[WSF-Discuss] heads of state in the wsf?

Tue Aug 12 14:41:41 UCT 2008

Dear Ruth, dear all,
your message is really touching.. or sarcastic (or indeed both). Whatever
your original intention, it is profoundly correct in its provocations
(apologies if i'm misinterpreting the overall sense of your text).

You ask in closing your message, the crucial question: Why should we not
embrace it?

This is what comes to my mind: because Mandela and Lula both and immediately
fully embraced neoliberal policies, because third way politics is neoliberal
at heart (see clinton and blair), etc. Moreover, it has been widely proved
that having supposedly sympathetic governments annihilates the critical
energy of the people and generate, rather than a consensus, a feeling of
TINA, resignation (i live in the UK and i'm visiting the US... and i'm from
Italy...). In other words that would constitute a certain way to
normalization. Not quite what a "laboratory" of social and cultural
creativity (the WSF) would want or wish. It is absolutely true, how could it
be otherwise, that is so much better to have a government like this than
being a neighbour of russia at the moment etc. as you correctly say. But
again, that is not what a laboratory of social creativity should stick to.
Nor god, nor state, is not an ideological statement (sure it could be) but a
desire to (as you correctly hint) think outside the box, experiment...

There is also a more fundamental reason why the WSF should not engage in
this manner with a selected (by whom?) group of heads of state: because even
the pragmatic approach is self-defeating (someone, i've heard, asked to MST
to demobilise... from the Lula government... but maybe it was a boutade?).

Again pragmatically: getting publicity, enlarging its scope, creating
alliances... these are objectives and strategic aims of a "social movement",
a political actor. Now, nothing against social movements indeed. But the WSF
we've been told, was not a movement, it was a space. Pages and pages have
been filled with this (pointless it seems now) debate and the general
"consensus" was that the WSF keeps being a space were movements and networks
can be created which will decide how to engage politically. Again if this
approach has changed it should be made clearer (it possibly is, but not to
someone who has not access to the work of the IC).

In other words this seems to me the content of our conversation:

1. Social movements engage the state and ally themselves with "progressive"
ones

and

2. The WSF engage with heads of state

which also seem to me will inevitably mean that:

3. The WSF is a social movement

If that were the case... it would be a movement with a leadership... an
objective.... etc. But this is what Chico was saying some time back it would
be ridiculed by the WSF participants....

Ciao
Giuseppe

2008/8/12 Reitan, Ruth <r.reitan at miami.edu>

> Okay, then, if we are forced to think inside this box, I support option A
> and 'the Pan Amazonian Council' choice (if they agree to take it on) as
> stated in the following:
>
> 'There were three (3) proposals on the table about who organize the
> activity:
>
>  a) Being a co-organized activity, according to the experience made in
>  other WSFs: the WSF "Organizing Committee" (which could mean the
> Brazilian "Facilitating Group", the Pan Amazonian Council - under
>  constitution - or the WSF International Council) organizes the event. This
> would mean to do the invitations (setting up the list of those who would
>  be invited or not,  etc.) and arrives to a consensus on the methodology
>  and issues to be dealt with (someone has proposed a "round table of
>  dialogue and controversies" model, as it happened with some governments
>  and political parties in other WSF events in Porto Alegre, only that now
>  it would be held with head of States and who would talk from the side of
>  the civil society etc.)'
>
> I agree with Francine that leaving it to complete self-organization (as
> proposed in Option B) is not feasible given the logistical and security
> issues of having heads of state on (or near) site, and thus informal or ad
> hoc coordination would become a necessity. Having the Pan Amazonian Council
> involved I think strikes the right balance between self-organization and WSF
> organization. It also avoids the WSF IC taking upon itself such a task as
> attempting to reach consensus (as Francine suggested) about which heads of
> state to invite and which not. This would be an entirely inappropriate use
> of the IC, to my mind.
>
> Option A also avoids too narrow of a focus, as suggested in option C, that
> heads of state of the Amazon region would be invited on the 29th while all
> others could come on the 30th. If we are seeking to promote real regional
> unity among progressive leaders of the South, then I think they should share
> the same stage.
>
> But again, I, following Gina and Peter, am not very supportive of inviting
> heads of state; yet as we say in consensus decision-making, I do not have a
> 'blocking' concern at this point. Inviting them period, as well as inviting
> them and not armed insurrectionist groups shows very clearly where our
> collective bets--if not our utopian aspirations--lie. And, as Tord has
> accurately diagnosed me to be a political pragmatist, the social forums
> could use some better publicity coverage than we've been getting in the past
> few years. This is partly our own (collective) fault, and the media/
> communication commission that has recently been founded within the IC is a
> good, but very late and only partial remedy to our huge mistake of failing
> to develop an assertive publicity strategy from the beginning (a cardinal
> secular sin, some 40 years after Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle).
>  Instead, we learn from the savvy profi's of Oxfam etc. that inviting
> celebrities (be they musical, political, vegetable) is one quick and dirty
> way of attracting the press, which publicizes us to broader populaces and at
> the very least says to the world that 'we (as a collective actor always in
> construction) still exist'.
>
> This sort of meeting also empowers Southern states on their resurgent
> attempts to counter-balance the US hegemon and the EU wannabe. Good things,
> if defeating US economic and military imperialism is our main concern, which
> I think it is. Also good things, if you wish to shore up the state system
> and believe that the best world we can get is one where we have regional
> hegemonic blocks that keep the others, especially the US, in check. Again, I
> am being practical, and this strategy of hitching our tired wagons to
> state-stars seems one that is infinitely pragmatic in the world of
> realpolitik, which is, in fact, the world we have inhabited for some
> centuries in most parts of the globe.
>
> So, maybe now's the time for cutting our losses, consolidating our gains
> and taking what we can get, not the time for standing on principle that a
> 'truly' other world is possible. Perhaps. Probably. We've been here,
> recently, before (Mandela, Lula, etc.), but what the hell. And maybe if
> there's enough Mandelas and Lulas taking power, and as the US is
> structurally wounded, things will go better than a decade ago. Not so for
> Russia's neighbors. Not so for Tibet. But who cares, right? Let's try our
> luck within the ol' state system again.
>
> So, if this is our (more or less collective) opinion, then yes, by all
> means, invite the heads of state. And we should change our banner flying
> over their heads to read "a multipolar world is possible!". I am not really
> criticizing it, I am just reading this logic out to what I see are its
> conclusions. I prefer to stand with Peter on 'neither god nor country', but
> then there seem to be many Gods, and many countries, all resurgent, all
> popular, and these are where all that sparkly dark power is emanating from.
> Why should we not embrace it?
>
> Ruth
>
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