An exchange of ideas that took place in the context of the preparations for the WSF-related meetings in Durban, South Africa, and in reaction to the article of Roberto Savio (IPS) "World Social forum : the cradle of global civil society".

Susan George, 20 July 2006, social forums e-list

Hello everyone, I won't be in Durban but let me try to contribute to the debate. Although I don't totally share Roberto's views, I'm glad he set them out as I do think we are in some real danger of becoming invisible to the larger society and nothing but a self-referential, increasingly closed culture and community.

This is why I have been asking various friends in the movement for nearly two years to support a move so that the WHOLE MOVEMENT supports a world-wide 'coming out' on any subject, I don't care which one, on a given date during the year, on the model of February 15, 2003 against the war on Iraq.

I am not suggesting that people stop their good work on subjects A B C etc. Simply that we all decide that on X date, we take Y visible action on [Third World Debt, the WTO, the arms trade---you name it] and tell the world's press and people Hello, We're Here, We're against Neoliberalism and all the policies of capital worldwide. Because otherwise, I'm afraid our moment will pass. History is fickle. As Shakespeare says in Julius Caesar, There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to victory. Omitted, all must end in shallows and in misery [sorry for probable misquotation, am in South of France with no library]. Let us try for victory, not shallows and misery. We don't deserve the latter, we knew at one point how to be historical.

A friend of mine tells me I'm crazy, that you need blood on the sand [or at least the serious threat of same] before you can mobilise people. Maybe he is right. But I would like to see--for example, but there are surely better ideas--say, a thousand coffins for the WTO buried all around the world [you don't need millions of people to do similar stunts on every continent] or for denouncing the 3W debt, or, again, whatever, so that we hit the press and public opinion and bring more people to our ranks. We risk becoming an in-group of people that other people have no idea how to join.

It is in this present chronic invisibility that I think Savio is right. Participatory democracy is great, but at somle point, some group accepted by all has to take a decision or the whole thing misses the moment. As Shakespeare said, in politics [as often in love and work] timing is everything.