North Americans are in a minority at the World Social Forum, reports Samuel Loewenberg.
As the fifth annual World Social Forum began its round of meetings, delegates from around the world shook off their giddiness from the previous night's concert opening party and prepared to get down to business. Like its establishment counterpart, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this massive gathering is more than anything a place to network and exchange ideas, to trade experiences and business cards.
While technically it may be a meeting of the Left, the plethora of cultures, ideologies and agenda represented here defies any simplistic categorisation.
"It's inspiring, so many people from so many parts of the world coming together to share their experiences. It gives you strength to keep working," said Maija Nilson, a 23-year-old Swede who is working with an NGO in Chile that helps poor children.
"The forum is a way to know that you are not working in a vacuum," said Gururaja Budhya, who works at a women's rights organisation in Shimoga Karnakakusrate, India. At last year's forum, which was held in Mumbai (Bombay), Mr Budhya says he "met people from different countries working on the same issues. I encountered activists from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Europe. We kept in touch. It was empowering."
Dozens of panels meet each day. Among the opening day's offerings: a pan-Latin American panel of farming groups discussed strategies for agrarian reform; a Brazilian-led meeting on women and sustainable development; anthropologists discussed the effect of globalisation on human rights; and an organisation representing black Catholic lesbians led a discussion on racism, sexism, and homophobia. More than 100,000 advocates, intellectuals, and indigenous people have arrived in this southern Brazilian port city from throughout Latin America, Europe and Asia. North Americans, surprisingly, are in a minority. Canadian political scientist Elizabeth Smythe, who has attended numerous social forums, attributes the absence of people from the US and Canada to a culture that "deliberately tries to depoliticise inequality".
Despite rumours that he would not make a big public address at the forum because of anger by the Left at his austere economic policies, Brazilian President Ignacio "Lula" da Silva did end up speaking to a stadium audience yesterday morning, composed mostly of his own supporters, according to reports. While one section of the crowd jeered him, other protesters were kept out.
The forum kicked off on Wednesday night with a massive march, a sort of politicised Mardi Gras parade, with sections devoted to various social movements. There were women's rights organisations in bright purple wigs, middle-aged education workers, rain forest activists carrying coffins and giant puppets, followed by advocates in traditional Indian dress representing their country's "untouchables". The parade was kilometres long, snaking through Porto Alegre as crowds cheered from footpaths, bridges and homes.
Tens of thousands of people converged on one of the city's central parks. The gathering was part political convention, part Woodstock, part Carnival. People wearing T-shirts showing People held banners with slogans like "Education is Inclusion" and "Davos No, Samba Yes".
When Gilberto Gil took the stage, the crowd went wild. One of the country's most loved musicians, he was jailed by the military dictatorship in the 1960s because his politics were too radical. Today he is culture minister in the Lula government.
Social change is a slow process, acknowledged Jurema Werneck, a 43 year old physician from Rio who has attended the forums since the beginning. And while she is sometimes disheartened at the right-wing, aggressive stance of the US recently, she still thinks that meetings like the World Social Forum play a crucial role. "Things would be worse if we didn't do this. We have to keep fighting."