The World Social Forum — A festival of movements

The World Social Forum 2004 was held in Mumbai (India) from 
January 16-19 with over 100,000 delegates from about 80 countries 
participating. About 30,000 participants came from outside 
India.

The huge attendance indicated a growing global movement against 
corporate globalisation and US imperialism in particular. The 
atmosphere at the opening all-in meeting was terrific. Singing 
and drumbeating participants from many Indian states took part. 
The Pakistani music group Junoon gave a wonderful performance 
while a Brazilian troupe Siwela Sonke captivated the audience 
with an energetic performance.

Chico Witaker, one of the founding members of the WSF said the 
main challenge was to continue and deepen the common struggle. 
"We are so many now, we need to co-operate. New initiatives, new 
proposals and new mobilisations are emerging. This huge 
attendance today gives us the confidence that the WSF can be 
expanded throughout the entire world", he said.

Women and children victims

Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi of Iran said that women and children 
were the first victims of today's wars, with 90 percent of those 
who die in wars being civilians. She felt globalisation needed to 
be democratised and there should be greater respect for human 
rights. She said the right to Palestinian self-determination must 
be seriously asserted by democratic people throughout the world. 
Ebadi also wanted the WSF to take up the issue of the growing 
number of terror attacks.

Author and activist, Arundhati Roy, said that there is not a 
single country in the world that can escape the weapons of US 
imperialism — either cruise missiles (as was seen in Iraq) or 
IMF cheque books (as was seen in Argentina).

She advocated that the two US companies which were profiting the 
most from reconstruction contracts in Iraq should be identified 
and shut down through global action. "We should not only oppose 
but become the resistance in Iraq. We must consider ourselves at 
war".

No to occupation

He welcomed the decision taken at a Jakarta conference to hold a 
meeting in Baghdad in the near future with the theme "No to 
Occupation — Yes to the Iraqi People". He ended his speech with 
the call "Let's go to Basra, Nassiriya, Fallujah and through to 
Baghdad".

The British Labour Party MP, Jeremy Cobin, said the anti-war 
movement mobilised young people in a way like never before and 
cited the February 15 rally in London as the turning point in the 
movement. 

He also felt the success at Cancun were the World Trade 
Organisation (WTO) could not come to a conclusion, was largely 
because an influential group of developing countries refused to 
toe the imperialist line. Such resolve was not displayed by the 
governments of the same developing countries a year earlier at 
Doha. That they did so at Cancun shows that one of the important 
factors was the pressure built on these governments through 
popular protest actions.

Mustafa Bargoita of Palestine said that his people will emerge 
victorious like the Indians, Algerians and Vietnamese in their 
struggles against occupiers. He said Israel was shutting down 
every part of Palestine with the construction of the "apartheid 
wall".

Every conceivable expression of protest against marginalisation 
and exclusion in the process of globalisation from across the 
globe was visible at the World Social Forum. 

Tribal groups from the Indian state of Orissa interacted with 
natives from the Amazon River jungles in Brazil. The aboriginal 
native inhabitants who were ruthlessly displaced and destroyed by 
the white settlers in New Zealand rubbed shoulders with Dalits in 
India who are denied an equal, respectable and dignified status.

The common cause found by these people resulted in a common 
resolve to confront the common enemy that is responsible for this 
state of affairs.

Seminars

Thousands of seminars, debates and discussions took place and 
they were a battleground for ideological debates on the question 
of the alternative to imperialist globalisation.

Social democrats, NGOs, communists, anarchists and trotskyists 
took part in these debates. Some of the finest minds and 
personalities in the world participated.

Among the communist parties taking part were those from the 
socialist countries of China, Vietnam, Cuba and Laos, and 
important communist contingents from Brazil and Latin America and 
various European parties. The presentation of the communist 
viewpoint culminated in a big public meeting organised by the CP 
of India (Marxist), the CP of India and the Peasants and Workers 
Party.

The communist parties asserted that if another world is possible, 
it would and can only be a socialist world. They called for 
greater integration of the anti-globalisation and anti-war 
movements into one powerful current of anti-imperialist struggle 
and resolved to work in unison even if separately towards this 
end. 

A seminar called "Socialism Today: Challenges" was chaired by A B 
Bardhan, the General Secretary of the CP of India.

He said that the experience of many countries since the fall of 
the Soviet Union made it very clear that capitalism is no 
solution to people's problems. Bardhan said communists are 
inspired by the slogan "Another World Is Possible" and that this 
world should be one which brings to an end all exploitation and 
ushers in peace for humanity.

The analysts' claims in capitalist propaganda that the collapse 
of socialism in the USSR led to the demise of socialism and of 
Marxism are false. The decade of the '90s showed throughout the 
world how capitalism as a system exploits the poor masses in 
order to cater to the interests of global capital. The successes 
of socialism in Cuba, China, Vietnam and the coming to power of 
Left forces in Latin American countries underscores that 
socialism can be and will be a viable alternative to capitalism.

Sitaram Yechury, a leading member of the CP of India (Marxist), 
spoke of the remarkable contribution to human endeavour of 
socialism in the 20th century. This could not be erased from 
history, no matter how much the imperialist and capitalist forces 
try, he said. 

Speaking of the reasons for the collapse of socialism in the 
USSR, he said that as the USSR emerged as a major force on the 
world stage, many third world countries were looking at socialism 
as the means of getting out of their troubles.

But capitalism adapted to the changed situation and created 
illusions among these countries that capitalism can contribute to 
their development. This was one of the contributory reasons to 
the passing away of a revolutionary vision at that time.

Referring to the growing anti-imperialist struggles, he said this 
was the beginning of a new revolutionary process which should not 
be mistaken with that of the old one.

Sitaram Yechury said that "imperialism seeks to pit the workers 
of advanced countries against the workers of third world 
countries. It is the task of communists to counter and expose 
this strategy."

Socialism or barbarism

Today, the choice before the people is between socialism and 
barbarism and he called upon the communists to engage in a 
"severe ideological battle" to project socialism as the 
alternative to capitalism.

Kenya Seranno from Cuba gave a short but inspiring speech to a 
jam-packed audience. She said that after the collapse of 
socialism in USSR, Cuba lost an important ally and supporter in 
fighting the US blockade, and yet the people of Cuba chose to 
fight for socialism rather than surrender to imperialism. She 
said that the Cuban youth are proud of the guidance they received 
from Che Guevarra and Fidel Castro and ended by saying that the 
Cuban revolution will continue its fight and will never give up 
no matter what adversity they encounter.

Fausto Bertinotti, General Secretary of the Communist 
Refoundation Party of Italy, said the growing struggles against 
globalisation and for political transformation won't be easy and 
that it would be of great help if the European communist parties 
could free themselves from the grip of the moderate Left. He said 
they look on the developments in Latin America and the growing 
co-ordination between Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Cuba with 
keen interest.

Simultaneously convened with the WSF were the International Youth 
Forum and the World Parliamentary Forum. The presence of 
delegations from Pakistan and other Islamic countries gave the 
Forum wide legitimacy, establishing it as the foremost platform 
available for all anti-imperialist forces to participate in to 
clarify and sharpen the struggle against imperialist 
globalisation.

By any measure the WSF 2004 was a big success. 

* * *

Acknowledgement to People's Democracy, newspaper of the 
CPI(M)