Leiarartikkel i Le Monde diplomatique januar 2001 av Ignacio Ramonet
(redaktør og Président d'honneur i Attac). Frå den engelskspråklege
nettutgåva: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/2001/01/01portoalegre
Oddmund Garvik
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LEADER
The promise of Porto Alegre
by IGNACIO RAMONET
The new century is starting in Porto Alegre. All kinds of people, each
in their own ways, have been contesting and critiquing neo-liberal
globalisation, and many of them will be gathering in this southern
Brazilian city on 25-30 January for the first World Social Forum (1).
This time they won't just be protesting - as they were in Seattle,
Washington, Prague and elsewhere - against the world-wide
injustices, inequalities and disasters created by the excesses of
capitalism (see the article by Bernard Cassen). This time, in a positive
and constructive spirit, they will be working towards creating a
practical and theoretical framework for a new kind of globalisation.
They are fired by a belief in the possibility of a new world that is less
inhumane, more inclined to solidarity.
This dissident International will be held in Porto Alegre at the same
time as the World Economic Forum meets in Davos. In recent years
this has been the meeting place for the world's new masters, in
particular the policy-makers who set the agenda for globalisation.
These people are worried. They take very seriously the citizen
protests that descend on them every time there is a meeting of one
of the world's major governing institutions. From Seattle to Nice, the
World Trade Organisation, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development, the Group of 7, even the European Union.
Already in 2000 events in Seattle had clearly made a big impression
on the decision-makers gathered in Davos. As one journalist noted,
each year a particular theme or personality is the "star" of Davos.
And in 2000 that star was inescapably Seattle. That was what they
talked about (2). Aware of the lack of democracy that accompanies
the process of globalisation, defenders of today's economic model are
quick to point out that they are "thinking seriously" about how to
modify the parameters and procedures of globalisation, in a direction
of greater democracy (3). And now we even have Alan Greenspan,
president of the US Federal Reserve Bank, telling us that societies
cannot succeed when "significant sectors" perceive their functioning
to be unjust (4).
The "significant sectors" who will be arriving at the World Social
Forum from the four corners of the earth are opposed to the present
climate of economic barbarism. They reject the ethic of neo-liberalism
as a step too far. A new spirit is abroad, a spirit of renewal, and the
people gathered in Porto Alegre will be looking to establish a basis for
effective forms of counter-power (5).
Why Porto Alegre? Because in recent years the city has become
something of a symbol. The capital of the Brazil's southernmost state,
Rio Grande do Sul, on the border with Argentina and Uruguay, Porto
Alegre is a kind of social laboratory, and as such is being closely
watched by international experts in urban planning (6).
For 12 years now it has been governed in new and original ways by a
leftwing coalition led by the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT). In a whole
range of sectors (housing, public transport, highways, garbage
collection, clinics, hospitals, sewerage, environment, social housing,
literacy, schooling, culture, law and order etc) the city has made
spectacular progress. The key to this success has been its
"participatory budget" (orçamento participativo), which makes it
genuinely possible for the inhabitants of any given neighbourhood to
define concretely and democratically where municipal funds are to be
allocated. In other words, the people of the city decide what kind of
infrastructures they want to create or improve, and the system
enables them to follow in detail how work is progressing and how the
money is being spent. This leaves less room for corruption and the
siphoning of public funds, and urban investment is more likely to
match the majority desires of the city's population.
We might add that this political experiment is taking place in an
atmosphere of total democratic freedom, in confrontation with a very
vocal rightwing opposition. The PT does not control local newspapers
or radio stations, let alone the TV channels, which are in the hands of
big media companies allied to the local employers and therefore
hostile to the PT. In addition, the party has been careful to respect
the Brazilian federal constitution, which means that it has very limited
political margins of manoeuvre. Particularly in fiscal matters, where it
has not been able to legislate as it would have wished. However,
citizen satisfaction has been such that in the mayoral elections of
last October the PT candidate received more than 63% of the vote.
In this remarkable city - the site of a new kind of developing
democracy - the World Social Forum will be trying to create an
alternative model of globalisation - one that is not built on principles
of exclusion. For years capital and the market have been telling us
that, contrary to the claims of the socialists, it is they, not the
people, who provide the basis for human happiness. But at the start
of this new century, the dreamers gathered in Porto Alegre will remind
us that globalisation extends to more than just the economy. The
protection of the environment, the crisis of social inequality and
human rights are also matters of global concern. And the time has
come for the world's citizens to take them in hand.
(1) For more information see the website at:
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br.
(2) International Herald Tribune, Paris, 2 February 2000.
(3) Joseph S. Nye, "Take Globalisation Protests Seriously",
International Herald Tribune, 25 November 2000.
(4) Cited by Jean-Paul Maréchal in Humaniser l'economie, Desclée de
Brouwer, Paris, 2000, p. 22.
(5) See Miguel Benassayag and Diego Sztulwark, Du contre-pouvoir,
La Découverte, Paris, 2000.
(6) See Bernard Cassen, "Participative democracy in Porto Alegre", Le
Monde diplomatique English edition, October 1998.
Translated by Ed Emery
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 1997-2001 Le Monde diplomatique
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