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NEWS & LETTERS, March 2002
Column: Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and
Mary Holmes
Over 60,000 people attended the
second World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. With the theme
"Another World is Possible," it was convened as an anti-globalization
counter-meeting to the World Economic Forum, held at the same time (Jan. 31-Feb.
5) in New York City. The 15,000 delegates and 45,000
other participants came from 150 countries and included grassroots activists,
workers, peasants, leftists, feminists, environmentalists, the landless and
homeless, and many others concerned not only with discussing the ills of global
capitalism, but also with how to transform this reality. The Forum was set up to include
700 workshops, 100 seminars and 28 plenary assemblies. During the official and
unofficial sessions, participants discussed debt in the developing world, the
role of women in globalization, issues of race, the availability of health care
and medicines, environmental destruction, cultural diversity and many other
questions. The crisis in Argentina was a
central focus, both as an adverse model of the harm of neoliberal economic
policies, and as a beacon in the mass protests by Argentines, and the
government's default on its $143 billion debt. Several demonstrations were held
in solidarity with the Argentine people. In Brazil, the WSF host country
which holds presidential elections this October, the leading candidate was asked
about the $230 billion debt. Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva of the left
Workers Party said debt payment would need to balance ability to pay with the
need to support programs improving conditions of the poor. The WSF opposed the
U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would create an "open
market" of the entire hemisphere. Lula denounced it as a "policy of
annexation of Latin America to the U.S." The WSF condemned the September
11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. and also accused the Bush administration of
using the events as a pretext for positioning the U.S. military in Colombia and
elsewhere in Latin America and the world to "supress social
movements." A WSF draft position issued at
the end of the conference stated that "in the name of war against
terrorism, civil and political rights have been attacked throughout the world.
The war against Afghanistan has been extended into other areas. It is starting a
permanent global war." However, contradictions among anti-U.S. imperialism
tendencies at the WSF were evidenced in one popular T-shirt on sale which
favorably equated Osama bin Laden with Che Guevara and Jesus. Some participants were critical
of the WSF drift towards reformism and centrist social-democratic positions.
They pointed to the presence of government ministers and cabinet members in
attendance. A number of officials from Italy were criticized for voting in favor
of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Forum organizers said they did
not aim to reach agreement on the issues: "No single document can speak for
all of us. It begins here. It does not end here." In conclusion, the WSF
agreed on a very general statement calling for "resistance toward
neoliberalism and militarism, and support for peace and social justice." The large attendance at this WSF, double last year's attendance and at least 10,000 more people than the planners expected, demonstrates the vitality of the anti-globalization movement, and the objective urgency issuing from September 11 and its aftermath. One challenge is for explicitly revolutionary anti-capitalist participants at the WSF to make their ideas heard and discussed. |
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