Festive Atmosphere at WSF Opening Events

  
I am beginning to believe the estimates that 60,000 participants from 150 countries are attending the World Social Forum. It happened yesterday as I looked up and down the line of marchers that extended for miles through the city and spilled out into a huge amphitheater. I even got a glimpse of Danielle Miterrand as she arrived at the opening ceremony. It was a colorful, joyous event on a late afternoon cooled by a passing front that had dumped rain throughout the morning. Clear blue skies and an exceptional sunset added to the festive mood. There was nothing pretentious about the opening program; if anything, it was too provincial, with all the welcoming speeches delivered in Portuguese and the musical theme "Another World is Possible" played over and over again in that single language. But linguistic barriers made no difference to the crowd's enthusiasm for being together and starting such a heady endeavor.

On the way back from the opening event, we were brought back to reality by our taxi driver, who questioned whether the WSF is all talk and no action. He couldn't pay for his 17-year-old daughter's education, he said, even though he was proud she had been accepted into a good private university. He was tired of working long hours and not seeing any personal progress for himself or his family. He asked what we were going to do about it.

One ray of hope may be how much the WSF grown since last year. Earlier in the day, ample evidence of this growth was on display at the World Union Forum and the North American Delegation meetings, two events held before the official opening. Both events attracted significantly larger crowds than last year. This is particularly true in the case of the US delegation. In both cases, however, hundreds more people attended this year.

Many US participants were from small, community-based organizations that were sponsored by larger groups such as Jobs with Justice, Alliance for Responsible Trade and Global Exchange, among others. A leader from the Kensington Welfare Reform Union of Philadelphia thanked the Alliance for Responsible Trade for bringing her to Porto Alegre. As a welfare mother, she said, she would never otherwise have had this opportunity to expand her contacts and knowledge. Dozens of US activists in similar situations will return home with a greater focus on world issues and an understanding of how better to relate them to local situations.

The union event on Thursday morning had an overflow crowd of one thousand, half from overseas. The key speaker was ILO General Director Juan Samovia. His impassioned address, which attributed the failure of current economic models to their lack of a social dimension, was very surprising. It was tough and demanded that the ILO and its campaign for basic labor rights be part of the WTO and other trade agreements. In all the speeches by ILO directors, from David Morse in the sixties until the present, never have I heard such tone and focus. Samovia declared that the battle lines were being drawn at the WSF.

Today, the marathon of meetings, seminars, conferences and workshops gets underway. The city is packed and the rush is on to get people to attend the events. Competition seems to be more prevalent than integration, as each sponsor seeks to attract an audience. The organizers have left out some key events, especially a well-planned series by a worldwide coalition of human rights groups. These and other would-be presenters were out working the crowds at the opening march and ceremony, handing out leaflets and even drawing attention to their themes with hot air balloons and people on stilts handing out flyers. But if the figure of 60,000 holds true, there should be enough participants to go around, even without such antics.