1.Geopolitics: situation / world, regional and national context “conjuncture”: today’s situation and what has been changed since the beginning of WSF in 2000-1? Have we actually entered into a new phase of neoliberalism? Have there been changes in the correlation of forces at the international level? What are the main reasons for these changes?
– 9/11 introduces a period of neoimperialism in which the military component of capitalist “globalization” comes to the fore once again, beginning with the United States coupled with anti-minority, anti-immigrant sentiment and reduction in the realm of civil liberties in the liberal democracies.
– Multipolarity, which hardly existed on a military plane among capitalist countries, is reduced—Kosovo once again disproves the fiction of a EU as coherent political—although the global geopolitical return of Russia needs to be noted.
– Forces such as Venezuela (but not necessarily India or China) are pushing toward new geopolitical configurations with slowly articulating anti-capitalist dynamics, which deserve support
2. Organisations: that which is part of the scenario anterior to the WSF, what is the situation of social movements, NGOs at world / regional / national levels, what are the current different expressions of “civil society” at world / regional / national levels and what has changed since 2000-1?
– Notwithstanding the changed configuration, much of the civil society transnational organizations, particularly the INGOs, continue to work within the parameters of the pre 9/11 world: focused “campaign” issues challenging the institutional multilateral expressions of international capitalist expansion (trade/finance/G8) along with human rights, ethnic, gender campaigns/organizing
– The unmistakable implications and heightened global awareness of global warming/environmental destruction demand a cross cutting consideration. The challenge is to transform that awareness into a massive anti-capitalist critical consciousness, encompassing state capitalism and many “modernization” development schemes geared to a consumer ethos.
– In response to the new wars and continuation of the economic crisis, the WSF contributed in no small degree to at least facilitating the identification of new ways of defining cross-border and cross sector alliances to resist war and (its) neoliberalism. We went beyond the simple exchange of experiences, which however valuable in itself, needed to take the form of action-oriented exchanges for the purposes of articulating and linking struggles, in both traditional and innovative ways.
– The tension between “space” and “action” also relates to discussions around the “old” and” new” ways of “doing politics”. Of course it is bound to be complicated—and this should not occasion pessimism. There is an ongoing challenge and process of conjugating different visions of how movements and parties can or should relate to each other, and the nature of power itself: the pursuit of transformation as both a methodological means and/or a culmination of a political process.
– The appearance of “progressive” governments in South America reintroduces the question of how “autonomous” the WSF—and indeed movements itself—can or should be in the face of resurgent imperialism. New thinking is necessary because many already aligned with the new governments may wish to go back in the name of going forward, that is, toward a “mass front” model.
3. WSF: which is part of the previous scenario, WSF evolution as an event and process, its fruits and dilemmas?
– The WSF must continue to be a home for people everywhere pursuing goals of social justice, equity, peace, deeper democracy and environmental justice—particularly those who consider themselves politically active without being members of political parties. For this reason, the respective founding principles should hold, yet at the same time continue to debate and monitor the role of political parties in transforming structures and politics. To its credit, the WSF has increasingly become movement-oriented but this must be further stimulated and acknowledged, particularly in the face of reformed neoliberalism and conservative methodologies of conventional electoral politics.
– The WSF is a “space” that enables and attracts the various assemblies, allowing them to interconnect. This is its chief strength and not simply a supermarket of ideas, however valuable that is in its own right. It is rather in the Social Movements Assembly that we can actually take positions and make plans. And insofar as the Assemblies can mobilize their own people, so too do we diminish the financial and congregating burden on the WSF itself. The workshops are fine, but they serve the movements less than assemblies, as spaces wherein strategic exchanges and planning can take place and where the autonomy vis a vis the left neoliberal INGO and NGOs is less threatened.
– Although born out of a concern/reaction/resistance to capitalist “economic” globalization (Davos), the WSF has had the merit of being able to incorporate into both its space and prominence: a) social movements, b) war and imperialism—as expressed in the Assembly of Social Movements and the Anti-war assemblies and global campaigns emerging in reaction chiefly to the imperialist war against Iraq.
– Our perception is that the processes of action emanating from the WSF space could have been more widespread, inclusive and effective than they have been. It is true however that we need an evaluation whether that has happened in any substantial manner since the first Forum in 2001, something various working groups of the IC are presently engaged in finding out. We also need to get a sense of that from the participating movements, again something that is being currently attempted by at least one working group.
– It is the Social Movement Assemblies - to which we might add the Assemblies of Creditor peoples, Via Campesino assemblies - and other spaces (womens’ tribunals) etc. that are mobilized by movements and networks with goals and dynamics more rooted in ongoing processes - that have been for Jubilee South, the most important aspect of the WSF process. The disconnect in Nairobi between these processes, and the WSF “articulation and summing up” process, was particularly grievous - and the ongoing tension between the two approaches (top-down or bottom-up in a gross generalization) will undoubtedly continue to weigh in the WSF dynamic - with the real danger that the more bottom up approach move further and further from the WSF and not closer and closer. At least in Latin America and the Caribbean, the disconnect grows in that direction, with the real danger of devolving into a more mechanical and repetitive process that drains the movements and their articulations as opposed to energizing them. The result is a political ambivalence which may prove fatal for the WSF process. Moreover, the Assembly of Social Movements, which was expected to become the ‘action platform’ linked to the WSF ‘space’, has not, in our opinion, been able to organize itself into a more effective and inclusive Forum of Action.
– If the ASM is to be more of a Global Action Forum, it must build an existence independent of the WSF and not merely meet during WSF events. If its actions include calls for demonstrations, picketing, rallies and so on, and not merely issuing statements, it must have an organizational structure that ensures that it is in fact facilitated and led by representatives of movements who have constituencies that can undertake mass action, rather than by academicians, individuals from research and advocacy groups, or NGO’s. There must be primacy to movements that have ‘victims’ amongst them –Southern peoples, indigenous peoples, the most oppressed including women, dalits, workers and peasants. An action forum dominated by individuals from Northern groups who have ‘partners’ in Southern countries is unlikely to provide an effective and sustained political platform of action. In order to be effective vehicles of global solidarity, new Global Forums of Action will have to be politically conscious to avoid being the harbingers of new colonial relationships. That implies doing away with the traditional forms of funder, leader and ideas (North) and receiver, actor, subordinate (South) forms of relationships.
– The space the WSF provides is vital to enlarge the existing action forums and forge new ones; therefore the WSF has not exhausted its historical role. The potential for ‘space – action’ symbiosis that the WSF has innovated should in fact not be a transitory phase at all, but an ongoing new form of political organization. What is necessary is to pay heed to the organizational and political shortcomings and limitations of the WSF process, rather than suggest abandoning it altogether. These shortcomings and limitations relate to the participation in the decision making processes of the WSF, the restricted nature of its IC, the organizing principles of the various forums, and the facilitation and liaison processes of the WSF.
4. Future: crossing the above issues, try to formulate political and organizational proposals for the continuity of the WSF.
– WSF spaces are not an end in themselves—although this may have been necessary at the beginning. We wish to work in the direction of spaces being organized and led by movements, campaigns and networks. The objective is to reinforce processes of struggles and generate greater capacities for global mobilization. For this we need wider political coherence to build on the radicalization of public consciousness, within and outside of the WSF.
– Walden Bello posed the question whether the WSF should simply lift camp and allow new forms of global resistance and transformation to emerge? Jubilee South would not agree to lifting camp, adding however that more work needs to be done for the WSF to become a more effective facilitator for the movements themselves. And not simply on account of coming up with alternatives, but do so from an autonomy perspective. A space that belongs not to parties or governments, but to people’s organizations.
– A key challenge is to achieve a dynamic that will incorporate and privilege those sectors (social movements) best positioned to resist military imperialism enriched by and connected to issue-oriented campaigns. The WSF becomes a space that facilitates strategizing and helping to facilitate the creation of structures that are required to insure sustainability and global rapid response capacities. The WSF is about building power and counter-power, including forms of power outside the state that have national and international democratic legitimacy.
– The WSF should be mature enough to distinguish leadership from “domination”, and not reject the first on account of perceptions of the second. There may be implicit concepts of leadership (and power) that need to be acknowledged and debated, particularly in the case of conceptions that appear oblivious of new forms of building power on the basis of shared political values, but autonomous from classic political structures. The historical sense of struggles must be enriched with the new possibilities and new models of representation that, precisely, can best engage the traditional repressive structures while at the same time strengthening grassroots-based forms of democratic power, facilitating their meeting and the exchange of organizational lessons, thereby making the WSF itself a mechanism that brings about transformative politics with ongoing results.[1]
– In this regard we feel that the space offered to the Assembly of Social Movements is a key WSF contribution but that it has not been fully utilized strategically by the WSF itself. The movements themselves, including campaigns that are increasingly configured as movements, should not feel shy to initiate and help bring in other movements into the leadership role. The Assembly of Social Movements should have a more organic representation in the IC, combining with the reality that they can also become a force for accountability on global institutions and powers.
– A parallel yet linked strategic debate needs to take place at the level of the Social Movements Assembly beginning with a review of its methodology. To move away from the series of speeches, comments, announcements and the reading of statements. Not very inter-active, not really “conversations” between and among movements. More to insure gender and regional balances. All this for the purpose of identifying, strengthening the relationships and unities (of calls and actions) among social movements
– A first step will be to work for a “charter” and “guidelines” for these assemblies. To support attempts to create coherent Global Forums of Action for Peace, Economy and Trade, Women, Indigenous People, Workers, Peasants and so on need to be made; who in addition to their constituency based actions, may come together for joint actions from time to time. It is not as if Global forums for action in various areas do not exist today, who even have their own calls for annual global action days – Jubilee South and the coming together of a global movement in opposition to debt domination is an example - the point is that the WSF process could be used more vigorously to enlarge and deepen them, rather than turn WSF into an omnibus forum for action, which in a way could cause problems by encroaching on the political space various movements have already carved out for themselves.
– The WSF2008 as a Global Day of Action has provided a uniquely new modality that can be combined with the World Forum effectively in future. The GDA does not have to be seen as a replacement of a physical forum, as in 2008. It could be part of the forum in future – for example along with the Belem forum in 2009, a Global Day of Action could be designated so that actions all over the globe could accompany the Belem events. The advantage of decentralised action being that movements and groups are free to make them as effective and radical as they desire. That could effectively answer the criticism that the WSF event is a talk festival rather than an action forum. It could also be a way to respond to the ‘fatigue’ factor voiced by many groups regarding the annual frequency of the event. The physical event could be held every two, three, or even more years, but the GDA each year. The 2008 modality therefore opens new and creative ways to craft out new political processes and, hopefully, contribute to changing the strategic discourse from the binary ‘space versus action’ to an inclusive one, of ‘space and action’
Jubilee South (Africa JS, Asia-Pacific Movement on Debt and Development, Jubilee South/Americas)