2001
Is Another World Possible?
Virginia Vargas
Not
everything went smoothly at the World Social Forum (WSF). Some feminists were
present at some of the sessions, in part because Southern Cone feminists put
pressure on the organisers, but this participation was not at all equal. This is
why a feminist manifesto, read at one of the morning plenary meetings, pointed
out the clearly sexist language and relatively small presence of feminists in
debates on very important topics.
The
internal political confrontation in Brazil was not to be taken lightly either:
on the day of the WSF inauguration, President Cardoso spoke publicly against it
(wasting a unique opportunity to break with the one-track thinking and
complacent democracy in his country), accusing it of being an “exhibitionist
festival of the left.”
The
live conference between the Social Forum and the Davos meeting also led to
complications. It should have been a space for political discussion, but some
WSF participants hurled simplistic accusations instead of expressing the much
more human and complex dynamics that inspired the Forum.
There
was also the significant presence of political parties (mainly from Brazil),
which, although it did not occur, risked disfiguring what was necessarily a
forum for global civil society. Underneath all these dynamics, feeding them, was
the constant tension between old and new, between new themes and new
subjectivities and the old avant-guard vision and rhetoric. It is one-track
thinking caught in the dynamics of change.
For
the organisation of the next Forum, it is proposed that the international
organising committee be further opened up—hopefully, this will contribute to a
better planning. Regarding feminism, the decision to widen the discussions, and
add other actors and movements to the debate, and the recognition of new trends
that are interlaced with and enrich feminist proposals for the new millennium
are challenges we must face at the next Forum. We also raise the challenge that
is contained in the question asked by REPEM: “Isn’t it time to remember that
the world is for everyone (men and women), or isn’t it at all?”
|
