Porto Alegre, Brazil: The World Social Sessions
Action
On the third day of the World Social Forum, I attended an all-day workshop entitled, “Human Rights in the Age of Terrorism.” Panels consisting of activists and lawyers from a variety of international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, and FIDH spoke throughout the day. Most of the presentations focused on examples of how governments in Indonesia, Burma, Chechnya, Israel, the US and Europe have been using the pretext of national security to violate the rights of marginalized groups, since the US declared a war on terrorism. Like other presentations at the World Social Forum, the session took place in a large tent with over 100 participants drifting in and out throughout the day.
Another WSF session. The session I’m discussing occurred in a larger tent.
Due to the sweltering heat, another session moves outside.
The presentations were in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Simultaneous translation into Spanish and Portuguese (but not English) was provided via headphones. I thus, had the bizarre experience of listening to an American professor of mine from Columbia University speak in Portuguese, which I understood once it was translated into Spanish.
The last session, according to the schedule, was dedicated to international strategizing around how to continue to defend human rights when governments use the threat of terrorism as a pretext for violating those rights. When the floor was opened for suggestions on how to build an international coalition, the first speaker gave a long, detailed description of human rights violations in Haiti without relating those violations to the theme of the day. The next participant spoke of the situation in Colombia, but again, offered no suggestions for the proposed international coalition. Then a representative from Human Rights Watch presented 3 concrete proposals for building a coalition. I followed by cautioning that we must be careful not to use “terrorism” as loosely as governments do. With that, there were no more comments. The facilitator thanked everyone for attending, provided a general summation of what transpired incorporating the concerns of the Colombian who spoke, and ended with a somber, yet hopeful, “another world is possible.” People remained behind to trade business cards and ask follow-up questions.
One of the presenters arrived just after the session ended, and asked another presenter, “well, did we come up with a plan?” To which the second presenter replied sarcastically, “what do you think?”
Reflection
I must confess that I found the WSF sessions disappointing. I thought there would be more networking and strategizing between different organizations. For example, I attended the Human Rights in the Age of Terrorism session with high hopes of seeing human rights attorneys planning cases to bring in international courts and weighing the pluses and minuses of different public relations campaigns. Instead, most of the workshops I attended just presented information to an audience, with little time for communication between audience and presenters and little discussion of what to do with the information presented. Judging from the dialog between the two presenters that I heard at the end of the session, people organizing the workshops had a fatalistic approach.
On the other hand, the last presenter integrated the comments of the Colombian activist into his closing remarks. This indicated to me that what I consider inefficient and off-the-subject commentary might actually further discussions and solidarity between people in ways that I don’t appreciate.
Finally, besides being hindered by my own impatience. I felt handicapped by my fluency in only one language. My Spanish wasn’t good enough to get past the general ideas of the speakers. Moreover, at least half of the sessions were only in Portuguese, often without translation, making them inaccessible to me (and many other participants).
Question
If you were to organize a session at the WSF, what would it look like?
On the third day of the World Social Forum, I attended an all-day workshop entitled, “Human Rights in the Age of Terrorism.” Panels consisting of activists and lawyers from a variety of international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, and FIDH spoke throughout the day. Most of the presentations focused on examples of how governments in Indonesia, Burma, Chechnya, Israel, the US and Europe have been using the pretext of national security to violate the rights of marginalized groups, since the US declared a war on terrorism. Like other presentations at the World Social Forum, the session took place in a large tent with over 100 participants drifting in and out throughout the day.
Another WSF session. The session I’m discussing occurred in a larger tent.
Due to the sweltering heat, another session moves outside.
The presentations were in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Simultaneous translation into Spanish and Portuguese (but not English) was provided via headphones. I thus, had the bizarre experience of listening to an American professor of mine from Columbia University speak in Portuguese, which I understood once it was translated into Spanish.
The last session, according to the schedule, was dedicated to international strategizing around how to continue to defend human rights when governments use the threat of terrorism as a pretext for violating those rights. When the floor was opened for suggestions on how to build an international coalition, the first speaker gave a long, detailed description of human rights violations in Haiti without relating those violations to the theme of the day. The next participant spoke of the situation in Colombia, but again, offered no suggestions for the proposed international coalition. Then a representative from Human Rights Watch presented 3 concrete proposals for building a coalition. I followed by cautioning that we must be careful not to use “terrorism” as loosely as governments do. With that, there were no more comments. The facilitator thanked everyone for attending, provided a general summation of what transpired incorporating the concerns of the Colombian who spoke, and ended with a somber, yet hopeful, “another world is possible.” People remained behind to trade business cards and ask follow-up questions.
One of the presenters arrived just after the session ended, and asked another presenter, “well, did we come up with a plan?” To which the second presenter replied sarcastically, “what do you think?”
Reflection
I must confess that I found the WSF sessions disappointing. I thought there would be more networking and strategizing between different organizations. For example, I attended the Human Rights in the Age of Terrorism session with high hopes of seeing human rights attorneys planning cases to bring in international courts and weighing the pluses and minuses of different public relations campaigns. Instead, most of the workshops I attended just presented information to an audience, with little time for communication between audience and presenters and little discussion of what to do with the information presented. Judging from the dialog between the two presenters that I heard at the end of the session, people organizing the workshops had a fatalistic approach.
On the other hand, the last presenter integrated the comments of the Colombian activist into his closing remarks. This indicated to me that what I consider inefficient and off-the-subject commentary might actually further discussions and solidarity between people in ways that I don’t appreciate.
Finally, besides being hindered by my own impatience. I felt handicapped by my fluency in only one language. My Spanish wasn’t good enough to get past the general ideas of the speakers. Moreover, at least half of the sessions were only in Portuguese, often without translation, making them inaccessible to me (and many other participants).
Question
If you were to organize a session at the WSF, what would it look like?
9 Comments:
At 1:37 AM, lernerm said…
too often at meetings like this there is a lot of talk about many different topics which serves to diffuse the message. Also, there is lots of talk but no action and little follow up. I think it'd be best to focus on one topic and actually do something - eg a worldwide program to educate those who shop at Wal-Mart about why prices are so cheap there, coupled with alternatives to Wal-Mart. Cheap prices are hard to resist, even for relatively wealthy Americans, so it'll be hard to convince people to not shot at Wal-Mart (and this would just be the first step). Just as Americans were offended when they found out that Kathy Lee's clothes were made by sweatshops (thus leading to a change in how her clothes were made I believe), I believe it would be possible to change shopping habits re: Wall-Mart. While this wouldn't solve all of the world's problems, it would be a nice first step. I think that instead of preaching to the choir, the session should focus on getting out the message to those who don't know about neoliberalism and the like. As an aside, I've always wondered why the terrorists haven't figured out that the best way to hit back at the US is not by hijacking planes, but rather, but simply having a few terrorists with plain old guns randomly shoot people in Wal-Mart -that would probably cause a huge depression as Americans stopped shopping at Wal-Mart. Then they could target McDonalds and the like.
At 2:44 AM, LAURA!! said…
I have to respond to what "lernerm" said. I'm struggling here, because you did not offend me with what you said about targeting Walmart and the like; I have no affiliation; I don't shop there, etc. But I feel upset about what you wrote; I guess I'm struggling about how to respond.
Driving across Middle America this summer I was struck with how many Wal-Mart's there were (although, really it was how few. There's nothing out there). The people in the mid-west have had there local grocery stores driven out (for the most part) and Wal-Mart has replaced them. Can you blame them? They have no other place to shop (this was surprising to an east coast girl like me). Wal-mart has Great Prices. They have a Variety of Products. Local stores in these small, small towns cannot possibly compete. Especially for the money from small american farmers that have little. In other words, they have no choice. You and I (lernerm) have easy choices, we can easily choose not to set foot in Wal-Mart and it won't hurt us financially.
I don't think I'm expressing the anger that I felt when I read your post (sorry again LernerM as I don't enjoy conflict). But maybe you mean that middle America, Hey, Most of America, did not appreciate the devestation that was 9/11, so maybe hitting them at the Walmart and McDonald's is the way to go. But I think it undervalues them as people to say that, oh, hit them where they shop, then they'll feel it.
I feel like that is a very upperclass way to think about things (Wal-mart, McDonalds). Do you shop at Amazon.com? Ebay? Barnes&Noble? Borders? or whatever the bookstore/grocery store of choice is in your 'hood?
Sorry, you've touched on a nerve with me. None of us are inculcable, and I know you're not saying that you are. But, I can think of lots of places that "the terrorists should hit" that would devastate the poor and the rich (both) in this country.
Well, I've written far too much and haven't explained myself well enough.
At 9:56 AM, Jen said…
In reading your description, and your slight disappointment, I got the feeling that it was because it was a situation of preaching to the choir, but no one really DOING anything. No one seemed to talk about new projects or plans to get the word out to people who aren't in the know. Because who goes to the World Social Sessions? People who are involved enough to get to them. There are a lot of people who don't know how anything they do relates to anyone else in the world, and since the World Social Sessions didn't exactly get any national press . . . well, it didn't change anything.
And to follow up a little on what Laura said . . . a lot of times, we talk as if people have a choice - but they really don't, depending on where they live. I still live in a city, but it's definitely not like NE cities .. . I'm frustrated by the lack of choices here for consumers. But if you grew up here your whole life, you don't know any different. Or if you live somewhere even more remote, and Walmart really is the only decent option for groceries and everything else, well, you aren't exactly going to understand why people are giving you a hard time for going there. And honestly, having the option and the money to make the choice to go somewhere more expensive is a luxury that a lot of people don't have - wages are VERY low down here, so I see it every day.
So while teaching people about what's going on is a step - we also have to figure out the root of the problem - why is it that it is so much cheaper for companies to do this, and why they are being allowed to at the cost of US jobs, and why they are given tax breaks, etc.
I think it's just short-sightedness .. I mean, I'm hoping that's what it was. In the short term, allowing situations like this to give consumers cheap goods sounded like a good idea .... boost to the economy and all. And now that it's such a part of our consumer culture, we're realizing that it's not fair to the workers in the countries providing these goods, and because they work for less, Americans need to work for less, and that's actually less money and less security for the US.
At 3:15 AM, christie said…
Well, first of all, I wouldn't organize a session at the WSF. Between working full time and taking three classes in grad school this semester, I have neither the time nor the money to travel and organize; I'm usually lucky just to know what day it is. Second of all, I don't generally enjoy such forums mainly for the reasons listed by Renate (they all seem to have the same weaknesses). Also, there are usually too many unimplementable ideas put forth by myopic academics.
I can't apologize for being annoyed by lernerm's post. Whether or not you shop at Wal-Mart, you're part of the problem. No one is above the system. No one, no matter how hard you try.
At 10:27 AM, Jen said…
We're all part of the problem because of the bigger issues that cause these problems .. .
I remember reading a list of companies and if they contributed to republican or democratic groups. Well, all the grocery stores down here are donating the majority of money to republicans. The article encouraged people to show their support for whatever side they wanted by spending their money accordingly ..
nice idea - except that I wouldn't be able to buy food if I wanted to do that. There ARE NO ALTERNATIVES in Savannah. There is no "Whole Foods" There is nowhere to buy the vegan chocolate mousse that I loved so much up in Silver Spring. (not that I'm vegan, but man, that stuff was good:)
So here I am, stuck, because I WANT to make informed choices, but I'd have to drive 500 miles to find stores that fit.
But like I've mentioned too ... I work with a lot of people who barely make above the poverty line. Typical wages here for a lot of people. I don't think they care about what happens to workers in other countries, because they are too busy trying to care about themselves . . . and I'm not saying it's not worthy of discussion and thought, to care about workers everywhere. I'm just saying that, the attitude here is mostly, "what about us?" I work with people who seriously can't afford food for a day or 2, and struggle until that next paycheck hits.
At 7:47 PM, josh said…
First, a logistic note – the archives section of our blog is finally working, so you can now browse through all posts since Washington DC.
Regarding where the terr0rists should attack, at the risk of having our blog sent to Guatanamo, I have to give a shout-out to The Weather Underground (two members of which we happened to chat with at the Forum, incidentally). I don’t necessarily agree with all their actions, but I do think they pose some interesting questions regarding who is to blame for our problems, who should or should not be attacked in retribution, and what good these attacks do or don’t do. Which I think is why my dad raised the issue of hijacking planes vs. Walmarts. Not to suggest that either would be welcome, but to question where the pressure points are that might force changes to the system. For all the homeland security folks reading our blog, please look here.
I also greatly appreciate the points about the time and spending limitations imposed by poverty. For me, these comments lead to two other key questions. First, how are these limitations created and imposed? To the best of my knowledge, neither Walmarts nor poverty are simply materializing out of thin air in communities across the US. The increasing prevalence of big box stores and poverty are the products of concrete decisions made by specific people. These decisions are usually contested and could have been made differently, but they are often made to appear inevitable. For example, each new Walmart has to be approved by the local planning commission. Many planners who approve Walmarts do so based on pressure from econonomists and businessmen who say that the new stores will benefit the local economy. Some economists and planners, however, decide to oppose the seemingly inevitable. More importantly, many local residents also fight new Walmarts, sometimes successfully. All of this is just to suggest that if we learn how limitations are created, we can better understand how to reduce or eliminate them.
Second, given that we have to live in the world that exists, with all of its limitations, what can we practically do to change this world? What are the alternatives to living your life according to the dominant economic and political system? On a general level, I hope that this blog is part of an answer. One thing we’ve tried to demonstrate is how many different ways there are, big and small, to act outside of the system and begin to tear apart its many limitations. For example, by sitting on stairs, creating autonomous communities, wearing different colors, painting educative street murals, putting rocks in the street, or even just asking people probing questions.
Another way to answer this question would be to look at and learn from what people are already doing, especially people who are oppressed the most. For example, here in Latin America, the poor campesinos of El Alto, Bolivia, kicked the French corporation Suez (and its water privatization) out of town, and the workers of abandoned factories in Buenos Aires restarted the factories as worker cooperatives and community centers. In the US, popular educators at places like The Highlander Center and The Center for Third World Organizing have worked with thousands of fellow people of color and limited resources to instigate community organizing and awareness. In over 100 US cities, such community organizing has led to increases in the minimum wage. US history is full of other examples, like the Farmer’s Alliance of the late 19th century, which mobilized hundreds of thousands of poor Southern and Midwestern farmers to create cooperatives and redistribute capitalist wealth.
Regarding the usefulness of World Social Forum sessions, I’ll discuss that a bit in my next blog…
At 7:49 PM, josh said…
This post has been removed by the author.
At 1:01 PM, lernerm said…
Wow - I certainly didn't mean to cause such a commotion, especially since I also don't like conflict. Rest asure that I don't advocate terrorists attacking Walmart. I did mean to make the point that those who want to make ours a more just, equitable society might want to look at trying to do something about WalMart - it might be doable, and it would have a profound effect (just as a terrorist attack on WalMArt would have a profound effect. I remember a time when there wasn't a WalMart, and indeed, there was still poverty, sexism, and so on. Indeed, for poor and lower class people in America, it's cheaper to dress your kids, buy a tv, and the like now that WalMart is around. I certainly don't mean to suggest that we should make life tougher for poor people. On the other hand, imagine a time about 150 years ago when it was cheaper to buy clothes made from cotton produced by plantations that used slave labor than it was to buy cotton made without slave labor. Would it have been wrong to suggest that someone who advocated not buying products made by slaves was somehow in effect being an elitist, since only the rich could afford to buy nonslave cotton? There is no way to completely avoid the system - if you don't buy from WalMart, then you'll buy from Target, and if you don't buy from Target, then you'll buy from the local hardware store, who still gets his products from China. All I was suggesting is that we try to minimize damage - as was done by the action to get Home Depot to stop using tropical hardwoods. Given its size, if WalMart simply gave all it's employees a $2.00/hr raise, I think that would have a profound effect on America. If activists were able to get McDonalds to stop using styrofoam to package Big Macs, perhaps WalMart can be persuaded to make some changes as well. Hope this doesn't upset anyone.
At 10:45 PM, LAURA!! said…
All valid points. It's interesting, just this past week NPR has gotten some flak for Walmart spots they are running(Evidently, walmart donated some money in a desparate PR move).
Sorry I'm so defensive lernerm. I watched the twin towers fall (and the horrible things that happened preceding their fall) from my office in NYC 30 blocks north of the trade center. I remember men in white suits (shortly after the 11th) securing our mailbox against a suspected anthrax attack. So, I'm probably touchier about this subject than the average blogger on the street.
Look at it this way, you set into action a nice, lenghty conversation for R&J's website! I suppose disagreement is an important part of any intelligent conversation. I think it's just hard for me to know how to voice it in this type of format.
Post a Comment
<< Home