Open Space, Participatory Space
One last note; this time on process.
A lot of debate has gone on about whether the WSF/ESF should be primarily an 'open space' within which all who accept the Charter of Principles should be welcome to discuss the issues of concern to them; or a 'movement' event within which groups and movements may mobilise.
A brilliant book about all of this is 'World Social Forum: Challenging Empires', co-edited by Jai Sen, Peter Waterman, Anita Anand, and Arturo Escobar. (Giving a plug for this book was one of the things that infuriated people at the Life Despite Capitalism event, and sparked a walk-out - see the earlier blog.) It's a fantastic book (one of the many revelations in it is that there are two versions of the Charter of Principles circulating, the earlier of which is much harder on those who support armed struggle) and unmissable for anyone with interest in the WSF process at any level.
One of the questions raised by some people in the book (but not answered, so far as I can see) is the question of participation. How can the 'grassroots' participate in the WSF events/process (I use this as shorthand for the ESF, the African, Asian and other social forums) which is supposed to represent 'globalization from below'?
The reality is that most of the WSF events, including ESF, whether the huge plenaries or the small 'workshops', consist of unidirectional speaker-audience lectures, sometimes with a limited time for question and answer (sometimes with comment permitted).
A lot is known about how to create participatory structures. This knowledge is not being put into practice.
What is bizarre is that Seattle and the WSF are held up as perhaps the two great achievements of the global justice movement, and yet in their organising principles they are antithetical. Seattle was built out of bottom-up consensus-decision-making by enormous numbers of people organised into small face-to-face affinity groups (so I understand, not having been there). The WSF and its daughter social forums are top-down initiatives with (so far as I know) self-selected official organising bodies which in the case of WSF are effectively controlled by smaller, hidden groups of people (so reports Michael Albert in the book just mentioned).
That's what a lot of the 'vertical-horizontal' debate is about, which Oscar wrote about so perceptively at the beginning of this joint blog.
Quite apart from the organising side of it, there is the actual lived experience of people attending WSF.
Out of all the meetings I went to, it was only the nonviolent direction action workshop held by Phil Pritchard and Toby Olditch (the B-52 Two, on trial soon for attempting to disable/disarm a B-52 bomber in the UK on the eve of the 2003 war) that proposed to break up the participants into small groups of 6 people for discussion. This was also the only meeting at which there was a 'go-round' where everyone got a chance to introduce themselves and have their voices heard.
Particularly when there is a single language workshop with international participants, such efforts are crucial. In our small group, there was a German participant who had no difficulty understanding what was said in English, but who found it more trying to speak English, and who really appreciated the chance to express himself to a small group.
Curiously, the 'breaking-up into small groups' proposal was very nearly derailed by a loud, confident veteran with forty years in the movement. He (yes, a man) had a great deal of value to contribute, but like lots of confident veterans did not see the need for creating mechanisms for ensuring that every voice is heard and appreciated.
As I understand it, the participatory culture which is characteristic of much of the global justice movement really started with the second wave of the women's movement, and then spread into the nonviolent disarmament movement, and from the peace movement into the wider direct action movements.
The culture has some way to go, but the hunger for participation and real democracy is not going to go away. The Social Forum process is another wonderful opportunity. We must seize it.
Milan Rai
Hastings
A lot of debate has gone on about whether the WSF/ESF should be primarily an 'open space' within which all who accept the Charter of Principles should be welcome to discuss the issues of concern to them; or a 'movement' event within which groups and movements may mobilise.
A brilliant book about all of this is 'World Social Forum: Challenging Empires', co-edited by Jai Sen, Peter Waterman, Anita Anand, and Arturo Escobar. (Giving a plug for this book was one of the things that infuriated people at the Life Despite Capitalism event, and sparked a walk-out - see the earlier blog.) It's a fantastic book (one of the many revelations in it is that there are two versions of the Charter of Principles circulating, the earlier of which is much harder on those who support armed struggle) and unmissable for anyone with interest in the WSF process at any level.
One of the questions raised by some people in the book (but not answered, so far as I can see) is the question of participation. How can the 'grassroots' participate in the WSF events/process (I use this as shorthand for the ESF, the African, Asian and other social forums) which is supposed to represent 'globalization from below'?
The reality is that most of the WSF events, including ESF, whether the huge plenaries or the small 'workshops', consist of unidirectional speaker-audience lectures, sometimes with a limited time for question and answer (sometimes with comment permitted).
A lot is known about how to create participatory structures. This knowledge is not being put into practice.
What is bizarre is that Seattle and the WSF are held up as perhaps the two great achievements of the global justice movement, and yet in their organising principles they are antithetical. Seattle was built out of bottom-up consensus-decision-making by enormous numbers of people organised into small face-to-face affinity groups (so I understand, not having been there). The WSF and its daughter social forums are top-down initiatives with (so far as I know) self-selected official organising bodies which in the case of WSF are effectively controlled by smaller, hidden groups of people (so reports Michael Albert in the book just mentioned).
That's what a lot of the 'vertical-horizontal' debate is about, which Oscar wrote about so perceptively at the beginning of this joint blog.
Quite apart from the organising side of it, there is the actual lived experience of people attending WSF.
Out of all the meetings I went to, it was only the nonviolent direction action workshop held by Phil Pritchard and Toby Olditch (the B-52 Two, on trial soon for attempting to disable/disarm a B-52 bomber in the UK on the eve of the 2003 war) that proposed to break up the participants into small groups of 6 people for discussion. This was also the only meeting at which there was a 'go-round' where everyone got a chance to introduce themselves and have their voices heard.
Particularly when there is a single language workshop with international participants, such efforts are crucial. In our small group, there was a German participant who had no difficulty understanding what was said in English, but who found it more trying to speak English, and who really appreciated the chance to express himself to a small group.
Curiously, the 'breaking-up into small groups' proposal was very nearly derailed by a loud, confident veteran with forty years in the movement. He (yes, a man) had a great deal of value to contribute, but like lots of confident veterans did not see the need for creating mechanisms for ensuring that every voice is heard and appreciated.
As I understand it, the participatory culture which is characteristic of much of the global justice movement really started with the second wave of the women's movement, and then spread into the nonviolent disarmament movement, and from the peace movement into the wider direct action movements.
The culture has some way to go, but the hunger for participation and real democracy is not going to go away. The Social Forum process is another wonderful opportunity. We must seize it.
Milan Rai
Hastings
posted by Milan Rai at 11:01 PM
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