ISARC10InternetForum

The purpose of this input is to reflect on the challenges of the organization - (of facilitation) - of social forums "

• This input sees the forum as a very important popular education process, and we strive for it to have the forms and times of participation - that is, facilitation - that allow its greater effectiveness, its greater inclusion, its greater irradiation to the people. , to arrive at a size and content of a process against hegemonic
• There are several challenges faced by (those who want to develop) this form of collective organization so original of the Forum
• Here are seven described

1/ There is the challenge of patience and urgency ,

 that is to say that the forum is an emancipatory process of popular education, as Sandra explained, and in times of collapse, there are many arguments to "cut roads", to seek fast routes, and We must resist this pressure of urgency, and try to maintain the quality of the process, but of course, focusing on landings, on coalitions capable of initiatives and actions, as Rómulo mentioned.

• So it's a first challenge: combine patience and urgency

 2/ Another challenge is the challenge of popular education, about what the forum is and what it is not, about how it is used.

 And there in this popular education, the discussion sessions on how people understand the forum, and sharing these visions, and giving a strong feeling to the notion of "participants in the process" are important. In other words, the forum is not an extraordinary event, for which you are paid a plane ticket to go and they are happy.  

• It has to be a capillary process that can be accessible to many people, and for that it is good that people consider themselves to be participants in the WSF process, which has its global ideological positions and its functional regulations: both things are described in a document of I refer to what the charter of principles is, and I think it is very important to develop local discussions about “how we see the forum” and so on. (In these discussions, confusions, spontaneous or fed, can be cleared through dialogue, and the relationship of participants to the forum process clarified, and the political identity of "fsm participant" strengthened - see more about these confusions here: http: // openfsm. net / projects / pfsm20 / pfsm20-input95 )

3/ A third challenge is the challenge of “glocality” and capillarity.

 I would say glocality of being able to speak locally about global issues, and the capillarity is that the forum practically arrives - now with technology it can arrive in our hands, on our cell phones - and accompany the people. In other words, people who think they are participants can adapt to looking for the forms: a limited number of social network groups related to the forum that allows them to significantly accompany themselves in acting for another possible world.

• This is capillarity, and at the same time glocality: from the local, through this form of participation, one connects to global issues and global actors.
• It is an element that in Mexico we want to propose to develop: that is, there should first be "thematic and geographical welcome meetings" that are about 40, which are proposed to people who come to be included in the WSF process. At the moment it is all relatively slow, because we have not published a website, and the decision to do an event in Mexico is not completely finalized. It is hampered by issues of the pandemic, but at a certain point, we will come to light more, and the idea is that people come to include themselves in a "phase" of the process where they work online, in the form of "encounters", something which is like an extension of the notion of self-organized "activity".
• There are these welcome meetings, where people understand “why and how to participate”, through contacts with facilitators, and then they can take the leap to self-organize meetings, with topics that the organizations have freely chosen. We are already in the dynamics of self-organization which is characteristic of the forum.
• A challenge is also to find the forms of participation that value all that is "action" and not just reflection. So there is a perspective with the notion of initiative that is touched with the fifth challenge

4/ A fourth challenge is digital inclusion and disseminating the ability to participate online

• in reflections, combining, when possible, face-to-face discussions and online participants in order to mark a continuum. There is a great inequality in access to online participation, and local collective organizing (face to face) can compensate for this inequality, and is also part of popular education and solidarity.

5/ So a fifth challenge of the work in the Forum is to build coalitions from below with concrete initiatives.

• And there we get closer to the notion of "global action", because the way of thinking about these initiatives and these actions, if it is decentralized, can reach all corners of the planet proposing ways to get involved in actions.

• -The refl-action what are visible public discussions
• -The manifest-action that is to demonstrate in public space, and sign statements, petitions
• -The involvement-action that is a concrete commitment in struggles, making strikes, or participating in alternative economic projects, is to fulfill a commitment
• - The argument-action that is the fact of going to talk to other citizens, (who are disoriented or) are imprisoned in their “fake news bubble”, and who follow Bolsonaro and Follow Trump (they even follow them on Twitter ). So this is a major effort: organizing ways to go to others and trying to pop these bubbles.
• -And there is expos-action, which is when people, for media, legal reasons, are exposing themselves physically, or legally, or in the media 
• In a kind of gradation There is this whole range of actions (which can be decentralized), and which can make sense within the framework of lines of action that are initiatives.

And there, greeting the process FOSPA Panamazonic Social Forum, which has been a pioneer in developing the notion of "initiative", https://www.forosocialpanamazonico.com/iniciativas/ 

And also welcoming the WSFET process Social Forum of Transformative Economies, which in addition to promoting the form of "spaces of confluence" that are only spaces, and do not become organizations, are spaces open to this notion of confluence, is also exploring initiatives together with the activities, taking into account that an "initiative" is a line of action that lasts for months or years: struggle, campaign, project ..., and an "activity" is a 2-hour discussion. https://join.transformadora.org

 So we are talking about two very different things and Obviously in an activity you can talk, comment, plan, articulate initiatives 

Then, the challenge of these forms of participation, which go for action, to precisely (develop) these necessary global actions, and (the use of) encounters, which allow working the conditions (of possibility): see if there are compatible visions, see what are the points where there can be cooperation in action between various movements, and build broad (acting) coalitions.

6/ A sixth challenge is shared facilitation and working on almost zero budget

• This to see if there is a common understanding of the forum, perhaps trust develops, perhaps facilitating energy is unleashed. And you can imagine distributed and capillary devices, where people, through online communication, stay tuned in their work to facilitate the process, and allow many more people to reach, and with a certain coherence (of narrative about what is the forum), and this allows working with a very limited budget because the voluntary facilitating energy comes. Well this is a challenge we know

7/ And finally a last (and very big) challenge is the “non-representation by the forum”,  that is to say that 

• One: “ the forum does not represent us”: the forum is a space, it is not an organization, there are no people speaking on behalf of the forum, and that we, as participants, passively accept this narrative that is made on our behalf, rather, “the participants are the political actors”, and they make their narratives and organize their activities (and their initiatives and actions)
• Two: at the same time, either, when there is the forum space, we do not seize a (sub) space to say "we represent this space" , this is also the other side of the coin and you have to have these self-limitations and this wisdom of always returning to: the question "Who is" we "? We are coalitions built from below, we are not an abstract entity proposed or imposed from above

So all these are the challenges (to face when the forum process is to be facilitated in 2021),  and I am finishing.  

• In the framework of the Mexico process, we try to give proposals to be included in an inclyente chapel process ( https://framaforms.org/contacto-inclusion-proceso-fsm2021-1582471657 ) under “forms of participation” such as this question of “welcome encounter ”(captured) in WhatsApp groups, by topics (  http://openfsm.net/projects/pfsm20/pfsm20-reunion-14marzo20-relatoria-laminas/#rosa ), 
• then (this is an invitation to) go to“ self-organized encounters ”, combining several interactive online sessions and WhatsApp group chat. (These are the proposed forms) for this notion of "initial phase of the process" where we are, because at the moment, there is no defined perspective of an event (fsm 2021).  
• Surely there will be some form of event, which is not yet defined, but yes, we are already in the initial phase and we can participate, as today, in this type of meeting workshop. The forum process is alive and produces its effects through the dialogues that we have, which are the way of listening, changing, and articulating. Thank you very much