The World Social Forum (WSF) has met regularly since its first meeting in Porto Alegre in 2001. And just as regularly, there have been analysts who have announced its demise as a relevant expression of the Global Left. And nonetheless, somehow, it continues to matter in the struggle for global justice.
The global scene has been miserable for the last decade at least, if not longer. The world is inundated by wars, big and small, that seem both unending and unendable; by horrendous cruelties about which their perpetrators boast; and by deliberate attacks on so-called safe zones. In this hell on earth, there has been only one bright light. What was called since 1948 la violencia in Colombia seemed to be coming to an end.
This is the question people left of center have been asking for some time now. In different ways, it is being posed in Latin America, in much of Europe, in Arab and Islamic countries, in southern Africa, and in northeast Asia. The question is all the more dramatic because, in so many of these countries, this follows a period when there were significant shifts leftward.
In the years to come, there may be upturns that seem to indicate that the capitalist system is functioning again. Even the level of employment in the system as a whole, the key measure of the state of the system, may rise. But such a rise cannot last long because the global situation is too chaotic.
The world media, and especially U.S. media, are following with intense interest and concern the November presidential elections in the United States. The media also are filled with explanations of the polling results, which of course vary over time. However, almost none of the coverage of the election poses the question, who does the respondent expect to win regardless of the respondent’s own preferences?
After a long struggle, the system of apartheid in South Africa was overcome. Elections based on universal suffrage were held. The chief architect of this transformation was the African National Congress (ANC). However, recent municipal elections have been widely appraised as a major electoral setback for the ANC. Why did this happen, and what next?
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019