MAKING THE OTHER GLOBALISATION UNIVERSAL

WSF: From Porto Alegre 2003 to India 2004 
 
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World Social Forum: from Porto Alegre to India

MAKING THE OTHER GLOBALISATION UNIVERSAL

Interview with Eric Toussaint                  
By Sergio Ferrari

Translated by Anne Challieu and Gillian Sloane-Seale with 
Vicki Briault
____________________________________________________________

After 3 consecutive successful meetings in Porto Alegre, the 
World Social Forum (WSF) will move to India in 2004, and return 
to Brazil in 2005. A geographical move with implications in 
terms of methodology, participation and even political culture. 
Nearly two months after the conclusion of the third WSF- with 
the invaluable distance that time offers - Eric Toussaint 
analyses the present and future of this working process. A 
member of the International Council of the WSF, Director of 
the Committee for the Cancellation of the Third World Debt 
(CADTM), based in Brussels(*), Toussaint, a tireless activist 
for a different kind of globalisation, is also one of Europe's 
most qualified political analysts in this field. 
____________________________________________________________

Q: A retrospective analysis of the Porto Alegre process.What 
   is the WSF today? 

A: An accumulation of rich experiences that made it possible 
   for more than 12,000 participants to meet in 2001 and up to 
   100,000 at this third meeting. A process that made it possible 
   to create an innovative global dynamics.  And, on top of that, 
   a very concrete implementation of this dynamics in several 
   continents, in particular in South America and Western Europe, 
   rather less in Asia and Northern America, and to a much lesser 
   degree, as yet, in Africa and Eastern Europe. 

"ASIANISING" THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM 

Q: How do you feel about this move to India?

A: "Asianising" the WSF is a fundamental step. More than half of 
   the world's population lives in Asia. To a large extent, 
   changes in the world will first have to take place on this 
   continent. We must not forget that Western Europe and South 
   America represent only 15% of the world's population. 

   Since its inception and to date, the WSF has been mainly 
   European- and Latin American-focused, which influences its 
   fundamental characteristics. The move will imply a change in 
   the way we work and the people who will speak. Most of the 
   participants in the first three meetings were the same each 
   time, we repeated ourselves. We debated and discussed a very 
   precise set of themes (the Third World debt, water, 
   globalisation, alternative media, the anti-war protest, women's 
   struggles, food sovereignty, etc). This move to India will bring 
   renewal within continuity. A new way to address and debate 
   issues. With a very important additional element: the high 
   level of development that the social movements have there.

Q: We don't know much about this social dynamics.

A: There are some amazing social movements out there. Grassroots 
   peasant organisations with several million members, massive 
   trade unions (in industry, public and private services and the 
   fishing sector) made up of players who have been mobilised 
   around major issues linked to corporate-driven globalisation. 
   The struggle of Hindu peasants against the Multilateral Agreement 
   on Investment (MAI), genetically modified foods, multinationals 
   such as Monsanto, or against energy projects promoted by 
   multinationals and World Bank, like those for the Narmada River. 
   We are talking about peoples who have had to deal with criminal 
   negligence on the part of the multinationals, like the Union 
   Carbide case in Bhopal in 1984 where more than 15,000 people 
   died because of a toxic gas leak.

Q: The shift to India is therefore a qualitative step in the 
   process?

A: Mainly the chance to combine experiences and implant the 
   Forum's dynamics in the very rich social movements that are 
   developing in sensitive regions round the world. 

Q: A question that was often raised in Porto Alegre III: does 
   India have the organisational capacity to ensure the continuity 
   of this process?

A: We can't demand that other continents do the same or better 
   than what has been achieved at the last meeting of the Forum 
   in Porto Alegre. We mustn't forget that we started with 12,000 
   participants in 2001. So it would be normal, in fact not a bad 
   achievement, to start with 30,000 participants in India in 2004.  
   The level of infrastructure will be different. Probably, we 
   won't have the support of local or national governments, as we 
   have had from the Municipality of Porto Alegre and the 
   government of the State of Rio Grande del Sur. We will have 
   to rely much more on hard work and activist networks. And 
   participants may not find it as comfortable as what we have 
   been used to.

   The WSF organisers in India decided not to accept funds from 
   large foundations. The last WSF meeting in Porto Alegre 
   benefited from financial support of almost half a million 
   dollars from the Ford Foundation. I think this new viewpoint 
   will be interesting, as it will force us to make do with a more 
   rudimentary infrastructure. Don't forget that before Porto Alegre, 
   the Zapatistas held one of the first meetings against neo-
   liberalism and for humanity in Chiapas (Mexico) in 1996, in the 
   middle of the Lacandonian jungle. That was a very rich and 
   exciting starting-point for this whole process.

   Not for a moment do I doubt the ability of our Indian friends to 
   organise an event that will ensure exchanges between the social 
   movements.  An event where they will be able to decide together 
   on their future agenda and which will reinforce their 
   representation and co-ordination. It will be a success and it 
   will strengthen the WSF.   

THE NEW FACE OF THE WSF

Q: A WSF that mobilises more and more global movements.

A: Yes! Even more important than the 4th WSF in January or February 
   2004 are all the initiatives and struggles coming up in 2003: 
   first of all against the war; against the Free Trade Agreement 
   of the Americas (FTAA), against the GATS (General Agreement on 
   Trade and Services), against the WTO (World Trade Organisation); 
   in favour of debt cancellation; in favour of the cancellation 
   of agreements with the IMF (International Monetary Fund).
 
   The entire preparation process, with local and continental forums, 
   is also more important than the 2004 WSF itself.  It will bring 
   together all the initiatives from the bottom up, from locally to 
   globally, and mobilise civic movements. The WSF started out as 
   a think tank, as an alternative to Davos and its Economic Forum. 
   In that first phase, no one considered mobilising civic movements. 
   The original idea was a forum for debate. At Porto Alegre III, 
   without changing the basic concept, we decided to organise one 
   day of global protest "Against neo-liberalism, Against war, For 
   another world" every year during the Davos Forum.  We were 
   taking a step forward, of a significance that no-one could have 
   imagined.

   Nobody imagined at first that we would organise demonstrations. 
   The massive global demonstration against war last February 2003, 
   which as everybody knows did not succeed in stopping the threat, 
   but did help to build a powerful global anti-war movement, is a 
   very significant signal. For the first time, a war will be 
   illegitimate even before it starts. And that is the result of 
   the European Social Forum in Florence and demonstrations inside 
   the USA itself. 

   We are living one of those exceptional moments in history, as 
   described by Gramsci. A moment of enlightenment, when a large 
   majority of citizens are striding towards a higher level of 
   collective consciousness. Bush, Blair, Aznar and Berlusconi, 
   amongst others, are revealing all the hypocrisy, cynicism and 
   inhumanity of the system. A large number of individuals world-
   wide are becoming more and more rapidly politicised against 
   this system. 

   Other very important demonstrations are planned, for example 
   against the G8 Summit in Evian-les-Bains, near Geneva, from 
   May 28th - June 3rd, where we are expecting over 100,000 
   demonstrators. And during the ministerial meeting of the 
   World Trade Organisation in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003. 
   We are living in a situation where every month or so such 
   initiatives are taken.

Q: Would you go so far as to say that this mobilisation process 
   is all due to Porto Alegre? 

A: The world-wide anti-war protests on 15th February 2003 would 
   not have happened if it had not been for the first European 
   Social Forum (ESF) in Florence, and Florence would not have 
   taken place if it had not been for Porto Alegre. Florence is 
   where Europe met, and it then turned into a global protest. 
   Of course this is the result of convergent processes that 
   did not start in 2001 at Porto Alegre. But that was to become 
   the unifying axis, a dynamics of growing self-determination. 
   A process without limits. We must be totally open to all these 
   initiatives in progress.

Q: Open to a new political logic and culture?

A: Yes.  We are living a centripetal process.  Like so many rivers 
   flowing towards the ocean of the movement of movements, where 
   capitalism and patriarchy are viewed as two systems which are 
   at the root of the world's problems.

THE CHALLENGE TO EXPAND THE WSF 

Q: Once again, some secondary, but none the less real, tensions 
   were apparent in Porto Alegre, between the social movements 
   (who adopted a final declaration) and the Forum itself.  
   How do you read that?

A: I think that the relative influence of social movements, 
   including the trade unions or traditional trade union 
   confederations, has increased within the dynamics of the Forums. 
   These movements are growing in strength, whereas it was the NGOs 
   and alternative media such as Le Monde Diplomatique, who played 
   the key role in the original initiative.  I think this tendency 
   is very positive. There is no justification for imposing this 
   approach on all the other organisations that see their place 
   in the WSF. But it is very encouraging that organisations with 
   a firm social base and who are involved in real struggles, are 
   playing a fundamental role in the movement, without 
   marginalising others. Furthermore, I am convinced that this 
   process can and must embrace more civic movements world-wide.

   I feel that a kind of movement of movements is gaining strength. 
   It is not only a convergence or coming together of movements, 
   but something more than that. Here, there is no centralised 
   leadership, which is good. Nevertheless, a structure for the 
   movement of movements is definitely taking shape. This is a 
   new fact. In the case of Europe, we must recognise that last 
   November in Florence, the birth of a European social movement 
   was witnessed. There had already been a wave of continent-wide 
   campaigns (for debt cancellation, European marches against 
   unemployment, European strikes such as the railway strike, etc). 
   But never before had it reached such a scale.  And that is just 
   wonderful! 

(*) For further information : www.cadtm.org

Eric Toussaint, author of Your Money or Your Life. The Tyranny of 
Global Finance,
  
1)  Pluto Press - London et Mkuki na Nyota Publisher - Dar Es Salaam, 
    1999, 322 pages.
2)  VAK - Bombay, 1999, 302 pages
3)  LPP Publishers - Lahore, 2000, 346 pages

Completely new Pluto Press edition will be available later in the 
year 2003.

Co author with Damien Millet of 50 Questions; 50 Replies On the 
Debt, the IMF and the World Bank, Zed Books London, October 2003.