A debate on the relation between the WSF, political parties and governments.

Immanuel Wallerstein

16 January, 2006

Dear Teivo, Dear Jai,

It seems to me that if the WSF is not on the left, it has no ‘raison d'etre’ whatsoever. The question, which is a serious and difficult one, is what it means to be on the left. The WSF is an attempt at creating a grand coalition, and an open one of all the tonalities of the left in the world today. This is why it has been an open forum and must continue to be that. If it were not, it would begin to exclude, and then become simply another vertical international.

The question of how political parties relate to movements that are not political parties (what some call social movements, others the civil society- with all the confusion these terms have come to generate) is not a simple one. Personally, I have never understood why political parties could not attend the WSF on the same terms as any other organization. So long as the WSF is not an organization that passes resolutions, elects leaders, etc., there is no inherent danger.

Nor should we kid ourselves about the support that sympathetic governments can offer. We discuss regularly in the WSF (a) the need for money – to bring, for example, persons from regions of the world where money is shorter, and (b) the dangers of taking money - from the Ford Foundation, from the government of Porto Alegre or Venezuela. Well, we need the money, or the meetings will be restricted to the wealthier. But there are indeed dangers. So, the rule has to be (a) transparency - we need to know exactly from whom money has been taken, how much, to whom it has been given, and whether it has given to the WSF truly without conditions, and (b) diversity of sources - yes governments, yes foundations, provided we have a good mix, and provided it is truly without conditions. Is this possible? With difficulty, but it is not impossible. It depends on the collective strength of the WSF.

And political action? You both know the position I outlined in my paper for the UNESCO volume that Jai co-edited. We must find room for political action within the WSF; not political action of the WSF, but multiple political actions by multiple coalitions of actors within the WSF. Is this possible? With difficulty, but it is not impossible.

The WSF remains the only real arena today for the world left, in a gigantic political struggle that is going on and will continue to go on. We should be careful not to undermine it, prudent to preserve it in a workable form, and we certainly should continue to debate how it is being run and should be run.

Yours/Immanuel