By Prahlad Shekhawat
30 January, 2014
@ Countercurrents.org
The Davos World Economic Forum is an exclusive or excluding club where the rich and mighty proponents of the neo-liberal economic model and corporate bosses converge to celebrate their self fulfilling prophecy. In a year of a huge economic downturn they cannot get away with their splendid complacency. The World Social Forum has emerged as a significant counterpoint to the World Economic Forum. After the collapse of the movement for the New International Economic Order in the eighties and after the disillusionment with ritualism of the UN sponsored summits and conclaves, the World Social Forum claims to provide a silver lining for struggling societies particularly in poor countries. The peace, environmental, women and human rights movements are especially able to converge at the Social Forum.
The World Social Forum (WSF) characterises itself as not an organisation, not a united front, but an open meeting place for thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals and inter-linking for action through groups and movements of civil society. It is opposed to neo-liberalism and domination of the world by capital or any form of imperialism. It is committed to building planetary society directed towards furthering relations among mankind and between it and the earth.
The forum is particularly opposed to militarism, racism, casteism, religious fanaticism, sectarian violence and patriarchy. It stands for universal human rights, justice, real participatory democracy, equality, solidarity among people and genders and planetary citizenship to build a new world. Its fight for peace and collective security implies confronting poverty, discriminations, domination and the creation of an alternative sustainable society. The Social Forum has laudable achievements beginning with the incipient rallying call against the World Economic Forum and the maturing into a huge global movement with inspiring ideals beginning with the World Social Forums in Porto Allegre in Brazil . Some regional Social Forums have been held in different parts of the world.
If the total interest is calculated the external debt of the countries of the South has been repaid several times over. Illegitimate, unjust and fraudulent, debt functions as an instrument of domination, depriving people of their fundamental human rights with the sole aim of increasing international usury. The Social Forum demands unconditional cancellation of debt and the reparation of historical, social and ecological debts. The countries demanding repayment of debt have engaged in exploitation of the natural resources and knowledge systems of the South.
Water, land, food, forests, seeds, culture and people’s identities are common assets of humanity for present and future generations. It is essential to preserve biodiversity. People have the rights to safe and permanent food free from genetically modified organisms. Food sovereignty at the national, regional and local level is a basic human right; in this regard democratic land reforms and peasant’s access to land are fundamental requirements.
The Social Forum points out that the United States government, in its efforts to protect the interests of big corporations, arrogantly walked away from negotiations on global warming, the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the Convention on Biodiversity, the UN conference on racism and intolerance and the talks to reduce the supply of small arms, proving once again that US unilateralism undermines attempts to find multilateral solutions to global problems.
All this is happening in the context of a global recession. The neo-liberal economic model feeds the greed of the corporations and is destroying the rights, living conditions and livelihoods of people. Using every means to protect their ‘share value’, multinational companies lay off workers; slash wages and close factories, squeezing the last dollar from workers. Governments faced with this economic crisis respond by cutting social sector expenditures and permanently reducing worker’s rights. This recession exposes the fact that the neo-liberal promise of growth and prosperity is not true.
Two leading figures of the global civil society, Vandana Shiva and Helena Norberg-Hodge, advocate a de-linking from world markets and focusing on local sustainable self-reliant economies. They say, ‘WTO should only be responsible for preventing dumping of goods by rich countries in poor countries while Oxfam and other groups seek better terms of trade to reform the global economy.’
Some of the proposals for an alternative world order that have been proposed at the WSF, are: 1 A tax on international speculative equity finance such as the Tobin tax to fund the social sector in poor countries and close tax havens.
2 Humanise and democratise institutions like WTO,World Bank, IMF and make multinational corporation more accountable and socially responsible under a global democratic regime. 3 Minimise agriculture subsides in rich countries.
4 Emphasise the UN Human Development Agenda over narrow economic growth. 5 Strengthen and implement agreement reached at Rio Earth Summit, other environment summits and Kyoto Protocol 6 Planetary citizenship should lead to a world parliament of people. 7 Move from national security and power towards human and environmental security agenda. 7 Situate internet search engines outside the United States who should not be allowed to get away from reducing democratic globalisation to global illegal spying breaching privacy and liberty
The forum epitomises two related tendencies. First, it is the shift from national and international security to human and global environmental security. The second is the shift from international state treaties and conventions to trans-national people’s alliances. At the Mumbai WSF, there emerged a tension between two strategies. The first emphasised a unified party model seeking a cohesive strategy. The second view which prevailed, stressed a multiplicity model seeking plurality of approaches with no intention of merging view points. The forum’s deliberations have three aspects; denunciation of neo-liberal globalisation, share and express ideals and ideas, formulate proposals for the alternative.
The limitations of the World Economic Forum and its idea of progress have been well revealed. It remains to be seen if the World Social Forum runs the risk of being relegated to the realm of utopian idealism in this cruel, unfair world of political realism. Can bridges be built between the two extremes: mainstream neo-liberal model and the alternative movement signified by the Social Forum so that a common middle ground can be found for the sake of our common humanity? Is another world possible?
Prahlad Shekhawat prahladsingh.com
Director, Alternative Development and Research Center,Jaipur.
Writer & Freelance Journalist.* Writing a column in Hindustan Times
Expert Consultant on Indian Society to the US Embassy New Delhi
Author of 3 books on aspects of Human Development,Culture and Well-being.*A poetry book.
New Book;New Pathways for Human Progress, to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing UK
Ex-Associate Professor,Institute of Development Studies,Jaipur**Teacher;Transcendental Meditation
Ex-Research Associate, International Institute of Social Studies,The Hague,Netherlands
Studied Creative Writing, Exeter College, Oxford University ** Lectured in Europe and Japan
M.A Development Studies, International Institute of Social Studies,The Hague, Netherlands