by Marc Becker and Thomas Ponniah

Activists from throughout North American gathered on Sunday, January 30, 2005 at the fifth annual World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil to share past experiences with organizing social forums and to discuss where we might take these projects in the future. Participating in the panel were Suren Moodlair of the Boston Social Forum, Janet Conway of the Toronto Social Forum, Jay Smith of the Alberta Social Forum, Víctor Rosado and Mike Menser of the New York Social Forum, Patrick Barrett of the Midwest Social Forum, Michael Guerrero of the United States Social Forum, Alejandro Villamar of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade, and Thomas Ponniah the co-editor of the first compilation of WSF alternatives: Another World is Possible: popular alternatives to globalization at the World Social Forum. The panel was moderated by Marc Becker of the Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD).

Suren Moodlair began the discussion by noting that the Boston Social Forum no longer exists. It was a group of people who came together to organize this one event on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, and then immediately disbanded. This would not, of course, preclude another group from converging to organize another social forum. It does, however, raise the issue of by what authority someone organizes a social forum. Suren also raised an issue that others would return to regarding the participation of communities of color in the forum. Based on past experience in Boston, the organizers knew that white activists would participate so they focused their outreach on organizing within communities of color. Suren closed by noting that social forums are profoundly subversive in their nature.

In the multi-cultural, social-democratic city of Toronto, Janet Conway described how their social forum represented a convergence of different groups, particularly drawing on a pan-Asian network. Conway noted two ways in which the Toronto Social Forum broke from traditional Canadian models: it was participatory, and it did not only include large organizations.

Unlike Boston, the Toronto Social Forum was a process rather than a single event that drew on the organizing efforts of ten public assemblies and continues with a new group elected to organize a second forum. This raises the question of institutionalization and structure, as the needs of an ongoing process differ from that of a single event.

In organizing the Alberta Social Forum, Jay Smith noted the importance of three main issues: how to incorporate aboriginal participation, the importance of communication, and struggles with continuity and memory as the process of the social forum is institutionalized.

Víctor Rosado described the New York City Social Forum as an intermediate social forum. The main issues with which they struggled were with privatization finding a public space in which to hold the forum, financing the forum, and a lack of participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—particularly in relationship to providing resources for organizing the forum. Víctor noted that the process of organizing and holding a social forum is radical and profoundly revolutionary, but it is precisely this attempt to dismantle capitalism that makes it so hard to organize such a forum in the United States.

Patrick Barrett shared the history of how the Midwest Social Forum emerged out of a twenty-year history of organizing a radical scholars conference in Wisconsin. The process has always been open and horizontal rather than top-down, but they have always struggled with color and gender imbalances. The goals of the meeting include fostering a dialogue between activists and academics, and presenting visions and strategies for the future, thus focusing on actions rather than problems). Barrett referred to Tariq Ali’s argument that social forums in the United States are important because there is no more important struggle than the one in that country. At the same time, activists in the U.S. face the irony of living in the most powerful country but also having the most disempowered citizenry.

After sharing these experiences, we moved to a discussion and proposals for future initiatives. One audience member urged that cultural expressions be built in as a central element of the social forum rather than as an afterthought. Others discussed how to improve outreach, noting that people will not come to us but rather we need to reach out to them. In this process, building trust becomes a key issue.

Michael Guerrero from Global Grassroots Justice (GGJ) who has been working on organizing a United States Social Forum noted that it is not a good time for such a forum because it would be largely white led. Rather, this is a great moment to go beyond race, class, gender, and racial barriers. Communities of color cannot be invited into the process, but it must start there with them providing a fundamental part of the process.

Last year, GGJ discussed the idea of a United States Social Forum with the World Social Forum’s International Committee, and plans are converging to hold such a forum during the summer of 2006. GGJ has launched a listserv and webpage at www.ussocialforum.org to organize this process.

Alejandro Villamar from Mexico noted that the idea of organizing a North American Social Forum would provide an opportunity to share information across borders.

Mike Menser noted a series of issues that social forums in North America face: a lack of specific concrete proposals for action, a failure to integrate grassroots organizations, struggles to involve unorganized peoples, how to interact with local political dynamics, and ongoing issues of organizing across race, class, and ethnic divisions—something that takes skill, not just good intentions. Menser then presented a series of proposals. First, social forums are usually structured as multi-day events. Different themes could be presented on different days: workshops, proposals, deliberations, and then analyses. Second, it is important to have report backs at the end of each day. Finally, participatory budgeting of the social forum is important and should be put on the agenda. This will help draw in people.

Thomas Ponniah, who has worked as a researcher with the WSF Secretariat, laid out three proposals for a US and North American Social Forum process. He argued that the success of the WSF began with its capacity to name one enemy: neoliberal globalization. Naming one adversary allowed a variety of social movements to converge. Ponniah argued that it was evident to all that the prime enemy for North American social movements was the Empire led by George Bush.

Next, he suggested that social movements must find a way of autonomously engaging with political parties. Social movements organized the largest demonstration in the history of the world on February 15, 2003. Ten million people around the planet demonstrated against the war. However the movements were not able to stop the war. In contrast Spain elected a socialist government that immediately pulled its troops from Iraq. Clearly social movements must find a way of exploiting the progressive possibilities of electoral politics without being controlled by political parties.

Last Ponniah stated that while the majority of the activists at anti-war and anti-WTO demonstrations were young people, the panels at the World Social Forum rarely had any youth speakers. This indicated that the WSF was not integrating young activists and the new, radically democratic politics that they embody. Therefore any future North American Social Forum process had to integrate young activists in order to not only build a movement for the next year but also for the next generation.

The discussion culminated with a number of lively debates on the role of Social Forums. One discussion consisted of an assertion that the Forum must be a non-prescriptive open space that enables the naming of a diversity of adversaries and alternatives. The counter-argument stated that the open space’s success has been predicated precisely on its capacity to name one adversary, and to search for a diversity of alternatives to that clearly articulated enemy. The challenge that Social Forums face is how to construct the open space in such a way that it helps articulate a diverse but convergent social movement strategy to construct global justice.

The overall panel on North American Social Forums was both hopeful and challenging. It was hopeful to see the diversity of processes that were underway. Many of those processes emphasized inclusion of the diversity of marginalized groups, especially people of color and poor people. The organizing efforts of Grassroots Global Justice, the Boston Social Forum and the Toronto Social Forum were fine examples of solidarity with the marginalized. The challenge that they face is that the representation of the marginalized also needs to include representation of the diversity of activists in the global struggle. The Social Forum process will only achieve its potential when it articulates the concerns of the marginalized and the social movements through which they express their aspirations.

Marc Becker teaches Latin American history at Truman State University.
Thomas Ponniah is the co-editor of Another World is Possible: popular alternatives to globalization at the World Social Forum. Both are members of the Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD), one of the founding organizations of the International Council of the World Social Forum.