World Social Forum 2004, Mumbai, India, 16-21 January 2004
Another World is Possible
Saso Klekovski
For the fourth time, the World Social Forum 2004 that took place in Mumbai, India, gathered a number of civil society organizations and movements, after the three previous forums in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
The World Social Forum is a dialogue for formulation of a different world: plural, just, accountable and shared world with equal dignity and rights for all people. As such, the World Social Forum is in opposition with the neo-liberal economic policies. The World Social Forum declares the conviction that "another world is possible". The alternatives are suggested at the WSF stand in opposition to the globalisation process under command of the large multinational corporations and governments of the international institutions subordinated to corporation's interests. The alternatives should provide an opinion that "the globalisation of solidarity" will predominate as a new period in the world history. It was based on respecting the human rights of all citizens - men and women, and all nations, as well as the environment.
The WSF provides an open space for hundreds of debates, seminars, workshops. Only a small number of activities are organized by the WSF, such as the opening and closing of the main morning and evening conferences. Much space is left for workshops, organized by the participating organizations. This year, one big public event, 12 conferences and panels and 300 workshops were taking place every day. More than ten thousand participants and delegates take part in this event. The estimations are that this year the number of participants reached 75 000. The statistics from this forum are not available yet. The statistics from the previous forums are given in addition.
This year most evident were various women groups, as well as various left-wing groups, including extreme groups and Marxists. The impact of the Christian movements and agencies, is evident, such as the left catholic movements from South America, or the protestant solidarity groups from Europe. Despite the fact that at times, the anti-imperialistic events acquired an open anti-American tone, the Forum was supported by organizations from the USA, and the participants from the USA were among the most prestigious. This year, our country was represented by: Saso Klekovski, that is me, and Aleksandar Stamboliev from the MCIC, Jasmina Fransik from ESE- Skopje, and Albert Musliu from ADI-Gostivar. I was at the Forum for the second time.
More than a thousand events took place in several days. The main focus was on the negative influence of the neo-liberal globalisation, which creates a small ruling class and a big class of vulnerable and poor in every country. Some of the mega-themes were "Globalisation, global governing and national countries", "The media, culture and knowledge", "Political parties and social movements", etc. Among the great number of events, one could find some dedicated to the trade. I have to mention the resistance to the way in which the trade liberalisation is done by the World Trade Organization (WTO), or the ways in which the profit is distributed in the international trade. Some of the themes were "The agriculture after Cancun", "Cancun and then", "Experiences in the organization of textile workers", "Our world is not for sale". I would especially emphasize the themes related to the use of water, that is the possible privatisation "Water on test", "water - common heritage or corporate goods", or "Water privatisation alternatives - managing waters by the people". The "environmental debt" was also discussed as a new category.
A number of themes were related to human rights. Special attention was attracted by the workshop "Overcoming the impunity". Top orators, such as Mary Robinson, former Irish president and former high UN commissary for human rights, Shirin Ebadi, this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace from Iran and many others spoke about overcoming the impunity or the lack of accountability, as one of the major problems.
The dominant problem, as far as the human rights were concerned, was certainly the problem of castes in India, that is, the discrimination of Dalits. This discrimination is not on religion or ethnic basis. Having in mind its fierceness, some compare it with the apartheid in South Africa.
It was really hard to choose the most important among all these themes. There were many events on "conflict management", "promotion of peace". A lot of criticism was directed towards the US uni-laterallism and their military interventions. Considerable space was left to the women movements, gender equality and sexual diversity. And many others.
The dialogue at the WSF was going on through cultural events, exhibition stalls, group presentations, etc. At eight locations, there were continuous cultural events. In many halls there were exhibition stalls.
Together with the smells and tastes of Mumbai and India, The World Social Forum is a real promoter of diversity and pluralism, the alternatives for another, different world.
Organization and partners (supporters) of the WSF
WSF organizer is the International Committee and the Local Organizational Committee (this year the Indian General Council consisted of over 200 organizations and an organizational committee of 57 people)
WSF partners (supporters) are:
-several well-known non-governmental agencies, such as EED and the Henrich Boll Foundation (Germany), ICCO and Novib (Holland), Tides Foundation (USA), CAID and Oxfam (G. Britain);
-Indian governmental institutions like the Indian Government and the Government of Maharastra, foreign governmental agencies like SIDA (Sweden) and SDC (Switzerland);
-volunteer groups like Babel - international network of interpreters and the Free Software Foundation.
What is the World Social Forum?
The World Social Forum is an open space for meetings for thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and networking for efficient action of civil society groups and movements, which stand in opposition to the neo-liberalism and the world dominated by the money and any form of imperialism. They are dedicated to the process of building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relations between people and between people and the Earth.
WSF is a permanent process in the search for and building alternatives that cannot be reduced to the events they support. WSF is a world process.
WSF brings together and mutually relates the civil society organizations and movements from all countries in the world, having no intention to be a body that will represent the world civil society.
The WSF meetings are not meetings of the WSF as a body. Therefore, no one has the right to express attitudes that will be regarded attitudes of all participants. The attitudes and opinions declared by a group or groups of organizations will be distributed by the WSF without any censorship or restriction as attitudes of that or these organizations.
WSF in opposition to the WEF
The World Social Forum (WSF) gathered for the first time Porto Alegre, federal unit Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, from 25 to 30 January 2001. The goal was to stand in opposition to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Since 1971, the World Economic Forum has played a strategic role in the formulation of ideas and thoughts that promote and represent neo-liberal policies in the whole world. From the organizational point of view, WEF is a Swiss foundation that operates as UN advisory body and is financed by more than 1000 multinational corporations.
WSF methodology
WSF works on five thematic areas:
- Democratic sustainable development;
- Principles and values, human rights, diversity and equality;
- Media, culture and anti - hegemony;
- Political force, civil society and democracy;
- Democratic world order, fight against militarism and promotion of peace.
WSF includes: conferences, panel-debates, testimonies, dialogue and roundtables on controversial issues, seminars and workshops.
Thematic and regional forums sometimes take place (such as the European Social Forum that took place in November 2003 in Paris).
WSF through statistics
First WSF 2001 Second WSF 2002 Third WSF 2003
Participants (approx.) 20,000 50,000 125,000
Delegates 4,702 12,274 20,763
Participating organizations - 4,909 5,717
Countries 117 123 156
Reporters 1,870 3,565 4,094
Debates, workshops, etc. 420 745 -
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