The Future of the WSF – Focus on Africa

Draft

Tuomas Ylä-Anttila,
Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki, and NIGD
tuomas.yla-anttila@helsinki.fi

A debate organized by the Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD) at the Polycentric World Social Forum (WSF) in Bamako, Mali, Jan. 22, 2006.

Tuomas Ylä-Anttila, of the NIGD, introduced the session as part of a series of debates on the future of the WSF organized by NIGD (a transcription of the debate at the WSF 2005 in Porto Alegre is available in an edition of Ephemera aswell as report on the WSF itself debate at Mumbai WSF, The Politics of the WSF's Open Space.

The idea behind these debates is to bring some of the organizers of the WSF and WSF public together to debate its future. There were four themes covered in this debate, which emerged from previous debates on the WSF:

1)The problem of moving from talk to action, construction of collective actors within or around the WSF process

2)The decision-making procedure concerning the organizing of the WSF, the roles of the International Council, Local organizing committee etc.

3)The role of the local authorities of the country/city hosting the forum and the role of political parties in the WSF process

4)Funding of the WSF

1. From talk to action

Demba Dembele, of the Forum for African Alternatives, Senegal, brought up the demonstrations against the war in Iraq in February 2003, which were organized by the networks formed at the WSF, as an example of how the movement can produce instances of collective action. While maintaining the value of the discussions at the WSF, he proposed that at each forum, one or two common actions should be decided upon and organized in each region, or sub-region, with the collaboration of a wide range of social movements. He also brought up the declaration of the so-called Group of 19, a group of well-known individuals involved in the WSF process in Porto Alegre in 2005, outlining the 12 proposals for “another world” as an example of a list of demands that forum participants might agree on (see http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-02/20group_of_nineteen.cfm)

Sara Longwe from Femnet, Zambia, agreed that it would, in principle, be a good idea to agree on a couple of common actions at each forum. However, this would require a finding a feasible way of making decisions on these actions, otherwise it would take hours and hours of debate to agree upon what the common actions should be. Until there is a way to make such decisions, we should just keep to the possibility of any actor at the forum proposing actions that the others may join if they will.

Azril Bacal, of the Paolo Freire institute questioned the idea that collective action, such as demonstrations, would be a more effective way of acting politically than the debates at the WSF. Even though the above-mentioned anti-war demonstrations were huge, brought together a great variety of actors, and had a clear message, they did not stop the war in Iraq from happening. The WSF as movement of movements is therefore not necessarily better than the WSF as an open space; however, these roles must complement each other, and the talks at the WSF have to also manifest themselves as action at the local level.

Joseph from Canada said that the WSF loses what it is the moment it starts giving final declarations. The open space has to be preserved, but it could be given more structure through a clearer separation of the different kinds of activities at the forum, and their different purposes; large plenaries aim at a different purpose than small working meetings of specific groups.

Esther Obachi, Kenya Library Association reminded us that the WSF also has value as a forum for the exchange of experiences. Its purpose is not only to address global problems and find common solutions; it is also a place to share the specific, unique problems of actors coming from different localities, and to benefit from each other’s experiences in solving them.

A speaker from the The Coalition for a World Parliament and World Democracy, Belgium, proposed that each year, the WSF should have a specific theme. There should be words added to “another world is possible”, for example, “another world is possible – a more democratic world”. That edition of the WSF could focus on debating different approaches to democratisation, and result in a collection of proposals based on them. Then the next forum could concentrate on a different theme, debt for example.

Sari Varpama of the Citizens’ Global Platform, Finland expressed her concern that there are very few connections between the local, regional and the world social forums. There is a need to influence and challenge the current practices at all levels of governance from the local to the global; accordingly, the WSF should aim at the coordination of efforts at these different levels.

Michel from France supported the model where collective action may be proposed at the forum and different actors, if they like, can join the action, that would take place after the forum itself.

Robert from France said that it depended on the role that we assign to the WSF whether we should have common themes and actions, or not. If we view the WSF as an NGO summit, then we should perhaps concentrate on issues, such as, world trade, influencing WTO negotiations etc.. But if, on the other hand, we see the WSF as a way of making citizens more aware and more responsible, that would speak against having one central theme at each forum because this would make many of the participants feel excluded.

Antonio Martins, WSF collective, Brazil, questioned the idea presented by Ignacio Ramonet (among others) in his latest editorial in Le Monde Diplomatique, that stated the WSF is not effective because it has not succeeded in turning around the process of neoliberal globalization. The forum is effective; it has produced an essential change that is not material, but ideological and symbolic. We have created an idea for the possibility of social transformation, and completely changed the political climate from the time before the altermondialist movement. The WSF is an expression of the new political culture of equality, diversity, and an orientation towards action and self-organization. If we return to old forms of organization, we will distance ourselves from the people of the forum.

2. Internal decision-making of the WSF

Tuomas Ylä-Anttila noted that the calls made during the debate for more coordination and concerted action would perhaps require decision-making mechanisms that are currently absent from the WSF process. He then called for speakers to give examples of the decision-making procedures concerning the organisation of the Bamako forum so we could learn from them.

Demba Dembele was of the opinion that the International Council (IC) should only have a narrow role facilitating the forums in Africa, Europe, or Asia, and most of the decisions should be made by the regional committees. He supported his position by giving an example from organising the Bamako forum; when the decision was taken to organize one of the polycentric WSFs in Africa, word went around that the IC had decided it would be in Morocco. This made many in the African WSFs’ organising committee feel that they were being ignored. In the end we found out that the IC hadn’t made a decision on the matter, and the Moroccan government did not support the idea of hosting the forum. The African committee then decided, after consultations, that the WSF would be held in Bamako.

Nicolas Haeringer, Alliansi, France said that the decision taken by the European Social Forum (ESF) organisers to have the ESF only every other year was good, and should be taken in regards to the WSF as well. If there is a perceived problem of ineffectiveness of the forum, it is mostly due to a problem of documentation. The workshops produce enormous amounts of proposals, but having the forum every year does not permit their complete documentation, nor the circulation of information. Holding the WSF every other year would also give more time for the decision-making process; therefore, we wouldn’t only have to have the IC meetings with same people every time, we could have more open assemblies like the ESF process.

Moema Miranda, of the WSF collective, Brazil pointed to the need to learn from the organisers of the previous forums so we don’t waste our time thinking about the same problems of organisation over and over again. The forum, as a whole, needs to be a learning process. The second challenge is to make this a forum for social transformation, not only a meeting for discussion, and at the same time, avoid making it one actor with one direction and one central committee. Rather than one common actor, the aim should be common action. The WSF has contributed to the creation of a strong anticapitalist sentiment around the world, now it has to channel this feeling to real transformative action. Of course, the aim cannot be the construction of a single historical subject of social transformation, like some once thought of the proletariat – multiplicity, rather, should be the goal.

Taoufik Ben Abdallah, of the Regional Council of the African Social Forum noted that it would be an error to rely on a political analysis that is based on the passage from an industrial society to a postindustrial one since, for the largest part of humankind, the industrial proletariat never existed. So there is a perspective error in this kind of thinking. The ambitions for Nairobi have to do with the valourisation of diversity. The forum in Nairobi has to be an instrument for social transformation that responds to the expectations of a maximum number of actors, and through the Nairobi forum, the forum itself also has to change and evolve.

Sara Longwe pointed out some of the aspects of organising the WSF which could be improved. First, the Bamako forum was quite dispersed around the city which disoriented many people, and moving between different venues was sometimes difficult. This is why we should aim to have the events closer to each other at the Nairobi WSF, like in Mumbai 2004, or at least make sure that there is adequate transportation. Second, the Bamako forum has been a step forward in bringing African participants, and women to the forefront of the forum, but there should still be more work done on improving the regional and gender representativeness at the forum. Third, the IC meetings should rotate around the world, so we wouldn’t only have those who have the money to travel making the decisions.

The speaker from the Coalition for a World Parliament and World Democracy said that there should be coherence between what we say at the WSF and what we do. Solidarity, equality, and democraticness ought to be practiced in the forum itself. That is to say, in the name of equality, the organisers of the forum should not have their meetings in five-star hotels; in the name of democracy, the decision-making of the forum itself ought to be more transparent and democratic, and decision-making bodies should have equal representation from all regions of the world.

Azril Bacal thanked NIGD for starting events of critical self-reflection on the WSF, and noted that this was not an initiative that came from above, not from the IC, nor the organizing committees, but one of the participating organizations, which is an example of the self-organizing character of the WSF in action. He supported the position that there is a need to invent ways in which the organisers of the different forums could learn from each other, and also from the local, national, continental, and world levels.

Nicolas Haeringer argued that the forum is not only a means for debating and planning other action, but also an end in itself. It’s not a utopia, but it is a space that we have created and filled with concrete action, most notably in the World Social Territory, which we had in Mumbai and then Porto Alegre last year. The forms of solidary economy, experiments on free software, and other things presented in this territory are a fundamental aspect of the forum which ought to be developed further in Nairobi. Also, as the global public sphere excludes the majority of the world’s people from political debate, the forum can be a place for the expression for those who do not necessarily master the discourses of the mainstream public sphere, but who live concrete experiences and need to be heard.

3 & 4 Relations to local authorities, political parties and the funding of the Forum

Tuomas Ylä-Anttila introduced the topic by pointing out that the forum is unavoidably engaged with the local authorities of the place where the forums are organized, political parties, and funders. To give a few examples, the city government of Porto Alegre, controlled by the Partido dos trabalhadores supported the first editions of the WSF, there was controversy around the involvement of the Socialist Workers’ Party in the last European Social Forum in London, and the support of the Chavez government to the Caracas polycentric forum has provoked criticism. He called for experiences from the African organizers regarding these topics.

Demba Dembele stated that in Africa, for example, in the Senegal Social Forum, political parties are invited to participate, especially the mayor and the local elected representatives. This is an opportunity for us to show them the other world and the other Africa that we want, and to see their reactions to it. And many of them, as a result of their participation in the social forums, have taken new positions towards privatisation for example. As far as money is concerned, the Malian government has done a lot for this forum. The president and the government were favourable to us, politically, and they have also taken care of the security for the forum’s participants. Politicians have also participated in debates, for example in our event on debt, the vice-president of the national assembly was there, he said he was present as a citizen, and took part in the debate. This is not a problem, as long as we keep our identity distinct from political parties.

Taoufik ben Abdallah lauded the Malian government for being the most progressive in this region, and for creating true political will and a climate of listening and openness, not only towards this forum, but civil society in general. It is the first time an African government has given important financial support for a social forum, some 150 000 dollars, and this was done with no demands on the content of the forum, simply because the forum corresponded to their ideas about democracy. The money was used to support Malian participation to the forum. The decision to support the forum was taken through a consultation process, openly and transparently; it was communicated to the public through media. But not all funding partners are alike. Some have taken a long time to release the money they promised and have wanted to interfere in the decisions that the African organisers have taken in organising the forum. There have been some hard negotiations, but if those who have the financial resources dictate decisions concerning the forum, it’s not another world, it’s the same world divided between those who have the money and those dependent on the money of others. Some partners seem to fear that their money will be spent in a chaotic and non-transparent way, but transparency ought to be reciprocal. For example, some funders want to support participation of East Africans, or some say half of the money has to be spent on the participation of their own partner organisations. These demands affect the composition of the forum itself, and the decisions concerning these demands are not always taken in a transparent way. Taking money from someone cannot mean sacrificing the autonomy of the WSF. Also, the African WSF is unique; it’s organized not in one big country, as in Brazil or India, but in a continent with 53 different countries, by a continental social movement. Therefore, the African structure for the organising of the WSF is more complicated; for instance, there is the African committee and the Malian local committee, and, for some reason many partners don’t seem to understand this complexity.

Esther Obachi remarked, regarding the issue of learning from previous forums and documenting them, libraries could be used as a means for this. There are areas in Africa where only a fraction of people have electricity, let alone internet access. In this context libraries can play a role in the dissemination information on the WSF to the people whom we are fighting for.

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