Blogging the WSF

Mumbai, Jan 19 - Michael Albert is exhausted. We're all exhausted. Portions of my brain are definitely shutting themselves down.

First something very good. Last night I went to the launch party in a hotel half an hour away of a new book about the WSF - 'World Social Forum: Challenging Empires' - edited by Jai Sen, Anita Anand, Arturo Escobar and Peter Waterman. It's a stupendous collection of essays, documents and statements, a critical self-consideration of the WSF process by a variety of people. Published by theViveka Foundation in Delhi (tel: 91-11-2649 2473, ) it's an absolutely unmissable book for anyone interested in the WSF. Irene Santiago and Hilary Wainwright open the collection and Anita Anand contributes introductions to each section (if only the WSF panels matched the gender balance in this book). I've only read a few pieces and dipped into the rest, but am staggered by it. It's brilliant and ground-breaking and a major cultural achievement.

Something not so good. Sat in on last night's meeting of the social movements (called the Activists' Assembly here), to see how these things are done. Walking in with an anti-war activist, heard her exclaim in surprise and horror: 'this is an activists' assembly?' These words conjured up for us a large circle of chairs for equal discussion. We were in Hall Four, with too many people for a circle to be sure, using the same dias used for the huge WSF Panels. The presentations started late (as all over the WSF) and by the time the 'introductory speeches' ended and the discussion was opened to the floor, it was nearly 8pm, when the session was supposed to close. I left at 8.30 and I'm sure it continued, but at that point there had been maybe 9 contributions from the floor.

I admire the organisers, and the contribution they make to the movement is phenomenal, and the speeches were (mostly) enlightening, but as an opportunity for social movement activists to learn from Cancun and identify the elements for a new strategy for the next period, it seemed pretty top-down, and not really 'globalization from below'. Perhaps 'globalization from Bello' would be a mischievous and unfair characterization (I thought he was brilliant by the way - his analysis of Doha and Cancun, and his warnings about the period ahead). I'm left with the feeling that much of the WSF process is like this: very good people, very good intentions, largely one-way communication, a lack of structured debate and a mysterious process of decision-making somewhere off stage.

The mysterious process of decision-making was definitely on-stage today, as the General Assembly of the Global Anti-War Movement. To me, an 'assembly' sounds like somewhere anti-war activists debate issues and reach decisions. The day was described as a 'strategy day'. I've already argued in an earlier blog that 'strategy' ought to mean setting objectives and figuring out how to get there, not just identifying important issues and deciding on particular actions in relation to them.

Well, by these standards, it wasn't really an assembly, and it wasn't really a strategy day. Again, I admire the organisers, am awed by their commitment and their contribution to the global movements, and think they are Good People. At the same time, we ended up with a lot of panel speakers speaking for way longer than they were allotted, a disconnected stream of announcements and opinions from the floor, and no real sense of either an emerging consensus or identified objectives.

One issue, raised by Rania Masri of the US, myself, Alberto Fabio of Italy's Un Ponte Per, and Herbert Docena of Focus on the Global South, at different times during the day was the need to expose the phoney process of 'sovereignty transfer' which is starting up in Iraq (bitterly contested by many Iraqis, as all of you are probably better aware than us living in the WSF bubble-world). Herbert's written a good backgrounder http://www.fpif.org/papers/collaborator2003.html and I've written about the flaws in the US-imposed process on the Justice Not Vengeance website: http://www.j-n-v.org/AW_briefings/JNV_briefing051.htm . This US maneouvre should have been a central focus for discussion.

The demand for free elections in Iraq (which is in another way a demand for the end of US Occupation) should be a central demand. It wasn't picked up, despite Rania, myself and Fabio all emphasising it. Fabio commented afterwards that it was striking the three of us have all spent time in Iraq over the past years, during the period of the anti-sanctions campaign, which perhaps gives some urgency to the need to 'prioritise human security' in Iraq, as he put it in one of his interventions.

Herbert said at the end: if the US convinces the world that their sovereignty scam is legitimate, the anti-occupation movement is 'over', because people will believe the occupation has ended. That's how important it is.

I can't blame anyone else for the fact this stuff wasn't picked or for many of the other kinds of flaws - I went to one of the organizing meetings before the Assembly started, and pretty much nodded the draft agenda through, like everyone else.

Lots of interesting contributions, the reports of national experiences of February 15 and the September demos were very worthwhile (maybe we should have started with these?). They even demonstrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo when the war started! Astounding. A Congo speaker emphasised a point made by Jeremy Corbyn, that 3 million people have died in the war there, which is largely over the mineral wealth of Congo, with rival armies backed by rival corporations. One key element is coltan, used in mobile phones and Playstations.

The decision-making process for the final statement at 5pm or so - when everyone was really tired from a day of talking that began at 10am - was almost funny in its awfulness. Proposers proposed. The chair (from the UK) sometimes said, without asking for a show of hands, 'There isn't a consensus for that,' closing the discussion.

Why do we use the word 'consensus' if we're not prepared to go through the rigours of consensus decision-making? I think consensus is brilliant; it's not always appropriate, but where more appropriate than WSF?

Participatory? I don't think the WSF processesare really participatory in a democratic sense, but it is open, and it is full of mutual respect (almost everywhere), and that is so valuable you forgive all the other problems.