The future of the Forum
By Luis Stephanou*
This is the last bulletin you will receive about the 4th WSF. Actually, it is not about the event anymore, but rather about what might come next. Which consequences can we expect from this edition on? Which is its future? Well, it seems to me that there are certainties and uncertainties. As for, say, the forum’s format, I think there is a near consensus that from now on there will be one edition in Porto Alegre and another one somewhere else. There’s no reason to keep a world meeting always in the same city.
Besides, I don’t think the event will keep its current frequency. In this pace, its financial maintenance is very difficult and human resources put on the (many) organizational activities are also highly significant. It might not even happen every two years in the future. Another point is to strengthen regional forums (by continent and even by country, as in the case of Brazil).
Such stretching of the forum might be positive also for social movements’ agenda. They survive without the forum, but the forum depends on those movements and organisations to gain strength. After all, it is much more of a space for debate than political articulation. Its stretching might also contribute to diminish the repetitive character of many discussions.
The idea of Porto Alegre versus Davos is somewhat bygone. I understand that the forum’s crucial role now is no longer to focus on the criticism to neoliberal policies, but rather to contribute to the post-neoliberalism agenda – at least that is what planetary civil society needs to build.
There are several discourses and events against globalisation in the World Social forum. Nevertheless, would they be against globalisation or against some kind of globalisation? Is it possible to escape that? That is, if we can put it like that… Are there possibilities for a new hegemony, or for widening the cracks in this exclusionary model? How can that be operated in political and social terms? Those are questions the debates at the forum cannot escape from, even though I understand that this is not the only place to build alternatives. Well, those are questions that remain.
I would like to close this series of bulletins by expressing my gratitude to the team of the Lutheran Foundation of Diaconia, especially to journalist Susanne Buchweitz. You can’t imagine, but the rearguard work to send, edit, and distribute the bulletins was not always an easy task. Even so – with some mistakes and delays (they were inevitable) – I think we succeeded in producing good material. From the beginning, the idea was to comment on aspects of issues more from the kitchen than the large room.
In January 2005 the forum will be in Porto Alegre. I hope every one can take part. For now, I’ll travel around India for a few more weeks. I’ll try to know a little of this shocking and fascinating country. As the Indians say: namastê!
*Programme assistant of the Lutheran Foundation of Diaconia.
