Author: Insight Writer
Date: January 20, 2007
Source: Kenya Times http://www.timesnews.co.ke/20jan07/insight/ins7.html

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They are descending on Nairobi in droves, not necessarily waving placards and shouting anti-globalisation slogans. But campaigning against the free market craze is their main mission. This Saturday, the World Social Forum (WSF), at times dubbed the “Carnival of the Oppressed” opens at Nairobi’s Uhuru Park with upto a 100,000 delegates expected to attend.

This year’s forum is special not only to Kenya but to the whole continent since this is the first time an African country is getting the honour of being the sole host of the event. Last year, the WSF was hosted by several cities including Mali’s capital Bamako, Karachi, Pakistan and Caracas, Venezuela.

The event will bring together civil society organisations and individuals from all over the world who are opposed to the unbridled spread of globalisation and its adverse effects on frail Third World economies.

The forum will not just be about bashing the market economy policies favoured by the rich capitalists states of the West. The WSF will at be out to prescribe working solutions to global problems in line with its motto: “Another World is Possible”. Speaking to a media organisation last year, Mr. Onyango Oloo, the co-ordinator of the Kenyan Chapter of WSF said that the plight of Kibera Slums residents would be taken into consideration in this year’s forum.

A racing event dubbed “a marathon for basic rights” in which more than 10,000 runners from all over the world are expected to participate has been organised as part of the forum that will last from January 20-25. “We want to send a message of hope to slum populations that another free and just world is possible, even with the slum dwellers,” Danielle Moschetti, who is helping to arrange the event, told International Press Service (IPS) in an interview last year.

He added that the marathon would remind governments that issues in slums need to be given serious attention and that leaders should not just look the other way as conditions in slums continue to deteriorate. “People are tired of words, they want action” he said.

The 14-kilometre run will start in Korogocho slums, pass through the streets of the city, and end at Uhuru park. Internationally acclaimed marathon runners Tegla Lorupe and Paul Tergat, will participate in the race.

Among the prominent personalities expected to attend the Nairobi WSF will be former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and South Africa’s anti-arpatheid hero Desmond Tutu. Former South African President Nelson Mandela will also address the forum through a pre-recorded speech.

Tough the World Social Forum is a relatively new global event that has been taking place for just seven years, its influence on world affairs is beginning to be felt. It has been described as “not an organisation, not a united front platform, but an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centred on the human person”.

The first World Social Forum was held between 25-30 January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The second and third forums were also held at the Brazilian city before it moved to Mumbai, India, in 2004. The forum went back to its cradle, Porto Alegre, in 2005 while Caracas, Bamako and Karachi hosted the event last year.

WSF normally meets in January when its “great capitalist rival”, the World Economic Forum is meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The date was chosen because of the logistical difficulty of organising a mass protest in Davos against globolisation which the World Economic Forum is seen as its epitome. The date was also picked to try to overshadow the coverage of the World Economic Forum in the news media.

There are several regional and national social forums most of whom adhere to the WSF’s Charter of principles. The forums include the European Social Forum, the Asian Social Forum, the Mediterranean Social Forum the Italian Social Forum, the Kenya Social Forum among others.

The WSF has been criticised, particularly by socialist and communist left parties, for producing few practical ideas, concentrating instead on general and vague criticisms of neo-liberalism and imperialism. On the other hand some, particularly anarchists, have criticised the WSF for attempting to act as a central decision making location for dissident groups, as the Communist Internationals once did.

Most WSF participants would counter that the WSF is not a decision-making body, but rather a space for public deliberation. A far more prevalent criticism runs in the opposite direction: that the group has no established procedure for adopting consensus statements or advocacies.

The WSF is also subject to the same criticisms as the anti/alternative globalization movements, namely that the globalization and capitalism they oppose are inevitable, or that globalisation and capitalism are the most effective means of addressing global poverty. WSF participants have responded that the idea of the “inevitability” of globalisation is simply an ideological myth, hence their embrace of the slogan, “Another World is Possible”.

Right-wing opponents of the current global order have criticised the supposed pluralism of the WSF, as it only includes movements on the left (from social democrats to anarchists). Some activities by activists attending the WSF have also been criticised, such as in the WSF 2001, where activists invaded and destroyed a plantation of experimental transgenics of the Monsanto enterprise.