[WSF-Discuss] The Montreal IC through my eyes

[Giuseppe Caruso]

Dear All, i put together a quick report of the IC that you might be
interested in, please feel free to circulate it among those who might be
interested (appended and attached)

Ciao

giuseppe



*International Council of the World Social Forum *

*Montreal meeting 6th to 8th October, 2010*

Giuseppe Caruso


 The first day of the International Council (IC) meeting focused on crucial
issues of democratic import. How to evaluate the work of the Liaison Group
(LG) and how to set in place a process to replace, as originally agreed,
some of its members. Such task was set originally as a concrete assurance to
those who were concerned with the possible (or indeed inevitable)
concentration of power in such group. Today these preoccupations were
renewed and the members received clear reassurances on the commitment of the
LG and its members to the values of the IC. The next crucial issues was how
to replace some of the members to generate the renewal desired and to allow
an influx of new energies and experiences. A proposal encountered the favour
of the members: a Working Group would be set in place that would establish
the Terms of Reference of such new process. This working group will be
constituted by 2 current LG members and three new IC members. The group will
report before the end of the meeting on the outcome of its preliminary work.



 The afternoon session focused on the conjuncture. In break out groups for
anglophones, francophones and portunholophones (due to translator's
constraints) some 20 to 30 members per group discussed the current
development of the global crises. After an hour of work the groups returned
to the plenary session were they reported back and a joint debate followed.
As in Rabat, at the previous IC meeting, the members broadly converged on an
assessment that defined the crisis as an accumulation of interrelated crises
that showed its structural and systemic nature. The general crisis of
capitalism shows its multifaceted aspects as a crisis of values,
civilisation, finance, economy, culture and most importantly environment. On
this latest point the convergence seemed general that this crisis deserves
the utmost attention and indeed incisive action. If capitalist crises are
recurrent and their effects are forgotten too soon indeed, the environmental
devastation caused by the current lifestyle of a minority of the planet's
inhabitants is generating irreversible consequences which may soon enough
compromise the same ability of humankind (and not only) to survive. A loud
cry was raised by the IC members to stop considering the environment only a
sectoral struggle engaged by the environmental activists and movements and
indeed consider it our common struggle for survival as humans.


 But something new was to be clearly perceived in the mood of the
conversation, something indeed in stark contrast with the mood in the
previous meeting. If in Rabat the general mood was hopeful and charged with
expectation for the opportunity that the crisis offered to the world
activists to highlight the failures of capitalism and propose a way ahead to
building another world, in Montreal many articulated analysis inspired by a
more somber mood. The perception was that the window of opportunity that had
presented itself from September 2008 is quickly closing and the activists
might have lost their chance to generate a substantial momentum for change.
Capitalism once more is bouncing back and the main 'talk in town' is that of
recovery and of the end of the crisis. A comparison was drawn between the
atmosphere of the G20 meeting in London and the recent almost
self-celebratory for the brilliant response provided to the crisis by the
world leaders of the G20 in Pittsburgh.


 Why did the activists of the world movements and of the WSF IC lose the
opportunity to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the global
crisis? No words were spared on the analysis of the possible reasons but a
degree of convergence was rather soon generated. The global crisis is
consequence of and has in turn consolidated a systemic crisis of the global
left. In the first instance the global left has allowed capitalism to go
unchallenged while implementing the policies that generated the conditions
for the current crisis and after the crisis exploded was not able to
incisively lead the way for change. This crisis is so deep and structural
that it has involved the same WSF, inducing its IC members to questioning
its role and its current nature and possibilities to influence change. A
common voice responded to this painful cry that this analysis only depicts
one aspect of the crisis of alternatives. The WSF indeed has produced,
generated, incubated thousands of alternatives, it is indeed been a constant
generator of viable alternatives, but the movements that were supposed to
implement those alternatives have failed in their ultimate task to promote
that change. If a crisis exited it was not to be considered a crisis of the
WSF but a crisis of the movements that converge in its space.


 What has the forum and it's IC not done or done wrong to contribute as some
said to the crisis by not opposing neoliberalism in as a strong way as it
could have? The all time favourite debate in the WSF was articulated once
more around this crucial question with some members suggesting that the main
responsibility of the WSF is to be flexible and able to respond to the needs
of the movements which in the current conjuncture is one of leadership. The
WSF needs to evolve from its open space identity, in which no representation
and no direct involvement in social change process is sought for, towards
becoming a more assertive actor in the global dynamics of resistance to
capitalism and for change.


 The morning session of the second day was dedicated to list the events that
will constitute the 2010 year of activities around the world. Among them the
celebration for the 10th anniversary of the WSF in Porto Alegre at the end
of January, a social movement challenge launched recently in Quito to the
Global City Forum organised by UN Habitat in Rio de Janeiro in March, the
Unites States SF in June in Detroit, followed shortly after by the ESF in
Istanbul, the Forum de las Americas in Asuncion, Paraguay in August, the
Iraqi Social Forum in November just to mention a few. Due to the extension
of the list and the possibility that this list is later updated with dozen
more events, it was debated to what extent the WSF can associate itself with
all the events who claim to be a social forum. What, it was wondered, can
the IC do to ensure that those events take place in coherence with the
spirit of the WSF rather than getting unduly legitimation by the WSF
endorsement? It was agreed after a brief conversation that a strict
adherence to the Charter of Principles will be necessary and the practice of
the open space philosophy.


 Following, the conversation moved towards another crucial issue of the
agenda, earlier introduced in Rabat and now further developed. What can the
IC do to ensure some degree of continuity or indeed unity among all the
events that will bear the WSF torch around the world in 2010. Indeed the
metaphor of the Olympic torch was used and a common slogan and a common logo
are to be developed soon towards this aim. Small groups of around eight to
ten people worked to draft proposal for possible slogans. A degree of
convergence was discovered on returning to the plenary on the spirit of
urgency that the slogan should communicate. Examples are Let's build another
world now! Or Together for another world now! The principle of plurality has
been remarked once more to avoid suggesting that this process should lead
towards a global campaign but to a multiplication of existing or new
campaigns in the spirit of the WSF.


 In the afternoon of the second day Taoufik ben Abdallah presented in detail
the current work of the African and Senegalese organising committee for
Dakar 2011 and while sharing the excitement of all involved it also did not
hide the enormous challenges, financial and human that such an endeavour
implies. However he confirmed the support of the Senegalese government and
that of some old donors of the WSF. Moreover, he stressed vigorously that a
fundamental novelty introduced by the Dakar forum will be the aggressive
fundraising strategy aimed at raising internal resources inn Senegal and
Africa to consolidate the ownership on the forum. This however has to be
considered a fully World SF rather than an African Social Forum. All
partners and all members of the IC should consider themselves at home in the
whole organising process. He added also some remarks on the extent to which
the whole year 2010 will be considered by the organising committee a long
mobilizing march towards Dakar 2011. This process will be launched later
this year with a seminar in Dakar to which all IC members will be invited
and where the inclusive mobilization strategy will be highlighted by the
participation of important social movements from Senegal and wide range of
partners from the whole continent, old and new members of the WSF African
Council. This seminar will also give all the opportunity not only to meet
and design articulations for the year to come but also to imagine a shared
strategy on presenting the Dakar 2011 strategy to respond to the crisis and
develop alternatives from the vantage point of West Africa.


 Questions were asked from the floor which echoed the congratulations for
the work already done and the wishes and promises of support for the hard
work ahead. What would be the relationship between NGOs and social movements
and will there be a strong prevalence of the formed as was the case in
Nairobi? What will be the role of culture in the event? Will it be possible
to maintain the WSF devoid of multinational corporation encroachment? Will
the Dakar forum be fully designed for self-organised events or are the
organisers thinking of setting up special events and what would be the way
to contribute to the organisation of such events? What are the expected
numbers in the forecast of the organising committee? What would be the
articulation between IC commissions and functional groups in organising
committee? Would we have the chance as IC to reflect on the fundamental role
of migrations in the world today from the West African crossroads of
important fluxes of migrants? The members of the African process for Dakar,
responded to the questions reassuring that the organisation will be
conducted in full respect of the principles of the WSF Charter and that the
lesson learnt in Nairobi will become a solid foundation on which to bring
the new forum. For other more specific issues the IC members were invited to
actively contribute to shaping the answers by participating in the efforts
starting from the Dakar forum in a month time which will officially launch
the true organisational process.


 The first half of the third day was dedicated to the work of the IC
Commissions: Strategy, Resources, Communication, Methodology and Expansion.
In the first and longest session of the afternoon choral reports were made
by members of each commission.


 The Communication committee presented first. Due to the intensity of the
conversation that had touched on issues not immediately related to the task
at hand (designing a communication plan for the 2010 year of forums and for
the mobilisation towards Dakar) the commission could not complete its work
and will meet again in the night. However the presentation touched on
crucial issues of communication in the forum and with the outside and on the
substantial issue of difference between information work, with mainstream or
alternative media, and the communication that best embodies the values of
the WSF. It was indeed clear in the presentations made by several members of
the group that substantial ground had been covered on issues of
interpersonal relations in the commission's open space, on efficiency and
productivity versus faithfulness to the values embraced by its members, on
the nature of communication and its impact on the overall methodology of the
WSF year-long 2010 process and beyond, the role of facilitators and
contributors both directly involved in the work of the group or from a wider
territory of potential contributors to its work, and on further issues of
such import.


 Next presented the Resource Commission. The spokesperson of the group
updated the plenary on the finances of the forum and their allocation for
the year to come but most importantly it invited all to reflect on the
fundamental constraints that the forum has to be ready to face in the years
to come. These constraints are due to donor fatigue and to the considerable
loss in the value of their endowments that the foundations of Europe and
America have to face as a consequence of the crisis. Moreover, some funders
might also start revising their funding policies and recalculate their costs
and the benefits they derive in the engagement with the forum. Although, was
added by another member, the forum cannot allow funders to lead its policies
and visions, yet donor constraints could give the forum some needed focus.
Indeed as someone noticed, the message that seemed to come across from this
presentation did resonate what previously reported by the communication
commission and by others during the whole meeting: it might be useful to
return to the central values of the WSF and redesign a vision statement on
the basis of a more sophisticated strategy that could successfully be
communicated to old and prospective funders. This process may indeed
facilitate focus within the WSF as asked for by several members in the
previous two days, consolidate the position of the WSF with current funders
and, finally, entice new partners to join its journey to contribute building
another world.


 The Expansion commission reported on process of accepting new members to
the IC on the basis of the application recently received (two of which were
accepted and two were postponed due to lack of information on the
applicants). The process of selecting the new candidate for admission to the
IC had also generated a lively conversation on criteria for admission. Past
contribution to the forum, future potential input, regional relevance and
sectoral balance were all considered when assessing organisations that may
have been excluded if assessed on a stricter application of the guidelines
of the expansion commission. In particular if the Rabat work of the
commission focused on the indigenous sector, given the conversation of the
previous days, this time the commission suggested that extra efforts were to
be put in welcoming environmental organisations and networks. It is also
customary of the commission to set the date for the following IC meeting,
that was fixed for the 5th to 7th of May 2010 in Mexico City.


 Next, the methodology commission presented its work. Its ambitious and so
much needed work to create a compendium, a memory of the past experiences of
the forum in the 10 years since its inception, has and will generate in the
following months a set of documents among which the compendium itself and a
set of guidelines for future forums. At the heart of the elaboration of the
members the acute awareness that methodologies are not ideologies and are
context specific and cannot simply be transported from one forum to the
next. However, a spirit is common to the WSF and that spirit was highlighted
in their presentation. A key issue that attracted particularly the attention
of the floor was that of the agglutination process by which the commission
facilitates the process of convergence of several self-organised events into
wider ones giving the possibility to activist from different parts of the
world working on similar issues to share their experience and present more
compelling cases to their partners during the events. It was also suggested
that the fragmentation of the events does not necessarily extoll the
multiplicity of views of the forum but it may indeed generate a feeling of
chaotic confusion which is hard to navigate and therefore disempowering both
for organisers and participants.


 Intense and identity searching debate took place in the Strategy commission
as well, as previously in the communication and resources commissions. It
was reported that the now clearly understood loose mandate of the commission
did not help to facilitate as fruitful a conversation as it could have.
Moments of confusions about what was that the members were going to discuss
generated moments of impasse and the call to go back to the drawing board.
The plenary heard that in the next weeks a new set of guidelines will be
drafted to guide the work of the commission. At the same time a new
questionary will be circulated to the members of the IC so that they could
contribute to the analysis that will inform the strategy of the commission
and of the whole IC.


 The questions of the questionnaire on which the members were asked to
reflect, were the following:

What is your analysis of the current crises? What are the possible
alternatives? What should the role of the WSF be in such context? A further
subject of conversation in the commission was the organisation of an
international day at the USSF were the recurrent theme of the 2010 world
forum events would see a direct resonance in Detroit. Finally to help the
strategic thinking of the commission three new position papers will be
circulated by the facilitators on the issues of poverty, war and
environment. The meeting ended with two brief presentations by the working
group on the 2010 forums and by the working group on the liaison committee.
Finally one of the organisers of the next meeting said few words of
welcoming to the next IC in Mexico City.
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