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First Uncorrected Draft,
São Paulo. 27.2.02
Comments welcome, as also publication interest
After the 2nd World Social Forum in Porto Alegre:
Peter Waterman
waterman@antenna.nl
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/glosodia
www.antenna.nl.~waterman/
Originally intended as the final one of seven reports from the Second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, early 2002, this paper reflects on the implications for the international trade union movement and Left of this 60,000-strong international festival. The reflections concern the analytical, theoretical and strategic implications of the first major international movement of the era of a globalized and informatized capitalism – indeed, the first major global social movement. Considered in turn are:
Originally intended as the final one of seven reports from the Second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, early 2002, this paper reflects on the implications for the international trade union movement and Left of this 60,000-strong international festival. The reflections concern the analytical, theoretical and strategic implications of the first major international movement of the era of a globalized and informatized capitalism – indeed, the first major global social movement. Considered in turn are: 1. The Forum's final declaration; 2. The impact of the Forum on the Left as an 'old social movement'; 3. Its implications for feminism as a 'new social movement'; 4. The meaning of 'Left' and the necessity for a re-conceptualisation raised by the Forum; 5. The strategy problem the international unions still imply for the global justice movement; 6. Moving unionism from an organisational to a communicational logic; 7. The need for a political-economy of global civil society construction.
The source for most of the propositions below is a long report on International Labour at the 2nd World Social Forum (Waterman 2002a). This is accessible on the net (on the Global Solidarity Dialog site) and, eventually, I hope, in print. Essential sources are indicated below. I refer the interested and motivated to the earlier paper for additional sources.
The 'Call of Social Movements' (CSM 2000, see Appendix 1) issued by a so-far unidentified alliance of such at the end of the Forum, represents the most forceful declaration so far of what it itself calls a 'global movement for social justice and solidarity'. It is a declaration of global war against neo-liberal and corporate globalization, including the globalization of warfare. It identifies most of the major negative impacts of the hegemonic model, it identifies the collective interests and identities thus negatively affected, it identifies with their struggles and demands, it declares that solidarity comes out of the diversity of democratic identities and forces, it proposes a humane, principled and ethical alternative to neo-liberalism, it makes an extended address to labor (not only male, industrial, urban or unionized labor), its needs and demands. It thus represents not only a challenge to the corporations, the (inter-)state organizations, the religious and economic fundamentalists, and their academic and media apologists. It also represents a proposal to which all democratic forces can, or should, respond.
Unionists favoring global justice and solidarity, can campaign for the adoption of this document within their organizations, at every level. And, at the same time, unions and other labor movement bodies, can respond to the CSM, specifying their objections or additions.
There may be such objections, from the Left internationally, stating, for example, that the document is not socialist, or that it does not identify capitalism as the enemy, or that it does not attack imperialism, that it is Eurocentric, that it is 'reformist', or 'palliative', leading to merely a gentler, kinder capitalist alternative (Carotenuto 2002) Whilst such criticism may be justified, and will anyway be part of a necessary dialog, a condemnation on such grounds would be one that fails to recognize 1) the international/ist achievement this document represents, and 2) that the development of social movements is not determined by the ideological rectitude of leaders, but, if radically-democratic and expanding in appeal, a process of social self-education.
If, on the other hand, there is criticism that the document was produced out of sight of the Forum, by a self-appointed institutional, or intellectual, or whatever, elite - which may have been the case - then there can be a struggle to ensure, at the 3rd Forum, that a further such document be formulated in the spirit of the participatory democracy the present one favors. There is, in any case, no obstacle to more-radical (or moderate) others producing their own alternative such documents within the Forum.
If, finally, it is felt that the CSM is short on alternatives, then critics should ensure this is not the case in the future. I, for one, consider it is extremely weak on economic alternatives, especially given the growing number of such experiments in which working people are involved worldwide. Brazilian and Argentinean labor movements have been rather active here. And, given the large number of sessions (almost 20) in the Forum on the 'economy of solidarity', the absence of this from the CSM is striking (for an overview of economic alternatives to capitalism, see Quijano 2001, apparently a contribution to Sousa Santos 2001). The same goes for the issue of a guaranteed minimum income (Euzeby 2000), as a means of overcoming marginalization, increasing demand, undermining labor market competition and enhancing social solidarity. Indeed, the whole issue of emancipation from capitalist work (Gorz 1999) needs to be on the agenda of the next Forum if capitalism, rather than neo-liberalism, is to be identified and challenged.
The WSF, and the movement it both represents and shapes, already has the power to transform the thinking and acting of the Old Left, whether 'revolutionary' or 'reformist'. This is because both of these terms have lost much meaning and effect over the last two or three decades. 'Revolutionary' meant insurrectionary, and those who – despite the miserable results of previous insurrections – still argued for a sudden, total and irreversible social transformation, were increasingly condemned to self-isolation. 'Reformism' has itself come to mean merely a graduated (or even sudden and total) adjustment to neo-liberal globalization, either with or without a human face.
Some prominent revolutionaries, present at WSFII, may have accepted, implicitly if not explicitly, that an event and process largely funded and supported by the state (at least local) and by NGOs (previously: 'agents of incorporation and imperialism'), not only provides a useful or acceptable platform, but even a privileged space for the advance of mass interests and transformatory processes. Given the intellectual capital possessed by such veterans, and their common commitment to mass movements, their presence within the Forum could help protect it against its ongización (ngo-ization) in particular, and its incorporation into a new global capitalist project in general (Elizalde 2002). In other cases, significant vanguardist traditions seem to have embraced the global justice movement – sometimes at the price of abandoning their option for the working class and labor movement (Democracia Socialista 2000)!
The presence of numerous foreign trade union leaders, and officials of state-funded NGOs, as well as of academics concerned with the reform of inter-state organizations, reveals the appeal of the Forum to those of the reformist tradition. In so far as these have also traditionally acted as lobbyists, pressure groups, elite advocacy bodies, or intellectual advisers to ruling capitalist or state elites, this reconnection with actually-existing social movements could revive a radical, aggressive and campaigning reformism, with considerable potential for undermining an increasingly tarnished elite policy and ideology. Significant here is the positive, if qualified, support for the Forum from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC 2002). So much for the old social movements.
It is important to appreciate that the problematic relationship of this old social movement with capital and state, is not unique to labor. The ecological and feminist movements also find themselves torn between the Scylla of 'engagement' with hegemonic forces and the Charibidis?? of 'autonomy' from them. The dialectical and dialogical inter-relationship between the global justice movement in general and the feminist movement in particular was demonstrated at the Forum.
There can be no doubt of the debt of the global justice movement (including its non-violent direct action wing) owes to the women's movements and feminist thinkers of the 1970s-80s. The influence can be clearly seen within the CSM itself. Much of the thinking (on counter-power resting in a democratic diversity) and behavior (public cultural celebration and outrage) of the new movement can be traced back to the feminists. Following the twinned process of liberal democratization and neo-liberal globalization, however, much of the feminist movement became over-committed to a 'long march through the institutions' (national, regional, international). Whilst familiarization with the politics of hegemonic institutions had impact on the latter, and was essential for the development of a globally-effective feminist movement (Vargas 2000), many never seem to have arrived at their Yenan. As one feminist pointed out at the 2nd Forum, they had learned 'the language of Geneva' only to later discover that the UN institutions had been disempowered relative to the international financial ones (República de las Mujeres 2002). During the 1990s, feminist critics in the sub-continent have identified, within their movement, both the reproduction of male Leftist sectarian vanguardism and, much more significantly, an extensive process of ongización.
Some of the feminist initiatives revealed the mark of the uncompleted Long March. Thus a distributed poster demanded
'Put the Woman at the Centre',
and
'The Place of the Women is in the Leadership'.
It showed, however, not the Organizing or International Committees of the Forum, but a meeting of heads of state. And an impressive (and presumably expensive) media or cultural campaign, including posters on Porto Alegre hoardings, a hot-air balloon, tee-shirts, masks, public testimonies and beautifully designed brochures, was launched against 'fundamentalisms' (Marcosur Feminist Network 2002). Whilst this campaign added 'economic' or 'market' fundamentalism to the religious, most of the testimonies concerned the religious kind. The root of religious fundamentalism in neo-liberal globalization was only pointed out by another feminist elsewhere (Correa 2002). The campaign therefore appeared to continue a Long March tradition of completing the unfinished tasks of liberal-democratic modernity, rather than recognizing and confronting the in-built and growing limitations of the latter. The campaign immediately followed, moreover, the biggest ever campaign by the US and its allies to identify fundamentalism with Islam, to identify this combination with terrorism, and to use this as a justification of war against one of the poorest countries in the world. Finally, the campaign failed to centrally address nationalist and socialist fundamentalisms.
On the other hand, the World March of Women was evidently born out of the global justice movement, and came out at the Forum as
an international feminist action in the struggle against patriarchal capitalism and its worst consequences: poverty and sexist violence. (World March of Women 2002).
Its leaflet was actually addressed to 'Building the World Social Forum', and finished with the statement that 'Without feminism a new world is not possible. Without changing the world it is not possible to change the lives of women'.
The general impact of the global justice movement on the feminist one, at least in Latin America, is suggested by the fact that the 9th Latin American and Feminist Encounter, to be held in Costa Rica, December 1-6, 2002, will be devoted to 'Active Resistance in the Face of Globalization'. And that a keynote discussion statement concerning this insists that feminism has to (re?) connect itself with the Left if it is to have a message for poor women (Facio 2002).
Despite agreement with the above sentiment, and recognition that many involved with the global justice movement would consider that what is occurring is a revival or re-invention of the Left, I would argue the value of re-conceptualizing the matter in terms of social emancipation (Rethinking Social Emancipation website, Sousa Santos 2001, Waterman 2002b). This is not so much because 'Left' is as old as the Constituent Assembly of the French Revolution in pre-industrial Europe, since 'social emancipation' is even older. It is because the Left has been the 'counter-culture of capitalist modernity' and been long dependent on that against which – within which - it has posed itself. A third component of the international Left, Radical-Nationalism or Thirdworldism (Carotenuto 2002), has also lost almost all meaning and clout, with some of its more socially-committed elements seeking either rescue by or control of the new movement which surpasses it in breadth of appeal and depth of understanding as well as in ethical universalism.
Whilst the presence of such traditional Lefts at Porto Alegre revealed their recognition of the importance of social movements, and even a growing understanding of the value of their autonomy in relationship to states, parties and unions, the Left parties, particularly those of Latin America, were evidently hoping to create some kind of international Left party forum on the model of the well-established Forum of Sao Paulo (Schvartz 2002). This child of the Brazilian Partido de los Trabalhadores (PT), which meets regularly in different cities of Latin America, has just as regularly demonstrated the in-built restrictions of the party form. To say that it has had trouble coming to terms with the majority of the Latin American population (women), and with feminism as its emancipatory expression, would be to radically understate the problem. These are nationally-defined political parties, whilst the movement they are currently running behind is more defined by collective interests, identities, problems or propositions of an increasingly global nature. There can, of course, be no reason why such parties should not organize an International Left Political Party Forum, on the lines of the World Parliamentary Forum that sponsored the discussion on the party-movement relationship at Porto Alegre. It is simply that one would rather be somewhere else when they are deciding which parties are Left enough (but not too Left) to join their forum, and which party represents the Left in India, China or the USA. (We already know which party it considers to represent the Left in Cuba).
The case for 'emancipation' rests on the necessity of liberating the global social movements and global civil society (other equally problematic terms!) from the collective subjects ('Working Class', 'Third World', 'Nation', 'People') the ideologies (57 varieties of fratricidal claimants to the socialist throne) and forms (the party, the union) within which the Left has become increasingly imprisoned over the last 200 years. What began as a movement for emancipation from wage-slavery became increasingly one for regulation of relations between labour and capital/state (cf Sousa Santos 1995), including the regulation of official ideology, of follower identity, of membership rights. Whilst parties, unions, parliaments, and the nation-states to which they relate, will continue to exist (and attempt to reduce social movements to their narrow dimensions), Porto Alegre demonstrates that the innovatory or central issues, forces, forms and alternatives have moved to places and spaces which the institutional Left cannot (yet?) reach.
In the time and space of a globalized, networked, informatized capitalism (Castells 1996-8), the focus for social movements, and the movement of society, becomes, increasingly, the global. Global, it should be remembered means not simply worldwide but holistic - thus also allowing for, recognizing and empowering the local and the locale (Escobar 2000). The movements take the network form (Castells and Escobar again). They are increasingly present in the arena of culture, communication and the media. And they broaden out the arenas of struggle from the political-economic to the surpassing of capitalist, statist, patriarchal, heterosexual, westocentric, racist and other alienating relationships within society, amongst ourselves and within ourselves. Would it not therefore be more fruitful to discuss such matters in terms of emancipation than of the Left? Would this not increase the appeal to those whose experience of one or more of the Lefts has been either disappointing or, pace Marx, alienating?
In discussion of what I have been here calling the 'global justice movement', but which others call the 'anti-globalization', 'anti-corporate', 'anti-capitalist' movements, or 'global civil society', various attempts have been made at conceptualizing this new and amorphous being.
Significant is that none of these uses the language of Left (Right, or Centre), and that, in practice, each of these categorizations cuts across the Left 'as we know it', the Left of a national-industrial-(anti)colonial-capitalism now passing into history. (Indeed, I only know of one typology that includes 'Leftist', this being van Ree 2001. In so far, however, as this sees the problem in terms of two binary opposites, with Leftist and Rightist on the one axis, and Counterglobalism and Antiglobalism on the other, it would seem to me trapped within a set of two binary oppositions that might be shared by the Left but hardly allow for an understanding of its present dilemma).
I will, of course, continue to find myself using and engaged with the discourses of the Left and of Socialism, particularly when anyone attacks them, but my feeling is that a discussion of emancipation in and against a globalized and networked capitalism might re-open also the discussion of utopia to which socialist eyes have been long closed (Panitch and Leys 1999 is a prominent exception). As are also feminist eyes, even, curiously, when they think they are talking about utopia (Macassi and Olea 2000)!
Let us assume, generously, that the 60-70,000 at Porto Alegre in some way 'represent' 60-70 million people. But the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, alone, has 157 million! 100-200 million organized in trade unions represents the largest organized mass constituency the global justice movement could possibly win.
Given, however, the 100 or more years of union entrenchment within what I have called national, industrial, (anti)colonial capitalism; given, further, the profound ambiguity this international movement demonstrates even at Porto Alegre, in the face of neo-liberal globalization and the global justice movement; how can the latter impact on the former in the most effective manner?
The answer, it occurs to me, is in every possible way. Indeed, also in ways so far considered impossible or even unimagined (suggestions welcome).
The last and least way would be through leadership negotiation – one favored by leading international unionists, and possibly by some leading figures from the global justice movement (Waterman 2001b). The unionists may be thinking in terms of some sort of compromise with, and possibly a commitment by, the movement (on 'spheres of influence'?, on 'non-intervention'?, on a 'division of labour'?). There is, however, no way the global justice movement could do this, without institutionalizing itself, and becoming a union-look-alike, capable of either ignoring or controlling its own suspicious and unruly base! I do not see, further, how one could possibly reach a compromise between the past and the future (without the latter going backward), or between an old nation-state based institution addressed to negotiable issues, and a new global movement which wants, well, everything. And, in so far as there might be issues or moments in which leadership negotiation might seem justifiable, and can be justified, then one non-negotiable condition applies: that the negotiations take place in the public sphere.
Alliances and coalitions between unions and communities (variously defined) have a long history, at levels from the local to the national and the global. The presence and activity of the unions at Porto Alegre could be seen as simply continuing and furthering this practice. There is, however, an equally long history of unions instrumentalizing less-experienced, less-structured, or less single-minded others (DeMartino 1991). There seems, on reflection, little danger of this happening to the new movement, with its tradition of transparency, participatory or direct democracy, and public dialog. (Except in so far as we are talking of certain leading members or forces in the global solidarity movement, such as Attac in France, which does not – apparently - even practice representative democracy!).
Although penetration sounds invasive, imperial and phalocentric, I am thinking here more of the increasing porosity, willy-nilly, of an international union movement that previously exercised extensive sovereignty over its affiliates and their members. The decline of worker identification with unions, and the breaking down of a single identity, understood between worker and union (Catalano 1999), means an increasing union openness to whatever else is addressing worker identities and needs. In so far as these needs are also being forcefully addressed by conservative, reactionary and fundamentalist movements – some international – the importance of attention by radical democratic movements increases. (Penetration, incidentally, applies in both directions, since it also means the infection of the sometimes class-blind global solidarity movements by an international institution which does have 150-200 million fee-paying members).
Circumvention means going around. The international unions like to pretend that they are the sole representatives of labor, for example within the International Labor Organization. But neo-liberalism and globalization has meant they not only represent a declining proportion of 'organizable' workers, but that these – always a minority of working people if housekeeping is included – are a decreasing proportion of those doing industrial, service and carework for capitalism globally. The so-called 'atypical' workers are increasingly typical, and non-unionizable. But they are also increasingly organized – sometimes in bodies that call themselves unions, but increasingly in associations and international networks, supported by NGOs that are themselves often linked closely to the global justice movement. These associations of 'labor's others' are also, customarily, open to a free and equal relationship with such trade unions as do not try to instrumentalize or incorporate them. This is, in other words, an area in which friendly cooperation/competition between unions and the global justice movement would be to the benefit of both – not to speak of the workers concerned.
Dialog is both necessary and possible, between and around the unions, in the period leading up to World Social Forum III. WSF II already saw discussion of the union-movement relationship. And this only continues a process that began, if somewhat stiffly, in Bangkok, early 2001 (Waterman 2001??). Whilst the CSM might itself provoke face-to-face dialog at local or national level, the obvious channel for a worldwide dialog would, of course be the internet. Whilst a reach to, or involvement of, the union (and movement) base obviously requires print or audio-visual publications, or could be carried out through union and community educational activity, could one not hypothetically reach 500-1,000 top and middle-level union and movement activists through the internet? And whilst this might seem to confine discussion to an elite, and to be biased to the North, a lively discussion on the matter, with even 50 active contributors and 500 passive readers would still represent a breakthrough. There are relevant experiences here, with the ILO/ICFTU …… (??) – though this is something more to be learned from than repeated (w ???). Such a site, combining discussion with files of longer papers and an archive, could be run as a bi- or tri-lingual (English, Portuguese/Spanish) email service, using the free Yahoo service. Or it could be hosted by one or other union, or a pro-union site, or by a site of one or other movement, providing this was one in which possible contributors would have confidence. Union and movement journalists, magazines and educators could translate the electronic messages into accessible forms. The exercise could be seen as an experiment and could also be a matter of discussion at the following Forum. (I have a feeling that the above argument has been infected by one I do not have at hand: it should be checked for what it might add (Brecher, Costello and Smith 2000)).
Although the global justice movement is way in front of the international trade union organizations in its feeling for the increasing centrality of commercial media, communication and culture, this is not demonstrated in the 'Call of Social Movements', nor too much at Porto Alegre itself.
This may be a reflection of NGO, union (CUT Brazil) and party (PT) influence on the Forum, since these do not necessarily represent the cutting edge of cultural activity within the global justice movement as a whole.
The privileged space for such cultural activity may rather be the direct-action tradition, demonstrated, literally, in the protests against neo-liberal globalization. A privileged form/site for such has to be the Indy Media Center (IMC), which sprang to life, as a combination of media-savvy US electronic media operations during Seattle in 1999. This has now become a coordinated international network of rather professional multi-media sites, with a number of such in, for example, Latin America. This represents a potent force for the global justice movement. And it could be also be potent in engaging the trade union organizations, or at least those union activists open to such.
International union, or pro-union, media of communication remain, to varying degrees, dependents of unions, in either a material or a moral sense. International labor media, whilst sometimes of professional quality, tend to be limited by some notion of service to an organization. The pro-union media, produced either by individuals or groups beholden to the unions, tend to fail in their potential of broadening out beyond the functions of information and propaganda. They thus reflect the unions back to themselves, rather than placing them in the real world of globalized capitalism, labor and social movement struggles. Coverage of the global justice movement in general, and of the World Social Forum in particular, is thus likely to do little more than echo union positions. (Check this on one of the most sophisticated international labor sites, LabourStart). They are at their weakest in doing what the internet is most revolutionary in doing - promoting debate, discussion and dialog. In comparison with Indy Media, at either international or national level, they appear provincial.
This does not mean that sites close to the global justice movement are likely to have much impact amongst even those labor unions and activists most open to such. This would require an explicit recognition of the importance of labor and unions to the movement, and specific approaches to the existing independent labor sites, to labor questions and to the unions themselves. (For a case of a social movement site that has so far ignored the unions, see the Comunidad Web de Movimientos Sociales, and León, Burch and Tamayo 2001). The same goes for the cultural and communications activists within the global justice movement more generally.
The point here is not simply a matter of understanding the extent to which power and empowerment are shifting to the places where understandings and feelings are created. It is also one of recognizing that the way unions have 'represented' workers is one that decreasingly fits them. What is at issue here is not 'representation' in a conventional political sense, but 're-presentation', in which the conventional commonsense is challenged, and in which union members and the union constituency are both stimulated and empowered. This is how the evidently 'unrepresentative' global justice movement, consisting often of tiny, self-appointed, NGOs, has become a power in the world.
The global justice movement needs not only celebration and promotion. It also needs research and critique. Whilst the movement has done much to restore the importance of the political-economy amongst the 'new social movements' of the last 20 years, the closest the Forum comes to recognition of its own political economy seems to be its search for funding, and its reporting on such.
The promotion, however, of a radical-democratic civil society, particularly at international level requires self-awareness about the role within it of money and power. If, in the most general terms, political-economy is the understanding of the manner in which the cash/power nexus influences – if not determines – social development, then we need a political-economy of the global justice movement.
Much, if not all, of the participation in the Forum, is directly or indirectly funded by Northern states and private foundations. It is not necessary to be a 'funding-mentalist' (someone funding-fixated, or who thinks that piper-payers totally determine tunes played) to recognize that presence, activity and power in this global-civil-society-in-the-making is in large part a function of access to and the distribution of such funding. The priorities of funding agencies tend to provide parameters for the activities and orientations of recipients. NGOs and trade unions dependent on state or foundation funding tend to be coy about reporting and discussing this fact (the development cooperation of the US unions is 90 percent dependent on the US state). This is now the commonsense in the world of development funders and recipients.
At this moment, the funding agencies may be relatively enthusiastic about the Forum (though I understand that there was anxiety amongst Forum organizers when a major European funder of WSF I appeared to be less enthusiastic about WSF II). But what happens if the Forum becomes more radical, or even makes sources of funding a public issue?
To what extent is the whole project of 'global civil society construction' dependent on state and foundation funders in Northern liberal democracies? In one case at WSF II it was clear that there was a conflation of notions of 'global civil society construction' with the foreign policy of the funding state (Rikkilä and Patomäki 2001). On the other hand, such spaces should, and some do, allow for movement autonomy within movement engagement (see again Vargas 2002).
These questions suggest a priority for both research and action. Without demonizing state funding, we need to develop principles that ensure that a radical-democratic project for global emancipation does not become reduced to an instrument for a global neo-Keynesian alternative to neo-liberalism.
History is also biography.
Having both followed and promoted the 'new labor internationalism', 'the new global solidarity' for 15 years, I found myself both overtaken and overwhelmed by the new movement. In applying to attend WSF II I discovered that I was just one individual who, being no part of any significant movement or network, and no longer having academic backing, had to pay his own way and find his own corner.
The Charter of the Forum (WSF Charter 2001), the notion that every civil anti-global voice could speak, provided me with a two-hour workshop slot (Waterman 2000c), attended by 15-20 people, of whom about half were known to me and well-qualified to contribute. I had hoped that my proposal for a workshop on the inter-relationship between globalisation, internationalism, networking and solidarity (Appendix 2) might be merged with proposals of others. This did not happen. The discussion was nonetheless lively and constructive, and the event certainly created or reinforced a network of interested people from three or four continents. Next time I will ensure that I am 'incorporated' into something with a membership of more than one.
In the absence of any notable interest in my presence, on the part of groups that had their own priorities and personnel, I decided to be an observer and a journalist, something I had once earned my living by. My formal irresponsibility for anything except my own workshop – along with my 'subject positionality', as white, western, male, middle-class, pensioned, etc – allowed me the freedom to write this piece. And, hopefully, the power to have risen above the chaos of a movement that was overtaking me. And to have possibly made a contribution to its further development.
One English poet wrote, at the time of the French Revolution, 'Joy was it in that first dawn to be alive. To be young was very heaven'. In this first dawn of global emancipation, it is not bad to be old either. It occurs to me, moreover, that we may be involved in the French Revolution of the era of globalisation. That it is a non-violent one, that it proposes the civilizing of society rather than its violent overthrow, that it aims at a revolution of everyday life - at a cultural revolution such as Lenin sought as his revolution was going wrong - is a sign of maturity. The old idea of a 'world turned upside down', in one mighty and violent moment, was a sign of the incapacity of the oppressed to otherwise impose themselves on society (that incapacity being revealed shortly after each revolution). The task of today's revolutionaries is to make such revolutions unnecessary, and, therefore, the counter-revolutions that followed them impossible. That this present revolution takes place in a globalized society, and has global ambitions, suggests that the conditions for a global principle and practice of solidarity have finally been laid. This is surely less the end than the beginning of history.
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II Ciranda – 07 Documento - Call of social movements 08/02/2002 22:18
Call of social movements
In the years to come, we will organise collective mobilisations such as:
In 2002:
Other global mobilisations will take place:
In 2003:
And we will be there!
Appendix 1
Globalisation means a simultaneous stretching and intensification of all social relations – economic, political, military, gender, ecological, cultural/ communicational - creating for the first time a meaningfully global society. This is a process that began long before capitalism and will continue after. It is also, actually, something that the major religions, secular humanist and socialist traditions have always sought. Under a neo-liberal capitalist hegemony, of course, globalisation bears the traits of the old imperialism, but has implied a dramatic intensification of all the contradictions of capitalism. This therefore means that it has also produced and enabled an intensification of opposition to neo-liberalism, which is now pretty much worldwide.
Precursors to internationalism can be found in religious universalism, in enlightenment cosmopolitanism, before taking shape in the C19th as labour and socialist internationalism. Inter-nationalism, however, as the name implies, was a relationship between nation-states, nationalities, nationalisms, nationalists. Despite heroic efforts and achievements, it became increasingly attenuated and hollow during the C20th, until it no longer moved anyone or anything. Its contemporary successor is something best understood as a global solidarity movement, in the sense that it addresses global problems (of which those of nations/nationalities are but one part), and that it addresses them holistically (neither isolating one struggle from, nor prioritizing one, over others).
Networking is a relational form that has been the most common one throughout the ages, but was marginalised in the age of organized industrial capitalism. With computerization the network has become the dominant relational form, to the point that globalisation is inconceivable without it. Our present period is therefore most usefully conceived as a globalised networked finance and services capitalism (GNC for short). Whilst networking would seem to suck all wealth and power out of locales in which people live, undermining their traditional communities and organizations, we know that its 'virtual reality' has actually created the terrain on which the new global solidarity movements depend for their speed, flexibility, reach and effect. Whilst capital, state, patriarchy, religious fundamentalisms and racism can use the web, the movement that lives within and from it is the new radical-democratic and internationalist social one.
The notion of solidarity is also contained, in its historically specific forms, within all notions of community, universalized by the major religions, and forming part of the secular trinity of the French Revolution (limited as 'brotherhood', and eventually by the nation-state). 'Solidarity', however, is the forgotten term in this secular trinity, never theorized even by the socialists, reduced, finally to a token. In the age of globalization, however, we are condemned to 'solidarity with others', to 'solidarity with distant strangers', if we are ourselves to survive. Our new global solidarity, however, has to rethought in network (communicational, cultural) terms, and it has to become at least as sophisticated as the GNC it seeks to defend people against, and to eventually surpass. Solidarity needs to be specified according to at least axis, directionality, reach and depth. It also needs to be differentiated in terms of at least Identity, Substitution, Complementarity, Reciprocity, Affinity and Restitution. Each of these carries part of the meaning of Solidarity, each of them alone only carries part. A restoration of this ethical principle to pride of place amongst the values of emancipatory movements would provide them with something no capitalist, no state, can either reduce to a commodity, nor claim as its own.
It is in the articulation of internationalism, networking and solidarity that emancipatory power rests in the era of globalisation.
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