World Social Forum Highlights Shock Doctrine in Tunisia

An earlier version of this article appeared at truthout.org:

An estimated 50,000 people from 5,000 organizations in 127 countries spanning five continents participated in the World Social Forum in Tunisia over the past week. By choosing to come together in Tunis, this year’s Forum evoked the sprit of the 2011 revolt that inspired uprisings around the world. The WSF also focused attention on the complicated status of that revolt, which in Tunisia has not brought the political or economic changes many hoped for. Conversations with local activists often focused on the recent assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaïd, and government dealings with the International Monetary Fund.

Many in the region reject the term “Arab Spring,” saying that implies a season that ends quickly, and this revolutionary wave has just begun. Samir Amin, a Marxist economist based in Senegal, calls the overthrow of dictators in Tunisia and Egypt the first step in a continuing process, but sees the new governments as scarcely an improvement. “This gigantic popular movement got rid of the dictators Ben Ali and Mubarak, but not of the system,” said Amin. “The Muslim Brotherhood who are in power in both countries are just continuing the same system…The same so-called liberal policy, the same submission to imperialism, the same social disaster.” Amin says the biggest change represented by this period is a new awareness that change is possible. “The people now, who have proved to themselves their capacity to overthrow any dictatorship, will also get rid of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he says.

Many North African participants were celebratory of the region’s revolutions, but expressed fears of the electoral rise of right wing forces, and the economic neoliberalism being pushed by their current governments. Hamouda Soubhi, an activist from Morocco and one of the members of the WSF Tunisia organizing committee, sees a moment of danger and possibility. “For us its like the beginning of the struggle,” said Soubhi. “Tunisia wants to say to the world, no more fear, we are going to change the region.”

Tunisians condemned secret deals the outgoing government was recently found to have made with the International Monetary Fund, and several I spoke to mentioned Naomi Klein's book Shock Doctrine in their description of the current crisis facing their country. “When I read about shock doctrine, I said, ‘oh my god, it’s happening to Tunisia,’” said Mabrouka Mbarek, an elected member of the Tunisian constituent assembly who has been attempting to fight these back-room deals. “They are going to stop subsidies after two years, they will increase the price of gas, they will increase the price of wheat, they will completely restructure the banking system. All of this happened without discussion without debate in the parliament.”

The hope of the 2011 uprisings has run up against the intransient forces of global capital. Mbarek pointed to similar tactics by the IMF in Cyprus. “In Cyprus the IMF was really happy to find a solution that didn't require parliamentary debate,” she said. “The fate of the Tunisian people should not be discussed between this international institution and a resigning government.”

Invoking the legacy of former Burkina Faso president Thomas Sankara, Mbarek also spoke of joining with other nations in a global movement against debt. “In Tunisia, after a revolution that was expressed upon economic and social issues, but also a will to have people’s aspirations represented, this is all falling down because we have economic policies that are not even discussed by a representative and are pushed in post-shock mode.”

Divisions Highlighted

The annual convergence also raised questions about the trajectory of these movements, as well as the continued relevance of the World Social Forum process.

The WSF, which was first held in Brazil and has featured appearances by Hugo Chavez and Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in past years, has been credited with helping to build and consolidate a broad left in South America and establish connections and shared strategy between movements around the world. However, the WSF has always been divided. There are frequent protests against the Forum from within – notably in 2007 in Nairobi, when protestors took over a food stand that they said symbolized a corporate sell-out by the Forum and a lack of accessibility to locals without means – as well as struggles by leadership over its direction.

The contradictions and conflicts of the Arab Spring were on full display. While one group held a session on strategies for overthrowing the Syrian government, there was a rally nearby in support of President al-Assad. Elsewhere in the Forum, arguments broke out over whether Libya was better off without Muammar Gaddafi. While many spoke of Islamic political movements such as Muslim Brotherhood as regressive forces, others saw political Islam as part of an anti-imperialist front. Reflecting the importance of these debates, hundreds lined up to hear remarks by Tariq Ramadan, a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies and major figure in the debate on the role of Islam in the West.

An area of the forum called the “Global Square” was organized by members of anarchist or horizontalist movements such as Occupy and 15-M in Spain, many of whom were critical of the politics of the WSF and its organizing bodies. While Occupy has vanished from US headlines, it was clear that around the world the name still resonates. When Occupy was mentioned in the opening ceremony, it brought one of the largest cheers of the night. “I really find a close connection between the Occupy movement and Tunisia,” said Mabrouka Mbarek. “It’s like Tunisia catalyzed a global movement. Suddenly everyone is courageous to occupy.”

Gender and the role of women was an underlying theme.  Forum organizers made a statement by having all the speakers at the opening ceremony be women – including a rousing speech by Besma Khalfaoui, widow of assassinated opposition leader Chokri Belaid. Organizations such as the World March on Women, an international feminist action movement, played a major role in the forum and kept these issues central. However, many panels and spaces at the Forum were male dominated – a problem that seemed to be even more true of sessions organized by Europeans as those organized by activists from other regions.

The dominant focus in the 1,000+ sessions were critiques of capitalism and imperialism, and the lens through which these struggles were viewed was a contrast with the framing at US activist convergences. For example, LGBT issues were the subject of only a handful of the estimated 1,000 sessions here, while sex worker rights, white anti-racist organizing, prison abolition, and abortion were among the subjects that could not be found here – not because of any official policy, but apparently because no organization proposed sessions on these issues. 

The movement for a free Palestine was well represented, and the Forum closed with more than ten thousand people marching in commemoration of Palestinian Land Day. While Palestine liberation was the consensus position at the Forum, there was strife between grassroots activists and those representing the political leadership in Ramallah.

While in the US Al Jazeera is often seen as a voice of the Arab Spring, North African activists also criticized the Qatar-based channel as supporting repressive regimes in the region. Shams Abdi, a young and fierce woman's rights and labor activist with the General Union Tunisian Students, refused an interview with a reporter from Al Jazeera, calling the news channel a “zionist project.”

The most public explosion of internecine conflict came during the closing social movement assembly, when members of the Morroccan delegation rushed the stage in opposition after a statement was read in support of independence for the people of Western Sahara.

The Future of The Forum

At a cost of millions of dollars and a huge amount of resources, there is an ongoing debate over whether the WSF needs to continue to exist, and if it has become compromised by the funding that organizations receive to make the gathering possible. At several sessions debating the future of the Forum, participants spoke of a need to continue working to build alliances based around shared struggles. “It is the same banks that are kicking us out of our homes that are restructuring Tunisia’s economy,” said Maria Poblet of Causa Justa/Just Cause, one of two dozen activists and organizers who participated as part of a US Grassroots Global Justice delegation, during one discussion.

At its best, the Forum represents hope for a just society. In the tens of thousands of people present – representing millions more who want to come but cannot – there is a palpable feeling of a new world being born. Hiba Laameri, a 15-year-old Tunisian girl, was among those who inspired hope through her words and presence. Laameri echoed the concerns of many Tunisians at the Forum, saying that Tunisia’s current government is pursuing a neoliberal economic agenda. “We have our freedom, we can speak. An event like this would not have been possible in Ben Ali’s time,” she said. “But capitalism is still there, imperialism is still there. Nothing’s changed socially, economically, culturally.”

Laameri was thrilled by what she experienced at the Forum and throught it would help give energy to local activists. “I’ve always been a person to see what’s wrong and I’ve always thought to myself, ‘why won’t somebody do something about that?” said Laameri. “And these days at the forum I realized I was that somebody.”

Global Left Converges in Tunisia – Day One

Tens of thousands of people marched through downtown Tunis on Tuesday in a spirited march celebrating the beginning the 13th World Social Forum – the first to be held in an Arab country. The majority of marchers were from Tunisia and neighboring nations, but there was substantial representation from Europe, as well as from across South America, Asia, and Southern Africa. An enormous annual gathering that bills itself as a “process” rather than a conference, the WSF brings together by far the largest assembly of international social movement organizations, aimed towards developing a more just and egalitarian world.

The WSF was first held in Brazil in 2001, and is billed as an alternative to the wealth and power wielded at the World Economic Forum, an elite annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland. Tuesday marked the official opening of the WSF, but official sessions start today and continue through March 30 at the El Manar University Campus. The theme of this year’s Forum is “dignity,” inspired by the movements collectively known as the Arab Spring, launched here just over two years ago.

As of last night, the WSF had reported registration by more than 30,000 participants from nearly 5,000 organizations in 127 countries spanning five continents. Since that estimate, thousands more have registered on-site. The officially announced activities include 70 musical performances, 100 films, and 1000 workshops.

Tuesday’s march traveled three miles from downtown Tunis to Menzah stadium, with chanting in multiple languages and representation from a wide variety of movements from the Tunisian Popular Front to Catholic NGOs to ATTAC, a movement challenging global finance. At Menzah stadium, an opening ceremony began at 7:30pm with female social movement leaders from Palestine, South Africa, Tunisia, and the US taking the stage, including Besma Khalfaoui, widow of Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid, who was assassinated last month. According to Forum organizers, only women were chosen for the opening as a response to the rise of conservative religious governments in the region as well as patriarchal systems around the world. “We decided this because women are the struggle in the region,” said Hamouda Soubhi from Morocco, one of the organizing committee members. “They are struggling for parity, they are struggling for their rights. The new regimes want the constitutions to be more religious, and we want to take our stand against this.”

In short speeches – each about 5 minutes in length – the women projected a vision of a global movement that was inexorably rising, as the audience roared in approval. “We are trying to hold our government accountable for what it has done and continues to do around the world,” said one of the speakers, Cindy Wiesner of Grassroots Global Justice, a US-based coalition of social movement organizations.  “Some of the most inspiring movements and people are gathered here in Tunis. Together, we can change the course of history.” Among the loudest cheers came when speakers mentioned left political leaders and movements, including the jailed Palestinian leaders Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat, as well as sustained applause for Hugo Chavez and the Occupy movement.

After the opening speeches, legendary musician Gilberto Gil took the stage. Known for his politics and musical innovation, Gil was a leader of Brazil’s tropicália musical movement of the 1960s and more recently served as Minister of Culture in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.  As a sea of people from around the world danced ecstatically, Gil played a set that ranged from his own songs to pieces by Bob Marley and by John Lennon.

Among the opening sessions this morning was a press conference led by members of La Via Campesina, an organization representing more than 200 million poor farmers from 150 local and national organizations in 70 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.  “The false solutions of the government have been affecting us worse and worse,” said Nandini Jayara, a leader of women farmers in India. “I feel the WSF is a stage for us to share our problems and work together for solutions.”

Over the past decade, the WSF has been credited with a number of important international collaborations. For example, the global antiwar demonstrations in February 15, 2003, which have been called the largest protests in history, came out of a call from European Social Forum participants. In the US, labor activists who received international attention for a successful factory take-over in 2008 at Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors factory said inspiration came from workers in Brazil and Venezuela that they met at the World Social Forum.

Among the many movements seeking to launch new campaigns and coalitions are indigenous activists who are seeking to educate activists from around the world about the problems in the climate change solutions, such as the “cap and trade” strategy put forward by the United Nations and mainstream environmental organizations. “We have to look at the economic construct that has been created in this world by rich industrialized countries and the profiteers that have created this scenario,” said Tom Goldtooth, director of Indigenous Environmental Network, an international alliance of native peoples organizing against environmental destruction. “We have ecological disaster, and that is capitalism’s doing.” Goldtooth’s organization is also seeking to raise awareness about REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), a United Nations program promoted as an environmental protection strategy that Goldtooth calls “genocidal” because it promotes solutions like carbon trading that he says will lead to mass deaths of poor people due to environmental catastrophe brought about by climate change. “We’ve come to a time where there has to be a transition to something different, Goldtooth added. “Our communities are saying we need some action now.”

Every year, some Forum attendees must overcome travel restrictions from various countries, and the WSF is also plagued by infighting from a sometimes fractured left. Among the incidents reported this year, Human Rights Watch reported that Algerian border authorities illegally barred 96 Algerian civil society activists from traveling to Tunisia. Meanwhile, in Tunis, a group identifying themselves as Tunisian anarchists said that they were boycotting the Forum, and appeared at the opening march, parading in the opposite direction of the rest of the crowd.

“For us the forum is already done. We have succeeded,” declared Hamouda Soubhi in an interview at the close of the opening ceremony. “Tomorrow will be problems, as there always are.”

Pictured above: 1) Maria Poblet of Grassroots Global Justice, 2) Crowd at opening ceremony, 3) Besma Khalfaoui, 4) Gilberto Gil.