WSF
Towards Karachi And Nairobi
By Tord Björk
22 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The
World Social Forum is now on its way to place its annual gathering in
very different national and regional settings from its origins 2001
in a Brazilian political culture in the Southern state Rio Grande do
Sul. A first successful attempt was made 2004 when WSF was held in Mumbai
in India. A second attempt is made this year through what is called
a polycentric WSF with three parts. Two have already been held simultaneously
in January in Bamako in Mali and in Caracas in Venezuela. A third polycentric
WSF will be held 24 - 28th of March in Karachi in Pakistan. Originally
planned to be held at the same time as the other polycentric forums
it was postponed due to the earthquake in Pakistan. 2007 WSF will be
held in Nairobi in Kenya. By then we will know whether WSF has been
able to move fruitfully from Brazil to other very different places on
all continents that are underprivileged in the present world system.
The challenge ahead is to
be able to turn two new kinds of locations to the WSF into something
changing and yet developing a hopefully coherent social forum process.
In some aspects Karachi represents a location were strong religious
mobilisations takes place under an authoritarian dictatorial regime
put under heavy pressure from Western powers and a poor and oppressed
population. Nairobi represents in some aspects the most advanced NGO
location that has one of its roots in the emergence of a global civil
society system linked to the UN and the market for development management.
People's movement's summit protests in the early 1970s were part of
a development that gave the result to establish the first UN headquarters
in the South. United Nations Environmental Programme was established
by a decision at the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm
1972. UNEP and Nairobi became a global centre for broader environmental
and social development concerns administrated by a growing NGO sector
as a result of sometimes violent clashes at Summits 1968 - 1972 when
anti-imperialist and people's movements protests against official World
Bank, finance ministerial and UN summits. While the NGO development
sector has prospered the Sub Sahara region has declined socially and
ecologically having greater problems than any other region in the world
with some important exceptions. Kenya partly being such a good example.
Here urban and environmental movements have been able to gain some democratic
influence. Deforestion, so much prevalent in the rest of the region,
has been to some extent reverted by popular mass mobilisation. To develop
the WSF process through placing it in these two very different locations
is a great task.
Legitimacy from action
A key factor when assessing
WSF is how ideas are put into action. People with diverging opinions
on what groups, movements or organisations in society are important
in the social forum process mostly agree upon that most important are
actions that results in social, ecological, political and other changes
in the direction which WSF is based upon. Thus it is necessary to include
also other actors in analysing the situation than those that dominate
WSF if they contribute to actions resulting in these changes.
A legitimising role for the
social forum process is given to the world-wide demonstrations protesting
Western ally's war against Iraq 2003. Repeatively these demonstrations
are accounted for as a proof of the capability of social forums to stimulate
action.
It is also necessary today
to ask oneself what similar political actions are going on and how are
social forums related to these actions. A critical assessment of this
relationship is seldom present in the current discussion on WSF. If
such actions are going on like the present mass boycott among the rural
masses and urban poor in Muslim countries against Danish products they
are seen more as a threat by focusing on the more marginal smaller scale
but violent protests against islamofobic Denmark. Both secular international
leftists and NGOs seemingly have common interest with the Danish government
in putting the present most massive international action against Western
imperialism aside as irrelevant violent fundamentalism.
Organising popular protests
or building political alternatives of international importance is not
easy. Most struggles maintain their impact at local or national level
or their impact is felt within a very narrow field like banning land
mines. Identifying struggles of global importance beyond its geographical,
thematic or other limitations is thus important. Examples can be the
Zapatista uprisings in Chiapas, world-wide WTO protests heralded by
small farmers, international trade union strikes and campaigns against
transnational companies or feminist rebellion and building of alternatives
to authoritarian society.
The way WSF is able to give
space to such struggles and is a place where new such coherent initiatives
are taken is crucial in assessing the importance of the forum.
Four ways of looking
at WSF
One can find a way of looking
at who is going to carry out action in at least four different tendencies
in the debate on the future of WSF. Three puts an emphasis on the action
outcome. The fourth on the internal integrity of the WSF process.
1. Civil society
making proposals to political actors.
The first, which might be
the WSF main stream thinking sees a need in formulating alternative
proposals and invite political actors in discussing how to implement
them. In the words of Oded Grajev: "After the first years of WSF
where we were very concerned about establishing and consolidating the
process, there is a great and lawful need to produce and strengthen
proposals and join other political actors considered strategic to transform
dreams, ideas and visions into reality." Many of the founders of
WSF go in this direction formulating appeals and trying to get a closer
cooperation with political parties and like-minded governments making
the proposals a reality. A more specific definition of the actors that
takes part in WSF is not made, instead the vague term civil society
is used without specifying any differences among e.g. peoples movements
built on lay participation and their own strength or professional NGOs
built on external funding and vague or absent democratic rules.
Between this unspecific civil
society and the political actors there is an equally vague intermediary
function. In practice this vague function is mainly populated by individual
intellectuals gaining their position through self-selecting mechanisms
and competence in gaining strong relations to donors, political actors
or markets for intellectual work. The vague civil society and the vague
intermediatory function are then complemented by a political actor formally
outside the WSF process. Here there is some more clarity by the term
political actor sometimes made more specific by saying political parties
and like-minded governments. Thus the historical subject changing society
tends to be placed outside the acknowledged participants at WSF. Civil
society is given more the role of pressure group helped by those formulating
proposals but not seen as actors putting the proposals into practice.
2. Peoples movements
develop and carry out proposals.
Another way of looking at
who is going to carry out action on proposals made at WSF is to focus
upon people's movements. It has recently strongly been stated by Ruth
Reitan: "the most effective proposals have and are and will be
coming from the grassroots up through the massive transnational networks
that are alive and well--on agriculture and food sovereignty and the
WTO from the Via Campesina; also on the WTO and other trade agreements
from Our World Is Not for Sale; to address both patriarchy and poverty
wrought by neoliberalism/ capitalism from World March of Women (and
others); on how best to organize and fight against the war and militarism
from the Global Anti-War Assembly; on radical youth ecological anarchism
from the Peoples' Global Action; on fighting the debt and SAPs from
Jubilee South; on environmental justice from Friends of the Earth International
and the like; on tax justice from ATTAC." Here WSF is placed parallel
to other places were networks of movements meet to discuss action -
" --a process which IS occurring, from what I can see, at the WSF,
but not only there, but also in such spaces as the Via Campesina's international
meetings and forums, at OWINFS planning meetings ..."
This organic model of grass
root networking is put in contrast to synthesising appeals made by intellectuals
seen as not leading to any action. "These manifestos are marching
orders for no one; to write as if they are is to entertain vanguardist
fantasies that are going to only crumble in disillusionment and accusations
of false consciousnesses." What is instead needed is to "Follow
the movements, support them, research them, give them voice, but don't
propose or suppose to do their thinking for them." Here the actor
is more specified and intellectual formulation of proposals not separated
from the historical subject that is supposed to act upon the proposals.
Here the weakness lies in at least two directions. On the one hand the
political effectiveness of the people's movement can be questioned.
They lack the means to implement the proposals. On the other hand there
is a tendency at focusing upon visible established transnational movement
networks and less on possibilities of new actors suddenly entering the
scene or actors using more revolutionary or violent means in their struggle.
3. Marginal or revolutionary
groups take space and carry out change.
A third perspective is to
focus upon marginalised groups at the place were the forum is held and
at the national and global level. This perspective can be seen as a
complement to the people's movement's perspective with some more emphasis
on marginal actors or mainly on revolutionary movements and parties.
Raphael from Lima states
in the current discussion: "It seems to me that the Fora in the
future should seek to intervene more directly in the experiences and
realities they visit, by opening up spaces inside or directly related
to concrete problems and struggles (which according to most accounts
did happen for example in Mumbai)." Feminist and indigenous autonomous
movements are especially seen as marginalised in the present way WSF
is held with the Caracas meeting as an example.
The discussion has been going
on since the start of WSF. Groups emphasising autonomous or horizontal
ways of working have developed different ways of "contaminating"
or doing alternative events to social forums. Radical small farmers,
indigenous and other popular movements have maintained their own ways
of coordinating international action through networks like Peoples Global
Action or have joined hands with revolutionary parties and organised
alternative forums to WSF like Mumbai Resistance 2004.
4. Maintaining WSF
integrity and civil society as the key actor.
A fourth tendency is to focus
upon the integrity of WSF seeing the outcome in terms of action as something
done by the civil society, as less important or ignoring this issue.
The weakness and strength
of this tendency lies in its limitations mainly or only to the form
of the WSF. It has to be an open forum building its strength on civil
society and guarding its principles on who should be allowed and not
to participate, maintaining independence from outside actors like the
state or political parties and less specific or ignoring market dependency.
Internal democracy and transparency are regarded as of high importance,
especially for those able to be present at WSF.
The less emphasis on action
makes it hard to assess what the action outcome of their proposals might
be. There is a tendency to focus upon a nebulous individual participant
and an equally nebulous civil society in practice often professional
NGOs but certainly with importance also to other participating persons
or collective actors. While being vague on action outcome this perspective
often brings a lot more critical assessments to the constructive discussion
on specific WSF events.
Ahead of the Karachi polycentric
WSF Madhuresh from India Institute for Critical Action - Centre in Movement,
CACIM, puts some questions regarding the coming event. First what are
the likely implications of the lack of or lukewarm response from big
Pakistani civil society organizations. Secondly what are the risks that
the event will be instrumentalised by secular Urdu ethnic Mutahida Quami
Movement which is a political party supporting the WSF and the local
government. Thirdly how will fundamentalist organisations view or maybe
use the forum in a country where wide spread protests against the Danish
cartoons of the prophet and violent bomb blasts has taken place. Fourthly
how relate to the problems of women's movements in Pakistan that allegedly
have not been represented enough in the WSF and thus stay away from
the organising committee but hold their events anyway at the forum.
Fifth how to deal with the visa problems for many Indian participants
that so far are refused in a mass scale the possibility to come to the
event. Sixth how can future WSF strategies be developed in relation
to holding further events in non-democratic/dictatorial countries?
Assessing WSF action
outcome
One way of looking at the
four perspectives is to state that they all contribute with current
contributions to the debate. This shows the vitality of the WSF process.
Maybe even that it is this diverging opinion that keeps the WSF alive.
But that is a rather trivial
notion. The amount of energy put into the social forum process calls
for a more critical assessment. One way of doing this is to maintain
the emphasis on how WSF contribute to globally important collective
action and how the different perspectives might put some light to how
WSF develops, especially in relation towards the Karachi and Nairobi
events.
While the antiwar protests
in 2003 is assessed as something were social forums contributed a lot
to the political coherence and world-wide simultaneous quality of the
protests it is harder to see similar effects the following years. Rather
than maintaining coherence and momentum the war protests, at least in
the North have fragmented. A split have occurred among those supporting
resistance to occupation and those critical towards both the occupation
and the violent resistance.
In other fields campaigns
and struggles have been carried out but with less significant coherence
and simultaneous mobilisation as in the case of war against Iraq. Antiprivatisation
issues at local, national and international level have some momentum
and the on-going struggle against EU and FTAA neoliberal policies, WTO,
IMF and the World Bank have their ups and downs. Some reports state
that there was a slack in world-wide protests during a shorter period
after 2003 but that protests have gained more momentum again last year.
But to what extent have social
forums contributed to the coherence of the ongoing and new struggles?
If ongoing struggles have been helped it is harder to see how WSF have
helped new coherent transnational struggles in the way it did with the
protests against the war against Iraq. There has been significant electoral
victories for parties linked to the WSF process both in Brazil and India
after the forums have been held there. But popular mobilisation beyond
parliamentary action has a more unclear record in spite of that it is
this kind of transnational campaigns that is seen to be a key to maintaining
popular direct participation in global politics by many supporters of
WSF.
Mumbai WSF in India 2004
can be seen as a point of stalemate between the different strands in
the global justice movement and in the social forum process. The Brazilian
conjuncture of well developed NGOs and popular movement cooperation
and a workers party still not in power started to develop into a less
vibrant situation with the risk of split between administrating power
and opposing governmental neoliberal policies. India became a proof
in many ways of the vitality of the process. Not only international
oppression but also domestic oppression was set on the agenda by the
Dalits and others. But also the opposing tendencies within the global
justice movement became evident as more or less three different events
evolved in Mumbai. On the one hand WSF dominated by NGOs and closely
related reformist left wing parties as well as popular movements, the
smaller Mumbai resistance with radical popular movements and revolutionary
parties and finally even smaller parallel events were political parties
and popular movements had dialogues outside the WSF context.
Out of the Mumbai Resistance
came further coherent opposition to the occupation of Iraq and the war
against terrorism as well as a stronger criticism against the NGO domination
of WSF and its financial dependency on funding from neoliberal countries,
especially the US and Ford Foundation. Out of the dialogues between
political parties and movements organised by Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and
others stimulated projects like the Network Institute on Global Democracy
addressing the issue of global political parties and the relationship
between parties and civil society. WSF could go on strengthened by the
stronger openness and criticism that the Indian political culture had
contributed to process.
In terms of coherent mass
action Mumbai 2004 represented a possibility to be inspired by the Gandhian
movement strategies with its focus on mass participation in civil disobedience.
This has been since 1998 at the core of the Peoples Global Action and
in many of the Summit protests. Arundhati Roy who also spoke at Mumbai
Resistance proposed in her inaugural speech at WSF a massive boycott
of key American corporations as a protest against the occupation of
Iraq. This and other similar proposals for mass direct action gained
no significant support.
Instead at the next WSF in
Porto Alegre the campaign to eliminate poverty and support the UN millennium
goals gained wide adherence as an action worthy social forum participants'
campaign efforts. The participation in this campaign has been considerable.
At the same time the political coherence and possibilities to democratically
influence who represents the campaign and controls its content and way
of working has been controversial and even accused of helping to legitimise
both a neoliberal agenda and elitist Northern dominated forms of politics.
The latest attempt at making a joint world-wide coherent campaign supported
widely from different actors at the WSF resulted in severe fragmentation,
splits between South and North and confusion.
Four perspectives
on the WSF action record
How can than the four different
perspectives explain and put forward solutions to the possibilities
of gaining coherent collective action out of the WSF process?
The first perspective tends
to overlook the effects WSF have on campaigns built on mass participation.
Instead it put focus upon the quality of proposals and how political
actors implement these proposals. With its central position in the WSF
international committee and support among key donors as well as practical
competence not only in managing but also adopting the WSF to new conditions
this perspective seemingly has no need of legitimising itself through
results in terms of coherent transnational campaigns with mass participation.
To the second perspective
coherent transnational struggles with mass participation are very important.
But as the main location of inventing this kind of struggle is placed
partly outside the WSF process in networking between different people's
movements the claim that WSF begins to fail in this regard is not seen
as important. On the contrary it can be seen from this perspective as
the result of marginalising people's movements and putting vanguardistic
intellectuals and political parties more central in the WSF process
while continuing to use the presence of people's movements as a main
legitimising argument for a process that is less and less influenced
by these movements.
In practise this can be seen
in the rise and decline of coherent people's movement coordination at
WSF meetings. The tool for this coordination was at first Call of social
movements and than Social Movements International Network to maintain
a continuous discussion and coordination of campaigns and initiatives.
The central role of the Call of social movements have now partly been
replaced by the consensus appeal made by intellectuals at Porto Alegre
2005 and the Bamako appeal made by selected intellectuals and organisations
at the Bamako polycentric WSF 2006. The Social Movements International
Network that was set up in 2003 to support the process of coordinating
calls of social movements at WSF has declined. The homepage with hundreds
of contributions from people's movements has no new contributions since
2004 and the latest reports on WSF are from early 2005. Instead the
organised reflections on the WSF process are made among groups dominated
by intellectuals like Network Institute on Global Democracy, CACIM or
NGO projects as Choike based in Uruguay.
To the third perspective
the development of WSF verifies a critique against domination of NGOs
and political parties administrating although reluctantly neoliberal
strategies. Instead of having illusions of the results of millennium
goals campaigns or the WSF process this perspective puts an emphasis
on radical struggles. In Western Europe against racism, terrorist laws
and refugee policies trying to build alliances between churches, anarchists,
immigrants and other actors often outside the social forum process in
many countries. In other parts of the world trying to build alliances
between Islamic forces and the left against war and economic imperialism
or class alliances between small farmers and workers against neoliberal
politics in Latin America, to some extent also supporting guerrilla
warfare going beyond the perspective of WSF.
To the fourth perspective
the lack of collective action result is less important. Instead an almost
constant interest in defending the integrity of WSF against external
state interests is prevalent. Recently the Caracas polycentric WSF caused
severe anxiousness in terms of influence from the Chavez government
and stronger political party domination.
Karachi questions
Concerning the questions
made regarding the Karachi event from this perspective some remarks
can be made regarding the historical experience of actions coming out
from answers to the questions put. One is asking what the lack of interest
from big NGOs in the host country might implicate.
One can look at a similar
occasion in Spain at the 5O year anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions
2004. Than the big NGOs participated but lukewarmingly in the network
organising protest demonstrations and seminars. A week ahead of the
actions in Madrid the big NGOs had chosen to publicly announce their
dissociation of the organisers of the join protests stating the participation
of the political party Herri Batasuna in the network as the cause of
their splitting action.
Herri Batasuna was the political
wing of the Basque resistance movement with another military wing struggling
with the Spanish state in a conflict that at that time had caused the
death of 800 persons. The result in mass media was partly putting at
terrorist stamp on the protests. The result on world politics was very
good. International NGOs and people's movements had no other realistic
choice than continue to cooperate with the only existing well organised
coordinated protests against Bretton Woods in Madrid. With the big domestic
NGOs outside the forming of coherent political will at a Summit finally
the voices of the South could make a breakthrough together with the
Spanish trade unions, environmental movement and other people's movements
in the network organising the protests. Instead of a joint statement
calling for more place for civil society influence on the official process
and some reforms that had been the dominant ethos of the NGO alternative
statements at Summits in the beginning of the 1990s now entered a new
language also in the mainstream protest at a Summit. The Alternative
Madrid declaration called for cancelling all debts and made no concessions
to legitimise the present neoliberal world order as had been the case
at the Rio sustainability and other UN conferences. With the radical
demands in this people's movement and NGO declaration from Madrid the
reformist agenda of Northern NGOs started to crumble and they had to
give in more and more to demands from radical people's movements all
over the world and NGOs ín the South. This resulted by the end
of the 1990s in such achievements as a clear no to the MAI investments
agreement and a no to including further areas into WTO based on very
broad coalitions of people's movements and NGOs. Thus the lukewarm interest
from big domestic NGOs can be seen as either irrelevant or even a perquisite
to establish demands of common interest to a majority of people in the
world against the interest of NGOs and states to divide and rule to
maximise resources to the own professional or governmental project.
In terms of quantity and long term administrative capacity big NGOs
are of course important, in terms of quality and interest in challenging
existing power structures they might be a hindrance.
Concerning the risk to become
instrumentalised by the political party Mutahida Quami Movement or holding
WSF in non-democratic/dictatorial countries these are general problems.
Parties have always been there as crucial factors to enable such a big
event as WSF to become a practical reality. They have to be dealt with
according to local circumstances and WSF statutes. Claiming that MQM
pose a different problem from earlier parties behind the scene requires
a lot more outspoken criticism than that which is given by CACIM. The
idea to only emphasise non-democratic countries as a problem is of course
wrong. The problems might be somewhat different but the whole range
of problems are there also in democratic countries sometimes even including
visa problems. Anyone trying to organise WSF in the US will find out.
Democratic countries building
their position in the world on economic oppression of global poor people
have maybe more sophisticated means of influencing an event like WSF
but surely they can be as effective as in any dictatorial regime. The
way World Youth Festivals was used by people's movements and political
parties from all over the world during the last half of the past century
shows that it is fully possible to undermine even very strong dictatorial
regimes as well as challenging the world order dominated by democratic
countries by gathering tens of thousands of activists to demand peace
and end to economic oppression whether the festival takes place in democratic
or dictatorial countries. These festivals actually became the starting
point for strong dissident cultures in Poland, Soviet Union and DDR
while at the same time having a key role in building global anti-imperialist
alliances helping the same kind of rebellion against authoritarian cultures
and neo-colonial politics in the West.
There is a problem with some
of the criticism emanating from CACIM spokespersons in relationship
to comments both on Caracas and Karachi WSF. It is mainly state or political
party influence that is posed as a problem while the equally problematic
influence from the market is downplayed. The excellent CACIM work to
make the WSF process more transparent and guarding its independency
thus risks to get a bias that dwarfs the intellectual and political
quality of this intervention.
The problems of Pakistani
women's movements in relation to WSF seems to be dealt with in a clever
way. There are now a whole range of methods for movements having problems
with form or content of different aspects of the WSF process. One can
either give up and totally adapt to the dominant ethos, one can influence
which in many cases successfully has been done making WSF or for that
matter regional social forums more of a tool to the participating organisations
than a partly closed preparatory process. One can choose to stay away
from parts of the process and focus upon arranging own contributions
to the WSF programme or "contaminate" the process by deliberately
challenging interventions or organise parallel events or even totally
separate processes that do not take place at the same location. The
challenge if one is interested in collective action against neoliberalism
and imperialism is to find out ways to develop the quality and impact
of all important initiatives whether they are inside, intermediary or
outside social forums.
The visa problems for many
Indian participants that so far are refused in a mass scale is an important
issue for the integrity of the WSF process. Apart from putting as much
political pressure on the Pakistani government as possible to open the
borders the plans for organising a parallel event in Amritsar on the
Indian side of the border is a strategically important way challenge
the political harassment against WSF. What is important than is that
the results of Amritsar event will be strongly included in the reports
from Karachi WSF. Maybe even that interaction can take place between
the two parts of the unwillingly separated forum.
How fundamentalist organisations
view or maybe use the forum is one way of putting the last of the CACIM
questions. Another one is to ask why the whole structure of the meeting
is made to exclude religious organisations from a constructive role
in society and politics. The themes of the Karachi event include "State
and religion, pluralism, and fundamentalism" and the "overarching
Transversal themes" include "Religious sectarianism, Identity
Politics, Fundamentalism". Religious organisations are firmly put
into a context of only posing a problem and not also as a possible ally
in the struggle against oppression. At a social forum in another city
where MQM also has a stronghold, in Hyderabad in India at Asia Social
Forum 2003 there were workshops on religion and democracy and the local
population were strongly interested in issues were religious communalism
was criticised from religious perspectives. Actually it was one of the
few occasions when local people had an interest in the event. But it
seems like this kind of constructive perspective on religion is excluded.
So it comes as no surprise that Pakistani religious organisations are
not going to participate according to a report from IPS. It puts the
WSF process into question. The days before the Karachi WSF the international
committee meets to prepare next years WSF at the conference and training
centre of the All Africa Conference of Churches in Nairobi. Is it only
Christian organisations that are allowed to be central in the WSF process
while religions without European origin are excluded?
The CACIM question on religious
organisations also focus upon the affect on the forum of "the recent
bomb blasts in Pakistan as well as the wide spread protests there against
the cartoons of the Prophet". Asia Social Forum in Hyderabad was
also held in a region with violent struggles and the revolutionary demonstration
against the forum had more participants than the demonstrations made
by forum organisers. But it did not affect the forum process very much
more than it contributed to make WSF criticism more coherent as expressed
through Mumbai Resistance 2004. Rather than asking about the effect
the wide spread protests against Denmark have on the forum it would
be more appropriate asking how WSF can be used to support the oppressed
Muslim minority in Denmark in need of international solidarity. Many
people in Pakistan take part in the protests against Denmark and WSF
should if it sees its role as an open forum were international solidarity
is supported be a good place to discuss how to organises support to
the oppressed Muslim minority in Denmark. At least to us in Nordic countries
struggling against xenophobian policies and growing imperialistic attitudes
to the South also in small European states it is important to develop
joint strategies with those that prefer economic and political means
rather than violent in their protests against Denmark. The mass participation
in the economic boycott against Denmark shows that main efforts are
of this nature but the carriers of this boycott seems to be excluded
from WSF due to the way religion is treated. Thus WSF can make itself
irrelevant to current needs to build solidarity links between the South
and the North.
Karachi and the Danish
islamophobic conflict.
While the mass protests through
boycotts presented at WSF have failed other movements have been able
very quickly to mobilise a massive boycott against one of the states
that is a specially willing partner in the war and occupation of Iraq.
At the same time this country is the most radical xenofobian country
in Western Europe with a conservative government backed by an openly
xenofobian nationalist party. The development in this Nordic country
Denmark poses a radicalisation of the opinion in countries that goes
to war in the Middle East. Save the Children in Denmark now reports
that Danes now are questioning giving aid to earth quake victims in
Pakistan as they see the Pakistani people as violent protesters against
Denmark. Humanitarism turned into political revenge against the massive
protests.
When the polycentric WSF
will be held in Karachi it is placed in the centre of this conflict
between Western imperialism and the masses of the world. Here imperialistic
interests in Central Asian and Arab oil wells and military world domination
clashes with oppressed people in common in a location were problems
cannot be solved on the immediate level by using a fair amount of the
resources that today are accumulated in proclaimed democratic but certainly
also unfairly rich countries.
The Danish attack on its
immigrants by the most xenofobian legislation in Western Europe is centrally
placed within the context of present Western domination of the world.
Denmark is a country with a strong self-image of being humanitarian.
It has the second highest foreign aid rate in the world and a system
of well funded NGOs. Denmark is also the country with the highest popular
support in Western Europe and North America to start war against countries
that do not act according to the will of Western powers like Yugoslavia
and Iraq. It sent troops to Iraq and its shipping company Maersk, the
biggest Danish multinational company, is the biggest profiteer on transport
contracts for all foreign troops in Iraq.
When the Muslim minority
protested against openly racist statements by a key politician in the
xenofobian Danish People's Party and pictures of prophet Muhammed portraying
him as a terrorist the right wing government supported by the Danish
people's party escalated the conflict further. The prime minister Fogh
refused to meet with a delegation of ambassadors from Muslim countries.
When 27 Danish Muslim communities instead turned to the civil society
in Arab countries to gain support Fogh tried to claim that they were
betraying the country by rhetorically stating that due to juridical
reasons he could not use the world treason although he strongly legitimised
the term traitor in the debate than frequently used by others in the
conflict. When the boycott against Danish products started to have strong
effects Fogh claimed it was a sort of terrorist attack on Denmark by
stating that the boycott was to "seize" Danish workplaces
as "hostages" in a religious conflict. When the conflict escalated
further and Danish embassies was set on fire Fogh condemned the protests
and said what was now needed was dialogue. In this he said he had the
full support from president Bush.
In the opinion polls the
Danish Peoples Party have gained massive support making it bigger than
the social democrats, now at 20% of the electorate, the lowest for almost
a century. Meanwhile the social democrats and the Socialist people's
party have stopped having dialogue with the 27 Danish Muslim communities
by many claimed to be traitors by instigating international protests.
The most left-wing parliamentary party, the red green alliance organise
demonstrations against a small Danish radical Islamistic party. The
Muslim communities have now also been excluded from integration dialogues
set up by the government were they previously were invited. Instead
new Muslim organisations are established based on individual membership
for moderate Muslims that are included in dialogues instead of the Muslim
communities. In the middle of the conflict the third Danish Social Forum
was held five folding the participation since the first time welcoming
1 600 participants. On the xenofobian issue it had no or little political
impact, a result it shared with the many grass roots dialogues initiatives
that are mushrooming. Maybe now a cemetery will be constructed for Muslims,
before they had to bury their dead relatives on church yards and the
200 000 Muslims still have no mosque and dwell instead in basements
and other provisional localities. Across the border in Sweden there
has been a mosque since 1970 but in Denmark the resistance against the
Muslim religion has blocked all attempts so far to create a worthy building
for the great minority.
While the violent protests
have declined the boycott is still in full action. It is people in common
but rich enough to buy dairy products that are the main carriers of
the boycott. Danish fashion companies or the influential shipping company
Maersk with its strong presence in the Middle East has very few problems
they have richer customs or strong relations with governments. It is
more daily products that are targeted causing losses that can exceed
a billion euro. Specially hit is the Danish Swedish company Arla, a
loss that in the end will be paid by family farmers in Denmark and Sweden
already under economic pressure.
Fogh has recently further
escalated the conflict by using a Danish proverb dividing people into
sheep or buck also referring to bow which means that either one behaves
with self respect according to own values or bows to powerful interests.
This is similar to president Bush classical statement either you are
with or against us. Fogh used his proverb to attack the Danish industry
stating they were to luke warm in speaking up against the threat against
Western values of freedom of expression. The answer was that the industry
was in constant contact with the foreign ministry who asked to not be
to outspoken and one Danish multinational company threatened with leaving
Denmark while others have strongly supported well funded international
dialogue initiatives to try to change the image of Danish companies
in Muslim countries and the world. The economic protests of the masses
in the South have some impact on business while the political will of
the public opinion is radicalising further to the right from a position
that already from the outset was to the right.
On the global level the Danish
xenofobian Muhammed conflict have raised problems for the alliance maintaining
the present world order. A crucial factor in this alliance building
has been to mobilise religious forces against secular nationalist and
left wing forces. When the political and economical conditions for the
poor masses in many countries is worsened due to the present world order
the need to maintain an alliance against secular forces that might unite
people is furthermore needed. Thus is now introduced well funded information
programmes against racism, primarily against anti-Semitism but sometimes
also including islamofobic tendencies, both in a way excluding the economic
and political context of racism turning it more into a moral question.
The Danish state funded propaganda against genocide lists Saddam Hussein's
mass murder of Curds in Iraq, includes the communist mass murders/genocides
in Soviet Union and Kampuchea, Nazi genocide of Jews (but not the 15
million civil Slavic Soviet Union victims of the same German genocide),
the nationalist Young Turks genocide on Armenians, Civil war in Yugoslavia
with Bosnian-Serbs as main perpetrators of massmurder of Bosnjaks and
a genocide in Rwanda mysteriously not carried out by any political ideological
force like the others (as the political force behind the genocide was
Christ democratic and thus belonging to the same ideology as members
of the Danish government). In some Arab countries propaganda is made
stating that the genocide of Jews did not exist.
The other method is to try
to introduce an international agreement against blasphemy in the UN
discussed by countries like the US. By at least on paper reintroducing
authoritarian agreements in the West one hopes to dismantle the mass
protests in the Global South and among the local alliances necessary
to maintain Western domination. By making the cultural oppression less
provocative one hopes to maintain the other forms of oppression.
Thus the Danish xenofobian
Muhammed crisis poses a challenge to WSF both in terms of capacity to
mobilise a massive economic boycott and wide participation in protests
while also being a complex issue linking secular and religious, economic
and political, racism and freedom of expression and other questions.
It is ideal to discuss and propose campaigns at the Karachi WSF or the
Amritsar event if those religious organisations interested in alliances
with secular forces opposing xenofobian politics can participate. But
as it looks now both the masses of Pakistan and religious organisation
of this kind have felt excluded by the way the WSF was set up and the
funding for travels from Europe to Karachi for this kind of purposes
is small or non-existent. But the challenge from the mass boycott is
still there and so is the emerging growing aggressive attitude to the
South in some Northern countries that ought to be confronted.
Nairobi and the NGO
system
The next challenge is WSF
in Nairobi 2007. Here the role of NGOs poses a specially strategic issue.
The most recent world-wide campaign launched with the help of WSF is
the campaign to eradicate poverty last year. This campaign was dominated
by Northern NGOs and lacked coherent political content. It has also
been criticised for top-down management rather than democratic participation
in a movement willing to establish political facts by direct actions
like boycotts and not mainly build on professionals lobbying and people
as consumers of campaign events. In what way thus the problems of the
millennium campaign and dominating NGO ways of campaigning needs to
be addressed when WSF moves to Nairobi were NGOs are crucial as a cooperation
partner and people's movements are weak?
Once again Denmark can contribute
an example on the problems ahead. The face of modern Western imperialism
is not only xenofobian or racist attitudes and war but also a more soft
humanitarian image. The way this double face is visually managed is
through presenting to the public through mass media two pictures of
the masses in the third world. On the one hand the violent terrorist,
on the other hand the powerless victim in need of help from generous
rich and democratic people. A realistic self-image including both the
oppressive economic and military global role and the role as welfare
state with freedom of expression to its citizens is replaced by an unquestionably
democratic and benevolent country with generous persons. The real existing
contradictory qualities with this self-image are instead projected on
the masses in the third world. One wonders what will happen when the
image of the omnipotent terrorist and violent masses will conflate with
the image of the weak victims in need of care.
In Denmark there are not
only the picture of prophet Muhammed with a big bomb in his turban printed
in the biggest daily and numerous images of terrorist attacks or violent
demonstrators. There is also the other side of the coin with images
of dark people in need of help. Here NGOs produce some of the most extreme
contributions to the double image. The NGO campaign eradicate poverty
in Denmark have a website were the dominant content are pictures and
the political text is reduced to very short promotions and quotes from
the millennium goals as if they lack controversial content and are unquestionably
good.
The pictures on the website
moves against the viewer. They are portraying eight close-up pictures
of dark faces of babies, children and others in need each illustrating
one of the millennium goals. Only the last picture includes many people,
taken from an angle above and with an empty white bowl reached towards
us above the heads by an appealing dark hand.
This is how a campaign strongly
supported at WSF looks like in Denmark in the hands of NGOs. It is the
result of a long term NGO development both in Denmark but also internationally.
Danish NGOs were especially successful in leaving an international solidarity
culture based on local communities whether they were churches or groups
of political activists behind and establishing a well funded NGO system
dominated by professionals. This has given the result that Danish NGOs
often takes positions very close to the government and even develop
double talk to maintain a position both in international cooperation
with people's movements and NGOs and with their own government. When
People's movements and NGOs joined hands before the WTO Summit in Seattle
1999 Danish NGOs in one moment signed appeals together with other Nordic
movements against expanding WTO while at the same time signing another
appeal for the domestic market stating that they wanted to be involved
in reforming an expanding WTO to the embarrassment of fellow NGOs in
other countries. Being well-funded Danish NGOs supports global NGO programmes
related to UN on questions as sustainability and supports national social
forums in the third world.
In spite of this close relationship
to governmental positions Danish NGOs are under strong pressure from
the present right-wing government. The foreign minister have proposed
to cancel all funding for information to NGOs on third world issues,
in total 3 million euro. Instead all the money should go to practical
aid. This would especially hit organisations that put effort into educating
the public on third world issues and do political campaigning rather
than limiting themselves to charity.
Probably the Danish government
will end up with a more clever way of handling its support to give the
image they see as beneficial than cancel all money to NGO third world
information. To give no support would suddenly make movements based
on voluntary political commitment relatively stronger which would not
help the right if they do not choose full polarisation both at domestic
and global level.
The development in Denmark
is of interest internationally in its intriguing relationships between
business, government, media, NGOs, movements and the public. Danish
NGOs holds a strong position in international NGO cooperation. The way
Danish NGOs handle the central role given to the image of rich democratic
countries as aid donors to the poor is also of relevance to other countries.
It might not only be relevant to international relations but also to
the way NGOs related to oppressed and poor people at the domestic level.
Conclusions
With the Nairobi WSF realistically
giving a central place to NGOs it is of importance to reflect upon the
problems and possibilities for WSF being able to stimulate the making
of proposals and political action. Is it the promotion of new millennium
goal campaigns or starting to ask oneself the hard questions why WSF
tend to make itself irrelevant to civil society mass mobilisation against
white oppression. It is obvious that the present global power relations
makes military opposition to Western domination of the world very difficult
or impossible. Thus protests takes other ways like when a billion Muslims
are culturally portrayed as terrorists in one of the occupying states
in the North. One can portray these protests as of they are the result
of manipulation from questionable governments and political movements
as if campaigns in the North not are equally used by governments and
political parties to their own purposes. One can see it as questionable
that the demonstrations do not react upon the occupation of Iraq and
the war on terrorism. But the fact remains, the mass protests takes
place and they get their very broad support due to the character of
acknowledging the threat against all Muslims, whether poor or rich,
for or against the war against Iraq, which the Danish government and
media represents.
A development in the future
were on the one hand NGO campaigns like the eradicate poverty or formulating
proposals to political parties will dominate WSF while civil society
mass protests outside the control of Northern NGOs are ignored will
make an empty shell out of WSF. In the long run such disinterest in
what the oppressed masses actually are doing represents not only a patronizing
attitude towards oppressed people but also making oneself irrelevant
to solving growing polarisation in the world.
But WSF has already shown
its capacity of being flexible and include new perspectives. In India
2004 WSF included more cultural expressions by oppressed groups in the
middle of the forum and Dalits and others had their agenda more firmly
put into the process. In Denmark the Muslims are the Danish Dalits.
It should not be impossible to make the kind of oppression against immigrants
or other socially underprivileged groups in society a key issue at WSF
in the future also. NGOs are also flexible to a certain degree. When
radical people's movements in the end of the 1990s demanded a strategy
going beyond reformism against international institutions dominated
by the North the NGOs followed suit and did constructive necessary criticism
legitimising radical protests. Although NGOs mostly are dominated by
their professional interests they cannot come to close to governmental
or business positions if they do not want to become irrelevant in their
intermediary role between oppressed masses and power. WSF is built on
an intriguing balance to be able to practically and politically organise
the huge events and the process it carries forward. Whether this cooperation
will be able to become relevant to the masses participating in international
protests against oppression and to politicize the global polarisation
between rich and poor is still an open question. Maybe it can be addressed
already at the Amritsar event and Karachi WSF and it certainly can and
have to be addressed before the Nairobi WSF to make it possible at WSF
to make conscious choices between different kinds of campaigning and
political actors that can challenge the present world order.
Tord Björk is a member of Friends of the Earth
Sweden, Network Institute on Global Democracy and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
Links:
Danish eradicate poverty
image campaign:
http://www.udrydfattigdom.nu/first8.html
The Transnational Foundation
for Peace and Future Research on the Muhammad crisis:
http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/
2006/pi232_Mohammad_1.html
Other texts on this subject
by Tord Björk:
The emerging global NGO system
(in the period between 1972 - 1997):
http://www.folkrorelser.nu/inenglish/stockholm-rio.html
World Social Forum and Popular
Movements Confronting Globalisation (a more long term look at the emergence
of the global justice movement and its class components):
http://www.folkrorelser.nu/socialaforum/
globaljustice&WSF.html
Gandhian and Indian Influence
in the Nordic Countries (including a piece on three different events
in Mumbai 2004):
http://www.folkrorelser.nu/saltmarschen/NordicGandhi.html
More texts in English on
international people's movements at:
http://www.folkrorelser.nu/inenglish/index.html