[E-rundbrief] Info 1122 - World Social Forum 2013 – the success of a method

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1122 - Chico Whitaker (BR): World Social Forum 2013 
– the success of a method.

Bad Ischl, 6.6.2013

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

================================================

World Social Forum 2013 – the success of a method

Posted on 6/5/2013

Chico Whitaker*

I was asked to take stock of the WSF process, after twelve years of 
existence. I can’t make a list of what took place during this time, 
which would be even tedious. Neither analyze in few pages the ups and 
downs of the process with the realisation – now at every two years – 
of more or less crowded world events, continental social forums, 
national and even local forums, that stay alive or have disappeared, 
thematic forums that are multiplying around the world; or talk of the 
articulations and networks, as well as new campaigns, which were born 
in these meetings, in the struggle for the construction of “another 
possible world”.

I will give only some elements that might allow feeling the dynamics 
of the process, showing what happened in the 2013 FSM in Tunis.

The least that can be said of the 2013 WSF is what was said by one of 
its veterans, the American political scientist Immanuel Walerstein, 
completing its

The least that can be said of the 2013 WSF is what was said by one of 
its veterans, the American political scientist Immanuel Walerstein, 
completing its “Commentary” no 350[i]: the World Social Forum is alive 
and well.

Eric Toussaint, another veteran, of the Committee for the Cancellation 
of Third World Debt, was more complete in an interview to Sergio 
Ferrari[ii]: the Social Forum, undeniably, remains as the only place 
and the world mark where the social movements meet. In this sense, and 
in the absence of any other alternative, it remains very important.

And the very title of the evaluation of the Canadian sociologist 
Pierre Baudet[iii] is significant “: Why the Tunis World Social Forum 
was a success?
In fact we could say that it was a great success, and the success of a 
method. In world events of the WSF process a method is applied, 
basically expressed in its Charter of principles, which the Tunisian 
organizations that promoted the FSM did respect, supported by other 
organisations of other countries in the Maghreb, as well as sharing 
the responsibility with members of the WSF International Council 
through their participation even in organizational decisions. And they 
also get the Government logistical support without its interference in 
the event – since it is a civil society initiative, as the Charter of 
Principles sets.

It was then created for five days, at the University of El Manar, in 
Tunis, a real open space, for mutual recognition, the exchange of 
ideas and experiences, and the identification of convergences and 
possibilities of new articulations at local, regional and global 
level. At every world event the methodology is improved, based on the 
previous experiences; and it is influenced, in what concerns the 
content of the discussions – defined by the participants themselves 
through the self-organized activities they register – by the world 
reality and by local reality.

So Eric Toussaint could say in the interview quoted: from the WSF’s 
contact with a society on the move, boiling, resulted a chemical 
reaction, an extremely interesting interaction.(…). In a country fresh 
out of 42 years of dictatorship, this “chemistry” produced a 
widespread feeling of joy and satisfaction at the end of the Forum.

Of course there were those who did criticize the Forum, due often to 
an insufficient understanding of the WSF character and methodology. 
But it is significant that 300 people have participated, on the last 
morning of the Forum, of the Convergence Assembly in which it would be 
argued the future of the process, marked by the enthusiasm of all. 
This type of Assembly is one of the innovations introduced in the 2009 
Forum that are already consolidated. In 2013 there were 30 Assemblies, 
self-organized, which discussed the continuity of articulations or 
where their final declarations were made, as the Forum while Forum do 
not adopt a final declaration.

The discussion on the next WSF, in turn, had already been opened with 
a new coming from India: organizations that promoted the Forum 2004 in 
Mumbai had gathered to reflect on the accomplishment of the 2015 WSF 
again in their country. In the above-mentioned Convergence Assembly we 
knew that mobilizations animators in Quebec also intend to suggest 
that the next WSF could be held in Canada. And in the WSF 
International Council meeting, held after the Forum, the possibility 
of returning to the Maghreb in 2015 was proposed.

The Forum brought together around 60,000 people (formally registered 
53,000), which filled the buildings of the Faculty of law and 
Economics and the Faculty of Sciences. A true human anthill – the 
allowed area relief made possible overall views – moved up inside them 
and on the path between them, passing by the University restaurant or 
by the bars mounted for the occasion, winning queues for a typical 
dish, or a sandwich to take to any of almost a thousand activities 
that took place in three two-and-a-half hours each, over the course of 
each day.

Posters, tents, little tables, free distribution of pamphlets, 
denunciations and invitations for activities, in five languages (for 
the first time the Arabic was an official language of the event), 
groups talking where they could, created the festive environment 
typical of the forums. The sun always present helped increasing the 
joy in reunions of former participants or between members or not of 
the 5,085 organizations coming from 128 countries. Large delegations 
spread in the spaces, as the French one with 500 people, or the 
Brazilian one with 200 members of trade unions, NGOs and social 
movements, or the one from Switzerland, with 60 people including 
parliamentarians who participated also in the Parliamentary Forum, a 
World Social Forum parallel event that became traditional.

Great steps have been taken to consolidate the option to “extend” the 
Forum through the Internet, so that groups around the world could 
interact with those present in Tunis. Most of these were Tunisians, as 
the Tunisian women struggling in their country for gender equality. 
But nationals of other Arab countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, 
Palestine, Iraq, Libya, were many. All could listen to militants of 
other struggles, exchange and discuss freely with them. And take part 
in a political meeting of a new type even in the democratic world, for 
its horizontality, self-organization, mutual respect, diversity, in 
this new political culture that is being built in the WSF process. A 
type of encounter that was new also for those who came for the first 
time to a World Social Forum, such as the two-thirds of the French 
delegation.

There was also a significant participation of young people. Many, 
among the Tunisians, were students of the University, encouraged and 
mobilized to participate by its Rector: in addition to open the 
University to the FSM and obtain the Government help to carry out the 
necessary works on it, the University Direction captured the 
opportunity, in the Tunisian reality, of such type of meeting with the 
principles adopted by the Forum. These students participated in the 
activities as well as acted as volunteers to help where useful, as how 
to identify the locations of the meeting rooms for those lost around 
the campus…

In fact the Tunisian organizers held the miracle, for the first time 
in 12 years of the WSF, to print its program three days before its 
beginning. But the indication of the rooms was less clear, and many 
people found their rooms until an hour and a half after the beginning 
of the activity. But as always in the Forums, the participants took 
the initiative to seek solutions to the problems, in a perspective of 
joint responsibility from the bottom to the top.

As always the topics discussed at the Forum were numerous, from the 
analysis of the crisis and its effects till the issue of migration, 
the appropriation of land, the racism, the denouncing of the drones 
and of the risks of nuclear power plants or mining projects. 
Wallerstein, in the “Commentary” already cited, says that in all 
matters there were the combined feelings of fear and hope, 
exemplifying with debates on overcoming the capitalism or introducing 
palliatives against inequality, the role of political parties, the 
BRICS, the current program of the global left, and the 
“decolonization” of even the WSF process. There were also many young 
people coming from social movements encouraged by the Arab Spring – 
which started exactly in Tunisia – as the Outraged of Spain or the 
United States Occupy people, developing their activities freely in 
their “Global Square”.

The concrete world confrontations existing today necessarily emerged, 
when for example a flag of Israel was placed on the ground to be 
trampled by those who wanted to protest at what is happening today in 
Palestine; or when Moroccans quarrelled with Sarahouis in one of the 
Convergence Assemblies, the one of the Social Movements, stopping the 
discussion and approval of the final Declaration of this Assembly. But 
there were also discussions with mutual respect, about the possibility 
of democratic coexistence, in Tunisia itself, between a political 
Islam and the sectors of society independent of religious options.

On the last day, rather than finish the Forum with an Assembly of the 
Assemblies, to give an overview of the whole discussed and proposed, 
presenting the results of each Convergence Assembly – a never very 
successful way to do it – all Assemblies were invited to move to the 
main avenue of Tunis, having each one 20 square meters to present 
their results to each other as well as to the city’s population. But 
there was no breath to achieve this innovation. And the Forum ended 
with a March dedicated to the Palestinian people, whose suffering is 
one of the most difficult challenges in the region.

This is, in fact, a World Social Forum: a large gathering of 
resumption of perspectives, encouragement and commitment of those who 
fight for “another possible world”. And it is to them and not to the 
Forum – a simple instrument – that it is the task of transforming the 
world.

So we can say that the WSF is not emptying, like would like to say 
those who only see the absence of news about the Forum through the 
mainstream media – which is only interested in novelties. Its 
important role became evident especially for the Tunisians, in their 
difficult struggle for the re-democratization of the country, in the 
diversity and refusing violence, two of the basic principles of the 
WSF Charter. Even the political forces participating in the Government 
were grateful to the fact that the 2013 World Social Forum was held in 
Tunisia – with a clear feeling of relief, after the tensions of the 
four weeks before, caused by a political assassination.

After the Forum, another discussion that took place in Tunis was about 
the WSF International Council, which lives a crisis created, according 
to many of its members, by its bureaucratization. It met immediately 
after the end of the Forum and organized work groups to study for six 
months these issues, as well as the proposals for the realisation of 
the next World Social Forum.

One of the phrases of Pierre Baudet about the Forum, in the article 
cited above, also applies to the IC: the WSF, or the WSFs we should 
say, are tools that we need to improve, in what will be a very long walk …

(author’s translation)

i. Commentary No. 350, April 1, 2013, Fernand Braudel Center, 
Binghamton University, (http://www.binghamton.edu/fbc)
ii. Week Newsletter of the Fórum Mundial de Alternativas (FMA), april, 
11, 2013 (http://www.forumdesalternatives.org).
iii. Published in the discussion list of the WSF International Council.

Text written at the request of the magazine America Latina en 
Movimiento, ALAI (Agencia Latinoamericana de Información -Alainet.org) 
(published in Spanish in printed magazine-No. 484, April 2013 and in 
http: www.alainet.orgpublica484.phtml; in Portuguese at http: 
www.alainet.orgactive63552)

*Chico Whitaker is a member of the Brazilian Justice and Peace 
Commission and its representative on the International Council of the 
World Social Forum, which is one of its co-founders.

federico nier-fischer


-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
Spenden-Konto Nr. 0600-970305 (Blz. 20314) Sparkasse Salzkammergut,
Geschäftsstelle Pfandl
IBAN: AT922031400600970305 BIC: SKBIAT21XXX

--

Ausgezeichnet mit dem (österr.) "Journalismus-Preis von unten 2010"

Honoured by the (Austrian) "Journalism-Award from below 2010"