<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>From: <strong class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">Great Transition Network</strong> <span dir="auto"><<a href="mailto:gtnetwork@greattransition.org">gtnetwork@greattransition.org</a>></span><br>Date: Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 4:04 AM<br>Subject: Farewell to the WSF? (GTN Discussions)<br>To: <<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>><br></div><br><br>
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<p>From Candido Grzybowski [<a href="mailto:candido@ibase.br" target="_blank">candido@ibase.br</a>]</p>
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[EDITOR'S NOTE: The discussion will be ending one week from today -- WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2. I look forward to your comments! -- JC]<br>
<br>
I have been involved in the World Social Forum (WSF) process since the beginning of 2000, when representatives of eight Brazilian social organizations and movements—later called the Organizing Committee—met to launch the first in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in late January 2001. As the director of Ibase, created in the early 1980s by exiles returning to Brazil after being granted political amnesty, I represented the organization on the committee.<br>
<br>
My relation to the WSF has two phases: (a) deep engagement from 2000 to 2010 and (b) a critical position with gradual withdrawal after that. I draw from this experience in this contribution to the timely debate that the GTN provides and that Roberto Savio, a personal friend, provokes. [1]<br>
<br>
The WSF was conceived as an open space that would be a kind of battery recharger of active citizenship, now necessarily of planetary dimension because of the need to resolve contradictions of capitalism at a global scale. The WSF has undoubtedly made a fundamental contribution to the emergence of a worldwide citizen culture, and continues today propelled by civil society organizations, social movements, and networks from different parts of the world. In its early years, it helped build collective political intelligence about the problems, challenges, and possibilities of the struggles we waged, each in our own way across the Planet. It underscored our interdependence as we share the same world and the same challenge to make it another world. For our great diversity of identities and cultures, our plurality of views and perspectives, the WSF offered us an open space—a kind of factory for a new political culture—for us to recognize ourselves as humanity and part of the same and unique shared planetary system.<br>
<br>
The world's cultural, political, and economic context has changed greatly between 2001 and now. The multiple recent crises are expressions of the contradictions and limits to which globalized capitalism submits humanity and the sustainability of life on the planet. “Another possible world” remains an urgent need. However, as I have argued in the past, we need to think beyond the WSF, while still allowing the WSF to continue the inspiring task for which it was founded. WSF meetings nourished the dream and hope for many around the world and should continue to do so with the younger generations of today.<br>
<br>
<b>The WSF as inspiration and as limit</b><br>
<br>
The most obvious contribution of the WSF was as a galvanizing force that opposed Davos and asserted that "another world is possible." It did this by appealing to the capacity for transformative action of the multiple and diverse collective subjects, organized into resisting entities, movements, networks, coalitions, and alliances to formulate concrete proposals and fight for their realization. This potential was latent, but the WSF brought it forth by inviting shared reflection on experiences and knowledge that develops in diverse practices, while opening possibilities to strengthen the power of one's own action in each context. The WSF created the foundations of a new political culture of transformation precisely by establishing horizontal planetary dialogue as an imperative, without antagonism, racism, or patriarchalism, dialogue within and between collective subjects, each recognizing each other as equal subjects.<br>
<br>
The WSF did not invent this new political culture, but it was a great propeller and inducer of it. Due to its open space for diversity and plurality—as defined in the Charter of Principles—the WSF has become a reference point for meetings and exchanges, without hierarchies or priorities. The encounters and debates it engendered, along with its political pluralitsm, made it a reference point for a new planetary political culture.<br>
<br>
It must be acknowledged that this now political culture was just emerging. We all brought our mental structures, values, and practices, with all their contradictions, starting with the simplest: we confuse diversity with each one doing what they wanted, making collaboration and synthesis difficult, when such collaboration and synthesis is the raison d'être of the WSF space. In fact, we were deluded about the size of the task ahead with our way of thinking and acting freighted by conceptual and political tendencies that undermined unity. Not least, despite the massive presence of feminist organizations and movements, tenacious machismo did not give women proper relevance in dialogues and exchanges. Also, while language and cultural diversity are heritages to preserve, we could not cope with the problem of translation, despite the information and communication technologies available to us.<br>
<br>
Despite these problems, a great legacy of the WSF was the rescue and appreciation of politics as the quintessential arena for building another world, and citizen action as the necessary transformational force. In a capitalist world increasingly dominated by large, increasingly privatized, increasingly commodified, more cynical and violent business public and politics, the WSF highlighted core ethical principles and values for thinking about nature, life, the economy, and power.<br>
<br>
In summary, I consider three WSF strengths as inspiration: 1) rekindling hope and and renewing a sense of history as human production, not metaphysical determination; 2) questioning the determinist assumptions and antagonisms typical of leftist culture; and 3) valuing the energy of the diversity of collective subjects. But here come the limits. The WSF's open space centered on its gatherings, a process of events limited to building consciousness and will for action, but not in fact acting for another world. It was just a step, a fundamental beginning, a door opening, a necessary but insufficient condition of forging the new. For transformative forces to emerge, in my view, we need to take a path beyond the WSF to new forms of collective action. The challenges were glimpsed and echoed at the WSF, but confronting them requires new political and cultural creativity. Therein lies the dilemma: as a space, the WSF has proven indispensable. But because of the Forum itself, I felt pushed to initiatives beyond it, to initiatives from the local to the global level, building the necessary articulations.<br>
<br>
<b>Elements for an agenda beyond WSF<br>
</b><br>
Repoliticizing the relationship between the biosphere, power, culture, and the economy and acting from a planetary and cosmopolitan perspective is the starting point. As I pointed out above, the WSF has reframed politics and power, giving them centrality as opposed to market relations and the economy. In this sense, it pointed to the power of active citizenship. It did not elaborate and did not, as such, define the fighting agenda or agendas. The agendas of each individual movement, network, coalition, and alliance were debated and often updated at WSF events, but the responsibility for carrying them out rested with the one who adopts them and cannot be imposed on all Forum participants. The issue of the political agenda was the crucial point for each participant, as an expression of their rights and responsibilities as humans and citizens. It is in this sense that I thought and still think it is a duty of Forum participants to prioritize the political agenda before and after events. The “beyond the WSF” I refer to embodies this sense of intervention which takes inspiration from the WSF only as a moment of reflection and exchange. My priority was and is to move forward on action agendas, seeking partnerships and alliances that better address the different situations and contexts in which I live.<br>
<br>
Today, I think that the central issue for confronting capitalism is the search for alternatives to the “crisis of civilization” rooted in colonial, racist, patriarchal, Eurocentric, and imperialist rule over peoples and nature, and the industrial growth, productivism, and consumerism due to unbridled accumulation. Environmental destruction and social injustice are intrinsic conditions of capitalism, exacerbated today by globalization at the service of the great economic and financial conglomerates under the imperialist militarized guard. The fracturing of the social fabric and the breaking of the resilience of the biosphere and the common basis for life itself is reaching irreversibility. To make all life sustainable, it is essential to tackle injustice on its two sides, both social and environmental: eco-social injustice. It is no longer possible to limit oneself to changing social relations of production, heretofore the dominant ideal of the left. The ideal of industrial society— its productivism and limitless accumulation, the goods and services it provides, and the style of consumption and life it generates—is part of the eco-social injustice that we must confront. The idea of resistance to the commodification of everything, the commons and life itself, was always well-represented in the WSF. But this is only part of the story. The whole vision of human civilization and its relationship to nature needs to be reimagined, from local to world, reflecting the possibilities and limits of the biosphere and the cultural, scientific, and technical creativity of each people, in a spirit of interdependence and planetary solidarity, resilience, and sustainability.<br>
<br>
Accordingly, a key element of the new political culture and social transformation agenda is to decolonize and liberate our ways of thinking and acting. In the context of the “crisis of civilization,” we need to advance a deep shift in power and economic institutions. What condemns many to poverty, exclusion, and multiple forms of inequality and domination is not a lack of development, but development itself. Development constantly reinvents racism, patriarchalism, xenophobia, and intolerance of social and cultural diversity to dominate and exclude. Today, it is visible in the territorialization of racism, the fissures between city and countryside and between agribusiness and social forms of production, and the relations between peoples and nations. Old patriarchalism is renewed and naturalized by capitalism, which devalues, but benefits from, an economy of care, imposing a double workday on women. Publicizing and politicizing this agenda that emerges from women's struggles is a task of citizenship as a whole, from local to global.<br>
<br>
It is essential to think about the necessary process of cumulative disruptions. The question that arises is political and ethical at the same time as the legitimacy of the struggle for change challenges institutional legality and continuity. The institutional framework that confines us to nation-states proves to be a necessary but extremely limited arena for the struggle for "another possible world" or, as I prefer today, "another possible civilization." We are faced with the unavoidable need to oppose citizenship and peoples' sovereignty to national states and their monopoly in the world sphere of power. This implies taking on the existing legal framework that denies equal rights and destroy the natural foundations of life. This is fundamental: citizenship is not a gift of states, but a political condition of being part of humanity. Therefore, the agenda of rethinking and refounding the state necessarily arises as a political expression of the power that equal and diverse “citizenships” confer on it.<br>
<br>
One more essential element of the agenda: the new architecture of power. Interdependence between peoples and nations in today's globalized capitalism is undoubtedly a major problem created by the imperialist domination of developed countries, particularly the United States. But this interdependence carries a contradiction that offers a huge possibility for the future. The WSF itself, as a space for an emerging planetary citizenship, would not have been possible were it not for the diffuse awareness that we are part of the same humanity and share the same planet. Interdependence, however, cannot be theorized and practiced without a concrete location, where we have the essentials of our lives and relationships with others and make our exchanges with the biosphere. The burning questions become: How can we rethink this fundamental place, in terms of power, culture, and economy, from a planetary citizen perspective? And how can we rethink world power from a perspective of territorialized citizenship?<br>
<br>
<br>
<b>A possible way of acting beyond the WSF </b><br>
<br>
Here I want to draw attention to the fundamental need to re-organize our forces in order to propel the citizen agenda of building another civilization. Again, the WSF serves as an inspiration, but it lacks the capacity to undertake the difficult and continuing task of organizing the collective subjects of citizenship, assessing political opportunities, and waging the struggle. It is only in acting that one does the action (it is by walking that one does the path), but the process begins by agreeing on a broad agenda. This already points beyond the WSF to the plurality of citizenship as a possible historical block for constituting and instituting planetary citizenship of another world. The tricky question is how to build coalitions of collective subjects with a maximum common denominator (to counteract the lowest common denominator of certain generic and empty statements) for the agenda and basis for political action. I speak here of inter-movement coalitions and active citizenship organizations. The relative success of existing thematic campaigns and networks of collective construction of strategic thinking, such as the GTN, is a point of departure. However, we need differentiated and coordinated actions of a militant citizenship contesting existing structures and powers in the most diverse situations. We lack, but need, effective intra-movements networks and organizations, linking the local with the world embracing strategic vision of the whole political task. This requires patient work of building what potentially will be the new collective political subjects, necessarily plural and diverse, with their own identities and proposals, from local to global, articulating themselves to have the power to transform the world.<br>
<br>
The crucial issue of action is the political and cultural construction of counter-hegemonies in concrete local societies and at various levels of political influence, up to world power structures. How can we do this without factionalism, as is the tradition of the left? The secret, it seems to me, lies in building open coalitions, which start by recognizing others as indispensable, and which depends on honoring and implementing their agenda. In this way, active consensus can be generated, which is fundamental in the struggle for a new hegemony. It is crucial to recognize that, for citizenship, the public space for debate and free circulation of ideas is always the priority. Communication and public campaigns are thus a priority arena for the necessary course of action.<br>
<br>
Cândido Grzybowski<br>
<br>
[1] For more reflections on this issue, see my text, presented at the 10-year Thematic World Social Forum event in Porto Alegre, entitled “Beyond the World Social Forum (<a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2010/01/beyond-the-world-social-forum/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">
http://www.ipsnews.net/2010/01/beyond-the-world-social-forum/</a>
). This was also the moment when I was most deeply engaged in new initiatives, for example, the conference at Ibase on new paradigms in 2012, for which I wrote “Foundations for Biocivilization” (<a href="http://www2.world-governance.org/article796.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">
http://www2.world-governance.org/article796.html</a>
).<br>
<br>
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<br>
>From Roberto Savio [<a href="mailto:utopia@robertosavio.info" target="_blank">utopia@robertosavio.info</a>]
<hr>
[Per Paul's email, reproduced below, we are kicking off this month's discussion with a response from longtime member of the WSF International Concil Roberto Savio. We look forward to your contributions. -- JC]<br>
<br>
Farewell to the World Social Forum?<br>
Roberto Savio<br>
Opening reflections for a GTN forum, 9/3/19<br>
<br>
LOOKING BACK<br>
The first World Social Forum in 2001 ushered in the new century with a bold affirmation: “Another world is possible.” That gathering in Porto Alegre, Brazil, stood as an alternative and a challenge to the World Economic Forum, held at the same time an ocean away in the snowy Alps of Davos, Switzerland. A venue for power elites to set the course of world development, the WEF was then, and remains now, the symbol for global finance, unchecked capitalism, and the control of politics by multinational corporations.<br>
<br>
The WSF, by contrast, was created as an arena for the grassroots to gain a voice. The idea emerged from a 1999 visit to Paris by two Brazilian activists, Oded Grajew, who was working on corporate social responsibility, and Chico Whitaker, the executive secretary of the Commission of Justice and Peace, an initiative of the Brazilian Catholic Church. Incensed by the ubiquitous, uncritical news coverage of Davos, they met with Bernard Cassen, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, who encouraged them to organize a counter-Davos in the Global South. With support from the government of Rio Grande do Sul, a committee of eight Brazilian organizations launched the first WSF. The expectation was that about 3,000 people attend (the same as Davos), but instead 20,000 activists from around the world came to Porto Alegre to organize and share their visions for six days.<br>
<br>
WSF annual meetings enjoyed great success, invariably drawing close to 100,000 participants (even as high as 150,000 in 2005). Eventually, the meetings moved out of Latin America, first to Mumbai in 2004, where 20,000 Dalits participated, then to Caracas, Nairobi, Dakar, Tunis, and Montreal. Along the way, two other streams—Regional Social Forums and Thematic Social Forums—were created to complement the annual central gathering, and local Forums were held in many countries. Cumulatively, the WSF has brought together millions of people willing to pay their travel and lodging costs to share their experiences and collective dreams for a better world.<br>
<br>
WSF’s Charter of Principles, drafted by the organizing committee of the first Forum and adopted at the event itself, reflected these dreams. The Charter presents a vision of deeply interconnected civil society groups collaborating to create new alternatives to neoliberal capitalism rooted in “human rights, the practices of real democracy, participatory democracy, peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people, ethnicities, genders and peoples.”<br>
<br>
Yet, the “how” of realizing any vision was hamstrung from the start. The Charter’s first principle describes the WSF as an “open meeting place,” which, as interpreted by the Brazilian founders, precluded it from taking stances on pressing world crises. This resistance to collective political action relegated the WSF to a self-referential place of debate, rather than a body capable of taking real action in the international arena.<br>
<br>
It didn’t have to be this way. Indeed, the 2002 European Social Forum called for mass protest against the looming US invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent 2003 Forum played a major role in organizing the day of action the following month with 15 million protesters in the streets of 800 cities on all continents—the largest demonstration in history at the time. However, the WSF’s core organizers, who were not interested in this path, held sway, a phenomenon inextricable from the democratic deficit that has always dogged the Forum.<br>
<br>
Indeed, the WSF has never had a democratically elected leadership. After the first gathering, the Brazilian host committee convened a meeting in Sao Paolo to discuss how best to carry the WSF forward. They invited numerous international organizations, and on the second day of the meeting appointed us all as the International Council. Several important organizations, not interested in this meeting, were left off the council, and those who did attend were predominately from Europe and the Americas. In the ensuing years, efforts to change the composition created as many problems as they solved. Many organizations wanted to be represented on the Council, but due to vague criteria for evaluating their representativeness and strength, the Council soon became a long list of names (most inactive), with the roster of participants changing with every Council meeting. Despite repeated requests from participating organizations, the Brazilian founders have refused to revisit the Charter, defending it as an immutable text rather than a document of a particular historical moment. <br>
<br>
AT A CROSSROADS<br>
The future of the WSF remains uncertain. Out of a misguided fear of division, the Brazilian founders have thwarted efforts to allow the WSF to issue political declarations, establish spokespeople, and reevaluate the principle of horizontality, which eschews representative decision-making structures, as the basis for governance. Perhaps most significantly, they have resisted calls to transcend the WSF’s original mission as a venue for discussion and become a space for organizing. With WSF spokespeople forbidden, the media stopped coming, since they had no interlocutors. Even broad declarations that would not cause schism, like condemnation of wars or appeals for climate action, have been prohibited. As a result, the WSF has become akin to a personal growth retreat where participants come away with renewed individual strength, but without any impact on the world.<br>
<br>
Because of its inability to adapt, and thereby act, the WSF has lost an opportunity to influence how the public understands the crises the world faces, a vacuum that has been filled by the resurgent right-wing. In 2001, globalization’s critics emerged mainly on the left, pointing out how market-driven globalization runs roughshod over workers and the environment. Since then, as the WSF has floundered and social democratic parties have bought into the governing neoliberal consensus, the right has managed to capitalize on the broad and growing hostility to globalization, rooted especially in the feeling of being left behind experienced by working-class people. Prior to the US financial crisis of 2008 and the European sovereign bond crisis of 2009, the National Front in France was the only established right-wing party in the West. Since then, with a decade of economic chaos and brutal austerity, right-wing parties have blossomed everywhere.<br>
<br>
The unsettling rise of the anti-globalization right has scrambled many political assumptions and alliances. At the start of the WSF, our enemies were the international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Now, these institutions support reducing income inequality and increasing public investment. The World Trade Organization, the infamous target of massive protests in 1999, was our enemy as well, for skewing the rules of global trade toward multinational corporations; now, US president Donald Trump is trying to dismantle it for having any rules at all. We criticized the European Commission for its free market commitment, and lack of social action: now we have to defend the idea of a United Europe against nationalism, xenophobia, and populism. These forces have upended and transformed global political dynamics. Those fighting globalization and multilateralism, using our diagnosis, are now the right-wing forces.<br>
<br>
LOOKING AHEAD<br>
Is there, then, a future for the World Social Forum? Logistically, the outlook is not good. Right-wing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of authoritarian strongmen around the world, has announced that he will forbid any support for the Forum, putting its future at grave risk. Holding a forum of such size requires significant financial support, and a government at least willing to grant visas to participants from across the globe. The vibrant Brazilian civil society groups of 2001 are now struggling for survival.<br>
<br>
Indeed, right-wing governments around the world attack global civil society as a competitor or an enemy. In Italy, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been pushing to eliminate the tax status of nonprofits. Like Salvini in Italy, Trump in the US, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, and Shinzo Abe in Japan, among others, are unwilling to hear the voice of civil society. Their escalating assault on civil society might spell the formal end of the World Social Forum, although the WSF’s refusal to evolve with the times left the organization vulnerable to such assaults.<br>
<br>
If the World Social Forum does fade away as an actor on the global stage, we can take many valuable lessons from its history as we mount new initiatives for a “movement of movements.” First, we need to support civil society unity. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the Portuguese anthropologist and a leading participant in the WSF, stresses the importance of “translation” between movement streams. Women’s organizations focus on patriarchy, indigenous organizations on colonial exploitation, human rights organizations on justice, and environmental organizations on sustainability. Building mutual understanding, trust, and a basis for collective work requires a process of translation and interpretation of different priorities, embedding them in a holistic framework.<br>
<br>
Any initiative to build transnational movement coordination must address this challenge. While it is easier to build a mass action against a common enemy, nurturing a common movement culture requires a process of sustained dialogue. The WSF was instrumental in creating awareness of the need for a holistic approach to fight, under the same rubric, climate change, unchecked finance, social injustice, and ecological degradation. Building on that experience with how the issues intersect is critical to a viable global movement. The WSF has made possible alliances among the social movements, which got their legitimacy by fighting the system, and the myriad NGOs, which got theirs from the agenda of the United Nations. This is certainly a significant historical contribution, enabling the next phase in the evolution of global civil society.<br>
<br>
Second, we need to balance movement horizontalism and organizational structure. For the vast majority of participants in cutting-edge progressive movements over the past half-century, the notion of a political party, or any such organization, has been linked to oppressive power, corruption, and lack of legitimacy. This suspicion of organization, reflected in the core ideology of the WSF, has contributed to its lack of action.<br>
<br>
This tendency to reject verticality out of fear of its association with oppression poses a major challenge to the formation of a global movement: those who would be, in principle, its largest constituency will question overarching organizational structures. Based on historical experience, they fear the generation of unhealthy structures of power, the corruption of ideals, and the lack of real participation. Nevertheless, coordination is essential for a diverse global movement to develop sufficient coherence. The task is to find legitimate forms of collective organization that balance the tension between the commitments to both unity and pluralism.<br>
<br>
Third, a global movement effort must navigate a new media landscape. The Internet has changed the character of political participation. Space has shrunk, and time has become fluid and compressed. Social media has become more important than conventional media. Indeed, it was essential, for example, to the election of Bolsonaro in Brazil and Salvini in Italy, as well as Brexit in the UK. US newspapers have a daily run of 62 million copies (ten million from quality papers like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post), while Trump tweets to as many followers. Contemporary communications technology, while used to sow confusion and abuse by the right, must be central to transnational mobilization campaigns fostering awareness and solidarity.<br>
<br>
Political apathy among potential allies remains as great a challenge as the right-wing surge. This is not a new phenomenon. The triumphant pronouncements of the end of ideology and history three decades ago helped mute explicit debate on the long-term vision for society. Instead, the technocrats of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the US Treasury foisted the Washington Consensus on the rest of the world: financial deregulation, trade liberalization, privatization, and fiscal austerity. The benefits of globalization would lift all boats; curb nonproductive social costs; privatize health and more; and globalize trade, finance, and industry. Center-left parties across the West resigned themselves to this brave new world. “Third Way” leaders like British Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that since corporate globalization was inevitable, progressives could, at best, give it a human face. In the absence of a real alternative to the dominant paradigm, the left lost its constituency. The wreckage left behind by neoliberal governments has become the engine for the populist and xenophobic forces from across the globe.<br>
<br>
Looking ahead, to build a viable political formation for a Great Transition, we must find a banner under which people can rally. Climate action has increasingly served this function, with the youthfulness of the climate movement a reason for hope. The climate strike movement, led by Swedish student Greta Thunberg, has engaged tens of thousands of students worldwide and shown that the fight for a better world is on. These new young activists, many of whom have probably never heard of the WSF, do not pretend to come with a pre-made platform; they simply ask the system to listen to scientists. The lack of a full vision allows them to avoid many of the WSF’s problems, yet still underscore how the system has exhausted its viability in the face of spiraling crises.<br>
<br>
Millions of people across the globe are engaged at the grassroots level, hundreds of times more than related to the WSF. The great challenge is to connect with those working to change the present dire trends, making clear that we are not part of the same elite structures and, indeed, share the same enemy. The historic preconditions undergird the possibility of such a project, our visions of another world give it a direction, and the growing restlessness of countless ordinary people is a hopeful harbinger.<br>
<br>
Can we find the modes of communication and alliance to galvanize the global movement and propel it forward? I do not see much value in a coalition of organizations and militants who meet merely to discuss among themselves. Collective action is necessary for counterbalancing the decline of democracy, increasing civic participation, and keeping values and visions at the forefront. In the WSF, the debate about moving in this direction has been going for quite some time, but has repeatedly run up against the intransigence of the founders.<br>
<br>
It would be a mistake to lose the WSF’s impressive history and convening authority. But we need to recreate it in order to reflect the present barbarized. Will we be able to reform WSF, and if this is not possible, create an alternative? Citizens have become more aware of the need for change than they were when we first met in Porto Alegre many years ago. But they are also more divided, some taking the reactionary path of following authoritarian leaders, some the progressive path of social justice, participation, transparency, and cooperation. As the conventional system destabilizes and loses legitimacy, giving life to a revamped WSF—or creating a new platform—might be easier than the challenge of launching the process eighteen years ago. Still, realizing the next phase will take new leaders, wide participation, and recognition of the need for new structures. In these times, this is a tall order.<br>
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<br>
Tuesday, September 3, 2019<br>
<br>
>From Paul Raskin [<a href="mailto:praskin@tellus.org" target="_blank">praskin@tellus.org</a>]<br>
________________________________________<br>
<br>
Dear GTN,<br>
<br>
Since 2001, the World Social Forum has served as civil society’s answer to the World Economic Forum, the annual powwow in Davos of the masters of the neoliberal universe. Over the years, the WSF has brought together hundreds of thousands of activists to meet, network, and reenergize commitments. It has stood as a tangible expression of the diffuse but vibrant “alter globalization” community, and a source of hope for the emergence of a systemic global movement.<br>
<br>
At the same time, the WSF has mirrored the movement’s immaturity. Most significantly, the disabling fragmentation within civil society has been reflected in the forest of separate tents that spring up at Forums, each devoted to specific issues and grievances, with little exploration of common visions, positions, and coordination mechanisms. More prosaically, the logistical chaos that has plagued Forums and frustrated attendees symbolizes the underdeveloped organizational capacity of the “movement of movements.”<br>
<br>
Now, as these deficits take their toll and the times change, the WSF seems to be losing momentum and relevance. So it’s timely to critically reflect on its achievements and whether the WSF, itself, needs a Great Transition.<br>
<br>
Our September GTN Discussion—FAREWELL TO THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM?—takes up the challenge.<br>
(Please organize your comments as responses to one or more of the following topics.) <br>
<b><br>
Looking Back</b><br>
What has been the historic significance of the WSF? In what ways has its strategy of providing a neutral gathering space advanced (or curtailed) the “movement of movements”?<br>
<b><br>
At a Crossroads</b><br>
Does the WSF retain its vitality as a beacon of “another world,” or is it losing momentum? Has its unbending commitment to radical pluralism sacrificed movement unity?<br>
<b><br>
Looking Ahead</b><br>
Should the WSF continue to operate as an open space? Seek to reinvent itself as a collective force for political action? Or should attention shift to fresh initiatives for building a coherent global movement?<br>
<br>
Roberto Savio, founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) and longtime member of the WSF International Council, opens the debate. His essay can be found <a href="https://greattransition.org/images/Savio-Farewell-WSF.pdf" target="_blank">
here</a>
. I look forward to your comments, whether brief or extended (but less than 1,200 words).<br>
<br>
The discussion will go through Wednesday, October 2, when Roberto will have an opportunity to respond. Per usual, we will then create a public GTI Forum that samples a range of perspectives raised in the internal GTN discussion.<br>
<br>
Over to you,<br>
Paul
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