World Social Forum: Pursuing Practical Outcomes

The first post-revolutionary edition of the World Social Forum (WSF) is now a noisy memory for those who gathered in Tunis in the week of 26 March 2013. The biennial event took on a special emblematic significance at the starting point of the political upheaval that coincided with the previous WSF at Dakar, in 2011.

The WSF itself has been facing calls for change in the debates around and in the WSF International Council, as the organizers and participants consider the Forum’s transition from a “space” into a “movement.” One of the developments this year was the convening of 29 like-minded thematic “convergence assemblies.” Some perceive this evolution as creating tension between the original undirected nature of the Forum and the pursuit of more practical outcomes.

Among them, the Inhabitants Assembly continued the convergence of both rural and urban inhabitants, with HIC, International Alliance of Inhabitants, La Via Campesina and No-Vox as co-organizers. The Habitat Assembly proposed common actions, such as an International Tribunal on Evictions at Geneva, in October 2013 and a global campaign on the social function of land, the city and housing. The Assembly expressed support for a new Pan-African Network of Inhabitants Organizations and for the efforts of the peoples of the MENA region, as expressed in the HIC-HLRN Land Forum IV, to engage new perspectives on the management of urban and rural land and natural resources. [See Land Forum IV: Toward a New “Social Land Watch in this LT issue.]

The Migrants Assembly declaration emphasized freedom of movement and settlement for all, noting that globalization has opened borders to capital and goods, but has become increasingly resistant to the movement of people. It endorsed existing free-movement zones (e.g. ECOWAS and UNASUR), but pointed out that these need monitoring and improvement. The Assembly called for specific global campaigns, including “Organization for Universal Citizenship,” a “Watch the Med” observatory of violations of migrants’ human rights, and support for families of migrants missing worldwide, particularly in Mexico and Tunisia. The Migrants Assembly’s declaration endorsed the specific demand for a European Commission inquiry into the missing Tunisian migrants, and to ascertain their fate.

The “Climate Space” encompassed 14 related events within the WSF. Its participants recognized that, while a battle still rages inside the international UN climate negotiations, the main arenas remain the frontline struggles. Their collective statement proposed 15 steps for changing the system, and not the climate.

A special interest group on “Unnecessary, Imposed and Large-scale Projects” issued its Tunis Charter against infrastructure or development projects that lead to socioeconomic and human disasters; destruction of natural areas, farmland and built heritage; pollution and environmental degradation with significant negative impacts on people.

The assembly on extractivism addressed the intertwined collusion between state and extractive industries within poor regulatory frameworks that result in major tax losses, capital flight, urban and rural displacement, and large-scale land acquisition for mining, oil extraction, plantations and dams. The Extractives Assembly Political Declaration endorsed proposals, such as a Global Frackdown day of action, on 19 October 2013, to combine struggles with a day of action on transnational corporations. The Assembly committed to a proposal for a global conference on extractivism, intersecting with other global processes related to corporate and state accountability.

The Social Movements Assembly echoed the Labor Union Assembly in denouncing current “austerity” measures that “ensnare impoverished people.” The social movements also rejected the “green economy,” with its carbon market mechanisms, as a false solution. Participants vowed to defend food sovereignty and support sustainable peasant agriculture, and called for mass mobilization against landgrabs.

This broad collective also resolved to defend peoples’ right to sovereignty and self-determination, especially for the people of Palestine, Western Sahara and Kurdistan. They called for strengthening tools of global solidarity among peoples such as boycott, disinvestment and sanctions (BDS).

Likewise, the Palestine Convergence Assembly declared its intention to reinforce and expand the BDS movement, promote the conclusions of The Russell Tribunal on Palestine and advocate adjudicating Palestine’s criminal case against Israel internationally (e.g., before ICC). The body demanded that the UN reconstitute the Committee against Apartheid and dissolve the Middle East Quartet, calling instead for adherence to international law.

Unprecedented in WSF, 13 Amazigh organizations met and issued their “Tunis Declaration: Amazigh, Democratic challenge to North Africa.”It identified the Amazigh people, the indigenous people of Tamazgha (North Africa), as having suffering dispossession, forced assimilation and oppression. The joint resolution supported the aspiration of the Amazigh people to enjoy all the rights and freedoms recognized internationally for all peoples of the world. More specifically, it called on North African states to apply the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to the Imazighen, and pledged support for community struggles against grabbing (“plundering”)of land and natural resources, and for Amazigh communities’ rightto manage their resources in common. [See Studying the Global Tenure Insecurity Crisis, in this LT issue.]

The Declaration of the International Women’s Dynamic expressed agreements among women’s and feminist organizations at WSF. It reflected consensus that CEDaW form the base for women’s rights enshrined in constitutions, particularly in Arab countries. The Declaration asserted that the erosion of economic and social rights primarily affects women. Thus, the women’s dynamic reclaimed women’s right to benefit from the world’s resources (water, possession of land, mining wealth). In concrete local terms, the Declaration also called for real gender parity in all aspects of the WSF, and resolved to establish an effective international network in solidarity with Tunisian women fighting for their basic rights.

With their respective specificities, the WSF convergence assemblies and their outcome documents embody many common values to create a new political culture that still seeks practical outcomes from the relationships forged at WSF. The outcome documents suggest the contours of another possible world, amid broad theoretical strokes.