Is Another World Possible?

The World Social Forum is a consortium of anti-globalization activists founded in Brazil in 2001. Since then activists from around the globe started to meet annually in conjunction with World Economic Forum to oppose and educate people with the evils of New World Order. This year the organizers tried to spread the agenda by organizing it in three countries, in fact three continents. Africa: Mali (January-23), Latin America: Caracas, Venezuela (January 24-29) and Asia: Karachi, Pakistan (March 24-29).

WSF is a mega event and whenever it is held it gets the limelight of the media from all over the globe. In Karachi, it was supposed to be held in January but because of the earthquake it was postponed by two months.

About 15,000 delegates from outside Karachi sprawled towards the city of lights, including 5000 from 60 countries. Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Brazilians, Nepalese, Sri Lankan, French, Burmese, every variety of colour, caste and creed was found at the event. And well, the event was not just like an expo or a variety show but it was composed of over 400 seminars. Rallies, theatre activities, walks, melas and several colourful programmes added flavour.

The opening ceremony started with the folk performances from all provinces and opening remarks by Tariq Ali (UK), Asma Jehangir (Pakistan), Moeema Miranda (Brazil), Gustav Masia (France), Jamal Juma (Palestine), Irene Lean (Ecuador), Jose Miguel Hernandez (Cuba) and Basil Manning (South Africa).

Delegates from 50 countries attended the opening session chaired by Indian MP Nirmala Deshpande. "We want peace and justice in the world, we are against war," Brazilian delegate, Moeema Miranda, told the gathering. "We can achieve this by uniting ourselves and the World Social Forum must move on," she added.

Asma Jehangir lamented the current military leadership for being hypocrites and pro-west, she challenged the concept of a free market. She enthused positively that we could empower ourselves and fight against the hegemony enforced on us.

The WSF representative from Brazil, Moeema Miranda, said: “WSF offers opportunities to bring together popular forces from varied constituencies to develop constructive alternatives that will defend the majority of world population from attack on fundamental human rights and lead them to move on to break power concentrations and extend domains of justice and freedom.”

Pakistan’s first WSF meeting was held under tight security after the latest suicide blasts in this volatile southern city that killed a US diplomat and four other people this month. "It’s good that despite the blast a lot of foreign delegates are attending the meeting," chief organizer Karmat Ali said.

Delegates held discussions on issues ranging from HIV and Aids, Indo-Pak cricket for peace, Youth, Women’s liberation to highly publicized series of discussions on the Kashmir issue. There were paintings, exhibitions, tableaux, theatre shows, and walks etc. There were numerous rallies with periodic intervals. But the best part is that the forum was attended by people from all walks of life and in several sessions you could view a woman from a rural village from interior Sindh sitting next to highly modern elite lady. This had taken me literally by surprise and this is the amalgamation our nation was looking for since ages and WSF paved the way for this coming together of people from different classes, backgrounds and ideologies.

But there seemed to be a lack of coordination among the organizers, the kit was not provided on the first day and when it arrived the event schedule was not given. There were no banners or boards guiding the public and one had to take a round of the whole area to find the required spot. Many commented that the event had become more of a political party and NGO meet and the real issues were being ignored. Even clashes among representatives from different provinces were witnessed in some sessions.

The schedule was not followed and the halls were not maintained properly. Everything was marred with dust. Even a female speaker belonging from a NGO fainted. There were no dust-bins and the eating places looked more or less like garbage dumps by the end of each day. The organizers should be proactive and farsighted enough. If the organizers and WSF people can’t arrange their event then how could they run Another World??

There was no adequate publicity of the event. Many NGOs and intellectuals complained that they wanted to participate but didn’t know how to register their discussion groups. The website holds very incomprehensive information about the event. The camps where the foreign volunteers and visitors were accommodated were also not properly managed.

But overall the event paved the way for many foreigners to visit Pakistan for the first time and interact with Pakistani people. It really corrected their views as Pakistan is often seen as a place like Afghanistan where fighting takes place all the time. It was also a colourful fusion of different classes and cultures. The visitors from interior and provincial capitals must have learned a lot and created a good network when they returned home. No doubt it was a proud achievement for Pakistani activists who had lobbied hard to host the event.

Every year Pakistan should become an avenue for such global events aiming at empowering society and the individual in general.