Newsclick in Tunis: Special Report on WSF 2013 Opening

The World Social Forum 2013 kicked off this year on 27th March with tens of thousands of people marching through the heart of Tunis.

This is the first time the World Social Forum is being held in an Arab country and given the timing, this has obvious significance. After the Arab Spring – and the overthrow of the dictatorial regimes of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, the struggle, with regard to the direction these societies will take, continues. The WSF coming to Tunisia could bring together forces that may help the Arab world break free of the global neo-liberal agenda, and its alliance with the US, Israel and the Gulf-Saudi-Qatar monarchies.

The march began in Habib Bourguiba Avenue, at Place 14th January 2011; the date marks the Tunisian revolution which overthrew Ben Ali. Ironically, the same area is heavily guarded by police and ringed with barbed wire – to protect the French Embassy at one end and the Ministry of the Interior on the other.

More than 30,000 participants from nearly 5,000 organisations in 127 countries had already registered before the forum began. Many more were expected to register during the course of the forum. The activities include more that 1,000 workshops and also a large number of cultural events.

The legendary singer Gilberto Gil, who sang in the opening of the WSF in Mumbai, had the crowds breaking into spontaneous dance during the opening.

The speakers in the opening ceremony included Besma Khalfaoui, widow of Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaïd, who was killed in front of his house in Tunis last month.

The World Social Forum started in 2001, Porto Alegre, Brazil as an alternate forum for social movements – an alternative to the World Economic Forum, the meeting place of the world's political and business elite at Davos. In recent years, many have been of the opinion that the Forum is running out of steam. But the Tunis Forum makes it clear – from the sheer number of people attending – that WSF remains an important space for the global Left to meet, discuss and chalk out alternate strategies. Equally striking was the range of participation – the presence of a wide variety of groups, countries and different kinds of movements. India, for instance, was represented in the Forum by as many as 200 odd activists.

And in reflection of the importance of the women's struggle in Arab countries, particularly in post-Mubarak and post-Ben Ali Tunisia, the opening of the forum had only women speakers. In both places, Islamist forces have sought to capture political power and push their retrogressive agendas.

The forum in Tunisia is important, not only because it is taking place after the events of Arab spring, but also because of the clash between the forces of progress and reaction in the arena of mass politics. Under Ben Ali and Mubarak, all forms of mass politics were banned, as they are today in the monarchies of the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Arab world.

In the recent past, the Left, and secular institutions and individuals, have been attacked in Tunisia. So has the Tunisian version of Islam, which is rejected by the Salafist streams. Tunisia has a vibrant civil society – with one of the oldest and most well-organised trade union movements in the region. In addition, there are strong student, theatre and cultural movements. Together, these have been fighting for political space and against those who would, in the name of Islam, like to impose their narrow Saudi Arabian Wahabi version. The struggle has not been about what kind of society post-revolutionary Tunisia should build, but also about the kind of Islam that should continue to be practised inTunisia.

The Social Forum, by bringing activists from all over the world together, also underlines the commonality of problems we face today – the various battles to be fought against the Christian right, the Hindu right, the Zionists and the Wahabi version of Islam. All these can be said to “share” a set of values. All are comfortable with neo-liberal capital; all see the Left as their main enemy. The Social Forum in Tunis poses a challenge to all participants: do we focus on the discussion and analysis of these forces and the neo-liberal world within which they operate? Or do we also create structures within the Social Forum that can respond to such ideological challenges?

Within the Social Forum, a serious debate has been raging about the usefulness of existing structures. Some have suggested dissolving whatever structures WSF currently has, since they are controlled by a small number of organisations. They have suggested that individuals with a mass base should take the initiative and assume leadership of the Forum. Others have felt that this would, in effect, mean that the Forum will be taken over by an even smaller coterie who would “anoint” these leaders. A number of meetings have been called within the Tunisian forum to resolve these and other issues.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick