MUMBAI - 2004: A WSF MORE POPULAR THAN INTELLECTUAL

The turn-over is a healthy practice. The WSF became much richer because, after three editions in Porto Alegre, it moved to India and allowed a large number of Asian social organizations and ordinary Indian people to participate in the marches and debates that took place in Mumbai, Jan. 16-20, 2004.

Every day, thousands of demonstrators from different countries, with a variety of clothes, collors and languages, marched on the dusty streets of the large area dedicated to the WSF in the coast city of Mumbai, India: it was the site of a large factory; its old buildings were remodelled to host about 150 thousand people who participated or visited the WSF 2004. The opening event attracted a crowd at a large park facing the sunset, where a podium and a sound and video systems were set. The ground was completely covered with canvas, allowing the crowd to sit down to listen to the musical show and the opening speeches. Among those who spoke were the Algerian leader Ahmed Ben Bella, the young Indian writer Arundati Roy and, for the WSF international committee, the Brazilian Chico Whitaker. The organizers were so sensitive as to offer translation of all speeches in Hindi and English.

The streets of the WSF were crowded from morning to evening, with Japanese and Koreans marching against neoliberal globalization and unemployment, Indian women for the rights of women, Tibetan Bhuddist monks for peace in Tibet and for the release of monks arrested by the Chinese Army, informal workers for the right to a dignified job, Dalits (the cast of the Untouchables) against their inhuman condition of collectors of human wastes (scavangers) in exchange for a miserable wage, public servants against privatization and unemployment, the handicapped, the tribal peoples etc.

The WSF 2004 was characterized much more by protest, celebration, joy and communication than by the debates on the priority problems facing global human society. Local problems continue to be a priority for ordinary people. The message is that, for problems like water, land and food to be solved, it is necessary that the peoples of the world unite against their globalized oppressors, and for an economy under control of the working people, organized to serve human needs.

The conferences and panels were held in large halls with 4,000 to 10,000 seats, but the participants would rather demonstrate in the streets than listen to and debate with the speakers. In the WSF there were at least 150,000 people among delegates and visitors. The Conference "Land, Water and Food Sovereignty attracted thousands of Indians. Apparently these are some of the most dramatic issues for a country with a population that exceeds one billion. The events related to a people's economy/a solidarity economy attracted mostly Americans, Europeans and Africans, but only a few Asians who are already involved with activities such as fair trade, cooperative production, ethical consumption, solidarity microcredit, family agriculture and participatory and sustainable local development attended them.

The presentations and debate were qualitative and indicated progress with respect to 2003. A seminar focusing a people's economy in Asia brought together experiences in India, Thailand and Pakistan, to which practices in Brazil, the Canadian province of Quebec and France were contrasted. More than 100 activities only on one of the solidarity economy (SE) themes - fair trade - were organized. In 2003, 19 SE networks promoted the Porto Alegre events; in Mumbai, this number had increased to 47 networks collaborating in the organization of the SE events. We estimate that they attracted about 8,000 people.

The debates promoted by Jubilee South and the various national and international networks on debt, international trade and multilateral agencies were publicized on proficuous banners stretched between the trees all over the WSF site. The proposal of a Tribunal on the financial versus the ecological debts was advanced for 2005. The campaigns against NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement), the FTAA (the Americas), CAFTA (Central America-USA), the African agreement and the neoliberal bilateral treaties were the object of intense debates. The Indian media covered the WSF with some visibility, including debates with the most well-known participants. The international media, however, gave a limited and often biased coverage, little attentive to the wealth of the debates and proposals; much less visible and qualitative than their coverage of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held in Davos, Switzerland, one week after the Mumbai WSF.

DAVOS, MORE ELITIST THAN EVEN

Just the item security of the WEF in Davos cost nearly 18 million dollars. 2,000 people attended, among which CEOs of the largest global corporations and politicians of more than 100 countries, plus international journalists. In Mumbai, one member of the Swiss delegation interviewed the Chief of Police and learned that, in order to guarantee the safety of more than 100,000 people 700 policemen were on the streets. In Davos, 7,000 policemen, soldiers and agents, including the Swiss Air Forces, armed to their teeth, were mobilize to protect the world's 2,000 richest and most powerful persons.

The title of the WEF was "Security and Prosperity, Synonims of Peace". The US Minister of Justice, John Ashcroft, gave content to this motto, promoting what the Bush government considers the priority global themes - fight against terrorism and against official corruption. Ashcroft underlined that he was reffering to the corruption of government officials, "not to the type of corporate misbehavior" that is at the origin of the big corporate scandals in the US and Europe, such as Enron, Tyco and Parmalat. NATO followed in the same tune, proposing the construction of a "safety partnership" with Israel and the Arab States around the Mediterranean in order to promote the war against terrorism. The Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf, replied that the presence of US troops in Pakistan to combat Al Qaida was unnecessary.

The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, countered the hawkish speech the US Minister calling for "a balance in the international agenda": he asked the participants not to forget the fight against hunger and for world development, hidden behind the fight against terrorism and the war in Irak. He said the UN was well prepared to act for peace and security "not only of the most privileged member of the Organization, now concerned with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The UN has to protect millions of men and women from the more familiar threat of poverty, hunger and deadly deseases."

Switzerland organized an 'informal' meeting to try to rekindle the WTO negotiations. In 2004 there will be no formal WTO ministerial meetings. The meeting was held during the session in which Kofin Annan spoke at the WEF. The Alternative Conference "Public Eye on Davos" strongly criticized the Swiss initiative. "It is scandalous that Ministers of Trade and the Economy mingle with large corporations without consulting the citizens of their own countries", said Tony Juniper, of Friends of the Earth. "They should rather have been present at the WSF in Mumbai, where they could meet the people directly affected by their policies."

The creator of the Davos Forum, Klaus Schwab, devised a means of attempting to change the atmosphere of the WEF, in order to reduce the vulnerability of the event in the eyes of its critics... "No tie for a world without borders" was the slogan he launched, expecting that the more informal atmosphere would increase the legitimacy of the WEF in the eyes of the world. The supreme machiavellic touch was his idea of establishing a fine, worth, "five or more Swiss francs", that would affect those who chose to come with a tie. This money would constitute a charity fund, reinforcing the image of a socially responsible global elite!...

A letter published in the Jan. 24 edition of the Corriere del Ticino, Switzerland, signed by Claudia Bergomi (Friburg), shows that the newspaper, whose responsibility is to present the full information, uses labels and stereotypes that distort reality: the demonstrators against the Davos Forum, as well as those who have demonstrated against the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF, the G8 and other expressions of neoliberal globalization, are labeled "no global". These demonstrators argue that the decisions about the world economy and politics are too important to be taken by a restrictive group of entrepreneurs and politicians. This argument, however, is hidden and is weakened under the newspapers' easy slogans that simplify and distort the cause of the demonstrators. The author denounces this attempt at minimizing the influence they could have on our lives and ways of thinking; they induce the reader not to take them seriously. The ideology to be imparted is that globalization is an irreversible process and that only one globalization is possible: the current one. In other words, only the current world is possible: the world of large global corporations, of wild competition of all against all, of violence, war, consumerism without limits, denaturalization of daily life, conversion of the Planet's life and common goods into commodities, growing destruction of Nature. Therefore, concludes the author, the elites of the media work to discredit those who demonstrate against this globalization, descarding them as 'dynosaurs' who oppose progress and an always more powerful future for 'humanity'. "It is inconceivable that, while we die of Welfare diseases, our arteries clogged by collesterol, the other side of the world must starve to death after having harvested the food that will end up in our plate, or in the stables of the oxen who will end up in our plate."