Another WSF is over...Can we make it relevant to Bangladesh?

If you weren't there, chances are that you will think it was just one big carnival. Lots of people, lots of noise and lots of banners. Rainbow Planet.

One of the common phrases banded around is "celebration of diversity".

Yes, it's true. So many individuals could interact for several days. As a "forum" in the true meaning of the world it has been an outstanding success. And the media has proved visually that the world is indeed diverse. Monoculture of the corporate Western kind isn't all there is. But can we really be in the mood to celebrate?

What's there to celebrate?

Where are the victories? Is all we can show the Cancun WTO trade talks breakdown? That was a delay. They are pressing again. The US and Europe are floating "concessions" trying to divide the Group of 20 poor countries. A battle was won, but the wider economic war of globalisation very much goes on.

And what about Iraq? Early 2003, millions upon millions marched against the impending invasion. But democratically-elected governments ignored their populations and conquered Iraq. It is only because guerillas are belatedly fighting back in a small scale and causing political pain (through body bags), that the operation cannot be declared an overwhelming success. And we have to admit that the resistance has given us heart and reason to continue. Contrast that with how little we are talking about Afghanistan. Do they count for any less than Iraqis?

The anti-war movement was, and is, a big feature of the WSF. When I raised this point about the failure of the movement to decisively manage events, the reply was "at least, it brought all types of people together ...... it gave us a buzz........ It lifted us .... the crowds were the biggest in history...."

That's all true. I also got a buzz in the march in Dhaka. I did feel elated in Mumbai being able to participate in so many discussions. But that is part of the process. It's not the end result. Or is the WSF, as many suspect, a cruel diversion where this is all one can expect?

Key questions are now being asked:

- Another WSF is over but what do we do now? Can we make it relevant to Bangladesh?

Is the WSF about bringing people together around the banner of the global justice movement?

- Is it a place for only social movements and NGOs?

- Why are the political parties not being allowed to play a central role?

- How do the WSF and its "leaders" expect this to end? What do they want?

- Can the WSF ever offer leadership?

The Communist Party of India (M) supposedly was a leading organiser of the 6-day meet. But the vast majority of those attending were most certainly not Communists. Moreover, they were not political in the narrow sense. NGOs clearly took centre stage. They funded the event and they set the agenda. Officially the forum cost $3 million and was mainly funded by Action Aid, Oxfam, a German NGO, and (government) Canadian and Swedish donors! Previously it had been Ford Foundation (!), a conservative US organisation with an influential role in the Cold War.

But if you take into account that the NGOs paid for the travel and accommodation of their people, then the total costs soar ten times to $20 million at least.

Why do northern NGOs and government institutions want to pay so much money? Do we really believe that they are at the forefront of the war against globalisation? And if you look at previous events, how is it that political parties and groups are not invited, though politicians can come in the personal capacity? How was it that Chavez of Venezuela was not invited in Brazil last year, though he turned up anyway? How is it that the Brazilian politicians can be seen everywhere? Is it because their Workers Party started it?

And what about ATTAC? This is an French based intellectual body which campaigns for a tax on speculative financial activities, otherwise known as the Tobin Tax. But how radical is that really? It sounds so similar to the 1980s version of the Brandt report, where leading European ex-politicians called for increase in aid to poor countries.

In fact, the WSF could be better described as an NGO-social democratic fest. It is not about taking on globalisation, which Seattle of 1999 seemed to be about. It is about providing a human face to globalisation. Reform, not revolution. Improvement, not abolishment of the IMF and World Bank. That's why US economists such as Stiglitz can be a central figure. Why Lula of Brazil can be at the front, even though he didn't come to Mumbai for the WSF, but was there a week later after attending the World Economic Forum in Davos?

The WSF is all about working within the system. And it will continually move to a soft "left to centre" philosophy, while the centre has moved to the right over the last two decades.

Even the World Bank president wanted to come last year. He obviously thought he would be safe. The tactic is then to "fund and divert", water down the messages, steer the majority to local single issues, and prevent this becoming a real challenge to political power.

India has now bid farewell to us and can settle down to the real business of a general election in April. What actually happened over six days?

The noise, music, chants and rallies took place along a couple of roads in the middle of the complex. The bigger seminars/workshops/panel discussions (I never figured out the difference) were in five big halls, with actual attendances of 500 to 10,000. Hundreds of discussions were housed in small tents dotted in four areas. The real action was in these tents where ideas were knocked around. I spent every day walking from talk to talk, tent to tent in three sessions (morning, afternoon and evening). But even then, at the end I realised that I had missed out huge areas that I shouldn't have missed ......... health, education, transportation, dalits and minorities, religion, women, garments workers, the WTO..........

So what did I go to? "Geopolitics of War in South Asia", "How to Finance Development without Debt", "Alternatives to Globalisation," "People's Rights", "Privatisation of Water and Power", "The Impact of River-linking in India," "Rice: The Strategic Dimensions in Asia," "Political Parties and Social Movements," "Searching for a Multi-polar World," "Neo-liberalism and the Impoverishment of States," "Beyond Unilateralism -- to World Democracy," "Building a Global Migrants Movement" and "The Agrarian Crisis" and "Hindutva Fascism" (at the Resistance event),

A history of protest

In the 1960's, there was Vietnam. In the 1980s, there was Apartheid and Nuclear disarmament. Now it's globalisation and Anti-War.

The track record is disheartening. The war in Vietnam ended because the US military had already lost 50,000 dead and wanted to pull out. It was economically ruinous, leading to the dollar-gold breakdown in 1971. The movement can claim to have increased the costs of involvement but they cannot claim to have stopped the war.

Apartheid ended because the White rulers of South Africa decided to quit while they were ahead. They transferred power to a non-threatening group of elder leaders. They knew they would lose a guerilla war and be at the receiving end of a bloodbath. Economically, White South Africa holds the levers of economic power though they have lost their social privileges.

Again, the movement raised the cost of engagement of Western corporations. Nuclear disarmament has happened but has more to do with Gorbachev's financially strapped Soviet Union and its disappearance in 1991. Re-armament went upwards during all those noisy protests. And there has been no peace dividend.

The current anti-war movement has failed to stop a colonial era invasion in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and bribe-induced collusion and military operations with warlords in Afghanistan. Bases are mushrooming across Central Asian oil-rich states. Georgia has its ""peaceful revolution", very similar to the pattern in Serbia (though it is not yet working in Venezuela). The pipeline can now be built in Georgia to transport gas and oil to the West, avoiding Iran and Russia.

And now we have globalisation

It is not in terminal decline, though the pace may have slowed down. Given the fantastic scale of the project, the beneficiaries in Davos don't believe they are in any crisis.

A setback here and there hasn't changed the seemingly inexorable drive for new markets in almost every sector.

But there may be some light.

The WSF has succeeded in challenging the moral legitimacy of globalisation. It is an important strategic step. It is vital to fight the moral war. But it's not enough. The same could have been said for all the issues discussed above. We have to move beyond that.

A popularly-understood alternative needs to be believed by citizens. TINA (There Is No Alternative) is no longer accepted by increasing numbers of people but very few of us can actually what we really want. Having said that, the corporate media are intentionally misguiding everyone when they parrot "we know what they are against, we don't know what they're for". In fact, the opposite is true. Read the WSF programme schedule. They were talking about all kinds of subjects under the sun. In certain sectors, there are suggested policies and solutions on the most obscure subject.

The problem is that they are about single issues or that they don't really don't go far enough to make a difference.

Where now?

We can theorise and strategise for many more Forums. Already there is dissent. This became clear when some exasperated leading lights asked for blueprints, ways forward and concrete action plans.

They say the WTO is like a bicycle. You have to keep it in motion or it will fall over. Well, the same can be said about the WSF. Keep it like this and the big Northern NGOs will completely gobble it up, strangle it and reduce it to annual funding round for small southern NGOs.

This year, Chomsky, Mandela, Klein and progressive political leaders failed to attend. China and East Asia barely figured even though the prize for the most colourful group must go to those vociferous Japanese anti-war protestors. Africa almost didn't exist.

Tibet and Falan Gong were "Chinese" representatives -- missing out one billion people. It again reinforced the notion that this was an alliance of Euro-South American intellectuals and northern NGOs. However one admires them for their writing, Stiglitz, Samir Amin and Walden Bellow cannot be regarded as leaders in the wider arena.

Only Arundhati Roy had the ability to project a profile but even she has no political base. At the opening session, she made a call to "take down two multinationals" involved in Iraq. The crowd supported it but by the end of the week, there was no common position or statement by the unelected WSF "leaders". Of course, they keep saying they are not an organisation and that there are no leaders and it's all about networks of horizontal links between people etc. etc. But don't believe all that mumbo-jumbo.

The strategic factor is now: how will social movements and political parties interact? The session I attended on this very subject was deeply disappointing. Beyond a few phrases such as "we need a new politics," there was no vision. No road map. This is the crucial area on which we should focus. We need to cut down on the number of discussions and subject areas and concentrate on this.

How do we become relevant? How do we make these discussions and therefore ideas concrete and understandable to the wider public -- who are too poor or too busy to fly off to these "carnivals"? Each country or society has its own specific political background. Bangladesh is no exception and is in dire need of political change.

What can the whole WSF process do, if anything, for us in Bangladesh?

So far, the WSF has made very little overt impact on Bangladesh. Political and social organisations have not been able to identify the relevance of all that surrounds the WSF into practical action. To date, a few NGOs have been fighting individual battles, with some small success. Other less scrupulous NGOs have jumped onto the bandwagon, smelling opportunities for funds.

The mainstream media and political forces have largely ignored the WSF and the broader Global Justice Movement (sometimes also called the anti-globalisation movement). Only Cancun and the controversy of Bangladesh's less than honourbale role in the WTO negotiations have been noticed, with vigorous protests by left-wing political parties and certain small social movements and NGOs. However, even here, most people think of the WTO as merely the death-knell of the Ready-Made-Garments industry when the US quota system ends in January 2005. Most are not aware about the implications of patents and GATS etc.

So the great issues raised by the Seattle protests of 1999 and the worldwide movements for alternatives to globalisation have not figured in the political equations. Instead the Bangladeshi media are more concerned with the non-starter of a Third Way. The so-called "New" force is really about elderly personalities forming new vehicles for a last chance to grab power. Beyond vague phrases about "the need for unity", "fight to rid ourselves of corruption", and "combating the dire law and order situation", no major political entity has offered the public an inspiring vision on how to transform the country. In fact, they clearly represent the view and agenda of the foreign aid consortium. In other words, old wine in new bottles.

People are fed up with the status quo but at the same time they do not hold much hope. The have had their bellyful of 15-point, 11-point, and one-point ultimatums. Without paying money, large rallies can no longer be held. The credibility of the main political parties is at an all-time low. But what will come in their place? There IS a space. A GAP. Can some of the more radical ideals raised in the World Social Forum plug this gap? In short, yes it could.

But, of course, as we have now read and heard... the WSF is not a political organisation. It has no one agreed ideology and is in danger of being co-opted completely by safe, non-threatening slogans and posturing. It meets once a year, then 'disappears' until the next event.

So can the WSF become relevant?

Bangladesh, like many developing countries, has been ruled by people who believe in TINA (there is no alternative). The nominal leaders simply follow the instructions of the World Bank-led donor group. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) is central to government policy. There is absolutely no move to self-reliance. The leadership of the main political parties indulge their followers with the fruits from the aid tree.

We may not agree with the dubious methodology of Transparency International's so-called research, but we cannot doubt that this country's administration is very corrupt. And critically, AID feeds this corruption.

The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are forcing through the same policies throughout the world. Therefore, the response cannot be limited to one nation. Similar problems lead to similar solutions. Movements should compare experiences and fine-tune their strategies to their specific localities and region. Simultaneously, they can support each other through actions of solidarity. The great debates and ideas generated by the World Social Forum offer the semblance of alternatives.

Despite the health warnings above that the WSF is not "the real thing", if it can be used properly, it can be a place to start from. We need to begin somewhere.

Let's begin with the idea that "another world is possible" and try and translate it into a social and political platform, specific to Bangladesh.

The first stage is to win the intellectual battle. The middle class and opinion formers need to be convinced that the policies followed by our governments perpetuate our poverty. They need to agree that the World Bank-IMF-WTO globalisation prescription must be rejected. There is no compromise -- no half-way house. From that negative stand-point, they need to be offered a positive vision of success stories throughout the South, whether they be Keralan education, Japanese planning of the 1960's, South Korean industrialisation, Cuban health services, Malaysian fixed-rate exchange regime and genuine "Look East" policy, Scandinavian welfare programmes, Chinese agricultural pricing (post 1978) and aspects of Brazil's local government initiatives.

The opposition to the donor paradigm must produce coherent policy built around the following components:

- Financial support to farmers via fair prices for their grain output to build up a domestic economy

- Financial incentives and support for rural industrialisation building on this rise in rural purchasing power

- Ecologically friendly agriculture in tune with historical practices to reduce environmental stress and damage and actually raise output

- Investment in light industries to create jobs

- Public sector leadership in essential sectors such as gas exploration and power generation and water infrastructure

- Water management for irrigation and transportation (working with our great waterways and not against them as now)

- Basic education and training to create a literate skilled workforce, ready to work in industry

- Immediately tackle relatively easily curable diseases and set up a low cost health system. Focus to be on mothers and children and quickly raise physical productivity

- Mobilise resources from domestic sources (by cutting on prestige projects and raising duties on luxury consumer imports) and properly using the high level of remittances from our migrants abroad. This will replace aid dependency since we already receive three times more from our Diaspora abroad than aid (tied with instructions).

- Message compatible to progressive Islamic culture and therefore acceptable to rural people and acting as a counter to excuses for communalism

The second stage is to promote this message to old and new political groups and parties to force a new agenda through. This needs a coalition of movements prepared to ditch rivalry and unite on this broad political platform. This will be particularly difficult given the 'prima donnas' in this field but this is necessary and some of the well-known front men and women will have to move aside.

Moreover, many professionals and small business associations must be part of this process along with the progressive groups and sincere unions. The former have to believe they have a stake in this future vision. Old-style worker-owner confrontations have failed and people are not willing to participate in the tired ideological battles.

The third stage is to channel time and effort on a few strategic issues and apply serious sustained pressure. This will help bring social movements and some political groups and parties to work together.

For example, the main relevant issues to help build this movement and at the same time focus attention are:

- How to use our natural gas reserves for industrialisation and power generation instead of as a raw material export to India via a pipeline

- Uniting against the river-linking project in India and offering a way of using our present water resources more effectively

- aving our rural economy, particularly farmers and setting up significant procurement funds for paying farmers

- Sustainable job creation in light industries (both private and public)

The fourth stage is truly democratic political power. However many meetings and forums are conducted, however many miles of newsprint is written, there will be no progress unless those who want change possess power. Seminar power is irrelevant. Street power only goes so far. New leaders must be in a position of power to implement new policies. Otherwise, there is no meaning. Looking from the perspective of Mumbai last January, one can see a rich history of movements on all kinds of issues.

The international reach and participation of the WSF means that information, experience and support are available. The WSF is all about taking a global look at our future but it is not an answer in itself.

To be effective in Bangladesh, the traditional politics of nationalism must be couched within the ideals of the Global Justice Movement.

Immediate steps:

Several hundred participants from Bangladesh, either as individuals or representing organisations went to Mumbai. They have returned, some wiser, some baffled. They have to decide just how far they want to go. Half will fall by the wayside. But for the rest, to have any meaning, they should start a dialogue between social movements, labour organisations, environmental groups, national coalitions, left-leaning intellectuals, small business associations, individual leading lights and our Diaspora abroad. The aim should be to arrive at a primary level understanding sufficient to agree on a common platform. Can this be done before the next Forum? It's possible.

Farid Bakht, a businessman, is involved in social activism.