When Davos Meets Porto Alegre: A Memoir
By Walden Bello*
Porto Alegre, Brazil
"Hemingway said that the rich are
different from you and me. How can anyone expect
the people in Davos to understand the crisis that
globalization has visited on the lives of people
like those of us here in Porto Alegre?" That was
going to be my opening line.
When I arrived at the university studio
for the televised trans-Atlantic debate with
George Soros, the financier, and other
representatives of the global elite gathered in
Davos, Switzerland, a visibly shaken Florian
Rochat of the Swiss delegation was waiting for me.
Swiss are known for being impassive, but Florian
was visibly shaken. "They are arresting protestors
in Davos and other places in Switzerland," he told
me. "They're killing democracy in our country.
Our friends there are asking you to support them
in calling for the shutting down of the World
Economic Forum."
That request drove out any lingering
desire to be "nice" in the coming exchange, which
had been billed by its producers as a "Dialogue
between Davos and Porto Alegre." The ambitious,
one-million dollar plus production involving four
satellite hookups, aimed to explore if there was a
common ground between the annual elite gathering
in Davos and the newly launched World Social Forum
(WSF) in this southern Brazilian city. Millions
of people globally were waiting for the
transmission.
Since I had been in Davos last year, the
producers requested that I make the opening
statement for the Porto Alegre side. I obliged
with the following: "We would like to begin by
condemning the arrests of peaceful demonstrators
to shield the global elite at Davos from protests.
We would also like to register our consternation
that while we in Porto Alegre have painstakingly
come up with a diverse panel of speakers, you in
Davos have come up with four white males to face
us. Butr perhaps you are trying to make a
political statement.
"I was in Davos last year, and believe me,
Davos is not worth a second visit. I am here in
Porto Alegre this year, and let me say that Porto
Alegre is the future while Davos is the past.
Hemingway wrote that the rich are different from
you and me, and indeed, we live on two different
planets: Davos, the planet of the superrich,
Porto Alegre, the planet of the poor, the
marginalized, the concerned. Here in Porto
Alegre, we are discussing how to save the planet.
There in Davos, the global elite is discussing how
to maintain its hegemony over the rest of us. In
fact, the best gift that the 2000 corporate
executives at Davos can give to the world is for
them to board a spaceship and blast off for outer
space. The rest of us will definitely be much
better off without them."
The press termed the next 1-1/2 hours not
as a debate but as an emotional exchange that, as
the Financial Times put it, "sometimes degenerated
into personal insults." But I and the other
panelists-among them, Oded Grajew of Brazil's
Instituto Ethos, Bernard Cassen of Le Monde
Diplomatique, Diane Matte of Women's Global March,
Njoki Njehu of 50 Years Is Enough, Rafael Alegria
of Via Campesina, Aminata Traole, former Minister
of Culture of Mali, Fred Azcarate of Jobs with
Justice, Trevor Ngbane of South Africa, Francois
Houtart of Belgium, and Hebe de Bonafini of the
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo-were simply
reflecting the non-conciliatory mood towards the
Davos crowd of most of the 12,000 people who
flocked to Porto Alegre.
For this constituency, a significant
number of whom watched the debate at a huge
auditorium at the Catholic University,
globalization was a deadly business, and many
undoubtedly shared the feelings of Hebe de
Bonafini when she screamed at Soros across the
Atlantic divide, "Mr. Soros, you are a hypocrite.
How many children's deaths have you been
responsible for?" That Soros in the course of the
debate made some utterances regarding the need to
control the negative impacts of globalization
hardly endeared him to this crowd, who saw him
mainly as a finance speculator who had made
billions of dollars at the expense of third world
economies.
The holding of the week-long World Social
Forum was nothing short of a miracle. Proposed by
the Workers' Party of Brazil (PT) and a coalition
of Brazilian civil society organizations,
supported with significant funding by donors such
as Novib, the Dutch agency, and provided with
strong international support by the French monthly
Le Monde Diplomatique and Attac, the European
anti-globalization alliance, the event was put
together in less than eight months' time. The
idea of holding an alternative to the annual
retreat of the global corporate elite in Davos
simply took off. While there were some glitches
here and there, the event was resoundingly
successful, despite the massive challenge of
coordinating 16 plenary sessions, over 400
workshops, and numerous side events.
A major reason for the WSF's success is
that it had the organizational support of the
government of the city of Porto Alegre and the
government of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, both
of which are controlled by the PT. Porto Alegre
has, in fact, achieved the reputation of being a
city that is run both efficiently and with
sensitivity to social and environmental
considerations. The city is said to be at the top
of the quality of life index for Brazil.
The sharing in Porto Allegre focused not
only on drawing up strategies of resistance to
globalization but also on elaborating alternative
paradigms of economic, ecological, and social
development. Militant action was not absent, with
Jose Bove, the celebrated French anti-McDonalds'
activist, and the Brazilian MST (Movement of the
Landless), leading the destruction of two hectares
of land planted with transgenic soybean crops by
the biotechnological firm Monsanto.
Porto Alegre achieved its goal of being a
counterpoint to Davos. The combination of
celebration, hard discussion, and militant
solidarity that flowed from it contrasted with the
negative images coming out of Davos. The Swiss
town was the center of Switzerland's biggest
security operation since the Second World War.
The Swiss police pulled out all the stops to
prevent protesters from reaching the Alpine
resort, and fired water cannons and tear gas on
demonstrators in Zurich, arresting many of them.
Even conservative Swiss newspapers condemned the
police operation as a threat to political
liberties in Switzerland.
Perhaps the outcome of the duel between
Davos and Porto Alegre was best summed up by
George Soros: "The excessive precautions were a
victory for those who wanted to disrupt Davos. It
was an overreaction. It helped to radicalize the
situation."
On his performance in the televised debate
with Porto Alegre, Soros commented: "It showed it
is not easy to dialogue.I don't particularly like
to be abused. My masochism has its limits."
Observed the Financial Times: "Such uncomfortable
experiences seem temporarily to have scrambled his
ability to deliver pithy soundbites."
But Soros was not alone in flubbing his
lines. Soon after my opening statement, Bernard
Cassen of Le Monde Diplomatique leaned over and
told me: "Walden, it wasn't Hemingway who said
the rich are different from you and me. It was
Scott Fitzgerald."
*Dr. Walden Bello is executive director of the
Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and
professor of sociology and public administration
at the University of the Philippines.
-------------------
http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/globalization/wef/portoalegre2.html
This Is What Democracy Looks Like
Dispatch
By Kenny Bruno
Special to Corporate Watch
January 28, 2001
"Um outro mundo possvel."-- Another world is possible.
Porto Alegre, Brazil -- That's the slogan of the World Social Forum
underway here. Or, as they said in Seattle, "This is what democracy looks
like."
While thousands chanted that slogan in Seattle, Washington D.C.,
Chiang Mai, Melbourne and Prague, they were being tear gassed,
preemptively arrested, harassed and generally denied
their rights by an enormous show of state force on behalf of
undemocratic international institutions.
In Porto Alegre, this is what democracy looks like: During a march of
thousands against neo-liberalism I counted 10 police officers. When 200
Brazilian anarchists broke off from the
march to throw white paint on a McDonald's, about six police stood
by.
The next day, an ex-cop explained it this way, "We police were
instructed to form partnerships with the social movements." By comparison
Davos, Switzerland, where the World
Economic Forum is meeting this week, has become a fortress.
Porto Alegre is an appropriate setting for the World Social Forum,
while authorities have shut down the roads to Davos, deported activists,
and banned marches. In Porto Alegre, the
Governor of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, gave the opening speech.
In fact, his government was a major funder of the Forum.
In Porto Alegre, this is what democracy looks like: Hundreds of
young people are camping nearby -- apparently without ever sleeping --
virtually without police presence.
This is what democracy looks like: Participatory budgeting. For
12 years, Porto Alegre+s budget has been decided made by hundreds of
well-organized community and worker
groups.
This is what democracy looks like: There is no corporate
sponsorship of the World Social Forum. No ads telling us how sustainable
Shell is, or how clean Dow is, or how
concerned for the poor Philip Morris is. No Nike swooshes. Just
a few banners for the national bank of Brazil, saying "It's better because
it's ours." The most ubiquitous logo
around is that of the Workers' Party, on flags everywhere.
In Porto Alegre, this is what democracy looks like: Lots of
meetings and lots of talking. The humid rooms, over-packed with people,
listening for the umpteenth hour to plans to
stop new free trade agreements and models for local economic
democracy.
This is what democracy looks like: There are lots of unionized
workers present. The state of Rio Grande do Sul has twice as many union
members as the national average.
This is what democracy looks like: The entire state of Rio
Grande do Sul has been declared GMO-free, although some Roundup Ready soy
has been smuggled in from
Argentina, according to one knowledgeable government official
from Brasilia. Two days ago activists traveled with French farmer/activist
Jose Bove four hours out of Porto
Alegre to tear up a few illegal acres of Monsanto's Roundup
Ready Franken-soy.
The World Social Forum is the first significant post-Seattle
gathering where the goal is not to disrupt the meetings of undemocratic
institutions, in what has become a series of traveling
protests. Rather it is a space for activists to think, talk and
imagine another world -- a more just, democratic world.
The anti-corporate globalization movement has come to "an important
stage in the counter-offensive that began in Seattle," says Walden Bello,
Executive Director of Thailand-based
Focus on the Global South.
Naturally, the rhetoric of democracy in Porto Alegre cannot be
transferred everywhere, especially not to the U.S. In the opening
ceremony, during introductions of the 120 countries
represented by delegates, Cuba received the loudest ovation, while
the U.S. and Israel got a smattering of boos. There is occasionally a
flavor of old-style leftism that sounds irrelevant to
most U.S. ears.
And, as one should expect in a gathering as large and diverse as this
one, there are significant differences of opinion on policy and strategy.
For example, some participants are working to
incorporate social and environmental clauses into the WTO, others
insist there must be no new round of the WTO.
Nevertheless, the overall feeling here is of fresh air coming into
the debate over globalization, especially compared with the stale rhetoric
in Davos. From Porto Alegre, the concept that a
gathering of the rich and powerful is the answer for the poor and
dispossessed, that the World Economic Forum has somehow transformed itself
into a global poverty program, seems
too absurd to bother debunking.
Yet neither is the Social Forum a poverty program. And that is one of
most refreshing aspects of the gathering. It is not about money. It's not
about growth, "sustainable" or otherwise. It's
not even really about development -- a concept that has perhaps been
hopelessly perverted by institutions like the World Economic Forum and the
World Bank. Still, economic issues are
prominent in the discussions here.
Rather the Forum is about democracy. Not the democracy that comes
from more money and therefore more choices of things to buy, but rather
the democracy of participation in local
and society-wide economic decisions. This is the democracy that
corporate globalization gazes so harshly on.
Even the most ardent supporters of the current form of globalization
acknowledge that it is a web of powerful and unaccountable forces. They
say the best we can do as individuals and as
nations, is to prepare ourselves to flourish in this lightening-fast,
hyper-competitive world, grabbing what we can for ourselves -- mobility,
wealth, markets, computers.
The folks here would not be interested in this individualistic and
competitive vision of society, even if the powerful institutions
controlling globalization were to reduce the inequities and
provide a safety net for those left out.
There are many challenges for the World Social Forum. Midway through
the gathering, participants had not decided where, when and if there will
be another one (it seems likely). Nor
had they settled on producing a statement or manifesto (it seems
unlikely). Activists must stay alert to the cooptation of our language and
ideas by the World Economic Forum, by the
WTO and World Bank. We must improve the democratic process within the
Social Forum -- to include more students, more non-Brazilians, more
indigenous people, and others. We
must make sure to keep the momentum that started with the explosion
in Seattle.
Seattle was the pivotal moment in the first plank of this complex
movement -- protest and resistance. Porto Alegre will, I believe, come to
be seen as an important step in moving forward
the second part - innovation and alternatives.
It is important that many protestors have gone to Davos to continue
to expose the injustice of the World Economic Forum. But I'm glad I came
to Porto Alegre. As Walden Bello, a
veteran of Davos meetings, says, "Davos is the past. Porto Alegre is
the future."
And the present is a collective dream of the thousands gathered here:
Um outro mundo possvel.
Kenny Bruno is a Corporate Watch Research Associate.
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