The Hindu : The long march to another world

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 30, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

The long march to another world - II

By Jai Sen

There has to be a constant struggle to remain tolerant and pluralist and to guard against becoming fundamentalist in our own views.

INDIVIDUALS AND organisations participating in the World Social Forum at all levels need to understand it as an extraordinary initiative in history and not just as another series of meetings. It can potentially mark nothing less than a major new intervention in world affairs. But it can only become this if we are willing to become aware of the responsibilities.

At the present juncture in history, the WSF needs to make it its task to promote the idea of open space as a general political culture. Building an open political culture, and defending open space, needs to be seen as a project in itself, and those who believe in this idea need to work together. And, are they willing to accept the challenge of open space and to bring this culture into their own organisations?

Individuals and organisations participating in the WSF need to recognise and celebrate diversity and plurality, not just in name and slogans but also in day-to-day practice. Recognising, respecting and even seeking opinions different from our own, and trying to understand and engage with them. We need to get over tendencies of sectarian, doctrinaire, hierarchical, and closed practice — seen, for instance, in WSF India over this past year — which are keeping large sections away from the WSF as a process and experience.

At this dangerous juncture in history, there has to be a constant struggle to remain tolerant and pluralist and to guard against becoming fundamentalist in our own views about the issues we are so concerned about — such as capitalist globalisation, and religion and religious fundamentalism. And to at all times listen to others who are less sure of their positions or who hold other opinions and be willing to dialogue and to debate issues, both as organisations and as individuals.

We need to get over our complacence urgently. The Right and the fundamentalists are presently far more strategic and far more successful than we are, and that we are not going to keep them out and away — including from the WSF — simply by declaring this or by not inviting them. All the more so because the Forum is an open space — and we must defend this, otherwise we have nothing different to offer — they are sure to `infiltrate'; and if the Forum continues to grow in influence, they will attack or try and take over.

The WSF needs to urgently recognise the reality of 9/11 and its aftermath. It also needs to recognise the growing assault on democratic space across the world, whether through war or fundamentalism, along with the introduction of ever-greater `security' measures, as a central feature of world politics at the present stage in history. Accordingly, it needs to make the assertion, defence, and expansion of democratic space a central feature of its activities.

There has to be a radical rethink on the question of `globalisation'. We need first to move from our singular obsession with economic or capitalist globalisation to looking at and relating to the host of other everyday globalisations that are taking place through the actions of peoples all over the world — and that are equally changing the world. These myriad globalisations have been taking place for the past many centuries, through the migration of workers, refugees, monks, and traders, and through the spread of religions and ideologies — and now also through global civil action. We need to accept that the Forum itself is globalisation made manifest — but that it is offering another globalisation.

We need, therefore, to move from being mere spectators of economic and other globalisations to realising that we are actors not spectators, and that globalisations — and especially other globalisations — take place through us. In many ways, since economic globalisation was what the Forum started about, this also suggests some rethinking of the Forum itself.

In general, the WSF needs to think more strategically. In the same way that it chose to challenge the World Economic Forum, what it does has to be related to the larger developments in the world. It has to think of encouraging strategic relations between particular parts of the world; and of building bridges between different streams of civil and political actors. The WSF also needs to specially open itself to building bridges with the world of faith. This is so both at this particular juncture in world history, with the relentless rise in religious fundamentalism that we are seeing, and in general as a permanent programme.

We need to move towards far greater mass and public awareness building in between the big meetings; move towards more intensive exchange in between the big meetings, for all members of WSF committees, at national, regional, and global levels. A process of critical reflection should become a key part of the WSF's organisational work, both to review steps being taken and to develop a shared and strategic understanding of world events at national, regional, and global levels. The WSF needs to make space for this.

There has to be a struggle for defining comprehensive alternatives, and then to practice them. Simply opposing capitalist globalisation, when we use entirely conventional organisational structures and mobilising processes, does not make us `alternative', and can never do so.

Given that the WSF is meant to be an open plural process, embracing people of many different persuasions, we need to work to build an organisational process that is based on norms and principles that are openly and commonly defined, and not on gentlemanly or comradely behaviour between a few and that cannot be questioned by others.

Within India, we need to address certain questions in addition to the above: comprehensively re-thinking and revising the structure we have created for the WSF in the country. This structure is widely seen as having been captured by the Left - the formal Left. And the secretariat has moved from being an executive arm of the Working Committee to being a power unto itself by virtue of having too many members of the Coordination Team on it and therefore with no one to guide it.

We need to move towards working for a culture of accountability. The present policy in WSF India of simply declaring meetings open does not necessarily make the process open or the participants accountable. And, articulate policies and programmes that can help us to think and act both locally and globally and to `talk' across streams of civil and political action.

The 2004 WSF global meeting is to be held in India. Are we in a position to host it (in terms of organisational abilities and experience, and in terms of how far it has got in terms of building the culture of the WSF in India)? More crucially, is this what all the organisations and individuals involved in WSF India should be focussing their attentions on over the coming year, at a time of rising fundamentalism and fascism in the country and region? The International Council needs to specifically consider how the WSF can stand by the people and progressive organisations of India at this juncture; what its role should be.

Use the WSF not only to discuss individual issues and to expose ourselves individually and organisationally to other ways of thinking, but also to find ways of building bridges: between old movements and new, between old politics and new, between different streams of civil and political movement; and between movements and other streams of civil action and concern, including business, the creative world including the media, and the world of faith. The experience of this past year has made clear that, at the minimum, it is going to a long hard march to another world.

(Concluded)

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