News » February 11, 2004

U.S. vs. Them

World Social Forum takes aim at empire

By Jeff Conant

More than 100,000 people from all continents gathered mid-January at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, India. Their purpose was to debate and build alternatives to the neoliberal policies and corporate globalization that have left millions marginalized, landless and destitute.

This was a challenging site from which to pronounce the forum’s slogan, “Another World is Possible”: Among Mumbai’s 18 million people are some of the world’s most poor.

But within the filthy industrial complex at the far northern reaches of Mumbai, another world was manifest. On one of the thoroughfares crowded with signs demanding debt cancellation and nuclear disarmament, a Brazilian politician stopped to speak with a French slow-food activist. Next to them, a Swedish health rights advocate in a Chinese Communist Party hat strategized with a doctor from Tanzania.

Demands for peace held together this year’s gathering, something of a change from the first WSF in 2001 that focused almost solely against the neoliberal policies fostered by the World Bank, IMF and WTO. If this year’s gathering promises any single result, it is the fusing of these causes. As Arundhati Roy told the crowd, “There is not a country in the world now that is not caught in the crosshairs of the American cruise missile or the I.M.F. checkbook .”

The first World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland—an annual gathering where CEOs, academics and political leaders chart the global economic agenda in closed rooms high in the Swiss Alps.

Mumbai was in many respects a perfect site for this year’s gathering. The city is both a wealthy spectacle and home to millions of the world’s poorest people, many of whom were displaced from their rural homes by large development projects, such as the infamous dams along the Narmada River, general agricultural crisis or lack of opportunity. Development analyst Devinder Sharma estimates that by 2010 Mumbai will be 80 percent slums.

In a speech to health rights activists, Walden Bello—another luminary in the struggle against global economic apartheid—made it clear that “the number one problem facing the world’s poor today is Washington D.C.” Throughout the winding paths and exhibition halls of the WSF grounds, placards reading “Dump Bush,” “End U.S. Aggression,” and “Down with American Empire” echoed the message.

But the nature of WSF is nonviolent and transformative, and, despite all the history every delegate brings, few remain unchanged during the five-day event. On the last day of the WSF, an Italian woman promoting a campaign to “Defeat Bush” rushed into the media center and informed all present that the campaign was changing its message.

“We are too negative,” she says. “We need a positive message, one that Americans too can agree with. We have decided to change our slogan to ‘A Better America is Possible.’”

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• Reader Comments

  The missiles and the IMF are having their effect on us in the United States also. That is, our workers and poor are rapidly being “equaled out” by lowering wages, ending benefits, reducing services. We of course are not in near as much trouble as those in other countries but we will be if they meet their goals. The “Bring Down Bush” signs are not going to be enough. Those in power are more than just him and his cronies. If Chalmers Johnson is correct and I think he is, we in the USA have lost control of our own military industrial establishment. They are not going to let go of their Empire easily. I think the best hope we have is to peacefully convince them that a truly free world with free nations making their own decisions - not just a “free” market - is more to their advantage than the hate and failure they are building with the present practices of the CIA, Pentagon, Department of Defense, Multinational Corporations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, mainstream media and other very guilty institutions. I am supporting John Kerry because his statements on the issues seem to point to an understanding of this issue and a desire to try to deal with it. However, I wonder if anyone can stop the Empire builders at this late date. Maybe the best we can hope for is a reform of the use and aims of their power. I do hope and pray for better things. I fear the direction my country has taken in the last decades. 

  Posted by Judi Wills on Feb 13, 2004 at 8:42 AM

  “Peacefully convince” empire builders?
  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha thats funny. go back to sleep judi.

  Posted by APRIL 26, 1992 on Feb 14, 2004 at 6:31 PM

  I have not been asleep, my friend, just realistic. I know how helpless we are in face of a force that has NO moral system, no conscience and no concern for people - in their system we are expendable. If you think they cannot wipe us out as fast as they do opposition in other countries think again! I think the real hope is that their ideas are self distructive in the end.

  Posted by Judith A. Wills on Feb 14, 2004 at 7:59 PM

  The World Social Forum is a complete waste of time. It’s just a talkfest where people get together and say, Gee, neoliberalism is bad, how I wish there was an alternative to it!

  In the meantime, the only viable alternative to both state capitalism and laissez-faire - Swedish social democracy - goes wholly neglected. The country with, all round, the highest performance on virtually ever social justice issue should serve as a model for those opposed to neoliberalism, but that fact seems hardly to have penetrated the thickheads who populate the antiglobalization movement.

  Recently, I wrote to the new so called ‘Boston Social Forum’ making this point. Someone from the Forum wrote back to me saying, You seem to have mistaken us for someone that gives a fuck (about creating a better world).

  For all we know, these Social Forum talkshops are designed to keep the left uncertain about what to do.

  Another world is possible? For fuck’s sake, one already exists - bruised and battered, to be sure, but better than anything else on offer. It should form the basis for any realistic alternative to laissez-faire.

   

  Posted by James Paterson on Feb 16, 2004 at 3:56 AM

  made it clear that “the number one problem facing the world’s poor today is Washington D.C.”

  Didn’t offer any proofs did he?

  Don’t think famine is a big problem?

  Over-population? 

  Ethnic/tribal warfare?

  Pollution?

  If these are recognized as genuine major problems of the poor, please advise of their primacy in Washington DC.

  Posted by Nus on Feb 18, 2004 at 11:53 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 11 posts.

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