|
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 9 (IPS)
- A study aimed at finding out who attends civil
society's annual World Social Forum gatherings shows
that participants tend to be young,
university-educated, anti-imperialist and independent
of political parties.
The new ''Profile of Participants'' released Thursday
in Rio de Janeiro also reports that the vast majority
of those attending the first three editions of the WSF,
held in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre,
were Latin American.
But that should change radically at this year's
edition, scheduled for Jan. 16-21 in the city of
Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India.
The plan to hold civil society's annual gathering
against ''neo-liberal globalisation'' in India
represents an important step towards making ''the
global gathering truly global,'' according to
Brazilian sociologist Cándido Grzybowski, a member of
the WSF International Council and one of the main
organisers of the meetings in Porto Alegre.
The Profile of Participants, based on the registration
records from the 2003 WSF and surveys among 1,500
participants, found that the imbalance in
representation is both ''geographic and sociocultural.''
Nearly 86 percent of the 170,000 officially registered
people who took part in the first three WSF gatherings
in Porto Alegre were Brazilian, and the biggest
foreign delegations came from other Latin American
nations, especially neighbouring countries in the
Southern Cone region of South America, the report
indicates.
''Only around 200 people came from Asia, which is
nothing when you're talking about a continent that has
half of the world's population,'' said Grzybowski, who
is also the director-general of the Brazilian
Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), and
who was in charge of the study coordinated by the WSF
International Secretariat.
The fourth WSF, in India, should turn that
participation around, with many Asians and few Latin
Americans, which ''is good for mobilising other
continents'' in a tendency that should continue in
2006, when the global meeting will be organised in
Africa, said Grzybowski.
But next year, the WSF will return to Porto Alegre,
under an agreement reached by the International
Council, according to which the venue will alternate
between that southern Brazilian city, the symbol of
the WSF, and countries in other regions.
The Profile of Participants also found that 73.4
percent of people attending last year's WSF had gone
to the university, although not all had completed
their degrees. Of that total, 9.7 percent had done
some post-graduate coursework.
But among the delegates -- representatives of
non-governmental organisations and social movements
who formally take part in the WSF seminars and
workshops -- 17.8 percent had graduate degrees or had
studied in post-graduate programmes.
The results show that ''it is an elite that attends
the WSF,'' where the poor and excluded, like
slumdwellers, peasant farmers or indigenous people,
are not represented, said Grzybowski.
The study also highlighted the heavy presence of young
people, given that 62.7 percent of people attending
the gathering were under 34. But most stayed in the
Youth Camp or were ''non-delegate'' participants,
which means young people make up ''the WSF's main
social base, while they lack the proportionate means
of expression in the debates,'' said the expert.
In India, where the poor are more numerous, and better
organised, than in Brazil, taking part in movements
that have millions of members, the participation of
socially marginalised sectors is expected to be much
broader and more direct.
''We hope the Forum will have a great impact on Indian
society, with strong local participation,'' another
WSF organiser, Jorge Saavedra, the president of the
Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental
Organisations (ABONG), commented to IPS.
This year's edition should also expand the WSF's
''spectrum of alliances,'' he added.
In addition, a ''happy coincidence'' accentuates the
importance of holding the WSF in India this year, said
Saavedra, referring to the agreement reached by the
governments of India and Pakistan Tuesday to negotiate
an end to the border conflict that has dragged on
since the two countries were divided on religious
grounds in 1947.
That could generate ''positive synergy'' with the ''WSF
agenda'', one of whose top priorities is world peace,
he said.
The WSF is also facing the challenge of bringing
closer together the agenda proposed by the
International Council and the numerous activities
scheduled by participating organisations. There is a
major thematic gap, ''as if they were two separate
forums,'' said Grzybowski.
The ''most creative, vital part are the activities
organised independently by the social movements, but
they are also anarchic, and we haven't come up with a
way to make them more visible,'' he said.
According to Grzybowski, the Profile of Participants
study increases the WSF's understanding of itself,
which will help it move towards its objective: the
strengthening of civil society.
The report shows, for example, that only 35 percent of
participants in 2003 were members of a political
party.
That tends to neutralise pressure to politicise the
WSF, exercised by leftist groups that want it to adopt
political resolutions and positions.
Grzybowski underlined that ''we are not an
organisation, but a forum, whose strength lies in the
diversity of thought, where we don't disqualify any
argument, and discrepancies are not a problem.''
The study also surveyed WSF participants on their
views regarding certain questions. For example, more
than 90 percent of respondents wanted greater
participation by civil society in public
policy-making, 81 percent said globalisation
aggravates the inequality between rich and poor, and
68 percent said globalisation ''is just a new name for
imperialism.'' (END/2004) |
