WAL-MART: DOWN ON THE NEW PLANTATION PAGE 10

JANUARY 2006

Never give up on that other world

BY IGNACIO RAMONET

GALERIE PAULE FRIEDLAND ET ALEXANDRE RIVAULT, P ARIS

FRED KLEINBERG: Red Wind (1999)

THIS year the World Social Forum

(WSF), a forum for alternative thinkers the world over, is convening

twice. Different venues and dates, but both meetings will be decisive: in Bamako, Mali, from 19-23 January, and in Caracas, Venezuela, from 24-29 January. An important

political meeting is scheduled for 18 January, the day before the Bamako forum convenes,

and the 50th anniversary of the famous Bandung conference.

The meeting is described as an international day of refl ection, successor to the

tricontinental political movement, and will focus on rebuilding the internationalism of

peoples and an anti-imperialist front. Some 100 intellectuals and representatives of social

movements from the third world and elsewhere are due to attend.

The idea of organising a social forum each year started in the immediate aftermath of the

1998 victory over the villainous proposal for a multilateral agreement on investments; the

creation in France of Attac (association for the taxation of fi nancial transactions and for the

aid of citizens); and the success of the Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade

Organisation summit. At the time, it seemed that the march of liberal globalisation could

be stopped in its tracks. Tactically, it was necessary to establish

a symmetrical but politically contrasting counterpart to the World Economic Forum

in Davos, Switzerland, held each year in late January. That summit attracts political lead

ers from North and South, eager to prove their allegiance, and ready to sell off their countries’

assets with promises of maximum return on inward investment, never mind the environ

mental and social costs. The decision to convene a social, not an

economic, forum on the same dates followed. Not in the North but in the South. The fi rst World Social Forum was in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where locally elected politicians

had come up with the idea of participatory budgeting. The forum’s theme was taken from

its publication: Another World Is Possible. That expression produced the concept of

altermondialism, a multifaceted movement encompassing the whole range of opponents

to liberal globalisation. The WSF is an innovative and visionary

political project. Its aim is to bring together in

one place, with associations, NGOs and trade

unions as intermediaries, people who genuinely represent all the world’s citizens opposed

to globalisation. The victims of catastrophes of globalisation are specifi cally included.

The political objective underpinning the forum is radical in its modernity. Whereas the

United Nations provides a forum for states or governments — the structures of power,

the WSF aims to bring together, for the fi rst time in history, an embryonic assembly repre

sentative of all humanity. It has had a defi nite strategic objective: to thwart the process of

liberal globalisation that is breaking up societies, ruining the most fragile economies and

destroying our environment. But, over time, that objective has become blurred and some

people have forgotten about it. That was clear at Porto Alegre in 2005

when it became apparent that the original idea had lost momentum. Many felt that the

forum had to be more than a venue for discussions that did not lead to action: a minimum

platform was needed so that words could be transformed into actions. The platform would

provide meaning and design for alternatives to neoliberal proposals, incorporating the

common objectives of citizens from North and South. If it failed, the forum risked losing

political credibility and becoming a showpiece for civil society in which, despite the best

intentions, good governance would become the main focus of attention.

This realisation led to a return to the off ensive and provoked a major debate on the

role and future of social forums: global, continental, national and local. The debate is critical

for the future of altermondialism. It will be continued in Bamako and Caracas; and will be

particularly impassioned in the Venezuelan capital where, for the fi rst time, the WSF will

come into direct contact with the reforms introduced by President Hugo Chávez.

The atmosphere in Latin America is aff ected by the recent success in Mar del Plata, Argen

tina, of opponents to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, and also by the electoral

victory of Bolivia’s Evo Morales in December. In Caracas people will be able to see for them

selves that globalisation is not inevitable. It is possible to reverse the trend, if you

keep faith with the principles of justice and solidarity. TRANSLATED BY JULIE STOKER

THE MIDDLE EAST AFTER SHARON

Palestine loses

the initiative

Ariel Sharon has been the incarnation of Israeli nationalism: a general and prime minister, heir to David Ben-Gurion’s socialist, and Vladimir Jabotinsky’s revisionist, Zionism. He tried through war and murder to make the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the foundation of settlements irreversible. The intifadas persuaded him to don the mantle of man of peace to disarm international pressure and preserve the essence of Israel’s hold on Palestine: with the withdrawal from Gaza, he managed to put the roadmap in formaldehyde as he accelerated the building of settlements and the separation wall around future bantustans. This, and the way in which he rallied the international community to his vision of the paths to a political settlement, won him unprecedented popularity in Israel. His departure from the political scene will radically alter the Middle East. It makes the Palestinian legislative elections more uncertain. It increases the unknowns in the Israel elections in March. Will Sharon’s Kadima party survive? We do not know if Israelis who were preparing to vote for it to support him will return to their Labour or Likud roots. Nor do we know if Labour under its new leader, peacenik Amir Peretz, will win wider support among the working class. Nor, if the new Knesset has a majority that favours negotiating a peace accord with the Palestinians, do we know which leaders will have the authority to impose it. But we do know that time is running out if we are to avoid a third intifada.

BY HUSSEIN AGHA AND ROBERT MALLEY

FROM the start, the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, rested on an uncertain gamble,

and the odds are getting worse. Almost a year since his election, violence has resumed,

the daily lives of Palestinians in the occupied territories have not improved, and lawlessness

reigns supreme. Legislative elections, already once postponed and rescheduled for January,

remain in question, while internal divisions within Fatah, and between Fatah and Hamas,

have reached new heights. Meanwhile the Palestinian leader’s call to resume peace

negotiations falls on deaf ears (1).

On the other side, the Israeli prime minis

ter, Ariel Sharon, was stronger than ever until his recent second stroke. With his new party,

Kadima, he was not merely at the centre of political events, he was the centre: at one with

his own people, expressing their deepest aspirations, and also in harmony with the interna

tional community, which danced to his tune. The story of the Israeli-Palestinian con

fl ict is a narrative of two contrasting national movements. While there is increasing chaos,

dissension and paralysis on the Palest inian

Continued on page 2

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Balkans: the 10 diffi cult years after the Dayton accords page 4

China: most people can’t enter the new temple of consumerism page 6

Brazil: agribusiness gets rich yet

nobody grows black beans page 8

Wal-Mart: Barbara Ehrenreich on the cult of Sam page 11

Wal-Mart: global serfs to the well-stacked shelves page 11

Downshifting the world economy is right and practical page 12

Western Sahara: Morocco’s unending problem page 14

Islamic fashion: or why a US mall couldn’t market the hijab page 16