When Brazilian entrepreneur Oded Grajew hit upon the idea of a World Social Forum as an alternative to the World Economic Forum, Francisco Whitaker was the man he first turned to. Now a member of the WSF International Secretariat, WSF Brazilian Organising Committee, Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission and Catholic Bishops Conference, Whitaker tells Sindhu Menon of Labour File how the Forum began and what are its achievements so far and is candid enough to say that he can’t predict its future. Excerpts from an interview:

What are the basic principles of WSF?

The first principle of the World Social Forum is its affirmation as an open space for different movements and organisations of the civil society engaged in the fight against neo-liberalism, excluding governments, international inter-governmental institutions and armed organisations. Within this open space, the WSF principles are respect for diversity, absence of boards of direction, replacing hierarchies by horizontal relations among its participants, absence of final documents voted at the meetings, absence of elected or non-elected representatives or spokespersons, possibility for participants to freely propose themes for debate, exchange of experiences and proposals for new initiatives.

These principles were experienced in the first WSF edition, in 2001, but defined as principles later when WSF organisers identified and put forward clearly the conditions and methods of work that they considered could explain its success. Having decided to prepare a second WSF, and having proposed to other civil society organisations to launch regional or national Forums in other countries, the 2001 WSF organisers had then written a Charter of Principles to indicate which approach could better ensure the same success to these new initiatives.

Tell us about the origin of WSF

The idea of a World Social Forum was that of Oded Grajew, a Brazilian entrepreneur associated with work on ethical, democratic and social responsibility of enterprises. In France in January 2000 at the time of the World Economic Forum of Davos, Switzerland. Grajew asked himself why those who want to overcome neo-liberalism could not organise a World Forum as an alternative to the Davos Forum, centered not in money or domination, but in the social needs of humanity and its liberation, and able to do more than simply protesting against neo-liberal decisions. Grajew presented his idea to me and others, among them Bernanrd Cassen, President of the French movement ATTAC. We all said it was a very good proposal.

After returning to Brazil (counting on the international support provided by Cassen) we invited to work with our NGOs (Entrepreneurs for Democracy and Catholic Church Justice and Peace Commission) other six Brazilian civil society organisations, to prepare a plan for a World Social Forum. These organisations were of different types: the Brazilian NGOs association ABONG, the Human Rights Network, the unions federation CUT, the peasant movement MST, the research institute IBASE, and the Brazilian ATTAC. This diversity was already an announcement of the types of civil society organisations that would be invited to participate in the Forum.

Who are the people behind WSF event?

It would be impossible for individuals to organise a WSF. This can happen, and it happens, with the World Economic Forum, organised by a commercial event producer, who has his own revenue and ask for huge registration fees. To organise a WSF, only social organisations would have the legitimacy to invite participants of their own networks, and to put their own resources for its success. It is a principle that the Forum would not be a meeting of intellectuals or individuals, but a space where organisations already fighting against neo-liberalism could recognize each other, learn with each other, put down the existing barriers that divide and weaken them, articulate their action at local, national and planetary level, making possible to return home at a higher level of conscience and capacity of action.

Initially, there was a debate whether the Forum should be considered as a ’space’ or a ‘movement’. How did the concept of ‘space’ finally find its mark?

The concept of ‘space’ was adopted to organise the first WSF, and it was made clear when the Charter of Principles was written. On the basis of that the Forum’s character of ‘space’ was one of the reasons for the success of the 2001 WSF. The idea of seeing it as a movement came later, when people discovered how full of potentialities of mobilisation was the WSF ‘space’. Even it was said that the WSF would have to be a ‘movement of movements’, although its participants were not only ‘movements’ but also NGOs and unions. But to organise the WSF as a movement, it would require this movement to be effective and efficient with a direction, a programme and a disciplined organisation. That is to say, it would need to be no more an open space, without impositions of any sort. In fact, we could say that WSF is one of a multiplicity of different types of initiatives (as the campaigns, for instance), inside the wide and ample movement to build another world, which is extending itself, horizontally, through the multiplication of independent networks. Remaining as a ‘space’, it can help this movement, very efficiently, to expand more and more, linking all the networks composing it, and attracting a growing number of organisations and people to fight neo-liberalism and to deepen and develop their engagements. If it becomes a new movement (among others, or as a linkage of many), thus disappearing as an ‘open space’, it will lose exactly all its potentialities not only to improve mobilisation but also to make possible the presentation of solutions to the problems neo-liberalism creates.

There are no final documents or declarations at the WSF. Why?

At first, it would be practically and democratically impossible, for an assembly of many thousands of people, to approve a single text of conclusion of five days of discussions in hundreds of workshops, in the diversity that is one of the main characteristics of WSF. This text would necessarily impoverish the richness of this diversity, and work against the plurality that must be respected. If this text intended to represent all the positions expressed during the Forum, people would have to use much time to discuss its terms and to fight to have their viewpoint included in the ‘final document’. Such ‘declarations’ are necessary in Congresses and assemblies of parties, movements, unions, to say what they decided to do or to give directions to their members. On the contrary, a ‘space’ cannot and must not ‘decide’, take position or give directions, specially when diversity is respected. After each Forum, its participants know already what they have to do, in continuity with what they were doing before the Forum and not needing to receive orientations. Nevertheless, organisations, networks or articulated WSF participants may present their own final declarations at the end of their meetings during the Forum. They are free to do it and the WSF organisers ensure visibility to these declarations. But they engage only those who sign it. Nobody in the Forum is obliged to accept any of these declarations.

How did this important decision to move the WSF out of Brazil come about?
From the first WSF it became clear that to fight neo-liberalism it was essential to articulate the actions globally. The proposition of organising social forums all over the world was an answer to this need. But to make it really effective it was considered that the main forum each year – the WSF – also would have to take place all over the world.

What are the major achievements of the Porto Alegre events?
Perhaps the main achievement of Porto Alegre events is to make the people believe again in the utopia of a pacific, democratic and egalitarian world, discovering that a lot of people are fighting for it. The second main achievement is contributing for the construction of a new political culture, politically efficient, based on confidence, cooperation, diversity, horizontal relations, networks and co-responsibility, that is being experienced all over the world. The third achievement is certainly the possibility created by the Porto Alegre events to put down the barriers that always divided and weakened those who fight neo-liberalism. Another achievement was the result of this mutual recognition: multiple new initiatives at global or regional level were born in Porto Alegre and other forums, like the mobilisation against the war on Iraq, or new campaigns emerging like the one fighting against a liberal commercial treaty in the Americas.

Do you think that participating in the WSF process has helped the trade unions and the civil society organisations to have a better understanding of each other’s concerns?

The putting down of barriers and the interchanges made during the Forums were certainly important for trade unions to know the objectives of other struggles and their convergence with their objectives, and to discover the new alliances that are possible. Inversely, all other organisations and movements are discovering that alliances with unions are not only possible but necessary.

What do you think of the WSF theme ‘Another Word is Possible’?

We all know which world we want. The question is how to arrive there, especially if we consider that another world is not only possible but also necessary and urgent. But we must think also that we don’t need or we don’t have to build only another world, but another worlds, in the plural, exactly because many democratic worlds with justice and equality – and plural internally - are possible.

What is the future of WSF?

I don’t know what will be the future of WSF. But I would like that it continues to expand all over the world, that it continues to awake more and more consciences, that it continues to deepen the experience of a new political culture, that it continues to lead to more and more mobilisations and to concrete initiatives and proposals to change the world.