WSF 2011: good surprises and many lessons for the future

It has been perhaps, among those which were held in these 10 years, the one with more surprises – that succeeded each other since the beginning – and more questions for reflection on the future of that process.

The encouraging surprise of the initial march

The Forum began on a Sunday, and the surprise of that day was quite rewarding: the large number of participants – 70,000, far more than expected – in the march with which already traditionally the social forums begin. The avenues of its four kilometers itinerary, from downtown to the University campus in which the Forum would be held, were filled with its usual joy. The strong African presence and the diversity of the organizations that were there – as for their origin and objectives of their struggles – indicated that the prior mobilization had managed to overcome the difficulty of the high cost of the travels, in a continent artificially divided by colonial powers at the end of 19th century: their airlines, besides being an expensive means of transport, link their countries today more to ancient dominating countries than among themselves. But caravans were organized where it was possible, which fulfilled also the role of spreading, along their way, ideas and proposals towards the “another world possible”.

In this context, the only strange fact was the ostensibly presence of policeman, with their world-known equipments to repress street demonstrations, blocking the entrances – or exits – of the itinerary. But for more warned observers the Tunisia and Egypt events could explain that measures: political power in Senegal, already being challenged, would be taking its precautions, fearful of possible developments of that manifestation.

Also dissonant were the clashes, seen only by those who were near them, between some of the 1.200 Moroccans that were in the march and the representatives of the movement for the independence of Sarahoui people and their supporters.[[Such clashes have occurred again in another occasions during the Forum, when Sarahoui question was discussed, leading to the intervention of the security officers, as it happened in the march. There were even organized protests. These clashes are nothing new. They have occurred in other Social Forums, showing that it is not an easily solved problem.]] Many ensure that they are provoked by Moroccan government agents. It is however, a difficulty that the Moroccans themselves are looking to resolve, organizing social forums in the Maghreb effectively as a civil society space, “not to fight but to discuss”[[Phrase of the Maghreb Social Movements Assembly Declaration, in Dakar.]] .

The disconcerting surprise with the University normal functioning

According to the information provided to the WSF International Council, the Forum would have to adapt its date to the holidays period of the University, to make possible that all its dependencies could be used in the event. This was the reason to realize it, for the first time in ten years, in a date not coinciding with the Davos Forum date.

General surprise, on Monday after the opening march: all the University population was there – around 50,000 students – with their courses and examinations, occupying all rooms available. Later on, it was reported that a strike of students, at the beginning of the year, forced the school calendar changing and, as there was no written engagement, nothing could be done…

But this difficult situation had some positive consequences:

– the Forum plunged in an African environment, with thousands of white people merging naturally with thousands of black brothers, in a respectful intercommunication that can produce many fruits;

– many report that among these fruits emerged new initiatives joining Forum participants and Senegalese students, who until then were not very well informed about that invasion of their University but became interested in the activities underway or in the dozens of organization’s stalls;

– the physical space of the Forum had to be completely open, unlike many organized before, in which the enclosing of their territories provoked some tensions, as it happened in the 2007 Forum in Nairobi. The personal identification badges – indicating the country of the participant – served almost only to activate curiosity, in the dialogues that took place. Nobody had to prove they were registered in the Forum, and many even did not register themselves. In Dakar the WSF was, physically, really an “open space”…

– the city’s street vendors, given the concentration of foreigners in the campus, rapidly came with their commerce to the busiest places, in the middle of the organization’s stalls. This unforeseen and uncontrollable presence created then an intense human stir, which ended up to be favorable to the Forum climate, thanks to the extreme cordiality of the Senegalese people;

– we became free from the obligation to organize World Social Forums in Davos dates, with all the inconvenience of this limitation, which prevents its realization in places with colder climate. We must still verify, more precisely, if the absence of this simultaneity reduces the mainstream media coverage of the WSF, which is necessary to show to the world public opinion that it is an alternative to the other one, with its blind belief in market as a God. But the taboo was overthrown.

The usual disorganization

During the Forum of Belem, in 2009, in a video conference with participants from a Local Social Forum in Germany[[This mode of participation had been inaugurated in the 2009 WSF with the name of Belem-expanded, and was organized in Dakar too, as Dakar-expanded.]], they told us that according to a newspaper in their city that WSF was the most disorganized until then realized…

It is true that some degree of disorganization has become almost a trademark of the WSF. In fact, the forums are not organized hiring companies or professional promoters of events, which would plan it entirely, from top to bottom, in all details. The hundreds or thousands of activities that take place in the WSF are self-organized. The program is built progressively, from bottom to top, with a large margin of unpredictability. The preparation of the spaces in which they are realized is under the responsibility of the local organizations willing to provide this service to the others, in a militant effort.

The WSF Charter of Principles stipulates furthermore that the Forum does not have a direction, a Chief or ultimate responsible, which concentrate some kind of power. It is not structured as a pyramid but horizontally, all its participants assuming a share of co-responsibility. Consequently, nobody can wait for something coming ready from above, but seek to find the way to solve the problems that arise. It has already been said that this improvisation at the World Social Fora is eventually in itself a preparation for the life in the “another possible world”, where the competition for power will be replaced by cooperation. And certainly this also explains the joy that characterizes these meetings, as the action and the contribution of each and every one, sharing collectively the responsibilities, allow to achieve the targeted results.

Therefore, when I am invited to present the Forum process to any delegation, with or without new participants, I always ask people to prepare themselves to meet organizational shortcomings and improvise to overcome them. In Dakar, I did it in two occasions: in a welcoming meeting of 600 people that came with the French NGO CRID[[Center of Research and Information on Development.]], and in a meeting of a Swiss delegation of 60 people, organized by the NGO “Echanger”. But I confess that when I did these alerts, this time, I did not expect that the disorganization would arrive to the level we met…

The shock of the first day of activities

The chaos of the first day of activities, dedicated to the struggles in Africa, was complete: no program printed; who had access through the Internet to that day program discovered that for 15 to 20% of the activities announced there were any indication of meeting rooms; a map of the campus to facilitate the search of the rooms was not furnished; who found them – when officials did not say that the room did not exist … – came upon a lot of students attending their courses. There were participants who occupied an empty room near the one indicated, but had to leave with the arrival of the students and their teacher. Facing the eventual possibility of not realizing activities longtime prepared, some organizations were obliged to seek rooms outside the campus. One can imagine the additional efforts needed to make known where these activities would take place.
The confusion created could lead to a widespread frustration. There were those who considered that the WSF was receiving the hardest stroke in its 10 years of existence, and that the continuity of the process was being definitively questioned, with an enormous risk of implosion: many could decide to leave the process, after having done such a personal and financial effort to come to the Forum without achieving the activities that they intended to realize.

In fact, it was not a novelty the absence of an accessible program – essential to make possible that participants find others to exchange experiences and articulate with them new initiatives. We had experienced a similar situation in Porto Alegre in the 2003 Forum, due to technical problems with computers. Anyhow, in that occasion the traditional big printed booklet was distributed in the middle of the first day. In addition, it had been possible to find it in the WSF site the night before – allowing some ones to win a little bit of money, by selling it printed to the more anxious.

This huge surprise in the first day of the Dakar WSF, extremely negative, combined however itself with a good surprise in the following days. As reported the correspondent of the Belgium Radio Television, that Forum seemed to be stillborn. But he completed his analysis saying that surprisingly the “baby” proved to be in full form. As well as the correspondent of the French week newspaper Politis put as title of what he wrote: “Disorganized but magic”.

The strength of resuming from below

This demonstration of strength was due in my opinion to two factors: first the very nature of the Forum, established in its Charter of principles, as an event in which the co-responsibility is a condition of existence; second, the fact that ten years of growing linkages built in the process, within civil society, have enabled many to come to Dakar best prepared, with better defined goals, and decided to miss not the opportunity of meeting they had.

What was seen in the following days, and even already in the first day, was an intense search for solutions to the problems faced, each and every one opting not to be defeated by the confusion and to take advantage of the possibility of meetings, without worrying about finding the culprits of the situation in which they were.

Information then circulating helped to give to that effort a dimension of political solidarity to the “organizers” of the Forum: in the beginning of January, the Rector of the University had been replaced, and the new Dean had not respected the verbal commitments made previously. One could breathe an odor of political action against the Forum, even more after having heard, already in the first day, the Republic of Senegal President statement about his own neoliberal option. In a session that he had to attend because of Lula’s presence, as a citizen but always as former Brazilian President, he said, loud and clear, that he did not agree with any of the ideas that were discussed in the WSF, but democratically, he would not prevent it to take place in his country.

The positive wave that invaded the Forum, in this resumption of initiative from below, allowed a large number of activities to occur, somehow. Little by little their organizers – though many have been greatly harmed – found somewhere to perform them, counting also with last minute tents built in several places in the campus. The “Dakar-expanded” responsible team gave a good example of that capacity of initiative. This modality of participation had been largely announced before, to multiply as much as possible the connections via Internet with organizations around the world who had not been able to come to the Forum, as well as with groups from the outskirts of Dakar who could not come to the University. Many “virtual meetings” of this type had been scheduled. But this activity requires special equipment and technical conditions, which were not placed at the disposal of this team. They improvised then as they could with their own equipment, constrained to a single room and seeking other spaces outside the campus. Nevertheless, they hold 70% of the planned meetings.

This effort persisted until the end, some being luckier than others with the rooms of the original programming, generally concentrated in the area of University where it was also possible to build the stands requested by participating organizations. And at the Forum end were held 38 “convergence for action assemblies “, of a day and half duration – not necessarily in the places initially allocated to them – with dozens, hundreds and even thousands of participants, consolidating and giving more consistency to the methodological option of final thematic assemblies experienced in the WSF 2009 in Belem.

All along these days, the negative impressions were slowly digested, making possible for members of the WSF International Council crossing in the campus to say with humor: “this forum proved that we do not need organizing committees”. “Nor we need Davos”, said others. Or, “this forum was not an ‘open space ‘, as specifies its Charter of principles, but a ‘graped space'”, as a reference to the efforts to get a place to meet…

The good surprise of the evaluation by the International Council

The day and half of WSF International Council meeting held the after the Forum had the same ambience – although we have to say that it only involved representatives of international organizations. That is to say, small organizations and networks that were most affected by clutter were not present.

At its first session in the morning, the process of evaluation of that Forum should begin – it was explicitly stated that we would only start it, as a good assessment became necessary but the collective wisdom counseled to do it not too near the negative situations experienced and wait for the dust settles. The Liaison Group of the Council, which organizes its meetings, indicated me to co-ordinate the work of this first session, together with the representative of the organization that promoted the great French participation in the Forum. They choose me, certainly, because my white hairs could help to cool any more exalted souls. But we were helped by the winds blowing from North Africa. As in the previous day we had received the gift of the news about the resignation of Mubarak, exactly when we were in the Forum festive closing meeting, the floor had to be given necessarily, at the beginning, to an Egyptian representative, as homage to his country’s people. Thereafter a positive posture gained the room, to move forward on all that have to be done to help build “another possible world”.

In the following Interventions criticisms were made and questions were raised, e.g. about something less accepted by many members of the Council: who had decided that a head of State – Evo Morales – as well as a Government Minister – of the Brazilian Government – would talk in the opening WSF session? This decision was fundamentally contradictory with a decision that was very much discussed and adopted by the Council in 2008, before the 2009 Forum of Belem, considering previous negative experiences, according to which heads of State should not talk nor in opening or closing sessions of Forums[[This decision included other questions: activities with heads of State – of course always welcome to forums – shouldn’t perform in moments conflicting with the other Forum activities, damaging them, as well as they should occur in locations outside the territory of the forums.]].

But even having an open space for criticisms, the general perspective of such early assessment was of very much respect to African organizers, and even solidarity with them in face of the different types of problems they had to solve and the tremendous work they did. The coordinators of the session considered even unnecessary to give the floor again to them, as if they had to respond to criticisms. They have spoken, naturally, as it could not happen differently, but even a little surprised by the good will demonstrated by all.

In the meeting continuation, the Council Strategy Commission presented a balance of 55 Forums held throughout 2010[[Published in the mailing list of the WSF International Council]] – in 28 different countries – not considering those realized in 2009 after Belem and in 2011 before Dakar. Clearly positive, the report stated the progress made by the process, expanding around the world, especially in regions that entered in it more recently, as the Maghreb and Mashreq countries, where 10 of the 55 events listed took place. The Commission pointed then to the force of this advancement and the new perspectives opened with the thematic forums, which allow a greater deepening of reflections and better preparation of the activities in World Forums.

The beginning of discussions on where to realize the 2013 WSF crowned the optimistic attitudes. Several possibilities were raised, to be examined at the next Council meeting in May in Paris. Challenging proposals emerged as to accomplish the next Forum in Europe, which would need the breath of hope and optimism the WSF can provoke. But the most important was the total consensus about the need of continuing to organize World Social Forums, as a key milestone in the paths of the civil society political action, towards the world transformation. As well as about the need of multiplying increasingly, in this perspective, the regional, national and local social forums, so that more and more people can join the necessary immense effort to be done to overcome the world domination by the logic of money.

The intensity and serious approach of the Council Commissions meetings, with which it ended, showed the effective interest of all in this continuity, each Commission giving herself precise tasks to ensure it.
This balance would have to include the parallel Forums that are already traditional in the WSF, as the one realized on the island of Gorée, the day immediately preceding the Forum, which raised the great migration drama, which became one of the more discussed themes in the Forum. But not only I have not sufficient details about these meetings as this would make this text become too long. I am not referring too – as other Forum evaluations, that I will consider now, are already doing it – to the themes that were consolidated in the WSF discussions, as the water as a commons, the crisis of civilization and the search for new paradigms, as well as the new emerging themes, as the monopolizing of land and the threat of the geo-engineering.

The good surprise of subsequent evaluations

Traditionally, after the forums, many evaluations, prepared by participating organizations and individuals, begin to circulate on the Internet lists of the International Council.[[Without forgetting other texts, I would recommend two ones:
-Giuseppe Caruso, from NIGD, Finland, fairly complete and careful with different nuances and tensions of the WSF process (http://giuseppecaruso.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/a-preliminary-assessment-of-the-world-social-forum-2011-dakar/?preview=true & preview_id = & preview_nonce = 3de2bd7809).
-Amélie Canonne, Hélène Cabioc’h and Nicolas Haeringer, Dynamique des Forums sociaux: quelques réflexions tirées de Dakar, which deepens the lessons to be learned, published on the mailing list of the International Council.]]

The strongest critics would then appear in these assessments? Many unsatisfied people would bring their questions and concerns? This has not occurred so far at least, on a scale that we could possibly expect. The chaos to which I refer in this text is not so much mentioned. People prefer to deal with the opened perspectives, or with the future to be built. Some even say that we should not give so much attention to what occurred in the organizational aspect, to focus attention on the political results of the Forum process. According to them what we need to see is how much this process is effectively serving the struggle for overcome neoliberalism and the construction of “another world possible”.

In fact a good evaluation of the WSF political results can only be done when we have the results of all assemblies of convergence for the action, which are still being gathered. As well as when, later, it will be possible to know about the effective implementation of all initiatives which the WSF participants decided in Dakar to be held in 2011 and 2012, and the repercussions of these initiatives on changes for which we fight. For this we still need to ensure that all necessary information will be collected and published.

The important thing to note, for now, is that the optimism prevails. Or, as summarized in its first sentence one of evaluations circulating: “Contrary to what some would like to believe, the World Social Forum process is alive and kicking and as strong as never before”.

Lessons to be learned

Obviously, however, we should not, irresponsibly, forget what happened in Dakar. This text may be different, in this sense, of most of the assessments I have read so far, because it gives special importance to organizational aspects that did not function. However, there is no doubt that we will need to draw all possible lessons to avoid, in the future, what was negative in the 2011 WSF.

All WSF have had many organizational shortcomings, but we have no right to minimize the importance of the conditions in which they perform. Participation in a global forum involves the expenditure of many resources of different types, not always easily available and that we cannot waste. As well as we cannot lose the opportunity to multiply what a World Social Forum makes possible: the linkages inside civil society. From now on, those who assume the responsibility of organizing World Social Forums will have to make all they can do to avoid putting the Forum participants in the conditions many experienced in Dakar. It would be the same as betraying the confidence received.

In this respect, it gains particular importance the question of translations, critical for the dialogue between people who speak different languages. If we consider the translation difficulties we experienced, concerning translators as equipments – despite the intense efforts made by Babels network to make known where translators were available – we will have another negative WSF Dakar aspect, for those who did not speak French, that was the dominant language on campus[[The same had happened in the Belem Forum, where these difficulties were lived by those not speaking Portuguese.]].

Large and medium-sized networks built in the ten years of the process could seek and find solutions to the deadlock in which they were. They mobilized during the Forum their available organizational resources, and they knew already how to get out of the usual disorganization. But the same has not occurred with organizations who came for the first time or who were proposing to consolidate new networks. Many were unable to perform the activities that they had prepared or to disseminate the information about them to other possibly interested people – obviously was not enough to fix every morning the daily program on the University buildings walls. Myself I do not know if an activity that I had organized with others, which had for me a particular interest[[We wanted to repeat an experiment we have done in 2003 in Porto Alegre, with a workshop on how to ensure the continuity and the rooting of the Forum process. We would use the inversion methodology proposed by Paul Watzlawick in his books “how to get to fail” and “how to build your own misfortune”, that works with humor how to overcome the challenges and advance.]] as a member of International Council Methodology Commission, even appeared in any program. As well as I left behind many contacts I wished to deepen.
The “income” of the Forum, if I may say, regarding the exchange of experiences, mutual learning, identification of convergences and building of new linkages – direct goals of such “open spaces” – was therefore very low. Many said that the Forum was great, very good, but that in fact they were only among themselves, without broadening the scope of their links, as they intended coming to the Forum.

One might conclude that we have to take very much attention in the next steps. We have to draw all lessons we can.

 The Social Forums as Humanity Common Goods

To draw lessons was the task it has set itself the International Council Methodology Commission, until its May meeting. It intends to look at the Dakar Forum in the light of the guidelines adopted several years ago – before Belem – by the International Council, as well as complete it and improve it. It intends also to examine possible changes in the Forum format, as it was suggested at the CI meeting. I will not therefore do it before these analyses, which should be extensive and meticulous.

But I would draw already a first great general lesson: the need we have to realize that a World Social Forum, as well as Social Forums at any level, cannot be privatized, as Common Goods in general cannot be privatized – and the WSF process may already be seen as one of the Humanity Common Goods. We cannot run the risk of seeing it appropriated by one or another ideological current intending to put it at the service of their goals, as we also cannot run the risk of seeing it disappear by simple lack of organizational capacity. Nor run the risk of turning it into a big world meeting of those who are already linked to others or of networks organized at a planetary level.

Manage common goods, so that they do not run out and ensure the access to them to all who need it, is a huge challenge. Such management must necessarily be collective, with the most absolute transparency, denying all vertical relations and all possibility of concentration of power in the decisions that must be taken – as it happens in the “old world” we want to overcome – to raise ever more the democratic quality of our political action. Manage global common goods, as it is the case of the WSF, which civil society around the world needs to act, respected its diversity, as an autonomous actor in relation to political parties and Governments, is an even bigger challenge. This is perhaps one of the most decisive WSF process dimension, on its walk.

The responsibility of organizing Social Forums cannot therefore be attributed to one or a few organizations. Still less always to the same ones, that bureaucratize it as they become the Forum owners, as it often occurs with regional, national or local Forums. The Forum privatization affects its continuity. Maybe this explains why some people say that some regional forums – the European for instance – are “in crisis”. And perhaps it was this dynamic that impeded many forums to continue or to expand themselves.

In relation with the 2011 WSF many pointed out its privatization to be at the origin of the problems experienced in it, as well as those experienced in the Nairobi Forum. The limitation of the collective that organized one and another, as well as the centralization of decision-making in few people and their difficulty in assimilating aid, were appointed, by those seeking to understand what was happening, as one of the strongest reasons for the problems encountered. And in fact we can ask ourselves if the basic difficulty faced – the decision of the new University Rector of no more lending the campus halls to the Forum – could not have been overcome if the WSF International Council were informed at the time of such a decision, with all its consequences entirely predictable. Certainly, given its seriousness, an international delegation would have gone to Dakar, changing completely the political balance of forces in the ongoing negotiations, to avoid reaching the level of disorganization we met on arrival.

But let us continue, as we have to walk very much.
 
09/03/2011