UniAlter

By Miranda Cobb

Having been exposed to the academic rhetoric and third-hand criticisms directed towards the somewhat mythical entity of the World Social Forum (WSF), I set off in the dead of the Ottawa winter, trading in my skates for sandals, to experience it for myself in the Brazilian Amazon.

From Jan 27 to Feb 1, I was one of over 100,000 people from around the world who participated in the semi-organized chaos of presentations, dialogues, and performances that made up a single event combining the 9th WSF and 5th Pan-Amazon Social Forum.

The WSF, a counter-conference to the World Economic Forum, attracted a very diverse crowd of lefties: anarchists, NGOs, unions, religious organizations, indigenous groups, students, professors, grassroots organizers, political parties, and on and on.

Multiple concurrent worlds emerged—people partying at the youth camp, others theorizing the meaning of the WSF movement, some practicing sustainability in the peace camp, individuals giving voice to the struggles of their communities, movements working to connect through international networks, and those bearing witness to it all, just to name a few.

I found that the welcome letter presented on the first page of the official program—first in Portuguese, then English, Spanish ,and French—grounded me well in the underlying discourse of the forum: “Holding the WSF in the Amazon demonstrates the acknowledgement of the vital importance of the natural resources that still exist in this part of the planet and which are tremendously threatened by the hegemonic model,” it read. “It also values the incredible capability of Pan-Amazon peoples (Indigenous peoples, riverside dwellers, slave descendents, and workers) to resist the century-old domination, the exploitation and destruction of their natural resources, their cultures and the quality of their lives.”

Given the above context, the focus of the WSF was on indigenous peoples and the environment. But at any given time during the forum, there could be 100 planned and unplanned sessions going on, on topics ranging from climate change to corporate responsibility, alternative education models, and the future of the WSF and Global Justice Movements.

The WSF, like any good social movement, comes rife with contradiction. It is situated in the global south in order to make it more accessible to lower-income countries and peoples. The forum participants provide economic stimulation as they flood campgrounds, hostels, hotels, and restaurants. However, in Belem, many of the small-scale sidewalk vendors and street youth of the city centre were chased out or arrested and the police presence was doubled.

The youth camp, comprising hundreds of tents, was situated on the agricultural university campus and destroyed the grounds of the rubber-tapping tree study area. The influx of 100,000 people brought the transit system and roads to a standstill, shutting down areas of the city.

For me, the real strength of the forum I experienced (the forum was massive and there were many varied experiences to be had) was, first, the appropriation of space by the oppressed, voiceless, and disenfranchised peoples of the world.

Second was the witnessing of truth telling by these peoples and the re-education of the global population fed a reality by corporate-owned media.

Third, it was in the connecting up of these peoples to individuals, groups, and movements working together in the struggle to appropriate broader social, political, and economic spaces around the globe.

For those who believe that another world is possible, this is a good step towards it.