Vasudhaivd Kutumbakam A post-World Social Forum Issue
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^^sonal
Vasudhaivd Kutumbakam
A post-World Social Forum Issue
(Non-commercial publication for limited circulation only)
Volume:2; Issue: 7; Part: 1; 29 March 2004: New Delhi, India
CONTENTS
• Editorial:
Saluting the WSF Process
• Reflections/Impressions:
WSF serving the global democracy
By Thomas Wallgren
In the true spirit of democracy
by Sumit Chakravartty
Making WSF and Resistance Movement one united voice
By Suresh Nautiyal
Evidences of "Another World is Possible" found at WSF
By Khurshid Imam
Introspecting WSF-2004 preparatory process
By Vijay Pratap
• WSF Reports/Papers:
The WSF assessment: Process needs to be more focused, transparent
By Suresh Nautiyal
World Dignity Forum: Agenda of the marginalised at WSF 2004
By Ashok Bharti and Mukul Sharma
Helsinki Process:
Democratising globally: Civil society engaging with State actors
By Sini Kuvaja
On the double meaning of 'information' and the work of knowledge
By Avinash Jha
Media, globalisation and culture
By Kishan Kaljayee
Rescue agriculture: Save humanity
By Rakesh Manchanda
The quest for participatory democracy
By Kishor Dere
Participatory democracy and civil society movements
By Khurshid Imam
Grassroots resistance in the US to Israel occupation
By Khurshid Imam
Knowledge in society
By Avinash Jha
Celebrating diversity: "Another world is possible"
By FCD
• WSF 2004 Related
Arundhati Roy speech at WSF opening
Making history: The future of the World Social Forum
By Kamal Mitra Chenoy
Democracy of global life
By Ville-Veikko Hirvela
♦ Declarations/ Manifestos
Final Declaration of the Fourth World Parliamentary Forum
Towards a farmers' Manifesto
Declaration of the anti-nuclear alliance
• Initiatives
South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy/
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
Meeting on Tribal and Indigenous People
• Quotations
They came... they shared... they conquered
• VK Biradari
List of organisation in whose events at the WSF 2004 VK biradari (associates) participated
actively/collaborated
Editors:
Suresh Nautiyal: s nautiyal@)vsnl.net
Ritu Priya: ritupriya(5)vsnl.com
Marko Ulvila: marko.ulvila@kaapeli.fi
Editorial
Saluting the WSF Process!
Like the previous WSF meets, the Mumbai WSF 2004 came out as a symbol of unity and
democratic space for diverse peoples to assert their rights for peace and for a world free of
violence, bigotry and hatred. It also focused on the ills of imperialist globalisation as well as on
issues of religious and sectarian violence, casteism and patriarchy. It made space for all
sections of society to come together and articulate their struggles and visions, individually and
collectively, against the threat of neoliberal, capitalist globalisation on one hand and uphold
the secular, plural and gender sensitive framework on the other. Besides bringing together
various mass organisations, new social movements and NGOs from across the globe on one
platform, the WSF process was also deepened at the grassroots by initiating social forums in
states, districts and towns of India. It advanced the debate on concerns Indian and yet
simultaneously maintain a global perspective.
It was a forum for coming together at a single place with all humility and self-confidence, a
place where participants assembled with their deep-rooted belief that there was an ample
possibility of frankly talking to each other on the issues of common concern despite differences
on ideological, political and other levels. Poverty, starvation, health and illiteracy related issues
were also common issues that attracted attention unequivocally. This they did without having
to forget the ideologies, programmes, agenda or distinctiveness of their own organisations.
It amply demonstrated that WSF was a process, an open forum for open ideas on collectively
agreed issues. One common denominator was opposition to neo-imperialism and one-way
globalisation propounded by the multilateral agencies and multinational companies under the
patronage of institutions such as World Bank and World Trade Organisation. It proved to be
self-explanatory that WSF was neither an organisation nor a front, just an open space for all of
them who believed in another world, those who stood for a radical change, those who were
open to talk to others despite differences, and those who had the desire to listen to others'
viewpoints.
The basic spirit of it lay in its uniqueness of being a forum where all participatory organisations
had the freedom to play supportive, supplementary or complementary roles without
challenging each other or indulging in competition with other organisations — a collective
thinking, however, obligatory towards working for a common goal.
In a nutshell, WSF 2004 Mumbai showed that the 'open-space' process generates dynamics
that allow us to further democratise ourselves and justifiably announce that another world is
possible.
WSF impressions/Reflections
WSF Serving the Global Democracy
By Thomas Wallgren*
According to Gandhi, civilisation is not an incurable disease. Another memorable statement comes
from the Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, who once wrote: "unique combination of greatness
and danger ... characterises the modern age." And already 150 years ago Marx spoke about the
enormous civilisational power of capitalism, a power that Marx wanted to unleash in socialism. These
pronouncements seem to me to capture the deep ambivalence with which peoples all over the world
look at the newest phase of modern development, often called neoliberal or corporate driven
globalisation.
Many of us share a sense that in the midst of the mad exploitation and naked imperial aggression
promises of democracy, welfare and liberation are also at play. American army bombs and the
economic imperialism of the old and new colonial powers destroy lives and livelihoods globally at a
frightening scale. But at the same time, the American dream, which is one dream of affluence and
freedom, captures peoples' hearts globally. How else can we explain the tone and emphasis of
Brazilian president Lula's speech as the guest of honour at the Indian Republic Day, a few days after
the World Social Forum in Mumbai closed? At the end of the day, comrade Lula, too, brought it forth
as a key strength of the South in the new century that it would get the better of the North in the
global competition for investment.
Lula's speech frightened and depressed me. I belong to those who see the power of the American, or
the modern Western, dream as a lethal threat to all life on the planet. Now, as always, it seems to me
true that the world has enough for all people's needs but not for our greed. The Western dream
fosters greed. It is a consumerist dream that is impossible to realise globally, universally and
sustainably. The aspiration for all to become rich is leading the planet to tragedy.
At the same time, I am happy and enthusiastic that Brazil has a leader like Lula, who legitimately and
forcefully, although within the real political limits defined by the balance of power in the world,
represents, speaks out and fights as president of a strong and proud country for global equity and the
rights of not only his people but of all oppressed people. So, I am not criticising those who work for
development, growth and affluence in the South. How could I, possibly, with what right and for what
purpose? Already in my home country and region, in Finland and Western Europe, it is difficult
enough to carve out a place in our day-to-day economics and politics for concrete measures that
would change the direction of our own development.
In fact, we are on the losing side. EU and US are at present not redirecting their main energies
towards global justice. On the contrary, they are building a twin fortress that seeks to keep poor
people, terrorism and wars out and prosperity and security within them. But this does not happen
without right. Most democratically elected politicians in the North and, perhaps even in the South,
have a clear democratic mandate for their selfish, aggressive and ultimately suicidal policies. This is
because not only they themselves, but most of their voters, most of us are completely at a loss. We
know too little about how to combine justice and legitimate concerns about well being. This is where
the need for global democratisation, and WSF, come into the grand drama I am addressing.
The need for global democracy is often seen as a need for more democracy in global, transnational
and international relations, in the economy and in other spheres. This is correct, as far as it goes. But
we must recognise the limits of any governance and institution centred perspective on global
democracy. The deepest need for democratisation may be the democratisation of the communication
and the accountability structures through which those cultural dreams are formed that define the
agenda and purpose of all political, economic and military activity.
As long as people with great privilege live isolated from real and continuing encounter and dialogue
with the underprivileged their politics will remain, at best, patronising with respect to the plight of the
world's majority.
One concrete example is the Socialist International. Composed of the Socialist parties from a large
number of countries and on all continents, and dominated by well-intended European internationalists,
the SI has great difficulty in defining a policy which would be thoroughly and realistically responsive to
the needs of the poorest of the poor in all countries. The fundamental reorientation that is required
will take time. Change can only come about, I believe, if the Socialists, including the Socialists in the
leading, most powerful countries create mechanisms by which their policies can be negotiated and
reformed in close contact with Southern partners and movements that give voice to those who are on
the losing side in present globalisation. The contact has to be sustained enough to create a mutual
influence on both the daily work on concrete details of real politics as well as on long-term values
visions and dreams.
'
In Mumbai, I was happy to see that the 2004 issue of the World Social Forum was used by the
Socialist International - and I hope and believe - by other comparable political movements, to take
some first steps in such a process. Senior leaders of Socialist parties from especially some EUcountries flew in to Mumbai with an idea to winning over comrades from South Asian countries and
other Southern movements and parties to their politics of realistic reform of present instruments for
globalisation, such as WTO. Within a few days, and thanks to their own open-mindedness, the
beneficial format of WSF, the incisive presence of Southern comrades and other factors their frame of
mind started to change - or so it seemed to me. The change was in the direction of seeking to base
the global cooperation in SI on the challenging and difficult terrain of mutual respect for difference in
experience, accountability and concern and for the divergence in short-term political recipes that grow
from such differences despite shared values and aspirations.
I was especially heartened to hear ex-Prime Minister of Denmark, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, say in a
debate co-organised by SI, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and others, that Socialists in Europe lost a
historical opportunity to change the direction of globalisation politics when they recently were in power
in most EU-countries, while there was also a Democrat president in the White House. We failed Poul
Nyrup Rasmussen said, because we were not prepared.
I agree with the Danish former PM in this submission and also in his conviction that the intensification
of fair global dialogue between movements, parties and others seeking justice for all is a vital force in
the necessary democratisation of global political communication. It is one of the many beauties of the
WSF experiment that it can play a constructive role in that process.
Finland95 Wallgren ^PhD' sen'or fel,ow' Academy of Finland) is co-chair, Democracy forum Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,
In the true spirit of democracy
by Sumit Chakravartty*
(Published in Mainstream, 6 March 2004, issue.)
Twelve years ago in February 1992 one was present at the World Economic Forum, the annual
gathering of businesspersons and leaders of the corporate sector from across the globe at the
picturesque Swiss resort of Davos. That was when P.V. Narasimha Rao spoke there for the first time
as the Prime Minister of India trying to 'market' India before the international business community
One had the opportunity of a chance encounter there with a well-known media personality who used
to present on BBC in those days insightful analyses of the happenings in erstwhile Yugoslavia that
ps
bloodbath accompanying Yugoslavia's dismemberment. Implicit in this observation was the fact that
democracy itself was being constricted by this phenomenon. This became more than apparent by the
market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus and the way in which the Fund-Bank ideologues
imposed their hairbrained prescriptions on the developing world without any consideration of9 the
numan Factor.
'r33 .r.emindJ!d of.that conversation tw6176 years later as one walked endlessly through the
sprawling Nesco Grounds complex in Goregaon in the Mumbai suburbs where a remarkable event took
place for six days in the second half of January (from 16 to 21 of that month)-the Fourth World
fBraln
,takfe.PlaCe anywhere outside
Place of birth, that is, Porto Alegre
ShaSomht h;;
Tlty' and thUS 9enuine dernocracy in action—a world assembly
b ought into focus the very same human factor one had dearly missed at WEF in Davos—and it
was from that crucible of democratic debate that one was able to comprehend the essence of the
moving slogan of the Zapatistas: "Another World Is Possible!"
lh!|ant a)-Tr'd thaLiS dJfferent fr°m the strai«acket of the 'globalised world' based on the power of
g obal capital, a world where the voice of the poor, the weak, the meek, the marginalised and the
Wilh reSpeCt' Where War' expioitation and oppression would be banished
aJm/Tph h Wah eC '^d b6St by Paklstan's courageous human rights activist and renowned lawyer
Asma Jehangir who, while assailing the US v
’- in TIraq
“~- in ----•
y
war
unequivocal■ ■terms, declared
at the public
rally on the concluding day (January 21):
We want accountability... We want the US to have a pact with the world that they will not go to war
against any people unilaterally.
And she also proclaimed amidst thunderous applause: "We want full-stomach globalisation." This was
the voice of the masses—the common people of every continent.
Our former President K.R. Narayanan too was present at that function despite his indifferent health.
spoke next, delivering the keynote speech, and brought out this very fact in bold relief "This
movement, he elucidated, "is one of the most significant in history. To fight globalisation you need to
fight the way Mahatma Gandhi fought with the strength of the masses. He was the first to show the
way to non-violence and this has also been the method of this new movement. People's power is a
new factor in international politics."
P
P
a
Sarch^l^^
Gan*''S W°rdS at the SeVenth NAM Summit in ^w Delhi in
March 1983. She had described the non-aligned movement as "history's biggest peace movement"
nZrA d WaS 3 manlfestatlon of the same feature, this was an equally massive peoples' agitation for
peace, democracy, socio-economic progress based on equity and justice.
In his special message to WSF, videoed at the public rally in central Mumbai's sprawling Azad Maidan
former South African President Nelson Mandela brought into focus the quintessence9 of the slooan
in^vid^i
rOaS^e!" by P°intin9 °Ut: We °We future 9enerations a better world in which every
individual is respected. This world will soon become a reality.
One of the most notable personalities at the Mumbai WSF was Ramsey Clark, the former US Attornev°UtSpOken lndictment of the lawless US bombing of Iraq during Gulf War fon 1991
embodied in his report to the then UN Secretary-General, has now become a legend In that report he
S
ne tSe Of hlghly s°Phisticated militarY technology with mass destructive capacity hy
nch nations against an essentially defenceless civilian population of a poor country is one of the Great
The Un'ted StateS'annUal mil'taiy expenditures alone are four times the dross
national product of Iraq. The scourge of war will never end if the United Nations tolerates this assault
on hfe. The United Nations must not be an accessory to war crimes".
At Mumbai he said people still did not know that
1.5 million had died after Gulf War. I and the
economic sanctions that followed.
°Ver haJLa mili?n fatalities were children under five. Pregnant women and the elderly were also
d“"
“ prot“ ■" M«»"'
dark also expressed disappointment with the role of the mainstream US media which regrettably
dX ouSbX'SnXZ"6 m°biliSatiOnS aga,nst the
war fed the Public with the lies
r°hp i!mtU^Or1' frOm-, ae maSS med'a made extreme|y difficult to reach beyond the people who saw
the large (anti-war) demonstrations. Even the Internet, despite its reach, cannot have thesame effect
as one-and-a-half minute on prime time.
medial I? reVea'ed
effeCt °f the high technolo9y associated with the electronic
I I idJIQ LI IC LJO
authorities were able to exploit for their own benefit.
The issue of globalisation naturally dominated the discussions in several halls. One of the architects of
LTtAd^l0baJISat'0n' renowned economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, is a changed man
today. And thus he was unambiguous in his opposition to globalisation as it is being practised in the
Present environment. It has engendered greater insecurity for the aged and the poor in particular he
opined, while also pointing to enhanced unemployment—and hence mounting violence-in its train' He
did not mince words in assailing market fundamentalism that was causing disaster in the Third World.
But in the true spirit of democracy there were divergences on this subject as well. Stiglitz called for
fth^PM9 he 7reent SyAStem °f 9'obalisation to make it more humane while others, like Walden Bello
Bank andPIMFS ' thTh T"1 ?9yptlfn llV'ng in Sene9al)< Geor9e Monbiot (Britain) felt that the World
!a"La dH
” that had "ebculously worked out the structure of globalisation in the interest of the
developed world in general and the US in particular - were beyond reform and needed to be
condnue
consensus to° was obvi°us: the present inequitious system could not
The debate on Palestine reflected a
novel feature
feature -- the manner in which Israelis joined the
a novel
2 h JhTpAlAH
J
sympathising with the latter in their plight, but also conveying their solidarity
refreshinn
finJan P°pulace at 'arge even while sharP'y criticising the misguided terrorists. It was
thus nrnLunn fh
Z00'19 Tembers of the Jewlsh community in the US taking a similar position
mkLa 3 r1 a9 the contours of a new world struggle for justice breaking the traditional walls of
misunderstanding, misperpection, mistrust and suspicion erected by vested interests of different hues
in the disdussion-"Movin9 Towards Peace in Kashmir"-on January 20. Yasin
idenritvthIndKLsF|f ad KPOI9aan?Y presented the heroic struggle of the Kashmiri public for their self
identity and self-dignity and also spoke on the need to make common cause with the Kashmiri
POnrAmAr
the y°Un9 Pakistani journalist present at the session, notes in her column
h^ iPd t
b?ndS are Very StrOn9'" 5375 Malik' whose role in the stru99le for Kashmir's freedom
has led to several incarcerations in interrogation centres and prisons. During one such time he was
hospi ahsed while on hunger strike, and his drip began to bleed. The nurse,9a Kashm Ji Sdu Pandi?
who lived in a migrant camp, prayed and wept for him "like a mother".
inrJta? heen fOaed tCLbecome a refugee- And yet she wept for me- It is people with vested
ests who are doing business in the name of religion and spreading hatred But they will not
succeed,' vows Malik in his quiet way. The pain of those who have been forced to llave LT land
burst out in the occasional slogan during Malik's talk. "Kashmir belongs to India " shouts one man
57 the 0,rganiSei?- Mallk does not rise to the bait. He continues patiently trying to explain
. Positl°n' competing with the dm outside the tent, where procession after procession thunders by
rh9'^ d/'ums' dancin9, and shouting the WSF slogan: "Another World liiiiiiiis Possible'" Like manv
other Kashmms, Malik would like to see the Pandits return. Also like many others he belfeSs S
"f!a departure was a Polltlcal P|oY by the government, engineered in order to defame the uprising
Even now more than 10,000 Kashmiri Pandits live in the Valley. Those who left they are our
mothers, sisters, brothers, we want them to come back," says Malik. "This is their land. They have as
much right to live here, they are the sons of the soil. Let them come back and let us work together to
restore our culture."
Likewise striking was the unconventional view of Pervez Hoodhbhoy, Professor at Qaid-e-Azam
University, who has been boldly expressing himself on several sensitive issues like Kashmir for quite
sometime on the pages of different Pakistani publications. He candidly explained that if a military
solution to the Kashmir problem was ruled out, if Pakistan could not compel India to accept plebiscite
and if India could not continue with the status quo, then even if I do not like it we may have to settle
for a solution on the Line of Control.
It pains me to say that Kashmir has to be divided. But can we afford another war? Let us have a soft
border. Let us learn to live as people. The only way is for us to recognise our humanity."
Another Pakistani delegate, one of the foremost trade unionists in his country, Karamat Ali Director of
the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), perhaps the largest NGO in Pakistan
also spoke in an unconventional way. Urging Pakistanis, Indians and Kashmiris to move beyond
notions of nation-state and look to a future as South Asians, he blasted the idea of self-determination
tor Kashmu-is as such a move for independence and self-determination for Baluchis in August 1947
had been rejected by the Indian leaders including Maulana Azad. He further underlined:
"Both the concepts of nation and religion are dangerous. Tfiey have brought us nothing but
destruction. We have to reject them and come out of the straitjacket."
The Indian participants, apart from representatives of Kashmiri Pandits (who were passionate but did
not betray any trace of bitterness against anyone), included Ved Bhasin, Balraj Puri, Gautam Navlakha
They presented their own views on various aspects of the Kashmir problem from the standpoint of the
Indian and Kashmiri civil society without in any way endorsing the Indian authorities' one-sided
approach to the dispute. Indeed the democratic debate, replete with dissent and divergence offered a
wealth of ideas and food for thought.
The Mumbai WSF has been characterised by many as more representative and diverse in both
participation and content than the previous ones held at Porto Alegre. What was specially significant in
Mumbai was the Dalit participation. As Silumko Nandwangu, General Secretary of the South African
Metalworkers Union, noted, Porto Alegre was more academic, but Mumbai is a sheer carnival of the
unlettered and the dispossessed.
The foreign delegates were particularly impressed by the spontaneous song and dance that marked
the Forum s activities—all by the deprived and the downtrodden sections.
Speaking of Dalit participation, German delegates pointed to some of the new focal points addressed
mcluded the caste system", "(religious) fundamentalism", and "patriarchy", issues that had until then
attracted little attention. In the eyes of progressive social movements in South Asia, this thematic
broadening of the scope of the World Social Forum has meant a real step forward.
For instance, some members of the Dalit movement (earlier referred to as the "untouchables") have
long struggled to place the effects of the caste system on the international agenda. The fact that
after their success at the UN Conference in Durban on Racism and Discrimination, they have managed
o place the issue on the agenda of another major world forum is certain to strengthen their hand. But
ot er issues also pushed for consideration: child and forced labour, dowry-related murders and
homosexual rights, the informal sector and precarious employment. It is not likely that these issues
wi be able to hold their own in the long term at World Social Forums in other regions of the world
Still, the quite general concept of human rights appears to be taking on shape as a new point of
reference that could develop into a further focal point of the Forum.
<7°nIradi.ctions" by JQr9en Stetten and Jochen Steinhilber in Mainstream, February 14,
M.?mh^ewrcFr <rAD'9niTFOrLlr?'unitlated by Dalit and non’Dalit groups, was a special feature of the
umbai WSF. [A report on it has appeared in Mainstream (February 14, 2004): "Agenda of the
Marginalised at WSF 2004" by Ashok Bharti and Mukul Sharma.] The speakers at this World Dignity
Forum on January 19 were eminent figures in this area of activity. They were Karamat Ali (from
Pakistan, Director of PILER); Wolfgang Sachs, Senior Fellow at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate
Environment and Energy, Germany; Rada Ivekovic, from former Yugoslavia, currently teaching Women
and Nationhood at University Jean Monnet, France; Eugenio Poma, from Bolivia, involved in the
indigenous people s struggle for landrights, Programme Executive, Indigenous People's Issues, World
Council of Churches; Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World
Malaysia; Ilan Halevi, Assistant Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Palestinian Government; a'
Padmanabhan, retired IAS officer who served in Tamil Nadu and at the Centre, former Governor
Mizoram; Ashok Bharti and Mukul Sharma.
The day the World Dignity Forum took place one witnessed a group of militant Dalits demonstrating
before the Media Centre of the Forum. One of them declared that if the WSF fails to take up our cause
in right earnest and help us change our condition we will organise a World Dalit Social Forum!
In the wake of the India-Pakistan thaw the Pakistani participation at the Forum was indeed
noteworthy. Hundreds of them came and spontaneously joined in the activities. Many more wanted to
come but could not get visas on time.
The issue of majoritarian offensive in different countries including India occupied a prominent place at
the Mumbai WSF. Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi was visibly moved beyond words when she met
the victims of the carnage that rocked Gujarat two years ago. At a seminar on the subject several
Indian speakers analysed the Hindutva forces' offensive on minorities with one of them even urging
the protagonists of the anti-globalisation movement to join hands with those in favour of globalisation
to fight the regressive forces upholding the banner of majoritarian onslaught against the minorities.
One positive development at the Mumbai WSF was the interaction between representatives of the Left
political parties and the NGOs working at the grass-roots like the Narmada Bachao Andolan or the
Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) spearhea-ding the Right to Information movement in
Rajasthan. These NGOs have doubtless a much wider and constructive agenda beyond electoral
politics, an agenda which the Left parties must adopt but have not due to various erroneous reasons
Some of the Left groups had initially sought to hegemonise the WSF; but having failed in that attempt
(they were literally swamped by the NGOs) they decided to adopt a more democratic approach
without, however, totally giving up their hegemonic outlook. But hopefully this interaction helped both
sides. The NGOs are doing good constructive work at the grassroots but they need to realise that their
sectoral efforts cannot bear real fruit on the national plane unless the political parties, especially of the
Left, take those up in all seriousness with the objective of building genuine people's movements.
Would the interaction initiated at Mumbai be carried forward in the coming days? Only time would tell.
In this connection one must confess that the withdrawal from the Forum of a section of friends who
could have been part of WSF and their holding a separate Mumbai Resistance (to globalisation)
exposed once again the disunity in the ranks of the Left (as the organisers of the MR were those who
can be identified as belonging to the far Left). The arguments of the MR against some of the NGOs in
the Forum cannot be summarily rejected as they pertain to funding in particular; and yet the
organisers of the MR were not barred from coming and voicing their apprehensions on that count from
the WSF platform. That they chose to go out is a different matter. However, both the WSF and MR
had a common target: imperialist globalisation that intensifies the Western exploitation of the
developing states.
Was there any outcome of WSF 2004? Chico Whitaker from Brazil, a member of the Organising
Committee, had this to convey:
The WSF is not a movement. It is an iincubator giving birth to new initiatives for change in the world.
The outcome is not one but hundreds of
--- outcomes
----- as each of the groups here has been able to plan
out new actions and initiatives.
And as was editorially observed in The Hindu, "In a world where global capital exercises such a
dominant role in national economies and societies, there are few opportunities available to debate
alternatwcs or air dissent. That the forum is internationally perceived to provide a major opportunity
to do this year after year, drawing in new participants, is heartening from a democratic standpoint."
Postscript:
• The South Koreans were most active in many ways at the WSF.
They brought out processions, like other delegations, and sometimes one could hear the strains of the
Internationale m those demonstrations. What is more, they put up posters in different Indian
languages-not just m Hindi and Urdu, but also in Tamil and Bengali-highlighting their major
demands.
J
• At the public rally one found a short-statured bald-headed middle-aged European gentleman
carrying a flag bearing the word "Non-Violenzia". On inquiry one learnt he was an Italian from Naples
carrying the message of non-violence in Gandhi's India.
'
• With all groups propagating their opinions the Communists too decided to express themselves most
explicitly. The CPI put up a large banner at the entrance to the Forum complex; it read: "Let Us Join
Hands to Build a Communist World." The world remains static for these persons who continue to
nurture the same dreams they peddled in the forties, fifties and sixties (without realising that in
todays context any such project must be intimately linked to democracy which the erstwhile
C°^mun)St states had S0U9ht to smother and were therefore swept away by the public urge for
• Sumit Chakravartty edits Mainstream magazine.
Making WSF and Resistance one united voice!
By Suresh Nautiyal*
To me the WSF-2004 was about attaining knowledge through direct interactions with diverse
individuals and groups from across the world. It was about gaining from other's grassroots
experiences and receiving from those who have been trying their best to make the world better over
the years. It was about knowing those closely who have been marginalised and unheard since times
immemorial.
WSF was a unique experience. An experience enriched by so many things, shades, colours,
impressions. On a broader level, it was an effort to bring the whole world together in a small place
where activists and people from diverse backgrounds and" cultures from across the deep oceans and
—--------- —i across the deep oceans and
continents sat together, smelled each other's body fragrances for hours while exchanging their views
on infinite issues. It also functioned as a laboratory for those who came equipped to carry out new
social experiments and explore the untapped areas. Such an instinct was at its best.
After ASF-2003 in Hyderabad, it was an extraordinary experience. For the first time it was an
opportunity
onesm
< all place, though
•
„
...to come across
j so many• issues at-----impossible to be part of them
all. It was interesting
to see several
several thousand
thousand people
people discussing
discussing issues
issues based
based mainly
mainly on
r
- and inspiring
■
the themes of one-way' or imperialist globalisation
L. —.
...
and its negative
impact on the whole world
economy and peoples.
"
'
-----j
I■
mI
I! — —
-
I
'
It was quite reassuring and hopeful that there were millions of people on the earth who had the will to
?Mc°Se Lhe US dictated P°,ides that were being implemented by the pseudo global agencies like WTO
IMF, and WB. It was indeed heartening to see that there were people and their organisations
determined to throw these agencies in the Red Sea because they in the name of helping the poor
countries, actually oppressively exploited their resources, human power and what not. Every workshop
or seminar explicitly tried to explain that time was ripe for these anti-people agencies to take
permanent refuge in oblivion.
m<^st imP<<tant thin9 that caught fancy of the participants was the mind-boggling
manifestation of the indigenous or adivasi people. The oppressed and backward classes equally
invented the shapes of their frank and honest discussions, in fact, expressions. Such sections from
across the world were trying to not only draw attention of the enlightened but also make their
viewpoints before the sane participants. Their presence from Africa and several other such parts of the
world also gave an opportunity to rethink about the WSF process and recast its strategies by making
them more inclusive and representative.
y
It gave the hope that changing the world for better was really possible. The commitment shown by
the leading world lights as well as the unsung people singularly strengthened the resolve that world
was in a changing mode, albeit slow.
Immigrants and refugees also made it feel that they too existed and they too had dreams. Kashmiri
migrants made their presence felt like the ones advocating absolute political autonomy for Kashmir.
Women expressly told the people that violence against them was not tolerable under any pretext.
Several important events with global meanings also took place. Among them included Indo-European
green dialogue and the discussion on the Helsinki Process. Discussion on global environmental citizens
manifestos, besides stalls like Han't Chaupa! - Green Corner - where conversation on contemporary
environmental issues took place in informal ways and which also functioned as a meeting points. To
be specific, Harit Chaupa! was conceptualised and organised by our loose network called Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam (meaning the whole world is one family). South Asian as well as European organisations
hke People in European Parliament, Global Greens, Friends of the Earth Finland, Centre for Equity
Studies, CSDS, Lokayan, South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy, Coalition for Environment
and Development Finland, Himalayan Peoples Forum, Uttarakhand Chaupal, SIDH, Rajendra Prasad
Academy, Swasthya Panchayat, Siemenpuu Foundation Finland, South Asia Study Centre etc took
part in the endeavour.
'
The ideas like that of Gandhi on the values of life and approaches of the greens, and the Indian
movements quietly sparked off campaigns on issues such as large dams and WTO. The idea of the
dialogues and the informal discussions was to revitalise the interaction between the Indian and
European activists - or rather Asian and the rest of the world.
Dialogues on environmental citizens' manifestos and Global Greens, etc., discussed global greens
charter, Jo'burg memo and ecological democracy discussion paper of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
prepared by Risto Isomaki. The first Global Greens meeting was held in Canberra, Australia. But it was
disappointing that the ecologists and environmentalists hardly found time for detailed discussions on
several environmental questions that were like pain in the neck. However, million rupee question
remamed as to what we have been doing for conserving our forests and wildlife while safeguarding
the livelihoods of forest dwellers or the adivasis.
The workshops on the ecological issues also discussed the question of riverlinking of rivers in India
genetically modified crops, foods and organisms: their pros and cons, pesticides in soft-drinks food
and water: what is real and what is safe, CNG buses, battery vans: what next, pollution in urban
areas: moving towards a garbage culture, linking rivers: dividing countries, dams and displacement:
development for whom, lifestyles, development models and the environment, the North-South debatehigh waste societies'(HWS) versus 'low waste societies'(LWS)- the ethics of consumerism. And so on
so forth.
'
The slogan "another world is possible" sounds romantic as well. It sounds like a lover promising to
bring down the moon for his beloved. But the after thought makes some sense and it starts
percolating the real sense and reaffirming the faith that another world is really possible if we honestly
wish to make one. In fact, the whole slogan and the idea derives from its own spirit. Even for the
pessimists, we can say that if we can make the world worse why cannot we make it better?
F?LSUr^ !n^cat'1ons are quite Positive- This is why many green activists, scholars, workers and leaders
of the global civil society made it to the destination called Mumbai.
accusation that the forces of globalisation have themselves invented the WSF process to dissipate
the people s resentment against them does not hold water. But of course doubts have to be dispelled
and this work cannot be done without talking to the Resistance forces. The doubts undoubtedly need
to 1removed by making honest explanations. Similarly, the Resistance process should recognise the
Prfcessuwas the on|y 'organised' process against the forces and process of
globalisation and therefore, the responsibility to further strengthen it also fell on them.
It is simply impossible to make another world possible without participation of the dissent voices.
Therefore, there has to be a healthy, consistent, pursuant and positive dialogue among the WSF
process and the Resistance groups to evolve a common strategy/agenda to oppose imperialist
globalisation. And by putting in elements of clarity and transparency, doubts in the mind of common
people would automatically be removed for the benefit of the process.
It is also felt that it is important to hold future WSF events collectively with the Resistance groups
maybe on the commonly agreed minimum programme of opposing globalisation, the multilateral UN
or non-UN agencies that are responsible for forcing or imposing globalisation and by opposing the
nat'ons that have made the multilateral agencies as mere puppets in their hands. Also, it would be
much better if we ensure that the future WSF events are organised in the remotest area of the least
developed countries so that atleast some people immediately get benefits of the global fight against
globalisation and indiscriminate marketisation.
y
y
It has to be recognised in the right perspective as to why people the world over are eager to change
world^ Is it not evident that they want to change the world in the shape they want to see it?
Undoubtedly, meaningful resistance has been fermenting and pressure building against the process of
TMF-Obdh^ROn' And WSF iS increasin9|y growing as one united voice against the agencies like
The WSF process needs some concrete action programme as well. Mere rhetoric does not serve any
purpose. Neither, slogans without action have any meaningful purpose. Eminent Indian Socialist leader
Kishen Pattnayak's observation that the WSF's failure is in it not being able to chalk out a united and
common strategy to oppose economic process inclined towards globalisation does hold some water.
Renowned Hindi litterateur and activist Namwar Singh rightly said in the Delhi Social Forum meeting
last year, prior to the WSF, that transparency was to be brought in to make the whole WSF process
reliably acceptable to the masses. He clearly said that he was neither opposed to WSF process nor
critical about it but there was an urgent need to make the voice unison and loud enough to stimulate
and inspire those nurturing the feelings against the globalisation process. Also, the WSF process must
go beyond the Latin American countries, India, and the Nordic world. In nutshell, there has to be
realistic alternative roadmap to another world.
With the WSF-4 fatigue over, it is now time to evaluate the whole process in view of the criticism it
has invariantly invited from those inspired by the WTO policies or the powers behind the so-called
vanguard of global trade. It would be unfair to jump to the conclusion without taking into serious
k^XregaoMtseff qUeSti°nS
MUmba' ReS'Stance meet held simu|taneously across the road
It is more or less clear that both the WSF and the Resistance programmes were organised with the
help, if not liberal, of the foreign agencies with or without the consent of their governments If this
has happened, why the fuss about the sources of funds? But yes, questions need to be asked
consistently so that no bad money from unscrupulous sources flows into the process of the WSF and
the Resistance Movement. It was the pressure from the Resistance forces, to my belief, that the WSF
India organising committee took a decision not to accept funds or assistance in any form from the
agencies like Ford Foundation. Such a watchdog role would only be appreciated.
!n nutshell, it is high time to make the WSF process and the Resistance Movement one united voice if
the civilised world really wants to put an end to the one-way imperialist globalisation.
Before we resume to persuade our respective governments to come out of the WTO web, we must
identify those issues on which we have different opinion or which we see through distinct eyes A
broadly politically correct global alliance on political lines is the need of the hour. This means that the
WSF forces and the forces of Resistance Movement should sit together and agree on a common
minimum programme as soon as possible and form a larger process in the near future at the global
'^el. We must not forget that the political ego can only strengthen the forces of one-way
globalisation. The message is clearly written on the wall that if we miss this historical moment we
miss the bus forever. So, let the diverse voices explore collectively in a shared environment.
Mth VaSUdhaiVa KutM^
Peoples
Evidences of "another world is possible" found at
WSF
By Khurshid Imam*
Some of the developed nations are trying to And evidences and possibilities of life on the red olanet
Mars. Scientists work day and night and invest billions of dollars. And those intense moments are
n'ones e,es "ten
mMon ”"ds “"« * “SX
frLmOal|atw^?1NfferiO?hOf,time iP the ySar 2004 in NeSC0 9rounds of Gore9aor1 in Mumbai, people
h H r
J e' Wlth0Ut sex Or gender bias' 9athered from all over the world to exo ore the
possibility of another world where one and all can live with peace, equality, justice and opportunitv
Scientists, journalists, authors, academicians, students, leaders, activists, insUtutions oroanisatior^'
privileged as well as deprived, people of all age, colour, religion and culture put their heads together
to ^affirm heir belief "another world is possible". The first ever gathering of Wodd Soda Fomm
thS 9,0°my faCS °f a
marginalised people and
This is what I would call the grand success of WSF to give a hope to struggling peoples to sustain
their struggle to give a voice to many a voiceless, to bring fore the suppressed andP marginalised and
provide a platform that would act as the first cell for the later evolution of life on this earth Of course
^thinroTSnd^ame^
°f
deliberations and interactions but
7
P' N One came on the dais and sbouted "Eureka" or self righteousness
ther the organisers were seen sitting together, scratching their heads, introspecting pointing out the
rmstakes and shortcomings, and encouraging each other by highlighting toe achievements Thil
exercse of the organisers speaks itself about the seriousness and dedicaton of the people fhat we
^strot until the goal is achieved. This is just another evidence of "another world is possible" seen at
Of course six days proved too little for the vast and varied nature of issues that WSF had to take uo in
Mumbai. I am not sure of any other gathering in the world that might have touched upon so many
from^r??Cer|nb9i hU?an h6'095' In th'S Way' i,: was un'que and the on|y forum of its^ind Issues
WSF
S reet9
"J6
and debated in different waVs dudng
, .
r p ays' fo,k,ores< songs, music, placards, posters, pamphlets debates disciissinn^
workshops movies etc., were all put together to use to communicate the me'ssage thai had brouqS
neoniA°ne
d^erent parts °f tbe world covering long distances. These channels of peopled
people communication were very powerful and effective. Most of the time they were unedited and
Mahatma Sdhi s^mth Symbolically' * was something like the namak ando/an (salt movement) of
tZknn nf c'ir
:ng wePossess- s°mething our own aid we would use it the way we ke
This feel ng of self-respect is a slap on the face of those who kneel down before the so-caHed woXi
organisations and institutions called WTO, IMF and World Bank.
Sd ° d
Numerous issues were taken up and would be beyond the scope of this report to enumerate them
Women's issue, children, education, violence within the bounda^ of thehZ■and <Se woSs
labour unions minority issues, adivasis, tribals, aboriginals, bonded labourers traffickina media
»*»• »d
•»
co^'/se of artio^'Sor3 exchan9ed theirkvtews and experiences and tried to frame out their further
d?ffer!n?fth
occasion also brought together different people and organisations working on
from thL
T Of the Same SUbjeCt for examP|e toose working on women trafficking could learn
them to hero 9 7 W°7n/Ci,rl education or those struggling for empowering women or educating
them to become informed citizens. All these exercises worked so smoothly each with a dear
"anSwrid is posSiWe"^'
"" C°mplementa^ and indus^ underlining the fact that that
* Khurshid Imam is a linguist and an expert on West Asian (Middle East) Affairs.
Introspecting the WSF-2004 preparatory process and
suggestions for media involvement
By Vijay Pratap
. .. . ..
,
Inter Press Service.
His belief is that the WSF-2004 was an unqualified success. Yet its social and political impact could have
been manifold.")
almOhSt 9Tett'n9 d®pressed arid disoriented at the limitations of myself and the likes of me The
sxvam abte to ra“n ”” d'9,“ °fb “ ■ “
r^ndHn
t0 the idea °f WSF and its 'open space' initiative at a global level when
NICD
f
' 3 membSr °f the Brazilian Or9anisin9 committee) in June 2001 at an
I fni?v Zn t n ltnhternatlOnal event at Helsinki- Bringing WSF to India was first proposed there WhHe
fully endorsed the conception of WSF and its utmost relevance for building 'Another World' given
nn d he
pressures of ldentlty fundamentalism of various kinds I didn't have the enthusiasm
to go deep into the issue of holding or not holding it in India. I also thought that the vernacular India
was not equipped and ready to hold such an international event in the coming years.
saZfTn'd^ Indhrn col'ea9ue at the NIGD conference, Ashok Rao (a leading campaigner against the
and . 1 d andPUbllC SeCtOr undertakln9s) and Finnish friends in Kepa, Friends of the Earth MGD CED
and VK-Finland were veiy enthusiastic about the idea. Back in India, Ashok Rao persuaded VP Singh
(former Indian Prime Minister), Surendra Mohan (leading Socialist ideologue)Pand SP Shukla la
S 9wZaif9ner OmW0 iSSUeS) ab0Ut the vital importance °f -gating the Sal event in
India. Three of our other star campaigners - Medha Patkar, Aruna Roy and Vandana Shiva - were
WenW issue!) MP^ParSswSa^fa 2 '^t"9
campai9ner on globalisation and
PennlX IXn™ m
Par^eswaran <a Marxist-ecologist or Gandhian-socialist and a doyen of the
thP m S . f Movement) were also of the view that holding WSF in India would immensely helo
the movement for deepening democracy in India and globally. I went along with the 'collective will' of
all such illustrious workers/leaders of the movement sector.
collective will of
'“•"'''-'“'■ I was asked Id organic a meeting in Delhi (which took place
IntemaUonal
SwPr0P°Sal te'°r<! ,te
and„o,thead’hoc wockiogSmXXSdS' pt"wTsdecSa"
2004^^ Ind'a level Social Forum t0 be held towards end of 2002 or early in 2003 and WSF in
h^npLd h tK AS'f ?u°r Af'an leVel eVent was t0 be organised in Kathmandu in late 2002 It never
appened because of the political situation there, which made it difficult for the local organisers.)
At Porto Alegre I addressed a press conference organised by the International Secretariat of w<;f on s
e ruary 002 to make public the offer of the Indian movement sector to hold WSF-2004 in India.
2007 hX0' We^" WZd t0 tbe beSt Of: 0Ur abilities for organising the Indian Social Forum in late
'th AWay tbrough we were informed by our Nepali colleagues that they were not in a oosition to
X LXmm F°'U": dUe ? ,he
P«««>l SltdahOh’ihXXnnah7a the
wmX
metamorphosed into the Asian Mai For™, with imatatlcm tor a^pan As!a„
1 “"sisK,nUy took lhe 1”®“ »»<
were not ready to undertake WSF (Arter
SonJ”’” 20°3' 1 “ expr'“d
ref£
a,
as ,sx™"S'r
But considering the fact that a Ilarge number
1_. of those involved in organising ASF thought it appropriate
to hold it in India, I decided to hold my reservations in abeyance once
the mobilisation of the vernacular, along with m^ny otheTsI"
fU"y t0
mn rhfn!h9Ue' n! A^' G°landaz and Subhash L°mte (facilitators of the Mobilisation Committee of
Sh
(Jharkhand)' Prabhat and Arvind Sinha and many others from Bihar Ilina Sen
CahaM'
Uma Shankan and G- Narendranath (Andhra Pradesh), Sanjay M G Subhash Ware
Ukta Shhr,vastava (Maharashtra), Atal B. Sharma (Maharashtra/ Gujaratj,’ Amarjyoti Nayak
Mahadey Vidrohi, Sonal, Prasad Chako and Father Moses (Gujarat) among others are workina hard to
Z M p pVernaCUlar WOrld ViSible in WSF- nie Kerala Proc^, thanks to the tdlrSXersols
°therS' d°eS nOt rea"y SUffer from this divide between
India and BahraraetSWaran'
of.tbe Present IOC leadership tends to ignore / have contempt for/ even ridicule the
vernacular oriented activists. Of the many facilitators of the different functional groups at least some
affierlnt
T°n9 feellri9 °f be'n9 '9nOred by the dominant sections in IOC. Despite being from
thZv hMnnn°r09Iha streams; those who have shared their discomfiture have one thing in commonmemho
goe vernacular India and are keen to have such groups onboard WSF
Many IOC
pie groups with Marxist-Leninist orientation, who have a forum called the All India People's Resistance
raXZi' arS actlvely oPPos|ng WSF, along with some Trotskyites and many 'independent' non-Marxist
radicals. They are organising parallel events in the name of Mumbai Resistance Thev are Z
s,ream “a"
SWISS'
°r9a'’ised paraM e,"B
s". " ST?red Truai,e ”'k
ResKlance or WSF, as the? have dose’alte In 3
JP Movement (Total Revolution) activists and organisations that came i ' '
into being during 1974-77 (an
important watershed in Indian history), independent intellectuals with dissenting imagination'
, and
many an important democratic socialist network are not on board yet.
rr- media- and «—r
not been
overwhelming majority in the country) areZ fZinZT^jorSof the ZdersinWC appeal to
=s==:=—=====
I am sharing this with the larger community of workers who are nart of tho \a/qf nrrvoee
•♦•k
financial resources onto the oroanisinn of \A/^P-7nnzi ah
u
9
/
u al and
ourselves to this task. The funding earmarked for the mobilisation cZZeTZZZahteZZ9 for
hlnfS^FP,e deaST th4atub01th its ,eaders be,on9 to the vernacular and have a constructive/co-operative
ent of mind and not the killer-instinct found in abundance in our public life today.
Given the richness and vitality of our movement sector, even with zero representation of vArnAniHr
nd. ,n IOC the event will of course pass as a grand success because ourTorthem counterparts do
be^SndiaTn!^Bharat C'eaVa9e
VemaCU,ar' What we ca" the
Suggestions for IPS and donor friends
Donor agencies will do a big service if they are able to mobilise such vernacular rooted and authentir
counterparts from all continents and link them with the Indian ones In raqp of tpc: it- n r
aTdTa*iXaan|taPeXtIndianKb°dy °f SOda"y
^-XX^ttedto
its
best to
moWI se6
iSHCOnStituted' 1 aPPeal to the
leadership to do
non Fnr,r h t
™‘,se
funds for an
adequate
number of Hindi
and
other
hannvtn' helnm'^T^ no^Indian' j°urnal'sts whose expenses could be borne by IPS. I will be most
Ed tor's Guild of0bTnrtLSUChHJOrnd 'StS W'thln Ind'a' 1 haVe sounded Sumit Chakravartty (secretary of
tors Guild of India) and leading retired editors-turned- activists such as Kuldio Navar rc
Verghese Prabhash Joshi and Lalit Surjan. The director of Press Institute of India Sit Bhattacha^a
brings out a journal devoted to movements called 'Grassroots'. His institution journal and his vast
ature service from struggle and fields), Manimala (editor, Books for Change Hindi) Raini Bakshi
U.S
JZTXX-S as“£X* .X « ±
WSF Reports/Papers
The WSF assessment: Process needs to be more
focused, transparent
By Suresh Nautiyal
212^nd.0f JanuarY 2004, organisations associated directly or i indirectly with the Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam parivar/family organised a meeting at the Keshav Gore Memorial
Trust Hall in Goregaon”
an<l L"™ “ <>' NKD- “
K
At the very beginning, Dhirubhai Sheth of the CSDS, Delhi, pointed out in his key address that everv
demonstration that took place in the WSF meet was a critical projection and every small event had a
focus a message. He refrained from describing the event as just a mela or carnival He said that the
added lhAr3
°f 'deologlcal comm'tments, and a process (than WSF) of solidarity making He
added that so far a more pragmatic process has not yet emerged.
evTnt ST (V!K F'nland,' Coal'tion for Environment and Development, Finland) was all praise for the
event at such a large scale. She said it was surprising to see everything going smoothly during the
fruWrrshA5’
n m'9 rth! SVent 3S magnificent' Jarna added that even small discussions were quite
fruitful. She praised the Indian organisers for doing their job successfully. Marko Ulvila (Coalition for
tZT
and DT'0Pment' VK Rnland) alS0 termed the event as successful^and poiJSS that
there were several dimensions like open space and opportunities to come together though sectional
“n* ST d“ri"9
"'ent He POi",al o'" “
s™te aX X”
™s
n!d FOttat°f the Siemenpuu Foundation Finland said that it was interesting to see large number of
people in their cultural diversities in a comparatively small area. He expected the donor agencies to
ave critical discussions on the issues that have emerged from the process. Describing the WSF as a
th7t the^W^h^s7'^’deik° Hi7ela/Democracy Forum Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam FinVand) regretted
that the WSF has no democratic structure. Besides, he emphasised that these should have been
ranger connection between the WSF and poor people in the streets of Mumbai. He said it was
important to strengthen the anti-globalisation movement and look for appropriate ways out.
ranged" in wTl raid that
WaS 9°Od that several organisations and groups were well
suSiaT"^
Z"~=S'" * - *
pracSs Also
addld^thaTStr6"
woXTt ^T6'1^9
hU9e
the S LXXear^ V
^i T™
WerS °PP0Sed
PUrP°Se-
WOuld be more fruitful if
the globalisation
made
XS S'X'“'“‘“XT xssx
media's attention and thus served the
were people
andTstened tTlheJ’gSnces6 HeS^S^KtVwas
necessary to look beyond criticism of the governments and everybody should take the responsibility to
SolnTwSF
H?ney lendin9 t0 the farmers was 3 burnin9 issue but was n°t taken
up in the WSF meetings in the right perspective.
A Finnish delegate lamented that the event did not come up to the visualisation and the expectation
proved to be totally wrong. The delegate described the whole event as a huge fair though said that
thlnZ33 S°
t0„ta,ke baCk t0 Rnland- "The duality of discussions in the programmes was lower
than the expectations, the Finnish participant declared.
A delegate from Africa said it was a great way in the learning for him but was disappointed that his
continent was not felt in a big way. He urged that in the future WSF events; Africa should be roped in
towXa^ S° thaZe Pr0CT WaS made 3 9,°bal movement in tbe real sense He Z aSn
towards a big gap between the real people and those who shed tears in their names. He also
complained about the missing link between the common people and those participated on their behalf
He made it clear that establishing that link was vital.
Tuuli Hirvilammi of Finland emphasised the need for more focus on campaigns. She advocated holding
that h^soe^a oondmS
Marl<0 ^h933 °f her C0Untry exPressed satisfaction and added
that he spent a good week in Mumbai. The most interesting thing he found during the event was the
diversity of people. He said it was also interesting to see that so much time was devoted to democracy
the mZ' thOh9hm']'7 3 fKW worksh°Ps were democratic in nature. He suggested that the format of
the meetings should have been more dialogue oriented rather than speech oriented.
Ramanika Gupta of the Ramanika Gupta Foundation, India, appealed that democracy
to verv
the
indigenous or adivasi people was not reaching the way it should have been She said it was
f take.thS frU'tS °f democracy to
indigenous/ adivasis people. According to her efforts
should be strengthened to make the dalit and adivadi dreams a reality.
Khurshid Imam of VK India was all praise for the event irrespective of organisational problems which
were bound to be there He said linking people to the issues was important. On the other' ha^d
Kishan Kaljayee of VK India itself pointed out that sincerity was compromised as several panelists in
different workshops did not bother to turn up and the audience had to wait for them endlessly ouite
painfully. Such an attitude showed how non-seriously they took the whole WSF process.
'ZT6 Resistance Rorces- Kundal singh Chauhan of the South Asia Study Centre
(SASC) said that it was necessary to listen to the voices of dissent as they too were fighting for the
of X p Z HS fa^Oured a common strategy of the advocates of the WSF process and the proponents
of the Resistance Movement to take on the bull of globalisation more effectively.
S K ■'Lha'l Wh° f |S° moderated the assessment meeting, pointed out very candidly that the right
p ace for ideology of struggles was field and not the boardroom. In view of this he favoured the next
poor He^ddedU5^9 Wher6
StrUCtures would be raised Permanently for the benefit of the
drew equal importance
Pr°9rammeS should be or9anised thematically and segmentation of issues
tZ^h13 °f NIGtD' Wh° co’chaired
session, agreed that the programmes should have been
b°ard ™ember of the Siemenpuu Foundation Finland, praised the richness of India's
p gramme on the same themes or subjects and it was really difficult to be present in all of them
Atal Bihari Sharma was quite critical of the way the WSF was organised. He pointed out that there was
of seriousness and real Indians were missing from IOC. He added tha^ if the things moved the
way they were doing, future of the WSF process was not very optimistic. He complained that in reality
the WSF process was not an open space as some of the organisations were not allowed to participate
it the events. He complained that nobody even thought of inviting the Dalai Lama. He accused that
the IOC members had nothing to do with the real issues. Sharma lamented that water was one of the
key issues on the WSF agenda; still it was being sold at high price during the event.
Fully supporting Atal Bihari Sharma, Suresh Nautiyal, coordinator of the South Asian Dialogues on
Ecological Democracy/CSDS, pointed out that he had some reservation about the WSF process as
making another world possible was unlikely without the participation of the dissent voices. He
favoured a direct dialogue with the Resistance groups to evolve a common strategy to oppose
globalisation. He also demanded more transparency in the whole functioning of the WSF process. He
said that doubts in the mind of common people were to be removed for the benefit of the process.
Nautiyal stressed that it was important to hold future WSF events collectively with the Resistance
groups maybe on the commonly agreed programme. He also called for cohesiveness with the two
streams that were both opposed to the WTO and the globalisation process in the world.
Sudhir Chandra raised several questions that have dogged the WSF process. He said there was no
room to accept the hypocrisy by saying that they were not aware of the contradictions. He also
expressed his doubts on the question of funding of the process in India or elsewhere.
Rajendra Dhasmana, president of the Uttarakhand PUCL, expressed concern over the role of media,
which showed no respect for the events. He pointed out that many of the events did not reflect the
WSF ideology. He also complained about the poor acoustic quality in the big halls where conferences
were organised. He added that nothing was done to take care of dust, mud, etc. Besides, he accused
that media was being pro-globalisation said that expecting anything from media was unrealistic. "The
metropolitan citizens remained indifferent to the whole event as they did not consider it important" he
added.
Ravindra Singh Basera from Uttarakhand or Uttaranchal state in India supported that there was hardly
democracy to be seen in the workshops, etc. he lamented that the alternative view was not promoted
during the event. The questions regarding the accountability of the NGOs was not answered.
Gauri Shankar of VK India said that he was puzzled to find that how those products were allowed to
be sold in the event which were supposed to be boycotted. He also criticised the role of police, which
was brutal in his opinion.
Subhash Lomte, an IOC member, tried to answer many of the questions raised in the meeting. He said
that it was wrong to suggest that the WSF had no ideological clarity. He expressed due respect to the
ideology of the Resistance Forces (Mumbai Resistance) though made it clear that their ideology was
different from that of WSF. He asserted that WSF was unique in the sense that it was not giving
directions to anyone being an open space. Also, it allowed everybody to get back to his or her
respective country and act accordingly. He was categorical in saying that the WSF process was about
ideology and about inclusion. It provided a place where several identical ideologies gathered and
became part of the process. Without naming Atal Bihari Sharma and others, he answered the
questioned raised by them adding that Thomas Kocherry's organisation was not included in the WSF
process as he had reservations about organising the WSF in India. However, Lomte pointed out that it
was not the right place to discuss such issues.
Conclusion:
In nutshell, the participants were enthusiastic about the WSF process and hoped that the movement
would grow positively in the near future. They felt that sooner than later the WSF process would get
very strong and become a global movement in the real sense by incorporating those countries and
regions not represented right now. They hoped that more and more participation would become a
reality from African countries as well. It was also recognised that foreign delegates', participation was
not very high due to long distances and logistic problems. In view of this, it was suggested to hold
region or country wise social forums more frequently. It emerged from the meeting that there was no
need of holding the WSF every year. It was also pointed out that adequate attention should be paid to
make the process a mass movement than put energies into holding of meetings and workshops at a
large scale. A few of them also expressed doubts about the source of funding, questioned why the
process was not structured and why democracy did not rule in the programmes, etc.
World Dignity Forum: Agenda of the marginalised at
WSF 2004
Ashok Bharti* and Mukul Sharma*
(Published in Mainstream, 14 February 2004, issue)
The most outstanding feature of the recently concluded World Social Forum in Mumbai was the
massive participation of Dalits. Normally invisible and absent in our discourse and psyche, the most
marginalised section of Indian populace, the Dalits, came, danced, rallied and soon filled the World
Social Forum with their overwhelming presence and energy. For those who have been to earlier World
Social Forums at Porto Alegre in Brazil, the presence of the Indian marginalised at the World Social
Forum was contrary to the presence of the Brazilian marginalised —the Blacks and partly Blacks
comprising about 44 per cent of the total Brazilian population—at the Brazilian World Social Forum.
The overwhelming presence of Dalits and marginalised of India has posed serious questions not only
before the advocates of the new world order based on the market economy but also before the
International Organising Committee of the World Social Forum, where Dalits and Blacks are hardly
represented.
More than their physical presence, Dalits left two messages that would continue to echo in the future
World Social Forums. The first message, that neo-liberal globalisation worsens the conditions of the
Dalits, is obvious and corresponds with the overall theme of the World Social Forum. But by declaring
the inviolability and non-negotiability of human dignity as their second message, they discovered the
missing link in the struggle against globalisation in the World Social Forum.
The Dalits and the indigenous people of India in association with the other marginalised of the world,
made clear that they disagree with the existing proposition that DIGNITY was second only to the right
of existence. Instead they asked the World how one could exist without Dignity. To assert, establish
and achieve equal dignity of all, the Dalits and all those that consider dignity as the paramount goal of
human civilisation, made a worldwide beginning in the form of the World Dignity Forum at the Mumbai
World Social Forum.
Initiated by Dalit and non-Dalit groups and organisations, the World Dignity Forum, as reported in the
foreign media, was one of the most crowded events. Focusing on how human beings have denied
dignity to billions of their fellow citizens in the name of caste, class, race, gender, disability, religion,
faith or ideologies, the Forum even highlighted the danger to the dignity of nations by 'well conceived
and organised attacks on different countries of the world such as Kuwait, Afghanistan or Iraq'.
"With the World Dignity Forum in Mumbai, World Social Forum would not remain a parallel replica of
the World Economic Forum, which remains primarily concerned with the efficiency of market and
economy, but would form a New World, which is free from discrimination, exploitation, inequality and
atrocity and oppression of any kind and another World championed by the World Social Forum would
be a Dignified World," asserted one of the coordinators of the World Dignity Forum in his introduction
to the World Dignity Forum.
Associating the WDF with the main theme of the World Social Forum, the speakers and participants
put Globalisation on trial, but linked its impact on the most marginalised of the world. Speakers
reiterated that neo-liberal policies were reducing workers linked benefits and turning the Welfare State
into a state that runs away from the welfare of the people. And by doing so, it threatens the dignity of
working classes and their right to dignified existence. One of the issues analysed was that of
migration, which neo-liberalism has enforced on thousands of people and poses a serious threat to the
livelihoods and resource base of peoples across the world.
The World Dignity Forum discussed the critical relationship between caste, class and race oppression.
"Distortions of the term have been central in structuring patterns of domination and subordination all
over the world/' states the Forum's synthesis document. "At the same time, the oppressed are
increasingly articulating their distinct, different and multiple identities and negotiating for their own
space in the public sphere." Spelling out their agenda in absolutely clear terms, one of the speakers at
the WDF asserted: "Pious resolutions and half-hearted ameliorative measures will not be enough or
acceptable to us. We will now have to explore new linkages to attain our social, economic and political
goals."
Narrating his personal experiences, a leading social activist from Pakistan said that even though Islam
is not supposed to discriminate between its followers this does not work in Pakistan as far as the Dalits
are concerned. "Though the people of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh felt proud of their ancient
civilisation, it had also left the curse of casteism. Even political parties, including the Communist
Parties, are not free from caste-based discrimination," he asserted.
The Forum underlined the relationship of gender vis-3-vis dignity, and the need to ensure women's
dignity, in the face of patriarchal power that has appropriated "control over women's labour, body and
sexuality, under the garb of a discourse of dignity and honour". "No nation, state or political institution
can be established, constructed or defined without redefinition and reconfiguration of the gender
relationship in its political dimension. This is an occasion to act, and one of the crucial spots where to
start," underlined a lady speaker from Yugoslavia.
Explaining the threat to the dignity of minorities, the learned speaker from Malaysia said that religious
exclusivism and extremism was undoubtedly one of the primary forces behind the diminution of the
dignity of the minority, but it was not the sole factor. "The fact that we are all minorities in the global
sense should persuade us to treat 'the religious other' with respect," he announced. "A common
humanity before which minority-majority differences pale into insignificance. A common humanity that
brings forth the essence of our dignity. Indeed, it is only a willingness to act with sincerity on the basis
of our common humanity that will guarantee everyone's dignity—the dignity of the minority as well as
the majority," asserted the speaker. With respect to the fundamentalist forces, they threaten to
to
"rupture the fabric of society" and undermine legal democratic norms, and they exercise violence
against religious minorities, which is an assault on their dignity, it was denounced.
In the struggle for dignity, "employment, education, health, freedom from hunger, guaranteed
livelihood, social security and related economic and social rights are crucial in ensuring a dignified
existence to all human beings," it was affirmed. In this sense, it is necessary to forge alliances among
likeminded individuals and groups at the global level. "A perspective from the subalterns and the
marginal, and the recovery of a democratic state is crucial for ensuring minimum conditions for
dignity. Dignity means freedom to live in peace, health and hope."
The presentations at the World Dignity Forum were interspersed with artistic presentations by the
cultural movement groups asserting dignity of human being in the form of music, dance, theatrical
plays and songs of dignity and people's assertion.
Endnotes:
^OO^h^0'56 ChiPaUX' "Da^Sf ^emmes
exc/us de /a societe indienne se retrouvent a Bombay" Le Monde, January 17,
2. World Social Forum has hardly been reported in the Indian media. Kindly see report by Veronica Leon B
World Dignity Forum "at alainet. org/active/show_ text.php3?key=5381
"WSF 2004'
* Ashok Bharti is convener of NACDOR, India.
* Muku! Sharma is a seniorjuornalist and director of HBF India.
Helsinki Process
Democratising globally: civil society engaging with
State actors
By Sini Kuvaja*
The dialogue — organised by Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, Service Centre for Development Cooperation
(KEPA) and Tansania Association of NGOs (TANGO) — took place on Sunday 18 January 2004 at
Holiday Inn, Juhu Beach, Mumbai. Introductory civil society accounts from Tanzania, Finland and India
were presented by Mary Mwingira (Tanzania), Heidi Hautala (Finland) and Harsh Mander (India).
Presentations of the Helsinki Process were accomplished by Erkki Tuomioja (minister for foreign
affairs,Finland) and Abdulkadir Shareef (deputy minister for foreign affairs and international
cooperation, Tanzania). Presentations on democracy and globalisation were made by Digvijay Singh
(minister of state for foreign affairs, India) and Juan Somavia (director-general, International Labour
Organisation). Comments and discussion session was chaired by Marie Shaba of Tanzania and Digvijay
Singh (former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh) of India. Presentations on democracy and
globalisation was made by Subhash Lomte (National Campaign Committee for Rural Workers, India)
social thinker Kishen Pattnayak (Samajwadi Jan Parishad, India), Thomas Wallgren (Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam, Finland), and professor CSL Chachage of the Unversity of Dar es Salam, Tanzania.
Summary of the presentations and interventions
Civil society accounts from Tanzania, Finland and India
Mary Mwingira, the head of Tanzanian umbrella NGO Tango, described that there was lot of coalition
building happening within the civil society in Tanzania. The cooperation between trade unions,
chambers of commerce and NGOs was strengthening the civil society. There was a great need in
Tanzania for proactive search of information in order to distribute it to the poor. The trade agreements
needed to be demystified to enable people to link the prize of maize with WTO and hold government
responsible for its actions. The Tanzanian civil society feared it might be challenged by legislation.
Mwingira's message to state actors was: "Civil society is here to stay, it has existed even before
colonialism, played an important role in fighting for independence, brought a lot of changes and it has
to be taken seriously by state actors."
The chair of Kepa board Heidi Hautala from Finland described the change that has happened in civil
society groups during last few years. The civil society groups have come strongly together in one
discussion: northern countries could not export development but needed to support southern partners.
Governments were now listening to civil society groups. When WTO was founded in 1995 hardly any
governments and only few civil society groups were aware there would be adverse effects. Now, the
civil society groups were alert that including services and investments under WTO was going to create
problems. Some civil society groups saw the need of a world parliament, others found it far reaching
but all agreed that full transparency was needed in international organisations including World Bank,
WTO and IMF. Civil society wanted to be part of the process of reforming the institutions but nobody
wants to have a formal hearing but to have genuine influence in the process. Many thought that
strong action was needed to support securing UN framework.
Harsh Mander from India, representating Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, saw social justice and equality as
highest aspirations and assured civil society organisations could achieve these goals - but not alone:
strong state was needed. No civil society action should weaken the state in securing justice for its
citizens. On the other hand, states on their own would never act in a sustainable way unless held into
account by people and their organizations. Civil society needed to be strong in ensuring the state
didn't come oppressive. NGOs should not be subcontractors of state but follow Gandhi's principle: "We
must cooperate when we can but resist when we must". Mander offered three steps for civil society
organisations: 1) Help organise people who suffer 2) Fight unjust laws and policies and 3) Make
government transparent and accountable. He also identified several challenges for the civil society
organisations. One of these crises was the question of legitimacy: when people volunteered for work
they were neither elected nor selected. Questions concerning funding, efficiency and lack of
transparency were also addressed.
Presentations of the Helsinki Process
Finnish minister for foreign affairs, Erkki Tuomioja, explained the history and role of the Helsinki
Process and stated the wish to work as openly as possible involving all who worked with globalisation
issues. He pointed out that the question was not about being 'for' or 'against globalisation but the real
challenge was how the positive effects of globalisation could be distributed more equally both within
the countries and among so many other countries. Although he recognised the need to reform WTO,
he also reminded that states still had possibilities to counteract the negative effects of globalisation.
21
The Helsinki Process event was organised as a sort of side event for the World Social Forum in
Mumbai because governments were not allowed to take part in the WSF. Tuomioja found it important
for the States to have dialogue with civil societies and to build bridges even with the Davos Economic
Forum and the WSF. The forums deal with same issues although they offered different solutions. "If
these can be brought together, we can establish better global governance", Tuomioja concluded.
Abdulkadir Shareef, Tanzanian deputy minister for foreign affairs and international cooperation, saw
for the role of Helsinki Process to reverse the imbalances between rich Northern countries and the
growing number of people sinking into poverty in the South. Shareef accused WTO and other
international institutions of being 'supposedly democratic' but in practice lacking transparency and
democracy leading to the situation where the South remained a restricted player. He expected Helsinki
Process to have also equality in the process itself. The fact many people remembered from the day
was Shareef's words about all the debts of all African countries being less than the annual budget of
the fire brigade of NY state. "How can this money cause havoc,'' Shareef wondered. In addition to the
debt relief he saw it important to invest in education, in modernising agriculture and in fighting
diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Presentations on democracy and globalisation (Morning session)
Digvijay Singh, minister of state for foreign affairs, India, praised the fall of WTO negotiations in
Cancun for showing how civil society and states could co-operate to refuse the disadvantages of
globalisation. He criticised WTO for not reflecting the democratic principle and said developing
countries were unrepresented in international institutions. Singh observed that more links were
needed between civil society organisations, State and market groups.
Juan Somavia, director-general of ILO, offered the full support of ILO to the Helsinki Process which he
called a major initiative that world really needed. Somavia's solution to poverty was employment: ILO
has taken up fight for decent work as the way of re-thinking the global agenda. Somavia praised
World Social Forum for showing the combined strength of all agendas: gender, indigenous peoples,
etc. He saw these social movements as keys to change attributes, legislation and action. One good
example of this has been the women's movement. Somavia thanked Finland for being active in both in
the Helsinki Process and in the ILO Commission of Social Dimension of Globalisation (president Tarja
Halonen is the co-chair of the commission).
"We need leaders of the North to speak out: this is not the right way for things to go. Finland wants to
speak in a common interest and accept changes which are always not good for the developed world",
Somavia pointed out.
Comments (morning session)
Tony Avirgan from Rural Policy Network offered his solution to the problem of legitimacy in civil
society organisations the unions where leaders are selected. He criticised many States, Tanzania
included, for currently discouraging the unions.
Prof. Arun Kumar from JNU called for the Gandhian principle "last man comes first" and movements
based on this principle.
H.M.Desarda stated that over consumption was much bigger problem than over population and that
limits to growth were needed.
President of the World Citizens Foundation, Troy Davis, said that he has been disappointed with the
Helsinki Process because it was not looking for solutions. "We need to re-engineer the global system,
we need a fundamental principle, a global social contract", Davis said. He spoke for constitution for
the world based on equality of human beings. This constitution should be planned through a
participatory process, even though it was difficult and would probably take ten years.
Presentations on democracy and globalisation (Afternoon session)
Subhash Lomte from National Campaign Committee for Rural Workers in India described that the rural
sector of India was terribly neglected both by government and by labour unions which were
restrictively interested in the organised sector of the country. Meanwhile half the people were denied
help, services, drinking water, employment and social security.
22
Kishen Pattnayak, Indian Socialist thinker and former member of parliament, said that civil society
could not negotiate with the present market. He reminded that there was no continuous global civil
society functions. Globalisation integrated poor countries with the most powerful economies in the
world and thus disintegrated societies. Pattnayak called for a barrier that should be brought in to
separate the economies of developing countries from the powerful economies.
Thomas Wallgren from Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Finland agreed with Pattnayak's idea about
separating the economies. He saw both the World Social Forum and the Helsinki process as tools for
negotiating the future. However the processes must not fall into the trap of thinking that it was
enough to speak of global governance. Instead we needed radical democratisation. "We need to
create and recreate global institutions nurtured below by strong democraties," Wallgren said. He
added that the Helsinki process should have a role in reforming EU policies.
Discussion (afternoon session)
Fred Chambanenge from Green Living Movement Zambia and Ville Luukkanen from Kepa Finland
brought together a statement for the Helsinki-process:
* the debt cancellation process needs to be strengthened and moved from creditors to independent
actors
* the subsidies for farmers in the north must be reconsidered
Satu Hassi representing Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and the Green Parliamentary Group in Finland said
that more countries especially from the North needed to join in the Helsinki Process. Hassi stated that
contracts between states and governments were too often formal negotiations and more
brainstorming between states was needed.
Tony Avirgan commented that since the WTO rules were based on economic system why could not we
agree to have rules based on political system. In Avirgan's point of view, we still think like subjects to
a king and not like citizens, and presidents also behave like kings. He described this situation as
feudalism instead of democracy.
Nitin Desai representing Helsinki Process track 1 (problem solving methods) observed the process in
itself was as important as the results: it is a genuine dialogue where people with different points of
views must be involved and you must be able to listen and change your views.
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz representing Helsinki Process track 1 said that there was need to deal in a
sustainable way with the debt problem and racism. Awareness raising was the basic process for
empowering communities and basic organisations and also local governments needed to be
strengthened, Tauli-Corupz concluded.
Heidi Hautala, also a member of Helsinki Process track 1, reminded the listeners of the ecological
issues. Ecological justice can't be left out of social justice and we need to be careful that solutions
won't create more problems," Hautala asserted.
Erkki Tuomioja responded to a demand from the audience for policy proposals that he would not be
satisfied with analyses only but expected policy proposals from the Helsinki Process.
* Sin/ Kuvaja is from Kepa, Finland (the report has been taken from Kepa website).
On the double meaning of 'information' and the work
of knowledge
(Paper presented at the workshop "Dialogues on Knowledge in Society" held on 17th & 19th January 2004 as part of the
World Social Forum at Mumbai.)
By Avinash Jha*
Past few decades have seen the emergence of new iinformation
"
and communication technologies
(ICTs) and the scale and nature of changes it has brought about has been described as 'information
23
revolution'. At the most basic level, this technological development consists of the capacity of
transforming texts, sounds and images into sets of ordered signals that can be recognized by
computers and which can be transmitted over long distances and recombined again to reproduce
original texts, sounds and images. This technology also facilitates easier manipulation and duplication
of texts, sounds and images.
In late sixties and seventies, some theorists noted the changing occupational structure of advanced
industrial society. More and more people were using their brains rather than muscles in their work.
The economic changes of the time required a workforce with a larger component of people with
linguistic, mathematical and technical competence as compared to the era of assembly lines. Some
theorists saw these changes as harbingers of an 'information society' which will be more open,
democratic, inclusive and less dependent on the drudgery of mindless repetitive work.
Then came globalization, with flourishing financial markets and reorganization of the global economy.
Cheap PCs became widely available. Internet developed as an unprecedented communication and
information network. From being a preserve of academic institutions, activist sub-cultures and the like,
Internet moved to become a means of commercial, media, and political activities. Organisations and
institutions of all kinds reorganized their word processing, information management, and
communication activities based on this new infrastructure, which had the added dimension of offering
instant connectivity in global terms. These developments taken together heralded what was dubbed
the 'Information Age' and the theory of 'information society' came of age in the form of a theory of
'network society'.
All these changes have finally led to the discourse of a knowledge-based society. Industrial society is
seen to be undergoing a fundamental change resulting in the formation of knowledge society. The
idea of 'information society' or 'knowledge society' often takes advantage of an implicit normative ideal
of what may be termed as 'well-informed society' or 'knowledgeable society'.
While this serves as a convenient ideology for those riding on the waves of current changes, serious
questions have been raised on the implications of these changes for world society and its future. Sunil
Sahasrabudhey in his note on "Dialogues on knowledge in society" sees a shift in the ground of
knowledge associated with the increasing use of ICTs. The central position of science as the source of
authoritative knowledge is being ceded and the emerging knowledge society is seen as bringing about
a new regime of knowledge with ambiguous consequences for re-emergence of what is called 'lokvidya'. In this context, this seminar is a welcome move to begin examining the questions associated
with knowledge in society.
In this note, I examine the two meanings of 'information'- one from the social context and another
from the technological context - and try to show that a play on the ambiguity in the meanings of
'information' allows the building of an ideology of 'information society' or 'knowledge society' that
seeks to draw our assent and to tie our hopes to the current global developments. Flowing from these
two strands of 'information' we encounter two different spheres for our reflections on knowledge in
society - one closely associated with the development of ICTs and the other associated with broader
changes in the field of knowledge and society. It is the latter, in my analysis, which holds greater
importance for the future of lok vidya.
ICTs as infrastructure of global integrations
Globalisation is marked not only by integration of national economies to the global economic
structures dominated by advanced industrial nations, but also by integration of different domains of
society - business, government, NGOs (altruistic, voluntary initiatives), politics, media, knowledge
(science, academy, information, policy). There is also an integration of this integrated elite at the
global level. ICTs provide a common infrastructure for these integrations. If you do not use ICT, you
may be left out of this globally developing network society, which exists as part of the world society.
The world society is marked by national boundaries. You risk a fortune or even your life if you want to
transgress these boundaries. Not so for those who are part of the global network society. They, and
their fortunes, move with ease across borders. If we look at the multi-tiered UN structure, the world
society begins to reveal itself as a system of global apartheid. The world society with its inter-state
and inter-national structures is absolutely essential for the current global structures to play on. It the
24
world were truly globalized, balance of payments and national debts would not ex st as meaning^
categories In fact the most global of all global entities, which is the currency markets, wouldnt know
how9to exist but for the existence of multiple national economies. Moreover, the national governments
have the task of managing the national societies.
If netizens and citizens are defined solely in terms of access to internet, it is not a very meaningful
distinction Is the army of call center workers part of the netizen world or not? Railway rese^on
clerks occasional surfers etc. can hardly be called netizens. What matters is whether you are a part of
the global network society.
Knowledge-institutions are finding their place in the network society. They ar® ^eaking stronger
bonds - in some cases from governments - and establishing new ones to funrtion in the larger
network of business, NGOs, etc. In this task, it is essential for them to adopt the infrastructure of ICT
and be networked in order to stay in circulation.
Paradoxes of knowledge-society
Creation of a knowledge-based society, learning society, information society (these are concepts from
the same family) mainly by means of new ICTs forms an important part of national and global
development goals. This has two components:
• the goal of adapting national economies to global dynamics of business
. a developmental or transformative goal of moving towards a better informed or more
knowledgeable society.
World Bank has redefined itself as a knowledge bank. A few years ago the Worid Bank or9apiz^ a
Global Knowledge Conference in order to contribute to the task of building Global Knowledge Society.
As a prelude to the conference, they had set up an electronic mailing list with more than a thousand
participants contributing to a discussion on the theme of building knowledge societies; Most_of the
contributions described efforts to use new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in
remote rural areas or among the poorer sections of urban populations - these efforts normahy fall
under the description TCT for Development'. When someone raised a question regarding the lack o
any discussion in knowledge as such, a few interesting contributions came in response. Soon
afterwards the discussion was back on the track of 'ICT for Development' thereby showing that
adopting newer technology does not necessarily result in new knowledge practices.
The question is not about the need or use of ICTs in development efforts. What was in question was
the assumption that a society using more of ICT is by definition a better informed society. The U.S. is
the society with highest spread and concentration of ICTs. Has it become a well-informed
knowledgeable society? Ignorance of American citizens about the rest of the worid is fenced in
variety of anecdotes and the nature of news media. The U.S. is a society in crisis in terms of crime,
schooling relationships. It is the greatest source of instruments and innovations in violence. Even in
scientific 'literacy, the U.S. citizens fare poorly, as several studies have shown. Here, we begin to
glimpse the paradox in the conception of 'information society' or 'knowledge society.
The paradox can become even more glaring. E-learning is being promoted with great vigour and is
considered a measure of development. The flesh-and-body teachers are being retrenched. No it is not
the same old story of technology taking away jobs. Society is undergoing a major reorganization.
Welfare state and social democratic ideals are supposed to obstruct the new dynamic of global
circulation of capital, technology, people. But in promoting e-learning we are ignoring the knowledge
gained over decades (may be centuries!) regarding the importance of teacher-student interaction in
learning.
Great amounts of information are now flowing through networks at high speed. Then why is the
knowledge
which
has
already
been
accumulated,
being
ignored
Is all the knowledge gained through research and experience being made use of to avoid the social
and environmental catastrophes staring us in our face? How should this knowledge be organized a
communicated? These are some of the questions that arise.
Two meanings of 'information'
25
How did the assumption that societies using more of ICTs are well-informed societies found a ground
to grow? In some way or the other, all theories of information society, knowledge society, information
revolution, information age incorporate this assumption which lends force to these theories by adding
a transformative content to them.
There are two meanings of information:
One is the everyday meaning of information as a bit of knowledge. Right kind of information can
enhance our understanding and bring clarity to our course of action. This is the meaning implied when
we talk of an 'informed society' or having better information. This meaning has evolved since the
advent of modern states in Europe. Information of this kind finds its meaning in the context of
knowledge.
The other meaning of information is the one associated with technology and can be traced to the
information theory propounded by Shannon and Weaver in late forties and fifties. Without going into
precise definitions, we can say that information here means the ordered procession of signals in a
transmission network. The information in this context is not meaningful information, and has been
understood as syntactic rather than semantic. Information of this kind finds it's meaning in the
technological context of translation, transmission, and reproduction of signals.
The two meanings will surely be intertwined if we explore the history of ideas. In fact, the category of
'information' plays important role not only in theories of information society, but in various fields like
biology, linguistics, library science, education, and even physics.
I am proposing that a slippage from one meaning of information to the other makes possible the
theories of information and knowledge societies. This slippage may be pervasive even in other fields of
enquiry enumerated earlier.
Proliferation of representations
The latter, technological, meaning of information refers to the reducibility of all media of symbolic
communication to 'ordered procession of signals' and their reproducibility. While text, sound, image
can be thus broken down and reassembled; smell, touch, and taste among the senses are not
reducible thus.
This leads first of all to a cultural environment dominated by text, sound and image. I speculate that
effortless circulation of disembodied text, sound and image leads to a 'world of representation,
structure and meaning', which can be read in many, even playful, ways. While the technology does
an accurate job of reproducing the symbolic media according to physical parameters, meanings of
messages thus transmitted is open to interpretation. Junk cars used by the poor people in Hollywood
movies may evoke visions of prosperity in an Indian audience.
Is the world of things and forces being replaced by a world of representation, structure and meaning?
Is imagination making a comeback? I doubt. Social knowledge has been relativised, natural knowledge
remains separate and under the absolute authority of science. The division between cultural studies
and natural sciences remains. This division is even reinforced by ICTs. We can work with the
meaningful symbols without ever knowing about how computers work. Software constitutes the
interface between the humans and the hardware. Open source programming, by insisting on blurring
the distinction between users and producers of software knowledge, is a development that has to be
examined in this context.
Virtual reality offers a space of play, creativity and easy manipulation and duplication of symbols and
images. And dissent. At a deeper level, it attracts us by the possibility of choosing a reality to live in,
at least seemingly so. After science was disciplined and institutionalized in the 19th century, scientists
could play around with ideas and pursue 'knowledge for its own sake', while all knowledge they
created was routinely used by the society or corporate body supporting research. Similarly, it seems to
me, virtual reality offers a much larger space for much larger number of people to explore a world of
meaning, structure and representation. Of course, it is only a secondary function of ICTs, primary one
being to function as the infrastructure of network society.
Organisation of meaningful information
26
For ICT to function as infrastructure or as a technology of information, it has to be embedded in
information systems. Meaningful information has to be organized through information systems; mere
technology is not enough. Now we are talking of information in the social context as a bit of
knowledge. Information systems are ways of organizing, classifying and accessing information. The
design of information systems depends on many factors but above all on the purpose and the
potential users of that system. Any organization of information will reveal certain things and conceal
other things, purposely or unwittingly. A company or a government department might organize
information in such a way that one set of information is kept separate from another set to conceal the
interconnections. An academic library will organize information according to academic disciplines,
which will make it difficult for somebody to access or browse all information on topic that cuts across
disciplines.
There is a tendency in the field of information organization that the complex text searches made
possible by computers has made information systems redundant. This, to my mind, is not tenable. An
information system, then, has to be placed within an institution. Institutions have their own purposes,
visions, cultures and objectives. An excellent information system in a closed institution is not useful to
outsiders. To access information in government institutions you may need a right to information act.
An academic institution may not be conducive for a non-academic person to access even in the
absence of legal barriers.
Finally there is a social dynamics of information. Different kinds of information circulate among
different sets of people mediated by a number of institutions using diverse sets of technologies. We
can notice a broad social division of information into technical and non-technical, which flow through
different circuits. Movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan had to struggle to break this
separation of information in two spheres. Information technologies, information systems, institutions
working within broader social structures of knowledge and information circulation determine how
particular sets of information circulate.
Body of knowledge
Mere circulation of information is not enough. Information becomes meaningful only when assimilated
into a body of knowledge. We have been talking about information in its social meaning as a bit of
knowledge. But this definition does not bring out the specific character of information apart from being
a bit of knowledge. We can start with a working definition:
Information as a bit of knowledge separated from the knower that circulates and for this necessarily
reguires a medium or a carrier. Data as a bit of knowledge admitted as such but sitting somewhere.
So information detaches itself from a body of knowledge, circulates, and then again, is assimilated into
a body of knowledge.
A body of knowledge can be the accumulated experience and knowledge of a person, an academic
discipline, knowledge of a community, knowledge of an organisation. A body of knowledge can grow
or be modified when new information is assimilated.
A body of knowledge grows also through experience. A body of knowledge will have informational
content and experiential content, though the proportion of the two may vary a lot. To take examples,
let us take physics, pottery, and open source programming. In the high level of informational content,'
physics and open source programming are similar. If we take growth of knowledge, pottery and open
source programming are similar in that their knowledge grows more through addition of new
practitioners. Marxism or feminism can also be seen as bodies of knowledge. We can use this category
for any social body of knowledge persisting through time in contrast to events of knowledge, which
are episodic and localized. These events of knowledge are either perception or inference. Truly
speaking, these latter are knowledge in real sense, since a body of knowledge is nothing, unless it is
brought to bear upon reality in a specific instance.
The post-industrial regime of knowledge
It seems extremely difficult to assess whether the authority of science is diminishing in the wake of
the emergence of knowledge societies, especially because challenges to science have come from many
T1
directions. There has definitely been an increasing incoherence in the enterprise of science when
conceived as a whole. Various disciplines of science, the sciences, however, continue undeterred by
the slowly crumbling structures of scientific legitimacy and superiority.
The question before us is whether in this 'information age', when the industrial society is reinventing
itself as reflected in globalisation and pervasive use of ICTs, the place of science within knowledge and
the place of knowledge within society has also changed.
We must note at the beginning that the two emerging fields of information technology and
biotechnology are based on modern physics and biology. The major change now is that the field of
software has emerged as a vast and rewarding field of research and creativity, attracting talent from
scientific fields as well. The more software is needed the more ICTs are implemented. When the
infrastructure of business, state, science is being shifted to ICTs, naturally there is an explosion of
software opportunities. On a given hardware platform a plethora of software opportunities are
available. Within scientific research itself, role of simulation and computation has increased resulting in
(or following from) increasing use of computers.
It is true that there is greater acceptance of knowledge produced by different methods and at a
variety of sites. Within the system of scientific ideas itself, we notice a distinction between the context
of discovery and the context of justification emerging in the first half of the twentieth century. As the
idea of a common scientific method found it difficult to deal with the diverse and heuristic ways of
reaching knowledge even within the sciences, this distinction between discovery and justification
arose. It was claimed that scientificity of any knowledge lies in the method of its justification and not
in how it has been discovered.
Whatever be the reasons, it seems clear that there is a growing recognition now that knowledge is
produced at many sites. But this knowledge is then taken and processed at technical sites like
research institutes and it acquires legitimacy only thereafter. Once it has been processed, in a
simplified form it can be communicated to a broad section of people and organizations. This seems
clear in the field of 'development knowledge', which covers the important area of 'traditional
knowledge'. As such, this knowledge does not still have any authority. It has to be documented, and
made a part of a different body of knowledge and then if it is not found to be in contradiction with
scientific knowledge, it acquires legitimacy.
The society has moved from the conception where science was publicly produced authoritative
knowledge available in the public sphere and business used technology to produce goods for
consumption. Now knowledge itself has become a part of business.
Knowledge-based economy is what is often meant by knowledge-based society. How does this affect
the sphere of knowledge? There is a tendency now that all knowledge should lead to or contribute to
the development of certain products: goods, services, or more knowledge. If we talk in an old
language, the current regime of knowledge privileges knowledge with a high exchange value.
To facilitate exchange, knowledge should have appropriate structure and communication
infrastructure. The question we wish to pose is: whether we trace 'organisability' required today from
knowledge to pervasive use of ICTs or to privileging of 'exchange value'.
Work of knowledge
There is so much knowledge in the world but how does this knowledge get organized at various
levels: and then become a part of life. In societies dominated by knowledge-based economy,
knowledge with high exchange value will float to the top. Moreover, the work of knowledge has two
aspects: the work of knowledge that we do and the work that knowledge does on us. In contemporary
times when we engage in knowledge work with the exchange value of knowledge uppermost in our
minds, the knowledge we deal with is not allowed to work in us. We maintain a distance from that
knowledge. The knowledge does not transform us, or our perceptions.
Whatever the future may be like, we can be pretty sure that the society will be complex enough to
have a large number of people who do work of knowledge.
Science, research, teaching, literature etc. are all knowledge-work. This notion of knowledge-work is
different from the one which goes with the conception of information society or knowledge-based
28
society. From our perspective, that is merely brain-work or mental-labour. We do not look at society
as divided between brawn workers and brain workers, or between physical labourers and mental
labourers. Knowledge work is a domain of work, as agricultural work, industrial work, health care
work, etc. Agricultural work, for example, involves a lot of knowledge and requires brains too.
Vidya lok can be a name for the world of knowledge work, norms and institutions of such work. The
normative structure governing knowledge has to be evolved through practice. Philosophy can
contribute to this. Source of all knowledge is perception (pratyaksa) or inference (anumana). Vidya lok
has one specific character. As an individual we may be interested in understanding something; as a
researcher we seek to produce some knowledge which is considered to be valid by other researchers.
In the latter case, we are engaged in pararthanumana, i.e., inference for others. What is admissible
and valid for the research community is governed by logic and/or certain prevailing norms. So in vidya
lok knowledge becomes an interest beyond the context of its application.
We have to analyse the sphere of knowledge work as it exists and evolve alternative norms,
philosophies, methodologies, institutions. This will be characterized by:
- different relation with past knowledge
- different relation with one's own knowledge
- different relation with other's knowledge
- different organization of knowledge
- different conception of growth of knowledge, etc.
Lok vidya is the ground from which different specialized streams of knowledge-quest grow like trees.
These trees shed their leaves periodically which go on to enrich the ground in the process of
decomposition. They do so by becoming a part of our perceptions and therefore of our lives. But all
trees have limited lives.
To recapitulate:
I suggest that we need to be skeptical of the notion of a knowledge-based society emerging on the
back of ICTs. This notion derives its transformational character from blurring of the social and
technological meaning of information.
We need to examine the changes in the sphere of knowledge from a broader perspective.
The conception of a body of knowledge offers us a broad category to which we can easily relate to
and at the same time it is general enough to accommodate the whole range of social knowledge. It
also allows us to properly place the category of 'information', which is an important emerging category
not only in the broader social context but also within various research traditions.
Apart from lok vidya, people's knowledge, we need to look at the sphere of knowledge work, vidya
lok.
* Avinash Jha is associated with Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India. Email: avinash@csdsdelhi.org
Media, globalisation and culture
By Kishan Kaljayee*
Among the various important, delicate and sensitive issues discussed at WSF Mumbai 2004 was about
media, globalisation and culture in a workshop on "The Role of Media in the Era of Globalisation",
organised by the Himalayan Peoples Forum and supported by VK-India, South Asia Study Centre and
others. The session, though initially planned as a panel discussion turned into a lively discussion by
media experts and those associated and affiliated with media. Serious inputs during the discussions
were made by media experts, senior journalists, editors, social activists and concerned citizens of the
world. Just to name a few of the participants Rajendra Dhasmana, Prof. Biswajit Das, Suresh Nautiyal,
Rajesh Jha, Kishan Kaljayee and other American and European participants.
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The discussion took-off with a comprehensive note by Rajesh Jha, a media expert. In the opening
note, he pointed out that the role of media in the process of globalisation was double-edged. Media
found its place as an overall process of globalisation where rapid changes and transfer have taken
place in the information and communication technologies; while at the same time media was
unfortunately also the backbone of the globalisation process itself. He regretted that the process of
globalisation was premised on the almost seamless flow of international capital in the search for quick
profit through the network of communication.
''Media, in fact is both facilitator of the globalisation process as well as its outcome and expression. It
is well understood that media plays a crucial role in preparing the society for accepting the globalising
forces by creating an ideological environment. The role of media in creating a particular mindset is
very crucial for the success of the project of globalisation. Thus, for creating a particular culture that
caters to the market need, control and ownership of media becomes very important," he added.
He said that the process of globalisation has facilitated the travel of technology worldwide and has
also facilitated global media. The event of 9/11 was seen live throughout the world. The global media
that we have today was an outcome of globalisation. Internet was a wonderful setup that linked the
world. Internet was a bi-product of the local needs of the defence department of US to maintain the
channel of communication among its units, in case nuclear war happened and from there on it moved
to almost all spheres of life. It was not a well thought strategic outcome of the US defence
department to have a system that was quite democratic.
He sketched out the modus operand! of the forces of globalisation. These forces seized power by the
use of force but stayed in power by changing the mindset and culture of the people. "Here comes in
the role of media, concerns and protests have been coming from different quarters of the world
against the growing concentration and monopolisation of media into the hands of a few media houses
and corporate bodies," he added.
Suresh Nautiyal, Delhi-based senior journalist and activist, lamented how a select few (embedded
journalists) were given access to one-sided reports during the aggression on Iraq and how such
'coloured' news reports were disseminated throughout the world and picked up by the media globally.
There was no flow of news reports from the Iraqi side.
He added that such one-sided media activities were damaging the very essence of press freedom.
"Also, concentration of power in the hands of a few media houses and their monopoly in the media
bazaar was not a good sign for healthy democracy because they neither represent diversity of opinions
nor reflect the voices of the marginalised" Nautiyal said. He expressed his concern that the space
reserved traditionally for the alternative media in India was also shrinking fast as commercial media
houses were aggressively encroaching their space. This also threatened the cultural and social
diversity and plurality that were the cornerstones of democratic society in the country.
Rajendra Dhasmana, a senior activist with vast editorial experience, said that the 'mass' of the mass
media was at the receiving end for brutality and vulgarity were ruling the scene. The daridranarayan
(poorest of the poor) of a democratic set up was an important entity but the mainstream media did
not provide any voice to the marginalised sections. The forces of social change and transformation
were finding it hard to get space in the media.
Other participants in the discussion were also critical about larger sections of media, which were
overtly becoming profit-oriented and ignoring its much-expected role as an institution — the institution
that articulated people's voice. Its role of safeguarding and highlighting the interests and concerns of
the weakest in society or acting as a watchdog. Instead, media was shutting the fund providers.
Profit making set the goal and content of the media. The advertising and marketing wings of media
were unpardonably dictating the editorial content too. There were few occasional episodic reporting
particularly with 'human interest' and they were neither followed up properly nor put in the right
perspective. Most of the time, the local news stories went unreported due to lack of footage (in case
of TV) and when reported they lacked coherence, and vision. Even the most democratic Internet was
threatened by the technology edge of the big firms.
Several participants said that the media also perpetuated cultural imperialism, built up stereotypes,
imposed cultural value systems and defined moral and ethical lines. The stereotyping many a time put
30
the local and native society, culture and tradition in bad shape and ultimately forced them feel inferior.
One of the speakers gave an example of the Hollywood cinema where Blacks were largely shown as
violent people and in Bollywood cinema the Bhojpuri speaking persons projected as buffoons and
uneducated.
In brief, it was lamented that the media )was heavily influenced, by the forces of imperialist
globalisation and was contributing, wittingly/ or unwittingly in creating a hierarchy of cultural
supremacy.
*Kishan Ka/jayee, associated with Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam-India, edits an occasional Hindi literaryjournal, Samved.
Rescue agriculture: Save humanity
(Seminar on Survival of the peasants globally)
By Rakesh Manchanda*
A hope for change has always been the most sustainable source to survival for all. On 20th January
2004, a colourful gathering in World Social Forum was found busy and alive with hope. The need of
the day was to identify shareable structures including agricultural life and tools for change(?) towards
the possibility of another world. A galaxy of individuals and several grassroot Indian organisations like
National Campaign Committee for Rural Workers, Kisan Sangarsh Samiti, Centre For Indian Trade
Unions, All India Agricultural Workers Union, Bhumi Sena, Action Aid, Echo Trust, Shetkari Sangharsh
Samiti, AIDWA, Students Federation Of India, RSD Pune, South Asian Fraternity, Latur District Natural
Farming Board India, VRDP Tamil Nadu, Jana Vigyana Vedika, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and many
more graced the occasion. The South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy, CSGCDD, and
Committee for Cultural Choices and Global Futures organised the workshop.
The mood was upbeat right from the start. A revolutionary folklore generated by the peasants from
South India charged the adrenaline levels of hundreds of participants. There were poor and small
landless peasants, agriculture workers, artisans, activists and journalists, agriculture experts from
India and abroad and mass leaders. They poured in as inquiring individuals and in caravans. All were
eager to understand the capitalists' parameters of valuation of their craft and valuation of the nature's
contribution. They came along with their experiences and dreams. Their humble contributions as food
producers in the biased wheel of consumption. As helpless consumers; witnessing newer techniques of
capitalist's deception driven by speed and surplus. Landless were seen making room shoulder to
shoulder. To accommodate the new disappearing tribe of 'permanent workers'. They assembled to
combat uneven distribution. To understand existence from self to society.
In the words of the moderator and anchor, G. Narendranath, the platform was ready to sort out ways
on how to combat globalisation. He invited process and talks to carry forward message and struggle
from the local to global. Comrade Suneet Chopra, joint secretary of All India Agricultural Worker Union
(AIAWU), set the ball rolling by sketching three focal points on what Karl Marx noted one hundred and
fifty years ago. According to him, these were three hurdles in today's people's agricultural way of life.
Dispossession of the small producer, pushing him into the reserve army of the unemployed.
Use of machine to substitute for labour rather than a machine sharing a labour's burden.
The division of town and country for profit instead of developing them together for overall progress.
Instead of occupying lands unlike feudal lords, capitalists choose to shift their focus on selected
profitable agricultural sector, dumping the losses for majority. This position by the ruling capitalist
class, according to comrade Suneet, was not an economic necessity but a self-survival tactics. In such
a situation, the survival of capitalist class would become a threat to the society, he clarified.
Suneet Chopra and later Prof. K. R. Chaudhary from Andhra Pradesh, an eminent economist followed
by Vijay Javandhiah spoke on unequal subsidies, unequal trade, patents and biotechnology, which
were not essential for peasants but essential to make big profits. Some of these techniques have
proved to be dangerous for the very survival of agriculture. Genetically engineered potatoes used for
Uncle Chips damage kidneys of the tested field rats. But Uncle Chips did sell to make profits. All these
31
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speakers, communicated to the diverse participants adopting reverse social engineering technique.
Their inquiries followed by placement of self-generated questions and clarifications kept the audience
engaged.
Here is an interesting slice that exposes capitalist character: How much 100g pack of corn flakes costs
Rs. 15/- and we are forced to sell wheat at Rs. 4.30/kg without any subsidy. How and why Indian
Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, exports wheat for America meant to American Pigs at Rs. 4.30/kg
and to us the same wheat is available only at Rs. 6.90/kg. What do the capitalist do with the vast
army of unemployed? How does this system handle this situation. By dividing and pitting them against
each other as happened in Gujarat? This capitalist tactics was further exposed by statistical
presentation in Hindi by Vijay Javandhiah.
Another blunt and demystifying query clarified was to why a capitalist would never invest in
agricultural land. Then what does he do?
Hilkka Pietila of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam Finland was equipped with several plans of parallel social
engineering for survival of agriculture. Her agricultural paradigm involved recognition and protection of
nature-human relationship. Her down to earth holistic view was that food was a necessity. So unlike
commodities, food products and necessities have to be handled in trade in different way. Based on her
rich experiences in Finland, she described how agriculture problem was distinct in different countries.
She stated that government representatives and capitalist representatives have too much power in
WTO. They only had business thinking. They neither cared about hunger of the people nor about the
laws of nature. So that was why there has been a long discussion in people's movement for several
years to take agriculture out of this WTO.
Several speakers concluded that WTO was not any scientific organisation but an organisation to make
money. WTO laws were unequal laws, incorrect laws. They were laws to doom ruin and not for human
development. Olivier de Marcellus from Switzerland went a step further by expressing a complete loss
in trust on UN and its biased actions. He cautioned about the pace of the imbalanced exploitation
would lead the capitalist system to a crash. An activist farmer from Pakistan described the famous
Okara movement and struggle. He explained how Pakistan military set up has failed and asked that all
of us should write to Musharraf and demand that farmers be allowed to remain in control of their land
and the army should not be there.
It was also prominently argued that agriculture never required such huge amount of chemical
fertilisers. But for profits, farmers were systematically trapped to purchase such chemicals. Sandipan
Badgire, an Indian organic farmer, informed as how the emerging irreversible effects of chemical
farming were forcing farmers to reach his organisation for guidance and support. He explained in
detail the need to re-adopt natural organic farming. His vision was further strengthened by Baljagtap
from Maharashtra and Rakesh Manchanda of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam India. They also talked about
the positives and negatives of newer genetic techniques countering the ecological imbalance.
Manchanda focused upon the need to understand all this process in a single canvas of human
interventions; for a proper and effective line of action. He also highlighted the importance of
communication and its unlimited production with surplus in mind-management as the survival tool of
majority.
The Indians were quick to understand and realise the complex matrix of Capitalist-Imperialist system.
Had it been very easy, if they had to only stand together and fight against imperialism? A need to
uproot capitalists in different countries was also felt. Local struggles appeared as the visible key to
success. A need to build an international unity of farmers' organisations independent of the UN set up
was observed.
Subhash Lomte, a farmers' leader from Maharashtra, India, gave the concluding remarks on unity
against globalisation. In the end the writing on the wall was clear: The peasants and industrial
workers of the world must unite and fight for their survival and dignity. To rescue agriculture and
humanity.
★Rakesh Manchanda is a communicator and associated with Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam-India.
32
The quest for participatory democracy
By Dr. Kishor Dere*
A workshop "The Quest for Participatory Democracy" was organised by Rajendra Prasad Academy,
Institute for Democracy and Sustainable Development, JP Foundation for Asian Democracies on 20
January 2004 at WSF. Several delegates from Brazil, Germany, India, Nepal, Pakistan and UK agreed
that the prevailing form of representative democracy required to be made more participatory. Prof.
Anil Mishra of Rajendra Prasad Academy, New Delhi, India, said that democracy as a process has been
going on for eight centuries. And though the twentieth century has witnessed triumph of democracy, it
has been facing very serious challenges for the last two decades. Prof. Ramesh Dikshit of Lucknow
University, India, agreed with Mishra observing that the obscurantist and self-righteous groups in
society were whipping up mass frenzy and posing a grave threat to individual freedom.
Prof. Anand Kumar of Jawaharlal Nehru university, India, regretted that the election-oriented,
competitive democracy was promoting politicians at the cost of statesmen/women. It has also reduced
the citizens' participation to mere voting process. So, democracy seemed to have become synonymous
with "psephocracy". He remarked that ruling elites have joined hands with rich and powerful to
perpetuate themselves in the corridors of power.
Prof. Ankush Sawant, a retired professor of political science, lamented the ever-increasing burden on
public treasury of protecting providing security to various political leaders who claimed to be enjoying
support of masses. He even went to the extent of suggesting abolition of such expensive provisions
for politicians, especially when hundreds of millions of people could barely manage to survive. A
woman delegate from Brazil favoured making participatory democracy a global process. Another
woman from Pakistan pointed out that women continued to face discrimination in the political system
of her country.
Roman Huber, a German delegate, too agreed that representative democracy has got certain inherent
weaknesses but he cautioned that it would be unwise to abolish elections, political parties, legislatures
and other institutions. Yuri Prasad, a London-based journalist, said that mass struggles were needed
to be launched to realise the goal of participatory democracy. He opined that democracy was never
handed down by anybody including the benevolent benefactors. People must fight for their rights and
ensure that political decision-making did not remain isolated from the social and economic systems.
Prof. D.L. Sheth of CSDS Delhi, who chaired the session, reminded the critics of representative
democracy that they should not throw the baby along with bath water. According to Sheth,
participatory democracy should be viewed as a process and goal to be attained by awakening of
society, masses and classes. Sheth argued that political theory needed to update the notion of political
participation in democracy. Voting, lobbying the rulers, writing to decision-makers were not the only
means to participate in a democracy. Teachings of the statesmen like Mahatma Gandhi, Jay Prakash
Narayan,and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia were the crucial sources which provided means for transforming
representative democracy into a participatory democracy. Anand Kumar, Anil Mishra, Ankush Sawant
too concurred with Sheth on this issue.
* Dr. kishor Dere is associated with Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam-India.
Dialogue on participatory democracy and civil society
movements
By Khurshid Imam
Parallel to the cultural shows and amidst colourful dresses, drumbeats and slogans; sessions of
intensive discussions on subjects specific and general took place with much concern. One such
intensive discussion was the "Dialogue on Participatory Democracy and Civil Society Movements"
33
organised by the Civil Society, Globalisation and Comprehensive Democracy Dialogues (CSGCDD),
Books for Change- Hindi and Third World Forum during the World Social Forum, Mumbai on 20
January 2004.
Thomas Wallgren- who teaches philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and is a founding
member of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Finland - made the opening presentation. He propounded his
ideas about participatory democracy in the background of his assessment of the current global
situation. He felt that there was an intense and increasing desire and urge by individuals to make their
experiences felt by the society. More citizens than ever before were coming to the fore in public and
social arena. At the same time, there was increasing infringement of global economy and policy on our
life. The present political system, according to him, has a greater urge for power too. "This is creating
a big gap and friction between the two opposite pulls," Wallgren pointed out.
The discussion underlined two major obstacles in achieving a global participatory democracy. One, the
practical obstacle with regards to creating an informed and conscious civil society was lack of
infrastructure, and hands and finance were also coming in a big way as an obstacle. It was also
underlined that breaking up of the cultural and language barrier for an effective communication
remained a massive task that would be fulfilled over a longer period through continuous effort.
The second obstacle was more of a theoretical nature where a comprehensive definition of
participatory democracy needed to be arrived at on the basis of a global analysis of contemporary
political situation. This theoretical framework, the participant observed, should be aimed at
contributing to democracy at all levels from family to village to global levels.
The participant also pointed out that the participatory democracy, based on Gandhian socialist
interpretation, needed more localisation and people should be better informed for more local reliance.
This would broaden the present limited conception of participatory democracy of electoral participation
to a much wider understanding of the concept.
Issues of education and its role in the society also came up during the discussion. Some of the
participants were very critical of the present education system particularly with regards to women.
They felt that the system was not at all empowering them and the whole education curriculum
required re-evaluation. They were of the opinion that education's role should not be restricted to
creating a literate or economically productive society but it has the responsibility of empowering the
society. The most visible part in the discussion was the concern the participants showed for society
and an unsaid pledge to make it better. Members of the organisations like Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
India, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Finland, Siemenpuu Foundation Finland, Sudan Council of Churches,
DRD of France, CARE India, Life Right Movement Tamil Nadu (India), IDEA Bihar (India), South Asian
Fraternity India, etc, took active part in the discussion.
United grassroots resistance in the US to Israel
occupation
By Khurshid Imam
The institute for Southern Studies conducted a workshop on 20 January 2004 on "Solidarity with
Palestine: United grassroots resistance in the US to Israeli occupation". Young Americans Jews, Arabs
and Christians - who shared their tools for reading to the people and making them popular educators
- conducted the workshop. It passed through different phases. At times the workshop was serious,
concerned and emotional with tears. Americans and Europeans attended it like the Israelis
Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Egyptians and many others including the Jews, Christians and
Muslims.
The workshop started with brief introduction where apart from introducing oneself one had to say how
would he or she connect to the Israeli-Palestinians conflict. The main reasons that brought most of the
participants were either humanistic reasons or they were Jewish or Arabs. Many Americans felt
concerned as taxpayers and questioned where did their money actually go.
34
The workshop felt that justice could not be done until three angles to the Palestinian problem were
properly dealt with. The participants felt that one of the foremost problems was the 'apartheid within
Israel' where more than one million Palestinians were facing discriminating laws. Many Palestinian
villages neither figured on the Israeli map not they were allowed to expand.
The second issue that the participants desired to be solved was the occupation of the Palestine
territories by Israel since 1967. They said that more than 3.5 million Palestinians were forced to live
with no humanitarian or civil rights. Blockades and restrictions were imposed and even the basic
facilities denied. They complained that the 'apartheid' walls were being raised under the pretext of
security.
The participants were of the view that the third issue that required to be addressed was the problem
of the Palestinian refugees. There were more than six million Palestinian refugees - the largest
refugee population in the world. These Palestinians were scattered all over America, Europe and the
Arab world.
The American participants were especially concerned about the way the US government disregarded
the taxpayers. They regretted that their government was campaigning for divestment in all those
companies that helped the Palestinians build their houses. They told that they have also prepared a
list of such companies that directly or indirectly contributed to the inhuman situation in Palestine. It
was really a moment of happiness to the Palestinians and the organisers as the participants expressed
their solidarity with the Palestine cause.
Knowledge in society
Avinash Jha
A workshop on questions concerning 'knowledge in society' was held at the WSF-Mumbai in January
2004. Given the general and philosophical nature of the 'dialogue' one might have wondered whether
it would attract enough participants. Such apprehensions turned out to be unfounded as 200 people
attended the workshop over two sessions on two different days. The organisers of course had no
doubt that the topic was relevant and crucial for any politics for a different future.
The dialogue was intended as "an exploration of the place of knowledge, its role, function, content,
organisation, methods of production and communication etc. and its relationship with everything that
there is both in the world of thought and in the material world."
What makes this urgent is the pervasive expansion of new information technology and the coming of
so-called post industrial society. In a note that formed the point of departure for this workshop, Sunil
Sahasrabudhey proposed that a major historical transition was taking place now. It was no longer the
content but the 'organisability' of knowledge by means of information technology that formed the
basis of accepting certain kinds of knowledge and rejecting other kinds. Even science was ceding its
authoritative grip on society and yielding to the shift that was taking place from content to
organisation and production to communication.
What would happen to people's knowledge or 'lokavidya' as a result of this transformation? While it
might open some avenues, which were previously blocked by the pervasive authority of science, it
might be 'organised' in such a way as to tear it away from its context and suck out its vitality.
"Lokavidya means those methods (philosophy etc.) of organisation and communication of vidya which
place vidya in the midst of the people.
Being in the midst of the people means (a) the strings of control should be among the people that is
in their social organisations, (b) the values of the other domain should actually be the guiding
principles, (c) it must measure up to the criteria of ordinary life and (d) ensuring its role in the
processes of construction and reconstruction of truth." How can these methods of organisation be
distinguished from the one prompted by the post-industrial regime of information technology? Is
people's knowledge the chief object of exploitation in the era of 'knowledge society'? After having lost
the spaces for political assertion, are the peasants, artisans, and women going to loose their
35
knowledge now? Or can the situation be turned around and people's knowledge which has been
serving as their survival strategies for long can become the source of their strength and the basis of a
Politics of Challenge? These were the questions posed by the workshop.
Several papers were presented. (Papers can be accessed at www.indiqen.org.in.) Many others made
long interventions. It was obvious that we do not yet have the language to talk about these issues
with a great deal of coherence. People were interested and tried to articulate their discomfort with the
state of knowledge. While some advocated more and better use of information technology others
raised questions about the very use of technology. Often the discussion veered round to the question
of technology - whether the same technology could be used in different ways. Many people were
concerned with the question of science. Some saw science as the epitome of violence. The organisers
as well as the participants concurred that the knowledge issued should be taken up on all political
platforms and in different languages. Several suggestions were made regarding how to go about it.
What the workshop underlined was the necessity for taking up this dialogue on knowledge in society.
There is a pervasive sense that despite a huge knowledge industry churning out publications by
millions and multiple forms of media, we remain in the dark. The knowledge, which people use to
survive, is threatened. But the questions regarding knowledge are considered esoteric and most
dissenting political formations also relegate it to background. Philosophy is not a luxury to be indulged
in spare time and questions of knowledge are among the central political questions of our time. The
'dialogue' at WSF Mumbai could lead to building up of efforts to put the knowledge issue on the
political agenda directly and squarely.
Celebrating diversity: Another world is possible
By FCD
Forum for Celebrating Diversity, a Delhi-based group of Christian agencies involved in the process of
WSF, organised a joint plenary on the theme "Celebrating Diversity-Another World is possible." during
the WSF 2004 at Mumbai. The objective was to present Christian perspective on emerging global
debates during WSF 2004 that would promote the discussion of new world order marked by justice
peace and prosperity.
'
The discussion was conducted on January 20, 2004 in Hall A-4. More than 750 people attended it. A
signature campaign was organised to get the ideas of the people on how to celebrate diversity and
this paved the way for panel discussion.
The panel started with a welcome note by Bulu Sareen, secretary of public affairs and social issues,
YWCA of India. She introduced the panelists to the audience. C B Samuel, chairman of Prad/z^who
moderated the panel explained the background of the forum and its foundation and invited the
speakers and respondents to share their views on celebrating diversity from various perspectives. The
speakers were drawn from different fields.
Prof. T K Oommen, former Prof. Of Sociology, JNU and chair, Schumacher Centre and President of
Forum for India and European Union spoke on sustainable and democratic development from the
economic perspective. He spoke about the economic dimension of diversity in relation to equality. He
said that with the onset of globalisation the State was being rendered irrelevant in the context of
economy and the market was privileged as the agency, which controlled economy. The civil society
was not in a position to intervene effectively despite accelerating disparity, increasing exclusion and
new forms of discrimination, all of which endangered economic diversity globally and nationally. Prof.
Oommen talked about reducing the gulf between small and big. He said that the notion "Small is
beautiful" should be endorsed if diversity was to be celebrated in the economic context. According to
Prof. Oommen, mixed economy was a prerequisite to bring in economic diversity.
Rev. Dr. Dominic Emmanuel, director. Communication Information Bureau, Delhi Catholic Arch
Diocese, talked about religion, culture and identities from the socio-cultural dimension. He spoke
about religion being an organised set of beliefs, expressed through rituals and myths for ones
relationship with a supernatural power. He also said that the main identifier of a person after one's
36
gender was his or her religion. He defined culture as sum total of customs and practices of a certain
people, which become conspicuous during important activities of life such as initiation rites, rites of
marriage, male-female interaction or behaviour, burial rites etc.
On Identity, Rev. Emmanuel shared many definitions by many personalities and then went on to
locate some problems that arise out of globalization affecting religion, culture and identities. He also
shared some possible causes of identity problem. He attributed some of the causes to media,
colonization, peoples choices etc. In conclusion he urged the people to explore the possibilities of a
multi religious identity not just for India but in this globalised world for all citizens and pave the way
for another world-a world away from globalization and injustice.
Mr. Martin Macwan, a human Rights activist and Director of Navsrajan, Gujarat shared his views on
Exclusion, discrimination, Dignity, Rights and equality from the socio political dimension. He talked
about resolving conflict in the context of caste exclusion and discrimination. He mentioned that
diversity manifested through caste, religious, regional or linguistic identity is both a source of
homogeneity as well as conflicts. In Indian context, he felt the key conflict areas relate to the question
of caste system and communalism. Without effective and concrete program of social and economic
transformation aiming at redistribution of natural assets and resources, the question of caste
discrimination cannot be resolved.
Mrs. Suzie Mathai, Ex-National President of YWCA of India, Mumbai, Sr.Gladys D'Souza RSCJ Director,
Society for Education to Reality and Dr. Jyotsna Chatterjee, Di rector, WCSRC-Joi nt Womens
Programme. Three lady respondents responded to these papers followed by a time of open discussion
after each speakers presentation. Mr. C B Samuel concluded the whole session while Mr. Rabindran D.
Shelley of World Relief gave the vote of thanks.
WSF Related
Arundhati* Roy's speech at the opening of the
Mumbai WSF on 16 January 2004
Last January thousands of us from across the world gathered in Porto Alegre in Brazil and declared —
reiterated — that "Another World Is Possible." A few thousand miles north, in Washington, George
Bush and his aides were thinking the same thing. Our project was the World Social Forum. Theirs — to
further what many call the Project for the New American Century.
In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been
whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side of imperialism and the need for a
strong empire to police an unruly world. The new missionaries want order at the cost of justice.
Discipline at the cost of dignity. And ascendancy at any price. Occasionally some of us are invited to
"debate" the issue on "neutral" platforms provided by the corporate media. Debating imperialism is a
bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?
In any case, New Imperialism is already upon us. It's a remodeled, streamlined version of what we
once knew. For the first time in history, a single empire with an arsenal of weapons that could
obliterate the world in an afternoon has complete, unipolar, economic and military hegemony. It uses
different weapons to break open different markets. There isn't a country on God's earth that is not
caught in the cross-hairs of the American cruise missile and the IMF checkbook. Argentina's the model
if you want to be the poster boy of neoliberal capitalism, Iraq if you're the black sheep.
Poor countries that are geopolitically of strategic value to Empire, or have a "market" of any size, or
infrastructure that can be privatized, or, God forbid, natural resources of value — oil, gold, diamonds,
37
cobalt, coal — must do as they're told or become military targets. Those with the greatest reserves of
natural wealth are most at risk. Unless they surrender their resources willingly to the corporate
machine, civil unrest will be fomented or war will be waged. In this new age of empire, when nothing
is as it appears to be, executives of concerned companies are allowed to influence foreign policy
decisions. The Center for Public Integrity in Washington found that nine out of the thirty members of
the Bush Administration's Defense Policy Board were connected to companies that were awarded
military contracts for $76 billion between 2001 and 2002. George Shultz, former Secretary of State,
was chairman of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. He is also on the board of directors of the
Bechtel Group. When asked about a conflict of interest in the case of war in Iraq he said, "I don't
know that Bechtel would particularly benefit from it. But if there's work to be done, Bechtel is the type
of company that could do it. But nobody looks at it as something you benefit from." After the war,
Bechtel signed a $680 million contract for reconstruction.
This brutal blueprint has been used over and over again across Latin America, Africa, and Central and
Southeast Asia. It has cost millions of lives. It goes without saying that every war Empire wages
becomes a Just War. This, in large part, is due to the role of the corporate media. It's important to
understand that the corporate media don't just support the neoliberal project. They are the neoliberal
project. This is not a moral position they have chosen to take, it's structural. It's intrinsic to the
economics of how the mass media work.
Most nations have adequately hideous family secrets. So it isn't often necessary for the media to lie.
It's all in the editing — what's emphasized and what's ignored. Say, for example, India was chosen as
the target for a righteous war. The fact that about 80,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since
1989, most of them Muslim, most of them by Indian security forces (making the average death toll
about 6,000 a year); the fact that in February and March of 2002, more than 2,000 Muslims were
murdered on the streets of Gujarat, that women were gang-raped and children were burned alive and
150,000 driven from their homes while the police and administration watched and sometimes actively
participated; the fact that no one has been punished for these crimes and the government that
oversaw them was re-elected...all of this would make perfect headlines in international newspapers in
the run-up to war.
Next we know, our cities will be leveled by cruise missiles, our villages fenced in with razor wire, US
soldiers will patrol our streets, and Narendra Modi, Pravin Togadia or any of our popular bigots will,
like Saddam Hussein, be in US custody having their hair checked for lice and the fillings in their teeth
examined on prime-time TV.
But as long as our "markets" are open, as long as corporations like Enron, Bechtel, Halliburton and
Arthur Andersen are given a free hand to take over our infrastructure and take away our jobs, our
"democratically elected" leaders can fearlessly blur the lines between democracy, majoritarianism and
fascism.
Our government's craven willingness to abandon India's proud tradition of being non-aligned, its rush
to fight its way to the head of the queue of the Completely Aligned (the fashionable phrase is "natural
ally" — India, Israel and the United States are "natural allies"), has given it the leg room to turn into a
repressive regime without compromising its legitimacy.
A government's victims are not only those it kills and imprisons. Those who are displaced and
dispossessed and sentenced to a lifetime of starvation and deprivation must count among them too.
Millions of people have been dispossessed by "development" projects. In the past fifty-five years, big
dams alone have displaced between 33 million and 55 million in India. They have no recourse to
justice.
In the past two years there has been a series of incidents in which police have opened fire on peaceful
protesters, most of them Adivasi and Dalit. When it comes to the poor, and in particular Dalit and
Adivasi communities, they get killed for encroaching on forest land, and killed when they're trying to
protect forest land from encroachments — by dams, mines, steel plants and other "development"
projects. In almost every instance in which the police opened fire, the government's strategy has been
to say the firing was provoked by an act of violence. Those who have been fired upon are immediatelv
called militants.
38
Across the country, thousands of innocent people, including minors, have been arrested under the
Prevention of Terrorism Act and are being held in jail indefinitely and without trial. In the era of the
War against Terror, poverty is being slyly conflated with terrorism. In the era of corporate
globalization, poverty is a crime. Protesting against further impoverishment is terrorism. And now our
Supreme Court says that going on strike is a crime. Criticizing the court is a crime too, of course.
They're sealing the exits.
Like Old Imperialism, New Imperialism relies for its success on a network of agents — corrupt local
elites who service Empire. We all know the sordid story of Enron in India. The then-Maharashtra
government signed a power purchase agreement that gave Enron profits that amounted to 60 percent
of India's entire rural development budget. A single American company was guaranteed a profit
equivalent to funds for infrastructural development for about 500 million people!
Unlike in the old days, the New Imperialist doesn't need to trudge around the tropics risking malaria or
diarrhea or early death. New Imperialism can be conducted on e-mail. The vulgar, hands-on racism of
Old Imperialism is outdated. The cornerstone of New Imperialism is New Racism.
The best allegory for New Racism is the tradition of "turkey pardoning" in the United States. Every
year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented the US President with a turkey for
Thanksgiving. Every year, in a show of ceremonial magnanimity, the President spares that particular
bird (and eats another one). After receiving the presidential pardon, the Chosen One is sent to Frying
Pan Park in Virginia to live out its natural life. The rest of the 50 million turkeys raised for
Thanksgiving are slaughtered and eaten on Thanksgiving Day. ConAgra Foods, the company that has
won the Presidential Turkey contract, says it trains the lucky birds to be sociable, to interact with
dignitaries, school children and the press. (Soon they'll even speak English!)
That's how New Racism in the corporate era works. A few carefully bred turkeys — the local elites of
various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin
Powell or Condoleezza Rice, some singers, some writers (like myself) — are given absolution and a
pass to Frying Pan Park. The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have
their water and electricity connections cut, and die of AIDS. Basically they're for the pot. But the
Fortunate Fowls in Frying Pan Park are doing fine. Some of them even work for the IMF and the WTO
so who can accuse those organizations of being antiturkey? Some serve as board members on the
Turkey Choosing Committee — so who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They
participate in it! Who can say the poor are anti-corporate globalization? There's a stampede to get into
Frying Pan Park. So what if most perish on the way?
As part of the project of New Racism we also have New Genocide. New Genocide in this new era of
economic interdependence can be facilitated by economic sanctions. New Genocide means creating
conditions that lead to mass death without actually going out and killing people. Denis Halliday, who
was the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq between 1997 and 1998 (after which he resigned in
disgust), used the term genocide to describe the sanctions in Iraq. In Iraq the sanctions outdid
Saddam Hussein's best efforts by claiming more than half a million children's lives. In the new era,
apartheid as formal policy is antiquated and unnecessary. International instruments of trade and
finance oversee a complex system of multilateral trade laws and financial agreements that keep the
poor in their bantustans anyway. Its whole purpose is to institutionalize inequity. Why else would it be
that the US taxes a garment made by a Bangladeshi manufacturer twenty times more than a garment
made in Britain? Why else would it be that countries that grow cocoa beans, like the Ivory Coast and
Ghana, are taxed out of the market if they try to turn it into chocolate? Why else would it be that
countries that grow 90 percent of the world's cocoa beans produce only 5 percent of the world's
chocolate? Why else would it be that rich countries that spend over a billion dollars a day on subsidies
to farmers demand that poor countries like India withdraw all agricultural subsidies, including
subsidized electricity? Why else would it be that after having been plundered by colonizing regimes for
more than half a century, former colonies are steeped in debt to those same regimes and repay them
some $382 billion a year?
For all these reasons, the derailing of trade agreements at Cancun was crucial for us. Though our
governments try to take the credit, we know that it was the result of years of struggle by many
39
millions of people in many, many countries. What Cancun taught us is that in order to inflict real
damage and force radical change, it is vital for local resistance movements to make international
alliances. From Cancun we learned the importance of globalising resistance.
No individual nation can stand up to the project of corporate globalization on its own. Time and again
we have seen that when it comes to the neoliberal project, the heroes of our times are suddenly
diminished. Extraordinary, charismatic men, giants in the opposition, when they seize power and
become heads of state, are rendered powerless on the global stage. I'm thinking here of President
Lula of Brazil. Lula was the hero of the World Social Forum last year. This year he's busy implementing
IMF guidelines, reducing pension benefits and purging radicals from the Workers' Party. I'm thinking
also of the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Within two years of taking office in
1994, his government genuflected with hardly a caveat to the Market God. It instituted a massive
program of privatization and structural adjustment that has left millions of people homeless, jobless
and without water and electricity.
Why does this happen? There's little point in beating our breasts and feeling betrayed. Lula and
Mandela are, by any reckoning, magnificent men. But the moment they cross the floor from the
opposition into government they become hostage to a spectrum of threats — most malevolent among
them the threat of capital flight, which can destroy any government overnight. To imagine that a
leader's personal charisma and a c.v. of struggle will dent the corporate cartel is to have no
understanding of how capitalism works or, for that matter, how power works. Radical change cannot
be negotiated by governments, it can only be enforced by people.
At the World Social Forum some of the best minds in the world come together to exchange ideas
about what is happening around us. These conversations refine our vision of the kind of world we're
fighting for. It is a vital process that must not be undermined. However, if all our energies are diverted
into this process at the cost of real political action, then the WSF, which has played such a crucial role
in the movement for global justice, runs the risk of becoming an asset to our enemies. What we need
to discuss urgently is strategies of resistance. We need to aim at real targets, wage real battles and
inflict real damage. Gandhi's salt march was not just political theater. When, in a simple act of
defiance, thousands of Indians marched to the sea and made their own salt, they broke the salt tax
laws. It was a direct strike at the economic underpinning of the British Empire. It was real. While our
movement has won some important victories, we must not allow nonviolent resistance to atrophy into
ineffectual, feel-good, political theater. It is a very precious weapon that must be constantly honed
and re-imagined. It cannot be allowed to become a mere spectacle, a photo opportunity for the
media.
It was wonderful that on February 15 last year, in a spectacular display of public morality, 10 million
people on five continents marched against the war on Iraq. It was wonderful, but it was not enough.
February 15 was a weekend. Nobody had to so much as miss a day of work. Holiday protests don't
stop wars. George Bush knows that. The confidence with which he disregarded overwhelming public
opinion should be a lesson to us all. Bush believes that Iraq can be occupied and colonized as
Afghanistan has been, as Tibet has been, as Chechnya is being, as East Timor once was and Palestine
still is. He thinks that all he has to do is hunker down and wait until a crisis-driven media, having
picked this crisis to the bone, drops it and moves on. Soon the carcass will slip off the bestseller
charts, and all of us outraged folks will lose interest. Or so he hopes.
This movement of ours needs a major, global victory. It's not good enough to be right. Sometimes, if
only in order to test our resolve, it's important to win something. In order to win something, we need
to agree on something. That something does not need to be an overarching preordained ideology into
which we force-fit our delightfully factious, argumentative selves. It does not need to be an
unquestioning allegiance to one or another form of resistance to the exclusion of everything else. It
could be a minimum agenda.
If all of us are indeed against imperialism and against the project of neoliberalism, then let's turn our
gaze on Iraq. Iraq is the inevitable culmination of both. Plenty of antiwar activists have retreated in
confusion since the capture of Saddam Hussein. Isn't the world better off without Saddam Hussein?
they ask timidly.
40
Let's look this thing in the eye once and for all. To applaud the US Army's capture of Saddam Hussein,
and therefore in retrospect justify its invasion and occupation of Iraq, is like deifying Jack the Ripper
for disemboweling the Boston Strangler. And that after a quarter-century partnership in which the
Ripping and Strangling was a joint enterprise. It's an in-house quarrel. They're business partners who
fell out over a dirty deal. Jack's the CEO.
So if we are against imperialism, shall we agree that we are against the US occupation and that we
believe the United States must withdraw from Iraq and pay reparations to the Iraqi people for the
damage that the war has inflicted?
How do we begin to mount our resistance? Let's start with something really small. The issue is not
about supporting the resistance in Iraq against the occupation or discussing who exactly constitutes
the resistance. (Are they old killer Baathists, are they Islamic fundamentalists?)
We have to become the global resistance to the occupation. Our resistance has to begin with a refusal
to accept the legitimacy of the US occupation of Iraq. It means acting to make it materially impossible
for Empire to achieve its aims. It means soldiers should refuse to fight, reservists should refuse to
serve, workers should refuse to load ships and aircraft with weapons. It certainly means that in
countries like India and Pakistan we must block the US government's plans to have Indian and
Pakistani soldiers sent to Iraq to clean up after them.
I suggest we choose by some means two of the major corporations that are profiting from the
destruction of Iraq. We could then list every project they are involved in. We could locate their offices
in every city and every country across the world. We could go after them. We could shut them down.
It's a question of bringing our collective wisdom and experience of past struggles to bear on a single
target. It's a question of the desire to win.
The Project for the New American Century seeks to perpetuate inequity and establish American
hegemony at any price, even if it's apocalyptic. The World Social Forum demands justice and survival.
For these reasons, we must consider ourselves at war.
Copyright 2004 Arundhati Roy. Speech published with due permission. For permission to reprint, write to:
arnove@igc.org.
Making history: The future of the World Social Forum
By Kamal Mitra Chenoy*
The World Social Forum in Mumbai was democracy in action in search of a fairer, people-centred
world, says one of its Indian organisers. But to advance its global ambitions, must it look beyond Brazil
as the site of future forums?
The fourth World Social Forum, and the first held outside Brazil, concluded in Mumbai on 21 January
after six days of intensive discussion, rallies and cultural events. What did this event really mean? Why
did they participate - more than 100,000 people, including both the 15,000 from over 130 countries
outside India itself, and the overwhelming numbers of urban and rural poor, Dalits, tribals and
women?
They came, most evidently, to protest against the failure of neo-liberal globalisation to provide
equitable and sustainable development, and to debate alternatives. The forum - in the 1,200-plus
public meetings, seminars and workshops organised by movements from India and abroad - had, as
its overarching themes, discussion of the forces that disfigure humanity: patriarchy, racism, casteism,
religious sectarianism, and militarism.
These discussions voiced a rich variety of views from the environmental, women's, tribal, indigenous
peoples', workers', peasants' and other movements, and diverse intellectual and political tendencies.
Such a plurality is built into the forum and its Charter, in the form of the concept of an 'open space'
that encourages contending opinions to debate and exchange experiences. This space includes those
figures (like Joseph Stiglitz and Mary Robinson) who want a reformed liberal model to replace the neo-
41
liberal 'Washington consensus' that dominates the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and
OECD; and more radical critics who seek anti-capitalist alternatives (like Immanuel Wallerstein, Samir
Amin and Walden Bello).
The very fact that such diverse voices as Jean Dreze, Juan Somavia, Prabhat Patnaik, Medha Patkar,
and Jose Bove could explore differing visions of the future in a shared environment is indication of the
democratic character of the space the WSF created in Mumbai.
Containing multitudes
Some of the WSF's critics have variously charged the forum with being a foreign-funded talk-shop or
nothing more than a carnival. The cacophony of views expressed at WSF, activists in the Mumbai
Resistance event claim, disables the unity of the opposition that is needed to US attempts to secure its
global hegemony. The best refutation of such views is the experience of WSF participants themselves.
The overwhelming majority of Indians who attended came at their own cost, which included lost
income from the workdays they missed, and involving little or no subsidy from the organisations they
represented. The same is true for most middle-class activists, both from India and abroad.
The Mumbai WSF, in contrast to the Brazilian committee, which had arranged earlier forums, decided
not to accept funding from agencies like the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Britain's
department of international development. So the Indian media image of elite, foreign-funded
intellectuals dominating the 'rented' crowds in Mumbai is a canard; as is the comment that most
participants were not intellectually engaged and had come only for a latter-day Woodstock-type
carnival.
Indeed, the range of views and discussions at the WSF reflects the serious thinking among those
present in search of fresh, sustainable, people-centred models of globalisation. But when all regional,
national and even local particularities are taken into account, it has become clear that there can be no
single "alternative" model. Any innovative socio-economic approach in western Germany would differ
from that in the country's eastern region, as both would from experiments in different parts of Africa,
Asia and the Americas.
Yet it is precisely the combination of shared concern and frank discussion of these complexities by
major intellectuals, leaders of mass movements and activists - in audiences large and small, from 50
to 50,000 - that makes the World Social Forum unique. This is the WSF's strength and the reason why
it will endure: a commitment to democratic debate founded on diversity and openness, and a
recognition of the responsibility of intellectuals to question received wisdom from whatever source.
The sheer scale and variety of the gathering is itself an achievement. It is unfortunate, then, that
sections of the media highlighted a case of alleged rape of one South African delegate by another (a
charge since withdrawn) in a five-star hotel several miles away from the WSF itself. It is a cardinal
principle of the WSF's organisers to condemn all violence against and harassment of women experiences given all-too-rare attention by the media in India, including in Mumbai.
Again, the intrinsic character of the forum itself presents an answer to such inequality of treatment.
This enormous popular gathering - even larger and more diverse than its predecessor in Porto Alegre
- featured extensive discussions by feminist organisations, and noted intellectuals like Nawal alSaadawai and the 2003 Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. These discussions included criticisms of the
aggressively patriarchal attitudes that lead to and legitimise crimes against women; and creative
feminist analyses of dominant, neo-realist, state-centric concepts of 'national security'.
The world entire
The main practical lesson of the Mumbai WSF is the need to provide more time for informal discussion
and exchange of experiences. The wish of the organisers to give all movements the space they
desired meant that formal discussions stretched from 9am to 8pm. This did not leave enough time for
more relaxed dialogue. A shortage of funds also left many good and diverse discussions unrecorded
even in summary form - a major drawback which deprived the forum of what would have been an
invaluable record of a historic event.
Despite these limitations, the WSF's international council believes that the Mumbai event was a
milestone of social organisation in India itself, and across Asia as a whole. In both nation and
42
continent, the Mumbai forum marks the broadening of alliances against the world's dominant
economic model and the politics of communalism and bigotry.
It is likely that, after 2006, such massive annual mobilisations will be held only every two years, with
continental and regional forums in the intervening year. There is also a sense that the forum must
move beyond its Brazilian base as much as possible; the hosting of the event in different continents
and countries in principle would expand and strengthen the global reach of alternatives to neo
liberalism.
* Kamal Mitra Chenoy, an IOC member, teaches at the JNU, Delhi, India.
Report on World Social Forum 2004, Mumbai
Democracy of global life
By Ville-Veikko Hirvela
Constitution of justice as universal equality of leading our life
Constitution of justice founds stability of legal order under which the governing elite cannot change
laws continuously and arbitrarily according to their whims.
Constitutive competence founds the power of law as the realization of fundamental rights of people
and belongs to people in democracy as their power to initiate the direction of legislation by electing
the highest authorities, who enact legislation. As constitutive permanency in powers of law and
governance is thus to be designed to advance people's fundamental rights, therefore, however:
"There is no such thing as a permanent constitution" as justice consists of that what advances
fundamental rights as well as of the living divide of the legislative, executive and judiciary powers from
each other to prevent tyranny.
Adequate frequency of constitutional checks and people's participation into the constitutional
processes are needed to establish and maintain right balance of equality of power under the varying
cultural conditions and historical changes. (Deputy foreign minister of Tanzania, Mr. Abdul A'Shareef in
a WSF seminar "Democracy and Constitutions- a North-South Dialogue", organized by Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam.)
Rights of people to advance the justice in which they live, is thus the source of the power of law and
the power given for the decision-makers to direct and initiate legislation as determined by the people.
As the legal power of specific law ends when all people stop following that law, the way how people
live in justice by not following unjust laws, continuously re-constitutes the legitimacy of the legal order
of people's life. Our equality in leading our life is resisting the use of power in a way, which is also
constitutive for justice.
"The real meaning of the statement that we are a law-abiding nation is that we are passive resisters"
who do not submit to the laws" that are unjust. To live in justice is higher constitution for legitimacy
than orders of courts, lawyers or other worldly rulers. People of ancient rural India "held sovereigns of
the earth to be inferior to the Rishis and... with a constitution like this", this justice, which people lived
is a good example to be followed. (Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, Ahmedabad 2001, p. 54 and 69-70).
The task is thus not only to consider that the other world is possible, but to live already in a different
world by constitution of justice where the life of people is freed from being enslaved by structures of
western nation states. (As a WSF seminar on Gandhi's Hind Swaraj reminded.)
The power of law continues thus to be constantly re-constituted by such order of life, which people
follow as justice in their life. Above the changing prevailing governing powers, people's rights to
advance justice by cancelling the previous legal order, has always constituted the basis for the
authority of the more actual legal order to prevail. (Results of peoples' freedom struggle in many
earlier colonies or results of the French revolution may be now respected as more democratic and free
than feudal discrimination or slavery of colonization.)
43
Living constitution of justice must thus advance common respect for equality, liberty and fraternity
and effectively inform the people what it requires from them, as pointed out by High Court senior
advocate Mr. Vijay Pradhan. Constitution should keep people free and able to control by their votes all
law and governance so that equal rights to decent life can not be deprived from them. Constitution
has to provide mechanism to recognize (identify) and prevent all what may deprive affected people of
equal means of decent life.
"A common man and the people must be made the masters of their own destiny" through "welfare of
the people for the people by the people". People's right to local governance should be given
constitutional status for consideration of "every village as independent republic". Instead of a unipolar
global world, world needs such autonomy of regional governance which ensures peacefully legitimate
self-determination (former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mr Digvijay Singh in a WSF seminar on
democracy and constitutions).
Such regional governance of the global matters like the draft EU constitution would, however, quite
oppositely expand competence of limitless growth of trade and military and subordinate fundamental
rights of world's people under the regional interests of commercial and material power. (Even though
Gandhi reminded that money should not be treated like a God and "those who have to obey
commands do not want guns; and these are in a majority throughout the world"; Hind Swaraj, p. 3536 and 72).
Constitutive competence of fundamental rights and democracy would increasingly disappear from
Europe by its present draft constitution, which sets no competence for people to elect the authorities
who initiate legislation and its direction. (The initiative and direction of the legislation in the EU is
undemocratically a monopoly of commissioners predetermined by commercial tasks beyond the reach
of our votes.)
EU also defines itself not primarily as a community of citizens, and is not democratic as an
organization. It is rather such a community of member states where rights do not really belong
primarily to the citizens of Europe but to the states and supranational institutions. (As noted by foreign
minister of Finland, Mr. Erkki Tuomioja in a WSF seminar on democracy and constitutions.)
The draft EU constitution sets "respect for democracy... and... human rights" only as empty "values"
without any competence for realizing them. They are totally "depending on the extent to which the
relevant competences are conferred" primarily as commercial powers (articles 1-2, 1-3.1, 1-3.5, 1-12
and 11-51). As the draft EU Constitution does not provide any added competence to implement or
realize fundamental rights nor to initiate their development by its governance or legislation, it does not
function as constitution of justice, but rather like a trade-based treaty between states. The
Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU) constitutes instead democratic legal order much more
concretely on the basis of fundamental rights as a structure of participation of people/peoples in the
use of power and governance.
In the draft EU constitution no competence is conferred especially for realizing democracy as the main
structure of the power or the will of the people as the major source of competence of governance and
legislation. Democracy is here not ensured by the procedures of division and alternation of powers by
formally elected 'pluralistic' 'multi-party' representation (which are also by no means ensured to be
universally equal for all in themselves).
The flood of decisions, which are continuously made according to the formal modern procedures in the
Europe, affects also in the most crucial and undemocratic way the life of the majority in the South. But
the decisions of world's majority in the South can not much affect those people in the North, who
make decisions, which affect the life of this world's majority.
In the modernity, the decisions, which the global majority can make, are thus not allowed to affect
much the life of the Europeans, but the decisions of the Europeans are empowered to affect directly
the life and possibilities of the majority of humankind. The ways in which the decisions of the people
in the North affect the South (even more than their own life in North) are often not even reflected in
these decisions.
44
It is naive and illogical to call officially 'democratic' these decisions of industrialized states or other
entities of the North, which affect the life of the people in the South without their possibility to have
effect to these decisions.
Such everyday decisions of the North can not become 'democratic' by their compliance to formal
procedures of division and alternation of nation-state-powers or formally 'pluralistic' election of 'multi
party' representation in the North.
That how the 'marginalized majority' of the world is "left out from the political decision-making", grows
day by day hand in hand with "representative democracy... pluralism, alternation of power, division of
the state powers,... elections of authorities and recognition of the right of minorities". This is a most
crucial burning question for the legitimacy of democracy in today's world.
"Democracy has spread further in the world than ever before, but at the same time we can also
observe growing discontent towards formal democracy. Millions of people are feeling being left out
from the political decision-making" as was noted by foreign minister of Finland, Mr Erkki Tuomioja
(Mumbai side-event seminar "Democratising Globally - Civil Society Engaging with State Actors" 18
January 2004).
Why has 'modern democracy' thus produced globally more unequal life than other cultures ?
Why are the chances to lead one's life more globally unequal in modern world even though it
concentrates and consumes globally more energy (than others) for formally 'spreading democracy'
around the world?
Global equality in leading the life is criterion of democracy of global life. It is equality to live and to
lead the life, which is globally democratic according to that how equal are the rights of all to guide and
control the means of life. There should be political channels, which are open to serve all citizens
independently from ethnical or religious partiality or discrimination as was pointed by deputy foreign
minister of Tanzania, Abdul A'Shareef. (WSF-seminar on democracy and constitutions.) But multi-party
nation-states are not any guarantee of equality or democratic constitution of justice in the world.
The way political parties are organized is often not in harmony with the equal rights of various cultures
in that how people and their rights can become represented. (For example the organizatory patronage
in parties often "undermines the independence of the legislature" and its democratic nature. "People
do not own the parties", which are often "financed by individuals who use them as personal tools to
power" as "the financiers determine the party leader" so that "one can easily 'pocket' the legislature".
Human rights can also be constituted only as universal, inherently equal for all and thus not subjected
to majority vote. (Constitutional development in East Africa for year 2000, pages 19-20 and 64))
Changes needed to create more democratic community for leading the global life.
Law and governance has also crucially shifted in the world to a global level, with no impartiality or
alternation of powers with equal representation of the affected, no binding constitutional or
democratic basis in the flow of global decisions, which affect people and no democratic division of
powers.
For example in the WTO also the determining powers for legislation and juridics are concentrated into
the hands of few trade bureaucrats, who are even allowed to have personal commercial interest in
their decisions by which they are empowered to judge and determine the laws of countries.
The actual content of all what 150 countries have agreed is finally decided by few WTO bureaucrats
(of a panel or appellate body), even if more than 99% of the countries do not consider having agreed
any such changes of laws, which are determined by those bureaucrats.
All democratic legislation by elected parliamentarians can be decided to become changed or punished
according to the will of few trade bureaucrats, whom people cannot vote. All implementation of rights
or justice is determined by the commercial powers of the parties (such as by powers to set trade
sanctions) in the WTO.
What is and should be thus the relation of the decisions of global entities to the constitutional and
democratic foundations of the legal order in this world situation (?), was asked also by Finnish
45
parliamentarian Heidi Hautala. (In her welcoming words of the seminar "Democracy and Constitutionsa North-South Dialogue" in WSF 2004 in Mumbai).
"The system of global governance in place is highly unequal, undemocratic and exclusive". "The world
institutions like World Trading Organization (WTO),... has been selective on rules of the games" so
that "the North has more voice in them" and "the enforcement of the rules..., lacks transparency and
democracy". "The power of the poor countries to influence the decision making of these institutions
has remained weak". (Abdulkader A. Shareef, deputy foreign minister of Tanzania in Mumbai seminar
on "Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy", organized by KEPA, TANGO and Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam, 18.1. 2004).
"The practice of democracy needs to be politically inclusive and to provide a constitutional channel
through which people are empowered to have a voice on policies affecting their rights". Decisions
should be equally "democratic, reflecting aspiration of each citizen of the world". (Digvijay Singh,
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of India in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki Process, which aims to
create "new strategies of democratic international governance" to ensure "human security and human
rights" by the "development of the international regulatory framework" as was confirmed by Helsinki
Process January 30, 2004.)
People should have globally democratic and equal rights to participate and affect those decisions and
policies, which affect their life in the current world. But the very opposite of this fundamental condition
of democracy is spread by the prevailing modern global western world :
Global governing structures of IMF, WB and WTO do not "reflect the democratic principles", but
"developing countries, representing 85% of world population, remain underrepresented in decision
making, structures of these institutions, which are concentrated in the hands of the major industrial
powers". "Reform, restructuring and democratization of these institutions are the need of the hour" for
transparent and "equitable world order". (Digvijay Singh, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of India
in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki Process 18.1.2004)
The historical task of the constitution of justice gets destroyed if competence to realize fundamental
rights is undermined by commercial powers - and if people's power to determine the initiative and
direction of laws by their votes is lost.
The draft EU constitution would act also in this respect like an anti-constitutional step back into the
middle ages, where peoples are not able to determine and stabilize the competence of legislation by
the power of their votes.
Since Europe lost its colonies from its direct political control, it has set more of its powers to
strengthen its commercial presence and expansion, because the colonial centuries left the structures
of world trade under the control of the northern transnational capital without democratic legitimacy.
As to constitute justice - as independence of people's equal legal rights from commercial positions
and interests - restricts the commercial powers to serve people's basic rights, the EU aims instead to
maintain its colonial inheritance of power by commercializing the constitution of justice in the world.
EU has drafted a new model for 'constitution', which provides no legal competence for the realization
of the fundamental rights but subordinates them under the powers of commercial competence. Draft
EU constitution would thus launch a clear commercialization of constitutional legal order so that:
"The progressive abolition of restrictions on international trade and on foreign direct investment" (III216) would get competence to "affect common rules" of other sectors of law - such as public health,
education or social security - or even to "alter their scope" - (1-12:2) for the purposes of commercial
interests.
This would be the first constitution in the world, where all rights and powers of implementation of
justice become explicitly submitted under (and derived or dependent from) commercial powers to
trade away fundamental rights and environmental laws in the name of the right of investor. Europe
aims to submit globally all decisions to the commercial powers to commercialize justice and to
preserve European control over the South after the formal independence of the decolonization.
46
If such EU-model of constitution" becomes globalized, the whole constitutional principle of such
democracy and justice in the world, which is independent from money and commercial powers will
collapse.
As the draft EU constitution begins by claiming that "Europe is a continent that has brought forth
civilization" into the world by "equality..., freedom, respect for reason", are not this 'civilization's
constitutive foundations of modern democracy rather founded on centuries of colonization with
ultramarine slavery ?
"Europe has given destruction, bondage, poverty to the rest of the world". The civilization of India for
example had flourished for two millenniums before the European colonial rule occupied it by
oppressive military. And people's independence process was represented by constitutional assembly,
which established democratic Indian self-rule. (As was reminded by Justice Rajendra Sachar in WSFseminar "Democracy and Constitutions- a North-South Dialogue")
Why has the spread of so-called modern democracy in the world been accompanied by the spread of
universal inequality in the world? Globalized structure of modern nation state is in many ways a
structure for purposes of European inheritance and is thus not culturally impartial.
Can thus also the prevailing structures of modern 'democracy', which have developed under the
heritage of colonialism, be serving European intentions, nation-structures and governance? In a sense
"in Africa,... the state have always been fighting against the people". The 'liberalization' of global slave
trade has begun the global governance and the spread of western structures of community and
governance as democracy (professor Sati from Tanzania in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki
Process, 18.1.2004).
As draft EU constitution would act by its effects as transnational decision-making, which constitutes
the heritage of colonial powers into one unity, it cannot be legitimate constitution for the old colonial
powers without dialogue with the South. This signifies the need to develop international democratic
powers to consider the voices and concerns of the poor majority of the South on the effects of the
global trade policy (Thomas Wallgren in Mumbai 2004). How could modern democracy and its
constitutive foundations be repaired as products and reflections of the centuries of colonization and
ultramarine slavery ?
As far as these problems are not solved, there is serious global problem in formal criteria of
democracy such as "representative democracy... pluralism, alternation of power, division of the state
powers,... elections of authorities and recognition of the right of minorities".
Much more important for a legitimate constitution of democracy in the world than a heritage of nation
state with division and alternation of nation-state-powers by formally elected 'pluralistic' 'multi-party'
representation is thus that:
The constitution of justice must realize equally for all those connections and structures of significance
which constitute them as people with certain common understanding for identifying things for
decisions according to their equal rights.
Democratic constitution of justice is thus conditioned by people's culture of their self-determining
power to found the legal order as justice of what they live in their life and dignity arising from the
ethical identity of people.
"Constitution of the world... based on equal dignity of all human beings" and "participatory process to
create" this ("European constitution is not done in a participatory manner"; Troy Davis in Mumbai
seminar on Helsinki Process.) But there is lacking also a common language and equal resources and
facilities of participation as this cannot be based on privileged position of European heritage. Western
procedures and written literal rules - as translatable to the European intentions and grammar - and
materialized power of their enforcement, are not competent to constitute what are fundamental rights
equality or their realization as the order of justice and its rule on world's life.
Can 'communication' form an equal community of common understanding, intentions and positions for
decisions among those whose language and intentions are not effectively translatable or
communicative for the western structures of semantics and grammar ? It is not equal, just or
47
democratic if laws or decisions affect people's lives without their equal possibilities to effect, according
to their own intentions, to these powers of law and decision.
It is undemocratic, if the decisions of those, who can more 'effectively communicate' within given
modern nation-state structures of community and its decision making, are allowed to affect the life of
other peoples, who are not provided equal means of effective communication in formation of those
decisions.
The majority of the world living in the southern part of the globe is practicing more democratic life in
this respect than the people in Europe, as the Southern majority makes much less decisions, which
affect crucially the life of others who cannot effect to these decisions. And what constitutes the African
Union is also in this respect more democratic than what constitutes the EU.
People's equal participation by their own intentions, language and structures of sense to the decisions,
which affect them is precondition of democracy to allow people to affect the decisions of power
structures according to that how their basic rights will be affected by these structures.
All cultures of the world can not be equally 'represented' by power, governance or by decision making
and modern structures of 'communication' might be not culturally wide enough as a form of the
exchange of the intentions between cultures.
Equality in leading the life requires prioritization of people as community who have such common
understanding that they can commonly identify matters to become commonly decided. In democracy
the will of common intentions of such community of people shall decide the value of matters and not
the other way round.
"The major problem with the present model of globalization is that it has forgotten the people. It has
been built more on economic rights than human rights". "Society is about how we organize life
together" and realize "the fundamental rights that are seen in all our constitutions". (Director-General
of the ILO, Mr. Juan Somavia in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki Process on 18.1. 2004)
Global Society of Civil Life as Condition of International Democracy
Democracy demands "that people can influence those changes that are taking place in their immediate
sphere of life" by their sense of that life with "the right of different communities to preserve their
identity and ways of life". "The expansion of the market economy inevitably threatens the preservation
of social, cultural and economic values of many societies, especially those of indigenous people".
"Democracy cannot work efficiently, if decision-making is taken further and further away without
giving people chance to influence their own lives". Life of people has fundamental right to "democratic
access to resources: education, technology, natural resources, land and water. If market forces are
left uncontrolled the livelihoods of many are endangered. Increasing monetisation and transforming of
natural resources into commodities is threatening the environment. People should be empowered to
guide their own lives". (Finnish foreign minister, Mr. Erkki Tuomioja in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki
Process on 18.1. 2004)
Democracy requires proximity and community of identification and treatment of things and issues to
become decided so that the universal needs can be realized equally freely for all people to lead the life
according to their intentions and understanding of that what advances life.
Preserving space for the local spheres" (Tuomioja) of majority's own, less commercial modes of life,
requires in the major part of the world, the restoration of those majority's own, more indigenously
inherited means of life, which have been deprived from them by result of the globalized force of
colonial occupation.
Most decisive in governance of every land has to be the significance of the free intentions of land's life
and people who live the land. Land belongs for "full liberation of all living beings" (Indigenous speaker
in WSF-debate on survival of the indigenous people, 20.1.2004, Mumbai).
How such significance of what is 'to live' in this land, is allowed to lead the life of the land freely by
intentions of land's life (as far as these do not remove equal rights of others), has to be decisive for
the justice of life on any land.
48
As "the continuum of freedom for all life on earth", "Earth Democracy is the democracy of all life",
"Earth Family", 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', to "protect life... basic needs and economic security to all"
by "birthrights given by the fact of existence on earth" and "best protected through community rights
and commons". (Vandana Shiva; "Earth Democracy, Living Democracy", 2002).
World needs a social forum in a spirit of universal brotherhood, such as idea of Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam, equal common self-rule of all through local autonomy where "poor, not the powerful
can make a strategy how their interests can be taken into account" in everyday life of the poor. But to
realize this aim, it is not coherent to think like Mr. Digvijay Singh, that "privatization invention must
come in because it has been happening for a long time all over the world". Or that "globalization has
been there from centuries" as "a push towards developmental actualization". (Mr. Digvijay Singh,
Former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh in WSF 2004.) It is very problematic, if one thinks to reach
such brotherhood by compulsory acquisition of land by force for big liberalized commercial industries,
and away from the poor people, for whom the land where they live is their basic means of subsistence
to survive. Narmada activists were therefore demonstrating in WSF against such policies of Mr.
Digvijay Singh.
The locality of land's own senses and means of its life's renewable subsistence is decisive in more
equal, more adequate and more sustainably economic way (than short-term commercial growth) for
land's life and for leading the life in a land as sovereign, permanent and non-exchangeable life of the
land. As this locality, what land's life is by its vernacular significance, is decisive in what land's life is
for the majority, why is it excluded from being decisive (for that how the life of land is led) by making
literal globalizable significance to be the decisive significance in laws and in all management of life ?
People's equal participation to the decisions, which affect them is precondition of democracy and
requires community of people who have such common understanding that they can commonly identify
matters to become perceived and decided.
Fundamental unit and integrity of democracy requires thus locality of people, who have common
identity of language, communication, sense and treatment of matters to get them commonly
identifiable and designed for common dialogue and decisions.
As less commercial and less literal senses and means of life, which are most decisive for the life of the
majority, are excluded from that how things are decided, the structures of the prevailing formal
'modern democracy' in decision-making are unequal and undemocratic.
Those forms of community, communication, matters and decision-making, which are most adequate to
reflect 'the will of the people' are different in different lands and depend on that mode of relations
between people, which is called the civil society. (Life of lands can be led equally as far as that what is
decisive for what happens to the land in its life, is based on senses and significance of each land's own
intentions of its life).
Civil society is thus not merely some stakeholder or power-user in democracy, but rather
it has a much more crucial role in constituting democracy than any power: Only this kind of society,
civil society, which is able to treat common matters by equally free communicative means, can be
democratically governed.
In democracy people should be able to guide the decisions on their life equally by their own forms of
community, language, understanding, treatment of matters, communication etc. - and not by any
such forms which have been forced on them by material power (colonialism, forced commercialization,
etc.)
"People being allowed to go free to use... land and other resources all over the world" to live (Head of
the University of Bhopal in Helsinki Process Mumbai seminar) shall be decisive for lands' life by free
intentions to live of those, who live the life of the land.
49
World's majority has indigenously inherited more free and universal access to these resources, less
restricted by consumerist commercial property relations (and huge bureaucracy, which maintains
commerce).
Global civil life is based on such less commercially 'proper' livelihoods as equal rights to live and lead
the life by all diversity of less literal sense and significance which sustains life. It shall not be
subordinated by official material powers to become 'proper' as globalizably exchangeable or
translatable literal senses of life.
"So... to make the emergence of global civil society feasible" in poor countries, we "have to bring a
barrier by which the economies are... separated from the powerful economies" of the rich countries.
So that peoples' power over the means of subsistence of their own life is restored for them. Globally
the "society disintegrates... as soon as the poor economies are integrated with the powerful
economies" by their globalization. (Kishen Pattnayak in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki Process on 18.1.
2004).
Global civil society as equal rights to live and lead civil life freely by all diversity of sense and
significance which sustains life, shall not be subordinated under the material powers to become made
'proper' as globalizably exchangeable or translatable (literal) significance.
As far as people, who are affected by the decisions do not have common identification and language
for things to become decided, - nor common understanding (or means) of treatment of matters -,
there is no society of global civil life and no democratic global decisions.
"The aim of the Helsinki Process is to increase democracy and equality in international relations" and
"to foster the involvement of Southern perspectives and civil society in forming global policies" "to
produce... innovative proposals for solutions to the key problems of globalisation and its effective,
democratic governance". (Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki
Process on 18.1. 2004).
"South hopes that the Helsinki process will be really inclusive; ensuring adequate opportunities for
participation and paying special attention to those often marginalized from global political processes;
prioritizing the issues of concern for the most vulnerable in the world". And "facilitating an
unprejudiced dialogue" (Tanzanian deputy foreign minister Abdulkader A. Shareef in Mumbai seminar
on Helsinki Process on 18.1. 2004)
"The practice of the democracy needs to be politically inclusive and provide constitutional channel
through which people are empowered to have a voice on policies affecting their rights" and which
ensures "that the weakest have a voice". In required "equitable world order", decisions should be
"democratic, reflecting aspiration of each citizen of the world" equally. (Digvijay Singh, Foreign
Minister of India in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki Process on 18.1. 2004)
This requires creation of channels for adequately resourced "participation of marginalized groups in
decision-making on global development" including "southern civil society (equal spaces for the
marginalized majority)", "indigenous peoples (peoples without state)" or "people without
representation/ employment" or without "equal participation". (The Finnish and Tanzanian Secretariats
of the Helsinki Process in Mumbai seminar on Helsinki Process on 18.1. 2004.)
People's equal possibilities to participate and to effect to the decisions, which affect them is
precondition of democracy and requires community of people who have such common understanding
that they can commonly identify matters to become decided.
Community of justice is conditioned by people's culture of their ethical self-rule in founding a unity of
commonly recognizable legitimacy in their common life and dignified identity as people. But European
'civilization' consists of 'civis' as judging of subjects on public civil life matters to make intentions
'proper' as literally demonstrable in common. The universal as literal, globalizable civilized logical
significance means, that what is perceptible for majority's less literate intentions, is disqualified from
what is decisive as recognizable 'proper' sense.
50
One's degree of literacy and education of western 'modern civilization' are powered to found
discriminative inequality of people's rights to food, income, dignity, health, safety, law, governance,
etc., which are determined by the literacy rate of an area or nation where they happen to get born.
The way how the power of "modern unification" "has forcibly linked the world together" (by "grid of
natural resources... as reconstituted in terms of universal"), has thus not advanced global community
of civil life in identification and treatment of things to become understandable and decidable in
common and equal way. Most of world's countless less literate and less commercially 'proper' cultures
and people are conquered under the modern universal on literal translatable understandability (in
which "segmentation and re-linking for everyone on everything can be made potentially accessible for
all"), as follows :
"Most of those who could understand an unwritten language, could not read, and those, who could
read it could not understand it properly" (as being educated to readability of other languages).
(Suresh Sharma in WSF-seminar "Gandhi in Our Times" in 18.1. 2004).
There is thus no universality of access into what is right or proper literal sense as decisive common
significance (in what is intended). 'Western universality' of right as proper for senses which sense it
according to that, how literal the significance of intentions is, dis-criminates all sensed into 'real' literal
('civilized') intentions of 'things' from what is interrogated to be sentenced. (To pay or indemnify from
all what is used for intentions with less literal significance).
"Is it not a painful thing that, if I want to go to the court of justice, I must employ the English
language as a medium... and that someone else should translate to me from my own language? Is this
not absolutely absurd ? Is it not a sign of slavery"? "Knowledge of letters" of latin alfabet is a thing by
which "more harm has been done... than good". "By receiving English education we have enslaved the
nation". (Gandhi, "Hind Swaraj", Ahmedabad 2001, pages 76 and 78-79).
The official literal significance of intentions is decisive as the power of western modern control
compliant to the colonial heritage, which constitutes this global power to subject intentions for nation state as illusion of universal - as right of intentions :
Modern law or decision requires a common subject or intention subjected to collect common
predication onto itself to get determined on a judgement as realization of law and as sentence
(compliant to western grammar); as the basis for literal significance of intentions of official language
and law of any nation. Intentions are 'subjected' by 'predication' to become 'sentenced' into what is
'proper' for western senses.
Intentions are sentenced to give up their non-literal sense and to become transferred into 'right' sense
as what is perceivably proper for western literal, 'civilized' and more scientific senses. (That, how
literal significance the intentions get by interrogation of being in question - or in-quisitioned - for
becoming judged, becomes sentenced into what is right as proper for being consumable by literal
senses.)
To throw away the English, but to keep their structure of law and governance means "English rule
without the Englishman . In ancient rural India, however, "kings and their swords were inferior to the
swords of ethics" and "courts, lawyers and doctors... were all within bounds". "The ordinary rule was
to avoid courts... And where this cursed modern civilization has not reached, India remains as it was
before". J'The real meaning of the statement that we are a law-abiding nation is that we are passive
n°t
to the laws" that are unjust. (Gandhi, Hind Swaraj pages 26, 53-54 and
In Indian heritage "identity of tribe was an identity rooted in resistance" and "linked to homeland"
whose "communities have rights over all resources" (speakers in a WSF-debates on indigenous identity
and survival on 20.1.2004, Mumbai). Communities have created common justice on common use of
resources in accordance to such local senses, which are adjusted for the specific conditions of what is
right sense to live in the land they live.
* Ville-Veikko is a Finnish activist and board-member of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Finland
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51
Declarations/Manifestos
Final Declaration of the 4th World Parliamentary
Forum
(Mumbai, India, January 19, 2004)
1. During the past three years, the regular meetings of the World Parliamentary Forum (WPF) took
place in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This January 2004, together with the World Social Forum (WSF), for the
first time it meets in Asia, in Mumbai, India, and at a time of a deepening international crisis. The
Fourth World Parliamentary Forum takes here a special importance.
2. In the context of the globalisation, the powers of Parliamentarians and Legislators to call executive
governments to account and to legislate freely have been deliberately undermined. We reassert our
legitimate authority to hold accountable national and global authorities. We will work to reverse this
erosion of our sovereign law making powers.
3. Four years after the Seattle fiasco, the collapse of the fifth Ministerial Conference of the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) in Cancun has shown that the present trade system is not only in a
legitimacy crisis, but that it is breaking apart. Since the gap between the rich and the poor is widening
dramatically under the current trade system and the WTO rule, the myth that unfettered free trade is
the key to global prosperity is utterly discredited. It is high time now to re-shape international trade
rules and promote fare, equitable and sustainable trade, which is beneficial to all nations and all
people, so that it serve, rather than obstruct, the cause of social and sustainable development. The
emergence of new international alliances such as the G20 and the G90 indicate that the need for
change is now felt more broadly than ever.
* We disapprove the invitation made by the Swiss to host a mini-ministerial of the WTO alongside
the Davos World Economic Forum of January 2004.
* We, he participants of the WPF, are deeply committed to the idea that another economic and trade
paradigm, which benefits the majority of the populations all over the world, is possible and necessary.
We call Parliamentarians and Legislators to initiate and support a broad debate in the respective
Parliaments on self-reliant development, the remaking of the global trade system, respecting and
including views and demands of the social movements and civil society in general and giving the UN
the democratic control of the multilateral financial and economic institutions.
4. The existing and projected free trade areas between very unequal economies such as the FTAA has
not produced a fair redistribution of wealth, more and better jobs, increase of salaries and sustainable
social and environmental development. On the contrary, together with irresponsible government policy
making, they have led to a concentration of production structures in the hands of multinational
companies, violation of human and workers' rights, tax deficit and privatisation of common goods such
as water and energy.
* Lifting all trade barriers, eroding trade preferences between unequal partners does not
automatically lead to more welfare for the whole of the populations. Focus must be given to the
diversification of economy, strengthening of ecologically sound infrastructures, and to education,
health, transport system without which the country cannot take benefits from international trade
openings.
* Each country must have the right to develop its own economic and political potential. We are in
favour of a priority for regional integration based on popular consultation and consensus, democratic
decision-making and control, respect for human and social rights as defined by international pacts and
covenants, sustainable development and cultural diversity.
52
* We, as Parliamentarians and Legislators, are determined to take up these demands and translate
them into legislative proposals for a peaceful regional integration with respect for social rights, rural
evelopment, protection and diversification of local economies, food sovereignty and cultural diversity.
We shall, as well, demand the implementation of a world taxation system (like a "Tobin Tax" on
international financial transactions, and on corporate benefits...) that will contribute to finance third
world countries' development.
5. The GATS negotiations inside the WTO present a threat to public services in many countries.
Requests, mainly coming from the major industrialised countries, to open up markets for the
commercialisation of education, public health, culture and access to water and energy, reflect strong
economic interests of corporations. Privatisation and lack of regulation leads to private monopoly and
does not serve the interests of the poor, but undermine them even more of their basic needs. Primary
education itself, so essential for social and gender equality, is threatened by present policies.
* We shall take initiatives in our respective Parliaments and Legislative Assemblies to demand from
our governments to review and reverse the GATS negotiations, so that provisions maybe introduced to
protect public services and guaranty the right of public authorities to regulate. We support the
initiatives of city councils and local self-government throughout the world to declare themselves GATS
free.
6. The issue of water is presently taking a special importance on the international scene. It is thus
necessary to clearly state that access to water is a fundamental right, which cannot be touched for
profit making reasons. Water is not a commodity. It is an essential and unsubstituable natural element
for food production, daily life needs and many other activities.
* As has been underlined in Rome Declaration of December 2003, it is urgent to formally recognise
water as a common, public good, according to the non-market-economy, and to exclude it from the
category of "market goods and services".
* Poverty and lack of access to water resources are the cause of millions of death in developing
countrie. Today, while 70 % of the water is used, in the world, for agricultural production, so many
people still have no access to safe drinking water. Health is a major issue but neo-liberal economic
globalisation and structural adjustment plans increase sanitary emergencies and decrease access to
drugs and primary health care, as they lead to the dismantling of public health structures. Moreover,
access to drugs is limited by high prices and patent rights of pharmaceutical companies.
We, as Parliamentarians and Legislators, will support the international campaigns launched by social
movements and civil society organisations to protect the right of access of all to water, and for the
recognition of health as a fundamental human right.
7. We shall fight in our respective Parliaments and legislative bodies for land reforms and for land to
be given to the tillers in whichever country this task remains incomplete.
8. External debt under the regime of the IMF and the World Bank has been an efficient tool to prevent
any local social economic development. While former Secretary of State James Baker insisted at the
end of the 1980s that Argentina had to pay its debt contracted under a dictatorship, he is now asking
the Club of Paris to cancel the debt of Iraq... because it was contracted under a dictatorship. Not only
is the double standard unacceptable, it also shows that the system of the debt is a key for economic
and political dominance. The "odious debt" question (legacy of apartheid and dictatorial regimes) is
but the tip of the iceberg of the whole issue.
* We, as Parliamentarians and Legislators, commit ourselves to the cancellation of foreign debt of
developing countries, striving at the same time for the establishment of "fair and transparent
arbitration processes" (FTAP), which enable the concerned citizens to participate in the allocation of
funds free from the debt circuit.
9. The war led by the Bush administration in Iraq has represented one of the most ominous
developments in the international political situation, last year. It shows the full implications of the Bush
doctrine of "pre-emptive war", of United States unilateralism. It has worsened the dynamics of war
threatening today's world, creating new obstacles to reaching necessary political settlements in many
53
regions, like in the case of Palestine and Israel, of Mindanao in the Philippines or of the Korean
peninsula. A new impulse has been given to arm race and nuclear proliferation. It is evident that we
did not support the Saddam Hussein regime; we support democracy everywhere. We strongly oppose
the unilateralist military and political intervention of the US in Iraq and other countries. We reject the
attempts of the US to undermine legitimate international political processes, specifically the United
Nations.
* In the name of antiterrorism, basic Human Rights are denied, and populations like migrants and
asylum seekers find themselves in a more vulnerable situation than ever before. The US government is
freeing itself from international laws and conventions, as is especially shown in the scandalous
development of Guantanamo. Many of the violent conflicts in Africa are to a large extent are due to
the role of few Western Multinational Corporations eager to confiscate the resources of this continent.
* There have been attempts by the business sector to establish codes of conduct that address social,
environmental and human rights issues. These issues (UN "Global Compact", International Business
Council for Sustainable Development) have been used for "greenwashing". "Corporate social
responsibility" therefore urgently needs independent monitoring and shall not weaken national
legislations.
* Anti-drug anti-terrorist legislations are too often used against social movements, as dramatically
shown in the case of Bolivia and Colombia. In Colombia, up to three millions peasants have been
displaced in favour of corporations, trade-unionists are being assassinated, Indian communities are
exterminated, there is impunity for human rights violations while the US intervention and extension of
th war threaten civil society and neighbouring countries like Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil.
* One major international duty for Parliamentarians and Legislators is today to fight the Bush
doctrine of "pre-emptive war", to extend solidarity with peoples in zones of conflicts, to defend Human
Rights, to defend the Right of the peoples to decide their own future through peaceful and democratic
means and put an end to arms race, including a universal ban on nuclear weapons. We,
Parliamentarians and Legislators, have the duty to act as peacemakers and to look for the end of
violence. We commit ourselves to strive for a new world order based on respect of the UN Charter
principles and international conventions. We support a reform of the UN system, to begin with a
restructuring and enlargement of the UN Security Council in order to increase the representation of
developing countries and reinforce the legitimacy and effectiveness of the UN system.
10. We, as Parliamentarians and Legislators, commit ourselves to strive for a worldwide ratification
campaign of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute and urge national Parliamentarians not to
sign Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIAs) with the US despite the loss of US aid.
11. The combined impact of the implementation worldwide of neo-liberal economic policies and of the
dynamics of war is very deep. There is a constant erosion of democratic rule and social rights, with
processes of remilitarisation in a number of countries. It favours the rise of religious fundamentalisms
and sectarianisms, as well as the danger of terrorism, which seeks to disrupt the unity of people. It
contributes to multiply obstacles to the assertion of gender equality and of minorities, rights. We
oppose all dictatorships.
* We, Parliamentarians and Legislators, recognise the specific importance, such a context, of the
present rise of the movements against corporate and military globalisation, of the workers struggles to
defend social rights and public services, of the worldwide anti-war mobilisations and, within them, of
the social forum processes. New solidarities are being tied, international convergences for common
actions are being built, alternatives to the dominant economic and military world order are here being
collectivised.
12. In South Asia especially, where the Fourth WPF meets, we, Parliamentarians and Legislators,
recognise the paramount importance of forging and broadening the unity of the people against the
current corporate project of globalisation spearheaded by the IMF-WB-WTO triumvirate. In order to
achieve this project, such forces, in obnoxious attempts, play up differences based on ethnicity, race,
religion and historical feudal legacies like the caste. Therefore:
* We recognise the strivings of the people in South Asia to end regional conflicts and establish peace
through a process of constructive dialogue to resolve disputes and strengthen regional cooperation.
54
* We recognise the increasing assertion of the women's movement in opposing gender discrimination
and in establishing gender justice, which, again, faces challenges not just from neo-liberal economic
policies but also from forces of fundamentalism and revivalism.
* We extend support to the assertion of hitherto disposed and socially oppressed groups to achieve
social justice.
* We note and extend our support to the concerns of ethnic and religious minorities for a just and
equal social order, which will enable their participation as partners and not adversaries.
* In this, we recognise the need for opposition to not just the governments but also forces of
fundamentalism, obscurantism and sectarianism, which disrupt the unity of the people. We condemn
all forms of terrorism, including individual and state terrorism.
* The respect of cultural identities (including the right to speak one's own language) is an integral
part of human sustainable development. We, Parliamentarians and Legislators from all countries,
engage to protect the world against a single and homogeneous culture and prevent xenophobia. WF
shall mobilise against discriminations of all kinds
* Be it racial, gender, religious, caste, economical, political, social or territorial. Every citizen of the
world must be treated with dignity.
13. The World Parliamentary Forum and the International Parliamentary Network (IPN), constituted
after the First WPF of Porto Alegre, in 2001, has already initiated several campaigns on issues like the
taxation of financial transactions, the GATS and the defence of public services, on sustainable
development at the occasion of the Johannesburg Conference (Rio + 10) and on the WTO at the
occasion of the Cancun conference. These campaigns remain. For 2004, it will mobilise in particular on
the following issues:
14. March 20 will be an international day of mobilisation against war and the Bush doctrine. It is an
essential occasion to fight for a world of peace, to extend our solidarity toward peoples in struggle
(like in Palestine) and to address the political issue of zones of conflicts (as Iraq, Palestine-Israel,
Pakistan-India, Mindanao and the Korean peninsula), and to integrate better the demand for a
universal, general ban on nuclear weapons in the overall peace movement.
15. The issue of social and environmental development will be concretely raised at the occasion of the
June 2004 UNCTAD meeting in Sao Paulo, and at when attempt to revive the WTO rule will be made.
We shall follow closely any future negotiations concerning the WTO to express the need for a fair
trade for all people.
16. We express firmly our support to the social transformation process in Venezuela and reject any
kind of foreign intervention.
17. The first meeting of the Latin American Branch of the International Parliamentary Network in
Caracas, in November 2003, has adopted a clear statement against the present FTAA negotiations,
which took place without any participation of Parliaments of the concerned countries, which violated
Constitutions and exclude the sovereign participation of the people. We fully support this assessment
and call for a stop of the negotiations. We share the demand of the Latin American branch to bring
cases of violations of human rights of migrants before the international bodies and to start to work in
order to ensure the free movements of persons all over the continent.
* We support legislative initiatives to recognise all human, social, civic and labour rights of immigrant
workers, especially in the USA and the European Union (EU).
* Since decades, Colombia is a country with a worldwide negative record of human rights violations.
* Since the beginning of the presidential term of Alvaro Uribe Velez, the situation has even
worsened. We urge the government to immediately implement the recommendation of the United
Nations, and particularly dismantle paramilitary groups, return to the constitutional democratic rights
revoking the presidential decrees, unconditionally protect social activists, human rights defenders and
Parliamentarians of the political opposition, at present under constant death threat. We also urge the
Colombian government to negotiate a humanitarian agreement in order to effectively protect the civil
55
population from war violence and to reinitiate peace negotiations. This agreement would be the first
step for the release of Ingrid Betancourt, presidential candidate kidnapped almost two years ago, and
all the other victims of kidnappings in the country.
18. The European Parliamentary Forum met for the first time in November 2003, at the occasion of
the Second European Social Forum. The European pole of the IPN will support the trade union days of
mobilisation, April 2 and 3, and the day of action for a social Europe of Mai 9, called by the
coordination of social movements.
19. The WPF welcomes the proposal of creating a South Asian Parliamentary Forum to carry forward
the Parliamentary movement for the ideals laid down in the final declaration adopted at WPF 2004, in
the region.
20. The WPF and the IPN will mobilise itself in defence of Parliamentarians facing repression and
death threats because of their progressive engagements.
21. The WPF and the IPN will defend as well progressive social movements and civil society
organisations, and their members, facing repression. We shall campaign for the abolition of death
penalty everywhere.
22. The WPF, the IPN and its members will continue to support the world social forum process and the
campaigns of social and citizen movements. They will strengthen their links with them, and pursue a
dialog on the elaboration of alternatives to the present world order. We shall work closely with the
next WSF organisers in order to have a more active interaction with social movements.
23. The Fifth regular meeting of the WPF will be held at the occasion of the next World Social Forum
(January 2005, in Porto Alegre).
Towards a farmers' manifesto
(G Narendranath, an agricultural activist from Andhra Pradesh, India, prepared this manifesto
in March 2004 for further deliberations)
* Government should announce remunerative prices for all crops before the kharif season every year
and intervene in the market effectively to stabilize the prices.
* Regulation of production by farmers through farmers' clubs federated from village level up to state
and national level.
* WTO should be out of agriculture, quota restrictions on imports and tariffs to protect Indian
farmers.
* Land First: All cultivators should be assured of at least one acre cultivable land.
* Water: All farms to be assured of irrigation for at least half an acre or one third of a farmers' plot
and government to collect reasonable cess for supply of water.
* Maximise use of surface water and minimize use of ground water.
* Restore traditional water harvesting systems, implement rainwater
harvesting and watershed
development programmes sincerely and effectively.
* All pending surface irrigation projects should be redesigned, if necessary, to cause least ecological
imbalance and human displacement. They should be completed within ten years along with
complete rehabilitation of displaced /affected persons in command areas of the projects before the
commencement of the projects.
* Credit: All loans, private and public for which interest and loan paid amount to twice the initial loan
taken should be considered repaid and the debtors freed of all obligations to the creditors. An act
to this effect should be passed by parliament. Loans to agriculture should at least be proportionate
to deposits from rural areas and at 4 % interest.
* Insurance claims should be considered individually for agriculture sector as well and settled within
three months.
* Cooperative movement should be strengthened by streamlining co-operatives and making them
accountable and democratic. Privatisation at throw away prices is not the answer.
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* All encouragement should be given to organic/natural farming with attractive incentives. Successful
organic farming practices should be well publicized and usage of chemical fertilizers should be
discouraged.
* Oppose patenting of life forms. Government to strengthen its own research bodies to provide
farmers with good quality seeds at reasonable prices and preserve all traditional seed varieties for
research, practice and propagation. Farmers should be free to exchange seeds.
* Restoration of forests is of utmost urgency with around 8.5crore acres of forest in need of urgent
restoration to prevent soil erosion, boost water table and restore ecological balance. Local
communities should be handed over degraded forests for management and restoration with right to
the fruits of the preserved forests under guidance (not domination) of the forest department.
* All those in need of employment could be employed in forest restoration, tank and supply channel
restoration, watershed development, rainwater harvesting, construction works such as roads and
buildings minimizing use of heavy machinery such as earth movers.
* Industrial training institutes of excellence, covering a wide range of skills should be opened in every
block/tehsil imparting training in youth from food processing and artisan skills to computer and TV
manufacture.
* Agricultural Welfare Act should be implemented to assure all rural poor above 60 years of age a
pension of Rs.500 per month and free and full medical care.
* All lands should be surveyed and every farmer should be given a pass book and title deed for his
/her land along with a sketch of the plot.
* Promote preservation of indigenous breeds of cattle and cattle wealth, a rich source of farm yard
manure, ban export of meat and regulate slaughter of cattle. Promote indigenous veterinary
practices for cheap and healthy preservation of cattle.
* Rearing of goats should not be banned as they have a right to existence and are hardy animals
supporting many poor families in dry regions.
* Poultry rearing must be more humane.
* Fish and prawn cultivation should give first priority to local consumption. Should be regulated to
prevent pollution and prevent conversion of paddy growing areas to fish ponds.
* Effective steps should be taken to prevent corporate sector from taking control over agriculture
displacing small farmers.
* Common property resources in rural areas should be under the control of the panchayats and
accessible to all residents on equal footing.
* Conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes should be strictly monitored.
* All powers to the panchayats and gram sabhas. Complete decentralization of administration and
economic power, should be implemented fully.
* To check corruption transparency and accountability should be
ensured in all rungs of
administration. All information required by public should be made available photocopying costs
within reasonable time.
Declaration of the anti-nuclear alliance
(January 20, 2004, WSF, Mumbai, India.)
This statement represents an agreement among the organisations listed below that came together at
the "No More Uranium No More Hibakusha" workshop organised at the World Social Forum by the
Jarkandhi Organisation Against Radiation (JOAR) and the People's Movement against Uranium Mining
in Domiasiat and Lambapoor, India. The WSF provided the space and opportunity for us to exchange
information and achieve the following agreements:
1) We recognise the devastation and suffering caused by the entire uranium cycle. From the mining
on the lands of indigenous peoples in Australia, Canada, India, Namibia, South Africa, and the
United States to refining and processing to testing of weapons to the use in weapons and reactors
to disposal of waste, uranium is the cause of cancer, congenital defects, infertility and other health
problems, displacement of populations and other social problems, contamination of soil and water
and other environmental problems. All of these problems are theoretical problems for the rich
nations of the West, but they represent illness, pain, and death to the local communities involved.
57
2) The presentations at the workshop made it all too clear that the most powerful strata of the
international community are acting with inexcusable disregard for the poorest and weakest local
communities, taking advantage of their ignorance and poverty to inflict terrible suffering for profit
and control.
3) We recognise from the examples of Italy and Germany that the nuclear industry can be stopped.
4) Therefore, we demand:
a) An end to all uranium mining, refining and use until such day as the indigenous peoples who are
the custodians of the land on which it is found give unanimous, unforced, enthusiastic
permission.
b) A rapid shift away from nuclear power to the use of wind, solar, and other alternative energy
sources those are cheaper, cleaner, safer, more decentralised, and more democratic.
c) We demand that the UN begin working with genuine intensity to protect all people from
radiation by investigating scientifically the damage that has been done, holding those who have
done the damage responsible for reparation and compensation, and banning all activity that
leads to further damage.
d) We demand that the inalienable rights to intellectual and cultural heritage of all indigenous
peoples be recognised and respected, and that the indigenous peoples from whose land the
uranium comes have full control over all such activities on their land.
e) We demand that all governments take immediate steps to stop energy companies, laboratories,
and other users from dumping dangerous radioactive uranium tailings on ancestral lands and
anywhere that could lead to the displacement or destruction of any population. We specifically
demand that governments stop all mining and waste disposal until such time as safe plans
approved by the affected indigenous populations can be devised.
f) We demand that all information related to the mining, refining, and use of uranium be open to
the public, and we reject all claims to secrecy based on national security.
In pursuit of these demands, we intend to utilise any and all methods of non-violent protest and
conflict as demonstrated most recently by the people of Scanzano, Italy.
In witness to this agreement, we affix our signatures below.
January 20, 2004, World Social Forum, Mumbai, India.
Partial list of organisations:
No Nuke Matera - Italy
Jharkhandi Organisation Against Radiation - India
JanaVigyana Vedika - India
Khasi Students' Union - India
Council Against A and H Bombs - Japan
World Conference of Mayors for Peace - Japan
Nuclear Energy Cost the Earth Campaign - South Africa
Global Peacemakers Association - USA
Earthlife Africa - South Africa
Hidankyo - Japan
Pudami - India
MiningWatch - Canada
World Peace Council, Athens-Greece
US Peace Council, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Nomadic people of Balochistan-Pakistan
Anumukti- India Contact information
Secretariat: World Conference of Mayors for Peace - Japan
Email: leeps@mindspring.com, kritikashri@hotmail.com
Initiative
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Tribal and Indigenous People
(South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy,
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam meeting
on March 1-2, 2004 in New Delhi, India)
Background:
The meeting was convened as a precursor to the proposed round-table with various civil society
groups, NGOs and individuals working on Tribal and indigenous issues. After the Johannesberg
deliberations and WSF, Mumbai, the meeting intended to discuss a number of crucial issues relating to
the indigenous people and Adivasis. It planned to discuss the 'Draft National Policy on Tribal' of the
govt, of India, which has come out recently. The year 2004 is the concluding year of the UN
International Decade of the World's Indigenous People which aims at strengthening solutions for
environmental and human rights problems faced by indigenous people. In this connection UN has
sought to involve the indigenous people, govts, and NGOs in getting information and feedback on
these issues. The meeting was planned to produce a report in relation to the end of the first UN's
International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2004) by forging solidarity to oppose the
on-going processes that violate Adivasi rights in India and internationally.
The meeting was organised with a view to sharing 'experience, ideas and information on the
problems, which indigenous peoples face, especially in relation to the prevailing conditions of
globalization, powers of TNCs and commercial take-over of indigenous lands, resources and identities.'
The meeting also sought to put together and collate the documents generated during more than 70
seminars, workshops, panel debates and discussions conducted during the WSF-2004 at Mumbai on
indigenous rights, land and resources and identity of Adivasis. It was expected that the meeting,
which is a precursor for the next round table later, will throw up ideas that can be used to confront
the policies of the government, TNCs, World Bank and WTO that go against the interest of the
indigenous people.
The meeting, which was envisaged as a kind of backgrounder and informal brain-storming session for
the next round table, was expected to generate ideas to focus on the tribal issues with activists,
NGOs, intellectuals etc. later this month. It was intended to be a close, informal gathering of the
people to share their experiences and ideas in the field of Tribal and indigenous people. It was
attended by a number of grass-roots activists, prominent academics and individuals working on Tribal
issues.
Summary of Deliberations:
1st March, 2004
Starting the proceedings, Vagish Jha welcomed the participants and outlined the objective of the
meeting. He requested the speakers to focus their attention on the draft Tribal Policy brought out by
the government recently.
Eminent anthropologist Prof. B.K. Roy Berman kicked off the discussion by terming the Draft Tribal
Policy as flawed, both conceptually and factually. At a juncture when a full fledged official Commission
is preparing to submit its report, he said, coming out with such an insipid and half baked document
looks more like an election manifesto rather than a serious exercise. He lamented the callous
governmental approach and cited the failure of the government in managing the forest resources as
an example. Prof. Berman pointed out that the forests managed by government are degraded while
those under the community management are doing fine. It certainly points out the direction in which
we should work for the preservation of forest and the tribal life which is intimately linked to the
survival of the forests.
Responding to the draft Tribal Policy, Mr. Prakash Louis, Director, Indian Social Institute and an
eminent activist-scholar pointed out that the draft policy has completely ignored the committees and
recommendations of the past. He said that in the discussions tribal, indigenous and Adivasi are used
interchangeably but the government is deliberately avoiding the word 'indigenous' as it may have
59
wider-political ramifications in future. He spoke about the struggles being waged by the indigenous
people in Orissa, Kerala, Jharkhand etc. against government policies detrimental to the interests of
tribal. In this connection he spoke in detail about the struggle of indigenous people in Nagarnar
(Chhattisgarh) against the mining of Iron-ore, Buthanga (Kerala) for land-right and Netarhat
(Jharkhand) against the firing range.
Prakash Louis pointed out that the draft policy treats Adivasis as a homogenous group in India. The
draft also overturns an earlier judgement of the courts called 'Samata Judgement' which accepted
tribal's inalienable right to land. In fact 75% of the displaced tribal have not got any compensation till
date. This reflects the duplicity of the government. Also, the document is silent about the mechanism
to restore land to the tribal and extending scheduled areas to non-scheduled areas. He lamented the
fact that draconian laws such as Armed Forces Special Act in the North East continue to exist. The
process of internal colonisation of the tribal society has been going on for long in India and it has
taken its toll on them. He felt that the talk of bringing the tribal into mainstream has only resulted in
the tribal society adopting dowry-system, emergence of 'creamy layer' within them and a section of
the tribal-youth being criminalized. Criticising the suggestion of setting up of 'Tribal Advisory Council',
which is totally ineffective and powerless, he suggested that empowering the Gram-Sabhas is the only
way Tribal can survive.
Intervening in the debate Mr. Roy Berman informed that the government has set up a commission
under Article 339-1 on tribal affairs. The commission has recently come out with a questionnaire,
which is flawed because a number of its questions are irrelevant and majority of the questions is
addressed to the techno-bureaucracy. He said that it was wrong to talk of 'the mainstream' as India
was a 'confluence of mainstreams'. Talking about the constitutional provision, Prof. Roy Berman
pointed out that 5th schedule was paternalistic while the 6th schedule granted autonomy to the tribal.
He felt that the 5th schedule should be replaced by the 6th schedule in all Tribal dominated areas. He
expressed concern over the declining population of the tribal and said that the success of globalisation
was premised on the internal-colonisation of the tribal. However, for the survival of mankind the ethos
of tribal life could provide the alternative.
Presenting his paper alternative-life and indigenous people's right Ville Veiko Hirvala, the intellectual
activist from Friends of the Earth, Finland pointed out the dominant and destructive influence of the
western concepts of democracy and nature which legitimises the destruction of both indigenous
people and nature. The western notion of democracy also promotes unequal opportunity to decide. He
stressed the need to understand and conceptualise nature from the indigenous perspective. He was
critical of the western democracy for its failure to protect the rights of all lives. His paper 'Indigenous
Means of Subsistence as the Origin of Human Rights to Land, Identity and Natural Resources' was
distributed in the meeting for further discussion and comments.
Prof. Roy Berman pointed out that in the west too there has been various strands of thought and
suggested that it is better to look at the two orientations namely 'Power Orientation' and 'ValueOrientation', which cuts across the geographical boundaries of east and west. In fact many of the
values have got a common universal legacy, said Prof. Berman.
Activist and writer Narendra pointed out that in the Adivasi world-view there is no concept of 'waste'
and 'utility'. In fact the concepts like sustainability cannot capture the Adivasi world-view towards
nature. The tribal looks at nature not as resource but in a much more reverential manner. Narendra
also agreed that this world view of the Adivasis was earlier shared by many other communities and it's
under the impact of modernity that we see this difference in the worldviews of the modern and
indigenous.
Young grassroots activist from Uttarakhand Mr. Bhuvan Pathak expressed his dilemma on the issue of
development, which he said, is now being demanded even by the Adivasis. He felt that the question of
development vis-a-vis Adivasi life should be given prominent attention. He wondered if people like
himself are really not denying the fruits of development to Adivasis by extolling their 'values of life'
Thinker-activist Arun Kumar 'Panibaba' sought to resolve the contradiction between 'development' and
'tribal way of life'. He felt that it is wrong to impose our notions of history and evolution on the tribal
60
since they consider themselves to be sons of God. Kai Vaara from Siemempuu Foundation, Finland,
felt that tribal have something unique to offer us and the question is what we can learn from them for
a sustainable life?
Responding to some of the points raised during the discussion Ville clarified that 'Western' related
more to world-view and ideas than to geography. He elaborated upon the intricate relationship
between language and development. Language being an unconscious structure of mind, the Western
concept of nature in the English language is unable to capture the reality of experience in which tribal
lives. He agreed with Kai that interest in the indigenous people is for our survival and the Western
world-view has hardly anything to offer for a sustainable life. He accepted that the indigenous people
should not be denied the fruit of development but unfortunately the very process of development is
premised on exclusion, unequal access and denial of the choice of being what they are.
Vagish K Jha intervened by sharing his experiences during his research on Oral Folk Cultures. He said
that in the indigenous tradition, which is predominantly oral, the animate-inanimate, naturalsupernatural, social-divine are fused together in a seamless fashion. The tribal world is unique and
universal at the same time and there is no contradiction in it. In fact we should aim to facilitate the
dialogue which promotes the interaction between the uniqueness and universal elements.
The post-lunch session began with a presentation by Arun Vinayak who has been working with tribal
in Jharkhand. He pointed out that 'tribal' was derogatory and we should instead use the term
indigenous. He pointed out at the acts of aggression against the indigenous people at both the levelsinternal and external. He gave the examples of the link High-Way project, Netarhat firing range and
Damodar Valley Corporations which have displaced a large member of tribal. To improve the condition
of Adivasis, he demanded that the control of natural resources should be with the people in the
villages. The reality of the situation is that it's the bureaucracy, which wields the real power. The tribal
leadership is passing through a phase of vacuum. Mr. Vinayak said that the spread of Naxalite
movement in the tribal areas is an expression of people's anger. It is an act of resistance against the
attempts to crush the Adivasi culture. He agreed that communitarian lifestyle of the tribal can be an
effective anti-dote to globalisation. He highlighted the democratic ethos of the tribal society, which is
reflected in consensus based decisions and the right to recall as basic elements of tribal community
life.
Representative of the Siemempuu Foundation of Finland Mr. Kai Vaara who had come to India to
interact with NGOs working with indigenous people, women, land rights, alternative agriculture and
lifestyle, environment etc also made a presentation on the occasion. He spoke about his experience in
the course of his wide-ranging and extensive interaction with a number of NGO groups and activists.
He informed that his organisation is aiming to develop networking among tribal-groups and
organisations, which they are funding. During his interactions with tribal groups and NGOs, a core
group has been formed which has a number of active grass-roots workers and organisations in it.
These groups have been working on issues like status of women, alternative and ecological
agriculture, aforestation, Dalit and tribal issues etc. He felt that bringing together the NGOs would help
in mobilisation against globalisation. He expressed his happiness on the work being done by many of
the NGOs in the south although he came across instances of internal differences too among the NGOs.
Kai said that in the West there was a strong movement for alternative and sustainable lifestyle and he
was looking at connections with such groups in South too. He informed that he had a meeting with a
number of women's group and shared experiences about sustainable life style. Talking about higher
education he talked about the possibility of evolving a structure so that learning from traditional
cultures and heritage can be made available. A similar effort is on in Canada where the traditional
knowledge is imparted through teachers drawn from such societies who are without any formal
academic qualification. Speaking of Finnish society, he said that the problems of adjustment with
modern life are reflected in high suicide rates. He felt that there is a great possibility of learning from
the experience of the indigenous people who have sustained their way of life for thousands of years.
Now it was the turn of Bhuvan Pathak, grassroot activist working in the Kausani valley of the
Uttarakhand in Central Himalayas to share his experiences and views. He felt that the basic difference
between tribal and non-tribal is the way they negotiate with nature and the world in their daily
business of life. The tribal looks at himself as part of nature but the modern man envisages his
61
relation with nature as adversary or at best as consumer of resources. Tracing the historical legacy of
Uttarakhand, Bhuvan said that the process of assimilation of Uttarakhand started in 1815 when it was
brought under the British control. Gradually it got integrated with the political, economic and
educational mainstream. Another watershed is 1952 when the demand for a separate state of
Uttarakhand was first echoed. The Indo-China war of 1962 caused a major disruption in the economic
life of Uttarakhand, which had a vibrant trade with China. This marked the beginning of large-scale
migration in search of jobs and opportunities.
But all through the period, the theme of backwardness has pervaded the ideological, political and even
the literary discourse of the state of Uttarakhand. After the onset of green-revolution in the decade of
60s-70s, the traditional knowledge about agriculture practiced in Uttarakhand started getting eroded.
Now once again there is a talk of bio-manuring etc. He lamented that the indigenous people are
guinea pigs for so many social experiments without having any say about their own-lives. He criticised
even the NGOs for distorting the relationship between nature and society by treating nature as mere
resource. He also drew attention to the fact that the negative consequences of environmental
degradation are obvious even in upper reaches of Himalayas. It is amazing, he said, that the forests
which have been 'offered to Goddesses' by communities are the most dense and thriving. Can we
learn some lessons?
2nd March 2004
The second-day's proceedings were started with a presentation by Harsh Hander, a civil-servant
turned activist-academic. He outlined the acute sense of alienation and dispossession among the tribal
except at places where they have been assimilated through conversion etc. He said that while thinking
about Adivasis, the central dilemma remains- assimilation or isolation? The Nehruvian vision of the
golden mean between the two did not go too far because it had no clear mechanism to achieve that.
In fact, later on the state has sought to colonise them through acts such as Land Acquisition Act and
Forest Act. It is a matter of serious concern, he said, that while earlier, the acquisition of tribal land
was not allowed for private parties but now the government is itself facilitating the transfer of tribal
land to private sector.
Elaborating the various administrative and legislative measures for the indigenous people, Harsh said
that there have been some positive steps in the past such as the legal provisions to protect the tribal
right to land and positive discrimination in favour of the Adivasis. One such provision is 170(B), which
seeks to protect the tribal right to land by shifting the burden of proof on the non-tribal.
However, the political-administrative will to implement it is lacking since most of the leaders have
benefited from grabbing tribal land. Same is the story with the Tribal Sub Plan which sets aside 23%
of the budget for tribal. This again is 'adjusted' and spent under heads which benefits only the
bureaucrats and political leaders. However the laws relating to joint forest management,
manufacturing the traditional liquor and PESA are progressive steps towards safeguarding the interest
of the Adivasis. In case of PESA though, it has suffered from a 'minimalistic interpretation which
deprives the tribal of many of the advantages granted under PESA.
Going on to the political question, Harsh expressed his anguish at the communalisation of tribal in
Gujarat, Jhabua and many other tribal dominant places. RSS has been actively engaged in mobilizing
tribal on communal-riots. The RSS has been recruiting tribal as 'soldiers of hate' in its campaign of
communalising the tribal society. He wondered if it could be understood properly as an expression of
identity crisis of Adivasis?
Commenting upon Harsh's presentation Arun Vinayak said that in Jharkhand, they have been
successful fighting the RSS efforts to communalise the tribal. He criticized the Nehruvian approach to
tribal development. Citing the example of Damodar Valley corporation (DVC) he said that it led to
displacement of the Adivasis without any benefits accruing to them. The provisions of PESA are being
subverted by the state governments who pass laws to bypass it. He exhorted that it is only through
fight and struggle that Tribals can get the laws implemented
Ville-Veiko said that the modern law and juridical structure itself has a colonial legacy and premised on
force. In fact the dispossession of the indigenous people forces them to turn communal and racist as
happened in South Africa. He talked of the inadequacy of the legal system to capture the tribal right.
62
Vijay Pratap requested the speakers to focus first on tribal way of life and the universal conflict
inherent in the process of assimilation vs isolation
Dr. Vishnu Mahapatra, associated with Ford Foundation, felt that such meetings are still in the
philanthropic mode as Adivasis themselves are not present here. In fact, comparing with the Dalits/
scheduled caste, who have been engaging with the political system, he said that the Adivasis have
kept aloof. It is also true that, strangely enough, the upper castes and Adivasis find themselves closer
to each other in terms of ritual and treat the scheduled caste people as inferior. He observed that
there seems to be an incentive in making new laws and setting up institutions but no incentive in
implementation of law or letting institutions be effective and functional. He found PESA capable of
extending the frontiers of tribal right further. He shared his dilemma as to whether tribal should only
confine themselves to their institutions and practices, which may be sometimes oppressive and
exploitative.
Noted environmental activist Dunu Roy said that the conflict between assimilation and isolation is an
old and historical one and can be seen in the example of Eklavya. The tribal ethos is essentially based
on equity and sustainability with a communitarian ethic. He criticised the government for setting up
different standards for different social groups. For example while farmers are expected to work for
profit and surplus, the expectation from trial is to promote sustainability
Academic and author Suresh Sharma pointed out that in the globalised world 'mainstream' has many
levels which are closely linked to each other. He said that modernity does not give the option of being
left alone and it's unrealistic to look for a policy that will let Adivasis remain outside the pale of
modernity. It would be better to give them a choice with a sense of continuity, which may be different
from the past. He said that the market is acting to work as a universal grid that links the natural
resources globally. Speaking of the identity crisis, he said that conversions could be seen as an urge to
negotiate better deal with the world by linking up to larger and more powerful units. It also reflects
the acceptance on the part of Adivasis of the impossibility to be left alone. In fact in the modern
world, it is the individual choice rather than the collective identity, which is the core of the terms of
exchange between the individual and the world.
Vagish Jha said that the tribal world-view is fluid and inclusive and it has the capacity to incorporate
many of the elements of the mainstream too. Commenting on the communalisation of tribal, he felt
that the secular and modern people are unable to deal with anything that is even distantly religious.
He felt that there might be a possibility to take into our fold the huge number of non-communal,
religious organisations, individuals who, he felt, will prove effective in countering the communalisation
of society at large and tribal in particular. Faced to choose between American consumerist
individualism and backward looking reactionary collectivism based on hate the latter is almost a
natural choice for a society confronting existential crisis. He felt that the growth of fanatic
communalism should be seen as the crisis of modern ideology - an ideology that can promise a
collective liberation.
The reason why tribal are getting into the fold of religious-communal people is that in the absence of
any liberating ideology like socialism, religion provides the 'hope' of collective liberation. Any effective
alliance to counter the communal / fascist onslaught has to discover the radical potential of tradition.
But modern intellectual tradition is inherently suspicious and at best would like to acknowledge the
instrumental worth of indigenous wisdom. But to work with them, we've to belong to them, he
asserted.
Ville said that modernity has strong institutions and processes to co-opt the tribal into the fold of
modernity. The juridical process is also biased against the tribal. The tyranny of modernity works to
exclude the possibility of equal participation.
Vijay Pratap sought to clarity that the debate is not between Adivasi and modern but between
communitarian-participatory and exclusivist ideologies and worldviews. He said that in the past India
has existed not as a big country but as a conglomerate of units-Janpadas which had distinct cultures,
institutions and were participatory in nature. He wondered why tribal languages can not be used in
schools at primary and secondary levels.
63
B.K. Roy Berman again pointed out that the tribal worldview is inclusive with community orientation
and its self perception is that of rootedness. In fact for the Adivasi society isolation and contact has
been going on for thousand of years but isolation in the modern sense is a new phenomenon. He felt
that today the indigenous world-view is vital for saving the world.
Intervening in the debate Harsh Mander said that in his view heightened religiosity does have a
dangerous implication for communalisation of the tribal society. He gave the example of 'Gayatri
Parivar' which was active in tribal areas. It itself it was not communal, but currently many of its
preachers were active in helping the RSS communalise the tribal. The Adivasis today face a real threat
of extinction in India similar to what happened in the US with indigenous Red Indians. However, even
the traditional system of'self-governance' or tribal-laws may themselves have problems.
The afternoon session started with a presentation by Mr. Devinder Sharma, a renowned food right
expert-activist and author. Mr. Sharma spoke at length about the huge subsidies provided to
agriculture in US and Europe. In fact the WTO was acting on the behest of US to force-open the
agriculture market of India and other third world countries to avert the crisis looming over the US
economy. In fact the control of the food market gives immense power and leverage as has been borne
out abundantly in India just before the green-revolution in India. The $360 billion subsidy that US
provides to its agriculture will hardly be impacted under the WTO provision of cutting down subsidies
by 21% in the next 6 year. He also deplored the multi-functionality clause under which US and Europe
want to protect their subsidies. He criticised the western NGOs, also who want export-subsidy to go
but are silent about agricultural subsidy in US and Europe. He demanded that India should ask for
complete phasing out of subsidies in US and Europe Before it opens up the agriculture under WTO
obligation.
Talking of the recent thrust to documentation of traditional knowledge, Devinder Sharma cautioned
that we should learn from the earlier experience with regard to Germ-plasm of plants which were
stored in US and now come under patent. He feared that the same experience may be repeated in
case of traditional knowledge too. He advocated that to beat the patent regime there should be a
concerted effort to patent the traditional knowledge before it gets patented in the US. The patenting
of gene by the companies in US and Europe is seriously affecting research in India. He felt that
patenting is creating a kind of scientific apartheid in the world. He also drew attention to the huge
urban migration in India and China caused by the decline of agriculture in these countries.
In his opinion, quite often, the politicians are not properly briefed and informed by their officials and
the intelligentsia about many of the issue. He spoke of his experience with the WTO provision about
agriculture and the impact of well-informed briefing of the political class.
The current shift in WTO from agriculture to investment is a clever shift to divert the attention of
people. He reminded people that the entire debate about raising agricultural productivity was
misplaced. In India for instance with the current technology and seed, production can go up many
fold. Even this level of production is enough to feed the current population if there is proper
management of the food grain in the country. He informed that it was not surprising that in India,
Kalahandi from where a number of hunger deaths were reported, is a food surplus area.
He criticised the Genetically Modified (GM) crops and said that GM Crops don't increase productivity
but at best reduce 'crop-loss'. If the total food-grain available in the world is distributed evenly, Mr.
Sharma pointed out, there would be surplus for 840 million people after satisfying the needs of
everyone.
Agreeing with Devinder Sharma, Ville said that documentation of traditional knowledge may lead to
commercialisation. However, he said that even without subsidies to US and European farmers, things
may not be better for India. He felt that there is a need to look at the entire gamut of WTO provisions
and its impact on developing countries. Bhuvan Pathak commented that unless we get into the
philosophical underpinnings of modern agriculture and in fact the relationship with nature and
environment, our agriculture and rural population will continue to suffer. It is not justified to book at
the traditional agriculture as 'backward '.
64
Devinder Sharma responded by saying that it was the political will of the government that made Green
Revolution possible. The Green Revolution did serve its purpose but we should have tried to learn
from our experience about salinity, land-degradation etc. which has become a major problem today.
In his concluding remarks, Roy Burman summed up the proceedings spread over two days. He said
that world could learn a lot from Adivasi life. Talking about forest-management he reiterated that
community managed forests and national resources are much better preserved compared to those
which are under government management. At the international level, he said that the ILO convention
107 of 1959 is flawed since it looks at indigenous people as living on a lower level of existence and
expects than to catch up with modern world. But ILO-conventionl69 of 1989 has many positive things
despite its Euro-centric bias. He appealed that countries like India should ratify it provisionally. He also
criticised US and Europe for duplicity in their approach towards Adivasis.
The meeting ended with a Vote of thanks by Ville Vieko Hirvela and Suresh Nautiyal. They expressed
the hope that it will provide good background for the proposed meeting on indigenous people and
tribal issues later this month.
Some valuable WSF 2004 quotations
They came ... they shared
they conquered
" We owe future generations a better world in which every individual is respected.
This world will soon become a reality."
— Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa
in his special message to WSF Mumbai.
"The range of views and discussions at the WSF reflects the serious thinking among
those present in search of fresh, sustainable, people-centred models of globalisation.
But when all regional, national and even local particularities are taken into account, it
has become clear that there can be no single 'alternative' model."
— Kamal Mitra Chenoy, a WSF IOC Member
'This moment (WSF) is one of the most significant in history. To fight globalisation,
you need to fight the way Mahatma Gandhi fought with the strength of the masses."
— K R. Narayanan, former President ofIndia
at the public rally on the concluding day
(21 January 2004) of the WSF Mumbai
" My interest in Gandhi has two roots. One as an activist identifying global solidarity
and environment; other is my perplexity that brings up Gandhian thoughts with a
commitment to reason and a commitment to choose."
— Thomas Waiigren, senior fellow,
Academy of Finland, in a WSF
Mumbai seminar, Gandhi in Our Times.
" Market as an institution with an objective source to produce a 'Darwinian' struggle
between different production units without a reserve army of labourers 'outside' is in
fact unthinkable. Therefore, a market in that sense cannot exist in a Socialist
society."
— Prof. Prabhat Patnaik, an eminent
Indian economist in a WSF Mumbai seminar.
65
" WSF is a meeting point, a forum for coming together at a single place with all
humility and self-confidence, a place where we can assemble with our deep-rooted
belief that there is an ample possibility of frankly talking to each other on the issues
of common concern despite differences on ideological, political and other levels.
Poverty, starvation, health and illiteracy related issues are our common concerns that
attract attention unequivocally. This does not mean that we tend to forget the
ideologies, programmes, agenda or distinctiveness of our own organisations if we
strive together to achieve the collectively agreed goals. Those organisations that
have this level of self-confidence and self-esteem are welcome in the WSF process."
— Vijay Pratap, WSF IOC member and
a senior Indian activist.
"We call for unity with all peasants on 17th April, International Day of peasants
struggles."
- From WSF 2004 call of the social
movements and mass organisations
There should be less concentration on a single annual event collecting over a
hundred persons from all parts of the world to a single place for a few days. The same
resources should be used to support about a hundred smaller meetings on various
aspects of an alternative world."
— Prominent Indian writer and activist,
Bharat Dogra, in an article on WSF
We reject the imposition of regional and bilateral free-trade agreements such as FTAA, NAFTA,
CAFTA, AGOA, NEPAD, Euro-Med, AFTA and ASEAN.
— From WSF 2004 call of the social
movements and mass organisations
" We owe future generations a better world in which every individual is respected.
This world will soon become a reality."
— Nelson Mandela, former President ofSouth Africa.
"WTO should be out of agriculture, quota restrictions on imports and tariffs to protect
Indian farmers."
— From Farmers' Manifesto prepared
by G.Narendranath
Compiled by: Suresh Nautiyal and Rakesh Manchanda
VK BIRADARI
List of organisations in whose events VK biradari(associates)
participated actively/collaborated
.
.
•
•
■
•
•
50 Years Is Enough Network
Abhiyan
action Aid
Agragamee
Alliance 21
ApneAap
Books for Change-Hindi
Center for the Study of Developing Societies
66
• Centre for Public Affairs
• Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health
• Coalition for Environmjent and Development (CED) Finland
■ DRUM - Desis Rising Up & Moving
• Federation of Young European Greens
■ FoE Malaysia (Sahabat Alam Malaysia)
■ For Mother Earth
• Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security
• Free Software Foundation of India
■ Friends of the Earth Finland
• GASPP
• Gharelu Kamgaar Panchayat
• Global Greens
• Global Resistance
• Globalisation and Comprehensive Democracy Dialogues
■ Grassroots Global Justice
• Heinrich Boll Foundation
• Himalayan Peoples Forum
■ Hipatia
• IBASE
• Indigenous Environmental Network
• Institute for Southern Studies
■ Institute Paulo Freire
• Janata Weekly
• Jobs With Justice
■ JP Foundation for Asian Democracies
• Jubilee USA
• Keshav Gore Smarak Trust
■ Lok Shakti Abhiyan
• Lokayan
• Lokniti
. National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM)
• National Campaign Committee For Central Legislation On Construction Workers
• National Campaign Committee For Rural Workers
National Campaign Committee for Unorganized Sector Workers
■ National Conference of Dalit Organisations (NACDOR)
• National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
• Naya Sangharsh
• Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD)
• New Trade Union Initiative
• Nirmala Niketan Domestic Workers Forum
• North American Alliance for Fair Employment (NAFFE)
• Other Indian Press
• Paulo Freire Institute
• Ped Panchayat
• Promoter Networks of Solidarity-based and People's Economy
Rajendra Prasad Academy at the Institute for Democracy and Sustainable Development
• Ramanika Foundation
• Rashtra Seva Dal
. Service Centre for Development Cooperation (Kepa) Finland
• Shoshit Jan Andolan
. Siemenpuu Foundation Finland
’ Socialist Front
• Socialist International
• South Asia Study Centre
• South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy
• Swadeshi Trust
• Swasthya Panchayat
• The Ecological Foundation
• Third World Network
• Uttarakhand Chaupal
• Vitae Civilis
• Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (Wash Tech)
• Women of Color Against Violence
• Women Struggle Committee
■ Yusuf Meherally Centre
67
Some of the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam publications/books available
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: An Alliance for Comprehensive Democracy
By Vijay Pratap, Ritu Priya and Thomas Wallgren
Politics, Morality, Identity an Intimate Quest
By Vijay Pratap
The Book of Trees
By Risto Isomaki and Maneka Gandhi
GM Food and Hunger: A View from the South
by Devinder Sharma
Towards a Global Manifesto of Ecological Democracy (A Discussion Paper}
By Risto Isomaki
Tribal Policy: Pulling Back from the Brink?
By Harsh Mander
Between Exaggeration and Denial
(Minimising Suffering from HIV Infection and AIDS in India)
By Ritu Priya
Health Care under Neo-colonisation
By Dr. C Sathyamaia
Charter of the Global Greens (Canberra 2001)
Agriculture, Human Economy and Welfare Society
We are thankful to all organisations, programmes, and individuals whose material we Ihave
... ___
J in this bulletin. Special
used
thanks to WSF, CED Finland, Kepa Finland, Mainstream magazine, India. Arundhati Roy, and Kamal Mitra Chenoy.
If you would like to contribute, comment, or do not wish to receive this newsletter, send e-mail to:
vasudhaivakutumbakam@vsnl. net
website url: http://www.demokratiafoorumi.fi/wsfhtml
Published by: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, C/o Lokayan, 13 Alipur Road, Delhi, India. Printed at: Capital Creations,
4 Shubharam Complex, D-96, Munirka, New Delhi, India.
68
VasudhaiVd Kutumbakam
A post-World Social Forum Issue
(Non-commercial publication for limited circulation only)
Volume: 2; Issue: 7; Part: II; 29 March 2004: New Delhi, India
CONTENTS
^Knowing WSF: Important WSF Declarations/Resolutions
The WSF
Background
Regional and Thematic Social Forums
WSF Charter of Principles
Rules for the operation of the WSF International Council
WSF in India
India General Council
Venue and dates WSF 2004
Mobilisation for the forums
Broad themes of WSF 2004
IC Document on the Porto Alegre meeting
IC document on the Dakar meeting
Resolutions taken in Porto Alegre meeting
WSF 2004: Call of the social movements
Proposals adopted at the WSF IC meeting
------------------------
Knowing the WSF: Declarations/Resolutions
The World Social Forum
The World Social Forum is an open meeting place where groups and movements of civil society
opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism, but
engaged in building a planetary society centred on the human person, come together to pursue
their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, for formulate proposals, share their experiences
freely and network for effective action (see the Charter of principles}. The WSF proposed to
debate alternative means to building a globalization in solidarity, which respects universal human
rights and those of all men and women of all nations and the environment, and is grounded in
democratic international systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the
sovereignty of peoples.
The two first editions of the World Social Forum were held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on the same
dates as the World Economic Forum was meeting in Davos. By proposing to strengthen an
international coalition of the widest range of social movements and organizations, on the principle
of respect for differences, autonomy of ideas and forms of endeavour, the WSF ceased to be a
single locus of convergence for the struggle against neo-liberal globalization and sought to become
a world process.
In pursuit of these aims, in addition to the annual World Social Forum meeting in Porto Alegre,
Regional and Thematic Social Forums are organising. These events are designed to explore
specific issues considered priorities in the present world situation by the WSF International Council
- the WSF policy decision-making body. All the Forums must always adhere to the WSF Charter of
Principles.
Background
The World Social Forum was conceived as an international forum built around the slogan "Another
World Is Possible" to contest the formulations offered by neo-liberal economic policies and
L
capitalist—led globalisation. It seeks to provide a space for discussing alternatives, for exchanging
experiences and for strengthening alliances between social movements, unions of working people
and NGOs, as well as an opportunity for cross-sectoral dialogue. The first three WSFs were held in
January/ February 2001- 2003, in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil and were timed to coincide with
the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The richness of Brazilian grassroots
organisations represented a source of inspiration for the development of the World Social Forum.
Over the last three years, WSF has emerged as a counterweight to the worldview of the World
Economic Forum. The WSF has become a symbol of the gathering strength of forces fighting
against globalisation and war. WSF 2003, with over 100,000 participants became a rallying point
for the protest against the war in Iraq.
The first WSF in 2001 saw the participation of about 20,000 people (of which 4,702 were
registered delegates) representing over 500 national and international organisations from more
than 100 countries. The success and enthusiasm generated by WSF 2001 contributed to making
the WSF an annual event. The second WSF held in January and February 2002 was an even larger
event. It saw the participation of around 12,000 registered delegates and a total of some 55,000
people from 123 countries. WSF 2003 saw the participation of more than 27,000 delegates and a
total of some 100,000 people from more than 130 countries.
In addition to WSF, there have been regional and thematic forums during 2002-2003. Following
WSF 2001 the International Council (IC) Forum was formed so as to enhance and expand the
diversity of the WSF process. The IC is a group of international networks from different regions of
the world. It is constituted by several organizations working on issues including economic justice,
human rights, environmental issues, labour, youth and women's rights. The IC contributes to the
WSF methodology, outreach, communication strategies as well as the local and regional organising
process.
Regional and Thematic Social Forums
The Regional Social Forums are part of a process of construction and universalisation of the
World Social Forum. Like the WSF, the Regional Forums create open spaces for dialoguing. These
democratic debates include the formulation of proposals and a free sharing of experiences of
entities and movements of the civil society that oppose themselves to the neo-liberal globalization.
They are termed "regional" as they happen in a macro-regional sphere. They follow a
methodology and political criteria stipulated by the WSF's Letter of Principles, whose purpose (as
well as that of the Regional Forums), is to approximate itself to the reality of the social movements
and entities in the diverse regions of the world. During the period of the WSF 2003, the European,
Asian, and Pan-Amazonian Social Forums shall be taking place simultaneously.
The Thematic Social Forums objectify to attend to demands of more thorough investigations of
debates to specific issues, considered priorities in the global conjuncture by the International
Council of WSF. For the year of 2002, we plan to accomplish a Thematic Social Forum in
Argentina, which shall discuss the effects of neo-liberal politics on developing countries.
World Social Forum Charter of Principles
The committee of Brazilian organisations that conceived of, and organised, the first World Social
Forum, held in Porto Alegre from January 25th to 30th, 2001, after evaluating the results of that
Forum and the expectations it raised, consider it necessary and legitimate to draw up a Charter of
Principles to guide the continued pursuit of that initiative. While the principles contained in this
Charter - to be respected by all those who wish to take part in the process and to organise new
editions of the World Social Forum - are a consolidation of the decisions that presided over the
holding of the Porto Alegre Forum and ensured its success, they extend the reach of those
decisions and define orientations that flow from their logic.
1. The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of
ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action,
by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of
the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary
society directed towards fruitful relationships among Humankind and between it and the Earth.
2. The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre was an event localised in time and place. From now on,
in the certainty proclaimed at Porto Alegre that "another world is possible", it becomes a
permanent process of seeking and building alternatives, which cannot be reduced to the events
supporting
3. The World Social Forum is a world process. All the meetings that are held as part of this process
have an international dimension.
4. The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in opposition to a process of
globalisation commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and
international institutions at the service of those corporations' interests, with the complicity of
national governments. They are designed to ensure that globalisation in solidarity will prevail as a
new stage in world history. This will respect universal human rights, and those of all citizens —
men and women — of all nations and the environment and will rest on democratic international
systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples.
5. The World Social Forum brings together and interlinks only organisations and movements of
civil society from all the countries in the world, but intends neither to be a body representing world
civil society.
6. The meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum
as a body. No one, therefore, will be authorised, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to
express positions claiming to be those of all its participants. The participants in the Forum shall not
be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or
proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken
as establishing positions of the Forum as a body. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to
be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for
interrelation and action by the organisations and movements that participate in it.
7. Nonetheless, organisations or groups of organisations that participate in the Forums meetings
must be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions they may
decide on, whether singly or in coordination with other participants. The World Social Forum
undertakes to circulate such decisions widely by the means at its disposal, without directing,
hierarchising, censuring or restricting them, but as deliberations of the organisations or groups of
organisations that made the decisions.
8. The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and nonparty context that, in a decentralised fashion, interrelates organisations and movements engaged
in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to build another world.
9. The World Social Forum will always be a forum open to pluralism and to the diversity of
activities and ways of engaging of the organisations and movements that decide to participate in
it, as well as the diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and physical capacities,
providing they abide by this Charter of Principles. Neither party representations nor military
organisations shall participate in the Forum. Government leaders and members of legislatures who
accept the commitments of this Charter may be invited to participate in a personal capacity.
10. The World Social Forum is opposed to all totalitarian and reductionist views of economy,
development and history and to the use of violence as a means of social control by the State. It
upholds respect for Human Rights, the practices of real democracy, participatory democracy,
peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people, ethnicities, genders and peoples, and
condemns all forms of domination and all subjection of one person by another.
11. As a forum for debate, the World Social Forum is a movement of ideas that prompts reflection,
and the transparent circulation of the results of that reflection, on the mechanisms and
instruments of domination by capital, on means and actions to resist and overcome that
domination, and on the alternatives proposed to solve the problems of exclusion and social
inequality that the process of capitalist globalisation with its racist, sexist and environmentally
destructive dimensions is creating internationally and within countries.
12. As a framework for the exchange of experiences, the World Social Forum encourages
understanding and mutual recognition among its participant organisations and movements, and
places special value on the exchange among them, particularly on all that society is building to
centre economic activity and political action on meeting the needs of people and respecting
nature, in the present and for future generations.
13. As a context for interrelations, the World Social Forum seeks to strengthen and create new
national and international links among organisations and movements of society, that — in both
public and private life — will increase the capacity for non-violent social resistance to the process
of dehumanisation the world is undergoing and to the violence used by the State, and reinforce
the humanising measures being taken by the action of these movements and organisations.
14. The World Social Forum is a process that encourages its participant organisations and
movements to situate their actions, from the local level to the national level and seeking active
participation in international contexts, as issues of planetary citizenship, and to introduce onto the
global agenda the change-inducing practices that they are experimenting in building a new world
in solidarity.
Approved and adopted in Sao Paulo, on April 9, 2001, by the organisations that make up the World Social Forum
Organisating Committee, approved with modifications by the World Social Forum Internationa! Council on June 10
2001.
Rules for the operation of the WSF International
Council
International Council (IC) of the WSF adopts, from its meeting of June, 2003 in Miami
forward, a realistic set of procedures for its work, which seeks to assure that all of its
members can continue working together.
1. The WSF process expansion at the world level has advanced greatly in the past year, opening
new opportunities and creating new challenges, which require changes in the linkages and
planning of activities in the WSF process. Given this new framework, it is necessary to guarantee
that the IC operates well so that it can fulfill its responsibility in this process as an open space.
2. In order to carry out its tasks in a more efficient way, as set out in the guidelines adopted in the
Porto Alegre IC meeting, held on January 21-22, 2003, the IC will work organised in the following
six Commissions:
a) STRATEGIES: In-depth analysis of the strategies, initiatives and actions used by agents of
neoliberalism at the same time analysing the initiatives of the opponents of neoliberal domination
(i.e. the anti or alternative globalisation movement), to facilitate the debate of strategies of
resistance and the construction of "another possible world."
b) CONTENT: Collection of materials (report backs and information from various forums), analysis
and organisation by theme and dissemination to WSF participants (via internet, email,
publications, and organisation of seminars) of the analysis, alternative proposals and initiatives for
a better world and strategies of resistance to neoliberalism that have come out of forums
(geographic - global, regional, local - and thematic) that have already taken place. At the same
time, increase collaboration and relationships between participants and initiatives in the WSF
process around those proposals, enabling an evaluation of appropriateness of new thematic
forums to delve more deeply into specific questions/issues.
c) METHODOLOGY: Organisation and consolidation of a methodology for the forums, based in the
Charter of Principles, which uses the experience of the forums that have already occurred as a
starting point, assures the open character of the WSF and respects plurality and diversity as the
principal strength of the process.
d) EXPANSION: Support the development of regional, national and local forums based on this
methodology, as well as geographic expansion focusing on world regions where civil society is still
not familiar enough with the WSF to take the initiative of organising forums or participating in the
forums in their region. Additionally, this will help to insure that this expansion is reflected in the
composition of IC.
e) COMMUNICATION: Creation of communication system for information/dissemination about the
WSF process both in terms of communication to actors outside of the IC as well as within the IC
itself, identifying ways for the IC and its Commissions to develop an effective long distance work.
f) FINANCES: Creation of a solidarity based international system for funding of the WSF process
activities.
3. To implement these tasks, IC members present at its Miami meeting divided into the six
Commissions listed above, with each Commission in charge of its respective function.
4. Each Commission will establish its own work methodology regarding decisions on how to
develop its activities and work calendar/timeline. The Commissions will present a first report back
on their activities during the next IC meeting. These reports should also be distributed to all IC
members before the meeting itself. The IC monitors and evaluates the activities of the
Commissions.
5. During the IC meeting to be held in June 2004, the Commissions will present to all IC members
for debate their work to date. Presentation materials should be distributed to IC members before
the June 2004 meeting. The discussions coming out of this IC meeting will help with the continuity
of the Commissions, clarifying specific themes, potentially creating new Commissions if necessary
and defining other issues for the WSF 2005.
6. The Commissions will include among its priorities to follow and support the WSF 2004 in
Mumbai.
7. The acceptance of new members into the IC will be contingent on:
a) Agreement with the WSF Charter of Principles and apply it to day-to-day operations.
b) The need for increased balance regarding gender, race, age, and geography (i.e. the
participation in the IC of organisations from all continents and regions) as well as the need to
diversify the IC in terms of both the type of organisation as well as the focus and scope of the
work of groups participating in the IC.
c) Active participation and contribution of the organisation in one or more of the IC Commissions
and/or in the organising committees of the regional or thematic social forums.
d) Organising committees of global, regional or thematic forums, recognised by the IC as part of
the international WSF process, may participate in the IC through one delegate and one
alternate during the 12 months prior to and subsequent to the event they are organising.
8. The procedure regarding new membership in the IC will be:
a) Applications must be presented in writing to the WSF Secretariat, with the endorsement of at
least two IC members. The WSF Secretariat will inform all IC members about applications at
least one month before the IC meeting;
b) Candidates must have existed, in principle, at least for two years;
c) Candidates must present in writing a document stating their agreement with the WSF Charter
of Principles;
d) Assessment of the active involvement and contribution of the organisation in at least one or
more of IC Commissions, or in organising committees of the regional or thematic social forums;
e) Applications must be approved by the IC on the basis of an evaluation by a working group
designated by the IC in its previous meeting;
f) Organisations that have already requested membership to the IC will be evaluated according to
the same criteria.
9. An organisation can apply to be a collaborative member of an IC Commission. Application to be
collaborative organisation will be presented to and decided by the Commission in which the
applicant is seeking to participate. Being a collaborative organisation in an IC Commission does not
automatically imply IC membership.
10. Applications to participate as observers in the IC meetings will be assessed by the same
working group that evaluates membership applications.
11. Regarding the relationship between the IC and WSF Secretariat, the first principle is that the
IC will take political decisions about the WSF process during its meetings.
12. The WSF Secretariat is a technical body to facilitate the WSF process, formed by the Brazilian
Organising Committee together with the Organising Committee of the place where the WSF is
held. They will decide together the division of functions and tasks amongst them. By the time this
document is revised, in June 2004, the IC will also discuss the continuation of the process of
internationalising the WSF Secretariat.
13. The WSF Secretariat functions, as agreed to in the January, 2003 Porto Alegre IC meeting,
are:
a) To stimulate and support the Regional and Thematic Forums;
b) To facilitate the organisation of the IC meetings;
c) To ensure the IC communication process;
d) To ensure the organisation of the historical record of the WSF process;
e) To support the fundraising efforts for the WSF process.
14. From now, the facilitation of IC Commission meetings must be incorporated also as a function
of the WSF Secretariat, which must work closely with the IC Commissions, supporting their work
and receiving from them their contributions to the WSF process and to the organisation of the
Forums and IC meetings.
15. The WSF Secretariat will present in each IC meeting a report on its activities, as well as a
financial report after every WSF. Both reports must be sent to all IC members at least 15 days
before the IC meeting.
16. The WSF newsletter will regularly inform IC members about the activities of the WSF process.
17. Free communication between and among IC members is guaranteed. To promote this
communication, a permanently updated list of all IC members contact information should be
available to all IC members. The WSF Secretariat will also ensure that a closed Internet discussion
listserve is maintained in good working order for use by all IC members through which the
maximum level of transparency will be sought vis-a-vis information about activities developed in
the WSF process.
18. In its June 2003 meeting in Miami, the IC began discussion of the proposal for internal rules
prepared by the IC Internal Rules Working Group and decided to continue discussion on this
proposal as well as the present rules through the IC Internet listserve. The IC will continue
discussing this issue in its next meeting, in order to advance in the process of the organisation and
clarification of how the IC functions. A special working group was formed in the Miami IC meeting
to facilitate and organise this discussion.
19. All the points of this document will be subject to evaluation and modification in one year.
Note: other definitions adopted subsequently during the meeting, concerning the application of
these rules:
20. The IC decided that, until its next meeting in Mumbai (January, 2004), the functions of the
working group on evaluation of new memberships applications, mentioned in the item 8.e, and
invitation of observers, item 10, will be carried out by the Expansion Commission [item 2.d].
21. The IC defined that the discussion on the internal rules (referred in the item 18) only will be
taken over after the WSF in Mumbai. The new working group is formed by: CBJP Brasil (Chico),
IPC (Savio), Red Global de Economia Solidaria (Carola), NIGD-IOC (Vijay) and CUT-Brasil
(Gustavo).
22. The next IC meeting will take place in Mumbai, India. It will have two parts: one day before
the WSF it will be a meeting for socialising information on the event among IC members; after the
WSF closing, the IC will meet again to deal with the agenda of pending debates (WSF 2004
evaluation, report on the work of the IC commissions etc.) According to what was defined in the
point 14, the WSF Secretariat will organise the agenda of the next IC meeting in dialogue with the
Commissions.
WSF in India
In 2003 the IC of the WSF and the Brazil Organising Committee strongly felt that WSF needed to
move beyond Brazil and Latin America to be more inclusive of peoples of Africa and Asia: the
peoples facing the brunt of imperialist and neo liberal globalisation, and enjoined in strong popular
struggle against it. Keeping this in mind, India was chosen as the host country for the WSF 2004
so as to bring in Asian and African concerns to greater prominence. With the success of the Asian
Social Forum in Hyderabad, India in January 2003, which saw the participation of over 20,000
delegates representing 840 organisations, tremendous enthusiasm has been generated within Asia
about the WSF process.
In fact, hosting of the WSF global meet in Mumbai in January 2004 has been a great opportunity
and challenge to people's movements and to all civil and political organisations across the world
especially those of the peoples of Asia and Africa. It was for all those opposed to imperialist and
neo-liberal globalisation, war and sectarian violence, and has a commitment to democratic values,
plurality, dignity and peace.
WSF 2004 was also a symbol of unity and democratic space for people to assert their rights for
peace and a world free of violence, bigotry and hatred. The WSF India process not only focused
on imperialist globalisation but also on the issues of religious and sectarian violence, casteism and
patriarchy. It made space for all sections of society to come together and articulate their struggles
and visions, individually and collectively, against the threat of neo-liberal, capitalist globalisation on
one hand and uphold the secular, plural and gender sensitive framework on the other. The event
brought various mass organisations, new social movements and NGOs on one platform, for the
first time in recent Indian history. The WSF process was also deepened at the grassroots by
initiating social forums in states, districts and towns of India. The WSF 2004 advanced the debate
on concerns Indian and yet simultaneously maintain an international perspective.
In India the WSF Charter has been extended to include social and political realities, as they exist in
the country today. The process in India makes space available for all sections of society, but most
importantly, it makes space for all those in society that remain less visible, marginalised,
unrecognised, and oppressed. This entails the opening of a dialogue within and between the broad
spectrum of political parties and groups, social movements and other organisations.
The WSF-India process aims to be widespread and inclusive by allowing for a space for workers,
peasants, indigenous peoples, dalits, women, hawkers, all minorities, immigrants, students,
academicians, artisans, artists, the media as well as parliamentarians, sympathetic bureaucrats
and other concerned sections from within and outside the state.
India General Council
The India General Council is the decision making body of the WSF India process. The membership
to the IGC is open to all social movements and organisations that are committed to the WSF
Charter of Principles. At the moment there are approximately 135 members in the IGC.
The India Working Committee is responsible for formulating policy guidelines that form the basis
for the functioning of the WSF India process. The IWC currently consists of 67 organisations
nominated from the IGC and is indicative of the diverse social, political and economic gamut. The
IWC comprises of 14 national trade unions and workers' organisations, 8 national women's
organisations, 6 national farmers' networks, and 4 national platforms each of dalits, adivasis, 4
student and youth bodies, as well as 27 social movements, other organisations and NGOs.
* The India Organising Committee is the executive body of the WSF 2004 and is responsible for
organising the event. The IOC consists of 45 individuals, each being a member of one of the
eight working groups
* The Mumbai Organising Committee consists of organizations based in Mumbai that are
represented in each of the functional groups.
Venue and dates
India hosted the WSF 2004 from 16- 21 January 2004 in Mumbai. The choice of Mumbai as the
venue for WSF 2004 was made following a lengthy dialogue between all groups involved in the
WSF India process. Mumbai provided an ideal site to challenge the neo-liberal globalisation
agenda, being perhaps the largest financial centre in the world outside the OECD, as well being
the location of some of the most aggressive and violent acts of religious sectarianism that the sub
continent has witnessed. Mumbai, a large industrial centre, also witnessed the birth of the a
militant trade union movement, vibrant dalit and women's movements, and has allowed the
growth of alternatives to mainstream arts, performing arts and cinema.
Mobilisation for the forum
More than 100,000 people participated in the WSF 2004. Of these, more than 10,000 were from
outside India. A range of accommodation facilities was made available and necessary links
provided on website. An effort was also made to provide low-priced accommodation including
campsites available. In keeping with the traditions established in Porto Alegre.
WSF India worked closely with the International Secretariat and International Council for
international mobilisation. The India Organising Committee hosted a meeting of mass
organisations and other movements from Asian countries in Mumbai in June 2003. Many ideas on
expanding the decision making process to include issues of mobilisation and the sharing of
responsibilities, were discussed.
Programme and methodology
The Opening and Closing plenary of WSF 2004 were the events on the initial and final days of the
WSF. During the four intervening days there were plenary sessions, debates, dialogues, round
table discussions, seminars and workshops, and panel discussions. The public meetings and
testimonials were held every evening. Various cultural events, including the arts and the
performing arts, and Youth Forum ran concurrently. The main focus, and thematic axes for WSF
2004 were — Imperialist Globalisation, Patriarchy, Casteism, Racism and Social Exclusions,
Religious sectarianism, Identity Politics, Fundamentalism, Militarism and Peace.
Cultural events
A functional group on Culture is co-coordinating the various cultural events was organised on each
day of the WSF. These events will be designed to capture the flavour of cultural responses to the
onslaught of neo-liberal globalisation and the politics of exclusion and sectarian violence. They will
include various expressions of art and various forms of performing arts. Groups from all over the
World will be encouraged to participate.
Communications
A website and communication system was put in place to deal with correspondence, listserves,
newsletters, registration, and campaign and publicity material. The Communication and Media
Group managed media and press relations and worked with the International Secretariat for
international communications and publicity.
Stalls
Stalls were made available for exhibitions or for sale of books, posters, souvenirs, food, music, etc.
The broad themes and
sub-themes for WSF 2004
Militarism, War and Peace
* US Militarist Agenda and Resistances
* Against global and permanent war
* Identities and Peoples Right to Determination
* Growing militarisation of society; impact on women
* Imperialist war and control of resources
* Role of United Nations and war
* Aggression on Iraq and consequences
* Palestine: a continuing war
Building culture of peace
* Genocides and crimes against humanity
* Global disarmament and nuclear weapons
* International law and war
* Peace, well being and regional cooperation
* Self determination and nationalities
* State terrorism: Civil and Political Rights
Media, Information, Knowledge and Culture
♦Against merchandising information, culture and media
* Media concentration and loss of pluralism
* Media and the commodification of women
* Sponsorship and Censorship
* Alternate media
* War and media - manipulation of images and "embedded” journalism
♦Art and social transformation
* Culture of dissent
* Role of culture: youth and the marginalised
* Privatising science and knowledge
* Community's loss of knowledge through patenting
* Genetic Engineering, Patenting life forms
* Access to knowledge for the third world
* Information Technology: Opportunities and Challenges
* Media as an instrument of exclusion and a space for democratic struggle (social audit of old
and new media, changing content and form, state-owned media vs. public broadcasting)
Democracy, Ecological and Economic Security
Debt, finance and trade
* Critical examination of the IMF, WB, WTO - Institutions of Capitalist Globalisation
* Scope of selective de-linking with respect to national development
* Breaking the power of financial markets
* Politics of Aid
* Illegitimacy and Burden of Debt
* Bilateral and regional trade, investment processes and its impacts
* NAFTA and other bilateral treaties
* Fair trade
* Participatory economics
* Solidarity Economics
* Agreement in Agriculture (AOA) and Food Sovereignty
Land, Water and Food Sovereignty
* Land and agriculture
* Privatising basic services: energy, water, transport and telecommunications
* Livelihoods and Natural resources - access, entitlements, etc.
* Climate change - Kyoto Protocol
* Bio-safety and GM foods
* Governance, accountability and peoples resources
* Dumping of hazardous wastes
* Biodiversity
* Peasantry and village economy under globalisation
* Urban development and displacement of the poor
* Feminisation of Poverty and immigration
* Innovative models of sustainable livelihoods
* Forests, Land, Air, Water: Democratic control of common goods
* Regulation and de-regulation: removing democratic controls
* Corporate Accountability
Labour and World of Work in Production and Social Reproduction
* Creating and distributing wealth differently: monetary, budgetary and fiscal policies in favour of
employment
* Work and the logic of profit
* Closing of industries, relocation of production and the trade union movement
* Trade union movement and the informal and small scale sector
* Migrant labour and protectionism
* New technologies of product automation: impact on women and men workers
* End of work and other theories
* Abolishing the wage system: liberating workers or liberation from work
* Valuation of social reproduction and housework
* The trade union movement within the construction of the global social movement
Social sectors — food, health, education — and social security
* Impact of service sector liberalisation/GATS
* Entitlements, social security and the "safety net": ensuring universal access
* Social Security, pensions and medical welfare
* The marginalized and their access to social security and the safety net
* Privatisation of and Merchandising health and education
* Child Rights
* Politics and agenda of population control and use of reproductive technologies
* Food Security of communities and households and public distribution
* Employment, Job Security, Pension Schemes, VRS
* Reproduction, Health and Sexual Rights
* Exclusions, Discrimination, Dignity, Rights and Equality
Nation, State, citizenship, law andjustice
* State, Civil Society and the disadvantaged (Dalits, indigenous peoples, religious/ethnic/linguistic
minorities) Changing institutional and legal frameworks for labour and peasant rights in the
context of globalisation
* Loss of economic sovereignty under globalisation
* Privatisation, Liberalisation and impact on the disadvantaged
* Rise of the right, legitimisation of majoritarianism and intolerance of minorities
* Race, migration and citizenship
* Effect of globalisation on legal and institutional frameworks of decision making
* Militarising the state and erosion of civil liberties/human rights
* Disability and discrimination
* Trafficking in women and children
* Refugees, displaced persons, IDP, cross-border migration, racism and human rights
* Alternative visions, practical experiments and struggles for inclusive, plural and radical
democracy
* Autonomy, separation, reconciliation
Caste, race and other forms of descent/work based exclusions
* Caste, race and other work/descent based discrimination: exclusions in the market and in
governance
* Community/group specific (dalits, indigenous peoples, tribals and ethnic religious, national and
other minorities): analyses of the new and emerging forms of exclusions
* Gender related exclusions and 'double' exclusion of women from marginalised communities
* Attack on affirmative action in education and work
* New voices in social movements
Religion, culture and identities
* Communalism — Religious sectarianism and exclusions — and religiosity
* Globalisation, homogeneity and pluralism
* Cultural imperialism and shaping subordinate identities
* Globalisation and cultural resistance
* Fundamentalism and Sexual Identities
* Reinforcement of stereotypes
Patriarchy, Gender and Sexuality
* Patriarchy and capitalism
* Law and women: the global scenario
* Personal, constitutional law and human rights
*
Women and men: from equality within the law to equality in reality
* Against the sexual division of labour
* Liberty of women within society
* Forms of resurgent patriarchy
* Right to sexual orientation: from claims for rights to the assertion identities.
IC Document on the Porto Alegre Meeting
(The International Council met on January 28 and 29 to decide future prospects for the World Social
Forum)
The meeting emphasized the idea that the WSF is much more than an isolated event. Rather it is
consolidating as an ongoing process and as a movement that is spreading worldwide and
obtaining growing support on every continent. The composition of the International Council in
itself shows that social forces from all over the planet are increasingly making an enduring
commitment to the WSF.
The International Council believes that holding an annual centralized WSF event is crucial to
assisting the wide range of forces that oppose neoliberal globalization to come together and
organize. Furthermore, the event itself has a large and very public impact which is energizing the
movement. Lastly, the International Council decided that as the WSF takes on a worldwide
character and acquires more support, there must be more mobilization in the regions to encourage
more participation from all the continents.
In view of this situation, the International Council took the following decisions?
1) Continental or regional World Social Forum events will be held in the second half of this year, in
different parts of the world.
2) The III World Social Forum will once again be held in Porto Alegre and on the same dates as
the World Economic Forum.
3) The International Council of the WSF will play a decisive role in preparing and organizing the
work of the Regional and Continental Forums and the centralized World Social Forum. This will be
the main theme of the Council meeting to be held from April 28 to 30, 2002.
English text by volunteer translator Thomas Nerney
IC Document on the Dakar Meeting
(October 30, November 1, 2001)
The International Council of the World Social Forum, meeting in Dakar from October 30 to
November 1, 2001, mobilized an important number of African organizations and social movements
which are thus becoming ever more actively involved in international movements against
neoliberal globalization. This mobilization will lead to the organization of the first Africa Social
Forum, in Bamako in January 2002. The proposals that will emerge from this meeting, as well as
from other preparatory meetings being held in different parts of the world, will contribute
enormously to the success of the World Social Forum being organized in Porto Alegre from
January 31 to February 5, 2002.
This report has three parts: a synthesis of discussions on the international situation; a listing of
the main decisions taken; and, in annex, projects proposed by one or more organizational
members of the council.
1. Synthesis Of Discussions On The International Situation
The following text does not attempt to be all-inclusive. It simply relays some of the major
discussions, without necessarily mentioning all of the viewpoints expressed. It was reiterated that,
as with the WSF itself, the International Council does not speak with a single voice. As the Charter
of Principles adopted in San Paolo in June 2001 reminds us, the Forum constitutes a space for
dialogue and ideas that respects the diversity of those that participate in it.
The first World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, in January 2001, produce evidence of the
blockages and ravages of neoliberal globalization. A space for developing and proposing
alternatives on a planetary level, the WSF reinforced the desire for "another world" in many parts
of the globe, as well as in Africa. It became a reference and pressure point for social struggles,
and placed directors, media, governments and multilateral institutions in the service of finance
markets and transnational corporations on the defensive. Unable to disavow the disastrous results
of their policies, these forces have been unable to react except by attempting to criminalize social
movements that oppose neoliberal fundamentalism. Since September 11 they have gone a step
farther by attempting to use to their profit the emotions brought on by the criminal attacks in New
York and Washington, which all of the members of the World Social Forum have unanimously
condemned.
In attempting to fight against a terrorism whose deep roots they refuse to analyze and which
instrumentalizes poverty, the U.S. and British governments, supported by most European
governments as well as by a coalition of diverse interests, are engaged in a war whose first victim
is the Afghani people.
The events of September 11 provide a useful excuse to shift focus from popular demands and to
impose those of neoliberal globalization. As such, while many international conferences were
cancelled, that of the World Trade Organization, scheduled for November 9 to 13 in Qatar, is
maintained in spite of its proximity to the area of conflict. By enrolling the WTO in this military
coalition, the commodification of the world is accelerated, and new constraints are being imposed
on countries in the South, notably in the areas of investment and intellectual property rights. At
the same time, governments are taking steps to curtail liberties, while corporations, citing the
consequences of September 11, lay off thousands of works - even thought the beginning of the
U.S. recession, and its contagious effects on the rest of the world, began almost a year ago.
The dictates of the market and of neoliberal fundamentalism and fanaticism must be rejected as
firmly as one rejects dictatorial or authoritarian regimes and religious fundamentalism and
fanaticism. It is only by building a more just world, free from all forms of racism, based on
solidarity, respectful of womens rights, more conscious of the environment, as well as by providing
just solutions to ongoing struggles and especially that of Palestine, that the conditions which give
rise to terrorism will be eradicated, and in which the impulse for war can be substituted by the
impulse for peace. What should prevail is not commercial and financial imperatives or the rule of
the strong, but the shared values of humanity, all rights for all human beings. If globalization it is,
let it be that of human rights.
In this vein, it is noteworthy that specific demands made by organizations and social movements
such as those represented on the Council - in particular the abolition of tax havens, the struggle
against financial speculation, the abolition of the external debt of Southern countries, government
regulation of the economy and the right to affordable medicines - are currently invoked and even
partially implemented by what had been until just a few weeks ago their most dedicated enemies:
the leaders of the United States! Even if only in light of specific circumstances and in support of
large American corporations, the "beacon" of global neoliberalism publicly demonstrates the
scandalous nature of the costs it intends to impose on the rest of the planet, through the
intermediaries of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. It thereby provides involuntary legitimacy
to specific demands which emerged at the first World Social Forum, and encourages their deeper
exploration during the second World Social Forum being organized in Porto Alegre from January
31 to February 5, 2002.
The members of the International Council of the WSF, meeting in Dakar from October 30 to
November 1, 2001, renew their call to all members of the social movement, to all trade unions, to
elected leaders in different countries, as well as to all representatives of major philosophical and
spiritual currents, to make of Porto Alegre a time to bring together of alternative proposals to
neoliberalism, as well as a springboard for struggles and a symbol of hope for all of humanity.
Resolutions taken in the Porto Alegre Meeting
(Brazil January 21st and 22nd 2003)
Orientations adopted by the International Council of the World Social Forum on its meeting on
January 21st and 22nd 2003 in Porto Alegre.
The International Council of the World Social Forum adopts the following orientations to give
continuity to the process of the World Social Forum after the 2003 edition of its main annual event
in Porto Alegre:
1. to foster the continuity of the fundamental richness of the events in this process, which is its
ample, open and plural character that works with the diversity of resistances, organisations and
proposals; to that end, ensure total respect to its Charter of Principles and take the WSF as an
incremental process of collective learning and growth;
2. to deepen the process of experimentation of horizontal organisational practices and systems
based on co-responsibility;
3. to stimulate the multiplication of regional, national and even local events, as well as theme
events, that intercommunicate horizontally and that will not be articulated as preparatory for one
another but as meetings with their own political value;
4. when holding the forums, to organise discussions and the search for alternatives giving equal
weight to the activities scheduled by the organisers and to the seminars and workshops proposed
and organised by the participants themselves, as well as to stimulate the international character of
these forums;
5. to hold the 2004 global event of the World Social Forum process in India and the 2005 global
event of the World Social Forum process in Porto Alegre;
6. to turn the date of the global event of the World Social Forum process independent of the date
of the World Economic Forum in Davos but keeping it always in the same month of the year; to
create a "Global Day for marching against Neo-liberalism and War and for Another Possible World"
in one of the days in which the Davos' Forum is taking place;
7. to hold meetings of the Forum's International Council (IC) in June 2003, January 2004 and June
2004 for working sessions of a longer duration and organised in work groups and floor meetings.
The IC's tasks are to evaluate, given a systematic analysis of the world situation — having a
dialogue with the entities and organisations mobilised in the world against neo-liberalism,
systemising the WSF process' memory and taking support from ad hoc workgroups — the
continuity of the process, to ensure the respect for its Charter of Principles when holding Regional
and Theme Forums, to identify themes for the IC's work, for the world events and for the theme
Forums to be stimulated, as well as to identify regions of the world in which the process needs to
expand, acting in alliance with movements and organisations from these regions;
8. enlarge the composition of the IC, integrating all the international and regional networks,
movements and organisations that adhere to the Charter of Principles of the WSF and that ask for
their integration, as well as representatives of the organising committees of the regional and
theme forums;
9. to give continuity to the present functions of the
internationalising it, with the following functions:
• to stimulate and support regional and theme forums;
• to facilitate the holding of IC and its workgroups meetings;
• to ensure the process of communication in the WSF;
• to ensure the systematisation of the WSF process' memory;
• to support fund raising efforts for the WSF process.
IC's Secretariat,
progressively
WSF 2004: Call of the social movements and mass
organisations
(Mumbai, India, January 2004)
• We the social movements united in Assembly in the city of Mumbai, India, share the struggles of
the people of India and all Asians. We reiterate our opposition to the neo-liberal system, which
generates economic, social and environmental crises and produces war. Our mobilisation against
war and deep social and economic injustices has served to reveal the true face of neo-liberalism.
• We are united here to organise the resistance against capitalism and to find alternatives. Our
resistance began in Chiapas, Seattle and Genoa, and led to a massive world-wide mobilisation
against the war in Iraq on 15th February 2003 which condemned the strategy of global, on
going war implemented by the United States government and its Allies. It is this resistance that
led to the victory over the WTO in Cancun.
• The occupation of Iraq showed the whole world the existing links between militarism and the
economic domination of the multinational corporations. Moreover, it also justified the reasons
for our mobilisation.
• As social movements and mass organisations, we reaffirm our commitment to fight neo-liberal
globalisation, imperialism, war, racism, the caste system, cultural imperialism, poverty,
patriarchy, and all forms of discrimination - economic social, political, ethnic, gender, sexual including that of sexual orientation and gender identity. We are also against all kinds of
discrimination to persons with different capacities and fatal illnesses such as AIDS.
• We struggle for social justice, access to natural resources - land, water and seeds- human and
citizens' rights, participative democracy, the rights of workers of both genders as guaranteed in
international treaties, women's rights, and also the people's right to self-determination. We are
partisans of peace, international cooperation and we promote sustainable societies that are able
to guarantee access to public services and basic goods. At the same time, we reject social and
patriarchal violence against women.
• We call for a mass mobilisation on 8th March, International Women's Day.
• We fight all forms of terrorism, including state terrorism. At the same time we are opposed to
the use of terrorism, which criminalises popular movements and restricts civil activists. The socalled law against terrorism restricts civil rights and democratic freedom all over the world.
• We vindicate the struggle of peasants, workers, popular urban movements and all people under
threat of losing their homes, jobs, land or their rights.
• We also vindicate the struggle to reverse privatisation in order to protect common, public goods,
as is happening with pensions and Social Security in Europe. The victory of the massive
mobilisation of the Bolivian people in defense of their natural resources, democracy and
sovereignty testifies to the strength and potential of our movements. Simultaneously, peasants
across the globe are struggling against multinationals and neo-liberal corporate agricultural
policies, demanding sovereignty over food and democratic land reform.
• We call for unity with all peasants on 17th April, International Day of Peasants Struggles.
• We identify with the struggle of the mass movements and popular organisations in India, and
together with them, we condemn the political and ideological forces, which promote violence,
sectarianism, exclusion and nationalism based on religion and ethnicity. We condemn the
threats, arrests, torture and assassinations of social activists who organised communities in
order to struggle for global justice. We also denounce discrimination based on caste, class,
religion, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. We condemn the perpetuation of
violence and oppression against women through cultural, religious and traditional discriminatory
practices.
• We support the efforts of mass movements and popular organisations in India and Asia, which
promote the struggle for justice, equality and human rights, especially that of the Dalits,
Adivasis, and the most oppressed and repressed sectors of society. The neo-liberal policy of the
Indian government aggravated the marginalisation and social oppression, which the Dalits have
suffered historically.
• For all these reasons we support the struggle of all the marginalised throughout the world, and
urge everyone worldwide to join the call of the Dalits for a day of mobilisation for social
inclusion.
• As an escape from its crisis of legitimacy, global capitalism is using force and war in order to
maintain an anti-popular order. We demand that the governments put a stop to militarism, war,
and military spending, and demand the closure of US military bases because they are a risk and
threat to humanity and life on earth. We have to follow the example of the people of Puerto
Rico who forced the US to close its base in Vieques. The opposition to global warfare remains
our main object of mobilisation around the world.
• We call on all citizens of the world to mobilise simultaneously on 20th March in an international
day of protest against war and the occupation of Iraq imposed by the United States, Great
Britain and the Allied Forces.
• In each country, the anti-war movements are developing their own consensus and tactics in
order to guarantee as wide a participation and mobilisation as possible. We demand the
immediate withdrawal of all occupying troops and support the right of the Iraqi to selfdetermination and sovereignty, as well as their right to reparation for all the damages caused by
the embargo and war.
• The struggle against terrorism not only acts as a pretext for continuing the war and occupation
of Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is also being used to threaten and attack the global community.
At the same time, the US is maintaining a criminal embargo against Cuba, and destabilising
Venezuela.
• We call upon all people to give maximum support this year to the mobilisation for the Palestinian
people, especially on 30th March, Palestinian Land Day, against the building of the wall of
apartheid.
• We denounce imperialist forces that are generating religious, ethnic, racial and tribal conflicts in
order to further their own interests, increasing the suffering of the people and multiplying the
hate and violence between them. More than 80 per cent of the ongoing conflicts in the world
are internal and especially affect African and Asian communities.
• We denounce the unsustainable situation of debt in poor countries of the world, and the
coercive use by governments, multinational corporations and international financial institutions.
We strongly demand the total and unconditional cancellation and rejection of the illegitimate
debts of the Third World. As a preliminary condition for the satisfaction of the fundamental
economic, social, cultural and political rights, we also demand the restitution of the longstanding
plunder of the Third World. We especially support the struggle of the African peoples and their
social movements.
• Once again we raise our voices against the G8 Summit and the meetings of the IMF and World
Bank, who bear the greatest responsibility for the plunder of entire communities.
• We reject the imposition of regional and bilateral free-trade agreements such as FTAA NAFTA
CAFTA, AGOA, NEPAD, Euro-Med, AFTA and ASEAN.
• We are millions of persons united in the struggle against our common enemy: the WTO. The
indigenous people are struggling against patents on all kinds of life forms and the theft of
biodiversity, water, land. We are united in fighting the privatisation of public services and
common goods.
• We call upon everybody to mobilise for the right to water as a source of life that cannot be
privatised. We are endeavouring to recover control over public, common goods and natural
resources, previously privatised and given to transnational enterprises and the private sector.
• In the victory at Cancun, the death of Lee symbolised the suffering of millions of peasants and
poor people all over the world that are excluded by the "free market". His immolation is a
symbol for^our^sguggle against the WTO. This proves our determination to oppose any attempt
• WTO out of agriculture, food, health, water, education, natural resources and common goods!
• With this determination in mind, we call upon all the social movement and mass organisations of
the world to join the mobilisation in Hong Kong or in any other place where the WTO ministerial
will be held. Let us join our efforts to struggle against privatisation, in defense of common
goods, environment, agriculture, water, health, public services and education.
• In order to achieve our objectives, we reiterate our strong desire to reinforce the network of
social movements and our capacity for struggle.
Proposals adopted at the WSF IC meeting
(January 23, 2004 in Mumbai, India)
1. The six IC Commissions will keep working to develop their working plans considering the
following IC decisions.
2. The six Commissions will be maintained; at the same time, the IC encourages them to interlink
and dialogue whenever necessary.
3. Like previous WSFs and according to the Charter of Principles, WSF 2005 will be a space open
to activities self-organised by the participant organisations, according to priorities they themselves
set - within the logistic limitations. It is strongly recommended that the closing date for event
registration should be as early as possible.
Ho7e''f!Lin/orto A,egre 2005' our Process is t0 take a new step towards a working methodology
and WSF format that, before and during the WSF, encourage dialogue, identification of
convergence in themes and strategies, interlinking and formulation of action plans, while
respecting diversity and the multiplicity of aims and strategies, divergences, pluralism, diversity of
opinions and all values enshrined in our Charter of Principles.
All IC members' proposals in this regard should be sent to the Methodology and Thematic and
Content Commissions as input to their work.
This is the general direction in which the Methodology and Thematic and Content Commissions
should head when developing their proposals, for the next IC meeting, on how to move the
process forward and what format the WSF should have in Porto Alegre.
4. For the next IC meeting, the Finance Commission is to produce a document that moves ahead
in establishing our fund raising criteria.
The IC is also responsible for the deficit regarding organisation of WSF 2004, in India; proposals
on how to cover it will be discussed by the Finance Commission and with the Secretariat (Brazil
and India) on the basis of a detailed report on expenditure at Mumbai.
The Finance Commission is also to discuss a strategy for financing the process in the long term.
6. The IC approves the setting up of a Solidarity Fund to enable delegations of excluded groups
and individuals in general with low income, fighting patriarchism and other forms of oppression, to
take part both in the IC and in WSF events. The format, rules and form of administration of this
Fund are to be defined at the next meeting, on the basis of a draft by the Expansion Commission
in collaboration with the Finance Commission.
7. The Expansion Commission is also to:
7.1. submit to the IC broader / more detailed draft criteria for the admission of new members
{^expansion through the IC).
7.2.
forward to the IC discussion list, before the end of February, all documentation relating to
membership applications (received between Barcelona and Miami) to be considered at the
next IC meeting.
7.3. to develop a policy on expanding the WSF as a process and through its events.
7.4. in collaboration with the Methodology Commission, to develop a proposal for interlinking the
Thematic, Regional and World Social Forums.
8. The Strategy Commission is to present a working plan to the IC at its next meeting. At the next
IC meeting, one of the sessions will be devoted to debating strategy; the agenda and
methodology are to be decided by the Strategy Commission.
9. The Communication Commission is to present a plan for the next IC meeting following the
arrangement systematised in Mumbai.
10. IC confirms that next WSF will be held in Porto Alegre in 2005 on the same dates as the World
Economic Forum at Davos.
11. The next IC meeting will focus on dealing with the themes mentioned above. It will be strictly
a working meeting. On these criteria and in order to reduce costs, it will be held in Italy, from April
5 to 7, 2004.
To surmount the problem that this venue is a disadvantage to the South in terms of travel costs,
the possibility will be considered of calculating expenses on the basis that the sum of the travel
costs of all confirmed participants will be divided by the total number of participants, each of
whom will then pay this average value. It means that European delegates, besides paying their
own fares would contribute an extra amount and delegates from the South will receive a
reimbursement of part of their travel costs (whether or not this methodology is viable depends on
each organisation's administrative requirements)...
12. The IC meeting held a preliminary discussion on the frequency, rotating hosting and venue for
the WSF after Porto Alegre 2005. The Methodology and Expansion Commissions are to present
documents on these subjects for discussion at the next IC meeting.
13. On the accusation of rape in the South Africa delegation during WSF in Mumbai:
13.1. Women's organisations are to draft a note to be posted on the WSF site;
13.2. World March of Women is to write a policy proposal on how to prevent and deal with cases
of violence against women in WSF events or processes, which will be discussed by women's
organisations and then will be a subject for discussion at the next IC meeting.
14. IC will guarantee support for the Intercontinental Youth Camp and work to really integrate the
Camp into the WSF 2005 process and event. The WSF Secretariat will discuss a plan to put this
proposal into practice with the camp organising commission.
15. Considering the closing ceremonies of the last WSFs, the IC will evaluate them carefully (their
function, format and goals).
- Media
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