Hope in the Horizontal

by Jess Clarke

The first U.S. Social Forum (USSF) was held in Atlanta, Georgia June 27- August 1. Organized in response to the international gathering known as World Social Forum, the USSF brought together over 12,000 activists from organizations across the United States in an experiment in movement building and popular education unlike any in recent memory. Picking up where the anti-globalization coalitions of the 1990s left off, the assembled forces had the sort of momentum that was building just before the Seattle WTO protests in 1999. But today, the political agenda is far broader and the isolation by issue is less extreme. While still lacking in crucial elements of a successful social change movement, (including participation from organized workers and practicing people of faith) the forum drew participation from grassroots groups, the non-profit sector and the remnant organizations of the 20th century left.

The people participating were mostly under 40, many in their 20s. A substantial number of people were of color and the conference had a visible and audible presence from the queer and trans communities. In the only serious political setback a the forum, due to logistical and political limitations, poor people and the marginalized of Atlanta had no easy entrance point and were at times specifically excluded.

Despite some flaws, all in all it was a successful expression of hope and resilience organized around the slogan "Another World is Possible; Another U.S. is Necessary." Given appropriate nurturance and continued perseverance, this assemblage may yet hold the seeds for the development of a radical movement in the United States—but not any time soon.

Low Political Aspirations
The forum's aspirations were from a pragmatic political point of view quite minimalist. "More than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression," the website proclaims, "The USSF will provide space to build relationships, learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world."

There were no plans to launch a national campaign against a corporate target, no nascent development of an electoral party capable of challenging the current party duopoly, no national program for economic disruption of key war industries as a material contribution to peace. Delegates may have come with hopes of pushing forward such agendas, and there were several national networks that took the opportunity to convene national meetings at the forum, however there was no serious attempt to create a grand coalition.

Workshop Extravaganza
The forum process was centered on the workshop exchange. Over 1000 workshops were presented, almost all by forum registrants who also attended other folks' workshops. Every major thematic in today's social movements was represented from immigrant rights to gender liberation. Trainings in media making, messaging, organizing basics, economic analysis, undoing racism, health care access, reparations—the list is exhaustive. Were this massive horizontal exchange of information, strategy and skills training to have been conducted on a fee-driven basis it would have had an economic value of millions of dollars.

I went as part of a delegation from the Social Equity Caucus of the Bay Area, a networking group of non-profit organizations. Fellow delegates typically found that the workshops they attended were worthwhile. SEC delegate Fredricka Bryant, a young activist from Richmond California felt that "Overall the USSF youth workshops clearly prove that the youth movement is growing stronger because of the passionate youth activist fight for social justice, environmental justice, reproductive rights, and criminal justice issues."[1]

Delegate Diana Abellera, coordinator of Urban Habitat's leadership institute describes a successful workshop on Black relationships in which "emotions flooded the room from both the participants and the audience members. Anger, apologies, tears, and promises to change emerged. We could have processed what had just occurred for days."[2]

While most workshops weren't centered on such an emotional cathasis, all of the eight workshops I attended were worthwhile. From a theater image workshop from a New York City "Theater of the Oppressed" group, to a rocking session criticizing foundation funding of non-profits, my impression from talking with many delegates was that the presentations and dialogues were more often than not hitting the mark and making the connections. The logistical success of this workshop extravaganza was noted by many people and particularly appreciated by those who had gone to previous World Social Forums where disorganizations reigned.

Nonetheless logistical and political missteps were clearly visible: The community based media justice center was turned down in their request to locate in a publicly accessible homeless shelter and instead crammed into backstage dressing rooms behind a labyrinth of halls and stairways made inaccessible to even the alternative media, much less the masses; Security screeners kept many poor folks and Atlanta residents from coming into the civic center; Swank hotels held the meetings hostage to erratic elevator service and minimal technical support; Community venues were often so far offsite that only someone with an automobile and a local guide could have made it to any two workshops in a row but overall one result was clear—People learned from one another.

That's significant. If they learned anything close to what the presenters alleged to have been teaching, these thousands of young people are in an excellent position to return home to their own communities with the confidence that in hundreds of cities, towns and counties across this country other people like them are struggling to solve the challenges of winning economic and social justice for all. And they should have a fistful of business cards, scribbled contact names, email addresses and cell phone numbers tapped into their mobiles to be able talk to those allies when they are ready to launch their own national tour.

Small Steps Forward
Small groups with local agendas seeking national allies, visibility and connections staged mini-demonstrations, often just through their uniform visual presence in printed t-shirts featuring their groups demands. Domestic workers managed to pull together a national network. Immigrant rights groups staged some national press conferences and built on their already nascent national networks. Climate change organizers strengthened their training and outreach capacities. Other national networks took advantage of the occasion to hold training or decision-making meetings of their own.

I am heartened by the fact that there was no false attempt to impose a national strategy at this gathering. I am delighted that I never heard participation in the Democrats 2008 election campaign promoted as a central means of winning social justice. (I do admit I avoided anyone who looked like they might say that .) I reveled in the absence of celebrity speakers and national entertainers that so infest the left gatherings in the bay area. Yet it did seem a sign of our weakness that there was no attempt made to unify around even the most simple action steps to end the U.S. war, challenge privatization or defend immigrant rights.

Connie Galambos, the SEC delegation coordinator felt acutely the lack of a central organizing thread. For her the missing piece was the war. "Our issues all converge in war, yet I was disappointed to note very few folks in Atlanta telling that story. [Some] white folks struggled to narrow the frame of war to strictly an environmental issue, simplifying their work by not collaborating with the communities of color on the front lines abroad and at home; simultaneously, shades of brown were split up into issue-based sessions on how to addresses the multiple crises we face—war not included."[3]

Plenary Television
The attempts to "build a movement" through the plenary sessions which were promoted as dialogues fell quickly into a rhetorical abyss. An audience of thousands, shivering in the concert style over-air conditioned hall of the Atlanta Civic Center, watched small figures, seated in the style of television talk shows perched in front of a huge red backdrop, trade speeches and sound bites to thunderous and repeated applause. The almost pep rally fervor followed by semi-scripted two minute soundbites from the floor hardly called for much heavy mental lifting and left no real room for dialogue. It felt to me as satisfying as watching a giant "red" television. On the last day of the conference, this theatrical part of the operation fell through into bickering over time limits, disrespecting elders and laments about access. The final act pulled back the red curtain to reveal a movement that still lacks the essentials capacity to work together against the common opponent and oppressor, global capital.

Do it Yourself
It seems, as the radical minority within the United States that feels the necessity to build another world, we are going to have to think small. It's abundantly clear that skin-deep united fronts controlled by white liberals that are afraid to say the word capitalism are not going to challenge the dominant social order. In order to survive and transform the fragmented, alienating and harsh conditions of capitalism in the Americas, we are going to need to look in our own wallets, in our own psychic closets, in our own close-knit networks, to build enough energy to connect to close-knit networks not our own. We are going to need friends who can keep our backs as the struggles intensify and the stakes are raised. And we are going to need allies that arise from places, cultures and spiritualities not our own.

SEC delegate, boona cheema, executive director of Building Opportinites for Self-Sufficiency reflecting on unity between immigrant and indiegenous communitiesputs it this way, "This wall must be penetrated, torn down, stripped of its hypocricy, its lies, its broken treaties, its ongoing behaviors and actions which create, suffering, death and eventual disappearance of all that we hold sacred." [4]

Working together, across the chasms of identity, sexuality, class, race and region, we are going to have to identify the leverage points where we can disrupt business as usual, win political and social space for experiments in equality and practice a warrior form of peace. It seemed at this conference I felt the stirring of such ideas.. But this is a young movement that will have to find a new path through battlegrounds littered with the shards of sectarian politics, infiltrators and co-optation of the past.

SEC delegate, Jaime Alvarado, director of Somos Mayfair an immigrant services and advocacy group in San Jose, concludes that "most of all, the biggest missing piece is an overarching strategic framework for a progressive movement that dares to expand beyond the predictable pockets of sanctuary in which most of us live. The biggest promise of the USSF is in the creation of such a framework. This work remains to be done." [5]

Clearly we have a ways to go to construct an "overarching strategic framework " that can build a convergence broad enough to achieve real change. It was a tribute to the movements' youth (and to their maturity) that no such effort was undertaken. Frankly as one of the older delegates to attend, I can't see that we are ready to succeed in such an effort. I can say that I take hope in the fact that the Forum enabled another generation to collectively put their hearts into achieving such a radical vision.

It seems that many of us came away with a similar sense of incompleteness. In a way that is the deepest success of the forum. While folks may have gotten charged up on specific elements of struggle, many developed an ever clearer realization that something deeply practical and deeply dangerous needs to be done.

Jess Clarke is edtor of Race Poverty and the Environment, Urban Habitat's journal of social and environmental justice.