May/June 2006

Featured Story

Alternative Globalization: The World Social Forum in Venezuela

By Paul R. Dekar

Photo courtesy of Paul Dekar

The World Social Forum (WSF) is an open process that invites social movements, networks, non-governmental and nonprofit groups, and other civil society organizations to gather under the banner, “another world is possible.” The WSF has met for the past six years – four times in Porto Alegre, Brazil; once in Mumbai, India; and, this year, 2006, it adopted a “polycentric” format, holding three regional meetings on different continents: in Caracas, Venezuela and Bamako, Mali during January, and in Karachi, Pakistan in late March.

In a relatively short period of time, the WSF has taken the form of a permanent world process. Attending the meetings in Caracas between January 24-29, I experienced the central point of unity of the WSF, which has been summarized well by Naomi Klein, who observed that the WSF is a movement of “one no and many yeses.”

This phrase captures the diversity of a movement in pursuit of varied agendas. On the one hand, the WSF opposes one path of globalization: the neo-liberal policies of international financial institutions, such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, and the proliferation of free trade agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas. On the other hand, the WSF puts forward an alternative process of globalization at the service of social justice, equality, and the sovereignty of people. The WSF attempts to respect universal human rights of all citizens of all nations and the environment. It seeks to promote democratic international systems and institutions. It encourages progressive undertakings, such as improvements in public health, small-scale worker-controlled enterprises, community-controlled schools, women’s rights, the rights of aboriginal peoples, and many other causes.

The movement’s guiding document, the Charter of Principles, approved by an International Council in June 2001, has invited the widest possible participation of groups, movements, and individuals. The three forums this year drew between 90,000-150,000 participants, according to organizers. More than 60,000 registered delegates came to Caracas – some estimated participation was closer to 100,000 – from over 160 countries. After an opening parade, during which delegations marched with the flags of their countries or colorful banners of their organizations, participants attended over 2,000 forums, panel discussions, presentations, or meetings, and over 200 cultural presentations in a variety of venues scattered throughout the city.

As a framework for the exchange of experiences, the WSF encourages understanding and mutual recognition among its participant groups, movements, and individuals. It places special value on meeting the needs of people and on respecting nature, in the present and for future generations. Through blogs, Web sites, and other means, the WSF seeks to disseminate ideas and circulate proposals for bettering the world without directing, hierarchizing, censuring, or restricting them. In Caracas, a “mural of proposals” offered many ideas for sustainable energy sources, grassroots development, health, education, and other positive social agendas, each accompanied by opportunities to discuss, read documents, and weigh pros and cons.

The process has offered no program of political action. Nonetheless, the gathering took place at a time when a number of left-leaning governments have come to power throughout Latin America, most recently in January 2006 in Bolivia and Chile. Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chávez, has achieved international fame for his socialist pronouncements in the past two years, is home to a revolutionary process that has brought education and healthcare to millions through the redistribution of its significant oil profits.

Better to understand what was at stake in the host country, I accompanied a Global Exchange delegation that visited clinics, stores, and factories in two barrios (neighborhoods), Boqueron and Catie. We met pro-Chávez and anti-Chávez groups. We talked with ordinary people. In my case, a family invited me to their home. Amal and Gerardo, both 46, shared that, until Hugo Chávez ascended to the presidency of Venezuela in 1999, they had had minimal education and medical care and had never been to a dentist. Now, Amal is studying at university with her daughters Rebecca and Mari Carmen; Gerardo has a thriving business.

The size and format of the Caracas WSF make it difficult to analyze the event. I returned to my home in Memphis, Tennessee with serious questions about the process. How can the WSF’s base act globally when the process is so deliberately diverse and most participants are preoccupied with their local and sectoral concerns? How can the elite of the movement, however much it talks of solidarity with the oppressed, truly represent the very people who could never afford to attend such an event?How can a global movement dedicated to improving the lives of the marginalized of the world avoid the stark class, gender, and even racial imbalances that sometimes seemed evident? How can Venezuela progress when cheap oil fuels pollution and other problems?

Notwithstanding these concerns, dreamers seeking to make the world better seemed strengthened by the exhilarating experience of global solidarity in their local struggles for justice, peace, freedom, and the integrity of creation. Many participants, myself included, have returned home renewed in a commitment to reverse the growing gap between the world’s rich and poor, to address the environmental crisis, to act on behalf of human rights of people, to care especially for children, and in many instances to bring a deep spirituality to bear on all these problems. If only briefly and in microcosm,the Beloved Community – of which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke so powerfully – became a reality at the World Social Forum.

Paul R. Dekar is a professor at Memphis Theological Seminary and a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s National Council. He is also the author of Creating the Beloved Community: A Journey with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, available from FOR.

Ed. Note: The next World Social Forum will be held in Nairobi, Kenya,
from January 20-25, 2007.

©2006 Fellowship of Reconciliation