Jeg fikk desverre aldri høre Walden Bello under WSF. Gikk på et møte han
skulle innlede på, men en annen person holdt en ulidelig lang innledning
før ham på Portugisisk, med ikke hørbar engelsk oversettelse, så jeg gikk
fra møtet og hørte på Asbjørn Wahl snakke om den norske velferdsstaten
istedenfor. Vel, denne oppsummeringen er ivertfall meget bra.
Mvh,
Per
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.
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