Unheard voices in Nairobi
Nigel Morris-Cotterill | Monday 29 January 2007 
chiefofficers.net
The BBC's World Service News has had extensive coverage from the World Economic Forum in Davos with the obligatory picture of Bill Gates sitting in the audience. But did you know that, in Nairobi, the World Social Forum held its annual event during the same week? We've not even seen it mentioned on mainstream news. But there are good reasons why it should be, including lessons for combatting violence and terrorism.
In Davos, questions of interest rates, re-energising the Doha round of WTO and de-energising the world to try to minimise climate change have been the main areas of concern at Davos - apart from the fact that it's a damned good party, apparently.
And seemingly, one of the drivers for being concerned about climate change was that it almost didn't snow in time for the delegates to go out to play (not that going out to play is a bad thing: we wholeheartedly support the concept, hence the Financial Crime Forum Europe 2007 is being held in Vienna).
But over in Kenya, half a world away geographically and a world away in so many other respects, another large gathering was taking place. But with little support of the media.
Those who wonder why anti-globalisation protesters end up involved in near-riots at WTO only have to consider this: whilst the world's mainstream and business press went to Davos, in Nairobi the World Social Forum was attended by a handful of fringe and largely left-leaning media outlets.
Now there are some pragmatic reasons why the WSF doesn't get a lot of media attention and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of that comes down to money - and image.
The WSF is not new: it's event in Nairobi last week was its seventh annual event. But it has few major corporate sponsors, its delegates are rarely able to write travel down to business expenses and, even less, to tax; its website is rubbish and even during the event woefully out of date meaning that there is little or nothing for non-attending media to go on. As of today, there is no coverage of the event on the official website, and it finished last Friday.
And it doesn't help itself with its website couched in neo-Marxist terms and hinting at revolution: "..five days of cultural resistance and celebration; panels, workshops, symposia, processions,..." and "the World Social Forum has mushroomed into a global counter-force challenging the assumptions and diktats of imperialism and its associated neo-liberal policies that have over the decades, imposed colonialism and neo-colonialism; devastated Southern economies; bolstered the disastrous and repressive reigns of assorted tin pot dictatorships; marginalized women; disenfranchised youth; intensified the destruction of the environment; unleashed bloody, inhuman and needless military conflicts in nation after nation, region after region and deepened the exploitation of poor peoples around the world."
Depending on one's point of view, it all sounds very worthy, or very dangerous.
One paragraph reads "Rather, the World Social Forum is, to use a Kiswahili word, a global Jukwaa, in other words, an international PLATFORM, to quote from the Porto Alegre Charter "an open meeting place where groups and movements of civil society opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism, but engaged in building a planetary society centred on the human person, come together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, formulate proposals, share their experiences freely and network for effective action." "
The have been other movements that centre on the "human person" - those that have decried organised society and religion, and they turned radical communist (as in the Kmer Rouge) or anarchic (but not anarchic as defined by, e.g., the Red Brigades who were not at all anarchic despite their self-description).
Another problem is that the "program" isn't a programme at all: in essence, it says "turn up and make your own arrangements, hopefully someone will come to hear what you have to say." It's almost a live form of public access broadcasting or, even, blogging. To be fair: if you look hard enough on the muddled website, you can find a programme - but it was published only on the 19th January - right before the event began. It's at http://wsf2007.org/Programa_impressao_web.xls where it is an MS Excel (ironic, that, why not OpenOffice?) spreadhsheet format. And we recommend you look at it: it's surprising how many of the topics there are what you would find at a mainstream event. But its late arrival means that those that have to bid for budgets stood little chance of being able to do so - so only the faithful get to go.
So with no structure to understand, only those media with a week to spare - and who are either acceptable to the body of people attending or prepared to risk being branded agents of capitalist baddies will go.
So here's the dilemma: if the organisers don't organise, then who will ever hear the message? The closing event was a 14km run, designed to get news attention but in the absence of a credible message unlikely to do so.
According to today's Guardian, the organisers found themselves under seige - local broke into their compound, not to kidnap, pillage and rape - but to demand that entry fees to the WSF compound be reduced so that locals could afford to attend (although a special "Africa" rate meant their costs of attendance was a mere euro5 as against euro80 for delegates from "the north"); and the catering company monopoly - a company apparently owned by a Kenyan minister, had competition from street hawkers who - non-barbarians at the gate - simply demanded access to a market that - ironically - the organisers had locked them out of. And that report is not from a staff writer.
And the dilemma for the press is that failure to carry the message, to be dominated by the message of the World Economic Forum, only makes those who consider themselves unheard to try harder to be heard.
And that is one of the root causes of terrorism and violence. It's simple: we can see the roots of it in bars and clubs - and homes - all over the world - the person who tries to be heard and is not first raises his voice a little, then a lot and, in some cases next lifts his fist.
The day after the World Social Forum closed, an armed gang stole a US Embassy vehicle bearing diplomatic plates but loaned to non-Embassy visitors. The driver and an elderly woman were shot dead, apparently for taking too long to get out of the large car. It had absolutely nothing to do with the World Social Forum. But it received more news coverage.
In the UK, Blair and his people say that poverty causes crime. They have no idea what poverty is. No one in Britain need be truly poor. The socialist clothes of New Labour abuse the term: when they say "poverty" they mean greed. A society that tells a family that a television, and a cabinet to put it in, is a right and therefore the state will provide one has clearly lost its way.
In much of the world being poor means having nothing but dirt to eat. Far from not having a pot to piss in, they don't even have the water to piss.
Unfortunately, that's something that neither the World Economic Forum nor the World Economic Forum can even begin to communicate.
The men and women sitting in the Davos audience had a chance to do something about it. They are right - the world is a small place and globaalistion is both desirable and inevitable. But the execution of globalisation must be done with sensible, fair, global aims. It must not oppress locals nor any section of local community: indeed, it should aim to eradicate existing harms by promoting gender equality, payment of sufficient income so that parents can afford to send children to school instead of to work, the provision of basic medical care and - perhaps most important - effective sex education. And they should not exploit.
So the American millionaire that discovered a cross-bred bean in Brazil, took it to the US and patented it there, locking its original developer out of the US market should not benefit - nor should drugs companies that patent natural and traditional remedies. Similarly, software patents are a means of oppression (not, note, copyright - that's a completely different protection and is entirely proper).
It costs USD20 to provide all the necessary vaccinations that will protect a child against the worst diseases; it costs USD20 to perform cataract surgery that enables an ageing Cambodian to continue to working. It costs USD300 for the latest version of Microsoft Windows: yet that's the one thing that the US government most tries to protect in its trade negotiations.
Go figure.
The World Social Forum may be a shambolic mess run by people who let rhetoric get in the way of an important message and can't get their own message out. But that doesn't mean they - and those that support them - don't have a point.