The World Social Forum (WSF) is about three things, a young Frenchman told me. We were coming back from Kenya together. He had been to most of them since they first began in Porto Alegre in Brazil in January 2001. They are, he said, about protesting, networking and proposing.
Protesting power
When they began, before 9/11, the protest was against the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos which appeared to celebrate the end of government and the triumph of market-driven, "neo-liberal" capitalism and its rampant inequality. It was in the wake of the battle of Seattle in November 1999 that disrupted the world-trade talks. The creation of the WSF as an anti-Davos ensured that the new century began with a multinational stand in the name of the peoples of the world against the presumptions of the world economic order.
Since 2001, until this year, the WSFs have grown and, undoubtedly, shifted the agenda, making sure that the big battalions have not had it all their own way. It has been a remarkable achievement. In 2004 the WSF was held in Mumbai with an enormous mobilisation of Indian organisations. In 2005 it returned to Porto Alegre. In 2006 it went regional or "polycentric": to Caracas in Venezuela, Karachi in Pakistan and Bamako in Mali. One reason for this was that the decision had been taken to hold the next full world forum in Kenya, giving the organisers plenty of time to prepare against the backdrop of poor infrastructure.
Anthony Barnett is editor-in-chief of openDemocracy
Also in openDemocracy on the World Social Forum in Nairobi:
Patricia Daniel, "Is another world possible without the women's perspective"
(18 January 2007)
Plus – Patricia's vivid blog
Thus, this year, global civil society and Africa were planned to come together for the seventh World Social Forum in Nairobi (20-25 January 2007), close to the great rift valley from which the human species first emerged in triumph on its own two legs. The hope was that in 2007 the social movements of the world would inspire African civil society to stand up and show its strength, wisdom and the music of its needs.
For, unlike the mere protest mobilisations such as Seattle in 1999 (or the one being planned for the G8 meeting in June 2007 in Germany's remote Baltic resort of Heiligendamm), WSFs are designed as a form of positive protest, exemplary sites of solidarity with the struggles of the poor, to give voice to the "have-nots".
Such aspirations were pitifully unfulfilled at the Kasarani stadium complex, which was hired for the WSF 2007 in Nairobi. As a mobilisation against the dominant order, it was a public-relations disaster. The main headlines that it won around the world, in so far as it gained any, was the protest against it by the hungry poor of the Kibera slums (made famous by the film The Constant Gardener) who stormed the gates against the high price of entry and the rip-off cost of the food (Patricia Daniel blogged the story for openDemocracy). As Adam Ma'anit of New Internationalist wrote in his blog at the start of the forum, there seemed to be a corporate and commercial air to its organisation that undermined its aims.
The poor from the slums were headed by a young spokeswoman, Wangui Mbatia, who is in possession of astonishing political talent. Alas, she had to direct it inwards, against an appalling organisation that closed off the WSF from Kenyan society, when she should have been supported by it to address her calm and determined eloquence to the wider world.
Networking Africa
In its second role, as an event for networking, I was impressed. In his account of his disappointment with what he felt was a lack of politics, Firoze Manji in Pambazuka News considers whether Nairobi's WSF was "just another NGO fair". But where else can the far-flung universe of all those who are working for a better world come together? In advance the organisers boasted that 150,000 would attend. When it opened they claimed 50,000. I doubt if more than 20,000 participated, including Kenyans (but not including the water-vendors).
But still, to get 20,000 people from around the world to equatorial Africa is an achievement. A wonderful, friendly variety of views, arguments, dress, interests, beliefs and backgrounds came together in many conversations - such as Susan Richards and Solana Larsen described in their openDemocracy reports and blogs from previous WSFs (see box).
Below the radar of the public platforms, from the Habitat International Coalition to the network on water resources, and women's rights to human rights, new connections were being made and a younger generation was assessing the intercontinental scene. Patricia Daniel in her blog described this energy and intensity among the women's networks that were a large part of the forum.
To take one example, a network of activists in local authorities working for social inclusion asked the organisers for the facility to hold a day-long seminar. When they got no reply they met off-site in a hotel; 150 participated from all over Africa (including South Africa, Mali, Benin and Mozambique) and beyond. The connections made between committed local-government administrators will pay off in all kinds of ways.
However, there was no participant from Kenya - a telling comment on the failure of the Kenyan organisers, not only with respect to running (or failing to run) the forum itself but, more important, in terms of the impact the gathering was supposed to make within Kenyan society. A historic opportunity to activate the voices of Africa was lost, however considerable the links being made by the networks that were already organised.
Firoze Manji, whose Fahuma printing house launched African Perspectives on China in Africa at the forum, also complains that it was the larger, established and therefore (with the exception of the magnificent Action Aid) northern NGOs who made the running. Those who had the resources made the best impact. He rightly singled out the Human Dignity and Human Rights Caucus (HDRHC) who provided a printed and extremely full programme. So did the Germans, with a full-colour programme (in German and English) of all sixty-five events they were putting on.
The churches were out in force. While he was registering, a friend found himself next to a Jesuit who was bringing over fifty participants from Burkina Faso. Caritas, the huge Catholic network, created The Caritas-All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) Ecumenical Platform, "to facilitate the participation of the Churches of Africa at the WSF". Its secretary-general, Duncan MacLaren, stated: "It is important for us to be involved in this process to contribute to the globalisation of solidarity rather than the globalisation of inequality". Their presence led to intense debates over reproductive rights.
Thinking beyond
This brings us to the third role of the WSF. After the protests and the networking, what does it propose? Thomas Ponniah (who gave an interview to openDemocracy on the nature of the WSF in February 2003) put this question to a small session on the future of politics: "For seven years we have built a global consciousness. The question is, what next?"
The last meeting I attended was a gathering of all the social movements, organised by Christophe Aguiton of Attac. Trevor Ngwane of the South African anti-privatisation forum led the proceedings. About a thousand people initially thronged the spacious double tent. Being of the greying deadlocks generation, I enjoyed chanting "Down with Bush" (but drew the line at "Viva Chávez"). There was much condemnation of the commercialisation of the forum, about which a Brazilian speaker said "(It) is not enough that our cause be pure and just, purity and justice must also be within us".
But an answer to Ponniah's question came there none. In the different specialist areas there was strategic thinking. In smaller sessions there were arguments for engagement. Emira Woods of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC insisted that "grassroots campaigns, national campaigns and global campaigns can influence government". In a dedicated session on implementing United Nations resolution 1325 to enhance the role of women (which I blogged), Cora Weiss called for "participation, critical thinking and a holistic approach that engages with the issues..."
There was participation in Nairobi. The holistic approach was often just knee-jerk, "oppose all forms of exploitation". At that overall, movement level, there was little if any strategic thinking.
As a result, this year Davos won. Since that first WSF in 2001 China has doubled its wealth and output; India, and Turkey, have grown theirs by more than half. Then, Google had only recently got its initial funding. Today, the argument on climate change is over. For all the glitz and its versions of hot air, these huge changes are (as Simon Zadek's blog shows) being seriously mapped and assessed at Davos. In Nairobi they were addressed only peripherally, if at all.
Larry Elliott, the economics editor of the Guardian, sensed at Davos "more than a hint of a return to the future: a scramble for Africa, a sidelining of civil society, and geopolitical concerns trumping human rights". If so, there needs to be a World Social Forum that continues to set out its different claim on the global future in a way the world notices. Its international committee should be very concerned that this is slipping away.
It has already decided that next year the forum will distribute itself everywhere, to consist entirely of local events and actions. Could this provide the opening for original, critical thinking about how to achieve its aim of making "another world possible"? Or will it simply ensure that the WSF disappears completely from view, while the big NGOs find some other venue to continue the invaluable work of global networking?
| openDemocracy published twenty-two articles from the World Social Forum, 2002-06: 2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
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Comments
The WEF itself released a global survey that showed dwindling confidence in world leaders. But their power is unquestionable. As is the power of the NGO representatives who participated.
The WSF on the other hand has so far failed to give activists a sense (or image) of power. The international committee seems unwilling to take a leadership roll in focussing the activities of the Forum - not by making a big manifesto, but by encouraging participants to focus on actions and results. The geographic location of the Forum has become more important than the topics discussed.
Now that the Forum is so big, maybe it's time to be more thematic (like Davos). Once it's split up into different regions, I wonder if the global consciousness so central to it's purpose will suffer. Why would you go to Africa, if there is a Forum closer to where you live?
Perhaps if you did Climate Change in one place, Poverty in another, and Peace in a third, you coud find a clever way for them to interact. For each Forum to be everything seems increasingly untennable.
We need more global people power!
Some of the sponsorship deals were problematic, such as the support by Celtel and Kenya Airways. However, I was disappointed that noone seems to have questioned some of the state backers of the WSF - such as Petrobras - Brazil's fossil fuel giant. Petrobras is just as much a "baddy" in terms of climate change as Kenya Airways - and from what I understand their human rights record is also not great. And yet, noone questioned their massive support for the WSF in Porto Alegre (in 2005 and before) or the fact that at the opening ceremony in Nairobi Brazilian musicians were advertsied as "courtesy of Petrobras". Many in the movement seem to continue to be blind on the green eye!
The sounds of music echo downtown Nairobi, as agile dancers in bright red shukas (loin clothes) make gentle gyrations to the reverberations of the drums.
The dancers are not here to announce the onset of a great arts festival but to lure customers to the Kenyan affiliate of Barclays Bank with unsecured loans of up to Sh1 million (9,000 pounds).
There is plenty of money to splash about, and banks appear to be on a lending spree.
Only that Kenya remains a very unequal society even as President Mwai Kibaki wraps up his term later this year.
If the banks are concerned with recruiting more customers to lend their abundant cash, at a generous interest, of course, the World Social Forum, which was concluded recently in Nairobi, was a veritable market for capitalists.
Prices of meals quadrupled, a fruit cost ten times more, and an entrance fee the equivalent of what it costs to go to the Carnivore, the most popular nightspot in Nairobi, for a night of rhumba locked out the poor people in Kenya from the hired WSF venue at Kasarani stadium, on the fringes of the city.
I personally could not pay the 5 pounds for a Press card, but decided to outwit the system by calling a friend to pass on his friend's badge at the gate.
It took 40 minutes to link up with a him (please read the number on the gate, yes, the big red numbers in red stand by the red bus written Celtel no, the fountain?)
Once inside, I went looking for the media centre, where a friend visiting from London was waiting.
"The media centre" someone scratched his head. "Try there?" he pointed a thick finger.
That took half an hour to locate, by which time the friend had taken the bus to town.
Then I went searching for the Patrice Lumumba plenary, where a discussion was underway to explore restorative justice for genocide victims in Rwanda in 1994, where nearly million perished in 90 days of terror.
The gacaca, a truth and reconciliation forum where villagers meet and publicly confess their roles in the atrocities, is rooted in Rwanda's traditional structures of justice.
This is an appealing concept for Kenya, where politicians have inflamed portions of the population, triggering social conflagration.
This has been a recurrent problem every election year, and thousands of Kenyans are presently camped in church compounds in Kenya's Rift Valley, with the latest skirmishes coming only two months.
The whole point, it appears, is to displace the people and deny then an opportunity to cast a ballot, as it were, killing the vote, and the people who resist.
The WSF failed pitifully to raise the awareness of such pressing issues that to continue to afflict many Kenyans.
The most captivating message that appeared to capture the imagination of the media were the vast business opportunities that the visitors brought with them, and the sour grapes of those who lost out.
And why not, the WSF itself was the best exemplification of that ideal.
Back to the plenary. I located the Patrice Lumumba hall, named in memory of Congo's founding president, two hours after setting foot in Kasarani.
There were only 15 minutes left before the session ended, so I stepped out and joined in a mugithi (a Kenyan dance where you place your hands on the person ahead) and race around.
[Peter Kimani is a novelist and journalist who writes for the Kenyan Nation.]
I am not sure that civil society should aspire to accession to "power" as "power" can only emmanate from organization and discipline and civil society is by definition rancorous and messy. The key to the role of civil society lies, rather, in the semantics of mutual respect, in the time tested values of "advise and consent".
A ruler rules by consent of the governed. He/she cannot get consent without first asking, as it were, for advice. The alternative would be coercion, but we are not there yet.
The currency of power is wealth and influence: wealth because we have a more or less universal standard of exchange by which we measure this - money - and influence because in a complex world there is are limitations to one's capacity to give (or get) attention, thus influence. (For an excellent introduction to this, read for instance,Michael Goldhaber's article in First Monday (www.firstmonday.org) The Attention Economy and the Net.
Civil Society must, in my opinion, oppose "power" as a matter of principle. This is the only way to preserve its "consenting" prerogative.
Where we go from here..? I am reminded of pre-school; Perhaps we should tear it down and start again.
Just kidding.
I would hope OD to start a thorough and critical discussion on a better future for the WSF!
with kindest regards
Chris Peeters
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