World Social Forum in Kenya: Another WSF is Possible

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Dr Stellan Vinthagen, Senior Lecturer, Gothenburg University, and Council Member of War Resisters' International

stellan.vinthagen@globalstudies.gu.se

Webpage: www.resistancestudies.org

DRAFT VERSION 2007-09-06

After the Mumbai World Social Forum 2004 I felt I had enough of it. So I didn't attend 2005 or 2006. I had taken active part in organising workshops and simultanously done research at three of the forums since 2002. I felt WSF was just a repetition of the same event. Although each forum gave me new energy and inspiration I, like many others, felt the forum as a process wasn't moving forward. It had become a repetetive event of anti-neoliberal rethoric for an audience of anti-neoliberals, an excess of (well founded) criticism of something all of us who participated already knew: that the world was in a (really) bad shape and that we (now) had to change it... I felt tired by the lack of self-reflective criticism, the lack of strategic exploration on the pressing question: HOW do we change the neoliberal globalisation and militarised imperialism of the world? To me, the celebration of calls for global actions by thousands is premature. The probably biggest global demonstration in world history, the one against the planned Iraq war 2003 in which 15-30 millions participated was undoubtly impressive. But you can't, as Arundthati Roy said, stop a war with a weekend demonstration...You can't jump from a critical examination of the state of affairs of today to global action campaigns. The connection point between criticism and action is strategy; a strategy built on a thorough discussion on power relations, structural opportunities and political options, existing movement strengths and weaknesses, evaluation of previous campaigns, exploration of diverging and common interest, organisation forms and past experiences of transnational and transmovement collaborations. It isn't easy to change the world and bring together groups that have different repertoires of action methods, organisational forms and discoursive styles - and which live in totally different contexts...

Despite my frustration with WSF two things in Mumbai gave me hope; firstly the strong participation of dalits (those oppressed by caste) which finally broke the dominance of over-educated and professional activists (like me) at forums (Santos 2006). Secondly, I got new hope from a workshop which was a critical engagement with the concept of "open space" and the forum process organised by NIGD (http://www.nigd.org/) and CACIM [add adress xx]. I was relieved to find there were finally something more than just critical attacks on the neoliberal political economy and US Empire and other destructive aspects of the contemporary world system.

So, after a break from the "forum hopping" I joined again in Nairobi 2007 for the fourth time. And I am happy that I came again.

WSF 2007 in Kenya, Nairobi

World Social Forum has developed into arguably the major trans-movement world gathering. It brings together thousands of social movements, NGOs, trade unions, self-help and advocacy groups from a majority of the world's countries. The WSF in Kenya was the seventh forum and the first major one in Africa, thus an important step towards integrating African movements and NGOs into the transnational network against neoliberalism, imperialism, fundamentalism, war and other anti-human elements of the present global apartheid world order. Or, from an African perspective to integrate WSF into the mobilisations of African civil societies. The 1000+ workshops and numerous other meetings and assemblies was a major achivement which helped to work out common understandings, cooperation and strategies.

The WSF is an important space where various groups are able to come together and analyse the present world order, discuss themes like privatisation, militarisation and human rights. It is unique in its celebration of the heterogeneity of groups and diversity of tactics. It is a world movement and it develops by encouraging an unique unity of diversity. The celebration of heterogenity is developing into the unifying ideological base. Since its start 2001 it has been an enormous success in bringing together the largests transnational network of critical movements in world history. Totally over 500 000 participants have come together during the seven WSF so far.

It is of course impossible to have an overview of such an enormous process or event. Every assessment must by its nature be just a part of the story, reflecting on some of activities and aspects, emanating from one perspective.

At this forum I came as part of a team of activists from the War Resisters International (http://wri-irg.org). We organised several workshops, organised a stall, lived and evaluated our experience together. This was our attempt to make a more focused and strong presence at the forum, having realised from earlier participation that single workshops don't matter much in themselves. Building up relations and an ongoing discussion in a series of workshops on Eritrean anti-militarism, nonviolent action training and similar issues proved important. Our start, though, wasn't encouraging. In the midsts of organisational chaos with a small minority equiped with a program it was a catastrophe to have the first workshop-slot in the early morning...And it wasn't better when we realised that the allocated room didn't exist (it wasn't a workshop room but a book shop). Well, being seasoned activists we organised an ad-hoc place with a circle of chairs, scribbled down the title of the workshop on some wall-papers and started to hand out our WRI-flyers. Our effort payed off and we got three participants after an hour, and had a good discussion.

The initial organisational chaos was a frustrating impression of the forum (specially since the Organising Committee couldn't blame on too many people attending when we were only half of those expected ...), as was the paradox of gate-keeping an open space (e.g. the armed guards and high entry-fees for slum-dwellers), the usual presence of groups that use the forum but don't respect its values (this time the strong presence of Catholic anti-abortion activists, the Chineese "NGO" making PR for the environmental and social justice paradise of China and suspected Eritrean security agents who harassed our Eritrean antimilitarist friends), the "normal" Third World corruption or priveleging of some individuals and groups and the companies who profit on the forum. Still, the WSF in Nairobi was an ecouraging experience.

I think there where several positive achivements in Nairobi: connecting to Africa, the fourth day of thematic discussions and action proposals, and the critical and open engagement on the Bamako Appeal.

The WSF's integration to African Reality and Participation

Social movements are generally weak in Africa. NGOs and religious associations dominate the weak civil societies. Still, a strong legacy of movements exists, mainly the various anti-colonial movements and the anti-apartheid movement, and we have seen in recent years a wave of protests democratizing authocratic African states, especially in Western-Africa [add reference xx]. Kenya with its newly democratized state and relatively vibrant civil society was a good choice by the WSF IC. At the forum the presence of NGOs and the various Kenyan Christian Churches (who besides undermining female liberation with their anti-abortion policy and confusing the HIV-AIDS debate acctually do an impressive social work in the slums) was especially strong. But also African movements (e.g. Jubilee South and the landless movement of South Africa) was clearly visible. The focus on the traditional WSF issues around trade, development and economic justice was natural, especially in a sub-Saharan African context of rising poverty. And the ongoing war in Somalia was of course at our attention. It was more surprising, though, that the debate and activities around the positive examples of African democratisation was invisible.

Even if the political revolutions which democratised xx, xy and xz....are not without problems which need to be critically evaluated, they do constitute an increadible hope. It is very strange this wasn't a focus. Are we that occupied by the problems of neoliberalism and US-imperialism that we don't even see the signs of hope and (partial) success?

Like in Mumbai 2004 WSF bacame a helpful tool for movement building locally. Espescially that was the case for the struggling HBT-movement. Gays and lesbians in Kenya found a good help in making their life and politics visible in a Christian Kenya where prejudice and oppression is hard. In that sense the WSF served as a platform of their fight for recognition and justice. As such I think the WSF really has a potential, as creating a political space for an ongoing and growing but surpressed mobilization. Therefore the global tour of WSF is important, not only for making WSF more global but also for encouraging and facilitating movements globally.

The Day of Action Suggestions

This was the first forum in which a day was devoted to cooperative action plans. After having three days of various workshops and network meetings the fourth day involved the participants in 21 theme groups according to various pressing problems, e.g. war/peace or water. During theme meetings groups presented suggested action plans (in which at least three organisations had to cooperate), all which is published at the main WSF Kenya site: www.wsf2007.org

I took part in the anti-war theme and it wasn't very different from the earlier sessions we had on that thematic, although some brief suggestions appeared. What struck me as really strange was that Hizbollah's "victory over Israel" was cheared several times... After a couple of times we started to think we had come to the wrong theme. I mean, celebrating a military campaign on an anti-war assembly?! Anti-imperialist's strong focus on US involvement in the Middle East and Africa and the role of CIA in war-mongering make it sound as if Africa is not having its own war-lords, militarism and authocratic leaders who profit from war and lack of democracy.

The quality of the proposals varied a lot, some being wishes for good things to happen, others specific plans of how to do achiveable things (see http://wsf2007.org/info/proposals-for-future-actions). But as a first attempt to develop and experiment with the pressing need for cooperation and generating action it was an important step forward. And the structure of that day was unusually good.

Dividing people and discussions into broad but issue-specific themes made suggestions a bit more focused (even though you get your share of the normal general criticism of the world order also in these theme sessions...).

The decision structure at WSF is normally a bad joke. WSF don't take decisions as a unit but certain workshops, coalitions or assemblies cand and do, especially by adopting statements. Such decions basically means that after a long debate (in which a lot of people don't stick to the issue but make pre-written statements, info-sharing of events or annoncements for their organisation) someone of the organisers of the workshop/assembly asks if the audience agree. Since there is no voting (as there are no membership in an assembly) and there always will be those who applaued and say yes, any statement/proposal which is not outragous is of course adopted. If there are criticism some individuals might join an editorial group and rework the statement. In my view, it is a bad alternative to any form of more formal democratic process. So, I was happy to see that the action proposals from the theme-assemblies were not going to be adopted in a central meeting afterwards, but noted and put on the web, as what they were: proposals for interested groups to join. A much more honest model than adopting diffuse proposals by acclamation in a meeting of thousands...(like we did in the finaly Assembly of the Social Movements at the end of the last day!).

I am critical to the lack of formal democracy at the forum but like the experimental attitude. It is hard to find the right models and forms. The structure with issue-based themes and collection of action proposals where a great step forward.

In the long run I think the theme structure might have the potential to develop a specialist competence in those areas, fostering alternative and strengthen subjugated knowledge. It is also easier to form relevant transnational networks among those engaged in the same theme. These theme networks will then help to cristalise persons that are thematic leaders, those who are knowledgable, have legitimacy and are vocal speakers for the concerns of the various movements. These persons might then become spokespersons in relation to global institutions and could have the capacity to represent the movement when needed, without WSF having to develop a formal leadership. The theme groups might make it possible to take part in global governance processes without creating a global party or new International.

Boundaries of Participation

One of the problems of WSF is around the boundaries of participation. Armed groups, governments and political parties are generally excluded from participation in practice and in the Charter of Principles guiding WSF they are clearly excluded. During this forum we also realised that the poor were excluded...

High fees excluded slum dwellers in Nairobi to take part. After that various activists from South Africa, India and Kenya did a liberation march and litteraly brook through the gates despite the armed security guards WSF became free for the poor Kenyans and vendors from the slums could attend and sell their goods on equal terms with the ones the organising committee had contracted. Thus, the forum became an (more) open space than earlier through the organised resistance of participants.

You could argue that fees and armed gate-keeping were and expression of an elitist political culture in Kenya. But you can also argue that the OC must secure financial independence and a forum costs a lot. Earlier people have criticised the forums for compromising its autonomy by taking funding from e.g. the Ford Foundation or the Brazilian oil company Petrobras. After all, the Kenyan OC did provide some free tickets to slum activists. And solidarity fees in which participants pay a different amount depending on their capacity exists already. Of course it is necessary for the forum to make it possible for the poor and grassroot activists to attend. After all, who can deny slum-activists with banners saying: "We refuse to pay to discuss our poverty"? But taking into account the contemporary political culture in Kenya and the financial situation of WSF it is not strange that the gates were not open in Nairobi. The problem has to be solved somehow. But that can't be done in Kenya. The IC need to take its responsibility for this global inequality.

Another boundary is made against political party representatives. I am fully in support of the Charther of Principles and its attempt to find a new politics which is not based on political parties or armed rebellion. Still, it is difficult to understand why political parties can't take part when the Catholic Churce is able to. And, in reality, all of us know that parties have from the start of WSF played an important role (like PT in Brazil or the various left-parties in India). Similarly even government leaders have attended, e.g. Lula and Chavez. The real question that WSF need to solve is not if, but how to organise its relation to interested political parties, maybe by developing a relation to special political party forums.

A Political Program of WSF or An "Open Space of Political Action-making"?

Another topic of debate is around political programs and action cooperation. WSF works well in order to facilitate dialogue but less good in facilitating unity around political goals, demands and joint actions since there are no common decision structure and an explicit ban on everyone who tries to represent the whole forum. That is in order to defend the diversity. Still during the last couple of forums participants are feeling a growing frustration with the difficulties to unite the heterogenous sound of voices, even if that is temporarily and issue specific.

The limits and possibilities of defending and creating the WSF as the "open space" it originally was intended to be (Whittaker xx), has been one of key debates during the forum. In one workshop the suggested political program of the Bamako Appeal (formulated by a group of some hundreds invited participants before the WSF in Bamako, Mali 2006) was debated. At another workshop the open space was discussed, and yet other workshops dealt with the future of the WSF. The Bamako Appeal was generally greeted as yet another important manifesto among others which contribute to the WSF discussion on political programs but it was strongly rejected because of its old-fashioned left language (not recognising the diversity of the present movements) and its attempt to be The Manifesto of the global "movement of movements", i.e. the WSF and other movement forums. Thus, it was welcomed as one intervention from the old left (which try to adopt somewhat to the new circumstances) in an ongoing debate on global programs.

The discussion on the Open Space happened in a cellar in which about 30 participants took part. We where seated in a several circles (with many empty chairs...) and an open space in the middle. It was a small but a high-quality and very critical engagement with the concept of "open space", a debate which brought forward a lot of the pro- and cons of the present structure of WSF and suggestions on what it could become and needed to avoid.

Finding ways within WSF of facilitating an action-oriented organisation or "collective self-organising" (accompaning the established "collective self-reflection" through the open-space) is, as was well argued by Thomas Ponniah [add reference xx], the key challenge. Otherwise WSF will reduce itself to an expression of opinions and as such become easy to ignore for the neoliberals.

The Assembly of Social Movements (or Peoples' Movement Assembly) might be the best option for our political organising of actions. But it does not work as such yet. It needs a lot of improvement in order to facilitate the necessary kind of actions.

I think that the problem with the Peoples' Movement Assembly is that it is a matter of a mass endorsment of a pre-prepared statement done by a handfull of key individuals who are gathered in an unclear, informal, non-representative way (I was not in Atlanta but have seen the same situation happen at several WSF and ESF, and it was once again the case in Nairobi). That proposal of statement is read and after that a "debate" on the statement is opened with the opportunity of making changes. Within minutes the line of people who wanted to speak in Nairobi was filled and the interventions where very loosly connected to the statement. Mostly it was a line of monologues, annoncements, anti-neoliberal speeches, congratulations on various struggles in the world, salutes of slum-dwellers in Nairobi and of the successful WSF in Kenya, etc ... It was not bad in itself, but it wasn't a political debate about the statement, and neither on how to do global action campigns or build a strategy for the movement of movements. As time passed, less and less peopled stayed on, and at the end of it, the chair of the meeting annonced in front of the couple of hundreds that where left that the statement was adopted ...

I think that we need not only to reinvent our space for reflection (something that still need to be developed in the WSF in order to facilitate real dialogue and networking), we also need to reinvent the WAY we do political organising of collective actions. I find the way the Assembly works fundamentally disempowering. During the ESF in Florence, which adopted the call for the 2003 impressive demonstration against the Iraq war, I experienced the worst kind of assemblies and panels so far. Every time someone in a panel said we need to resist neoliberalism, go out on the streets or make a revolution - the crowd of thousands cheered and applauded. It was like a secular mass-meeting of the Pentecostal Church, a sectarian community of born-again Christians (read Anti-Neoliberals) in which plain feverous enthusiasm kills all critical self-reflection. If we want to develop more nuanced and creative action campaigns, not just find a mass of people that endorse already formulated plans and statements, then we need to do more than just have our present Assemblies of Movements as our base for global political and action-oriented mobilization.

I think the experimentation with the 4th day in Nairobi, the day in which collaborative projects between groups could be suggested and annonced was a lot more interesting attempt of mobilizing action. It was not producing much of concrete plans or not at all achiving a global campaign...but it was a good experiment in a kind of "open space of political action-making". That is a form that might be possible to develop further.

The Need for Structure

Basically the open space reflection as well as the political action mobilization need to find the structures of communication that can facilitate a creative and participatory process. We are still stuck in a format of political speeches or panels by intellectuals to a basically passive audience (which in the worst case, as in Florence, consists of thousands of hand-clapping activists). For me, the key is how to facilitate participation, i.e. dialogue and cooperation between a maximum number of participants at the forums (where our "effectiveness" in terms of open space could be counted in terms of how many of the WSF participants that actually said something during workshops/assemblies at the forum). Normally, even in a forum like this where most are seasoned activists, only few ever speak in an assembly of hundreds/thousands.

But there exist lots of methods of how to increase participation, and we could adopt them in the WSF/Assembly [add reference xx]. One example is to use "cross-groups". If one hundred participants are divided into small discussion groups of 10, you can always have group discussions, which is good since according to all research small groups increase individual participation. If these original groups are divided again after some time and each participant go to one of 10 new mixed groups (the actual "cross-groups"), report their discussion in the first group and continue the discussion in their new group; you will in these two discussion sessions acctually have a small group discussion in which all 100 get to hear the discussion on everyone else at the same time as all is active all the time. It makes it possible within a hour for everyone to speak (i.e. increasing the open space of reflection). This is just one example of the meeting forms that have been developed and experimented by the feminist and nonviolent movements since the 1970s [add reference xx].

Non-hierarichal movements have historically always been ambigious to structure. It has been the domain of the authoritarian left. But we need to understand that some kind of structure is always there, a formal structure or an informal one. Already 1970 Jo Freeman [add reference xx], based on her experience in the radical feminist movement in the US, argued forcefully that a group dominated by its informal structure was in serious problems, limiting its possibilities of participation and democratic decision-making. This kind of "tyranny of structurelessness" is dominated by informal leaders, hidden rules, friendship clicks and loyalty to in-group norms. Actions are happening but it is unclear when, who and where this is decided. If you challenge the situation you are told that it is "free" for everyone to do what they want. And the informal leaders have never been elected and can logically not be removed by any collective decision.

The WSF has achived a remarkable thing, bringing together several thousands of activists from several hundreds of movements and groups. That is an achievment in itself. And that "political market-place" with workshops and assemblies are helpful. Still, it need to be facilitated by a continuing development of meeting structures in order to be an open space that is able to construct both reflection and action.

So, in terms of quantity the 7th WSF in Nairobi, Kenya, has been a setback with only about half of the participants expected. Still, 70,000 participants is very much...In terms of quality it has been a progress towards integration of some new parts of the African civil societies into the network, a step forward in the experiment with a forum that facilitate both self-organised workshop based discussions and joint action programs. In terms of an open space for critical movements it started bad but responded well to the demands of the slum dwellers and organisations of informal settlements in Kenya, opening up for their participation. The experimentation with new form and content of politics goes on. The experimentation with global open spaces of reflection and action-making continues. Another WSF is possible.

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