WSF closes with renewed hopes for a “new world”

Porto Alegre, Brazil, 5 Feb 2002 (IPS/Lewis Machipisa) - The World Social Forum (WSF), held on 31 January to 5 February with more than 51,000 participants from all over the world, ended Tuesday with the somewhat optimistic hope that the poor and marginalised can yet change the world.

At a lively and colourful closing ceremony marking the end of five days of intense debate and cultural exchange, the message was that all it would take is the kind of attitude built up at the WSF for the poor to rise above oppression unleashed by neo-liberalism.

“The World Social Forum is a space to build peace. We need to fight war and oppression and the forum gives us that chance,” a member of the WSF steering committee told journalists at the final press conference. “The forum is a breath of joy. It is possible to have a new world. All it takes is the will.”

Fortified by the forum’s slogan, ‘A New World is Possible’, the more than 5,000 civil society groups represented at the assembly resolved to strengthen their will to campaign against foreign debt, war and the attempt by transnational corporations (TNCs) to dictate the economic agenda.

“This forum has triggered and deepened the process of developing alternative processes in the region,” said a member of the WSF steering committee.

Formed as an alternative to the World Economic Forum, essentially a party of the rich and powerful, normally held in the city of Davos in Switzerland, but this year in New York, the WSF was attended by more than 3,500 journalists, from 467 newspapers, 195 magazines, 188 radio stations and 110 television channels.

As the curtain rang down on the meeting, Hassan Barghouthi, general director of the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center in Palestine was upbeat that a journey to peace had been started. An expedition he hoped will free his country from oppression.

“This is the beginning of the establishment of an international movement against war, WTO and the US’ policies,” Barghouthi told IPS. “It’s a continuation of the journey we started in Seattle. We are standing up for our rights, dignity and we will no longer keep silent.”

Although Porte Alegre hosted the first two forums, an idea that gained ground this year is that of moving it to different countries. “But symbolically, we want to keep it in the south, home of the colonised and the oppressed,” said Chico Whitaker, representative of the peace and justice commission of the Brazilian National Bishops’ Council.

To the delight of local participants and many of the visitors, the venue for next year’s WSF has been set once again in Porte Alegre, but there is an understanding that the one in 2004 would migrate to India.

The regional forums are to be expanded and one proposal to which the participants were receptive to was the holding of a regional forum in Jerusalem as a symbolic gesture underscoring the WSF’s pro-peace aims.

“Not only would this put pressure on Israel and the United States of America, it will put pressure towards democratisation in the Middle East. The solidarity we have received here really encouraged us to strive for more freedom,” said Barghouthi.

The spirit and momentum gathered here at Porto Alegre should also be carried to the World Summit on Sustainable Development or Rio+10 to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in September.

Vandana Shiva, founder of the India-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Environment said there was a history of governments using the failure of commitments made at earlier conferences such as the 1992 Earth Summit as an excuse to push the globalization agenda rather than attempt any reform.

Normally relegated to the periphery, African delegates said they were going back happy that they managed to put their concerns at the very top of the forum’s agenda.

“Compared to the last WSF, there has been more participation by Africa and that in itself has got Africa speaking for their continent and not leave it to northern NGOs to talk about the region,” said Charles Mutasa, of Zimbabwe-based African Organisation on Debt and Development (AFRODAD).

“It has been an opportunity for the voice of Africa to be heard in the world and we have been able to present our issues on debt, gender and trade unions,” noted Mutasa.

The African group called on their governments to develop and enforce national and regional regulatory systems to control capital movements. It also demanded that the developed countries take seriously their responsibility to control the capital market and create ways of increasing international liquidity to help finance the development of Africa and other developing countries. – SUNS5055

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