Rodrigo de Castro Amédée Péret ofm
Mumbay, 22nd January 2004
The IV World Social Forum in Mumbay (old Bombay), in Agad Maidan, an open space in the centre of the city, has ended. The numbers for the IV WSF are hopeful, delegations from 137 countries and about 100 thousand people participated in innumerable workshops, seminars and conferences with very different topics.
Just like in the other editions, held in Brazil, the objective of the Forum was “to be an open place of meeting for intensifying reflection, carrying out a democratic debate on ideas, working out proposals, establishing a free exchange of experiences and drawing up efficacious actions on the part of the entities and movements of civil society that is opposed to neo-liberalism and the domination of the world by capital or any other form of imperialism and also to be involved in the construction of a planet-wide society oriented towards a fruitful relationship between human beings and of these with the Earth” (Cf. Charter of Principles, 1).
It is no exaggeration to state that the WSF is the best place for reflection and celebration of the organisations and movements of civil society that agree, struggle, construct, seek and affirm that “an other world is possible”. It is great movement that happens on different levels, starting from the local and passing on to the national and continental levels.
After Mumbay the WSF can never be the same again. It was occupied by the marginalised. And it could not have been otherwise, because it was held in the city that is the economic centre of India, where the masses of marginalised live in extreme misery. In Mumbay it is impossible to walk without seeing the fruits of marginalisation. There is no way to hide it, as is done in many cities of Latin America. The misery is accumulated on the trains, distributed in the housing estates and flourishes in the streets, becoming gigantic throughout the city.
The discursive exercise of reflexive reason of those that struggle for an other possible world was absorbed by the “dance teams” of different ethnic and cultural groups that were going to the place of the Forum. The colours and creativity of the people that left the villages and the peripheral towns and districts, with their drums, bugles and trumpets, string and wind instruments, their faces painted, diverse clothing, jewellery on hands and feet but with stern faces of protest took over the rustic structure of the Forum in Mumbay. Innumerable groups, popular and indigenous movements showed the face of an India that is struggling.
It seemed like an occupation by the landless or homeless, which, on entering a place, imposes its dynamic and way of being.
It is true that the workshops, seminars and conferences continued their rhythm, more apt for the intellect as is marked by the “gramski” concept of the organic intellect. The passage of the dancing groups caused some participants In some of these activities to echo their sounds, songs and shouts.
Mumbay showed that another WSF is possible. The occupation of the IV WSF by the marginalised was a festive affirmation of diversity and the different, cloaked by globalisation. In Mumbay a challenge was given: the mass of marginalised that occupied the WSF pointed out the need for a real meeting between the Forum and the marginalised. In this meeting of diversity, another language for the WSF is possible.