of the main tasks of the Miami meeting was to decide on an internal code for the International Council. Some prefer to call the norms that would constitute the code “rules”, others prefer “guidelines”. This issue tends to create the most difficult controversies in the IC meetings, and since no clear rules exist to resolve controversies about rules, it has been difficult to move forward in the debate.

A specific working group, with an active role by Roberto Savio, had prepared a proposal for a normative framework that would guide the work of the IC. During the meeting it seemed for a moment that we would have relatively clear rules. Finally, in a late night meeting of the particular working group on rules, in which I did not take part, it was not possible to reach consensus on various issues. The document presented in the following day was less concrete and dealt with fewer issues than the original proposal, but in any case it constituted one step towards defining how the IC should function.

The novelties in the new “set of procedures” included dividing the IC into six commissions, defining guidelines for incorporating new members into the IC, and clarifying some aspects of the relationship between the Secretariat and the IC.

The six new commissions (that were also called committees in some draft of the document, because there was some ambiguity about how to translate the term “comisión” in Spanish and other Romance languages into English) were:

Strategies
Content
Methodology
Expansion
Communication
Finances

It was debated, for example, whether a particular commission on strategies was really needed. Some participants feared that having a strategy commission may imply that the IC tries to take a role of defining strategies for the movements around the world, which might be in contradiction with the Charter of Principles. The wording of the tasks of the commission on strategies was revised to make sure that this kind of strategic leadership project is not one of its aims.

I took part mostly in the work of the expansion commission, though I also signed up for the commission on strategies. According to my understanding, the commission on expansion was finally given a role in assessing the applications for membership in the International Council, which was also the subject of various debates during the meeting.

The criteria and procedure for accepting new IC members had been debated in various IC meetings and decisions had always been postponed. The new set of procedures finally included some guidelines on the issue. The criteria were not as strict as had been proposed by various participants in earlier meetings. For example, proposals on using international or transnational nature of the organization as one criterion did not become consensually accepted. Rotation of membership was another proposal that did not receive much support in the meeting.

New members will, first of all, have to formally accept and also in practice follow the WSF Charter of Principles. The acceptance of new members will be contingent on the need for increased balance regarding geography, gender, race, sector, and age. The new members will be required to take an active part in at least one of the IC commissions. Apart from the new IC members, the commissions will also be able to ask other organizations and groups to collaborate in the commissions. This collaboration will not in itself equal IC membership.

Among IC members, there are differing opinions on the WSF Secretariat (also known as the original Brazilian Organizing Committee). Some would very much like to immediately open the Secretariat to participation from other continents, others are not that unhappy with the present arrangement. It was finally decided that “the internationalization of the Secretariat” will be taken up in 2004 and for the time being the original eight Brazilian organizations continue to constitute the Secretariat. Another debate concerns the relationship between the Secretariat and the International Council. Within the IC there are people who demand that the IC be given a much stronger mandate vis-à-vis the Secretariat. No major changes were made in this regard in Miami.

Other Issues One of the problematic issues in the expanding WSF process is how to define what processes and events are “organically” or “officially” part of the WSF. There has existed a mechanism for selecting some thematic and regional forums as officially belonging to the WSF family of events. It has never been wholly clear what the procedures and criteria for obtaining this status are. As there will be an increasing number of events organized under the broad umbrella of the WSF, this issue may pose complicated questions in the near future. Will the WSF become a new brand, protected by some kind of unwritten copyright rules?

During the Miami meeting, two forthcoming events formally presented a petition to be given an official status as WSF events. One was Caribbean Peoples Assembly, which wanted to be recognized as the Caribbean Social Forum. The other one was an event in Argentina, mostly organized by the CTA trade unions, which wanted to be recognized as a thematic social forum. Both petitions were processed during the final hour of the 4-day meeting and both were rejected. This produced evident frustration by the IC members who presented the applications.

The World Trade Organization meeting in Cancún, Mexico, this coming September, was discussed in the meeting. Some participants informed of the protest activities related to the meeting and the parallel People’s Forum for Alternatives to the WTO on 9-14 September 2004. As always, the IC did not make any formal declaration about these activities.

Various other issues were discussed both in the plenary meeting and the working groups or more informal gatherings that took place during the meeting.

My participation

As representative of NIGD in the meeting and in the name of transparency and accountability, I would like to list some of my interventions and orientations. As stated above, I acted as rapporteur in one of the Spanish-speaking working group, which included various activities. I was also asked by the Secretariat to help with the translation of some documents.

In the plenary sessions, I took up in the very beginning the issue on what the “extension” of the WSF Charter in India means. In the debates that followed, I was however not in the camp of those who attacked, sometimes quite aggressively, the Indians for breaking the Charter.

As to the document on the operation of the IC, I suggested that all its parts (and not only some as suggested by the draft) should be open for revision in the mid-2004 IC meeting. As a minor linguistic point, I argued that the new “comisiones” should be called commissions rather than committees in English. While I was aware that in English “committees” might capture the exact meaning better than “commissions”, my argument was that what we could gain with linguistic precision would most probably be outweighed by what we would lose through all the confusions this apparent discrepancy between the Romance languages and English would imply.

At some point, during the debates on future WSF events in the Americas, I suggested that organizing an event in both sides of the US-Mexican border could be an interesting idea. This suggestion was never debated in the plenary sessions. Another not too successful intervention was taking up the possibility of rotation for IC members.

In more private discussions, I proposed the Secretariat that they should seriously rethink how the IC meetings are run. I suggested that apart from the two facilitators in each session, some people could receive and group together petitions for interventions by IC members. This could help to order the debates and save us from the frustrating experience of listening to incoherent debates on various issues at the same time.