WSF Caracas: Distinctive Exchanges, Familiar Challenges
Article By Dan Morrison - Feb 01 2006 | www.coanews.org
Worldwide social struggles and pluralistic human expressions are breathing new possibilities into actualizing another possible world through the inaugural Polycentric World Social Forum (WSF 2006) based in the three host cities of Bamako, Mali (January 19-23, 2006); Caracas, Venezuela (January 24-29, 2006); and Karachi, Pakistan (March 24-29, 2006). In WSF 2006 in Caracas, over 100,000 participants traversed within worlds of differences amidst whirlwinds of spontaneity in the capital city of an oil-rich yet remarkably progressive country previously unfamiliar with the Social Forum phenomena.
The ways in which the WSF 2006 in Caracas played out emerged inseparably from thousands of new encounters that could not have taken place elsewhere in the world. The logistical decisions and provisions made by the host country before the Forum began, configured participants' experiences in many ways.
The WSF 2006 Venezuelan Organizing Committee consisted of roughly 40 people who had to work around the clock to facilitate the process on the ground with a shoestring budget of less than $U.S.100,000 to prepare for more than 100,000 people. Meanwhile, the financial budgetary shoes were filled by Venezuelan political authorities. The financial support from the state came in intervals and the last lump sum only came several days in advance of the convergence.
The Venezuelan state provided sound equipment, food for volunteers, and services such as infrastructure and electricity. The state also provided building materials for tents to host the Forum activities and establish parts of the two planned World Youth Camps. The main Camp was designated in a park outside of the city and bus rides were provided. If the first Camp were to fill, the backup Camp was designated for a city park near the main areas of WSF events. Clearly, initial thinking was that the youth could not be trusted in the city where many logistics had yet to be solidified to host thousands of foreigners from outside and inside the country.
Invaluable supportive work was carried out by state-sponsored Venezuelan civil servants/volunteers. They laid out nine disparate venues of activities together with dozens of sites installed for cultural events throughout the metropolis. The nine venues were very distant from one another and created complications for anybody who had physical and/or time constraints. However, the Caracas Metro was made free of charge for anybody participating in the WSF during the course of events.
The 2,200 planned activities - determined online before the Forum began - were self-proposed by 1,400 movements from around the world. The Venezuelan Organizing Committee did not propose any activities, which marks another monumental step in democratizing the WSF programme of activities. This democratic governance builds on the organizational processes of WSF 2004 led by more than 200 hundred organizations.
The activities of WSF 2001 and 2002 were mostly shaped by the founding WSF Organizing Committee, which consisted of eight Brazilian organizations. For the third Porto Alegre-based WSF, the International Council (IC) of the WSF planned most parameters for activities. In 2003, the IC consisted of more than 100 organizations, and now has 135 members. The IC decided that the WSF 2005 activities should be planned online by delegate organizations. Certainly the dynamics in cyber space have made the Forum social spaces more democratic in a prefigured sense as more organizations can now define their own agendas independently.
It is interesting to note that Brazilian organizations proposed the most activities. Approximately 400 of the activities, however, were proposed by Venezuelan movements, while Colombian-based movements proposed some 150 activities, and roughly 100 activities were self-proposed by American organizations. These four national delegations contributed the most activities. However, diversities among groups from the same country that are engaged in the WSF can be as vast as for groups between countries. This can be said of the activities and themes themselves, but the success of these contributions depends primarily on whether the activities actually take place.
Similar to previous WSF's in Porto Alegre and Mumbai, the opening march was vibrantly colored by movements and spirited calls for social action/change. However, much chaos and discontent would follow. Some 400 WSF activities were cancelled without notice to the dismay of many groups who took the time to get to the slotted event space. The programme of activities contained mistakes and it was printed behind schedule, which is reminiscent of the five WSFs.
Some 500 planned activities directly addressed politics. The role of politics and activism in the WSF was blurred by the role of the Hugo Chavez himself. President Chavez gave speeches lasting several hours in two main events in Caracas WSF 2006. The open space philosophy of the WSF encapsulated by Principle 9 of the WSF Charter of Principles stipulates that the Forum is not open to political party representation.
A lack of translators and not enough resources for translation continued to symptomatically undermine WSF prerogatives of cross-cultural/cross-sectoral civil society learning and understanding. Numerous workshops, seminars, and panels were insufficiently equipped with resources and without proper translation to at least deliver the four WSF languages of Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English. For example, the biggest translation network at the Forum — Babels — consisted of less than 100 people, while less than ten of those translators are Venezuelan and even fewer live in Caracas, which complicated matters for fellow Babels unfamiliar with directions around the city.
The isolated World Youth Camp became largely neglected as the WSF 2006 in Caracas unfolded due to heavy rains. The neglect also reflects the WSF marginalization of the Intercontinental Youth Camp. The registered camping population amounted to approximately 1,200 people well below expectations. The World Youth Camp in the city became the central Camp after the other Camp was largely washed out. A very lively night life emerged there among thousands of campers and participants of the WSF.
An incredible array of vending economies lined up many permanent spots around the main venue areas.
Hundreds of vendors sold food and drink, or jewelry. The commercialization of the WSF prerogative or slogan (or brand name): “Another World is Possible” was being sold on thousands of t-shirts and other paraphernalia as if the idea had been produced in assembly lines. Figures such as Hugo Chavez and Che Guevera were ubiquitously commodified. The commodification of the WSF slogan is troublesome, especially since it appears to have been the sole piece of vending merchandise of those most apparent on the streets in Caracas, that could not have been part of a daily vending business.
As in previous WSFs, there were solidarity economies in operation, particularly Venezuelan ones in WSF 2006 in Caracas. However, it is unclear what was cooperative-based vending and what was capitalist merchant-based vending. Thousands of people were clustered around the vending pathways on a daily basis during the Forum. They mostly socialized, which signifies a remarkable aspect of WSF experiences. The cross-cultural interactions and the new friendships forged alongside learning from interesting people is an incredible alternative platform that the WSF has already established.
In Caracas between January 24 and January 29, the ongoing live music on stage, the live entertainers, and the celebratory parties introduced new forms of cultural politics based on human connections and collective experiences that the WSF has made uniquely possible through its own regenerative processes.
The unfolding of WSF 2006 in Karachi, Pakistan looms on a horizon without a clear picture of whether the Polycentric Social Forum experiment will deepen coalitions of civil societies from around the world en route to WSF 2007 in Nairobe, Kenya. Questions and possibilities remain about how to put into practice diverse yet viable alternative worlds.