REPORT.103 The Mumbai World Social Forum: Alternative Futures from the Grassroots

Jose Maria Ramos Australian Foresight Institute Australia

I recall an Indian proverb saying that, as all rivers What is the WSF and Why Does It Exist? find the same ocean, so too do all paths reach the same source. Perhaps this is a fitting analogy for the World The WSF is a global meeting of thinkers, artists, Social Forum (WSF), the fourth of which was recently writers, activists, documentarists and organisations, held in Mumbai India from the 16th - 21st of January. who come together in an "open space" format to dis- For as each of the over 130,000 droplets arrived by cuss the world's most pressing challenges and inhuman- plane, train, rickshaw, bicycle and by foot, they began ities. The WSF is more specifically a challenge to the self-organising into streams, thousands of organisations mono-logic (and assumed ortho-doxy) of neo-liberal emerged and merged into rivers of social movements, economics, the "Washington consensus" and its hand- which finally came together at the WSF to form an maidens, the IMF, World Bank and other programs that ocean of humanity united under the banner "another extend the power of a global corporate elite under the world is possible." While the WSF is a global event and misnomer of "development". deals with global scale problems, issues and challenges, The roots of the type of corporatist development it is driven from the grass roots. If the WSF is an ocean, being critiqued at the WSF can be traced back to the every "droplet" comes from a grassroots network, post-Bretton-Woods world economic order as framed organisation and the activism, involvement and educa- by the allied victors of WWII and, more specifically, 80-s tion of individuals. Unlike other global events, UN meet- neo-liberalism pushing-through the successive GATT ings, WTO ministerials, the (General Agreement of Trade and Tariffs) "accords" as a (WEF) in Davos, where the halls of power are guarded way of eliminating trade barriers and of de-nationalising by body guards, and where a PhD, $30,000 or a govern- industries and resources.1 This led to and almost ubiqui- ment position are the minimum "accessories" for a tick- tous series of protests against the privatisation of et into the debate, the WSF draws from the "wretched resources in former colonial states and / or developing of the earth", the rich soil from which humanity springs. countries. For decades, grassroots movements emerged It is more appropriate to say that the WSF is a grass- throughout the "South" to protest World Bank projects roots event at the global level. The WSF is a culmination that displaced indigenous peoples, IMF structural of decades in the development of localised activism, adjustment programs that undermined public welfare organisation and education, the blossoming of local and and health systems, and global financial speculation that regional civil society into an emergent global civil socie- wrecked havoc on smaller economies, their currencies ty. It has become a grassroots global debate on the and stock markets. futures of humankind through a new blending between In the 90-s, the word globalisation came into the local and the global. vogue, describing a series of interconnecting phenome- na surrounding corporate globalisation, information

Journal of Futures Studies, May 2004, 8(4): 103 - 110 Journal of Futures Studies

communications technology systems, trans- sation, then what do you want?" In all fairness, nationalisation, a global "information economy", dozens of alternatives to corporate globalisa- "economic democracy" and the like. Much of tion have existed for years, but in an effort to this literature assumed a neo-liberal and corpo- create mass awareness of the problems within ratist understanding, that a global free market globalisation (which has largely been success- system was finally bringing the world together ful), "anti-globalists" picked up a very negative in a "golden straitjacket" and would ultimately media spin. help to modernise the "under-developed" In an effort to shift the debate from what world. What this literature missed or omitted globalisation social activists were against to the were the other "globalisations" under way, the proposals, visions, and alternatives that could globalisation of environmental issues which address the issues, one of the front-line groups increasingly cross borders, the globalisation of in the debate, Attac France, headed by Bernard security concerns, the globalisation of human Cassens, together with the Brazilian Workers rights movements against corporate and state Party, jointly proposed holding a "World Social crimes, the globalisation of consciousness, Forum" that would be open to the many people which challenges ethnocentric versions of reali- and groups that deserve to have a say in globali- ty and nation-based governance, and the emer- sation, but who are locked out of the elite halls gence of global civil society. of the WTO, WEF / Davos. The WSF would also The nascent anti-globalisation movement coincide with the World Economic Forum and which emerged in grass-roots form in the South be a contrast and parody of it. At the WEF, self- (although there were increasing signs that the appointed CEO "representatives" at $30,000 a UN-generated World Summits prepared the ter- head and other government functionaries come rain for these, especially the Copenhagen Social together to discuss global economic issues, development Summit in 1995 and others), while activists outside beg to have a voice in the emerged in full bloom in suburban USA in the debate, while at the WSF all people with a stake form of the "Battle of Seattle". By '99, corporate in globalisation are accepted, becoming part of globalisation was no longer just a threat to an open debate on the futures of the planet and indigenous peoples, but was also identified as a the direction of human development. threat to the "suburban north", their unions, Organised in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001- democracies, ecosystems, and human rights. 3, the first three WSFs were a huge success, Thus, a global anti-globalisation movement attracting thousands of people from all around focused strategically on putting the issue on the the world, from about 10,000 in the first forum map by targeting the major meeting places to 100,000 in the third. Because of the ethos of where neo-liberalism unfolds: the meetings of inclusion, open-ness to exploration of alterna- the World Trade Organisation, the World tives, respect for diversity and non-violence, the Economic Forum / Davos, for example, in the WSF attracted a dazzling and prolific number of hope that the media might cover such protests. progressive groups, activists, artists and thinkers. And yet, the WSF, which has had remark- Anti-global or Alter-global? able success in coordinating local-global The protest movement was successful at activism and become one of the key platforms putting the question mark on these processes for the proposal of renewed visions, innova- in the public mind, but was quickly character tions and alternatives for a more humane and assassinated by conventional media channels, sustainable world, has been given only the most protesters typified as disruptive activists, "anti" token and patronising references by the media. development Luddites, anarchistic misfits, and CNN for example, simply said in under 15 sec- the like. One criticism that emerged was the onds that "thousands of anti-globalisation pro- question: "If you don't want neo-liberal market testors meet in Mumbai" - end of story. 104 integration, if you are against corporate globali- In sharp contrast to the US media, which The Mumbai World Social Forum

has shifted to the right over past decades,2 The time, that is bound to come. In any case, I Times India gave daily coverage of the event, don't think we should look at one alternative. That would be as bad as the neo-conservative quite sympathetically. But true to its tabloid vision. We need many alternatives to choose roots, when a scandal emerged involving a from. And in future, I am sure, we shall see a South African Judge and WSF participant over whole new set of alternatives that will bring an alleged rape, the paper was quick to shift together many of the single-issue movements much of its coverage on to the scandal, which we are seeing around us. I suspect that many was - in the end - exposed as false anyway. movements are moving towards new visions Besides transcending the banality of the global and new analytic frames; only the dying media empires and their deliberate distortion of movements, mostly guided by European social what counts as world events, one of the key thought sired by the age of imperialism, strategic points in the movement is to win the believe that they have the final clue to history. 3 struggle over globalisation "nomenclature". This camp's thinking sees the WSF as an How the issues are presented depends on the opportunity for mutual learning, deepening nature of the named and the "namer". connections, understanding, out of which will "Anti-globalisation protesters" has a nasty spring synthesis. And yet, the WSF would not ring to it, as do images of anarchists throwing exist if it were not for the drive and strategic rocks at armed police and other stereotypes commitment of a multiplicity of social move- typical of Hollywood's media culture of pack- ments, from women's empowerment, to the aged icons and archetypes. Particularly from the landless peasants, to Dalit rights, to the interna- vantage point of your average suburban sitting tional socialists and the greens. Success, defined at home with his or her children, one would in a variety of ways, has therefore been predi- want to stay as far away as possible from these cated on social movement - organised and dangerous and savage activists who block strategic social action. streets, chant loudly and destroy global fran- chises, like Starbucks and McDonalds. Yet the Alternatives and Innovations struggle over globalisation nomenclature has seen a first victory in France, where the initially One of the aspects of the WSF that makes harsh portrayal now has a softer ring to it: it a unique advancement over the predomi- "Alter-globalisation movement". In contrast to nance of critique in the globalisation debate is rowdy "anti-globalisation protesters", these its emphasis on looking for alternative futures "alter-globalists" are more thoughtful, forward to economic globalisation, the search for and looking (in some cases visionary), caring and, discussion of the various innovations and social most importantly, they offer viable alternatives alternatives for a sustainable and humane to corporate globalisation. world. Because of the WSF's connection to the anti-globalisation movement and years in the practice of critique, it seems that such alterna- A Movement or a Forum? tives have been slow to emerge. Such a forward There has been tension between those looking approach normally requires people to that believe that the WSF should be a social let go of their single issue focus identity politics movement or a "movement of movements" and and begin to formulate shared visions and those that believe that remaining a forum is the shared alternative futures. This is not easy with only way to maintain inclusivity, communication ten stakeholders, let alone one hundred or a and exploration. For example, Ashis Nandy, hundred thousand of them! Ashis Nandy, on the when discussing the implications of the WSF, other hand, seemed to feel that such an ecology said that: of alternatives will emerge organically through A social movement by itself will not be an deep participation. A number of groups have alternative. A social movement has to trigger for years been hard at work developing such an alternative political and social processes. In ecology of alternatives. 105 Journal of Futures Studies

The World Forum of Alternatives, headed Corporations had become too powerful, too by famed Egyptian economist Samir Amin, influential over governments and too ready to launched a "Directory of Social Movements" behave with impunity. Two decades after the aimed at facilitating the self organisation of the Bhopal disaster, which killed 20,000 thousand various social movements into a more coherent people, activists were on hand to present their blueprint for alternative economic develop- ongoing struggle to hold Union Carbide and ment. The Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and Dow Chemical to account for their neglect of United World, otherwise known as Alliance 21, basic safety.7 Participants spoke about how to a progress network of social innovators, has for end 'Corporate-State' collusion and about creat- over a decade been developing alternatives to ing alternative business structures that are economic globalisation through a participatory responsive to local citizen concerns. approach that links a diverse network of organi- The alternative presented by George sations and stakeholders. They have recently Monbiot was for the formation of a World published a comprehensive booklet of propos- Parliament to accurately reflect the will of all als and they were associated with 25 work- people, as opposed to a UN which reflected shops on issues ranging from developing a only the will of a minority in an un-democratic World Parliament to Media and Globalisation fashion. He argued that, as Corporations, and a new Charter of Human Responsibilities.4 helped by the IMF, have already succeeded in The International Forum on Globalisation (IFO), becoming the de-facto policy makers for based in San Francisco, is a loose network of nations and determine global economic policy, many of the stars of the "alternative globalisa- we ought to set up a World Parliament as the tion movement" and have worked for almost a legitimate forum for alternative and democratic decade touring various regions in an ongoing global policy-making. Such a parliament would feedback process of developing coherent alter- have symbolic power, as a critique of the illegiti- natives to corporate globalisation. They offered macy of current global governance and as the a 10 point blueprint for a sustainable and most proportionally representative body of humane world, as well as the key reforms need- world opinion.8 ed.5 Attac, a largely European network, have In response to the trend towards com- spearheaded the adoption of the Tobin Tax modification and marketisation of everything, (Attac France) and media innovation (Attac an important thread in the movement has ), through a proposal for developing a emerged for the creation of a global commons, world television station to cover the WSF and formulating a "hands off" for certain aspects of alternative globalisation movements. life which should never be under private con- One of the dominant themes in the move- trol. This included protecting as public ment toward alternatives seems to be localisa- resources fresh water, oceans, biodiversity, tion or subsidiarity. This refers to the devolution human knowledge and wisdom, indigenous of power to the local, the preferencing of local knowledge, the gene pool, a global atmospher- economic and social development, rather than ic commons, medicinal plants and other aspects a global scope for development through multi- of daily life needed for subsistence, but which nationals or large government interventions. are under threat through corporate monopoli- Colin Hines, the resident expert on localisation, sation via the WTO-backed TRIPs agreement was on hand to offer a vision of the future in (Trade Related Intellectual Property).9 A global which communities had retaken control of their commons has been particularly significant for capacity to determine the direction of their AIDS campaigners, whose efforts to develop a development6 and Michael Albert spoke about cheap and generic AIDS retro-virus has been sti- the need for a participatory economic system fled by pharmaceutical patents protected by that respected and responded to the needs of TRIPs, despite the severity of the crisis in poor workers, called Parecon. countries. 106 There was general consensus that The seeds of a 21st century global peace The Mumbai World Social Forum

movement has emerged through the successive Freedom Movement) promoted self transforma- WSFs. The nascent power of this new global tion as a pathway toward global transformation. peace architecture was witnessed in 2003 as Groups sought to address religious intolerance over 15 million people united on the 15th of and create a bridge between multiple faith tra- March against the US' illegitimate attack on Iraq, ditions. A huge photo display contrasted the coordinated at the 3rd WSF in Porto Alegre. The systematic persecution and subsequent geno- newer post-Cold War peace movements are cide of Jews by Nazi Germany to the systematic merging with older ones: the Cold War era anti- persecution and increasing xenophobia of nuke campaigns, many of them still informed by Muslim's being promoted by the Indian state of the Hiroshima experience, and colonial Gujarat. The Churches' Auxiliary for Social "Gandhian era" peace movements. New initia- Action held a panel on combating religious tives like Controlarms.org aim to create a global intolerance through conflict resolution. Groups legal framework to control and limit the global promoting "post-conventional" awareness were arms trade. very much at home at the WSF, offering work- Ecological sustainability is a key concern at shops, such at Shikshantar on "unlearning", Art the WSF, with numerous workshops on alterna- of Living on "building a sustainable society", and tives production systems and infrastructural Akhil Bhartiya Rachnatmak Samaj on "humanity designs such as organic farming, parabolic above nationality". An emphasis on spiritual cookers, "green" closed loop manufacturing, development, therefore, grounded much of the alternative energy systems, alternative trans- workshops from a place of deep love and portation, eco-cities and eco-villages. Yet much transpersonal awareness. of the discourse on ecological sustainability had Much of the conference was dominated by a global and macro-logical perspective, critical conferences and workshops on global econom- of consumerist globalisation, "endless growth" ic reform. Groups, such as CADTM, Jubilee modernism, and focussed on finding global South, ActionAid and other networks campaign- scale alternatives to today's ecological chal- ing and working for the end of odious debt, lenges. Founder of The Ecologist Edward organised and sponsored a variety of confer- Goldsmith, for example, said that the potential ences and workshops. A multitude of free trade impact of global warming would force us to agreements (FTAs) were under attack, and completely rethink economics and agriculture groups also took aim at how IMF engineered in the 21st century. "structural adjustment programs" have wreaked Another core theme at the WSF was the havoc on smaller economies by allowing the apparent globalisation of human rights move- privatisation of industries and resources and ments, with Indian Dalit (untouchables) merging thus have undermined the capacity for govern- with Japanese Burakumin and other de-human- ments to fund primary services like education, ised groups from around the world, in solidarity health care, utilities and transport. against the structural violence they have faced There was a concerted effort to look at for centuries. The confluence of these untouch- current problems in global governance and the ables with other groups such as the Brazilian modern nation state system's failure to create Landless Peasants movement, indigenous the conditions for equitable trade, lasting Mayan rights movement and the thousands of peace, food security, arms control and environ- other human rights groups present at the WSF mental protections. CIDSE International augurs the emergence of a higher order global Cooperation for Development and Solidarity voice for the dispossessed in the spirit of hosted a presentation on how to re-distribute William Irwin Thompson's "Gaia Politique". wealth and power globally. IBASE (Instituto Indian groups, such as Ananda Marga pro- Brasileiro de Analises Socias e Economicas) held moted their Progressive Utilization Theory a conference on combating unilateralism and (PROUT), Nayi Azadi Abhiyan (New Global reforming the . 107 Journal of Futures Studies

WSF from a Macro-historical Perspective in countries around the world, in particular in those nations where people have the right to Some have commented on the historical freely associate. From less than a thousand or dimensions of the WSF. Immanuel Wallerstein so INGOs at the beginning of the 20th century, sees the WSF as yet another "anti-systemic" we have witnessed the birth of more than movement, the most recent in a long series of 40,000 by the end of the century. We have seen anti-systemic movements aimed at countering nothing less than the birth of a "third sector", and finding alternatives to the march of the which has become a social force along side the world economic system under capitalism. two other well known sectors, government and Wallerstein remains cautious in giving the WSF business. This has led to the growth of civil soci- too much significance, as other anti-systemic ety at the global scale.11 Yet, questions remain movements through-out the 500 year history of whether this third sector can become a global capitalist imperialism have failed to live up to civil society with sufficient influence to counter their promise. The question here is how differ- the vast power of economic globalisation and ent this "movement of movements" is from provide counter-balance and coherent and other "anti-systemic" movements throughout visionary alternatives. history and whether it can transcend - and learn from - the mistakes and limitations of past movements. Reform or Revolution? Using Arnold Toynbee's conception of cri- Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz was sis and response, the WSF represents a dramat- greeted with warm applause and gave a speech ic and multi-civilisational attempt by a creative outlining how the IMF should be reformed to minority to respond to the multiplicity of chal- make it more accountable and responsive and lenges being forced upon the world through open to alternative development approaches, capitalist globalisation. The radical nature of the while outside, on the WSF "streets", large ban- proposals, from policy shifts, new narratives to ners ubiquitously called for the complete spiritual initiatives, demonstrates an all-out decommissioning of the IMF and the World attempt to avert disaster and save humanity Bank. The argument over the future of the IMF from falling further into dehumanisation and reveals a bigger debate at the WSF between un-sustainability. The question here is whether advocates of reform, advocates of radical this creative minority can organise itself effec- change and even those that advocate revolution tively enough to lay the blueprints for a better, (ie the Marxist "umbai Resistance" that boy- more humane and sustainable global civilisa- 10 cotted the WSF). It occurred to me sometime tion. through the conference, however, that the From the perspective of Teilhard de movements, ideas and proposals at WSF were Chardin, the Jesuit scholar and mystic, the WSF radical only in so far as they challenged the can be looked at as a further development of a bankrupt logic of economic neo-liberalism and "oosphere", whereby minds across regions are offered alternatives that most educated US increasingly linked in global consciousness and economists would consider strange. Ideas like a spiritual community is born out of the evolu- spiritual development, localisation, parabolic tionary process of humankind. The question micro-heaters, global consciousness and a glob- here is whether the WSF can foster and nurture al commons and micro-lending defy the stan- a spiritual community in global solidarity, or if it dard model. Yet within the walls of NESCO devolves into self-absorbed and narrow identity grounds, an ecology of alternatives was forming politics. Whether the WSF can further nurture and people generally understood each other, this type of spiritualisation and emergence of finding within the debate strangeness and famil- global consciousness. iarity, innovation and novelty yet appropriate- Finally, the WSF represents the culmina- ness, depending on the context and the crisis. 108 tion of the exponential rise of NGOs and INGOs The WSF represents radical change, but not vio- The Mumbai World Social Forum

lent revolution. Perhaps the WSF, within its communication-intensive climate, is more akin to an evolutionary shift in paradigms for human development. The ecology of alternatives and visions at the WSF represented a debate on human development that deeply challenges the current paradigm for human development based on a puritanically promoted economic model. Within this emerging alternative para- digm of human development, communication was possible, emerging slowly, coming togeth- er, networks gradually forming. Like it or not, the WSF, for the most part, represents a radical shift in human development and the futures of globalisation. The forum is therefore made for those who believe that another world is possi- ble and that ordinary people can create a sus- tainable and humane world of co-existence, from the grassroots up.

Correspondence Jose Maria Ramos Swinburne University of Technology P.O. Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria Australia 3122 [email protected]

Notes 1. Monbiot, G. The Age of Consent, Flamingo, 2003. 2. Frank, Thomas One Market Under God, Anchor Press 2001 3. J. Ramos interview of Ashis Nandy, Melbourne Australia 2003. 4. see: www.alliance21.org 5. see: www.ifg.org 6. Hines, Colin Localisation: a global manifesto, Earthscan, UK 2000. 7. see: www.bhopal.net 8. Monbiot, George The Age of Consent, Flamingo, London 2003. 9. International Forum on Globalisation, Alternatives to Economic Globalisation: A better world is possible, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco 2002. 10. Galtung J & Inayatullah S Macrohistory and Macrohistorians Praeger 1997. 11. see: Union of International Associations www.uia.org 109 Journal of Futures Studies

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