Author: Nicholas Otieno
Date: August 6, 2006
Type of article: Commentary
Source: The East African Standard - not available online

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The quest to restore, recover and reclaim, the dignity of the people of this world amid the violence of globalisation constitutes one of the biggest challenges in the 21st century.

The suffering and misery experienced in the world today is an invitation to awaken in the hearts and minds of the people the possibility for an alternative World. The ethical foundation of the alternative world is championed by the World Social Forum is that such a world cannot be possible unless the very logic of global capitalism is defied.

The dignity of every human being transcends the unbridled capitalist ethos based on the creed of greed. Founded in Porto Allegre, Brazil, in 2001, the World Social Forum is perceived to be the antidote to the annual gathering of political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Though often regarded as the global parade of the oppressed, the WSF provides the creative sphere of global engagement with the dominant structures and ideologies in a world today, which inherently generates poverty, disease and environmental damage.

The profits from the weapons’ industries keep the economies of some countries strong. There are many rich and powerful Nations of the World that control the global infrastructure of trade and finance. Military conquests however ill intentioned are often rationalised on the basis of a civilising ethic. The ethos of WSF is that globalisation ought to be replaced by a fairer, healthier, cleaner version of global trade in which poorer countries have better opportunities to advance them.

In 2004 the WSF event was held in Mumbai (Bombay) in India and that was the first time for the forum to take place outside Brazil. Unlike the World Economic Forum, the WSF events always take place on the street, around a number of giant tents in a festive atmosphere of activism. According the WSF charter ‘the meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as a body. No one, therefore, will be authorised, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to express positions claiming to be those of all its participants. The participants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken as establishing positions of the Forum as a body.

The World Social Forum does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organisations and movements that participate in it.

Furthermore the World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context that interrelates organisations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to build another world.

World Social Forum shall be held for the first time in Africa, in Nairobi between January 20 and 25, next year. The territory allocated for the World Social Forum is the Kenyatta Conference Centre, the adjacent Uhuru Park and other spaces still being negotiated. This will be one of the most celebrated global gatherings of social movements, CBOs, NGOs, Trade Unions, faith-based organisations and countless networks working for an alternative world free from poverty and all forms of oppression.

The Africa Social Forum, which took place recently in Mali, Bamako, for example, was one among the three polycentric events followed by the ones in Caracas, Venezuela, and Karachi, Pakistan. The polycentric events reflect the whole dynamic of the World Social Forum modelled on dialogue, information sharing, and exchange of experiences and embrace of popular resistances towards globalisation.

Thematic inspirations in these gatherings were centred round the notion of "another possible world". In the case of Africa where there is so much suffering that can be attributed to the global neo-liberal system by the rampant economic violence it produces, the Bamako experience was meant to offer an opportunity to create synergy towards an alternative Africa.

Furthermore the World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context that interrelates organisations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to build another world.

World Social Forum shall be held for the first time in Africa, in Nairobi between January 20 and 25, next year. The territory allocated for the World Social Forum is the Kenyatta Conference Centre, the adjacent Uhuru Park and other spaces still being negotiated. This will be one of the most celebrated global gatherings of social movements, CBOs, NGOs, Trade Unions, faith-based organisations and countless networks working for an alternative world free from poverty and all forms of oppression.

The Africa Social Forum, which took place recently in Mali, Bamako, for example, was one among the three polycentric events followed by the ones in Caracas, Venezuela, and Karachi, Pakistan. The polycentric events reflect the whole dynamic of the World Social Forum modelled on dialogue, information sharing, and exchange of experiences and embrace of popular resistances towards globalisation.

Thematic inspirations in these gatherings were centred round the notion of "another possible world". In the case of Africa where there is so much suffering that can be attributed to the global neo-liberal system by the rampant economic violence it produces, the Bamako experience was meant to offer an opportunity to create synergy towards an alternative Africa.