The World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, in the deep South of Brazil was more than a symbolic counter to Davos. The aim behind it was serious: to unite the Seattle generation with the Old Left and to think seriously about alternatives to neo-liberalism. It is an example from the American continent for the rest of the world. It was North American students and trades unionists who came out on the streets of Seattle against capitalism. It is the South American left that is now demonstrating what can be achieved in practice.
In that sense the polar contrast between cold, isolated Davos, beseiged by demonstraters and protected by the Swiss army on the one hand and the tropical warmth and openness of Porto Allegre highlighted the gulf between the two events. The province of Rio Grande Sul and the town is run by the left-wing of PT, (the Brazilian Workers Party) and a participatory democracy is at work. The local state is active. The mayor of Porto Alegre, a self-confessed devotee of Antonio Gramsci, is confident that the PT's project has hegemonised a bulk of the population in the South. And not just the South. In the recent mayoral elections in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo (pop:14 million), Marta Sulpicy, a leading PT intellectual defeated the Right and took the city against all predictions.
It invests in schools and hospitals and infrastructural projects. This industrial port, the sixth largest city in Brazil with a population of one and a half million, demonstrates that a resistance to globalisation, however modest, is possible. The budgets are limited by the centrral government, but the PT local government involves the local population at every level in determining how the money is spent. It was an ideal setting for such a conference, which has greatly annoyed Brazil's President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso( one-time leftist and contributor to the New Left Review, but now a great admirer of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and the 'third way`), whose own neo-liberal solutions are currently under attack from all sides. Cardoso denounced the PT for using tax-payers money to fund the Porto Allegre bash, but the tax-payers I met seemed very happy that their town was the centre of world attention. The local Chamber of Commerce denounced Cardoso for his remarks, claiming that the out-of-season guests were benefiting the local economy. What worries Cardoso is that the example might spread in Brazil itself , thus propelling the PT to power nationally.
This conference and its location represents a nightmare gathering for The pro-globalisation pundits in the US press, typified by Daniel Yergin or Thomas Friedman of the NEW YORK TIMES , who spend their lives promoting the message that the new economy is 'cool` and that any state intervention is totalitarian. This message which has infected European social democracy like a spreading cancer is what was being challenged at this conference. There are delegates from 122 countries attending a dozen plenary sessions and nearly 400 workshops to discuss alternatives in more detail. The importance of Cuba to Latin America was demonstrated at the opening session when the conference applauded wildly the presence of delegates from the tiny island, whose existence still remains important to the left in Latin America. Ghosts from the past mingle easily with the large number of young people. There were loud cheers when 84-year old veteran Ahmed Ben Bella, the leader of the FLN in Algeria and a former President, announced that Che Guevara was the most amazing person he had ever met and a fine figure of a man. Much to our amusement this was mistranslated as a: " . and Che had a beautiful body`.
There are 40 Mayors of Latin American cities who have come here. Ken Livingstone was invited, but failed to even respond to the invitation. Mariano Arana, the Mayor of Montevideo, described the steady growth of misery in his own city. He was here to find ways of regulating and controlling the brutality of the free market.
The strongest European presence was from France, the country hated the most by US free-marketeers. Two ministers from the French Cabinet, dozens of MPs and Euro-MPs and behind them the remarkable organising skills of Le Monde Diplomatique as seen in the organisation Attack.
The tension between the Cardoso government in the Centre and the PT government in Rio Grande Sul reached breaking point on the last night of the World SocialForum. The Federal police arrested the French farmer Jose Bove on the orders of the Minister of Interioir in Brasilia and served him with an expulsion notice. Bove had joined the Landless Peasants Movement which was occupying a Monsanto field trying out genetically modiefied crops. The local government had declared it illegal to plant gm crops in its province, but Monsanto obtained permission from the Federal governmment. Bove's arrest and expulsion was a spectacular own goal by Cardoso. It enraged much of the media and gave incredible publicity to the Forum. It also helped to defuse the tension with the Forum between the two currents: the social movements and the politicians. Many activists from the social movements had been annoyed by the opening session which was dominated by PT leader Lula and formere French Cabinet Minister Chevenement.
The closing session restored the precarious balance. Jose Bove and the social movements dominated it with everyone chanting: WE ARE ALL JOSE BOVE. Bove was in a cheerful mood, when I spoke to him the morning after. He was planning to leave the country that day in any case, but had decided to defy the expulsion order.
What was missing at the conference was the presence of Russians, Eastern Europeans, Chinese...... these are the citizens who are suffering the effects of 'shock-therapy' and capitalism. The figures on public education, health, employment in all these countries show a sensational decline since 1990. Perhaps they will be there next year when the World Social Forum challenges Davos once again.