‘Bollywood’ gathering lacks Davos glamour but signals a brave new world for dispossessed

Date: 29/01/04

Dear Dennis No doubt you have returned from hobnobbing with the world's rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos invigorated, albeit exhausted, with the pronouncements of the movers and shakers of our economic destiny.

As you can imagine, the World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai was as far a cry from Davos as it could be.

WSF, born in 2001 as a counter to the World Economic Forum, opposes one-sided policies on trade liberalism and privatization. It seeks to throw up alternatives not just to globalization, but also to issues such as third world debt, sectarian violence, communalism and war.

The meeting was for the first time held outside Porto Allegre in Brazil, and was a gathering of some of the most deprived, disadvantaged, alienated and voiceless.

It was held in the rundown, fairly basic, exhibition arena on the northern outskirts of Mumbai's urban sprawl.

The city (previously known as Bombay aka Bollywood) is synonymous with dreams and fantasies. However, last week the dreams were not of celluloid variety but of a new world, economic and social order: the theme for WSF 2004 was 'another world is possible'.

What it lacked in organization and comforts it more than made up for in spirit and commitment. It was called by some 'the alternative Kumbh Mela', or carnival, so many colours, so much dust.

For the uninitiated western politicos, it was a complete culture shock.

Picture 100,000 people attending a political gathering - unheard of in Europe - the nearest we come to it would be the annual Fiesta Della Unita in Italy.

One hundred thousand people from 130 countries, they were as diverse as they come, from anarchists to Gandhians, free thinkers, socialists, peaceniks and anti-imperialists, human rights activists, social workers, feminists, sexual rights activists and parliamentarians from across Europe, Asia and Latin America.

You had to mind your ideology. Even the dustbins hated George W. Bush, and every lamppost carried slogans denouncing everything - but especially the multinationals.

Now, if goodwill, exuberance and sheer energy were enough to change the world it would have happened on Friday 16 January. There was a melting of social movements, artists, political activists and NGOs.

The huge mêlée of concerns - such as human rights, gender, caste, communalism, the environment and MNCs (multi-national corporations) - were brought together on a platform as vast and all encompassing as the WSF, and the issues did get diffused. However, whatever the focus, the forum does seem to be gaining momentum.

In Mumbai, culture was being used as a Weapon of Mass Dissemination: everything from Roberto Rossellini films to 'Dear Bush' emails, plus 150 street plays and a film festival with more than 85 movies on the main themes of the WSF. Around 1,500 artists, poets, playwrights, writers and film makers were in attendance.

Brazilian singing sensation Gilberto Gil, who happens to be his country's culture minister, Pakistan rock band Junoon, South Africa's Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre and Takio drummers from Japan were there too.

The forum may come across as one giant party, but the number of people packing in to attend serious sessions (some 1,500 workshops and seminars) was inspiring, even though most of the action took place outside the seminar rooms.

What the WSF offered was an open space for exchanging points of view, an opportunity to absorb progressive ideas, an occasion for strategizing and a space for networking.

Of course, there were non-stop demonstrations. Protesters of globalization were jostling with opponents of war, and those fighting India's caste system were performing street plays alongside groups opposing religious and sex discrimination.

One particular street in Mumbai should have been named 'Protest Boulevard'. It was impossible to walk three steps without someone shoving a leaflet in your hand and on one occasion it took me more than half-an-hour just to cross the road.

What the six-day event did, was bring hundreds of groups together to raise their voices in protest, if not always in unison. The agenda of the gathering shifted from its central focus on trade and the inequalities of global capitalism, and split into a long list of regional causes.

The event attracted its own stars, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and Joseph Stiglitz, Booker winner Arundhati Roy, UK MP Jeremy Corbyn. Meanwhile, Enrique Barón Crespo led the first ever-Socialist delegation from the European Parliament.

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and Antonio Guterres, the former prime ministers of Denmark and Portugal, were there too - as was a huge number of notable Indian politicians and activists.

Why were we there? Iranian Shrin Ebadi summed it up perfectly when she said: "We are here to announce our commitment to human dignity.

"Absolute poverty is against human dignity. We are here to announce that human rights are crucial. We are here to announce that suffering in war has no dignity. We are here to announce that human beings are born with special rights, and respect for these rights is, for every government, compulsory."

Speaking on the topic of globalization and economic security, Joseph Stiglitz, the former World Bank chief economist and currently professor of economics at New York's Columbia University, said: "The falling dollar is a reflection on the declining confidence in the US economy plagued by a rising fiscal and trade deficit.

"And this, in turn, is being financed by the developing countries in Asia which have been piling up huge foreign exchange reserves."

The falling dollar is prompting many Asian economies to diversify their 'forex' reserves in other currencies, such as the euro.

Stiglitz said that special drawing rights should be launched as a global currency to fund global public goods - a move that could "end the monopoly of the dollar".

He also commented that the backlash of globalization is being felt in the developed world as well.

For example, the outsourcing of many low-skilled jobs to India has snowballed into a major issue.

Stiglitz next mooted the idea of a separate Asian Monetary Fund to take on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), adding that a nation such as India needs liberalization, but managed liberalization.

For Stiglitz, there is no single solution when it comes to reforms, but he came down heavily on the IMF and the World Bank for stringent conditions.

The IMF and World Bank are dominated by the US treasury, he said, and have no business prescribing policies that did not work in their own country. Stiglitz gave the example of social security and pension reforms.

Also speaking at the WSF was the former Irish president and United Nations' commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson.

The Irishwoman called for control of the global arms trade, on the basis that it is causing destruction worldwide.

She offered her support to Oxfam and Amnesty International, organizations that are are calling for tough international control on the trade.

An average of $22 billion (l17.5bn) each year is spent on arms by countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

Robinson said she would call on government officials and business leaders attending the World Economic Forum to stop the flow of arms to criminals, human-rights abusers and repressive governments. This would be facilitated by an arms-trade treaty.

Her concerns are that the world's most powerful governments are also the world's biggest arms suppliers. Every day millions of men, women and children are living in fear of armed violence.

"Why," asked Robinson, "do countries spend such large sums on arms when their people do not have food and water?"

She also said that there is an urgent need to examine why our development and human rights goals had not been yet been fulfiled. The US, Robinson added, as the only superpower in the world today, is undermining world opinion and is responsible for the failure of organizations such as the International Criminal Court.

During the seminar on deepening democracy, I defended and spoke out on democracy being the key issue - the issue is about power.

Who has power, decides.

Therefore, democracy is not just one issue; it is the mother of all issues.

This was at the tail-end of the forum for hardened activists. However, Enrique Barón Crespo's intervention at the start of the proceedings were hijacked by protestors who were complaining about the Spaniard's support for an invitation made to the Colombian president to address the European Parliament.

What the WSF did was to bring together many small movements, which had a localized perspective, but changed their ways of thinking. As a result of these meetings, NGOs will have realized that they must work together to oppose globalization. But, this time round, there were very few truly global topics discussed.

To sum up, Mustafa Barghouri, the Palestinian intellectual and campaigner, said: "Maybe the WSF does not have weapons of mass destruction or power from money. But we will get our strength from the people."

There were several other parallel events. Firstly the World Parliamentary Forum (WPF), held at the same time as the WSF, brought together 125 members of parliament from 25 countries.

This event was co-organized by the International Parliamentary Network (IPN) launched after the first WPF , and hosted by an Indian coordinating committee composed of 11 political parties, including the members of the Indian Socialist Front and SI party, Janata Dal (secular), but with a prominent role played by the CPI (M) MP party.

It was a real treat for me to have a chance to debate directly with the MPs from India, Pakistan and those representing Jammu and Kashmir on war and peace in the region.

It is particularly noteworthy that a delegation of 20 Pakistani MPs participated - the biggest parliamentary delegation from the country to India since the creation of Pakistan.

This was seen as an important step in improving Indo-Pakistani political dialogue. The delegation was composed of different parties, and led by an MP from the PPP (the party of Benazir Bhutto), Chaudry Manzoor Ahmed.

Pakistani and Indian delegations have agreed to launch a South Asia Parliamentary Forum, together with MPs from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. This will be a permanent framework linked to the WPF, which will aim to intensify direct contact between MPs of the region, and to initiate and support a peace and development agenda.

Secondly, the alternative to the WSF was the Mumbai Resistance, and this comes full circle.

The resistance called for militant opposition on what they described as 'US-led imperialism and globalization'. Their opposition was aimed at NGOs' involvement in the WSF - their reasoning was that NGOs have grown most in those states in which the government has most rapidly withdrawn from education and health services. For the old left activists, these voluntary groups, with their lack of ideological commitment, limited agendas and absence of accountability, especially in funding, are almost as unacceptable as 'Big Corporations'.

Finally, Dennis, what made the forum in Mumbai important - and I do believe that it was important - is that it sparked a new hope in all our hearts. It is reclaiming control of our world, remaking the connection between the citizen and those powerful global forces that have escaped our control.

I believe we, the politicians, the Europeans, need to deliver in the face of disenchantment and despair and the thousands of desperate problems that cry out for our urgent efforts.

However, we need to choose our goals with care. They must make a difference to the most deprived and disadvantaged of the world, they must be achievable, and again we must deliver.

This, of course, is hard in the face of so much misery, we cannot promise just to fiddle at the edges, we have to be ambitious.

This lies behind the strategy of the Global Progressive Forum (GPF) launched last November in Brussels.

Following its successful launch, the GPF has adopted two immediate, very ambitious but crucial goals. These are tackling AIDS, to achieve a significant financial increase in European contributions, and UN reform because democracy is the key, and because at international-level democracy is pitifully weak, and yet it is becoming increasingly important.

Although 'Another world is possible' was about globalization of the economy, the event was also a parallel globalization of people and movements.

It was a global networking of people with the same ideas and projects who want a world with more justice and human rights.

The concerns were that globalization hasn't bridged the divide between rich and poor that we expected, therefore there is a need to regulate globalization: the markets need political guidance.

The outcomes that we appear to have reached some agreement on were the necessity for the reform of the WTO and UN, and a new campaign to abolish agricultural subsidies in the US, as well as the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

On a lighter note, the organizers seem to practice what they preach - because soft 'MNC drinks', such as Coke and Pepsi, were banned from the forum, and the computers used in Mumbai operated with Linux as an alternative to Windows.

However, capitalism was well and truly thriving outside - Coke and Pepsi stands appeared at the gates of the arena the next day and were doing booming business, and Christmas came early for all the taxis and auto rickshaw drivers, who switched off their meters and proceeded to quadruple their prices.

The hapless foreigners had no choice but to accept the rates offered, as haggling often meant that the driver simple moved onto the next unsuspecting visitor.

Yours, Neena

• Labour MEP Neena Gill represents the West Midlands in the UK and is vice-chairman of the European Parliament's South Asia delegation.

MEP Neena Gill, kept a diary during the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, 16-21 January 2004. The Forum was created in 2001 as a counter to the World Economic Forum and opposes one-sided policies of trade liberalism and privatisation. It seeks to produce alternatives to globalisation and issues such as third world debt, sectarian violence, communalism and war.

• Primary Source

http://www.wsfindia.org/ http://www.wsfindia.org/

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