The World Social Forum and the "Movement of Movements"

 
This year, as last, the Summit of the Americas Center will be represented at the World Social Forum. Porto Alegre, Brazil isn't a tourist attraction to bring return visitors, so what draws SOAC and an estimated 100,000 others to the five-day conclave? Obviously, some of those who attend are WSF "groupies." Others use the venue to promote their causes, and still others come for the technical side meetings. However, the majority of participants are there because they believe that they are strengthening what many have come to call the "movement of movements."

The Forum's third yearly international event - WSF 3 - will be held on January 23-28. It was initially conceived during French and Brazilian brainstorming sessions and made a reality by the organizing muscle and commitment of various Brazilian groups. In its first two years, the WSF from 1,000 participants to 40,000, and attendance is likely to more than double this year. Moreover, the forum has transcended its single event persona. Separate forums are now held for continents (Asia, Africa, Europe), countries, states, and cities and towns worldwide. Italy alone has about 100 local social forums. While this number is above the average, it foreshadows general trends spreading worldwide. In the Americas, for example, the recent parallel People's Summit in Quito was coordinated largely part by the local WSF committee, itself a member of the Hemispheric Social Alliance.

The WSF movement is based on two broad commitments: solidarity (working together, avoiding sectarianism and seeking mutually beneficial solutions; and the ideal that "Another World Is Possible." Until now, the final declarations to come out of the forums themselves offer little in the way of concrete alternatives. The task of the 2003 forum is to bring some order into the chaotic field of movements and ideas for an alternative future. Unfortunately, what unites people at the WSF is a passion for change and a rejection of the current state of world social and economic affairs. But this rejection doesn't account for the spread of local WSF committees. (Significantly, there is no North American Committee established under WSF auspices). One of the reasons to attend the WSF is to understand what is behind the impressive growth of these local WSF movements.

One interpretation can be seen in the writings of radicals such Michael Albert of Z-Net, who advocates a type of parallel conference and structure of "anti-capitalist and anti-sectarian members" who could become a new "anti-capitalist Internationale." This idea is one of the strong contenders for the "movement of movements" title that seems to be on the table at the WSF. In the words of Albert, this project "would entail radical movements from every continent with different focuses, goals, and methods coming into contact and trying to discover their commonalities and also their real and serious differences, and to debate and find ways of mutually accommodating the latter, and to then establish a world spanning structure and methodology for sharing resources, marshalling mutual energies, and coordinating agendas, even while also retaining for actors around the world self-managing control of their own efforts and appropriate proportionate say in the overarching international operations, as well." And indeed, this year's forum is scheduled to discuss forming such an organization.

However, there is more pressing business for SOAC in Porto Alegre. This has to be with the upcoming Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Ministerial to be held in Miami in late fall 2003. Throngs of social activists from throughout the hemisphere and the world are expected to express their frustrations with the free trade agenda. Here again we will see the diversity of ideas and strategies that have been exploited by the authorities to condemn the "radicalism" of the anti-globalization movements. How to handle the Miami event will be part of the debate at the World Social Forum, and will feature in discussions among social activists and organizations in our own community. The tone set at the WSF will affect the mood in Miami this fall.

Look for further articles in this section exploring the relationship between the WSF and the Miami Ministerial later in the year. What might seem to some to be a random assortment of anti-establishment ideas is very much an orchestrated dance toward the goal of creating a "movement of movements" for opposing voices.