WORLD SOCIAL FORUM:
Analysts Question Its Limits
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, (IPS) - Prominent Mexico-based German political
analyst Heinz Dieterich said he believes the World Social Forum,
which is meeting this week in the northern Brazilian Amazon jungle
city of Belem, falls short in the innovation department and fails to
generate real change.
In an interview with IPS, Dieterich said the current edition of the
WSF may draw more attention than most of the previous gatherings,
because it coincides with the present "crisis of capitalism." But,
he added, even if it manages to reach any kind of consensus, it will
be unlikely to call for changes that go beyond the "current social
democratic strategies."
According to the analyst, who has lived in Mexico for decades, such
strategies are aimed at keeping "the system alive, with slightly
greater intervention by the state" – a path he says he does not
agree with, because in his view capitalism is not suffering just
another crisis, but the beginning of the end.
Dieterich, who recently retired as a sociology professor from the
Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City, wrote "21st
Century Socialism" about a current of social economic thinking that
has been espoused by left-leaning presidents like Venezuela’s Hugo
Chávez and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa.
The main WSF gathering is taking place in Belem Jan. 27-Feb. 1. But
parallel meetings will be held in different cities around the world,
including Mexico City and the northern Mexican city of Chihuahua on
the U.S. border.
"The simple fact of holding the forum is important because it allows
organisations, universities, activists and society to come together
and forge connections. But there is a long stretch between that and
actually bringing about changes," Erika Terrazas, an anthropologist
at the National School of Anthropology and History in Chihuahua,
commented to IPS.
The broad range of activities at the Jan. 30-Feb. 1 meetings in
Mexico will include panels on global and local problems,
conferences, and cultural and artistic events.
"It is hard to actually manage to change things, like the violent
crime that we are experiencing here in Chihuahua, for example," said
Terrazas, one of the organisers of the WSF meeting in her city. "But
just the fact that we are coming together is a step forward, and
that is why we are holding the forum."
Nearly 2,500 people were murdered last year in drug
trafficking-related killings in Chihuahua.
The WSF initially emerged as a kind of counterpoint to the World
Economic Forum, which brings the world’s economic and political
movers and shakers together every year in late January in the Swiss
ski resort city of Davos.
Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, a member of the
WSF International Committee, said the participants in the Belem
meeting should take "a clear and visible stance on the global
economic crisis" and how to confront it.
In Dieterich’s view, the WSF, which has brought together social
movements, non-governmental organisations and other civil society
groups every year since 2001, usually in the southern Brazilian city
of Porto Alegre, has failed to offer innovative proposals in the
past and will not do so in the future.
He said the problems plaguing the global economy today show that
"industrial capitalism" is nearing its end, after "250 years of
life," and that it is time "to find a new form of civilisation.
"But the momentum for change will not come out of the WSF, which was
and is dominated by social democratic and progressive Christian
thinking," he said.
"The WSF is more in line with accepting the ‘New Deal’ offered by
the new U.S. President Barack Obama, which translates into a
continuation of capitalism, but with slightly greater state
intervention and a few other minor changes," said Dieterich.
The analyst, who in the past was a staunch supporter of Venezuela’s
controversial President Chávez, has gradually taken a more critical
position towards his government in the past few months.
Prior to the 2005 WSF held in Brazil, Dieterich told IPS that the
gatherings did not generate compelling political statements or
commitments, and that they were more like "summer school."
And although he said this week’s meeting in Belem might be
different, with the global crisis as its backdrop, which could "give
it a boost," he clarified that he expects it to produce no major
changes. |
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