LOOKING BACK
The first World Social Forum in 2001 ushered in the new century with a bold affirmation: “Another world is possible.” That gathering in Porto Alegre, Brazil, stood as an alternative and a challenge to the World Economic Forum, held at the same time an ocean away in the snowy Alps of Davos, Switzerland. A venue for power elites to set the course of world development, the WEF was then, and remains now, the symbol for global finance, unchecked capitalism, and the control of politics by multinational corporations.
The WSF, by contrast, was created as an arena for the grassroots to gain a voice. The idea emerged from a 1999 visit to Paris by two Brazilian activists, Oded Grajew, who was working on corporate social responsibility, and Chico Whitaker, the executive secretary of the Commission of Justice and Peace, an initiative of the Brazilian Catholic Church. Incensed by the ubiquitous, uncritical news coverage of Davos, they met with Bernard Cassen, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, who encouraged them to organize a counter-Davos in the Global South. With support from the government of Rio Grande do Sul, a committee of eight Brazilian organizations launched the first WSF. The expectation was that about 3,000 people attend (the same as Davos), but instead 20,000 activists from around the world came to Porto Alegre to organize and share their visions for six days.
WSF annual meetings enjoyed great success, invariably drawing close to 100,000 participants (even as high as 150,000 in 2005). Eventually, the meetings moved out of Latin America, first to Mumbai in 2004, where 20,000 Dalits participated, then to Caracas, Nairobi, Dakar, Tunis, and Montreal. Along the way, two other streams—Regional Social Forums and Thematic Social Forums—were created to complement the annual central gathering, and local Forums were held in many countries. Cumulatively, the WSF has brought together millions of people willing to pay their travel and lodging costs to share their experiences and collective dreams for a better world.
@1 WSF’s Charter of Principles, drafted by the organizing committee of the first Forum and adopted at the event itself, reflected these dreams. The Charter presents a vision of deeply interconnected civil society groups collaborating to create new alternatives to neoliberal capitalism rooted in “human rights, the practices of real democracy, participatory democracy, peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people, ethnicities, genders and peoples.
The WSF charter was apparently drafted not at the event but between january and june 2001, and presented and finalized in the founding meeting of WSF International council as is expressed in the charter Approved and adopted in São Paulo, on April 9, 2001, by the organizations that make up the World Social Forum Organizing Committee, approved with modifications by the World Social Forum International Council on June 10, 2001.
”@1 Yet, the “how” of realizing any vision was hamstrung from the start. The Charter’s first principle describes the WSF as an “open meeting place,” which, as interpreted by the Brazilian founders, precluded it from taking stances on pressing world crises.
This constraint that "no one can speak in the name of the forum" is logical as “a space cannot speak”. Otherwise there is no point in presenting WSF as a space- process
Drawing all consequences from this formal innovation proves a continuous driver for creativity and clarity, because for any action that one may think of in the context of the Forum space , one needs to find who the actor is/are , since it cannot be "the forum".
This "space" vision is not providing any shortcut/fast track to political significance, There is no other way forward than stimulating articulation and coalition building from below by autonomous participants, despite the many temptations on facilitators or solicitations from part of the participants to "make the forum speak" (FW2)
One useful formal exercise is rewording any sentence where the word "WSF" appears grammatically as a “subject” of action. One can search in different comment-inputs for sentences with a % sign in which this exercise is made. The text of the WSF charter is rather well drafted in this perspective, with the notable exception of article 10, which has been used as argument in heated debates about the IC making political statements
@2 This resistance to collective political action relegated the WSF to a self-referential place of debate, rather than a body capable of taking real action in the international arena.
Formally speaking, “preventing temptations to make the space speak “ does not imply turning the space in a "self referential debate place". Introducing and decidedly promoting a “methodology of initiatives”, (FW3) designed in full coherence with the principles of open space, can help focus participants in the WSF space on the initiatives, and associated actions, announced by other participants, and some initiatives may give way to broad dynamics inside the WSF space, with effective broad support to the public action dates they comprise.
Campaign on ALCA in early 2000s was a such broad dynamics. No campaign of that size has emerged in WSF space despite some not so persistent attempts.
Also interesting to note the evolution between the word “proposals” which was preferentially used in the modest WSF methodology literature about participation formats related to action ( eg "mural of proposals in WSF 2005) , and the word “initiatives” - “Proposals” seem to be directed to an “imaginary authority” that would validate them, (a government?, the participants in the forum?," The forum?", UNO?) , while "initiatives" clearly show that there is an autonomous actor (ranging from one entity to a big coalition of entities ) that is taking responsibility and charge of it
It didn’t have to be this way. Indeed,% the 2002 European Social Forum called for mass protest against the looming US invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent 2003 Forum @3 %played a major role in organizing the day of action the following month with 15 million protesters in the streets of 800 cities on all continents—the largest demonstration in history at the time.
%2002 European social forum called for mass protest >> At 2002 ESF a call was issued for mass protest
%2002 ESF played a major role >> The 2002 ESF was a major occasion
It remains to be confirmed what was the exact mechanism in Florence for this call, the final coordination for the 2003 demonstrations was made on occasion of WSF2003
Two observations :
1/ when drafting a call for the global week of action in 2008, IC members where many ESF facilitators were present, took care to issue the call in the name of a list of movement and not in the name of the WSF IC as a body
2/ The facilitators of ESF process, which was fairly autonomous from WSF world event, and less "space oriented" did not find a way to sustain and develop the ESF process better than WSF world event. ESF faded away and stopped in Istanbul 2010.
Its successive transfers from Florence to Paris then London then Athens then Malmo then Istanbul dipped the notion of SF space-process in the rather acid bath of very different national political cultures, with great influence of radical left groups who did not show much wisdom. The methodology work in the "european preparatory assemblies" EPAs, was not creative enough to find innovative ways to make the forum attractive.to more people, and attracted less people at each edition
There was basically 1/ a kind of "forced mechanical agglutination of activities" which, implemented without creativity, resulted in degrading the participatory component, because the workshop time was completetly devoted to the presentation of a large group of speakers coming from various agglutinted workshops and who had refused to quit the exponent table so there was no discussion time left for the public and 2/ the assembly of social movement whch was positionned in practice as the final public voice of the forum.
The attractivenes of the forum went regularly down, and no one raised a hand to organize an ESF edition after Istanbul 2010. No alternative to ESF has been found to date An initiative has been announced to think a new process on occasion of Mexico WSF (see the call here : http://openfsm.net/projects/pfsm20autodoc/ex014-autodocumentation-doc1)
@4 However, the WSF’s core organizers, who were not interested in this path, held sway, a phenomenon inextricable from the democratic deficit that has always dogged the Forum.
Reading the Charter of principles, one can guess they were interested in letting the participants build up coalitions, a slowlier but more secure process.
There is much to say about the relevance of using notion of "democracy" in the WSF context , or in the context of SF facilitating committees.
The WSF space is not meant as a representative space, it is not meant as a decisonary space like a parliament where decisions have to be made at all costs, regarding a nation state community, with representative of antagonistic forces, that is where the democratic notions are fully relevant.
WSF open space is tool, proposed by a self instituted group of facilitators, to a wider circle of potential participants, that those are free to use and come in or not.
For each social forum process-event, there is a faciltating committee which operates basically on commitment and cooptation, through "value compatibilty" and "ability to perform tasks"., facilitating leadership and legitimacy is more or less well built on each particular case. A Facilitating community is a task driven group
WSF international council, which was instituted in some confusion in 2001, with a mixed identity of "big participants council" , and "committed facilitators community" operated by cooptation until the operation stalled.
Maybe it is productive to start the reflection on facilitation from criterias for assessing facilitation tasks. A document was drafted in 2008 by International council " Guiding principles for organizing an WSF event " ...
@5 Indeed, the WSF has never had a democratically elected leadership. After the first gathering, the Brazilian host committee convened a meeting in Sao Paolo to discuss how best to carry the WSF forward.
Yes, and that was never the intention, because this leadership is meant as a "co-opted facilitating leadership" for sustaining an open space-process event , not as "political leadership" about the contents produced in that space .
One could say that the idea is to develop a “WSF facilitating community”, bringing services to “WSF participating community” on participation formats and stimulation of participants, without producing contents in their names, and without claiming leadership on the contents produced by participants, which are clearly politicaly responsible for those.
Depending on their personal and collective organizing culture, some WSF participants may still be looking for a "Big Brother" Forum and may want to attend the “show of leaderships” that some facilitators would be ready to give. This is a comfortably passive attitude.
Some other participants may feel comfortable with the guarantee given by the WSF charter that "no one will speak in their name", and use eagerly the occasion to develop their participation towards their own goals, in interaction with other participants, using relevant participation formats and common moments .(FW3). That is where faciltating community is relevant or not in defining implementing and communicating those formats
@6 They invited numerous international organizations, and on the second day of the meeting appointed us all as the International Council. Several important organizations, not interested in this meeting, were left off the council, and those who did attend were predominately from Europe and the Americas. In the ensuing years, efforts to change the composition created as many problems as they solved. Many organizations wanted to be represented on the Council, but due to vague criteria for evaluating their representativeness and strength, the Council soon became a long list of names (most inactive), with the roster of participants changing with every Council meeting.
The too quick institution of WSF international council was certainly a problematic move, As a group it hardly ever formalized its own tasks and it is mixing fuzzy facilitation of WSF process and fuzzy representation of big participants in WSF,
The only "document" about IC tasks are some elements put hastily on a paperboard in casablanca in 2013,http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/casa13-wsfic-tasks-tareas-taches-cifsm/#EN and it has not been rediscussed since then.
Participation in IC can be interpreted as compact about “relevance of the WSF” but not as a compact about "commitment to facilitate it", and include it in the strategy of those member entities to the point they would dedicate core resources to staff a self sustained facilitating community
In the first years, the facilitating leadership was clearly with the then called “Brazilian secretariat”, and IC was more a club of distinguished participants, reacting to proposals for the Brazilian secretariat than a community of faciltators. IC members were just reacting to proposals made by the next event faciliting committee
@FW7 IC has not given birth to a clear facilitating community
@7 Despite repeated requests from participating organizations, the Brazilian founders have refused to revisit the Charter, defending it as an immutable text rather than a document of a particular historical moment.
The pressure on IC to revisit the charter was perceptible in 2008 ( Abuja Meeting in Nigeria) , and then it has resumed in 2016 onwards. it has not been strong during most of the time; but now is more visible.
Having it approved and legitimized by the WSF international council in 2001 operating on consensus was formally speaking a "breakthrough", comparatively improbable, given the prevailing political culture of WSF IC particpants. It made possible the innovation of the WSF open space forma, despite the spontaneous vision of some IC member
The resistance to change the text comes from the fact that the charter is a coherent document, for instituting the WSF as an ideologically positioned horizontal open space-process.
From the perspective of those valuing the open space, the formulation of the generic values and goals of participants in the charter may read a bit “outmoded” although not that much, except on environmental issues , but is not a strategic point, What needs to be resisted is the temptation to “make the space speak”, and then abandon the space for the movement , and this formal aspects of the forum is very clear in the charter
AT A CROSSROADS
The future of the WSF remains uncertain @8 Out of a misguided fear of division, the Brazilian founders have thwarted efforts to allow the WSF to issue political declarations, establish spokespeople, and reevaluate the principle of horizontality, which eschews representative decision-making structures, as the basis for governance..
There is an infinite capacity of division in human organizations where influence and power is relying on discourse, and not on dominance through material and juridic processes, especially when the goal is getting to institutional power through political discourse as in political parties.
Instituting WSF as a space and not as a movement is a token for longevity and creativity. It is not preventing anyone from instituting movements that will, or not, participate in WSF process..
A facilitating community with proven service criteria and deciding by consensus can take the slow pace decisions about the formats of the WSF process ,in a mid-term perspective of developing a counter-hegemonic process, whereas leading a political coalition of actors requires a capacity for quick decisions to react to changing situations in the political arena of nation state.
,Perhaps most significantly, @9 they have resisted calls to transcend the WSF’s original mission as a venue for discussion and become a space for organizing.
Yes the temptations and pressure and moves to gain positions in the space, towards "making the space speak" have been many, as is recalled in the 2018 document "WSF space or organization?" http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/salvador17-input18
WSF space is a space meant for CSOs organizing articulating in autonomy and clarity.
However, because of the low component of "facilitating community" in the IC perception of its role, the care for implementing participation formats likely to stimulate and visualize the effective "interlinking for action" (as is written in the article 1 of charter) has not been up to the necessities
IC meetings have spent much more time about world conjuncture, and IC membership criteria, and nearly no time on “what are our tasks and how we perform them as a WSF facilitating community, to develop and deepen WSF as process.
Whenever topics emerged that could lead to developing these issues, there was always one IC member entity representative killing the emerging dissusion saying “ we need an IC secretariat to do the job this is not for us".
Proposing a review of contribution to facilitation in the IC is nearly inaudible. ( Dynamics of IC discusion 2017 and some proposals therein, also a moment of discusion in the 2019 Bogota working group here http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/gtbogota19-input1-en/#P90
@10 With WSF spokespeople forbidden, the media stopped coming, since they had no interlocutors. Even broad declarations that would not cause schism, like condemnation of wars or appeals for climate action, have been prohibited.
That is an example where the horizontal open space format is a powerful driver to "reconsider" many things. For instance the couple - spokepersons / media could be replaced by the couple “ empowered and informed participants / social networks , which would not prevent to organize and train collectives of “personalities” that would also contribute to communicating the forum
These “broad declarations” if they are widely supported, could easily appear with a long list of signatories, and a text with 1000+ signatory organizations , is something else than a statement from an hypothetic “politburo of the forum with no political legitimacy” . Reminding that it is easier to build a coaltion for opposing an issue, than to build a coalition committing to act towards a common agenda
@11 As a result, the WSF has become akin to a personal growth retreat where participants come away with renewed individual strength, but without any impact on the world.
Again, there is no causality between the format of space and having “depowered participants” in the space . The potential for political self-empowerment in the space /process through "coalitions from below" with ambitious initiatives with action plan is there.
It is just that the WSF space process / facilitating community is not yet ,- and might never be,- up to the tasks necessary to communicate, stimulate and empower properly on a mid-term basis, and not with ephemerous committees focused on an event, and unable to operate in the post event period of their own event.
Two main thresholds of facilitating capability
1/ being able to prepare the process-event of one WSF manifestation and implement facilitation tasks In all its layers and phases – see the diagram “layers and phases” http://openfsm.net/projects/gti-and-wsf/gtiandwsf-input7-formal-view-wsf/#1A.
Usually the post event phase and the intercom process layer are not addressed, while they should be a priority http://openfsm.net/projects/gti-and-wsf/gtiandwsf-input7-formal-view-wsf/#6
2/ being able to design and follow a common facilitation plan at the level of the WSF global process http://openfsm.net/projects/gti-and-wsf/gtiandwsf-input7-formal-view-wsf/#1B ( see some working group proposals) – Developing a collective work at this level has been neutralized for years by poor performance of WSF-IC . The issue has been visible in 2009 when preparing “year of action 2010” and there is also an illustrative discussion in 2017 http://openfsm.net/projects/transitionci/transicionci-porto-alegre-agenda-input-on-dynamics-of-ic ( see the discussion section)
@12 Because of its inability to adapt, and thereby act, the WSF has lost an opportunity to influence how the public understands the crises the world faces, a vacuum that has been filled by the resurgent right-wing. In 2001, globalization’s critics emerged mainly on the left, pointing out how market-driven globalization runs roughshod over workers and the environment. Since then, as the WSF has floundered and social democratic parties have bought into the governing neoliberal consensus, the right has managed to capitalize on the broad and growing hostility to globalization, rooted especially in the feeling of being left behind experienced by working-class people. Prior to the US financial crisis of 2008 and the European sovereign bond crisis of 2009, the National Front in France was the only established right-wing party in the West. Since then, with a decade of economic chaos and brutal austerity, right-wing parties have blossomed everywhere.
Rewording proposal % Because of its inability to adapt, ..The WSF has lost an opportunity to influence, >> Because they did not adapt WSF methodology and formats, in consistence with original intention expressed in the charter, WSF facilitators lost an opportunity to develop WSF process to higher scale, empower its participants along a common vision of the process, evolved through ownership discussions.
Those empowered participants could in turn own the process at significant scale and influence through their social dissemination actions how the public is informed understands the process
This could be worded differently : 1/ the low key identity/commitment of IC as overall process facilitator, 2/ the related under activity in methodology to clarify a common clear and communicable lexicon about the WSF process,( see attempts here: Towards the Collaborative World Social Forum Lexicon Glossary ) in formalizing and finding ways to promote more the action dimension in the forum process, are significant causes for which the forum facilitating community has not emerged neither has developed a realistic sustained" facilitation workplan", nor has stimulated the emergence of narratives about the forum
@12A The unsettling rise of the anti-globalization right has scrambled many political assumptions and alliances. At the start of the WSF, our enemies were the international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Now, these institutions support reducing income inequality and increasing public investment. The World Trade Organization, the infamous target of massive protests in 1999, was our enemy as well, for skewing the rules of global trade toward multinational corporations; now, US president Donald Trump is trying to dismantle it for having any rules at all. We criticized the European Commission for its free market commitment, and lack of social action: now we have to defend the idea of a United Europe against nationalism, xenophobia, and populism. These forces have upended and transformed global political dynamics. Those fighting globalization and multilateralism, using our diagnosis, are now the right-wing forces.
see above
LOOKING AHEAD
Is there, then, a future for the World Social Forum? Logistically, the outlook is not good. Right-wing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of authoritarian strongmen around the world, has announced that he will forbid any support for the Forum, putting its future at grave risk.@13 Holding a forum of such size requires significant financial support, and a government at least willing to grant visas to participants from across the globe. The vibrant Brazilian civil society groups of 2001 are now struggling for survival.
One can observe that Mumbai WSF 2004 was rather well organized on a self organized basis, by an experienced team, despite the local opposition of BJP, and very far from the support of Brazilian governement to the 2001 2002 2003 2005 editions of WSF .
Indeed, right-wing governments around the world attack global civil society as a competitor or an enemy. In Italy, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been pushing to eliminate the tax status of nonprofits. Like Salvini in Italy, Trump in the US, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, and Shinzo Abe in Japan, among others, are unwilling to hear the voice of civil society.@14 Their escalating assault on civil society might spell the formal end of the World Social Forum, although the WSF’s refusal to evolve with the times left the organization vulnerable to such assaults..
At worst there can be friendly cities with good enough infrastructure welcoming a WSF process manifestation in touristic counties.
There is also the option of developing "extension dynamics" using counter hegemonically corporate social networks for the intercomunication layer (FW6) untill when it is possible or when an alternative social network is build ( mentioned in input13)
@15 If the World Social Forum does fade away as an actor on the global stage, we can take many valuable lessons from its history
One main lesson will have been : "too much talking and not enough determined facilitation".
"Everybody" would speak in or about the forum , taking for granted that “somebody” would to take care of sustaining an implied WSF facilitating community
@16 as we mount new initiatives for a “movement of movements.”
Building a movement of movements may not be the consensus wording for expressing a goal for a “WSF facilitating community”.
A wording with more consensus could be more : Develop, through clear cut communication and participation acts, the perception of WSF process among an ever-growing number of citizens of the world, as a relevant counter hegemonic process, as a relevant tool for political empowerment of civil society organizations worldwide; in a variety of ways and dimensions, in time, in space, in quality, in quantity,
FIRST
@17 First, we need to support civil society unity. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the Portuguese anthropologist and a leading participant in the WSF, stresses the importance of “translation” between movement streams. Women’s organizations focus on patriarchy, indigenous organizations on colonial exploitation, human rights organizations on justice, and environmental organizations on sustainability. Building mutual understanding, trust, and a basis for collective work requires a process of translation and interpretation of different priorities,
Yes… quality, anticipation, permanence, in the implementation of the WSF process
@18 embedding them in a holistic framework. Any initiative to build transnational movement coordination must address this challenge
The space is the framework - some of the contents produced in the space by particpants, may articulate in big influential coalitions, evolve in narratives, but there cannot be a "common agenda" imposed on the space (by facilitators?). Some powerful and partially compatible agendas can be promoted in the WSF space by their supportive coalitions
@19 While it is easier to build a mass action against a common enemy, nurturing a common movement culture requires a process of sustained dialogue.
Yes.. self organized dialogues, with learning curve of experience within WSF participants to organize them, (FW5)
@20 The WSF was instrumental in creating awareness of the need for a holistic approach to fight, under the same rubric, climate change, unchecked finance, social injustice, and ecological degradation. Building on that experience with how the issues intersect is critical to a viable global movement.
It is an issue of implementation of a space-process friendly to movements and coalition building (FW6). . It is not about “making the space talk” (FW2)
@21 The WSF has made possible alliances among the social movements, which got their legitimacy by fighting the system, and the myriad NGOs, which got theirs from the agenda of the United Nations. This is certainly a significant historical contribution, enabling the next phase in the evolution of global civil society.
The Challenge might sound very ambitious: 1/ building a WSF facilitating community, able to have a common enough identify of WSF participants and facilitators, 2/ evolving a common enough formal vision of the process (FW8) , 2/ evolving a common enough workplan about the development of the WSF process implemented through self sustained working groups .
However it is possible to formulate it and identify groups that would be willing to participante
SECOND
Second,@22 we need to balance movement horizontalism and organizational structure. For the vast majority of participants in cutting-edge progressive movements over the past half-century, the notion of a political party, or any such organization, has been linked to oppressive power, corruption, and lack of legitimacy.
Promoting WSF as open space is not “movement horizontalism” it is about “space horizontalism” , where movements, each with their own inclusion, decision, representation, communication protocols, can coexist and interact, and develop coalitions if they show mutually quality of behaviour, anticipation, and persistence.
@23 This suspicion of organization, reflected in the core ideology of the WSF, has contributed to its lack of action.This tendency to reject verticality out of fear of its association with oppression poses a major challenge to the formation of a global movement: those who would be, in principle, its largest constituency will question overarching organizational structures. Based on historical experience, they fear the generation of unhealthy structures of power, the corruption of ideals, and the lack of real participation.
Not sharing this diagnosis: it is more the insufficient commitment to a "WSF facilitating community" that has prevented to reach a level of collective capacity to implement facilitating tasks for implementing and comunicating with clarity and quality participation formats that could be perceived as relevant by participants .
Lack of facilitating energies in IC have been amplified by dispersion and "neutralization" of efforts, because of different perceptions about WSF , some willing to "make the space speak" through certain formats , some willing to develop other horizontal formats to develop the original Charter program, many not doing much, also for want of a clear shared vision.
@24 Nevertheless, coordination is essential for a diverse global movement to develop sufficient coherence. The task is to find legitimate forms of collective organization that balance the tension between the commitments to both unity and pluralism.
We will have progressed a lot when the priority task in a refreshed facilitating community, in the context of a process-event or at global event will be : stimulating articulation between several promoting groups for big coalitions, active in the forum space, because they perceive it as relevant, and politically influential through massive non-violent actions in various parts of the world.
THIRD
@25Third, a global movement effort must navigate a new media landscape. The Internet has changed the character of political participation. Space has shrunk, and time has become fluid and compressed. Social media has become more important than conventional media. Indeed, it was essential, for example, to the election of Bolsonaro in Brazil and Salvini in Italy, as well as Brexit in the UK. US newspapers have a daily run of 62 million copies (ten million from quality papers like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post), while Trump tweets to as many followers.
There is also the issue of communicating the forum to the youth , as a place for encounters that might be life changing (see comment @10 in C7I0)
@26 Contemporary communications technology, while used to sow confusion and abuse by the right, must be central to transnational mobilization campaigns fostering awareness and solidarity.
Yes, dedicating energy from the WSF facilitating community to maintain a counter hegemonic frame of use of corporate social network to populate the intercommunication layers of various WSF process events is a first possible goal, beyond specific campaigns.
WSF mexico could be a testbed for this. (see the intercom menu here with early thematic spaces welcoming "on line encounters" based on social network)
A next step can be being able to design or use alternative social network for the same purpose (see the IRSD space and input13)
@27 Political apathy among potential allies remains as great a challenge as the right-wing surge. This is not a new phenomenon. The triumphant pronouncements of the end of ideology and history three decades ago helped mute explicit debate on the long-term vision for society. Instead, the technocrats of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the US Treasury foisted the Washington Consensus on the rest of the world: financial deregulation, trade liberalization, privatization, and fiscal austerity. The benefits of globalization would lift all boats; curb nonproductive social costs; privatize health and more; and globalize trade, finance, and industry. Center-left parties across the West resigned themselves to this brave new world. “Third Way” leaders like British Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that since corporate globalization was inevitable, progressives could, at best, give it a human face. In the absence of a real alternative to the dominant paradigm, the left lost its constituency. The wreckage left behind by neoliberal governments has become the engine for the populist and xenophobic forces from across the globe.
Developing the WSF process as a counter hegemonic process, and valuing the "WSF process participant identity" are two elements for developing a “new political culture” . In that sense, commitment to Facilitation of WSF process with resources, can be a common political "investment" by a broad enough WSF facilitating community
@28 Looking ahead, to build a viable political formation for a Great Transition, we must find a banner under which people can rally. Climate action has increasingly served this function, with the youthfulness of the climate movement a reason for hope. The climate strike movement, led by Swedish student Greta Thunberg, has engaged tens of thousands of students worldwide and shown that the fight for a better world is on
WSF is a space that can welcome many banners
These new young activists, many of whom have probably never heard of the WSF, do not pretend to come with a pre-made platform; they simply ask the system to listen to scientists. @28The lack of a full vision allows them to avoid many of the WSF’s problems, yet still underscore how the system has exhausted its viability in the face of spiraling crises.
Developing ways to Communicate the forum idea to young activists as a place where they can promote their issue as well as meet with other issues , is a high priority task
@29 Millions of people across the globe are engaged at the grassroots level, hundreds of times more than related to the WSF. The great challenge is to connect with those working to change the present dire trends,
That is precisely what "developing the WSF process at global level" means . It involves as a frontal challenge for a WSF facilitating community developing ways to connect to the process “spaces” apart from the "time visa money trio", from where people live and act for another possible world .
The implementation of various WSF extension dynamics,( protoype example with 500+ activities), with their own facilitation committees, could be a complement to the notion of WSF process-event ( calendar of WSF events) amplified in time and space,
@30 making clear that we are not part of the same elite structures and, indeed, share the same enemy.
Who is “we”? White affluent Europeans?
The historic preconditions undergird the possibility of such a project, our visions of another world give it a direction, and the growing restlessness of countless ordinary people is a hopeful harbinger. Can we find the modes of communication and alliance to galvanize the global movement and propel it forward?
There are elements of an organizing architecture for a global formal WSF process, a clearer formalization of the generic process, visible through a common enough "lexicon" , diagrams FW1A , FW4 and participants testimonies/ narratives would make it more communicable inasmuch the WSF communication is a high priority in the facilitation task FW6
@31 I do not see much value in a coalition of organizations and militants who meet merely to discuss among themselves. Collective action is necessary for counterbalancing the decline of democracy, increasing civic participation, and keeping values and visions at the forefront.
WSF space proposal as described in the charter is clearly by design "outward directed" interlinking for effective action outside the forum space .
This disk and circle diagram about formats of participation in openspace is outward directed http://openfsm.net/projects/gti-and-wsf/gtiandwsf-input7-formal-view-wsf/#4
Keeping values and vision expressed in the charter as a long term forefront (see a colorized version of the charter here )
@32 In the WSF, the debate about moving in this direction has been going for quite some time, but has repeatedly run up against the intransigence of the founders.
There are two main ways to move , either
1/ "making the space talk" and transforming WSF in a movement http://openfsm.net/projects/gti-and-wsf/gtiandwsf-input7-formal-view-wsf/#2 with a probalby limited life expectancy because of probable early appearing divisions, or
2/ investing in new participation formats to stimulate and value organizing for action all year round among the participants http://openfsm.net/projects/gti-and-wsf/gtiandwsf-input7-formal-view-wsf/#3
Section 8 of input 7 http://openfsm.net/projects/gti-and-wsf/gtiandwsf-input7-formal-view-wsf/#8 is about discussing a "splitting scenario "and a "cohesive scenario" among potential WSF facilitating community
@33 It would be a mistake to lose the WSF’s impressive history and convening authority. But we need to recreate it in order to reflect the present barbarized. Will we be able to reform WSF, and if this is not possible, create an alternative?
Get back to work on the cohesive scenario - give life to permanent working groups sustaining the process up to their possibilities see the looking ahead section of http://openfsm.net/projects/gti-and-wsf/gtiandwsf-farewelltowsf-discussion-input7
@34 Citizens have become more aware of the need for change than they were when we first met in Porto Alegre many years ago. But they are also more divided, some taking the reactionary path of following authoritarian leaders, some the progressive path of social justice, participation, transparency, and cooperation. As the conventional system destabilizes and loses legitimacy,
The WSF process, through communication from its active participants behaving in diversity of political visions, but with a unity of WSF participant identity around generic participant values described in the WSF charter can appear as a "global producer of sense", emitting a hope giving narrative .
Coalitions promoting national scale or international scale campaigns can use a variety of WSF process manifestations to place on line encounters and face to face meetings seriously opened to online participation, where they develop and articulate in contact with others
@35 As the conventional system destabilizes and loses legitimacy, giving life to a revamped WSF—or creating a new platform—might be easier than the challenge of launching the process eighteen years ago. Still, realizing the next phase will take new leaders, wide participation, and recognition of the need for new structures. In these times, this is a tall order.
Talking with youth, through mobilization /Invitation effort to WSF process-event held in social networks, presenting them the WSF proposal and showing them how to own it and invest in it as participants and, for some, as facilitators, might be still worth the effort.