[fse-esf] discussion_paper_ESF

[gabriel.lai at magnet.at]

NEW CHALLENGES FOR THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM 

by Leo Gabriel 

There is little doubt about it: the present economic-political-ecological 
and cultural crisis which many of us have foreseen during the last years and 
some for decades is expanding so quickly that no serious analyst can foresee 
its end. Whether they qualify it unilaterally as the crisis of the financial 
markets like the neoliberals do or the beginning of the end of the 
capitalist system like many socialists would like to interpret it, nobody 
can determine at this point the outcome of this crisis: democratic social 
reforms? violent rebellions like in France or Greece? mediacratic 
dictatorships like in Italy? or even fascistic upsurges like in several 
countries of Eastern Europe? All of them seem to be at the present moment 
equally realistic scenarios which could develop very rapidly and at the same 
time not only in Europe, but in many other parts of the world. 

The tremendous speed of these processes has caught the social movements in 
Europe and elsewhere in a difficult moment of their inner development: the 
time of spontaneous reactions on a global level which characterised the 
struggles in Seattle, Genoa, Prague and on February 15th, 2003 seems to be 
over and has given way to much weaker responses on a national and global 
level like the one against the Bolkenstein initiative in 2006, the Global 
Day of Action in January 2008 and against the perpetrators of the present 
crisis around March 28th , 2009. 

However at the same time that the potential for worldwide protests have 
somehow diminished and a deeply resented recession, depression and 
repression is expanding rapidly, the general awareness and acceptance of the 
issues brought up by the European social movements all has also broadened to 
an extent never seen before. There are more people now than ever convinced 
about the intrinsic injustices of the economic system, the betrayals of 
their governments and the impotence of intergovernmental institutions like 
the EU, the IMF or the WTO.

A gap in the quest of a new paradigm
Nevertheless there is a huge political gap between the reality of the 
victims of the crisis and those who feel endangered by it on the one hand 
and the current structure of political parties including the parties of the 
traditional and new Left on the other. It seems as if the change in 
consciousness which happens simultaneously with the upcoming of a new 
political generation has not (yet) found its corresponding expression on the 
level of national and supranational politics. The tremendous abstention in 
the last elections for the European parliament is only one proof more for 
this phenomenon. 

There is a real need for a change of the political paradigm by which people 
can actively get involved in counteracting the root causes of the present 
crisis. It is quite simply not enough to offer more or less effective 
slogans, newspaper analyses or organisational structures of a traditional 
kind. It is the time for social movements of a new type and on a broader 
scale. The people have to feel that they are involved in the process, not 
only on the days of elections or of demonstrations. This is the big 
challenge we have to face at this particular time: how can we make people 
feel that participatory democracy and economic solidarity are not just 
beautiful words but social realities they can rely upon? 

How to fill the gap between theory and practice in the ESF?
We might think that this is nothing new to the networks participating in the 
World Social Forum, the European Social Forum and all the other Social 
Forums which have developed throughout the last decade on a national, 
regional and local level. Most of them have known the rules of participatory 
democracy and practised them to a bigger or lesser extent in their everyday 
work. The principle of consensus for example, unknown by many still ten 
years ago, today is a common practice in a majority of social movements and 
networks of NGOs. 

But do we practise these principles of participatory democracy, of economic 
solidarity and of finding a consensus beyond ideologies, nationalities and 
political cultures inside the European Social Forum?  The lack of formal 
structures sometimes makes it appear that the practice necessarily would 
follow the theory, even if the reality speaks a different (body) language.  
I don´t know why, but the absolute trust in the absence of formal 
structures sometimes reminds me of the absolute trust of the liberals in the 
forces of the so called “free market”. Being a social anthropologist I 
know very well that all functioning grass roots societies like the 
indigenous cannot survive for a long time without formal structures. 

Proposal 1: European Organizing Committee
This side of the problem could be overcome quite easily by not leaving the 
task of organizing the ESF principally to the hosting country and its 
inevitable partisan quarrels, but to establish a real “European Organizing 
Committee” which reflects the diversity of culture, gender, regions and 
objectives of the European social, ecological, human rights, workers, 
unemployed, student, youth, womens etc.etc. –movements without being a 
closed decision making body in the sense of democratic representativity.  
Perhaps we will find out soon that there are several movements who never 
come to the EPAs or even to the Social Forums and we would have to look for 
them and invite them to come to fill the gap we now are not even aware of. 

Proposal 2: Assembly of the Assemblies
The other side of the problem, how to fill the gap between our political 
theory and practice is much more difficult to achieve: It refers to the very 
core of the identity of the European Social Forum as a process for dialogue 
and common actions. The World Social Forum has made a big leap forward by 
establishing in the final “Assembly of the Assemblies” a format which is 
both: democratic (in the very sense of participatory democracy) and action 
oriented. Perhaps we should not quite simply copy this format in the 
European Social Forum, but we should discuss about a way of synthesizing the 
proposals of the networks in order to express in a unanimous way the 
political will of the European Social Forum as a whole. 

Proposal 3: Towards a Network of European Movements
I still remember a phrase of Joao Pedro Stedile from the MST (Brasilian 
Landless Movement) when we talked about the coordination of a worldwide 
People´s Assembly in 1998, two years and a half before the first World 
Social Forum took place. He said referring to the social movements on a 
world scale: “Perhaps we should not to do everything together, but we have 
to find out what we need to do together and then do it” and I add now: for 
the sake of counteracting the disastrous consequences of the crisis and its 
victims; for the sake of facilitating the emergence of new political actors 
on a European scale before our enemies from the far right win the political 
battle. 

Given the present circumstances in the ESF to create such a Network of 
European Movements is not an easy task and cannot be achieved from one day 
to another. But we do not have time endlessly. At least we should create the 
perspective and make as soon as possible the first steps towards the 
construction of such a Network of European Movements which is needed so 
much, as well objectively - if we look at the political situation in Europe 
 - and subjectively - if we look at the present state of the European Social 
Forum.
In other, perhaps more radical words: the European Social Forum with all its 
richness and diversity has to become a truly European social force, if we 
really want to create another Europe, a Europe with which the people and the 
peoples can identify in all their struggles and needs. This is I think the 
big challenge we are facing in our discussions during the next EPA in 
Vienna. 

 

 

 

 

 


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