I was in Karachi to attend the World Social Forum (WSF). Taking place from the 24th to the 29th of March, this was the last leg of the poly centric WSF planned for 2006. This year the organizers planned a decentralized event, it was being held in different places around the world. Bamako (Mali, Africa), and Caracus (Venezuela, Americas), had already played host to the WSF, in January. The Karachi event was delayed due to the devastating earthquake, which hit Pakistan in October 2005.
WSF was conceptualized in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001, as a parallel forum in reaction to the World Economic Forum, taking place simultaneously in Davos. It has sought to provide an open space for social movements, NGOs, civil society organizations to come together and discuss ideas, to pursue their thinking, to come up with alternative proposals; to formulate a global resistance to neo-liberalism and the mass influx of exploitative capital, or any form of imperialism.
According to its Charter of Principles, “the World Social Forum is also characterized by plurality and diversity, is non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party. It proposes to facilitate decentralized coordination and networking among organizations engaged in concrete action towards building another world, at any level from the local to the international, but it does not intend to be a body representing world civil society. The World Social Forum is neither a group nor an organization.”
We reached the KMC Sports Complex around noon. Traffic in Karachi is crazy, and as predicted, we had at least one minor accident before reaching our destination. It was funny how so many people living in Karachi had no idea that the WSF was taking place in their very own city. Or, they didn't seem to care enough to venture out, foregoing their weekend-leisure, in order to pursue "well-meaning, but meaningless activities." Shrugging off the lazy skepticism, we stood outside the gates of the sports complex, watching people queue up, with separate lines for men and women, in order to enter. Once inside, after passing through metal detectors, and getting our bags checked, (the boys were perfunctorily patted down) we had to register ourselves. A short while afterwards, hallmarked with WSF, our name tags slung around our necks, and a WSF cloth bag on our shoulders, we were allowed to roam freely.
And we roamed. While it was only mid-day of the second day of the forum, programmes were already scarce. We were left to our own intuition to gauge which way to go, and which session to attend. The morning sessions had ended and there was a break before the scheduled afternoon sessions. In the meantime, we wandered around, trying to get a palpable feel of the place. I was struck by the energy and vigor of everyone around me. There was an immediately discern-able sense of purposefulness; of coming together…it was a wave of people that threatened to deluge everything else in its way. It was people power, and about time!
While walking around the venue, one was bound to run into a dozen different protests, marching and rallying, replete with slogans and banners; one of my favourites was ‘When Bush comes to shove: Resist!’ I remember walking amidst clouds of swirling dust, tired, hot, thirsty, but exhilarated.
It wasn’t too hard to see who made up this forum: workers, peasants (more notably the ones who made it all the way from Okara), the fisher folk community, the Hindu community of Pakistan (arguably the most oppressed people in this country), the Baloch people (who quickly formed alliances with the Palestinian delegates), Dalits (protesting against the caste system), social activists, landless farmers – a friend noted that it was people with grievances speaking to other people with other grievances. The Palestinian delegation was severely reduced in strength due to the Israeli enforcers who run the Jordanian administration. The Chinese peasant and worker movement was absent from the proceedings of the WSF. The entire Kashmiri political scene seemed to have moved southwards, while notable members of the British parliament, and the Indian Congress, alongside members of the Indian Communist Party were in attendance at WSF. Pakistani politicos were only conspicuous by their absence. One would think visas and travel wouldn’t be an issue, given that the WSF was taking place in their own backyard.
The Chávez government had a strong presence in the social forum in Caracas, and there were many panels on anti-imperialism, strategies for fighting neoliberalism, and similar themes addressed in previous forums. The Musharrafic government meanwhile was nowhere to be seen. It was an absence well worthy of a Pinter play.
There were lots of student volunteers around, manning the registration booths, conducting surveys; walking up to people, asking them questions regarding the forum, etc. It was especially heartening to see school-going-children involved at such a level in the organizational committee. However, the organizational committee wasn't much to write home about.
There was a sense of disorganization and chaos at work. Venues were often not to be found, with random numbering. Also, the operating sound systems were not coordinated, with sound spilling over into different sessions.
There was a 100 rupees entry fee. This seemed absurd given the nature of the event and the demography of the people who participated. For urban youth like me, this seems affordable; try marketing this to someone who belongs to the infamous ‘other side’ of the divide. Many of these people had already funded their travel and accommodation expenses, apart from food and shuttling to and from the venue, which were not inclusive of the entry fee.
By the second day, WSF seemed to have traded in its identity – it seemed to have lost its sense of purpose and direction, which had been replaced by entertainment and leisure. We reached the venue at around 11am.
Garbage threatened to overrun the venue. Trashcans and waste disposal areas were conspicuous by their absence at the forum. The result was an overwhelming deluge of waste everywhere. It was of course deeply ironic.
We caught the last bit of the CMKP (Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party) session on land and agrarian transformation , which was a series of resolutions, all voted on by popular demand. They covered a wide spectrum from being opposed to war, imperialism, and globalization and neo-liberal policies of privatization. I wondered out aloud what would become of these resolutions, and I got an all too definite answer: “nothing.” That in a nutshell is the major contention most people have with the World Social Forum. Nothing is ever done.
“Brutally honest discussion needed to take place, alongside critical self-reflection,” said Aasim Sajjad Akhtar of the People’s Rights Movement (PRM). “WSF is valuable in terms of people getting together to discuss and talk openly, which doesn’t happen very often, but even then it was largely dominated by established funded organizations. There were a number of contradictions that lay in the nature of the organizations funding the event, and the actual discussions taking place. Glaring issues were left unaddressed. People feel alienated, or they just haven’t been able to organize themselves in such a manner as to be able to contribute effectively, and enough,” he added. “The overall state of progressive debates was pretty meager. There was a blatant refusal to call a spade a spade. It’s no good just saying we’re against this and against that.” Small wonder that WSF is often dismissed and not paid serious attention too. This year, WSF was boycotted by a section of people for its unapologetic hijack by NGOs and the subsequent domination of the event by a meticulously-planned-agenda.
PRM organized a session on the rising NGO phenomenon in the world. What was said was simple enough to understand, less simple to address – the rise of NGOs in the third world have created a system whereby the State absolves itself of responsibility, more easily and more readily than ever before. Which is true, we are a disenchanted populace, citizens of a state that doesn’t recognize its duties. The burdened question put forward by Aasim Sajjad was this: “Can NGOs build a political movement?” Or are they hindering the process by providing short-term benefits with zero sustainable development?
Many have heaped criticism on the WSF for its unashamed NGO-ization. “The NGOs are no substitute for genuine social and political movements. They may be NGOs in Pakistan but in the global scale they are WGOs (Western Governmental Organizations), their cash-flow conditioned by restricted agendas. It is not that some of them are not doing good work, but the overall effect of this has been to atomize the tiny layer of left and liberal intellectuals,” said Tariq Ali, Pakistani-born leftist.
Yet the WSF has much to its credit as well. In a relatively short period of time, it has come to embody people’s resistance to social and economic inequities, to imperialism, to international capital. Most importantly it has come to represent an annual event where peoples of the world can come together and channel pathways to dissent. Those who reject it as just the “anti-globalization-forum” render it a great injustice. This is a valuable contribution which must not be ignored.
I remember walking around the photography exhibit of street children in Karachi. Mounted on the walls of the stadium, these black and white pictures were a chilling reminder of the perils of big city aspirations. Later, I would contrast the mall-culture that Karachi has spawned (thanks to Park Towers, and the Forum), with these children that the city forgot about. These contradictions are the fearful and horrific agents of big city guile.
There is so much injustice, inequity, outright robbery, and suffering that threatens to engulf us whole, overwhelming us with its absolute size or brute force. But resistance is being put up, with a tenacious battle being fought, by the peoples of this world of ours; with their artistry, sheer brilliance, and vitality. There is so much that is beautiful and wondrous left to be discovered. WSF with its slogan of ‘another world is possible’ begins to emerge as a very real possibility, glimmering with tangible promise. In our vernacular, aik aur duniya mumkin hai.
We just need to be able to find it.
« return.