WSF 2007 evaluation
From KLAMediaWiki
(→Las encrucijadas no siempre cierran caminos (Reflexión en continuidad a la de Walden Bello)) |
|||
| Line 2,135: | Line 2,135: | ||
23/05/07 | 23/05/07 | ||
| + | |||
| + | == Thomas Ponniah == | ||
| + | |||
| + | === The Contribution of the U.S. Social Forum: a reply to Whitaker and Bello's debate on the Open Space === | ||
| + | |||
| + | The achievements of the U.S. Social Forum experience contributes a great deal to debates concerning the future of the overall World Social Forum (WSF) process. In a recent set of interventions Walden Bello and Chico Whitaker, both representatives on the International Council of the WSF, disagreed on the future of the Forum. Bello, the Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, argued that the Forum was now at a crossroads . While acknowledging that the WSF had gven a great deal to the struggle for global justice, Bello suggested that the Forum's Open Space methodology, which on principle, refuses to take a collective stand on issues such as the war on Iraq and the WTO, was now inhibiting substantial political agency. He argued that there was merit to the charge that the Forum was becoming "an institution unanchored in actual global political struggles, and this is turning it into an annual festival with limited social impact". The article concluded with the query: "is it time for the WSF to fold up its tent and give way to new modes of global organization of resistance and transformation?" | ||
| + | |||
| + | Read the entire article in pdf format at http://www.lfsc.org/wsf/ussf_contribution_thomas.pdf. | ||
Revision as of 20:01, 24 July 2007
Contents |
Sally Burch & Irene León
VII Foro Social Mundial: entre desafíos presentes y miradas al futuro
The Spanish original text is here: http://alainet.org/active/15554
The 7th World Social Forum: Facing Current Challenges and Future Perspectives
by Irene León & Sally Burch
Due to its plural character and diverse participation, the World Social Forum continues to be the most significant space for the construction of anti-neoliberal thought, ideas and alternatives. The 1,200 activities which made up the agenda for the seventh forum, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya from the 20th to the 25th of January, pay tribute to its vitality, which has grown out of the innovative proposal and whose backbone are the social processes present there: the movements, networks, campaigns and intellectuals, that have provided the basic material for its substance and dynamics. On this particular occasion, they took the vantage point of Africa, a continent rich in social and political initiatives, but which also suffers the most from the incongruence of the neoliberal model.
The incredible mosaic of experiences and cultures of which Africa is composed, was reflected in the diversity of participants and wide variety of issues raised, from long-standing struggles, such as the fight for independence of the people of the Western Sahara, to more contemporary issues such as HIV-AIDS and the right to water.
Without a doubt, this recent Forum provided the possibility of considering global struggles from the political perspective of a continent in resistance, bringing with it significant experiences gained from recent triumphs: independence from colonialism achieved over the last fifty years, the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, as well as steps towards socialism in Angola and Mozambique, and more. Interesting precedents have also been set by new social movements on the continent, such as the historic victory for free import and access to generic drugs for HIV-AIDS, achieved in 2001 by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa, against a group of transnational corporations which were leveraging WTO accords to gain exclusive control over drug patents.
The Forum in Nairobi also enabled a greater number of networks and organizations to establish new or stronger relationships, to define new areas of common interest, and to develop innovative solidarity initiatives, such as that of the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform in Africa, a project of Vía Campesina and others. In addition, the forum motivated participants to broaden their scope of intercontinental relationships, as was demonstrated by the priority established by the Americas Social Forum to orient its activities toward giving visibility to Africa's presence in the Western hemisphere, and highlighting their shared history and experiences, present and future. This was reflected in various joint activities organized in collaboration with the African Forum.
However, like every work in progress, this recent Forum also brought to the forefront several critical issues, some of which pre-existed, while others were new. In this regard, the commercialization of the Forum and the contracting out of services must be mentioned, as well as the undeniable NGO-ization, the forum's distancing from popular participation, invasive police presence, the high profile presence of various Christian churches and other related matters, all of which were thoroughly reported by the media. The avalanche of critiques, whose most relentless proponents arose from African delegations, need to be gathered and seriously considered with regard to the Forum's future. Unfortunately, they reaffirmed the impression of an event marked by poor organization and a distancing from the original intentions which have animated this process for the last seven years.In this context, it is necessary to think about the future and to open up debate and encourage discussion. That is, to compile and establish a dialogue between the different evaluations and ideas, so that this initiative, considered to be the greatest social proposal of our time, can renew its meaning and vitality.
In order to accomplish this, it is essential to confront the economic and power relationships internal to the Forum, since these are fundamental to any decision concerning its character, approach, participation, format and architecture. Furthermore, these are determining factors for making a choice between its two competing tendencies: that of the "World Social Fair," supported by some organizations, and that of the forum as a collective process to uphold and strengthen changes, defended by a wide range of movements and organizations.
The African intellectual Samir Amin points out that between these two approaches there is that of "an altermondialisme (another-world-ism) whose adherents are primarily drawn from the middle-class within rich countries and who are critical of the way of life proposed by capitalism, but who have little interest in the real concerns of the popular classes within their own countries, and less still of those in the South, where this 'moderate' altermondialisme is often misunderstood. Paradoxically however, as a result of their greater access to financial support, these groups often seem to be over-represented in the World and Regional Social Forums and are at times perceived to be holding back the strengthening of popular struggles." However, examples of this trend could also be identified in the South.In any case, there is a challenge to determine a way forward for the Forum, without abandoning its openness to diverse manifestations and broad participation. And this means the need to establish some guidelines which take into consideration what it hopes to achieve.
Supposedly, in the "Forum as Fair," each person freely finds or does what they want or, similar to the market system, everyone achieves their own ends based upon their own possibilities, though in this case, apparently in a more humane atmosphere. Those with greater resources are visible within the "mainstream" part of the forum, as happened in Nairobi. The "main avenue" was primarily occupied by Christian churches - though not the vast ecumenical diversity existing within Africa and globally - as well as development organizations, international institutions, and some NGOs. Many of the events which obtained reasonable participation seemed to gain their attendance from amongst the faithful who were sponsored to be there or, the equivalent, those who are beneficiaries of projects. In addition, the criteria established in Nairobi that self-organized events should pay a fee based on the size of each event, without consideration of ability to pay, nor of social representation or ability to draw participation, generated a disconcerting skew in the program, within which only a few organizations were able to organize dozens of events, whereas others were forced to limit their activities.
The "Forum as Process," on the other hand, involves one or more critiques of the state of the world, and an inventory of existing standpoints present in the proposals of the live movements that come together in this space. Up until now, one of the most important contributions of the Forum has been its potential to expand the arena for exchange and convergence between various social struggles and to allow for the visioning of a common agenda, such as that which has come together in the Assembly of Social Movements, which is fostering collaboration between different issues, producing a declaration and calendar of joint actions, interconnecting proposals and efforts to build movements and networks in their ongoing struggles against the various impacts of the neoliberal model and its institutions. In fact, one of the greatest achievements of the Forum in this regard was the global day of action against the invasion and war against, on February 15th, 2003.To sacrifice this possibility to "methodological experiments" could put the future of the Forum at risk, since occurrences such as those in Kenya where the aforementioned Assembly had to forge its own space on the go, and where open participation became an issue of internal protest, could lead to demotivation of participants whose contributions are essential in the common struggle against neoliberalism.
The Forum's character: participation, "architecture" and methodology
With regard to its character, the options facing the Forum relate back to its original principles. The Forum-event, envisioned as the confluence point of a broad-based proposal, as well as being open to pluralistic thought and debate, needs to give priority to new practices currently being developed by various participants in their day to day work, including the alternative solidarity economy, ecological practice, gender diversity and equality, among others. One of the strongest critiques concerning the forum in was the scarce presence of participants from the alternative solidarity economy, and the front-line presence of private and corporate actors. In the same sense, the "architecture" of the forum must respond to the local reality and context in which it takes place. The idea of designing, in the here and now, an alternative city which allows those in attendance to experience a different model during this timeframe, must be balanced with the importance of creating a participatory framework. The forum needs to be in a location accessible to the local population –�whether in an urban or rural context - and should take maximum advantage of existing public infrastructure. All the more so if creating special "architecture" for the purpose of the forum incurs greater costs, obliging the organizers to appeal to private companies, which are ever more present in the forums. This has been the case with Petrobras, sponsor of the 2005 Forum in and also very visible during the forum in , as sponsor of the Brazilian delegation as well as the Brazilian Pavilion. It is also the case with the multinational cell phone company, Celtel, responsible for registration during the recent event in .
The notion of holding gigantic events, which has gained hold gradually over time, motivates organizers to want to make each forum larger, leading to the inevitable drawbacks concerning space and economic investment, which in 2005 led to a substantial deficit. The forum in also fell victim to this rationale. Participation was calculated at more than 100,000 people, while all indications suggested that attendance would be less. The official tally of 66,000 registrants also seems greater than the actual number present. These miscalculations led to the selection of a remote location for the forum on the outskirts of Nairobi, Moi Stadium, whose cost to access was prohibitive, not only for local popular sectors, but also for the average participant from the South. Additionally, that the large tents being used were largely empty during the forum indicates that the investment was far out of proportion with actual attendance.
However, beyond these seemingly logistical elements, one of the major challenges for the forum has been the search for methodological procedures that contribute to reinforcing the underlying goals. This means ensuring that the distinct perspectives present in the process are taken into account in the definitions. The International Council (CI) has come to consensus about the importance of providing opportunities for convergence, as well as of ensuring balance with regard to various factors (geography, sectors, gender, ethnicity, etc) in the major events. Two proposals in this regard, which came out of the first Americas Social Forum, were partially implemented as part of the forum in . However, this took place in a way that ended up diminishing their effectiveness.
First, "co-organized events" were envisioned as a mid-way alternative to the central conferences and panels of the first forums and to the idea of having only 'self-organized events" which do not guarantee diversity within the major arenas. Co-organized events are set up by the coordinating bodies of the forum, taking into consideration those organizations and networks that come together to register joint activities within the principle themes that have been established. Thirteen events of this kind were programmed for the forum in and were assigned large venues. However, last-minute preparation and scarce promotion for these events resulted in very poor turnout, absent speakers and, in some cases, cancellation.
The second proposal adopted in was that of "the fourth day" which is dedicated to convergence, evaluation and planning of coordinated actions. One of the key achievements of the forums has been precisely the bringing together of diverse actors, issues, sectors and agendas, a role that in practice has befallen the Assembly of Social Movements, on behalf of participating sectors. On the morning of January 24th, thematic self-coordinated assemblies dealt in turn with such issues as war, migration, AIDS, sexual diversity, the union movement and globalization, among others, and effectively allowed for the identification of common goals and actions. However, the agenda did not provide broader spaces for convergence among different themes, setting out instead 21 issue based fora, for that afternoon, "of struggles, alternatives and actions", indicated by key words which lacked any political meaning. Many of these also repeated topics from the morning sessions. The proposal was limited to presenting proposals for action, which would be later displayed on the forum's webpage. Once again, under these circumstances, it was the Assembly of Social Movements which, with a full tent, took on this role of making space for the aforementioned convergences.
From the outset, the Forum has been a space for convergence in the broadest sense imaginable as part of the struggle against neoliberalism. Its pluralism, diversity and gender perspective are fundamental elements; its character as an agora for the exchange of ideas and proposals is essential to its make up; its participatory character is its driving force for the construction of alternatives. But if it is to retain this essence, it cannot become reduced to the coordination of disconnected events, redesigned each time like a new experiment. It is time now to invest in the idea of the forum as a process, such that the accumulated experiences may serve as a broad platform for new initiatives, and continue contributing to the construction of a plural social and political force that will bring about in-depth changes as alternatives to the neoliberal model.
The 2008 World Social Forum
The 2008 Forum will explore a new organizational model: instead of one central event, an invitation will be made to organize high-profile gatherings and actions around the world on the same date in January. In principle, this concept, whose precise details will be outlined during the next meeting of the International Council in June, will allow for the participation of more people while having a global impact. In any case, on the one hand, since this is not something that can be orchestrated in a centralized way, its success will depend on the situation within each country and the decision of local participants to invest their selves in its organization. On the other hand, the cohesion of the forum and its international visibility will depend to a great extent on a global communication initiative, as much during the lead up as at the time of the forum.
Debate has already begun about whether or not the forum should have one or several central themes, or freely determined themes; and whether or not there will be a common slogan beyond "Another World is Possible." During the meeting of the International Council in , a significant group of international networks and regional forums brought forward the idea of a global day of action against the crimes of the transnational companies and governments who participate in World Economic Forum, to take place concurrently with this annual event in Davos. Such an initiative would ensure that a clear and forceful message is sent about the commitment of the World Social Forum in the struggle against neoliberalism.For 2009, the World Social Forum is scheduled to take place in a central location. Spacing out the world forums has been an ongoing demand by several sectors, particularly social movements. Since the time that the WSF International Council was established in 2001, they have insisted on the necessity to have more space and time to invest in their own social struggles, and to develop local and continental processes for the forum.
In any case, if the aforementioned problems that arose in Nairobi are warning signs of fatigue with the mega-forum approach, which have already been voiced on previous occasions, 2008 presents a challenge and opportunities for participants around the world to look for and develop new ways for the Forum process to take root in the different corners of the world.
Several outstanding themes during the Forum in Nairobi
Given the scope of the agenda, it is not feasible to take a look at the full set of issues that were raised in Nairobi. Instead, we will indicate a few which stood out for their novelty or breadth.
The principal thematic innovation of the Forum in Nairobi, is without a doubt its thorough exploration of the issue of HIV-AIDS highlighting various socio-economic problems related to tackling this affliction, from which about 39.5 million people in the world are suffering, of which two thirds are in Sub-Saharan Africa. For this reason, the most important initiatives, proposals and actions related to this pandemic are emerging from this continent, which has made abundant contributions to making correlations between the expansion of this disease and poverty, and to analyzing the impact of neoliberal policies in this regard.
Putting into perspective the magnitude of the problem and considering its macroeconomic and human aspects, socially conservative campaigns promoting sexual abstinence are clearly invalidated. For the first time, though, such manifestations were visible during the Forum, including belligerent demonstrations, which reduce a complex and multifactoral issue down to a question of morality, far removed from a vision of rights and liberties such as is upheld by various social movements as they consider alternatives to the neoliberal model.
Concerning another area of discussion, the issue of External Debt drew broad attention and participation, including an innovative proposal to associate the debt with a demand for reparations for damages inflicted upon countries of the South, given that, as expressed by Camille Chalmers from Jubilee South: "The basic idea is to recognize that the present debt is the result of a historical process of looting, of ecological destruction, both physical and social, such that the North owes an enormous debt towards the South." For this reason, future campaigns are being developed around three key words: repudiation, restitution and reparations.
More than forty global and continental organizations and networks from Africa, Latin America and Asia participated in an assembly to develop their positions and strengthen coordination between movements, renewing their rejection of the new formulas proposed by the International Financial Institutions, which continue to advocate strucutural adjustment policies. There was agreement to encourage governments of the South to enter into processes of repudiation and to back them in this effort. In this regard, they welcomed the decision by the government of Norway to cancel part of the illegitimate debt of certain Latin American countries, recognizing that the joint campaign by social movements in Norway with those of affected countries has been an effective model. They also set out to reinforce initiatives to raise awareness about the illegitimacy of the debt and to further pursue studies on the reparations process. Finally, they emphasized the importance of collaboration with other organizations and movements on related issues such as free trade, and militarization and military bases, as a way to develop more effective strategies to confront all projects for domination.
The priority set by Vía Campesina and other organizations concerning the issue of Agrarian Reform and Food Sovereignty also had significant outcomes during the Forum. The Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform in Africa was launched, as a significant contribution of the farmers' movement towards the resolution of one of the greatest problems on the continent and for humanity, that of hunger. Indeed, with continued concentration of land ownership and over natural resources, such as water, poverty also continues to grow, particularly in the countryside where unprecedented levels are being registered: 75% of poor people worldwide live in rural areas.
Policies relating to land and rural development, such as those of the World Bank, which push for land liberalization, expansion of commercial agriculture, advance of genetically-modified crops, amongst others, were outlined as the greatest threats facing peasant livelihoods and their principle of sustainability. This was reflected in the words of Adamantine Nhampossa from , Coordinator of Vía Campesina in : "Five hundred years ago, colonialism took our land. Since the 80s, our land is being taken by the World Bank. Currently, the only thing that we have left is to become mobilized and to organize campaigns such as this, encouraging people to struggle for their rights.
"The proposal for food sovereignty, which concerns the right of peoples to decide on their own agricultural and nutritional policies, was seen as highly relevant, not only due to the high levels of hunger and malnutrition across the African continent, but also due to their agricultural customs and self-sustenance, which are now being undermined by the imposition of policies and market practices and which are further threatened by the advance of free trade agreements such as the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).
For reasons such as this, the issue of Free Trade was another important subject of debate; an area in which various agreements were advanced, particularly with regard to strengthening ties between Africa and other continents. In this area, the consolidation of the international movement against the EPAs stood out (agreements of economic cooperation and partnership which are being negotiated between the European Union and various countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific). The most immediate actions include an international mobilization on April 19th of this year, whose epicentre will be in Europe and Africa, but which will also take place in Caribbean countries. Meanwhile, the Hemispheric Social Alliance will encourage actions of solidarity throughout the rest of Latin America. In Africa, EPAs are equivalent to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) for. Ever since the process of negotiations began about two years ago, significant growth has taken place in mobilizations against these agreements across the continent, primarily led by the African Trade Network bringing together unions, farmer organizations and NGOs from about forty African countries.
The theme of Diversity was expressed in a variety of ways. Sexual diversity, in particular, and the demands for the rights of people discriminated against as a result of their sexual orientation, received wide attention, despite a supposedly adverse context, where repeated arguments concerning cultural incompatibility with this form of diversity even included attempts to exclude it from the agenda of the Forum. On this subject, the Assembly of Social Movements echoed proposals from the 4th Social Forum on Sexual Diversity in its final resolutions, reaffirming its commitment to struggles to eradicate such discrimination wherever it might arise, and endorsing the campaign "In a diverse world, equality is first," put forward by the LGBT South-South Dialogue together with other networks, as a mechanism to foster a culture of respect for diversity, a central element toward the construction of alternatives.
Women's concerns and their proposals for humanity were expressed in new ways on the African continent. Amongst the new issues raised by this movement, food sovereignty was put forward by the Women's Network of the í Campesina and the World March of Women (WMW), who presented the particular challenges for the affirmation of rights concerning agriculture and food production. The WMW also contributed debates around the commercialization of the bodies and the lives of women, as expressed in different realms associated with the reproduction of life, and various discussions concerning globalization, such as migration. In collaboration with the LGTB South-South Dialogue and other networks, they also considered questions of diversity as a substantial part of struggles against patriarchy and for universal equality.Communication, constantly invoked as an indispensable resource for reinforcement of the Forumís goals, was also the object of several resolutions. In a meeting to pool conclusions, called by the international Campaign for Communication Rights (CRIS), with the participation of international and regional networks, as well as African organizations, proposals for action were exchanged, reaching consensus on the necessity to mobilize a wide range of support around the democratization of communication. Toward this end, these were proposals to raise awareness concerning the fact that communication rights are fundamental: as part of democratic process, for the organization and struggles of social movements and for the exercise all human rights. It was also emphasized that information, communication and knowledge, and in particular the radio spectrum and the internet, must be recognized as public goods and services, rather than as commodities, and that they must therefore remain outside of free trade agreements; also, that public policies need to be further extended in the areas of information and communication.
There was a varied and plural presence from the Americas. The Americas Social Forum Tent, organized by the Hemispheric Council, became an important meeting space for participants from the continent, while providing a venue for meetings and exchanges with other realities, such as that of Palestine and the Sahara, as well as others who arranged their gatherings there. Amongst the range of activities which took place, two in particular stand out, both organized by the women's movement: the Preparatory Meeting for the World Forum on Food Sovereignty (Nyeleni 2007), organized by í Campesina and the World March of Women, which gathered important contributions concerning the role of women as creators of knowledge with regard to the substance and provision of human nutrition. The book "Fidel y las Mujeres" (Fidel and women) was also launched during an event organized by the Cuban Women's Federation. As well as emphasizing the important role of women in the revolution, the event became a global space of expression for the warm appreciation of Cuba's contributions to people's struggles, within which participants from five continents spontaneously took part emphasizing the importance of Cuban solidarity in education, health, science, culture, etc., with special emphasis from Africa, a continent to which that country has offered its solidarity for various causes.
Amongst the wide range of other issues which were presented during the Forum in Nairobi, we might briefly mention the Anti War Assembly, which called for global days of action, from the 17th to the 20th of March; the launching of the new African Water Network, with the participation of more than forty countries, which will struggle against the privatization of water in cooperation with allied networks such as the Red Vida (Network for Life) in the Americas. Also, the Assembly on Work and Globalization made a proposal for the creation of a permanent international network amongst unions, social movements and research centres, focusing on work, culture and labour rights, so as to confront the attacks by neoliberal globalization.
The Alternative Forum
An Alternative Social Forum was organized from the 21st to the 23rd of January, taking place in one of the city's central parks, Jeevanjee Gardens, as a response to the obstacles for Nairobi's poor to participate in the main forum. The Alternative Forum was organized by the People's Parliament, which gathered in the park each afternoon throughout the year, in order to debate diverse subjects from local, national and international levels.
In this Forum, issues were raised such as housing, unemployment, social security, land, water, health and provision of public services. Also ideological debates took place, such as with regard to capitalism and socialism. Some four thousand people took part, including some participants of the World Social Forum who visited the park. The Alternative Forum presented its resolutions to the Assembly of Social Movements. Amongst them: the public provision of housing by the state as a basic human right; fair distribution of natural resources, giving priority to local communities; the elimination of disparities in wages, guaranteeing everyone with a fair minimum wage; the reversal of historical injustices, such as the expropriation of peasant farmers’�land, or the treaties limiting the use within Kenya of its own water from Lake Victoria.
- We thank Magdalena León for her contributions to this article.
Translation: ALAI
Source: http://alainet.org/active/15665
Onyango Oloo
Critical Reflections on WSF Nairobi 2007
by Onyango Oloo
29 March 2007
By Onyango Oloo, National Coordinator, Kenya Social Forum
Executive Summary:
This report reflects on the debacle that was WSF Nairobi 2007 while also attesting to some of its highlights. It describes, from an insider's perspective, the genesis of some of the problems and issues that reared their ugly heads at the forum itself and ends by charting a way forward.
I: Absorbing the Deluge of Local and Global Criticism
It is only today, Saturday, March 17, 2007, ALMOST TWO MONTHS AFTER the WSF wrapped up in Nairobi that I decided to sit down and complete this report.
There are several reasons for this which will become clear as the reader goes through this text.
One reason that I will mention right away is the fact that I decided to sit back and listen to the comments, the questions, the evaluations and the critiques about the WSF 2007 event-these coming from comrades, friends, insiders, outsiders, WSF participants and media outlets from Kenya and around the world. I have two bulging file folders stuffed with comments googled from various web sites and blogs around the globe as well as newspaper cuttings from Kenya. That is not to mention the private email messages, the text messages on my cell phone, the phone calls, the in person conversations, the chats AND cat calls in the streets, cafes and homes of Nairobi and other forms of direct feedback.
In summary, the overall picture that emerges from these critiques is that the WSF Nairobi 2007 event gave rise to disturbing and negative tendencies such as commercialization, militarization and authoritarian and undemocratic decision making in the World Social Forum process. The Secretariat and Organizing Committee of which I was a key member, comes in for some very heavy roasting.
II: Internal Sluggishness at Accountability and Report Back
The other reason why I have been withholding public comment on the WSF so far, despite a lot of requests to give my take from various quarters was because I was respecting our own internal evaluation process here at the WSF 2007 Secretariat here in Nairobi. This has gone at in an excruciatingly slow pace.
Most of the members of the Secretariat were kept in limbo and in the dark for up to three weeks as we waited for some of our “heavy weight” colleagues to convene a staff meeting to discuss the modalities of doing this post-mortem and charting a way forward.
As the National Coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum I had taken it for granted that it would be my task to pull together the report from WSF 2007. I had also assumed there would be no final report before a public report back process to the Kenya Social Forum and the wider WSF 2007 Organizing Committee which comprises of representatives of the Ugandan, Tanzanian, Somali and Ethiopian Social Forums as well.
Instead, someone else from the Secretariat took it upon himself to write to various people about how they should do the report and what areas they should cover. Little room was left for me to contribute to this report other than being assigned to cover social mobilization-even though this was among the responsibilities of the convener of the social mobilization commission.
I have since learnt, second hand, that a hand picked team will soon go on a retreat somewhere to compile a “composite report”.
This latest development is disturbing since there has been NO ATTEMPT to involve me as the National Coordinator in the preparation of this important document. The decision to have this retreat was taken by less than seven people excluding myself. And it was taken at a meeting where no one bothered to call me, even though I was within the precincts of the Secretariat having arrived on time for a meeting and being told that I would have to hang around for a quorum. When I inquired if the meeting was still on, I was blithely informed that it was already over, even though I was right there in the office when the alleged meeting was supposedly taking place. I should also mention at this point that this decision preempted an ongoing process at the Secretariat where some of us had started raising fundamental questions about some of the controversies during the WSF event- the awarding of tenders to Michuki's Windsor and the mainstream Norfolk hotel; why water was being sold and at such exorbitant prices; the allegations of corruption and the way the Organizing Committee responded to criticisms and protests. In particular there were some disparaging and condescending observations, especially about Nairobi slum dwellers made by some of our colleagues that some of us wanted to strongly disassociate ourselves totally from.
Even more disturbing is the fact that as of the time of writing, there is little indication or hope that there will be a public report back to the Kenya Social Forum as well as to the plenary of the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee, which is composed of close to 100 representatives from Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, not forgetting key participants from Zimbabwe and other countries.
It is my fear that we may very well end up with a very sanitized and truncated report that justifies and condones some of the mistakes of the Organizing Committee in mounting WSF Nairobi 2007.
My fear is neither far fetched nor baseless.
Over the last two weeks, I have seen some of the individual reports from people who headed specific committees or worked on the various commissions. One person pulled me aside and confessed to me that he had deliberately left out a key chunk of his report because he did not want to expose or embarrass certain key members of the Secretariat who had participated in certain shady activities during the tendering process. Another person has flatly told me that he will NOT write his report because of the back lash he may face. It has been interesting to listen to members of the Secretariat, including some of the overseas placements from our partners talk very freely about some of the excesses and howlers they witnessed-but to then adamantly refuse to include those observations in their written reports. I was amazed to see a very cursory report which glibly stated that there was enough water to drink and food to eat-without mentioning that this same water was on sale at exorbitant prices or that one such feeding outlet featured the notorious internal security minister.
Another report, written by perhaps the most high profile member of the Organizing Committee and giving a political evaluation of the WSF refers to “glue sucking urchins from Korogocho” while dismissing most of the critics of the process as condescending Trotskyites from the North.
Clearly, these misleading, disparaging, classist and elitist arrogant sentiments are NOT shared by Onyango Oloo and many other progressive members of the Secretariat and wider WSF 2007 Organizing Committee.
III: Deconstructing the Myth of The Monolithic “Organizers”
It is quite infuriating for some members of the WSF 2007 Secretariat and Organizing Committee such as myself to be frequently confronted with blanket accusations and condemnations that denounce ALL the “organizers” as if we ALL participated in some of the questionable decisions that sparked so much controversy during the WSF 2007 gathering.
It should be stated that some of these dubious decisions were made by literally, TWO or THREE people at the most, often in Total Defiance and Utter Disregard for what many other people sitting in the same Secretariat and Organizing Committee were thinking, counter-proposing and demanding.
For the record, people like Onyango Oloo and others WITHIN the Secretariat and the wider Organizing Committee were opposed, from day one, to the sky high registration fees; we denounced the entrance of corporate players like Safaricom (yes that is right, they were the first to be approached) and Celtel into the WSF process; we pushed for the inclusion of marginalized Kenyan and other groups into the core of the planning for Nairobi 2007; we paid out of our own pockets for villagers and fisher folk to travel from the country-side to attend and participate at Kasarani apart from subsidizing our comrades from the slums and other informal settlements in Nairobi; we were right there agitating for the release of poor people and vendors incarcerated at the police post at the main WSF venue at the Kasarani Sports Complex; we joined in denouncing the offering of a concession and a spot for Michuki's hotel BEFORE it was even invaded; we saw with our own eyes how WSF volunteers were being starved, underpaid and mistreated (including being roughed up and allegedly sexually harassed) and again dished out our personal funds so that they could at least get matatu fare and food to eat when those responsible simply abandoned them; we obtained first hand reports of how our high profile and high handed colleagues mishandled the visiting artistes from South Africa (Yvonne Chaka Chaka), Zimbabwe (Oliver Mtukudzi) and even home grown talent (Tony Nyadundo, Eric Wainaina, Suzzana Owiyo, dozens of progressive artists from working class and slum areas) with the very funder of the cultural programme being forced at one point to almost max out his credit card paying for these visiting artistes to secure accommodation when his own organization had already advanced funds to the Secretariat for this very purpose; we saw indications of lack of transparency and even outright theft and fraud by people hired to work at Kasarani for the WSF process.
It should be pointed out that what comrades like Trevor Ng'wane detailed in their post WSF reports was first practiced on us within the offices of the WSF 2007 Secretariat in Nairobi several months before January 2007: the dressing downs, the insults, the put downs, the ultimatums, the intimidation and what have you. We witnessed the micro-management up close and personal almost a year before our comrades from the Indian Social Forum started commenting loudly in disgust about it; we saw the arbitrary and opaque decision making trends months before these tendencies emerged in the open during the five hectic days in late January this year.
It is therefore important, as the Christians say, for everybody in the WSF 2007 Secretariat to carry their own cross. Some of us will not be tarred and tainted by the excesses of a handful of people who decided to privatize a very public and of course very global process.
IV: The Participation of Kenyan Social Movements in WSF 2007
The publicity and controversy swirling around the storming of the gates at Kasarani Stadium and the occupation of the food pavilion linked to Kenya's Internal Security minister at the just concluded seventh edition of the World Social Forum has contributed a great deal in clouding the true picture regarding the state of Kenya's social movements and how they interfaced with the organizing committee and secretariat which was charged with mounting the monster “mother of all gatherings” in Nairobi this past January.
True, the protests, not just against the high food and water prices, but also against the incarceration of poor people and vendors at the police post located within the Kasarani WSF venue helped to highlight the internal contradictions within the Kenyan civil society sector and underscore the corporate leanings within a section of the WSF 2007 Secretariat itself.
The storming of the gates was a culmination of a long drawn out struggle within the overall organizing committee with some of us (I am the national coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum and a key member of the Secretariat) arguing consistently that we had to remember the “S” in the WSF; in other words, the World Social Forum is basically about people, specifically the marginalized, the poor, the historically excluded and that its major success indicator would be the extent of popular participation, especially by Kenyans.
Regarding the fees, we had made this argument from day one, but clearly some of our voices were not the most dominant in this discourse as we gradually found ourselves isolated voices at the margins of the WSF 2007 organizing process even though we were formally and ostensibly supposed to be having both hands on the helm of the WSF 2007 vessel...
In all fairness to the Nairobi-based Secretariat however, it must be underscored that the wider International Council of the WSF was pushing for even HIGHER fees and at one point was recommending that participants from other African countries outside east Africa should pay TEN TIMES the amount the locals were paying. The WSF 2007 Secretariat in Nairobi simply shot that down.
It must also be recorded that elements within the IC of the WSF were pushing a very neo-liberal line saying that the local hosting committees of WSF events should henceforth be more “self-reliant” with one very high profile guru/founder of the WSF (name withheld) arrogantly saying that the IC was “not a bank” in response to pleas from the Nairobi reps at the IC Parma meeting that perhaps the IC could help with fundraising for the January 2007 event.
The Secretariat had plans for setting up a Solidarity Fund to ensure access as had been the case in India in 2004 when thousands of Dalits who could not afford even the nominal fees participated to the fullest. At the end of the day, we raised very little of the resources to sustain that fund.
All this is NOT to take away from the culpability of a section of our organizing committee who through their arrogant and flippant intransigence set up the conditions that ensured a full throttle confrontation between poor slum dwellers and some of the prominent members of our secretariat.
Collectively, we stand condemned, even though some of us had campaigned otherwise and foresaw the very confrontation months prior to the WSF 2007 event.
I said at the outset that what actually grabbed the headlines during the hectic and heady five days in late January over at Kasarani helped to in a way suppress the real story about the participation of the social movements in WSF 2007.
Let us remember that despite its myriad organizational, ideological, logistical and other snafus, WSF 2007 still managed to set a benchmark as the MOST “international” of the WSF editions so far; it was the WSF with the most widespread African participation so far.
For Kenyans, WSF 2007 remains the BIGGEST ever international gathering to take place on Kenyan soil.
Because of our overzealous overestimations projecting 100,000 WSF 2007 participants, it is easy to overlook the fact that there has never been a conference in our country drawing 46,000 participants. That is a very huge figure by our standards here in Kenya.
Of course the flip side of that is there were hardly any Kenyans, relatively speaking.
It was not for want of trying.
I joined the Kenya Social Forum in early November 2005, having been recruited from Canada in late August of the same year. When I arrived in Nairobi I found the Steering Committee in the throes of organizing the 2nd edition of the Kenya Social Forum that took place on November 25th and 26th 2005. That gathering brought together women, youth activists, community organizers from the informal settlements, social justice advocates and representatives from institutions dealing with housing, human rights and environmental concerns. The nucleus of the future WSF Secretariat was already present in the membership of the Steering Committee of the Kenya Social Forum-an umbrella organization of close to twenty civil society organizations.
It was from some of the participants from the above meeting that the KSF delegation to the African Social Forum gathering that took place in early December in Conakry was picked. We had outreached to such diverse communities and groups as EPZ and flower farm workers, members of ethnic and cultural minorities such as the 4,000 member Yiaku ethnic group surviving in the depths of the Mukogodo forests and activists opposing the plans of the Canadian owned Tiomin corporation bent on strip mining for titanium at the Kenyan coast displacing local peasants and desecrating the ecosystem.
By the time WSF Polycentric in Mali came round in January 2006, we had drawn reps from the Yiaku community as well as young women active in popular theatre not forgetting organizers from landless squatters to be very prominent and visible in Bamako.
In the run up to the formation of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee some of us made very concerted attempts to draw in radical grass roots organizations such as Bunge la Mwananchi (People's Parliament) Hema la Katiba, Huruma Social Forum, Haki Jamii, Kenya Socialist Workers Movement and others right into the Organizing Committee itself, often in the teeth of opposition from some of our colleagues who were more comfortable with the more mainstream NGOs. It is crucial to underscore this because contrary to later assertions, the People's Parliament (and one or two organizations that funded some of their WSF 2007 efforts) was part and parcel of the very WSF 2007 Organizing Committee that they were picketing.
In fact, one the eve of the WSF event, I saw an email from the people behind People's Parliament addressed to one of my Secretariat colleagues underscoring a plea from People's Parliament that they were NOT organizing parallel , but rather complementary events to the main WSF activities at Kasarani. In the light of contrary assertions later, it is important to point this out.
The point is that People's Parliament was/is NOT an “outside” fringe organization to the WSF 2007 process. In fact as I write these lines, the Nairobi-based leadership of this organization is busy preparing a statement that will be distributed to the World Assembly of Social Movements correcting what it feels are distortions about their role at the Nairobi event. In my conversations with veteran members of Bung'e la Wananchi/People's Parliament like James Maina, Salim Ngaanga, Korir, Gacheke, Ojiayo and others, it is clear that there are TWO factions each claiming the mantle of “People's Parliament” with the original claiming their group had been “hijacked” by forces bankrolled by another organization which is also a constituent member of the Kenya Social Forum. They go on to make other claims about the political credentials and integrity of some of the folks valorized so much by activists from outside Kenya. I will not go into the personality wrangles and counter-claims within this group. It is just to point out that time will prove that elements within the second faction of People's Parliament behaved in a very opportunistic faction during the WSF 2007 event. It is also a matter of public record that the main core group of Bunge la Mwananchi/People's Parliament did NOT boycott the main event but were actually very, very visible, with their base at the Kenya Social Forum pavilion erected by the Secretariat. For me, the case of People's Parliament provides a somber cautionary tale of how often well-meaning overseas activists will be so gullible as to canonize individuals they know very superficially through media reports as opposed to interacting with real players on the ground.
The inaugural meeting of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee was held between April 22 and 23rd 2006 at a hotel a mere stone throw from the Kasarani venue. It was attended by 80 delegates representing almost as many organizations-which were spread out across Kenya from both the urban and rural areas. There were also representatives from the Ugandan, Tanzanian, Somali and Ethiopian Social Forums.
A month after that gathering the newly set up WSF 2007 Secretariat embarked on a series of regional mobilizations to bring in social movements and community based groups into the WSF 2007 process. These were both sectoral and geographic. On May 25th 2006 for instance, there was a public forum in Nairobi on “Gendering the WSF 2007 Process”. A paper presented at that forum by the present writer later on had a very significant impact internationally in galvanizing debate about gender in the WSF process. At the tail end of July the two day Western Kenya Social Forum took place in the lakeside city of Kisumu with fisher folk, people living HIV/AIDS, small farmers, youth groups, community broadcasters, women and human rights activists in full tow; in mid August, the Kibera Public Forum focused on housing, human rights and the participation of slum dwellers in the World Social Forum; in early September the Coast Social Forum took place in Mombasa; in late November the Central Kenya Social Forum took place in Nyeri; towards the end of 2006 the third edition of the Kenya Pastoralists' Week took place at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre with pastoralists an minorities devoting their forum to building up support for WSF Nairobi 2007.
A very significant breakthrough was the participation of the Kenyan (and wider African) gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and intersexed communities at the WSF Nairobi 2007. What began as a discreet email sent by one of their organizers to myself blossomed into a series of meetings where the KSF Coordinator met with a very vibrant, militant and focused LGBTI caucus. Contacts were shared, networks were activated, LGBTI events registered, tents and spaces booked and hey presto, come January the Q-Spot was not only one of the largest tents but one of the most popular and highly visible. The participation of the LGBTI community was one of the highlights of the WSF 2007 event and soon ALL the major media outlets were covering issues concerning sexual orientation, sexuality rights and homophobia with some Kenyan members of the LGBTI communities coming out for the first time to their parents, siblings, friends, neighbours and work colleagues. Again let it be underscored that key members of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee worked hand in hand with the LGBTI organizers to ensure success at the January meeting.
Another major success was the collaboration between progressive Christians and radical civil society organizations to ensure the full participation of the slum dwellers, evictees and street kids at WSF 2007. People like Father Danielle Moschetti of the Comboni Brothers, Boaz Waruku of Shelter Forum, Odindo Opiata of Haki Jamii, Ng'ang'a Thiong'o of Release Political Prisoners, Hassan Ibrahim of Huruma Social Forum and Cosmas Musyoka of Kibera Social Forum to name just a few, worked day and night to facilitate the participation of residents of Kibera, Mathare, Korogocho, Mukuru, Wangige, Mwamutu, Githurai, Muthurwa and several of the 199 slums and poor workers' neighbourhoods that dot the “green city in the sun” at WSF Nairobi 2007. An interfaith consortium took the trouble to register slum dwellers. In fact they later managed to register the largest single bloc (4,000) for the forum. Muslim groups like Muslim Human Rights Forum were not left out either. The militancy of the protests against US aggression in Somalia and the scape-goating of Kenyan Muslim youth could not have made the WSF 2007 agenda without their crucial input. Again it has to be emphasized that all these groups found ready allies within the WSF 2007 Secretariat.
Kenyan workers came in very late into the WSF 2007 process. There were two conduits. One was through the leadership of COTU- Kenya's national trade union umbrella which had been a member of the KSF Steering Committee for almost two years but had hardly attended any meetings. COTU is a conservative body that has alienated a big section of the very workers they claim to declaim for. They entered the process in September 2006 during a special technical consultation on WSF 2007 and force-fed the concept of “decent work”- itself an ILO campaign-into the 9 principles for the January meeting. It later transpired that COTU was more interested in wringing concessions from the local organizing committee rather than ensuring the widest participation of Kenyan workers in WSF Nairobi 2007.
The other conduit was via other organizations like the Kenya Socialist Workers Movement started by young workers toiling in the horticultural farms in Naivasha; the exploited EPZ wage slaves supported by groups such as the Kenya Human Rights Commission.
All in all, Kenyan social movements participated in WSF 2007 perhaps in greater numbers and greater involvement than is perhaps reflected in some of the critiques I have googled and cyber mined over the last three weeks after the forum.
For Kenyans the bigger and more relevant question is this:
What are we going to do with all that energy, all those networks all those ideological perspectives now that our progressive sisters and brothers have gone back to South Africa, Thailand, France, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Tanzania, Algeria, Canada, Greece, Bulgaria, India, Vietnam and so on?
How do we ensure that we can suffuse the 2007 Kenyan election year campaign with issues pertinent and pertaining to workers, small farmers, slum dwellers, cultural and ethnic minorities and other excluded groups?
How do we ensure that debt and poverty eradication becomes part of the national political agenda?
How do we strengthen the capacity of Kenyan social movements?
How do we ensure collaboration, for instance between Kenyan social movements and formations like Khanya College in South Africa, S.A.L.S.A. in Washington, TNI in Amsterdam and the Dalits in India?
More importantly, how can progressive Kenyans contribute towards a vibrant global social movement focused on confronting imperialism?
Before I wrap up this section, some observations on the phenomenon of social movements:
In Kenya, as in any other spot on the globe, there are social movements and “social movements”.
By which one means to underscore that not all social movements are progressive; not all social movements live and die by the credo of other possible worlds.
There are social movements which want to re-create long bygone worlds; there are social movements whose sole raison d'etre is to roll back the democratic and progressive gains achieved in this existing, conflicted world; there are social movements that see the end of the world being nigh, with nothing on the morrow of this world's demise.
There are massive social movements that are the children, the conduits and the instruments of reactionary local neo-colonial forces which act at the behest of the global imperialist project. Surely such social movements cannot be considered allies of the WSF because ipso facto they call themselves “social movements” or even pass the litmus test of what defines a social movement.
At the same time, there are social movements with contradictory progressive and retrogressive features-in other words, social movements that both struggle against the status quo while retaining contingents who are part of that very status quo. There are social movements which have mobilized hundreds of thousands of their followers against specific elements of repressive neo-colonial and imperialist agendas-while proposing equally scary reactionary alternatives.
It is obvious therefore, that it would be an act of intellectual laziness to come up with blanket sweeping statements about social movements whether in Kenya or elsewhere.
One cannot assume for example, that the mere fact that a social movement exists means that this is necessarily, ipso facto, a progressive thing.
Rightwing religious fundamentalist movements (in the United States, the Middle East, India and of course right here in Kenya) have enormous political clout.
In the United States, they managed to re-elect a Bible thumping war criminal in 2004; in the Middle East they have in some cases almost completely eradicated and supplanted long established secular, anti-imperialist and progressive political movements; in India they have held sway at the state and federal levels; in Kenya they have allies in the State House, in the Cabinet, in Parliament, in the provincial and local administration-a fact starkly illustrated during the macabre hullabaloo about the “Unborn” at the time of the National Constitutional Conference and when fetuses were found dumped in a Nairobi neighbourhood, fueling a strident and virulent campaign against women's reproductive rights by a motley crew of cabinet ministers, religious leaders, medical professionals and even a few NGOs, CBOs and other CSOs.
Of course, one must also point out that in the history of Kenyan anti-colonial anti-imperialist and pro-democracy struggles, many of the leading stalwarts and unbowed patriots were/are women and men of the Christian cloth, committed Muslims, dedicated Hindus and steadfast exponents of African traditional belief and spiritual systems- Elijah Masinde and Dini ya Msambwa; Bildad Kaggia and Andu a Kaggia; Bishops Henry Okullu and Alexander Muge from the Anglican Church; Reverends Timothy Njoya and John Gatu from the PCEA; Sheikh Juma Ngao of the NCEC; Nazlin Umar of the ODM, members of Muslim for Human Rights, Yusuf Hassan, Abdilatif Abdallah and many other Kenyans of faith who have participated and contributed to our people's collective struggles for over one hundred years.
Conflicted ethno-cultural social movements like Mungiki for instance, have signed up tens of thousands of members to reassert Gikuyu cultural identity in the face of a US led cultural imperialist onslaught-while fighting off disputed accusations of advocating for mandatory female genital mutilation and carrying out horrific revenge killings against “back-sliding” ex-members of the movement.
Paradoxically, the social base of the Mungiki was in the urban townships and rural backwaters amidst working class and lumpen-proletariat Central Kenyan youth- many of them survivors of state organized ethnic pogroms and victims of neo-colonial, IMF driven disastrous policies that have left the majority of the Kenyan wananchi poor, practically homeless, jobless and dispossessed with a seething indignation at the opulent lifestyles of the old money as well as parvenu entrants to the ranks of the pampered comprador/petit bourgeoisie. Recent reports indicate that a wing of former Mungiki members have reconstituted themselves as the nucleus of a more secular, politically oriented national youth movement.
Mainstream Kenyan politicians like the late Karisa Maitha have been known to hijack traditional and spiritual aspirations of rural dwellers to propel very nefarious factional agendas fanning the emergence of ethnic-based violent reactionary social movements; in the 1990s people close to former President Daniel arap Moi exploited inter-communal tribal tensions to create a bloody smokescreen of “ethnic clashes” in order to win elections.
Some Kenyan NGOs and some international Nairobi-based donors work with synthetic “social movements” that are often in reality, brief case “MONGOs” (as in, “My Own NGO”) and threadbare CBO “projects” of the said NGO and said INGO. One would be reluctant to characterize these as authentic social movements. At the same time, there ARE progressive NGOs and INGOs that have fostered the growth and the build up of the organizational capacities of budding, bona fide social movements in this country.
Against the backdrop of this complex historically determined social, economic and political reality in our country, the task of mapping Kenya's social movements is therefore NOT a cake walk and that is why it is not easy to give clear projections as to the future directions and growth of these social movements.
That arena is contested ideologically and it therefore depends on the political leadership and class politics of the given formation.
It is our hope that WSF 2007 has helped to infuse Kenyan social movements with clearer and more progressive anti-imperialist agendas.
V: The Opaque Tendering and Recruitment Process
I vividly recall a response I received from one of the key Kenyan organizers at the very last Secretariat meeting that took place right before the onset of the 7th edition of the World Social Forum.
This meeting happened on Sunday afternoon, January 14, 2007 at the Kasarani venue. This was certainly no routine meeting featuring staffers, interns and development workers. It was attended by members of the African Social Forum, the India Social Forum, the Italian Round Table, the Brazilian Social Forum and many other members of the International Council of the World Social Forum.
Since I had been DELIBERATELY kept out of the tendering committee, but had, even that early, heard disturbing reports of shady goings on, I asked the person who was chairing the meeting to indicate to the meeting who had won the tenders.
I was cut off in mid-sentence with the curt dismissal:
”Oloo you do not need to know who got the tenders.”
Apart from being shocked and embarrassed, I was quite curious at the answer which was said loudly in front of the equally surprised people at that meeting. Not wanting to be a wet blanket disrupting the meeting I curbed my tongue from asking further questions.
By that time, I had already been tipped that the Windsor Golf and Country Club owned by John Michuki had been allocated a prime and strategic location just outside Gate # 1 inside the parameters of the stadium.
This was shocking for several reasons.
In the first place, at a meeting of the Secretariat-and this should be in the recorded minutes- it was decided that food at WSF 2007 would be provided by SMALL, community-based groups (women, youth, slum dwellers) that would showcase the diverse local African cuisine. The food would be affordable even for the poorest WSF attendee. For this reason, when the tenders were being advertised, all tendering fees in regards to catering services were waived to ensure access for the above named marginalized groups. Further to that, there was unanimity and absolute consensus that we would lock out the five star hotels and other mainstream catering outlets-just as we were blocking Coca Cola and its blood stained products from the WSF event.
In the second place, John Michuki is a name which conjures up a lot of negative connotations among Kenyan people. He is the one who has repeatedly called on the police to extra-judicially execute criminal suspects in flagrant disregard of Kenyan law; he is the one who publicly boasted of having ordered the spine-chilling midnight raid at the premises of the Standard media house in March 2006; more notoriously, he earned the dubious sobriquet “Kimendeero” (The Crusher) because of his role as a ruthless torturer and enforcer of colonial terror tactics against Mau Mau freedom fighters during the 1950s. Apart from that, he is one of the wealthiest individuals in Kenya-and it is well known that many of the Kenyan tycoons accumulated their swag through often corrupt means because of their proximity to the levers of power in the Kenyan neo-colonial state.
In the third place, several community-based vendors found themselves literally locked out of the WSF because of the decision to allocate the Windsor Golf and Country Club such a strategic location.
It was quite unsurprising for some of us when Michuki's hotel was raided by poor people from the slums. Some of our colleagues who were part of the decision to give the Windsor Golf and Country Club space have tried desperately to insinuate that it was outsiders who “instigated” the protest. This is a view that I find offensive because it echoes the pro-establishment line from the dark days of the KANU one party dictatorship that held that Kenyans on their own were incapable of initiating and sustaining political protests.
What is less talked about is the presence at Kasarani of the Norfolk hotel owned by investors very close to the very top political leadership in the Kenya government.
How did they come in?
Who did they talk to?
Was there some kind of quid pro quo?
Historically, the Norfolk Hotel was a bastion of racist colonial settlers and in the seventies the previous owners of the hotel-the Block family- were very prominent supporters of the State of Israel. Today a bottle of Kenyan beer at the Norfolk costs 250 shillings as opposed to the normal rate or around 100 shillings- underscoring its elitist five star status.
As more facts emerge in the aftermath of the WSF event, I can now see why my questions about the tendering process were blocked.
Two key members of the Secretariat- both of them conveners of two of the WSF 2007 commissions-have revealed to me some of the unsavoury goings on during the tendering process. They told me, in separate discussions, that at one such tendering meeting a question was raised as to how many people sitting on the tendering committee that day had a conflict of interest to declare. Almost everybody in the room-including some of the key decision makers at the Secretariat raised their hands, admitting that they, or their relatives and/or associates had also put in a bid. Bizarre as it may sound, the tendering committee, at least according to these two sources, ended up awarding some of the tenders to the very people deliberating in the same tendering committee!
I have also been informed that when it came to graphics and signage, some key members of the Secretariat practically swiped some of the logos that had been tendered and went ahead and outsourced the work to firms/outlets that they had made arrangements with. I was told this by a member of the Secretariat who was explaining why he left out a key component of his report. This account needs further corroboration before it can be verified as the gospel truth.
Many observers want to know what exactly happened with the 5 million shilling tender doled out for electrical and other wiring work. As WSF attendees will attest, many of the rooms simply DID NOT have power throughout the duration of the event.
Questions have been raised as to WHO gave the order to sell off, at inflated prices, the dysfunctional and practically useless radios ordered for translation when there was no such agreement when the Secretariat discussed this matter.
I should also report (without vouching for veracity or otherwise of the account) a very long conversation I had with a Nairobi-based couple who submitted a bid for catering during the event. I met them on the eve of the event inside the Kenya Social Forum pavilion. They were among dozens of irate would be vendors who were complaining bitterly of being pushed out of the WSF space or not being allocated any spot at all. This particular couple was very distraught (the lady was in tears) as they detailed to me how they had spent hundreds of thousands of shillings to cater for one of the pre-WSF functions only to be locked out by Kasarani Stadium management at 9 pm on the night before they were supposed to deliver food to the participants of the Africa-Asia Solidarity meeting. They claimed that there was a lot of corruption, especially involving certain members of the Physical Planning Team; they alleged that nepotism was rife and that certain relatives of members of the Secretariat had “won” bids in somewhat unclear circumstances. Now, let me underline that these remain allegations that have so far not been verified or proven. The only way to get to the truth of the matter is by publicly opening up the entire process, especially around logistics and tendering to an independent scrutiny and forensic audit.
Another issue that needs a closer examination has to do with the way the volunteers were recruited, trained and managed. I remember that it was I who developed the WSF 2007 Volunteer Policies and Procedures manual which was later accepted and endorsed by the Secretariat before being posted on the WSF Nairobi 2007 web site. There have been numerous complaints about how volunteers were dealt with. As I mentioned earlier, I was confronted several times at Kasarani by volunteers who told me that they had not been paid. Some of them had traveled hundreds of kilometers only to be stranded in Nairobi without accommodation, bus fare or money for food. One or two women complained of sexual harassment and bullying. I saw a letter written to the Secretariat by three volunteers who were assisting the Volunteer Coordinator in the training and recruitment of volunteers. They were demanding their dues with one of them stating that he had NOT been paid a cent in stipends since he started volunteering in November 2006. I happened to have shared space with these three volunteers and I know from first hand experience that they often left the offices of the WSF in the vicinity of the Yaya Centre after midnight and often as late as three o'clock in the morning. I know this because we often shared the same cab which dropped us to our various homes around the sprawling city of Nairobi. The Volunteer Coordinator himself was often compromised when his well laid plans were countermanded with directives from above. I remember getting a call, at the height of the WSF at around 10 pm from one of the three volunteers pleading with me to intervene because a “stranger” (he turned out to be a nephew of one of the high profile members of the Secretariat) had barged into our offices at night and started arbitrarily modifying the list of volunteers and their tasks. I immediately demanded to speak to him and informed him that I was going to call the police if he did not vacate our premises. He insisted he was acting on the orders of the aforesaid important member of the Secretariat. I reiterated that not even the person whose authority he was invoking could countenance his inappropriate behaviour. The next day when I called that important member, he gave me a tongue lashing over the incident before hanging up on my ear. Still on the issue of volunteers, a Paris based member of the International Council of the WSF informed me that ANOTHER high ranking member of the Secretariat had roughed up a volunteer. I have never been able to confirm positively if this actually happened or not. One issue that deserves further investigation is to look at the budget lines regarding volunteers and verify on a case by case basis if all the people who were paid as “volunteers” were actually volunteers. I will not elaborate on my cryptic comment. Just to wrap up on volunteers I think it is rather callous that many, many volunteers who put in so much hard work have simply been told that they will not be paid all their dues because the WSF Organizing Committee accumulated a deficit in the region of 20 million plus Kenya shillings. I think it is unconscionable that as a Secretariat, we have REFUSED to convene the volunteers to simply THANK THEM for their hard work.
One or two lines on recruitment. There were people who were hired to be part of the physical planning team and others to boost the secretariat in terms of media. In the two instances, there was no attempt to approach me to be part of the hiring process despite the fact that I am the National Coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum. Some of the most serious allegations of fraud, theft and other criminal activity have to do with some individuals in the physical planning team, who may or may not have blood ties with other Organizing Committee members.
Let me reiterate, as I close this section that up to now, I have yet to see the minutes recording the tendering process-despite repeated requests on my part for this information. Nor have I seen a detailed breakdown of how we spent the money that had been allocated and entrusted to us as a Secretariat by various donors for the running of the WSF 2007 event. I therefore can not make any claims that I know first hand whether there was any misappropriation of funds or diversion of the same. On the streets of Nairobi rumours are rampant that all of us from the Secretariat made a killing stealing WSF funds. I was recently button-holed in the streets of Nairobi by some activists who sarcastically demanded that Onyango Oloo should give them “only” 50,000 shillings from the WSF swag that was allegedly making my personal bank account overflow! These aspersions can be totally damaging to someone's character and professional integrity, especially if there is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE to back them up. That is why it is important for all those financial transactions to be laid bare for all to see and examine especially to exonerate Secretariat members against these serious allegations of impropriety.
VI: Celtel & The Corporate Branding of WSF 2007
Sometime just before eleven thirty pm on January 19th 2007 I left my front row seat in the Kenyatta International Conference Centre to rush on stage and whisper something caustic to the brash and sauntering MC who was busy telling the audience that the WSF musical concert we were attending was brought to us by Celtel. What I whispered in his ears were words to the effect that the WSF does not have corporate sponsors. This was during the WSF 2007 fund-raising curtain raiser featuring the likes of Oliver Mtukudzi, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Suzzana Owiyo, Tony Nyadundo and other artistes. But I may as well have been pissing in the wind for all over the stage was the garish and ubiquitous Celtel logo. Later on, a bevy of red cladded Celtel lasses stormed the stage to perform a jig with the beloved Tuku from Zimbabwe. A few days before this, one of the key organizers of WSF 2007 was all over the news triumphantly pumping the hands of one of Celtel's corporate marketing representatives as Kenya's second mobile provider announced a 20 million shilling sponsorship deal with the Secretariat of the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee. Boy was I glad that I was not among those counted as present! I remember being dismissed when I persisted in raising questions about the whole idea of corporate sponsorship. My objections started with Safaricom, who actually were the first to be approached. I wondered whether we had looked at Safaricom's labour policies, their corporate social responsibility record or any possible skeleton in their closet and more importantly, how the whole idea of corporate endorsements and sponsorship would play within the wider WSF family. I was told bluntly that I had taken my left-wing ideals and rhetoric too far and that some people in the Secretariat had even invested some of their money in Safaricom. Talks with Safaricom would later collapse and that is how Celtel stepped in. The whole notion of getting WSF participants to register for Kasarani via purchased air time from Celtel smacked of placement advertising and coercing people to switch to Celtel even when they were already customers of another mobile service. Kasarani was to later provide a captive market for Celtel as it prowled for new, albeit temporary subscribers. Apart from the ideological questions already raised about the whole Celtel/WSF “partnership” one needs to interrogate whether, even on purely commercial terms, the deal worked out at all. Celtel was supposed to bankroll media coverage and flood Nairobi with posters, banners and other announcements heralding WSF 2007. It was supposed to place ads in the newspapers and provide frequent updates via mobile. It fell far short of delivering on these objectives. I remember virtually securing a prime time slot on KTN TV's popular News Line show to talk about the WSF on the opening day of the Nairobi event. Celtel was supposed to pay for that air time. They did not and the show never took place. They never returned my phone calls and everything about that precious time slot ended in disarray. At the aforementioned concert, the WSF banners produced by Celtel were still being painfully erected a good two hours into the time the show was supposed to have commenced. What was more notable about the banners were that they were Celtel banners with the WSF logo as a casual afterthought and footnote. Personally I do not know how the 20 million shillings pledged by Celtel was utilized- but I sure would be interested in finding out...
VII: A Word About Home Stays and Solidarity Accommodation
One of the most publicized fiascos from the Nairobi event revolved around the issue of providing home-based accommodation for WSF 2007 participants from overseas with numerous complaints from would be providers that they had been short-changed and press reports of delegates being diverted from the airport by agents closely linked to the political powers that be.
It started off as a noble idea- securing SOLIDARITY ACCOMMODATION for WSF delegates who wanted to shun the five star hotels and live instead with actual, ordinary Kenyan families. Some of us felt this was more of a political statement rather than a grab for cash. But it was apparent that some other individuals within the Secretariat had other ideas. Unbeknownst to us, a key member of the Secretariat had inked a contract with a travel and tour agent on August 21 to source for “home stays” as opposed to solidarity accommodation. The contract specified that there would be a US$ 2 “commission” to the “Organizing Committee” from each contract signed. This was curious because it was NOT until November that this matter was even brought up for formal discussions at the Secretariat. I raised the matter vigorously, waving copies of the said contract, but the matter was brushed under the carpet. Instead, I was grilled for allegedly imputing improper motives.
As things turned out, our designated agents, Togo Consultants and Staarabu, lost money big time on the whole home stay venture. Instead, it has since emerged that a shadowy cabal with strong links to some of the most prominent and wealthiest political families in Kenya used their state connections to quite literally offload WSF delegates straight from the plane to waiting vehicles that shipped them to resorts, motels and residences owned by this well-heeled clique.
Lost in all this shuffle was the original idea of solidarity accommodation. It must also be said that as an Organizing Committee we fell far short of our target of raising funds for the Solidarity Fund.
VIII: Logistical Snafus and Programming Nightmares
Now we know that the interpretation failed; that the media centre was dysfunctional; that not enough Kenyans attended the forum; that there were not enough programmes; that the volunteers had many challenges; that delegates were robbed, a few at gun point; that there was a communication breakdown between the organizers and many delegates; that there has hardly anyone at the Youth Camp; that there were power failures and serious mix ups in signage; that there were many behind the scenes conflicts; that powerful people in Kenya hijacked part of the WSF process; that there was heavy police and military presence; that water and food were sold at exorbitant prices; that progressive politics took a back seat to NGO hawking, small vendor curio selling and WSF tourism; plus much much more.
What we need to do now is to locate these problems firmly within the organizational context.
Here all of us, myself included, stand indicted, and basically guilty as charged.
For instance many, if not most of the commissions and their respective sub-committees were dysfunctional and ineffective. There are several reasons for this. The main one has to do with the fact that the conveners of these commissions were hand-picked by us (and I include Onyango Oloo in this) at the Secretariat often oblivious to the skill sets of the people we chose. In some cases, the first time some people knew they were conveners is when someone else called them about it after seeing an emailed list of the Organizing Committee and its commissions. Some commissions, like the Youth and the Social Mobilization Commissions, were paralyzed by their own conveners who simply refused to convene them. I remember a very public spat I had with the convener of the Social Mobilization Commission and her supporters within the Secretariat when I was pleading with her to call a meeting and stop setting up parallel structures that were not accountable to anyone. For my pains, I was summoned to a meeting where I was told that I had “let us down”. The convener demanded my resignation. From that period to the holding of the WSF 2007 gathering, the Social Mobilization Commission never again met. Some of our high profile conveners spent more time in the aircraft jetting in and out of the country attending meetings across the world that they never bothered to report back on to their respective commissions. The largest sub-committees naturally came from the logistics commission. Again the conveners of these sub-committees were basically hand-picked with some chosen more because of their proximity to the powers that be at the Secretariat rather than any identifiable leadership skills and attributes. One feeling expressed to me by a member of one such sub-committee is that he felt that the committees were deliberately set up to be dysfunctional to suit certain agendas. What is undeniable is that gross micro-management from the “centre of power” disrupted almost totally the work of these committees to the point where they became a laughing stock and mockery of the entire process.
In the aftermath of the WSF, some members of the Nairobi Secretariat have mulled over the idea of doing away with the whole notion of the commissions in the WSF process. Instead they posit the idea of “collectives” as tight, task oriented units that can be relied upon to deliver.
Respectfully, I reject this “collective” plan B.
First of all, some of the people pushing this notion are NOTORIOUS for their authoritarian and undemocratic micro-management style of work. A “collective” with any of them at the helm would rapidly degenerate into chaos lorded over by them. I am reminded of the lessons from Freeman's classic 1970 manuscript The Tyranny of Structurelessness where an unelected and undemocratic cabal creates a de facto hierarchy even as they campaign against hierarchies which have at least the saving grace of being identifiable and to that extent, somewhat accountable.
Let us retain the current structures of the WSF commissions at local, regional, continental and international levels. What we need is to empower them and ensure that their conveners are ELECTED by the commissioners themselves rather than imposed from above.
IX: Dealing With Constructive Criticism and Resolving Conflicts
I have been almost exclusively employed by social justice and civil society organizations for the last 18 years-most of them being in Toronto and Montreal in Canada. I have experienced a number of tense working environments riddled with all kinds of problems and issues. But I have never encountered a bunch of such intolerant, arrogant and vindictive colleagues as the ones I had to endure during the planning and execution of WSF Nairobi 2007. First of all, the working environment at the Nairobi-based WSF 2007 Secretariat is the very antithesis of the WSF concept of an open space. Authoritarian decisions are made, often without consultation, by people who insist on imperiously chairing every single meeting-a far cry from the rotating chairs I was accustomed to. They draw up the agenda, decide on who can speak and for how long and will not hesitate to cut off, shout down and lecture anyone who appears to be challenging them. I am focusing on two particular individuals even though I can not let off the hook a third table banger who was as intolerant inside the board room as she was “revolutionary” and “inclusive” on public rostrums. I will give two or three examples to illustrate my point. Towards mid last year, I arrived in my office to find that my email address had been abruptly cancelled by a staffer married to one of the leading lights in the Secretariat. When I formally wrote to the Kenya Social Forum staff committee to document my concerns, I was abruptly hauled into the office of the SODNET Executive Director and given a thirty minute dressing down in front of my peers and subordinates and warned that I was risking dismissal with such complaints. On a second occasion, when I again put in writing my objection to another arbitrary decision, I was given another long tongue lashing, littered with unprintable obscene epithets targeting my spouse's private parts and again threatening me with the sack. The fact that my wife does not and has never worked at the Secretariat made these insults traumatizing not just for me, but for her as well. She was forced to seek counseling for a period. A third incident happened during a meeting of the five social forums from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia that took place in Nairobi days ahead of the IC meeting in March 2006. Again I was publicly bashed and verbally attacked in front of everybody by a Kenyan colleague who sits in the African Social Forum Council and is well known at international WSF gatherings. I was not the only person regularly humiliated, harangued and harassed in public and private because of my penchant for straight talk and hard questions. At the inaugural meeting launching the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee, one member of the Kenya Social Forum's Steering Committee found himself at the wrong end of a ferocious barrage from a very senior founding member of the KSF because of the former's temerity in demanding that the WSF 2007 process be more inclusive, especially at regional levels outside Nairobi. Another KSF Steering Committee member was to discover to his shock that his organization was being suspected of “undermining” the Secretariat- even though it was his organization that had single-handedly paid for the first WSF Organizing Committee meeting when the same Secretariat was utterly devoid of funds.
A mistrustful paranoid siege mentality prevailed at the Secretariat. I remember with some amusement when I was warned, on arrival from Canada to be wary of two funding partners who were considered enemies of the Kenya Social Forum. One happened to be the only funder of the KSF at the time. The other happened to be headed regionally by a well known progressive activist. I simply ignored the warnings and went ahead to set up meetings with the two funders. They turned out to be the most generous supporters of the WSF process at the local level. Another funder who fought ferocious battles within his own organization to avail funds to the Secretariat was later on accused of having a nefarious agenda- when of course the funds from his own organization were already safely residing in the WSF 2007 Secretariat coffers.
I am detailing all this to put into context the milieu that comrades like Trevor Ng'wane were to later encounter when they were shouted down and insulted by the same forces.
Another dastardly thing was the abuse of the race card when it came to dealing with criticism from North American, European and even Indian comrades. I noticed a lot of race baiting especially during the stormy confrontations during the WSF. Some of my colleagues would resort to the most cynical emotional blackmail by dismissing their white skin critics in race loaded terms calculated to silence and stifle debate. At the local Kenyan level poor demonstrators were labeled “glue sucking street urchins from the slums” or “ultra-leftists”-these epithets coming from ex political prisoners who once belonged to clandestine socialist formations in the seventies and the eighties.
Going hand in hand with this imperiousness was infernal micro-management of which I will say more shortly.
X: The Roles of SODNET, Kenya Social Forum & WSF 2007 Organizing Committee
The World Social Forum came to Nairobi following a successful bid by the Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania Social Forums. The bulk of the initial work was done by the Kenyans with representatives of SODNET, SEATINI and KENDREN playing a very crucial role partly because of their earlier exposure and involvement in the WSF process, having all the WSF events starting with Porto Alegre in 2001.
It was not an accident therefore to find the three organizations dominating the process in Kenya and Eastern Africa.
When I arrived from Canada to take up my post of Kenya Social Forum National Coordinator in Nairobi I found that the offices of the KSF were located at the SODNET offices-which were also shared by SEATINI. Most KSF Steering Committee meetings took place at the SODNET/SEATINI/KSF offices in the upper middle class suburb of Lavington.
At first, I was perplexed at the objections by other KSF Steering Committee members at the idea of KSF offices being embedded within SODNET.
It soon dawned on me that SODNET saw itself as the “focal point” of the Kenya Social Forum, and later the WSF Organizing Committee itself. This notion was bolstered by the legal reality that the KSF was a loose unregistered umbrella body that could not enter into legally binding contracts with funders and therefore deferring this role to SODNET. When I finally got my contract signed (after almost four months of uncertainty) it was to the SODNET Executive Directly that I was directly answerable to on a day to day basis- something that I had no objection to.
Very early on, I discovered that it was funds allocated to Kenya Social Forum that was paying a significant percentage of the overheads of both SEATINI and SODNET. This was partly justifiable because the two organizations were largely doing WSF work and had seconded most, if not all of their employees, volunteers and other staff to planning for Nairobi 2007.
One immediate consequence of this was the gradual relegation of the Kenya Social Forum to the background. This was at least partly due to the lethargy that permeated the KSF Steering Committee with many of its members not bothering to show up for meetings despite constant reminders. Another reason had to do with the conviction of the SODNET head honchos (who were also heavily involved in the SEATINI and KENDREN boards) that they were the true keepers of the WSF flame in Kenya and had earned the right through their involvement in the African Social Forum and the WSF to be in the driver's seat.
At a personal level, it meant that as time went on, I was viewed as just another SODNET employee (which I was NOT) rather than the National Coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum. Indeed many of my professional functions were gradually whittled down and/or usurped. Contrary to expectations, I was NOT one of the mandatory signatories to the KSF accounts neither was I called upon to participate in key financial decisions. In hindsight, this may very well turn out to be a blessing in disguise but I will not say more... Since all the members of the Secretariat were either SODNET or SEATINI employees absorbed into the Kenya Social Forum I found that I had practically NO SUPERVISORY AUTHORITY because they all saw themselves answering directly either to the SODNET Executive Director or the SEATINI Country Director. I will not go into detail to talk about some surreal situations where I got orders from people who were actually subordinate to me giving me deadlines to execute their requests.
Matters took a turn for the worse with the arrival of the development workers seconded to the Secretariat by MS Kenya. The irony of the whole thing was that it was I who had developed their job descriptions, interviewed some of them and made approvals on all of them before they landed at our offices. I developed an orientation plan and training module that would be implemented following their arrival in mid August 2006. Five minutes before our initial meeting with the development workers I was instructed NOT TO DISTRIBUTE the handouts detailing this orientation and training plan. At the meeting itself, two of the key organizers took over the process-at some point introducing the rest of the Secretariat, including myself as “watu wa mkono” (hired hands) even as they described their own titles.
From that point on, the development workers, who were practically volunteers, were valorized higher than people like myself who were supposed to be management and other senior local staffers at the Secretariat. In the months and weeks leading up to the WSF event, the development workers were practically at par with the hand picked executives running the show with people like myself shunted to the background and simultaneously accused of “abandoning the process”. In one macabre moment towards the end of 2006 we received a strange email announcing that one of the foreign volunteers had been appointed “Acting Director” of SODNET (when the CEO was out of the country for a few days) to whom we would all be answerable to, including someone like myself who had help draw up the job description and participated in the hiring of the same volunteer. This was of course, in flagrant disregard and total violation of the development worker's contract and work permit. This high profile of the foreign volunteers within the Secretariat drew comments from as far away as Parma, Italy where members of the IC of the WSF noticed with some disquiet that a non- African and a non-Kenyan was the person assigned to do the media and publicity work at the Secretariat.
By December 2006 I was no longer being briefed on key aspects of the planning for WSF 2007 and was being deliberately left out of delegations to crucial meetings with Kenya government officials (who often called me directly to inquire why I was not present at such meetings) and WSF technical consultations in Nairobi, Dakar, Parma, Brussels and elsewhere. In the meantime, my high flying colleagues were busy telling ASF and IC members that “Onyango Oloo cannot be trusted”-something I found out directly from our comrades from the India Social Forum and European Social Forum who were disgusted with what they could see with their own eyes at these meetings, starting with IC meeting in March 2006.
It is in this context that I ask, two months after WSF Nairobi 2007:
Has the Kenya Social Forum been conflated with and subsumed by SODNET?
Will the Kenya Social Forum reassert its autonomy from SODNET or will key SODNET personalities keep on presenting SODNET goals and aspirations as if these were synonymous with the Kenya Social Forum?
Where is the oversight structure that makes SODNET answerable to the Kenya Social Forum rather than vice versa?
XI: The Way Forward
Here are some of the things that should be done immediately:
(a)Convening of a Public Report Back Session for the Kenya Social Forum to allow member organizations and the public to raise the questions and demand answers regarding the management of the WSF 2007 process;
(b)Calling an extra-ordinary WSF 2007 Organizing Committee with representatives from Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Somalia in attendance as members and ASF council members and IC delegates coming as observers to evaluate WSF 2007;
(c) Arranging a party for all the WSF Nairobi 2007 volunteers-after paying all lingering dues to the same;
(d) Conducting a thorough external audit of the finances advanced to support the WSF 2007 process. This would help among other things to explain how we acquired a 20 million shilling deficit and perhaps exonerate those members of the WSF 2007 Secretariat who may have been wrongly accused of stealing public funds;
(e)Organizing post forum activities throughout Kenya and Eastern Africa;
(f) Sending recommendations to the IC of the WSF about how to do things differently in the future;
(g) Revamping and reinvigorating the Kenya Social Forum and its constituent members;
I will leave it there for now.
Sincerely,
Onyango Oloo National Coordinator Kenya Social Forum Nairobi, Kenya March 19, 2007
Source: http://www.cadtm.org/article.php3?id_article=2544
Gus Massiah
Après Nairobi, un nouveau cycle pour les forums sociaux mondiaux
Mars 2007
NAIROBI 2007, UN TRES BON FORUM SOCIAL MONDIAL
Le Forum Social Mondial de Nairobi a été, de mon point de vue, un très bon Forum. Un des plus intéressants parce qu'un des plus contradictoires. Nairobi a démontré la vigueur du processus des Forums sociaux mondiaux et du mouvement altermondialiste. Le mouvement altermondialiste ne se résume pas aux Forums Sociaux, mais le processus des forums y occupe une place particulière. Le FSM de Nairobi a été révélateur des questions posées à ce processus. Au début les problèmes, les difficultés et les très fortes contradictions se sont accumulés. Il a fallu deux jours pour que la dynamique du processus des Forums l'emporte sur les interrogations de départ.
La dimension mondiale du Forum Social Mondial a été bonne. Il y avait de fortes délégations de tous les continents (Indiens, pakistanais, brésiliens, italiens, français, etc.) Les progrès étaient très sensibles dans l'approfondissement des débats et de l'élaboration ainsi que dans la construction des réseaux mondiaux. Cette progression a été visible sur une série de questions, comme par exemple l'eau, la dette, la souveraineté alimentaire, les rapports entre l'Europe et l'Afrique et notamment entre la France et l'Afrique. Il y a eu un élargissement des réseaux présents et réellement impliqués. Pour prendre un exemple, le « Caucus » sur les droits humains ; la tente de 500 personnes a été remplie en permanence et près de 80 réseaux ont participé à sa préparation. De même pour la dette, des réseaux aussi différents que Eurodad, le CADTM ou Jubilee Sud ont travaillé en commun à la construction de ces espaces. Sur les migrations, il y a eu un vrai débat dans la continuité des forums de Bamako et d'Athènes. La construction d'un réseau vraiment mondial a été amorcée à partir des associations de migrants en Europe et du réseau Migreurop, des associations africaines, des associations des Etats-Unis, du Mexique, des Philippines, d'Indonésie, etc.
La dimension africaine du Forum Social Mondial a été excellente. D'abord par la participation : 1300 Tanzaniens, 1000 Ougandais, 800 Sud-Africains, 700 éthiopiens, 300 Sénégalais, 150 Congolais de RDC, etc. Plusieurs des grandes délégations africaines avaient une composition populaire affirmée ; elles ont mobilisé des mouvements populaires et ont été préparé par des Forums sociaux nationaux. L'Afrique est le continent sur laquelle il y a eu le plus de Forums sociaux nationaux (plus d'une dizaine en 2006). Une des réussites du Forum est d'ailleurs la forte présence syndicale. Près de cinquante syndicats africains ont participé activement au Forum. On a même vu arriver une délégation de 115 syndicalistes Soudanais. Le mouvement syndical africain a connu là sa première apparition publique à l'échelle du continent.
Nous avions la crainte que le FSM n'aille pas plus loin que le forum polycentrique de Bamako. Cela n'a pas été le cas. Les Forums (continentaux, nationaux, locaux) se renforcent les uns les autres, renforcent les sociétés civiles. A Bamako, on a vu la reconnaissance et la visibilité d'une société civile africaine structurée : organisations paysannes, syndicats de base (travailleurs des mines…), comités pour l'annulation de la dette, associations de femmes, de quartiers, de paix, de migrants, un mouvement écologiste qui démarre, etc. A Nairobi, c'est plus la dimension africaine qui a été marquante, une rencontre entre les différentes Afriques, avec la volonté et la difficulté de dépasser les frontières linguistiques coloniales. Le swahili, grande langue régionale a été très présent. On peut parler aujourd'hui, à travers sa diversité et ses contradictions, de l'émergence d'un mouvement social et citoyen africain à l'échelle du continent.
La dimension kenyane du Forum Social Mondial a été beaucoup moins convaincante. Au delà des problèmes d'organisation, les affrontements au sein du mouvement social kenyan ont été très aigus. Du point de vue de l'affluence, l'estimation la plus basse était de 30 000 personnes, l'estimation haute de 60 000. Pour un pays de la taille du Kenya c'est tout à fait impressionnant. Il est un peu tôt pour apprécier l'impact local, le Forum jouera un rôle déclencheur et formateur qui peut déboucher sur une réelle avancée.
Les questions soulevées par le processus sont nombreuses. Les critiques faites à l'organisation du FSM dans les choix et les procédures de mises en oeuvre sont légitimes. Il ne faudrait pas qu'elles masquent les problèmes soulevés par le processus et qui étaient, d'une manière ou d'une autre, présentes dans les forums précédents.
L'élargissement géographique a progressé. Nous savions qu'un forum en Afrique ne serait pas facile. D'autant que l'Afrique du Sud ne s'était pas portée candidate. Or il n'y a pas beaucoup de pays africains qui peuvent accueillir un FSM, du point de vue de leur taille et de la force de leur mouvement social. Le format actuel du FSM ne peut pas être facilement localisé dans beaucoup de villes.
La mesure de l'impact d'un FSM est aussi difficile. D'autant qu'il y a une différence entre l'impact d'un événement forum et l'impact du processus des forums. La question du nombre des participants est à relativiser. Mais la médiatisation y ramène lourdement et pousse au gigantisme. La médiatisation elle-même est relative, attendons-nous une visibilité marquante, ou une « sympathie » des médias ? L'impact que nous recherchons est d'abord qualitatif ; il s'agit plus de la diversité et de la convergence que de la standardisation. L'évolution est patente de ce point de vue ; par exemple, les sujets sont traités de manière bien plus approfondie qu'au début des FSM.
L'élargissement des bases sociales n'est certainement pas suffisante, elle est pourtant réelle. Les syndicats de travailleurs, les organisations paysannes et les associations d'habitants sont présents depuis le début ; ainsi au Brésil la CUT, le MST ou le MNLN et à Nairobi les syndicats africains. La présence des plus pauvres et des exclus est plus difficile. La participation des No-Vox a marqué une étape qui s'est consolidée, notamment avec les migrants à Bamako ; ce sont les Dalits à Mumbai qui ont assuré un tournant qualitatif.
La participation des pauvres et des exclus demande un effort volontariste continu et difficile ; particulièrement pour assurer la participation des associations représentatives de ces couches populaires au Forum. Pour les NoVox, les Dalits à Mumbai, les pêcheurs à Karachi, leur accès au Forum s'est fait à travers leurs associations, ils étaient (ou s'étaient) organisés. Il est beaucoup plus difficile de participer au Forum de manière complètement individuelle. A Nairobi, les choix ont été très malheureux : éloignement sans navettes gratuites, prix d'entrée très élevé pour les pauvres, péréquation insuffisante, ouverture insuffisante pour une partie des associations des bidonvilles.
L'exigence éthique dans la conduite des FSM est une question essentielle. La question de l'accès des pauvres a montré une très forte élévation des exigences éthiques du mouvement altermondialiste. La revendication d'un autre monde peut-elle se satisfaire de la poursuite des comportements dominants que l'on rejette ? Les Forums doivent aussi être des vitrines d'un autre monde possible. Trois grandes questions ont été posées quand aux compromis acceptables : comment assurer l'organisation et la sécurité d'un événement comme le Forum ? quelle mode de consommation accepter dans les Forums ? comment financer les forums ?
L'élargissement politique du processus des Forums se pose continuellement. Il n'est pas anormal que des contradictions, voire des affrontements, opposent des composantes différentes du mouvement social et citoyen d'un pays ou d'une région. Il y a eu plusieurs fois des contre-forums, comme par exemple à Londres ou à Mumbaï. A Nairobi, le People's Parliament qui a joué un rôle très important dans l'ouverture du FSM, a organisé un autre Forum. Dans le rapport qu'elle a rédigé après le Forum, Wangui, la représentante du People's Parliament, indique que ce Forum n'a pas été organisé contre le FSM mais parce que nous ne pouvions y participer. Elle déclare par ailleurs son appui au processus des Forums sociaux.
La question de l'élargissement politique porte aussi sur la présence de plus en plus forte de certains mouvements, comme les très grosses ONG, défendant des positions plus modérées. Il ne suffit pas de proposer de rétablir l'équilibre en invitant les autres courants à être plus présents : il faut veiller à ce que les moyens plus importants des grosses associations ne leur permettent pas d'influencer ou de contrôler l'évolution des forums.
L'articulation entre élargissement et radicalisation est la question la plus importante aujourd'hui pour le processus des forums sociaux. Le mouvement altermondialiste part du refus de la mondialisation néolibérale et de la conviction qu'un autre monde est possible et qu'il implique une rupture avec la pensée dominante et les politiques néolibérales. L'élargissement est un gage de succès pour le processus, à condition d'éviter l'affadissement du mouvement. L'approfondissement des engagements est une nécessité à condition d'éviter les exclusions et le sectarisme. Dans le langage du forum on parle de la liaison entre la convergence et la juxtaposition, l'horizontalité et la définition de priorités et d'axes de mobilisation, l'ordonnancement et l'agglutination (« brésilianisme » qui renvoie à l'appel à se regrouper sur une base autogérée)
Une expérience de convergence a été tentée le quatrième jour du FSM : la proposition de se regrouper, sans renoncer aux activités autogérées, le matin à partir des réseaux ou des campagnes et l'après-midi à travers des thématiques identifiées (21 thématiques à partir des 1100 activités inscrites) pour définir des propositions et des mobilisations. La démarche a été jugée intéressante, les résultats n'ont pas été concluants du fait de l'absence d'une préparation suffisante avant le forum et des difficultés d'organisation dans le changement de rythme.
Le débat stratégique sur l'élargissement et la radicalisation, sur la forme du Forum et l'évolution du processus renvoie à un débat plus fondamental, celui de l'horizon de la transformation sociale. Suivant que l'on est plus sensible à l'urgence de la situation et à la nécessité de définir des objectifs à moyen terme ou que l'on met l'accent sur le caractère historique du mouvement altermondialiste et que l'on se situe sur la longue période. C'est à partir de là que se définissent les discussions sur l'essoufflement du mouvement ou sur sa permanence. C'est pourquoi, le débat fondamental du mouvement est le débat stratégique, la pensée stratégique permettant de relier les actions à court terme et les objectifs à long terme, l'urgence de la réponse aux situations inacceptables et la transformation en profondeur des sociétés et du monde.
UN NOUVEAU CYCLE DES FORUMS SOCIAUX MONDIAUX
Je reprends, ci-dessous, mon intervention au Conseil International de Parme, en Octobre 2006. Le FSM de Nairobi me semble confirmer les hypothèses que j'avais alors proposé.
Le mouvement altermondialiste n'est pas en panne. Il est de bon ton d'annoncer son essoufflement, et pourtant il ne cesse de s'élargir et de s'approfondir. Elargissement géographique d'abord comme en témoigne les Forums sociaux mondiaux de Porto Alegre, Mumbaï et demain Nairobi ; le forum polycentrique de Bamako, Caracas et Karachi ; les forums continentaux et les forums nationaux dont celui des Etats-Unis en juin 2006 à Atlanta ; la cascade ininterrompue des forums locaux. Elargissement social avec les mouvements paysans dont les mouvements de sans-terre, les syndicats ouvriers, les No-Vox dont les Dalits, les comités de quartiers dégradés et de bidonvilles, les forums de migrants, la marche mondiale des femmes, les camps de jeunes. Elargissement thématique avec les forums thématiques comme ceux de l'éducation, de l'eau et les forums associés des autorités locales, des parlementaires, des juges, etc.
Le mouvement altermondialiste a connu une montée en puissance considérable en un temps très court, en moins de dix ans. Pour autant, il n'a pas gagné. Il aurait été étonnant de gagner en si peu de temps ; d'autant qu'il n'est pas très simple de définir ce que gagner veut dire. Le mouvement altermondialiste est un mouvement de long terme qui s'inscrit dans la durée. Ce mouvement évolue en fonction des situations. Proposons quelques hypothèses.
Première hypothèse : le mouvement altermondialiste entre dans une nouvelle période. Nous achevons un cycle du processus des forums sociaux mondiaux, celui qui a été commencé après Seattle. Il s'agit de définir les éléments du projet correspondant à cette nouvelle période. Des changements politiques importants sont en gestation. D'autant que le néolibéralisme est en crise et que la phase néo-libérale de la mondialisation est probablement en cours d'achèvement. Nous arrivons aux limites de l'hégémonie du capital financier et de sa logique « court-termiste ». L'hégémonie économique états-unienne est épuisée. La montée en puissance économique de la Chine, de l'Inde et aussi du Brésil changent la donne. La guerre perpétuelle suscite de nouvelles contradictions et les élections aux Etats-Unis introduisent des incertitudes sur la conduite des guerres. La situation en France va évoluer dans les périodes électorales et de recomposition politique. Le mouvement politique en Amérique Latine redéfinit, dans la diversité des situations, de nouveaux rapports entre mouvements et gouvernements.
Deuxième hypothèse : le mouvement altermondialiste a concrétisé une alternative. En partant de la contestation du néolibéralisme, le mouvement a affirmé le refus de la fatalité et est passé de la résistance à la contre-offensive et à la mise en avant d'alternatives. L'orientation stratégique qui s'est imposée à travers les Forums est la suivante : à l'organisation des sociétés et du monde par l'ajustement au marché mondial et la subordination au marché mondial des capitaux nous opposons l'organisation des sociétés et du monde autour du principe de l'accès aux droits pour tous. Ce principe a déjà changé la nature des mouvements dont la convergence forme la caractéristique principale de l'altermondialisme ; chacun des mouvements a évolué en intériorisant dans ses références la priorité donnée à l'accès aux droits pour tous.
Troisième hypothèse : le mouvement altermondialiste doit s'opposer à la nouvelle offensive idéologique. Le néo-conservatisme qui construit la suprématie du militaire et de la guerre perpétuelle et préventive. La structuration de l'économique par les discriminations et le racisme. La montée de l'idéologie sécuritaire, des retours identitaires, des fondamentalismes, de la tolérance zéro, de la criminalisation des mouvements.
Quatrième hypothèse : les modalités du mouvement altermondialiste se sont enrichies. Elles combinent les luttes et les résistances, les campagnes et les mobilisations, les pratiques sociales innovantes, l'élaboration, les alternatives, les propositions de négociation. Elles mettent en avant la construction d'une nouvelle culture politique qui chemine dans le fonctionnement des Forums. L'expertise citoyenne conteste le monopole de l'expertise dominante et de la pensée unique ; elle concrétise le passage de « TINA » (There Is No Alternative) cher à Madame Tatcher à la capacité de penser un autre monde possible.
Cinquième hypothèse : Le mouvement altermondialiste est un mouvement historique qui s'inscrit dans la durée. Il prolonge et renouvelle les trois mouvements historiques précédents. Le mouvement historique de la décolonisation ; et de ce point de vue l'altermondialisme a modifié en profondeur les représentations Nord-Sud au profit d'un projet commun. Le mouvement historique des luttes ouvrières ; et de ce point de vue la mutation vers un mouvement social et citoyen mondial. Le mouvement des luttes pour la démocratie à partir des années 1960-70 ; et de ce point de vue le renouvellement de l'impératif démocratique après l'implosion du soviétisme en 1989 et les régressions portées par les idéologies sécuritaires.
Source: http://aitectemp.reseau-ipam.org/spip.php?article652
After Nairobi, A New Round Of World Social Forums
April 2007
Nairobi 2007, AN EXCELLENT WORLD SOCIAL FORUM
The Nairobi World Social Forum was, in my opinion, an excellent forum. One of the most interesting, because one of the most contradictory. The Nairobi Forum demonstrated the strength and vigour of the world social forums and alter- globalization movement. The alter-globalization movement is not limited to the social forums, but the forum process does occupy a special place within the movement. The Nairobi WSF brought to light various questions regarding this process. At first, problems, difficulties and very strong contradictions related to the process piled up. However, after two days, the forum process finally overrode these initial questionings. The world-wide dimension of the World Social Forum was good. There were strong delegations from every continent (from India, Pakistan, Brazil, Italy, France, etc.). Much progress was made with regard to a deepening of the various debates, as well as an elaboration and creation of world-wide networks. This progress was apparent vis-à-vis a series of issues; for example, those of water, debt, food sovereignty, and European-African relations (in particular, between France and Africa). There was a broadening of the networks present and really involved in the forum process. To give just one example, the human rights caucus; the 500-person tent was continually full and almost 80 networks were involved in its preparation. The same was true for the debt issue, with networks as varied as Eurodad, CADTM and Jubilee South cooperating to build these spaces. With regard to migration, there was a real debate, picking up where the Bamako and Athens Forums had left off. The construction of a veritable world-wide network was begun, starting with migrant associations in Europe and the Migreurop network, as well as associations from Africa, the United States, Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia, etc.
The World Social Forum's African dimension was excellent. Firstly, with regard to participation: 1,300 Tanzanians, 1,000 Ugandans, 800 South Africans, 700 Ethiopians, 300 Senegalese, 150 Congolese, etc. Several of the larger African delegations were particularly non-elitist in composition; they mobilized popular movements and had been prepared by national social forums. Africa was the continent that organized the greatest number of national social forums (more than ten in 2006). One of the Forum's successes was the strong trade-union presence. Nearly fifty African trade unions actively participated in the Forum. There was even a delegation of 115 union activists from Sudan. The Nairobi Forum saw the very first public appearance at the continental level for the African trade-union movement. We were afraid that the WSF might not go further than the polycentric Bamako Forum. As it turned out, our fears were unwarranted. The Forums (continental, national and local) strengthen one another and strengthen civil societies. At the Bamako Forum, we witnessed the recognition and visibility of a structured, African civil society: farmers' organizations, grassroots trade unions (mine workers, etc.), committees for debt cancellation, associations for women, for neighbourhoods, for peace, for migrants, a nascent ecological movement, etc. At the Nairobi Forum, the African dimension was the most noticeable aspect, a meeting between the different Africas, with the will and difficulty of overcoming the colonial language-based borders. Swahili, a great regional language, was especially present. Despite its diversity and contradictions, one can now talk of an emerging social, citizen-based African movement at the continental level.
The Kenyan dimension of the World Social Forum was much less convincing. In addition to organizational problems, confrontations within the Kenyan social movement were especially severe. As for attendance, the most conservative estimate was 30,000 persons, while the highest estimate gave 60,000 participants. For a country the size of Kenya, that is quite impressive. It's still a bit early to consider the Forum's local impact; the Forum will serve as a trigger and educator, and can result in real progress being made.
The process raised numerous questions. Legitimate criticisms were made during the organization of the WSF, regarding the implementation choices and procedures. They must not mask issues raised by the process that were, in one form or another, also present at the preceding forums. Progress was made regarding the Forum's geographic enlargement. We knew that a forum in Africa wouldn't be easy, especially as South Africa didn't present itself as a candidate. However, not many African countries are capable of hosting a WSF, because of their size and the weakness of their social movement. The Forum is difficult to organize in many cities due to its current format.
Measuring the impact of a WSF is also difficult, especially considering the difference between a particular forum's impact and the impact of the forum process. The question of the number of participants should be considered in context. But media exposure gives great weight to this question and favours an event of considerable size. Media exposure is itself to be considered in context: are we interested in attracting extensive exposure or winning the media's "sympathy"? Our desired impact is first and foremost qualitative; it's more a matter of diversity and convergence than of standardization. From this point of view, real progress has been made; for example, the issues are now dealt with much more thoroughly than at the beginning of the World Social Forums. While the enlargement of the social bases is certainly insufficient, it is real. The trade unions, farmers' organizations and resident associations have been present from the beginning; for example, the CUT, MST and MNLN in Brazil and the African trade unions in Nairobi. However, ensuring the presence of the most poor and the underprivileged is more difficult. The participation of the No-Vox constituted a new phase which has since been consolidated, in particular with the migrants in Bamako; in Mumbai, it was the Dalits who ensured a qualitative change of direction.
Ensuring the participation of the poor and underprivileged necessitates a continued (and difficult) voluntary effort; in particular, to ensure the participation of associations representing these underclasses at the Forum. The No-Vox, the Dalits in Mumbai and the fishermen in Karachi gained access to the Forum through their associations - they were either organized, or they managed to organize themselves. It is much more difficult to participate in the Forum on a purely individual level. The organizers of the Nairobi Forum made certain especially regrettable choices: a distant location without free shuttle service, a very high admission price for the poor, insufficient perequation, and insufficient accessibility to a section of the shantytown associations.
The ethical requirements in the management of the WSFs are an essential issue. The issue of access to the poor showed a great increase in the ethical demands of the alter- globalization movement. While claiming that another world is possible, can we continue the very same domineering behaviour that is being rejected? The Forums must also be the window to another possible world. Three important questions were raised regarding the acceptable compromises: how to ensure the organization and security of an event such as the Forum? What type of consumption should be accepted at the Forums? How are the Forums to be funded?
The political englargement of the forum process is a recurring issue. It is to be expected that certain contradictions, even confrontations, arise and place in opposition the various social movement and citizen-based actors of a country or region. Several counter-forums have already been organized, such as those of London and Mumbai. At the Nairobi Forum, the People's Parliament, which played a decisive role in the creation of the WSF, organized a separate forum. In her post-forum report, Wangui of the People's Parliament explains that this forum was not organized in opposition to the World Social Forum, but rather because they had not been able to participate in it. She also declares her support for social forums.
The issue of political enlargement also calls into question the ever greater presence of certain movements, such as the very large NGOs, which defend more moderate positions. It is not enough to propose reestablishing an equilibrium by encouraging greater participation on the part of the other movements: the greater resources of the large associations must not allow them to influence or control the forums' evolution.
The connection between enlargement and radicalization is currently the most important issue facing the social forum process. The alter-globalization movement is based upon a refusal of neo-liberal globalization and the conviction that another world is possible, one which necessitates breaking away from the dominant mindset and neo- liberal politics. While enlargement is a measure of success for the process, it must not entail a watering-down of the movement. It is necessary to strengthen the movement's commitments, as long as this does not lead to exclusion and sectarianism. In the language of the forum, one talks of the link between convergence and juxtaposition, between "horizontality" and the definition of priorities and mobilization areas, between scheduling and agglutination (or "Brazilianism": the call to gather around a self-managed base).
An experiment at convergence was attempted on the fourth day of the WSF: the proposal to gather together - without abandoning the self-managed activities - in the morning according to networks or campaigns and in the afternoon according to specific themes (21 themes from a total of 1,100 registered activities), so as to define proposals and mobilizations. While the procedure was considered interesting, the results were inconclusive due to insufficient preparation before the forum and organizational difficulties with regard to rescheduling.
The strategic debate on enlargement and radicalization, on the Forum's structure and the process's evolution leads us to a more fundamental debate concerning the social transformation's future prospects. According to whether we are more affected by the urgency of the situation and the need to define medium-term objectives, or we choose to emphasize the historic character of the alter-globalization movement and pursue more long-term goals. The direction taken will determine the discussions on the movement's loss of impetus or on its permanency. That is why the movement's fundamental debate is the strategic debate, a strategic consideration allowing us to link our short-term actions with our long-term goals, the urgent need to find an answer to unacceptable situations, and the profound transformation of societies and of the world.
A NEW ROUND OF WORLD SOCIAL FORUMS
Below, I return to the speech I gave at the International Council in Parma, in October 2006. It seems to me that the Nairobi WSF has confirmed my hypotheses.
The alter-globalization movement has not broken down. It is only proper to point out its loss of impetus, and yet it never ceases to expand and deepen. Firstly, a geographic enlargement, as demonstrated by the World Social Forums of Porto Alegre, Mumbai and Nairobi; the polycentric forum of Bamako, Caracas and Karachi; the continental forums and the national forums, including that of the United States in Atlanta in June 2006; and the never-ending stream of local forums. A social enlargement, with the farmers' movements, including the landless movements, the industrial trade unions, the No-Vox, including the Dalits, the committees of deteriorated neighbourhoods and shantytowns, the migrant forums, the world women's march, and the youth camps. A thematic enlargement, with the thematic forums such as those of education and water, and the associated forums for local officials, members of parliament, judges, etc.
The alter-globalization movement has grown considerably in strength in very little time, in less than ten years. Yet, it has not won. It would have been surprising to have won so soon, especially as it is not such a simple thing to define what would be meant by "winning". The alter-globalization movement is a long-term movement with long-term goals. It is a movement that evolves according to the changing situations. Let us consider a few hypotheses.
First hypothesis: the alter-globalization movement is entering a new phase. We are wrapping up a round of world social forums which first began after Seattle. It's a question of defining those elements of the project that best correspond to this new period. Important political changes are being prepared. Especially as neo-liberalism is undergoing a crisis and globalization's neo-liberal phase is probably coming to an end. We are arriving at the limits of finance capital's hegemony and its "short-term" mindset. The economic hegemony of the United States has been exhausted. A new world order is emerging with the growing economic strength of China, India and also Brazil. The never-ending war raises new contradictions and the American elections introduce uncertainties regarding the conducting of wars. The situation in France will change during the elections and the period of political-reconstruction. The Latin American political movement is redefining, vis-à-vis diverse situations, new relations between the movements and governments.
Second hypothesis: the alter-globalization movement has developed a concrete alternative. On the basis of its challenge to neo-liberalism, the movement has confirmed its determination and has gone from resistance to a counter-offensive and the putting forward of alternatives. The strategic orientation that has emerged from the Forums is the following: in opposition to the organization of societies and of the world through global-market adjustments and the supremacy of the global capital market, we propose organizing societies and the world according to the principle of universal access to human rights. This principle has already altered the nature of the movements, whose convergence is alter-globalization's principal characteristic; each of these movements has evolved by incorporating the priority given to universal access to human rights.
Third hypothesis: the alter-globalization movement must oppose the new ideological offensive. Neo-conservatism, which gives priority to the military and the concept of a perpetual, preventive war. Organizing the economy according to discrimination and racism. The rise of a security-based ideology, the return of identity politics, fundamentalism, zero tolerance, and the criminalization of movements.
Fourth hypothesis: the alter-globalization movement's procedures have been improved. They combine struggles and resistance movements, campaigns and mobilizations, innovative social practices, elaboration, alternatives, and negotiation proposals. They put forward the construction of a new political culture which is being developed within the Forums. Citizen-based assessments are challenging the monopoly of a "dominant expertise" and of a single way of thinking; it is making permanent the transition from a "TINA" (There Is No Alternative) mindset dear to Mrs. Thatcher to the ability to imagine another possible world.
Fifth hypothesis: the alter-globalization movement is a historic movement with long-term goals. It prolongs and renews the three preceding historic movements. The historic decolonization movement; from this perspective, alter-globalization has greatly modified the North-South representations to the benefit of a common project. The historic movement encompassing the working-class struggles; from this perspective, the evolution towards a global, social and citizen-based movement. The movement encompassing the struggles for democracy, beginning in the 1960s and '70s; from this perspective, the renewal of the democratic imperative following the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the regressions engendered by security- based ideologies.
Source: http://aitectemp.reseau-ipam.org/spip.php?article652
Collective contribution
Collective contribution to the debates within the International Council (IC) of the World Social Forum to take place at Berlin from May 29th to 31st 2007
Subject: Evaluation of the 7th WSF
At the end of the 7th WSF, during the meeting of the International Council from 25th -- 26th January 2007, certain members of the organizing committee refused to listen to the criticisms and made improper accusations against those who raised their voices. It is very easy to discredit people, be it from the South or from the North, who make criticisms.
We, the signatories of the text, are activists from the South as well as from the North of this planet, who work to reinforce the WSF and are fighting to root it deep in the struggles for the social emancipation.
We are confident that the WSF would remain plural and avoid transforming itself in an elitist show without being of any real use for the genuine struggles.
We would like to summarise as under a series of critique concerning the organization of the 7th WSF:
- 1. The entry fee fixed for the Kenyans were very high which prohibited
a lot of Kenyans coming to the event, as was evident during the Forum. The fee charged (500 shillings) was equal to approximately the minimum weekly wage.
- 2. The venue was too far from the centre of the city (as well as from
the localities where most people stay) which was another factor exacerbating the problems.
- 3. The organizers hired an infrastructure much bigger than the number
of participants that one could have reasonably expected. i.e. 20,000 to 30, 000 (primarily for a high entry fee), one could have even expected 30 to 40 thousand if the entry was free for the locals. The infrastructural expense was extremely high and did not meet real needs.
- 4. The arguments for demanding a high entry fee for increasing the
revenues were absurd since a high turnout was impossible taking into account the low purchasing power of a majority of the Kenyans. The other argument, i.e. uncontrolled entry is equally unacceptable. It would have been possible to register the Kenyans entering the Forum free of charge, in order to formalize their participation.
- 5. Fixing such prices indicate that the conduct of the organizers was
lead by an elitist conception or a complete disconnection with the ground realities (the realities of life of a vast majority of Kenyans).
- 6. The organizers increased the contracts with private enterprises for
setting up food stalls, thereby fixing very high prices for food as per their agreements. This had two consequences: a) the mass of people could not afford to buy food within the premises of WSF. b) The food prices were prohibitive for the Kenyans and other participants from the developing countries.
- 7. The organizers made an undesirable deal with Celtel for
telecommunications.
- 8. The organizers should not have made any agreement with the company
directly related to the Home Minister.
- 9. The WSF could have been organized in any stadium in the centre of
the city or in any park. That would have allowed: a) reduction of costs; b) almost free entry to all Kenyans; c) a reduction of the food prices; increase the participation of the local people (and therefore, the total number of participants) at all levels (the number of participants and the number of food vendors). That would have equally increased the visibility of the activities in the eyes of the people of Nairobi and rooted it in Kenyan reality.
- 10. The recourse to voluntary help was visibly very weak and faltering.
- 11. There was no visible desire to integrate as much as movements and
individuals as possible by taking their support for the preparation and a very good organization of WSF. Instead, the power of decision-making and management was limited to very few movements and individuals.
- 12. The responsibility of the errors does not lie only with the local
organizing committee. The responsibility of the international body which was directly involved working with the organizing committee is also linked.
- 13. The other elements merit a critical analysis. We would like to put
them forward for the records: the vast place taken by certain financially strong NGOs; the messages that did not respect women's right or the right to sexual diversity; the fact that the maintenance of law and order was only entrusted with the police; the absence of free drinking water (when 50,000 litres of free water was provided); the fiasco of translations.
We equally wish to mention the following points:
- 1. Since the 4th WSF at Mumbai, the IC tried to adopt an approach
facilitating even more convergences, notably implying facilitating fusions in order to avoid monologue by organizations.
It seems to us that the progress in this aspect was evident in the 5th and 6th WSF. On the contrary, the 7th edition was a regression to the old style. We were not able to really facilitate fusions between activities. A certain number of movements, not all, organized their activities within their own periphery. An NGO organized around 20 solitary activities.
- 2. The IC of October, 2006 decided that the 4th day would facilitate
the convergences. How could the Kenyan organizing committee decide amongst themselves, 10 days before the inauguration of WSF, with consent of some members of the international secretariat and the secretariat of the African Social Forum, to organize 21 separate thematic assemblies on the afternoon of the 4th day? What is the coherence of such a plan with the idea of convergence? Some of us, passed through one assembly to the other to have an opinion on the relevance of those and its likely success. According to our headcount, those 21 assemblies together drew an audience of 1,500. Some of them only gathered a few dozens participants. Till now, we have not read anything self-critical, any review by the persons who took decisions for separate assemblies: nevertheless, it was elementary in order to prioritize the debates following the WSF.
- 3. Returning to the past since the 6th WSF, when the 6th polycentric
WSF took place, some members, especially from the Brazilian secretariat, persuaded the IC not to meet at Karachi, at the end of March, 2006 where it would have been absolutely normal to make a review of the polycentric process. With the IC scheduled at Karachi we could have participated at the forum in more numbers. Yet, only a handful of IC members could be there.
As proposed by some members of the IC, it met at Nairobi in March 2006 even before the WSF took place at Karachi. As a result, that IC meeting was not able to make a review of the 6th WSF together, and above all, a very few IC members could be both at Nairobi and immediately go to Karachi. That, deservedly, disappointed the Karachi organizers and the justification given for it was to prepare better for the 7th WSF at Nairobi.
Some of the signatories of this text however, had formulated an alternative proposal which was not taken into account: a) an IC meeting at Karachi, at the end of March, 2006 to make a review of the 6th WSF in its entirety and guarantee the presence of maximum IC members at Karachi (the obligation of 2 intercontinental journeys had dissuaded members to go to Karachi) ; b) call for another IC at Nairobi in the following months in order to prepare for the 7th WSF. Those who persuaded the IC not to meet at Karachi should have equally presented the review of this decision since the chance to support the process in Pakistan was missed as a result of such decision. The review should have equally carried the following question: have we really succeeded in making a better preparation for the 7th WSF at Nairobi by having a meeting there in March, 2006 instead of doing it some months later?
In the same sense, we should ask ourselves why we met in Italy in October 2006 instead of meeting in India or Pakistan as announced initially.
We would like to have an analysis credible and nuanced of what took place during the preparation of the 7th WSF?
In concluding the criticisms expressed above, we estimate that the situation is crucial. A change is certainly necessary at the level of the International Secretariat. We fear that the IC designated a limited group in charge of the mission of the secretariat and that composed of a majority of persons carrying a responsibility in the preparation of 7th WSF (therefore running the risk of reproducing what we estimate was as an error at the level of the preparation of the Forum) and who, during the IC following it, evaded criticisms in order to avoid their part of the responsibility. How does it help the IC to avoid the same errors from repeating itself once again?
We state that during the IC at Nairobi after the 7th WSF, the majority of the speakers carefully avoided criticizing (see the report available in English only (!)) This makes us anxious. Would the IC become incapable of seeing the reality in front of it? Would it become a body which thinks that the review is "overall positive" even when it is in contradiction with the reality? If that is the case, this autism will become detrimental to the WSF process itself.
We are convinced that the WSF should pursue its action, improve the convergences, contribute to reinforce the struggle against neo-liberal capitalism, patriarchy and all other forms of oppression. We have actively contributed to the 7th WSF and we are convinced that it has off course, both positive and constructive aspects. We support the necessity of adopting a set of rules in order to avoid the serious mistakes of the 7th WSF repeating itself.
First signatories
Yoko AkIMOTO, Secretariat of ATTAC Japan
Camille CHALMERS, General Secretary PAPDA-Haiti
Fathi CHAMKI, spokesman of RAID ATTAC Tunisia
Moctar Niantigui COULIBALY, President ONG AMADIP, member of the audit committee of the CAD-Mali
Sushovan DHAR, VAK, Mumbai, India
Jos GEUDENS, CADTM Mombasa, Kenya
Isabelle LIKOUKA, treasurer APASH/CADTM Congo Brazzaville
Wangui MBATIA, People's Parliament and the Kenya Network of Grassroots Organizations (KENGO) Kenya
Luc MUKENDI, PRESIDENT AMSEL/CADTM LUBUMBASHI Democratic Republic of Congo
Ajit MURICKEN, director VAK, Mumbai, India
Rock NIANGA, general secretary APASH/CADTM Congo Brazzaville
Junko OKURA, Jubilee Kyushu, Japan
Salissou OUBANDOMA, member of the board of RNDD-Niger
Mimoun RAHMANI, deputy General Secretary of ATTAC Morocco
Binta SARR, President CADTM Senegal
Farooq TARIQ, secretary of Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (Pakistan Peasants Coordination Committee) and member of the national steering committee Pakistan Social Forum, Pakistan
Eric TOUSSAINT, president CADTM Belgium
Ibrahim YACOUBA, coordinator of RNDD, Niger
Additional signatures:
Bushra KHALIQ, general secretary Women Workers Help Line, Pakistan
Khalid MEHMOOD, director Labour Education Foundation, Pakistan
Moeen Nawaz PUNNO, president National Trade Union Federation Punjab, Pakistan
Nasir IQBAL, organiser Lahore Social Forum, Pakistan
Nasir AZIZ, education secretary National Trade Union Federation Pakistan, Pakistan.
Issa ABOUBACAR, member of the board of RNDD-Niger
Nana Fassouma DAWEYE, in charge of the organization in the RNDD-Niger
Carmel MBAYA, AMSEL/CADTM LUBUMBASHI RD CONGO
Hamza HAROU, Treasurer RNDD-Niger
Iman FALAH, ATTAC Morocco
Walden Bello
The Forum at the Crossroads
by Walden Bello
QUOTATION:
"After the disappointment that was Nairobi, many long-standing participants in the Forum are asking themselves: Is the WSF still the most appropriate vehicle for the new stage in the struggle of the global justice and peace movement? Or, having fulfilled its historic function of aggregating and linking the diverse counter-movements spawned by global capitalism, is it time for the WSF to fold up its tent and give way to new modes of global organization of resistance and transformation?"
Read the whole article here: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4196
Chico Whitaker
Las encrucijadas no siempre cierran caminos (Reflexión en continuidad a la de Walden Bello)
(For English translation, see Crossroads do not always close roads (Reflection in continuity to Walden Bello))
“¿Será hora de que el FSM levante su campamento y deje sitio para nuevos modos de organización global de la resistencia y la transformación?”
El mínimo que se puede decir de esta pregunta de Walden BelloFocus on the Global South, Bangkok, , escrita al final de su texto “El FSM en la encrucijada”, es que es osada... Ella tiene sin embargo el mérito de decir directa y claramente lo que piensa, pero no lo dice, un cierto número de miembros del Consejo Internacional del FSM.
Pero no podemos dejar de reflexionar sobre su instigador razonamiento. En especial cuando afirma que el FSM ya ha “cumplido su función histórica de sumar y vincular los diversos movimientos de oposición provocados por el capitalismo globalizado”. O al citar Hugo Chávez, cuando, en el Foro Social realizado en Caracas en 2006, advirtió “a los delegados sobre el peligro de que el FSM se convirtiera simplemente en un foro de ideas sin una agenda para la acción”, y dijo que ahora hay que “tener una estrategia de 'contrapoder',” y “ocupar espacios de poder al nivel local, nacional y regional”.
Para empezar habría que ver de que encrucijada y por lo tanto de que caminos estamos hablando. El FSM sigue por un camino, que no existía antes, y que es paralelo al de la resistencia concreta al neoliberalismo y de la lucha por cambiar el mundo. El ha sido abierto no para remplazar el otro sino que para servirle de apoyo, creando condiciones para que los que resisten y luchan puedan articularse y se reforzar cada vez más.
Estos dos caminos no tienen porque cruzarse. Siendo distintos pueden seguir paralelamente. Y si son ambos necesarios --y esta seria la cuestión a discutir - no deben comerse uno al otro, como lo propone Walden. Lo que deben es relacionarse intensa y permanentemente, estar cada vez más próximos uno del otro, alimentarse mutuamente, para que cada vez más gente esté al mismo tiempo en los dos, conectándose en uno de ellos y actuando en el otro. O sea, estén luchando al mismo tiempo que expandiendo sus alianzas y reuniendo cada vez más fuerzas para ir cada vez más lejos en sus luchas.
Si para cambiar efectiva y profundamente el mundo el camino es aun muy largo, el apoyo que puede ser dado por el FSM a esta lucha tiene también que continuar por largo plazo. En verdad, no llegamos a encrucijadas, sino que frente a la necesidad de aclarar mejor los horizontes, para que en los dos caminos se pueda seguir adelante.
Las opciones iniciales en el FSM
Para eso vale la pena recordar que desde la creación del FSM hay una discusión que nos acompaña, en todos los niveles de reflexión y decisión sobre foros sociales, sobre el carácter del FSM: es el un espacio o un movimiento. Lo que propone Walden Bello, que parece estar entre los que ven el FSM solamente como un movimiento, no tiene por lo tanto, en si, nada de nuevo. Lo nuevo --quizás lo sorprendente - es la radicalidad de su propuesta. La cual no implica en que el FSM se aproxime aún más del otro camino, manteniéndose como espacio, sino que sencillamente desaparezca, al cruzarse con el otro. Como si los dos caminos no pudieran convivir, como ocurrió en estos siete años, y ahora deberíamos seguir solamente por el camino de la acción.
Antes mismo del primero Forum Social Mundial en Porto Alegre, en 2001, sus organizadores ya se encontraban frente a esa disyuntiva espacio-movimiento. Crear un lugar de encuentro o proponer, a todos los que vinieran al Foro, acciones concretas de resistencia y transformación? O sea, tenían a su frente una bifurcación, que definiría el carácter del proceso que en aquel momento iniciaban.
Al organizar esa primera edición y al proponer su Carta de Principios --redactada a partir de las lecciones y descubiertas de esa edición - ellos han optado por el camino que daría al FSM el carácter de espacio. Pero lo veían como un instrumento al servicio de los que estaban en la acción, o sea, los movimientos existentes. En otras palabras, ellos han considerado que la vocación del FSM era la de iniciar algo que no existía antes, que no seria directamente para cambiar el mundo sino que para ayudar a los que luchan por cambiar el mundo.
Una iniciativa con este objetivo era, para ellos, más necesaria que la creación de un nuevo movimiento, con su programa político propio y sus objetivos inmediatos y de más largo plazo, sus militantes y sus acciones especificas definidas por sus instancias dirigentes. Un tal movimiento no podría ser ni mismo considerado un “movimiento de los movimientos”, porque estaría siempre en competición con otros movimientos buscando realizar los mismos objetivos.
Así es que han organizado el Foro primeramente como un libre encuentro de los diferentes tipos e niveles de organización de la sociedad civil --movimientos sociales, ONGs, sindicatos. Querrían meter en relación todas sus acciones. Y no solamente entre movimientos más directamente políticos, en lucha por el poder, sino que entre todos los tipos de acción de que necesitamos para cambiar efectiva y profundamente el mundo, incluso al nivel de los comportamientos personales. Era necesario reforzarlas y multiplicarlas, hasta el nivel planetario, frente al capitalismo globalizado, dentro de esta movilización general de los ciudadanos a la que se ha convenido llamar de altermundialización.
Los organizadores del primer Foro lo veían por lo tanto como un espacio mundial --que podría expandirse horizontalmente a todos los horizontes y a todos los niveles de la realidad - en que las diferentes propuestas y acciones en curso pudieran ser conocidas, discutidas, profundizadas, evaluadas, cuestionadas, articuladas, con libertad y la más amplia participación posible, incubando nuevas iniciativas y movimientos. Sin que todo este intercambio resultara en un “documento final único” del Foro, que pretendiera unificar todos sus participantes en torno de opciones u objetivos específicos de resistencia o transformación.
Establecieron entonces que un paso importante a ser dado para ayudar la lucha por otro mundo era lo de que las discusiones en el “espacio FSM” fueran propositivas, esto es, buscaran alternativas para la real construcción de un “otro mundo”. Y que la iniciativa de proponer, en ese espacio, debates --foro de ideas --o articulaciones --rumbo a nuevas acciones - debería ser reservada específicamente a la sociedad civil, nuevo actor político que emergía en el mundo. Este nuevo actor no tenia hasta entonces un instrumento de este porte y de este tipo para que sus componentes, en su extrema diversidad, se dieran a conocer unos a los otros y definieran objetivos comunes de lucha.
Pero los organizadores el primer Forum han también considerado una cuestión aún más importante: la de que somos muchos a luchar por cambiar el mundo pero no conseguimos construir la unión que podría darnos mucho más fuerza. O sea, que era necesario tentar entendernos y nos reforzar unos a los otros, en lugar de nos dividirnos recurrentemente, destruyéndonos mutuamente.
Se han dado cuenta entonces que para construir la unión no bastaba encontrarse y reconocerse. Era también necesario experimentar nuevas prácticas de acción política, basadas en relaciones horizontales, en que todos se respectaran mutuamente en su diversidad de métodos y objetivos, en que nadie fuera considerado más importante que los otros, en un espacio por lo tanto sin jerarquías ni direcciones centralizadas, en que todos pudieran escucharse en lugar de competir entre si según la lógica capitalista. Esto permitiría la descubierta de convergencias y la posibilidad de nuevas alianzas, dentro de la lógica de las redes, que ya se firmaban en el mundo como modo más democrático de organizarse. Poco a poco, en los Foros que se han organizado después del primero, la construcción de esa unión ha pasado a ser, de hecho, el resultado fundamental a se esperar de ellos, su rol a cumplir en la lucha por el “otro mundo posible”, como un tiempo de ejercicio práctico de nuevos tipos de relaciones.
De esta manera el Foro, como “espacio abierto”, serviría exactamente para construir “nuevos modos de organización global de la resistencia y de la transformación”, como lo desea Walden Bello, que debieran concretarse no en el camino del Foro sino que en el camino de la acción. Desde que – única limitación --no pretendieran imponer sus decisiones a los demás participantes del Foro, ni hablar en nombre do todos ellos, y menos aún levar el Foro a tomar posiciones en cuanto Foro, vinculando a ellas todos sus participantes.
Los organizadores --o facilitadores de la creación de los “espacios FSM”, como se han autodenominado, del nivel local hasta el del Consejo Internacional, para que no fueran considerados “dirigentes” de un nuevo “movimiento” --han continuamente discutido estas opciones desde 2001, a lo largo de sus encuentros. Y hoy se discute en los propios Foros “el futuro del FSM” y su carácter de “espacio abierto”. Muchas propuestas que surgen en los Foros y en el Consejo Internacional se encuadran de hecho en esta discusión, que existe por lo tanto desde el inicio de ese proceso.
Lo que pasa con la propuesta de Walden Bello es que, en la medida en que parece haber optado por un Foro-movimiento, el no puede sino poner en duda la posibilidad de un “espacio” ser “el vehículo más adecuado para la nueva etapa en la lucha del movimiento por la justicia global y la paz”. De hecho, dejando de considerar el camino paralelo que se ha iniciado en 2001 y considerando uno solo, o una mezcla de los dos, lo que propone es que quitémonos de encima las limitaciones que el caminar dentro del FSM, como espacio, nos impone, para podernos seguir adelante con más fuerza -“para ocupar espacios de poder” - solamente en el camino de la acción.
Las actuales perspectivas y necesidades
Walden indica sin embargo en su texto algunos de los efectos positivos del FSM, que de hecho no podrían existir si el no fuera un espacio. Así, dice que “el FSM se convirtió en un imán para redes globales concentradas en diferentes temas, desde la guerra a la globalización a la regionalización, al racismo, a la opresión de género, a la busca de alternativas”, permitiendo que “la sociedad civil, en su diversidad, se reúna, se vincule y, simplemente, se vigorice y se afirme”, como en “un retiro en el que reúne sus energías”. El considera que “el FSM ofrece un lugar y un espacio para que el movimiento elabore, discuta y debata la visión, los valores, y las instituciones de un orden del mundo alternativo construido sobre una comunidad real de intereses”. Y considerando que “talvez una razón apremiante para el modus vivendi de los antiguos y nuevos movimientos fue la comprensión de que se necesitaban mutuamente en la lucha contra el capitalismo global”, dice que “las experiencias de democracia directa en Seattle, Praga, Génova y las otras grandes movilizaciones de la década fueron institucionalizadas en el proceso del FSM o de Porto Alegre”, suministrando “una oportunidad para recrear y reafirmar la solidaridad contra la injusticia, contra la guerra, y por un mundo que no estuviera sometido al control del imperio y del capital”. Considera también que” el desarrollo de una estrategia de contra-poder o de contra-hegemonía no tiene que significar que se vuelva a caer en viejos modos jerárquicos y centralizados de organización característicos de la antigua izquierda”.
Pero al decir todo esto, su propuesta de levantar campamento suena como si dijera que el FSM ha sido de hecho una linda experiencia, pero hay que aceptar que ha terminado.
Sabemos que toda organización --y así también el FSM --tiene efectivamente que desaparecer un día, por haber cumplido su rol. Pero tendríamos ya llegado a este momento? Estaríamos en un punto de su camino en el cual deberá terminar? Quizás Walden, en este aspecto, esté siendo demasiado optimista, ya que no creo que quiera iludirse a si mismo.
Todos los efectos positivos del FSM a los que Walden se refiere habrán sido vividos en todos los rincones del planeta? En Asia, en los antiguos países socialistas, en el mundo árabe, en China, en toda América, en toda África? Todas las organizaciones de la sociedad civil en todos los países del mundo --o por lo menos un número significativo de ellas - han tenido ya la oportunidad de realizar las interconexiones proporcionadas por los Foros? Ha habido foros locales en todas las ciudades o regiones del mundo --o en un gran número de ellas - para que esta experiencia sea vivida por quienes no pueden se desplazar a encuentros mundiales o continentales, y mismo nacionales? Se han creado en toda parte espacios para que la sociedad civil se reforzara y se articulara más para tomar su lugar de nuevo actor político? La experimentación de nuevas prácticas políticas que superen los “viejos modos jerárquicos y centralizados de organización característicos de la antigua izquierda” ha sido hecha por todas las organizaciones que luchan contra el capitalismo globalizado? Estas nuevas prácticas políticas han penetrado efectivamente en las organizaciones que vienen participar de los Foros, cambiándolas internamente? Todos los movimientos están ya plenamente convencidos de que “se necesitan mutuamente en la lucha contra el capitalismo global”, y están siendo capaces de construir su unión, en lugar de continuar se dividiendo y se enfrentando unos a los otros?
No es el caso de dar ejemplos --además tristes ejemplos, en organizaciones que han incluso participado de la creación del FSM - de que todo esto está aun lejos de ocurrir. En lo que respecta a los cambios culturales, en los comportamientos y en las prácticas de acción política, no hay duda de que, bajo la dominación ideológica del capitalismo, necesitamos quizás de generaciones para que se afirmen. Porque entonces interrumpir ese proceso, o terminar ese camino paralelo a lo de la acción? Esa es de hecho la pregunta a hacer a Walden Bello, en respuesta a la pregunta con la cual ha terminado su texto.
La comunicación del Foro con el mundo
Pero me preocupa que la propuesta de Walden Bello ayude menos a nosotros que a nuestros adversarios. Incluso porque viene de dentro del FSM.
De hecho, decir que el FSM ha terminado es exactamente lo mismo que dice la gran media internacional que intenta decretar la muerte del FSM, para que los dueños del mundo no tengan más que preocuparse. Los miembros de la Comisión de Comunicación del Consejo Internacional del FSM nos citan, como ejemplo, lo que ha dicho en enero de este año el periódico español El País: “el FSM ha desaparecido de los radares”.
Esa Comisión apunta para lo que, a mi juicio, es actualmente el más grande desafío del FSM: el de comunicarse con el mundo. Podemos clamar en altas y muchas voces que “otro mundo es posible”, pero es aun muy grande el número de los que no lo creen. Sin ninguna duda, son las grandes mayorías. Y no se ha alcanzado aún a hacer con que todo lo que se presenta, se discute, se propone, se articula y se hace a partir de los Foros, llegue a los ojos y oídos de esas grandes mayorias, como noticias portadoras de esperanza.
En reciente encuentro de la Comisión de Comunicación en Italia, he podido ver mas claramente la diferencia de evolución --una positiva otra negativa - de las dos dinámicas vividas por el proceso del FSM, hacia dentro y hacia fuera.
La dinámica hacia dentro correspondía a su primer desafío, lo de organizar Foros que fueran efectivamente espacios de encuentro, reconocimiento y aprendizaje mutuos, identificación de convergencias, lanzamiento de nuevas iniciativas de resistencia y transformación, alimentando la acción propiamente dicha y construyendo la unión.
Esta dinámica ha sido siempre ascendente. En cada Foro se ha aprovechado la experiencia del anterior, buscando mejorar su metodología para una más completa realización de sus objetivos. Del primer Foro, que combinaba actividades propuestas desde arriba, por sus organizadores, con actividades auto-organizadas desde abajo, por sus propios participantes, se ha llegado en 2005 a un Foro totalmente auto-organizado. Por otro lado la Carta de Principios se ha firmado cada vez más. Y muchas nuevas articulaciones y acciones, incluso de nivel planetario, surgieron en los Foros y se consolidaron, además de la más grande, por la Paz en febrero de 2003, que sorprendió a todo el mundo.
En el último Foro, en Nairobi --con menos gente por razones ya bien identificadas --la metodología utilizada ha dado importantes saltos cualitativos, como al basar la inscripción de actividades no en temas teóricos sino que en objetivos de transformación, o al reservar el cuarto día de trabajo a la programación de acciones concretas. Insuficiencias organizativas de diversos tipos no han permitido sin embargo la plena utilización de estos avances.
La poca comunicación hacia afuera hizo por otro lado más visibles las insuficiencias que los avances hechos en Nairobi, como las nuevas redes que han surgido en el, y el ha merecido evaluaciones muy controvertidas - algunas francamente negativas, como si no hubiera más la obligación de defender el hijo de los ataques que sufre desde que nació. Walden Bello ha dicho en su texto que ese Foro había sido muy “decepcionante”. Onyango Oloo, uno de sus organizadores, llegó a escribir 24 páginas de duras críticas, empezando por decir que el Foro había sido un “desastre”. Al mismo tiempo, entre otras análisis positivas, Gustave Massiah, de Francia, sin desconsiderar lo que ha sido insuficiente, da a su evaluación el titulo: “Nairobi 2007, un excelente Foro Social Mundial”.
La literatura sobre este Foro es por lo tanto variada. Y como su Consejo Internacional no ha alcanzado a informar mejor, después del Foro, sobre el carácter de lo de 2008 y las perspectivas para 2009, muchos periodistas han podido decir que el proceso FSM había perdido mucho de su fuerza.
Pero es cierto que el FSM no está tan muerto. Incluso recién escuché las palabras del mismo Oloo, que hizo la crítica de 24 páginas, en mesa redonda en Italia, relatando efectos extremamente positivos del Foro de Nairobi que hoy aparecen en la sociedad de Kenya, a pesar de todas las insuficiencias habidas.
La mejor demostración de que el proceso está vivo es sin embargo la multiplicación de Foros Regionales y Locales. Ella se amplia cada vez más, como con el primer Foro Social Norte Americano, en Junio, al mismo tiempo que otros en Québec, en Alemania, de los países del Magreb en la Mauritania, en la Dinamarca, en Guatemala, en Brasil, en la Triple Frontera de América del Sur, entre otros más.
Puede por lo tanto ser dicho que la dinámica del Foro hacia dentro, o sea, hacia los que están luchando por otro mundo, sigue hoy día ascendiendo. Y el Foro de 2008, con su formato de múltiples actividades concomitantes en todo el planeta, en su diversidad de tipos y temas, con un día de visibilidad común en la fecha simbólica de Davos, puede llevarnos a un Foro Social Mundial muy significativo en enero de 2009.
Pero lo mismo no ha pasado con la dinámica hacia fuera, más bien descendiente. Es interesante notar que las dos dinámicas (hacia dentro y hacia fuera) eran ambas ascendientes hasta el Foro de 2005: cada vez más gente venia participar de los mundiales, así como se multiplicaban los regionales, nacionales y locales. Y ha sido exactamente en 2005, en que 150.000 personas vinieron participar del más grande hasta entonces, que la dinámica hacia fuera empezó a perder fuerza.
No es por otra razón que la Comisión de Comunicación del Consejo Internacional presentará, en la próxima reunión del CI, en Berlín, un plan de trabajo hacia afuera.
La comunicación con el mundo no es sin embargo tarea de una Comisión. Ella tiene que ser asumida por todos los participantes del proceso. No se trata únicamente de la comunicación con periodistas, canales esenciales para difundir la información, sino que del conjunto de medios de comunicación que hagan posible llegar a todas las personas la certeza de que “otro mundo es posible”. Más aun, que ya se hacen muchas cosas --de resistencia y de transformación efectiva --o sea, que ese “otro mundo” ya está en construcción. Con los que actúan para cambiar la realidad contando con un poderoso instrumento para se articular y se unir cada vez más: el proceso del Foro Social Mundial.
De hecho, frente a este nuevo desafío que el FSM enfrenta, seria bueno que pudiéramos decir que en el concentraremos ahora nuestros esfuerzos en el proceso del FSM. Pero el texto de Walden Bello nos despierta para el hecho de que no es así. Al mismo tiempo que trabajar para que el FSM se comunique mejor con el mundo, habrá que continuar luchando para que su camino no se pierda en inesperadas encrucijadas.
23/05/07
Thomas Ponniah
The Contribution of the U.S. Social Forum: a reply to Whitaker and Bello's debate on the Open Space
The achievements of the U.S. Social Forum experience contributes a great deal to debates concerning the future of the overall World Social Forum (WSF) process. In a recent set of interventions Walden Bello and Chico Whitaker, both representatives on the International Council of the WSF, disagreed on the future of the Forum. Bello, the Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, argued that the Forum was now at a crossroads . While acknowledging that the WSF had gven a great deal to the struggle for global justice, Bello suggested that the Forum's Open Space methodology, which on principle, refuses to take a collective stand on issues such as the war on Iraq and the WTO, was now inhibiting substantial political agency. He argued that there was merit to the charge that the Forum was becoming "an institution unanchored in actual global political struggles, and this is turning it into an annual festival with limited social impact". The article concluded with the query: "is it time for the WSF to fold up its tent and give way to new modes of global organization of resistance and transformation?"
Read the entire article in pdf format at http://www.lfsc.org/wsf/ussf_contribution_thomas.pdf.
