Mosaic of actions takes shape as World Social Forum ends

by Mario Osava

PORTO ALEGRE, 30 Jan 2001: The World Social Forum drew to a close on 30 January in this southern Brazilian city with an “appeal for mobilization,” indicating that the mosaic of ideas and struggles of thousands of civil society organizations is beginning to coalesce.

The Porto Alegre Appeal for Mobilization, signed by representatives of 144 organizations from around the world, summarizes the ideas and proposals adopted by consensus during six days of debate.

The document is an exhortation to fight “the hegemony of finance, the destruction of our cultures, the monopolization of knowledge and of the mass communications media, the degradation of nature and the destruction of quality of life.”

These negative actions, according to the text, are carried out “by transnational corporations and anti-democratic policies.”

Delegates to this first-ever World Social Forum, a global gathering of trade unions, social movements, NGOs and progressive-minded intellectuals, decided that the event will be held in Porto Alegre again next year.

In 2003, however, the Forum will be organized for some other location, one that has the best possible conditions, announced Kjeld Jakobsen, leader of Brazil’s Sole Central of Workers and one of this year’s event organizers.

The date will continue to coincide with the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, which draws political, financial and corporate leaders together each year, usually in January.

The delegates in Porto Alegre are promoting the organization of additional, regional social forums to be spearheaded by local NGOs.

The signatories of the Appeal demand “the unconditional cancellation” of the foreign debt for the nations of the developing South, along with reparations for “the historic, social and ecological debts” of the wealthy countries.

The text states that international financial transactions must be taxed in order to contain speculation, and that the global trade system must ensure full employment, food security and fair terms of exchange.

Meanwhile, the world’s borders must be opened for the free circulation of peoples, instead of just for merchandise and money, as is the current case, agreed the civil society organizations.

Among the demands of rural workers and small farm owners, the document calls for democratic agrarian reform, and states that land, water and seeds must be put in the hands of the peasants. It also demands a ban on the use of genetically modified organisms and of patents on life forms.

Facing heavy criticism from the World Social Forum participants was Plan Colombia, President Andres Pastrana’s anti-drug trade initiative for his country. The Appeal for Mobilization indicates that the plan represents United States intervention in Latin America, and signatories reached a consensus in condemning military action as a way to resolve conflict.

The document expresses solidarity with indigenous and African peoples, and states that without equality among men and women, activists will not be able to create “another possible world,” the theme of the Forum.

These positions will serve to unite “the fragments of our struggle,” commented Candido Grzybowski, director of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis, a member of the Forum’s National Organizing Committee.

In reality, the Porto Alegre Appeal does not constitute a final declaration approved by all social forces present at the Forum.

The meeting was not deliberative and a single final document would be “impoverished in its attempt to synthesize the diversity of ideas and proposals” that were expressed in the 400 workshops and 16 panels that constituted the Forum, Grzybowski pointed out. (IPS)