In search of an alternative world

The Karachi chapter of WSF, delayed due to earthquake in Pakistan, could not coincide with parallel events elsewhere and was rescheduled for the last week of March. The city of Karachi can be truly proud for hosting the mega event witnessing the attendance of some 15 to 20 thousand people including a few thousand foreigners. The local activists arranged their boarding, lodging and logistics as well as 400 events in a span of five days. By any standard it was no mean achievement.

The forum brought together ordinary citizens to listen to the speakers and issues that had hitherto been the traditional domain of five star hotels in elite cities. Yet only a few were aware of what was it all about and the rest were haunted by the question till the end: What exactly was World Social Forum? Since its first congregation in Porto Allegre (Brazil) in 2001 it appeared as an antidote to global elite's annual Davos (Switzerland) World Economic Forum (WEF) where business tycoons and political celebrities gather to evolve strategy for the further pillage of the world. Obviously then the genesis of the WSF had to be quite radical and true to the expectation it quickly earned the reputation as the cleaning house for all anti-imperialist political currents.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

In a world that was swayed after the end of the cold war with Francis Fukuyama's proclamation of the 'end of history' and 'the triumph of capitalist democracy' the ideas represented by WSF have the elements of burgeoning wave of anti-imperialist sentiments around the world. Since the nineties of the last century when much of the world rode the neo-liberal bandwagon only to be caught in its stranglehold we seem to have come a full circle. The world is now visibly impatient to come out of the West's neo-liberal economic grip with its accompanying skull duggery and social injustices.

Therefore, broadly the WSF aims at providing a space for public deliberation and a platform for groups and organisations opposed to uncritical acceptance of neo-liberal and military-industrial agenda posited by such agencies as World Bank, politically powerful multinational corporations and trade governing body such as WTO, all of which undermine, in one way or other, the environment, the rights of labour and local citizenry as well as political and economic power of third world countries.

Hence there has been a search for an alternative consequent upon which there is now a brave and optimistic slogan: Another world is possible -- only if sensitivity and awareness are increased. Then many more people may end up believing another way is indeed possible. High hopes stem from the fact that the political landscape of Latin America changed ever since 2001 when the first WSF was held in Brazil. After a tremendous socio-political mobilisation was effected by WSF in Porto Allegre the people voted to presidency the Labour leader Luiz Inacio 'Lula' de Silva and a more radical Hugo Chavez was voted to power in Venezuela. The WSF could have contributed to the change indirectly, but the presence of a host of factors such as the level of maturity of the progressive movement and its subjective situation must also have been the major determinants of those positive developments in the region. In India the right wing BJP was ousted and Congress came to power with the support of the leftists after WSF, Mumbai in 2005. One wonders if these changes are linked to the WSF! But it is home truth that after 2001 all across Latin America the right wingers were effectively squeezed.

In Latin America today the radical pole is taking shape around presidents Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Marles of Bolivia. The new formulations have led to a popular demand for a decisive political break with the neo-liberal economic model. The experiments are already underway with many innovative ideas for the region like evaluating the possibilities of common gas pipeline, a common regional energy policy, a regional bank and so on.

These alternative ideas are exciting. And who can deny the power of ideas? They form the frame of our understanding of the world, inform our beliefs and drive our behaviour. Great ideas are so profound and frame-shaking that they can instantly topple many of the things we believe and transform our worldviews, our values and hence our actions. May be it is the power of emerging ideas that are leading to the shifts also on ground.

Then again the WSF and its programmes are not without snags and pitfalls. Among the litany of complaints against the forum the most serious one is about its legitimacy and therefore the future of the process. In the first instance, the WSF insists that it is only a 'space' in which radical political movements and ideas can be shared and refuses to take on the burden of articulating a coherent and viable challenge to global capitalism. Secondly, in Arundhati Roy's words, the forum specifically and movements of resistance to neo-liberal capitalism more generally are rapidly being NGO-ised. According to Tariq Ali, a Pakistani-born British activist, they are W(Western) GO-ised.

In other words, they are losing their organic and inherently democratic impulse to the discourse of professional developmentalism. However this professionalisation of the resistance movements has its roots in the politics of aid as multilateral and bilateral donors around the world jump on the peace and social justice bandwagon. But when a substantive progressive political movement that is anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and on the frontline of the struggle for democratisation builds up the exploitation by donors is likely to stop. However, the danger of donor agencies taking over the progressive movements with their own agendas through their promises of aid and funding remains ever present.

More than anything else the WSF is a movement of ideas that prompts reflection to resist and overcome the domination and on the alternative that can be proposed to solve the problems of exclusion and inequality that the process of capitalist globalisation currently prevalent is creating or aggravating globally and within countries.

The leaders of the WSF are aware that riding the WSF is like riding a bicycle -- keep going forward or fall off. For the moment, the WSF seems to be riding well.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.