ANSWERING CACIM’S CALL FOR AN WSF EVALUATION
Chico Whitaker*
We can evaluate the WSF with two different attitudes: wishing that the
WSF disappears (“folding up its tent”) or wishing its continuity. If we
are not convinced of its utility, and consider it a waste of time – some
see it now even as an obstacle to gain efficacy in the struggle to
overcome neoliberalism - we have only to identify what we can profit
from this eight years of experience, and enter directly in a new stage
of struggle. But if we see the WSF process as something helpful, we must
on the contrary identify its virtues and strengths - as well as its
weakness - and think how to reinforce it.
During all the WSF life these two attitudes coexisted. For instance,
many people who never swallowed the WSF Charter of Principles would like
to abandon those principles that render difficult initiatives involving
all WSF participants. On the contrary, others say the Charter must be
respected as a vaccine against the hijacking of the process for specific
objectives, and as a protection for the Social Forums against parties
and governments interferences.
It seems nevertheless that now we are approaching a dangerous situation:
people who are insisting in the idea of the “point of crisis” or
“crossroad” do it at the same time as others are multiplying activities
in the WSF spirit in many parts of the world. That is to say, we are
risking a disconnection between some people who “think” about the WSF
process and others who “do” the WSF process.
I don’t see the first group so joyful. On the other hand, I see the
second ones working with enthusiasm in the roads opened by the WSF
process, overcoming all “crossroads” - specially now, answering to the
call for a Global Day of Action (GDA) on 26 January, as well as
preparing new regional Social Forums in 2008 and the next World Forum in
2009 in the Amazon region.
This risk is especially dangerous because we are going to have an
important WSF International Council (IC) meeting end March in Nigeria.
The main objectives of this IC meeting are to evaluate 2008, re-situate
the WSF process in the present world problems and discuss its next
steps. All this based on an evaluation of the world situation, which is
not necessarily evolving in the sense of overcoming neoliberalism, wars,
and violent confrontations. So, “disconnecting” the IC of the rest of
the WSF dynamics would be disastrous.
Naturally we have to overcome this risk. The way to do it, in my
opinion, is adopting, in the evaluation CACIM proposes - and still more
in the next IC meeting - the same approach we experience in the WSF
decision making process. In our Organisation Committees, as well as in
the International Council and its Commissions and Working Groups, we use
the positive approach of looking for a consensus instead of voting. The
vote to decide collectively is evidently a great conquest of humanity.
But when it is used among social organizations it carries to divisions
and separations, in advantage of the dominant power. Deciding by
consensus pushes everybody not to see the errors of the others - to
point then these errors to the voters - but the truths others are
saying, to arrive to a new truth combining all known truths, in a
constructive general consent, only way to build union.
* * *
Why is it that many people (of our “side”, naturally not among the
neoliberalism partisans) do not “love” the WSF, even though they
participate in it – although not always at ease? I found three major
reasons for that.
The first is the fact that the WSF is a novelty as political initiative.
The two others are misunderstandings: about the WSF objectives and
character and about the necessity of participating in it.
Let me try to explain it better.
ABOUT THE NOVELTY OF THE WSF PROCESS
The WSF is really, in my opinion, a “political invention”, as said my
colleague of the Brazilian WSF Organization Committee, José Corrêa
Leite, in the title of his book written in 2003, before the one I wrote
in 2004/5 also about the WSF.
It was proposed in opposition to the World Economic Forum in Davos, but
it was also deeply different. It was a new kind of Forum, as a place to
assemble people for discussions about specific themes. And it pointed
already to the different world we thought was possible.
In which aspects is the WSF different from the Forums in which we were
used to participate? The main differences were: the organisers were not
events promoters (like for instance in Davos) but social organisations;
no profit was envisaged (the fees of participation were nearly
symbolic); the organisations carrying it out made a general “call to
come” without specific invitations, travel tickets or lodging expenses
paid (some known political leaders were uncomfortable with this); they
did not determine the content of the discussions (only the general
objective that could bring together those “called”); they did not choose
key note speakers and debaters; they opened the Forum space to
self-organised activities of the participants; and last but no least,
they established that the Forum would not have final declarations or
motions.
Many things we see now more clearly were absolutely not defined in our
minds in the beginning of the process. They were in fact only
intuitions. We learned, and we are learning until now, Forum after Forum.
Consequently, all these characteristics were not entirely respected in
the first World Social Forum in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, except
some especially important ones. As well till now they are not completely
respected in all Forums organised in the WSF process, with the emergence
of Social Forums, which could be regional, national or local. But these
characteristics were and are present in the “facilitators” minds, who
slowly try effectively to consider them in the organisation of Forums.
This happened especially after the formulation of the WSF Charter of
Principles, which defined more precisely the character of the World
Social Forum, from the experience of the first one.
The big problem nevertheless, was the fact that this political invention
did not fit in in any of the existing categories of analysis and
reflection about political action. The WSF was a strange “animal” that
errupted, already with big dimensions, in the sea of our political
initiatives. It was a non pyramidal Forum, situated much more in the
logics of the networks, a new stream that was also appearing in the sea.
This “animal” diminished the self-confidence of many people, who were
used to working with tools of action and analyses built during more than
a century. They would prefer, then, to stay where they were more at ease.
Anyhow at its beginning the WSF was seen with a certain sympathy, as
well as somehow inoffensive, so that could be accepted. Things became
complicated when the Forum launched a new and different world process,
with incidence in political practices. Some people began then to
disqualify it – “it is a Woodstock of the left”, “in the Forums we only
discuss and discuss”.
But why was it necessary to create such unfamiliar and troublesome kind
of Forum?
I would say that we have seen a new political actor rising: the “civil
society”- as citizens organized in social movements and other types of
bodies – which needed a space to express itself.
Later on we saw also that it would be good to feed the “animal”, because
it could help overcome one big difficulty of the left: the fact that it
was recurrently victim of the malediction of the division, weakening
itself, for the pleasure of those who dominate the world.
THE EMERGENCE OF CIVIL SOCIETY AS POLITICAL ACTOR
In fact, the WSF was not created, as many people think, to enter in
competition with political parties or replace their action, or to enter
in competition with the struggle to “conquer” governments. Both types of
political action are necessaries to build the new world. The WSF
intended only to reinforce the so called “civil society” that was
emerging in the world by its own initiative – that is, autonomous from
parties and governments, and not accepting to be only part of their
strategies.
Throughout the work of organizing Forums, we saw also more clearly that
the civil society articulation differs from that of parties and
governments. It can be built only through horizontal networks, without
leaderships and pyramids of responsibilities - overcoming the
limitations of the representative democracy, with its “delegations” of
power and internal struggles for power, typical of parties and
governments logics. That is why we put in the WSF Charter of Principles
that the WSF “does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the
participants in its meetings”.
But we saw more clearly, moreover, that the political action of this new
actor is also different to the one of parties and governments. It
unfolds as in the networks - in a big variety of types, rhythms, themes
and levels of action, being developed autonomously by a big variety of
organisations. That is why the WSF Charter refused a specific and unique
WSF “political program”, to be endorsed by the organisations
participating in the Forums. Anyhow, such a common program would be
practically impossible to build, in the Forums or in the organising
instances of the process, considering the number and diversity of
organisations gathered in it.
Naturally, parties, movements or governments can propose strategies to
fight neoliberalism, or a new model of society to be built upon the
ashes of capitalism, or a utopia to mobilize the crowds, rendering more
foreseeable the territory of the unknown post-capitalism. Social Forums
then can be places to discuss these propositions, but not to obtain its
acceptance by all their participants.
In this perspective, I would say that if the WSF International Council
does not resist the temptation of trying to do a WSF “political
program”, it really risks its own death, as it will be in a deep
contradiction with the WSF logics.
THE NEED OF BUILDING UNION
All of us know that building union is important for all political actors
engaged in changing the world – specially left political parties and
movements. But it is still more important for the civil society as
political actor.
The force of the mobilized majorities – workers, electors, consumers,
citizens – can be decisive in the political struggles. Parties and
governments know it and use it in their strategies. But the diversity of
interests inside the civil society may maintain it so fragmented that
its force as an autonomous political actor may not emerge.
Which kind of union would be then suitable for the civil society, to
pressure for the majorities' interests and even build alternatives
independently of parties and governments? Civil society organisations
can support each other but not through tactical or strategic alliances,
under centralized commandments. They only can be united by solidarity
ties, assumed freely.
WSF process was then envisaged as unlimited horizontal networking spaces
at world, regional, national or local levels.
They would create at first occasions for mutual recognizing, overcoming
of prejudices among organisations and identification of convergences.
Then the respect of diversity was seen as essential inside the civil
society, as a practice to be exercised during the Forums and in the
interrelations built in the Forums, pointing already to the future: the
respect of diversity would have to be a fundamental value in the new
world we wish.
In addition, to advance towards the kind of union suitable for civil
society, it was seen as necessary to overcome the poorness of the
representative democracy, and to point towards the empowerment of the
citizens; and, through the respect of their diversity, towards the
development of their initiative and creativity, instead of moulding them
in conformist behaviours.
This process would then create conditions to experience new values
contradicting those which motivate the action inside capitalism, and
which we need to abandon to overcome this system: cooperation instead of
competition, human needs instead of profits, respect for nature instead
of its maximum exploitation, long term perspectives instead of short
term interests, acceptance of differences instead of homogenisation, co-
responsible liberty instead of egoistic individualism, being instead of
having.
These dynamics, lived in the WSF to build the civil society union, in
its diversity and autonomous relations, could reinforce its action as
political actor. And, as for parties and governments genuinely searching
to answer to the human beings, the union is also necessary, this
experimenting would be a positive message coming to them from the WSF
process, pointing to new kinds of alliances.
It must be said that all the intuitions behind the WSF “invention” were
not new in the world. It was not something coming from zero. It was one
of the results of at least 40 years of humankind thinking about
political practices, criticizing authoritarianism and acting
consequently. It appeared explosively in 1968, entered into a process of
maturing with the horizontal networks as a new way to organise actions
and with experiences like the Zapatistas from 1994, and arrived to a
climax in the 1999 Seattle protests.
The success of the process that began with the WSF in 2001 is due, I
think, to the fact that its Charter of Principles announce clearly some
simple conditions to develop these intuitions: the refusal of a final
document of the Forums; the non-existence of leaderships directing the
meetings or of spokespersons; the non-existence of a political programme
of the WSF as a body; the absence of specific invitations to
participate, in order to create an “open space”; the equal importance
given to all activities inside the Forum; the possibility that the
activities be proposed as much as possible not by the organisers but by
the participants themselves; the refusal to accept activities inside the
Forum organised by political parties or governments; the refusal of
government interference, even and specially when they give logistical
support; and the refusal of violence as a means in political action.
The growing dimensions of the Forums is empirical evidence of the wisdom
of these Principles, just as the non-respect of them can create problems
as happened already in some recent occasions.
So, if the WSF cannot change the world, it can create better conditions
for it, through the reinforcement of the civil society as political
actor and through the experimentation of new political practices,
pointing to a new political culture.
The problem then is the delay. This road towards the construction of
civil society union – as well as the new kinds of alliances among
parties -- needs time and involves deep changes of paradigms and
behaviours. That is why the misunderstandings about the WSF process –
that I will analyse now - not only remained but also grow.
WSF - SPACE OR MOVEMENT?
The first misunderstanding that appeared was related to a question: is
the WSF a space or a movement?
This question was already very much discussed and many old and new
arguments for one or another option can be presented. I will not do it
here. The book I wrote about the WSF -- “The WSF challenge” -- considers
mainly this alternative.
These options must in fact be considered in the context of the desire to
change the world, as rapidly as possible, that motivates all WSF process
participants. The Charter of Principles defined the WSF as a space and
not as a movement, and established that it did not intend “to be a body
representing world civil society”. Many people were frustrated and later
“profoundly disillusioned”, as said the CACIM invitation to evaluate the
WSF. They would prefer the WSF as a strong new movement or as a
“movement of movements”. Seeing WSF “calling” capacity to put together
tens of thousands of people of the entire world wishing to overcome the
neoliberalism, they consider that it can be used to mobilize these
people and many others to confront directly the dominant system. As if
we had finally found the organisational issue to overcome the perplexity
produced by the Berlin’s Wall fall. Why not put the WSF meetings at the
service of concrete political actions, to realise as soon as possible
all the changes having strategic priority, or to weaken the system by
exploring its contradictions?
This is the sense of “folding the tent”: abandoning the realisation of
seemingly innocuous world, regional and national meetings for
interchanges, reflections, learning and even articulation of the civil
society organisations and movements, and tentering with all our force in
the terrain of real politics, with the participation of political
parties and even left governments – the really existing ones.
Naturally nothing can impede us to adopt the option of WSF as a
movement. If we think we are already sufficiently strong and united to
be able to change the present tendencies of the world history, we could
consciously end this stage of the WSF history, change in this sense the
Charter of Principles and begin new reflections and alliances.
Myself, I think that we are not so strong and we would be making a bad
choice interrupting the present WSF process. Civil society is still not,
unhappily, so strong a political actor as we would like, while left
parties and governments remain confused.
And left parties and governments seem to remain in the perplexity.
I prefer to consider, as I wrote sometime ago, that both strategies –
creation of spaces and launching movements - can and must coexist. We
can continue in both “roads”.
If this coexistence is accepted, they can reinforce each other. Social
movements and organisations can launch through civil society forums new
autonomous initiatives to overcome neoliberalism. Campaigns and
pressures launched by them can be incorporated in the left parties and
government’s programs of action. New movements and even “movements of
movements” can be created, autonomous of the WSF events, as it happens
already with the one we used to call “altermondialism”. Parties and
governments, as well as movements linked to them, can do what they must
do, as well as support the civil society spaces to build their union.
If the WSF process continuity is ensured, as a tool to articulate civil
society towards action, the challenge will be in the road of the “real
politics”, where still we we still do not see clearly the best direction
to take.
THE “OBLIGATION” TO PARTICIPATE
The second misunderstanding I pointed before was about something like a
“moral obligation” to participate in all the world events of the WSF
process, which the social organisations leaderships seem to feel. The
continuous growing of the dimensions of these events -- 150,000
participants in 2005 in Porto Alegre -- pushed people to think that
their presence was also necessary to affirm the WSF force.
In fact the WSF organisers made a “call to come” to all civil society
organisations which were “opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of
the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to
building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships
among Humankind and between it and the Earth”, as indicated in the WSF
Charter of Principles. As a result, all organisations struggling to
build the “other world possible” were welcome.
In the following Forums this open invitation made more and more people
come, and the “animal” grew more and more. But the participation in
world events, with all its consequences in financing and in preparation
work, came on top of all the obligations of each organisation in its own
struggles. After four years, naturally, many participants were tired
with this supplementary effort. And they began, in the 4th WSF, in
India, to propose the realisation of World Forums only every two or even
three years. This solution was not adopted, as the Forums have also a
symbolic dimension, with its annual rhythm, and their interruption could
lead to a weakening of the process.
But in fact the Forum is now a world level process, and it is this
process that must be as dense as possible, with continuous expansion and
articulations. Its meeting moments do not need to be as big as possible.
The process is more important. If the meetings are big but are not
supported by a growing articulation of the civil society organisations,
their force is artificial. They may even mislead us, giving the false
impression that behind these meetings we have a civil society which is
articulated and dense.
That is why the 2008 WSF format - free activities, in all levels, places
and themes, self organized by WSF participants - seems to be very
interesting, better than the 2006 format, with the polycentric
Bamako-Caracas-Karachi World Social Forum.
I would even say already that the 2008 Global Day of Action (GDA) format
could be used every year from now on, independently but linked to the
unique World Social Forum to be organized each year – such experience
can be done already in 2009, when the World Social Forum will take place
in the Amazon region. I recognize the force of the WSF invention in the
variety of initiatives that are happening all over the world to prepare
the GDA. In many, many countries different organisations are working
together, respecting their diversity, in very creative ways, to appear
together the 26 January 2008. Most of these organisations will never be
able to come to a world or even regional meeting. But they will be
linked in a unique decentralized event in the GDA. This articulation
could be experienced (and deepened) every year, with a growing network
of organisations.
In fact, those who agree with the WSF utility would help it more
efficiently by pushing the expansion of the process (by the
multiplication of social forums and articulations all over the world at
all levels) than coming to every world meeting.
THE APPROACH TO EVALUATE
Overcoming these misunderstandings, we can better analyse our
experiences, and improve the way Social Forums are organized to ensure
its functioning as the simple tool it is, at the service of social
organisations and movements. This is the type of evaluation WSF needs:
from inside it, by those engaged in it, bringing hope to the
discussions, instead of the pessimism that tends to appear when we
analyse it from outside.
To prepare as best as possible the 2009 WSF and the following, we have
to learn from all the World Forums already realized. Many difficulties
could be identified in the last one, in Nairobi, but also in the
previous ones. The “Organising Principles” being discussed in the
International Council try exactly to avoid the repetition of errors, and
to indicate the good way of solving the problems of such huge events. If
this discussion could incorporate also the lessons coming from regional,
national and local Forums it would be great. Jai Sen’s demand to
publicize as much as possible the discussion of these “Organising
Principles” must be welcome. (See above, and
http://www.cacim.net/twiki/tiki-index.php?page=CACIMHome.)
Among the WSF weakness, which we have not yet been able to solve, is,
for instance, how to stimulate and help the Forums participants
translate into new real articulated actions all the discoveries they
make during the events (new questions, new convergences) and to deepen
after the Forums, as intensively as possible, the articulations they
built during them.
In this perspective, we tried in each Forum new tools – such as the
Mural of Propositions in 2005, and in 2007 the use of the fourth Forum
day for the planning of actions. Both did not function as we would like.
Since Nairobi we are also building a permanent tool to facilitate,
through the internet, the interrelation among participants and their
actions and campaigns, at a world level, before and after the Forums.
But we have still to work, to make it easily accessible for everybody.
Civil society articulations are not so easy exactly because the civil
society structure is characterised by its dispersion and diversity. Even
an important participant’s network, that emerged in the first World
Social Forum particularly preoccupied with mobilization - the Social
Movements Assembly – did not find till now the best way to do it. Some
tensions appeared between them and the Forum’s organisers, with
misunderstandings about this Assembly final document, as our Charter of
Principles refuses a WSF final document. But in some regional Forums
they present already very clearly their final declaration as theirs and
not of the Forum as a whole. Anyway, they are still searching for the
way to make their final assemblies a moment to engage their participants
more deeply in the propositions that are presented.
Other difficult questions are related with the results of the WSF
process in helping to change the world effectively.
One question already raised in some evaluations is the difficulty of
many organisations to bring to their internal lives what they
experienced or learned in the Forums. This could happen because some
values lived in the Forums may bring problems to the internal
functioning of the organisations, especially those concerning horizontal
relations.
Another question about results is linked with the changes at the
personal level, in the motivations, behaviours and hopes of each one of
us. In fact one of the discoveries made in the Forums was the direct
relation between personal change and structural changes. To change the
world we need also to change ourselves, internally, towards new values
like those proposed in the Forums. And this is extremely difficult as,
after the five Forum’s days, we are again entirely encircled by the
practices we want to overcome.
Actually the evaluation of these two types of results could be a good
question to be put, at their arrival in the Forums, to the WSF events
participants. They could at least become aware of this preoccupation,
before living their new Forum experience.
But the external result that anguishes more people, leading them to
criticise the WSF, is the effective change of the world. In fact to
consider these results we cannot forget that capitalism made many big
steps to deepen the domination of the world, since the Berlin’s Wall
downfall, which goes much further than military oppression and the
control of economic logics and institutions. It subjugates the minds and
the hearts, in nearly all the world – including among political leaders
supposing fighting against capitalism. The world moves under the rules
of the money and of the capitalistic values. There are many, many people
struggling against neoliberalism and building new frames of life, but,
actually, they still do not make very much difference. And thinking
about the WSF itself, eight years are a very small time in the world
history.
In fact, if we ask if another world is possible, a good minority will
say that it is not necessary and the big majority will say that it is
not possible. Even those now fighting strongly for their rights would
not necessarily be so motivated to change the world in its fundamental
structures. The climate problems are opening the possibility of showing
how these structures and values are in their origin. But we have still
an enormous effort to do, to awake more people. We took seven years to
see a little clearer in the WSF process that communication is perhaps
our most important challenge. We still do not know how to obtain a
significant inversion of perspectives in the world, to give hope to a
more substantial portion of the human beings, so as to arrive to the
critical mass that will enable real changes.
Here we could see, perhaps, another good effect of decentralized
activities like in the GDA, linked to World Social Forums: much more
than only through world meetings poorly covered by the media, people
will hear about the possibility of “another world” and will know that
many people is working to build it.
Another “internal” problem is related with the WSF IC, and the
disconnection we risk between those who “think” the WSF and those who
“do” it, that I have already considered in this text. This disconnection
used to happen in political parties, between the Party leaders and the
militants at the basis, or in the Unions. Paradoxically, it could happen
also in the WSF process, where we don’t have categories such as leaders
and supporters, and separations between those who think and those who do.
But the IC members are delegates of the organisations members of the IC.
They come mostly from the leadership of these organisations - in the
logics of representation and delegation of power, whose poorness we
denounce through the way we organise the Forums. For the “base” of our
process, it is practically impossible to participate in the IC meetings,
as I said already. Are, then, the IC meetings participants those who
“think” the WSF? Or could we begin also to link everybody through the
mechanisms we will experiment in the GDA?
There is also a growing ambiguity about the IC “facilitator” role, and
the decisions it finally takes. The frontier between “facilitation” and
“direction” is not very sharp. The IC cannot decide about the WSF
process participants’ struggles but it decides about how the process
will evolve. This happens with the methodology used in the world events,
for instance, even if the local organisers of each event are free to
decide about it. If there are no impositions, we could say that our way
of working is normal and useful: through the IC Commissions the local
organisers can benefit from the experience of the Forums already
realised. But it can also be felt as direction. The same happens with
the steps of the process. The decision about stimulating a Global Day of
Action in January 2008 was an IC decision. It did not send orders to the
WSF process participants to take initiatives all over the world, and
still less it defined the themes of the activities to be realized. But
if we have an insufficient mobilisation it is possible that it will be
attributed to a lack of direction. Let us see…
These ambiguities could be avoided by the transparency of the IC
publicising its structure, functioning and discussions, seen till now by
many people as something mysterious and even secret, opened only to
people of the “direction” of organisations participating in the WSF. But
we still did not find the way to ensure this transparency.
In conclusion, if we see the WSF with optimism, from inside, as a new
useful and necessary tool that must be preserved and improved -- despite
all these difficulties -- to reinforce civil society and push for a new
political culture, we have a great many positive reflections to do. That
is the approach of any WSF process evaluation and its future that can
help us to really build the possible, necessary and urgent “other
world”. I hope it will be the approach of the participants of the
evaluation CACIM proposes, as well as of the participants of the IC
meeting in Nigeria.
* Chico Whitaker is one of the original memebers of the Brazilian
organising committee which launched the first World Social Forum in
2001. He is an active member of the International Council. Email:
intercom@cidadania.org.br