[WSMDiscuss] World Social Forum: Pre-call to movements

Rita Freire freirefreirerita at gmail.com
Tue May 5 20:27:25 CEST 2020 

Dear Francine

Grateful for the frankness that is characteristic of you, I would like to
add some aspects that this discussion group should also consider.

The consultation on whether or not there is an WSF 2021 in Mexico was made
by deliberation of the International Council itself alongside other
decisions taken at the January meeting in Porto Alegre, and not by any
Mexican committee, and so I stick to its effects.

The January decisions were

1) Do not call WSF 2021 until after a dialogue with organizations inside
and outside the process.
2) Prepare a pre-call as the base text for this dialogue
3) Maintain the WSF 2021 proposal in Mexico as "indicative", awaiting
acceptance and commitment from the organizations consulted within and
outside the International Council.

*Post meeting in Porto Alegre*

1) The coronavirus crisis has made dialogue the more urgent step to
determine how the WSF process can contribute so that civil society can
influence the situation
2) As a face-to-face debate is not possible, this dialogue must take place
over the internet and is being proposed for June.
3) Consultations on movements, next to the pre-call, are just beginning.

*In Mexico*

I agree with Francine that the Mexican process is going through turbulence
in some aspects. However, it is natural for this to happen, since
 this is not yet clearly guided by an official decision of the
International Council, even if there is the collaboration of some
organizations more attentive to the process.

Our contributions do not always lead to what we seek. Francine even took
part in a debate with Mexican organizations to which was posed, especially
by Boaventura, the possibility that the Mexicans would refound the WSF,
changing the charter of principles. This also created natural confusion, as
the WSF in México was just an initial proposal.

As some participants are still arriving at the process, without really
understanding it, they interpreted the criticism in their own way. They
want to be admitted to facilitate the process, despite disagreeing with the
existence of neoliberalism in the world and advocated for the services of
corporations such as google. This has led facilitating organizations to
invoke the Charter of Principles as a condition for joining a facilitating
group. This attitude, although aimed at protecting organizational
instances, contradicted those who criticize aspects of the letter, even for
more noble reasons.

None of this turbulence seems to me a reason to decide the future of the
WSF or if we should have a 2021 edition in Mexico. Mexican construction
will find its way at the moment when international organizations and
movements take over the process together with local organizations.

What is on the table is the need for dialogue between organizations on the
next steps of the WSF at this time. Making this dialogue was the decision
of Porto Alegre, with openness to proposals for changes in direction. This
call is still the last major event in the process. The consultation that
begins is the present fact. The next one will be the success or not of the
June meeting.




































I hope Francine is there.

Em ter., 5 de mai. de 2020 às 13:07, Francine Mestrum via WSM-Discuss <
wsm-discuss at lists.openspaceforum.net> escreveu:

> Dear Jai,
>
> Thank you so very much for your answer. I fully understand your reasoning
> and highly apporeciate the efforts your are making.
>
> I understand my letter may have surprised you, but you should know that it
> is the result of several meetings and notes of the past months. I spend
> almost 6 months in Mexico last winter, so I was able to attend several
> meetings and have seen the situation worsening.
>
> I will certainly not bother you with all the details of the sometimes
> difficult discussions. I just add the French and English version of a note
> of mid- February that will clarify what is happening.
>
> Thanks a lot and let us hope this will bring a positive solution.
>
> Francine
> Op 05/05/2020 om 16:48 schreef Jai Sen:
>
> Tuesday, May 5, 2020
>
>
>
> Dear Francine
>
>             Thank you so much for sharing with us all this absolutely
> frank, and straightforward, letter that you have sent to the members of the
> WSF International Council.  I am stunned to read what you have to say.  And
> I’m now so glad I asked you to come in and comment – though I never
> expected that this would be the kind of thing that you might have to say.
>
> In responding, I of course have to say that we have to see what you have
> shared with us as of course only one opinion of what took place at the
> meeting in Porto Alegre in January.  But nevertheless, what you have said
> remains stunning, and of course so deeply disappointing to hear.  And if I
> may add this, I also personally feel so much for you given the crushing
> disappointment you must now be feeling, given – as all of us who have been
> involved with the organisational aspects of the WSF know – the many, many
> years that you have devoted to the WSF, and the hope you have invested in
> it… and especially at this historical juncture.
>
> It is of course not for me to comment as yet on what you have said beyond
> what I've said above, and so what I'm doing is taking the liberty of
> copying in here two people I know and respect and who I see from the
> documents that Tord circulated were present at the Porto Alegre meeting,
> Chico Whitaker and Carminda Mac Lorin, *with the very personal request to
> each of you – Chico and Carminda – to please respond and give your comments
> on the Porto Alegre meeting and on what Francine has said here*.
>
> (For those on this list who do not know this, Chico Whitaker (of Brazil)
> was one of the founders of the World Social Forum, and is widely seen – in
> his own words ! – as ‘one of the uncles of the Forum’; and Carminda Mac
> Lorin was one of the main organisers of the FSM / WSF in Montreal in 2016.)
>
>             I am also copying in another person who has also been deeply
> involved with the WSF over many years and who in the past decade was
> particularly engaged, at strategic levels, and who I deeply respect,
> Gustave Massiah, of France; for any comments you would like to add.
>
>             Let me only add that this return to this subject, on this list
> - World Social Movement Discuss, which grew out of an earlier list ‘World
> Social Forum Discuss’ -, is especially meaningful : Because this is
> precisely why some of us set up the WSFDiscuss list in the first place, in
> 2006, as an independent ‘open space’ for the horizontal sharing of
> information on the World Social Forum and for critical discussion of what
> it was doing, all in order to help strengthen the great social and
> political experiment that had by then been nicknamed ‘the Forum’.
>
> I therefore now hope that we might again be able to do so here on this
> list, even now…  and I am therefore deeply hopeful that Chico, Carminda,
> and Gustave, you will reply.  Please…
>
>             With thanks, and in hope,
>
>
>
>             Jai
>
> Copy : Chico Whitaker, Carminda Mac Lorin, Gustave Massiah
>
> On May 5, 2020, at 4:17 AM, Francine Mestrum via WSM-Discuss <
> wsm-discuss at lists.openspaceforum.net> wrote:
>
> Since Jai, asked my opinion, this is the letter I just sent to the
> International Council of the WSF:
>
> Dear friends of the International Council,
>
> You will have received the documents of the Facilitating Committee of the
> WSF Mexico with a pre-invitation.
>
> I would like to explain very briefly why I voted ‘no’ to this proposal. I
> think that, at this moment, the Committee is not able to organize a Social
> Forum.
>
> 1)     The Committee is extremely weak and all but democratic. Comments
> and questions of those who do not totally agree with the proposals are
> simply ignored. It is a very weird interpretation of what they see as
> ‘consensus’. For instance, as the thematic axes necessarily have to be the
> result of the proposals of participating movements, I proposed a simple
> framework within which these proposals can be integrated. Nevertheless, the
> group continues to work with a predetermined list of axes in which even the
> struggles against authoritarianism and fascism are failing! You will
> understand that various organisations already have left this facilitating
> committee.
>
> 2)     In 2021 the WSF will celebrate its 20th anniversary! This is an
> excellent opportunity to invite movements and organisations that till now
> did not take part in the Forum so that the process can be enlarged. It is
> also an opportunity to reflect and discuss the rules and principles of the
> WSF. This is what a small group of members of the IC has proposed. They
> want to organize, inside the Forum, a debate on the relevance of the
> Charter of Principles after 20 years. For these two reasons, they propose
> to ask all facilitators and participants in the Forum not to ‘agree with
> the Charter of Principles’ but to ‘respect the Charter of Principles’. This
> simple change is also totally rejected and people are asked to sign a
> ‘letter of commitment’ of two full pages!
>
> In other words, the current process is excluding and bureaucratic and it
> lacks the most minimal sense of democracy. I could give you many other
> examples. Without fundamental changes, I cannot participate in such a
> process. After almost twenty years of work for and in the WSF, this really
> hurts. But I think that all persons and all opinions deserve some respect.
>
>
> Op 04/05/2020 om 23:02 schreef Tord Björk via WSM-Discuss:
>
> FIY
> Tord Björk
>
> email: tord.bjork at gmail.com, skype: tordbjork, tel: +46 (0)722 15 16 90
> address: Götgatan 7 A, 29133 Kristianstad, Sweden
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Mirek Prokeš <mirek.prokes at gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, May 4, 2020 at 10:39 PM
> Subject: World Social Forum: Pre-call to movements
> To: Tord Björk <tord.bjork at gmail.com>
> Cc: Balint <balint at unitedagainstracism.org>, helga suleiman <
> helga.suleiman at gmail.com>, Viktor Koren <viktor at iynf.org>, Leo Gabriel <
> lgabriel at gmx.net>, igor <igorgotlib0 at gmail.com>, matyas benyik <
> benyikmatyas at gmail.com>, Aktivister för Fred <aktivisterforfred at gmail.com>,
> Dagmar Svendova <svendova at transform-network.net>, Bilinç Sezgin <
> bilinc at yeenet.eu>, Marek Hrubec <marek.hrubec at gmail.com>, Kavan Jan <
> kavanjan17 at gmail.com>
>
>
> Dear friends and comrades,
>
> three months after the meeting of the International Council in Porto
> Alegre, it has today published the attached call and conclusions of the
> meeting (by consensus).
> Please spread the call, e.g. post it on your websites and facebook
> pages/groups.
>
> Have a good evening,
>
> Mirek
>
> ________________________________________
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> list named ‘WSFDiscuss’ started in 2005 - is an open, unmoderated, and
> self-organising forum for the exchange of information and views on the
> experience, practice, and theory of social and political movement at any
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>
> ____________________________
>
> Jai Sen
>
> Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of
> International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of
> Ottawa
>
> jai.sen at cacim.net
>
> Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on
> unceded and unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900)
>
> CURRENT / RECENT publications :
>
> Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – *The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our
> Dance*. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press
> <http://www.pmpress.org/>
>
> Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – *The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us
> Move ?* (Indian edition). New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration
> with OpenWord and PM Press.  Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN
> <https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387280101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522884070&sr=8-2&keywords=movements+of+movements+jai+sen>
> , MOM1Flipkart
> <https://www.flipkart.com/the-movements-of-movements/p/itmf3zg7h79ecpgj?pid=9789387280106&lid=LSTBOK9789387280106NBA1CH&marketplace=FLIPKART&srno=s_1_1&otracker=search&fm=SEARCH&iid=ff35b702-e6a8-4423-b014-16c84f6f0092.9789387280106.SEARCH&ppt=Search%20Page>,
> and MOM1AUpFront <http://www.authorsupfront.com/movements.htm>
>
> Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – *The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us
> Move ?*.  New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press.  Ebook and
> hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
>
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> ** Inspired by the World Social Forum, WSMDiscuss – the successor to a
> list named ‘WSFDiscuss’ started in 2005 - is an open, unmoderated, and
> self-organising forum for the exchange of information and views on the
> experience, practice, and theory of social and political movement at any
> level (local, national, regional, and global), including the World Social
> Forum.  Join in ! **
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