There is in the summer of 2022 a preparatory process for a seminar planned to take place in Tunis primo September 2022. The seminar should invite both members of the International Council (IC) as well as representatives from the different movements that adhere to the World Social Forum in one way or another. These are some reflections on the seminar, what we can hope to achieve and how it could be achieved.
The background for the seminar is what will go down in history as the scandalous event of the WSF in Mexico 1st to 6th of May, 2022. Regardless of the good effort from those organizing it, and who deserves all possible credit for their relentless work, the event in itself fell far from what one would expect from a World Social Forum with only 3000 registered participants reported, and probably no more than a few hundred internationals.
Many have already declared the WSF for dead. Even if this may not be completely true yet, what we saw in Mexico was that she definitely is lying on her deathbed, in dire need of life support.
On this background, even if not everyone appreciates the severity of the situation, as the same old discussion continues, it was decided to have a seminar on the future of the WSF in Tunis in September 2022, accepting an invitation from Tunisian movements.
As part of the preparatory process there has been a discussion on consensus. At least there seems to be consensus on the notion that we need a debate on what consensus is. And if, and if so how, it should be practiced in the IC. And it has been emphasized that this is not only a practical, if not a political discussion.
It is apparent that many of the members of the IC have a high level of understanding of consensus. And the meetings many times reflect this. It is often quite extraordinary how discussions in the IC at its best, manages to navigate through different opinions in multiple languages, and reach consensus on quote complex issues. Other times it is likewise extraordinary how far from trying to reach consensus the discussions fall.
The capability to work with consensus in the IC mainly breaks down when it comes to two related topics. This may not seem much, but due to the centrality of these topics, they bear the potential to break down not only the coherence of the IC, as one may argue it have actually done in many instances, but also the future of the WSF itself.
The topics in question are 1) the making of declarations/statements in the name of the IC and)or the WSF itself and 2) the World Social Forum as a global subject/political actor. As one may see the topics are separate issues, but also tightly related.
It seems like every time these topics are raised, the members of the group drift away from a consensus seeking practice and into a mode of repetitive, almost ritualistic, polarized positions. One could have been amused of the theatrical spectacle of this, was it not for the ditoriating effect it has on the work of the IC, and hence the WSF.
As these discussions have been ongoing for the better part of two decades and the trenches of the polarized position only seem to be dug deeper, it may seem like it is impossible to reach consensus. It has therefore been suggested that the IC should open up for decision based on a qualified majority, e.g. 75 - 80 percent.
Personally, I am not vigorously opposed to this proposal on these two specific issues. But if we open it as a general practice of the IC it will certainly break the principle of consensus, that simplified can be expressed as struggling to reach agreements, rather than winning arguments. And one could argue that this aspect of consensus has a value in itself, inherent in the other world possible we imagine.
And, I would propose that if we agree that these two issues could be decided by a qualified majority, then we put these issues to rest after the votes are cast and decisions are made, so we don’t let repeating votes destroy the dynamics of the IC, and the WSF, for the next decades, as it has the last.
But even if I am not vigorously opposed to a vote with a qualified majority on these issues, I am still not convinced it is the best idea. In my opinion we need to dig deeper than these two questions to find a future relevance of the WSF. More on this in part two…