The Economics and Politics of the World Social Forum:
Lessons for the Struggle against 'Globalisation'
Part 3 of 3 Parts
(Prepared by the Research Unit for Political Economy, based in Mumbai,
India)
**********
Contents:
'Globalisation' (In Part 1 of
3)
The World Social Forum and the Struggle against 'Globalisation':
I. How and Why the World Social
Forum Emerged (In Part 1 of 3)
II. WSF Mumbai 2004 and the NGO
Phenomenon in India (In Part 2 of 3)
Appendix I: Ford
Foundation -- A Case Study of the Aims of Foreign Funding (In
Part 3 of 3)
Appendix II: Funds
for the World Social Forum (In Part 3 of 3)
**********
(continued ...)
CPI(M) -- an opponent of globalisation?
While
it is a turnaround from the stand of 1988, the new stand of CPI(M) on
NGOs is not wholly surprising. Opposition to foreign-funded NGOs makes
sense only as part of a broader opposition to imperialism. The
CPI(M) is, no doubt, an opposition party nationwide, one which
criticises the Central Government's submission to the dictates of the
IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and the multinational corporations those
institutions represent. But the CPI(M) is also a ruling party
periodically in Kerala and continuously in West Bengal; one which
actively invites foreign investment, negotiates large foreign loans with
the Asian Development Bank, represses labour organisations, privatises
public sector units, hikes electricity charges, and so on. In other
words, it is carrying out the measures labelled `globalisation'.
The new chief minister of West Bengal, back from his recent trip to
Italy to solicit investment from Gucci and other Italian firms, is now
busy conferring with multinationals and Indian corporates to participate
in his planned Kolkata global festival "to change the perception of
the city in the eyes of outsiders". Speaking to industrialists in
Mumbai, he rushed to clarify, first, that the CPI(M) has not called for
a boycott of American goods in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq, and
that his government wanted not only Indian private companies but also
foreign firms to invest in his state; and secondly, that labour
militancy in Bengal was no longer a problem -- indeed there
"strikes and labour problems are much less than Maharashtra".
The CPI(M)-affiliated trade union centre, CITU, he assured them,
"is aware that there would be no jobs if there are no
industries." The West Bengal government has issued advertisements
for the privatisation of nine state public sector units: the pompous
term used is "joint venture transformation through induction of
strategic partners", involving "transfer of equity stake
ranging from 51 per cent to 74 per cent with management control";
the government is "open to considering the requisite extent of
manpower restructuring and waiver of outstanding financial liabilities
as may be necessary for ensuring their sustainable viability". The
financial adviser to the privatisation is the multinational
Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
On the West Bengal chief minister's table lies the report of the
American consultancy firm, McKinsey (which his government commissioned
in October 2001) on the prospects of agriculture-based industries and
information technology-based industries in the state. McKinsey proposes
that 41 per cent of the state's arable land should be diverted from rice
to vegetable and fruit cash crops; large agro-based corporations should
be attracted to the state; laws should be altered to allow contract
farming; and by the end of the decade the state should aim its
agro-based products at the international market. "This initiative
is aimed at attracting national and multinational investors to the
state. McKinsey has already established contacts with several such
investors. We have received a good response from them. Now our plans and
efforts should be commensurate with their requirements and
demands."
World Social Forum -- instrument of struggle?
In the preceding we have gone into some detail regarding the funding
of the WSF and the nature of its participating organisations in order to
present various specific aspects of this phenomenon. However, in the
final analysis, the test of the World Social Forum is not merely how it
is funded or the character of some of the leading/participating
organisations or individuals, nor even its exclusion of various forces.
After all, many forums in the world today have various limitations, and
to abandon them all for their imperfections would cripple the forces
struggling for change. The real test of any such forum is its actual
political role, its relation to people's struggles against the
current imperialist onslaught: has it advanced them? Or has it diverted
fighting forces to a dead-end?
The advocates of the WSF say it has given an impetus to struggle. This
is not so. As we have tried to show, the vibrant protest movement gave
an impetus to struggle. The people's movements and upsurges of Mexico,
Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador gave an impetus to struggle. The
World Social Forum has simply given an impetus to the next World Social
Forum, and the next.
The WSF's real relation to anti-imperialist struggle is starkly revealed
by its organisers' conduct at the Asian Social Forum meet in Hyderabad
in January 2003. Hyderabad is the capital of Andhra Pradesh, which,
apart from being one of the top recipients of NGO funds in India, is
also marked by two other features.
First, the state government is perhaps the most active `globaliser' in
the country. In 1998, the state government directly negotiated a $500
million World Bank loan, which came tied with the Andhra Pradesh
Economic Restructuring Programme (APERP). The APERP dictated the
dismantling of the state electricity board, the inviting of private
investment in power, and increasing electricity tariffs. It also
dictated the hiking of water cesses for peasants; college fees; bus
fares; and public hospital charges. It ordered all-round privatisation.
The state government has been implementing this programme, undeterred by
the massive suffering caused, the waves of starvation deaths, the
thousands of suicides of peasants unable to repay their debts. When
people's organisations protested the electricity tariff hike, the
Hyderabad police responded by massacring the protesters.
Indeed, the second feature, a necessary accompaniment to the first, is
that state terror in Andhra Pradesh is at its zenith. The A.P. police is
given fat financial rewards for routinely and cold-bloodedly murdering
hundreds of the government's political opponents in fake `encounters'.
The targets have not been restricted to the members of revolutionary
groups, but have been systematically extended to all those who do not
submit to the reign of terror; a special target has been civil liberties
activists.
The Asian Social Forum gathering at Hyderabad, with its myriad panel
discussions, press meets, and public procession, did not speak a word
about this armed 'globalisation' being carried out by Chandrababu Naidu.
Evidently the organisers had negotiated terms with the government. In
fact, at the same time as the ASF meet, Naidu and the deputy prime
minister of India (the chief architect of the demolition of the Babri
Masjid) L.K. Advani, were holding an investment conference in Hyderabad
itself. Some dalit groups organised a protest against Naidu's event, but
the ASF, with its tens of thousands of participants at hand in the same
city, maintained a studied silence.
The contrast with the Seattle demonstrations could hardly be sharper.
The real political role of the WSF could hardly be clearer.
Appendix I:
Ford Foundation -- A Case Study of the Aims of Foreign Funding
"Someday someone must give the American people a full report of
the work of the Ford Foundation in India. The several million dollars in
total Ford expenditures in the country do not tell one-tenth of the
story." -- Chester Bowles (former US ambassador to India).
In the light of the steady flow of funds from Ford Foundation to the
World Social Forum, it is worth exploring the background of this
institution -- its operations internationally, and in India. This is
significant both in itself and as a case study of such agencies.
Ford Foundation (FF) was set up in 1936 with a slender tax-exempt slice
of the Ford empire's profits, but its activities remained local to the
state of Michigan. In 1950, as the US government focussed its attention
on battling the 'communist threat', FF was converted into a national and
international foundation.
Ford and the CIA
The fact is that the US Central Intelligence Agency has long
operated through a number of philanthropic foundations; most prominently
Ford Foundation. In James Petras' words, the Ford-CIA connection
"was a deliberate, conscious joint effort to strengthen US imperial
cultural hegemony and to undermine left-wing political and cultural
influence." Frances Stonor Saunders, in a recent work on the
period, states that "At times it seemed as if the Ford Foundation
was simply an extension of government in the area of international
cultural propaganda. The Foundation had a record of close involvement in
covert actions in Europe, working closely with Marshall Plan and CIA
officials on specific projects."
Richard Bissell, head of the Foundation during 1952-54, consulted
frequently with Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA; he left the
Foundation to become special assistant to Dulles at the CIA. Bissell was
replaced by John McCloy as head of FF. His distinguished career before
that included posts as the Assistant Secretary of War, president of the
World Bank, High Commissioner of occupied Germany, chairman of
Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan Bank, and Wall Street attorney for the big
seven oil corporations. McCloy intensified CIA-Ford collaboration,
creating an administrative unit within the Foundation specifically to
liaise with the CIA, and personally heading a consultation committee
with the CIA to facilitate the use of FF for a cover and conduit
of funds. In 1966, McGeorge Bundy, till then special assistant to
the US president in charge of national security, became head of FF.
It was a busy collaboration between the CIA and the Foundation.
"Numerous CIA 'fronts' received major FF grants. Numerous
supposedly `independent' CIA sponsored cultural organizations, human
rights groups, artists and intellectuals received CIA/FF grants. One of
the biggest donations of the FF was to the CIA-organized Congress for
Cultural Freedom which received $ seven million by the early 1960s.
Numerous CIA operatives secured employment in the FF and continued close
collaboration with the Agency."
The FF objective, according to Bissell, was "not so much to
defeat the leftist intellectuals in dialectical combat (sic) as to lure
them away from their positions." Thus FF funneled CIA funds to
the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) in the 1950s; one of the CCF's
most celebrated activities was the stellar intellectual journal Encounter.
A large number of intellectuals were ready to be so lured. CIA-FF went
so far as to encourage specific artistic trends such as Abstract
expressionism as a counter to art reflecting social concerns.
The CIA's infiltration of US foundations in general was massive. A 1976
Select Committee of the US Senate discovered that during 1963-66, of 700
grants each of over $10,000 given by 164 foundations, at least 108 were
partially or wholly CIA-funded. According to Petras, "The ties
between the top officials of the FF and the U.S. government are explicit
and continuing. A review of recently funded projects reveals that the FF
has never funded any major project that contravenes U.S. policy."
Such experiences ought to have alerted intellectuals and various
political forces to the dangers of being bankrolled by such sources.
FF states (on the webpage of its New Delhi office) that from its
inception to the year 2000 it had provided $7.5 billion in grants, and
in 1999 its total endowment was in the region of $13 billion. It also
claims that it "receives no funding from governments or any other
outside sources", but the reality, as we have seen, is otherwise.
Ford in India
The FF New Delhi office webpage claims that "At the invitation
of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the Foundation established an office
in India in 1952." In fact Chester Bowles, US ambassador to India
from 1951, initiated the process. Like the rest of the US foreign policy
establishment, Bowles was profoundly shocked at the "loss" of
China (ie the nationwide coming to power of the communists in 1949).
Linked to this was his acute worry at the inability of the Indian army
to suppress the communist-led peasant armed struggle in Telangana
(1946-51) "until the communists themselves changed their programme
of violence". Indian peasants expected that now, with the British
Raj gone, their long-standing demand for land to the tiller would be
implemented, and that pressure continued everywhere in India even after
the withdrawal of the Telangana struggle.
Bowles wrote to Paul Hoffman, then president of FF: "the conditions
may improve in China while the Indian situation remains stagnant.... If
such a contrast developed during the next four or five years, and if the
Chinese continued their moderate and plausible approach without
threatening the northern Indian boundary.... the growth of communism in
India might be very great. The death or retirement of Nehru might then
be followed by a chaotic situation out of which another potentially
strong communist nation might be born." Hoffman shared these
concerns, and stressed the need for a powerful Indian State: "A
strong central government must be established.... The hardcore of
communists must be kept under control.... The prime minister Pandit
Nehru greatly needs understanding, sympathy and help from the people and
governments of other free [sic] nations."
The New Delhi office was soon set up, and, says FF, "was the
Foundation's first program outside the United States, and the New Delhi
office remains the largest of its field office operations". It also
covers Nepal and Sri Lanka.
"The fields of activity suggested [by the US State Department] for
the Ford Foundation", writes George Rosen, "were felt to be
too sensitive for a foreign (American) government agency to work in....
South Asia rapidly came to the fore as an area for possible foundation
activity... Both India and Pakistan were on the rim of China and seemed
threatened by communism. They appeared to be important in terms of
American policy...." FF acquired extraordinary power over the
Indian Plans. Rosen says that "From the 1950s to the early 1960s
the foreign expert often had greater authority than the Indian",
and FF and the (FF/CIA-funded) MIT Center for International Studies
operated as "quasi-official advisers to the Planning
Commission". Bowles writes that "Under the leadership of
Douglas Ensminger, the Ford staff in India became closely associated
with the Planning Commission which administers the Five Year Plan.
Wherever there was a gap, they filled it, whether it was agricultural,
health education or administration. They took over, financed and
administered the crucial village-level worker training schools."
Ford Foundation intervention in Indian agriculture
Given the background of the Chinese revolution and the Telangana
struggle, the US priority in India was to find ways to head off agrarian
unrest. Thus the first phase of FF's work was in `rural development'. FF
was intimately involved in the Indian government's Community Development
Programme (CDP), which Nehru hailed "as a model for meeting the
revolutionary threats from left-wing and communist peasant movements
demanding basic social reforms in agriculture." The scheme was to
carry out agricultural development with some funds from the Programme
and voluntary village labour, thus bringing about what Nehru described
as a "peaceful revolution". At the Indian government's
invitation, FF helped train 35,000 village workers for the CDP. By 1960
the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations had between them extended over $50
million on the CDP alone. And by 1971, India, with grants totalling $104
million, was by far the largest recipient of grant aid from the Ford
Foundation's Overseas Development Programme. However, such cosmetic
efforts neither brought about development nor solved the problem of
simmering peasant discontent.
In 1959, a team led by a US department of agriculture economist produced
the Ford Foundation's Report on India's Food Crisis and Steps to Meet
It. In place of institutional change (ie redistribution of land and
other rural assets) as the key-stone to agricultural development, this
report stressed technological change (improved seeds, chemical
fertilisers, and pesticides) in small, already irrigated, pockets. This
was the `Green Revolution' strategy. Ford even funded the Intensive
Agricultural Development Programme (IADP) as a test case of the
strategy, providing rich farmers in irrigated areas with subsidised
inputs, generous credit, price incentives, and so on. The World Bank too
put its weight behind this strategy.
Soon it was adopted by the Indian government, with far-reaching effects.
Agricultural production of rice and wheat in the selected pockets grew
immediately. Talk of land reform, tenancy reform, abolition of usury,
and so on were more or less dropped from official agenda (never to
return). But the initial spectacular growth rates eventually slowed. On
the average agricultural production all-India has grown more slowly
after the Green Revolution than before, and in much of the country
per capita agricultural output has stagnated or fallen. Today even the
Green Revolution pockets are facing stagnation in yields.
However, the Green Revolution was successful in another sense: it
yielded a large market for foreign firms selling either inputs or the
technology to manufacture those inputs.
Shift to funding NGO 'activism'
Since 1972 there has been a shift in FF's activities in India.
Earlier FF had a large staff, focussing on agriculture and rural
development, providing technical assistance in these fields and directly
implementing its projects. Now FF's developmental activities continue
under the heading "asset-building and community development"
(Ford claims that it is responsible for introducing the concept of
"micro-lending" in India, now eagerly embraced by the Reserve
Bank), but it has added two other heads: "peace and social
justice" and "education, media, arts and culture". This
is in line with changes in foundation/funding agency policy worldwide,
whereby, since the late 1970s, a new breed of 'activist' NGOs,
engaging in social and political activity, have been systematically
promoted. Among Ford's "peace and social justice" goals
are the promotion of human rights, especially those of women; ensuring
open and accountable government institutions; strengthening "civil
society through the broad participation of individuals and civic
organisations in charting the future", and supporting regional and
international cooperation.
Over the period 1952-2002, FF New Delhi office, the first and oldest of
FF's 13 overseas offices, has distributed $450 million in grants. At a
press conference to mark the fiftieth anniversary of FF in India, the
foundation's India representative said that it was launching a new Rs
220 crore ($45 million) funding programme -- twice the usual annual
allocation -- and committing substantial funds to disadvantaged groups
such as adivasis, dalits and women. "Asked if the shift in focus
[from FF's traditional activities in rural development] was prompted by
the inequalities caused by the Indian government's economic policies of
globalisation and liberalisation, he said there was no question of
getting away from globalisation but it had brought some concern
also. The projects would, therefore, act as a corrective measure to
offset the adverse impact of uncontrolled market forces."
This is precisely the language of the World Bank and IMF: their answer
to "uncontrolled market forces" is not to control them, but to
set up tiny well-publicised safety nets to catch a handful from among
the masses of people thrown out by market forces.
Further, FF would specifically ensure that people's struggles against
the government do not take the course of confrontation: "While
admitting that several of the voluntary organisations benefitting from
the funding programme could be in confrontation with the government when
they were working on issues such as welfare of Adivasis, he said the
Foundation did not believe in conflict with the government. The
attempt was to complement and cooperate with the efforts of the
government."
Ford has chosen to focus on three particularly oppressed sections of
Indian society -- adivasis, dalits, and women. All three are potentially
important components of a movement for basic change in Indian society;
indeed, some of the most militant struggles in recent years have been
waged by these sections. However, FF takes care to treat the problems of
each of these sections as a separate question, to be solved by
special "promotion of rights and opportunities". Since FF's
funds are negligible in relation to the size of the social problems
themselves, the benefits of its projects flow to a small vocal layer
among these sections. These are persons who might otherwise have led
their fellow adivasis, dalits and women on the path of
"confrontation with the government" in order to bring about
basic change, change for all. Instead special chairs in dalit studies
will be funded at various institutions; women will be encouraged to
focus solely on issues such as domestic violence rather than ruling
class/State violence; adivasis will be encouraged to explore their
identity at seminars; and things will remain as they are.
Appendix II:
Funds for the World Social Forum
The WSF is not transparent regarding the sources of its funding.
Moreover, given the structure of the WSF, where a number of
organisations carry on activities semi-autonomously, it is
near-impossible to trace the funding provided to all activities by all
funding agencies.
A. Funds for the WSF Secretariat
Certain funds are provided directly to the WSF as a body. The
following list, available on the WSF website (www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/main.asp?id
menu=2&cd language=2), does not provide a break-up by amount:
WSF Partners WSF 2001:
Droits et Démocratie -- a foundation run by the Canadian Ministry
of Foreign Affairs.
Ford Foundation
Heinrich Boll Foundation -- of the German Greens party, a partner of the
ruling coalition in Germany, whose leader, Germany's foreign minister,
was an active supporter of the wars on Yugoslavia and Afghanistan
ICCO -- an inter-church organisation, funded by the Netherlands
government and the European Union
Le Monde Diplomatique
Oxfam
RITS - Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor
The state government of Rio Grande de Sul
The city government of Porto Alegre
WSF Partners WSF 2002:
RITS, EED, CCFD, NOVIB, OXFAM GB, Centro Norte Sul, ACTIONAID, ICCO,
FUNDAÇÃO FORD, Governo do Estado de Rio Grande do Sul, Prefeitura de
Porto Alegre, Procergs, World Forum for Alternatives.
B. Funding for WSF participants
In fact the financial role of the funding agencies is much
larger than would be reflected in their contributions to the WSF as
such. For the same agencies also funded various organisations which
attended the WSF, and staged activities there. For example, the
following list is from the Ford Foundation website database:
1. Ford Foundation Grants to WSF and Related Operations (from the
Ford Foundation website database; apparently does not include current
funding)
The following grants have been given as part of Ford's "Asset
Building and Community Development Program", which "supports
efforts to reduce poverty and injustice by helping to build the
financial, natural, social, and human assets of low-income individuals
and communities."
Organization: Brazilian Association of NGOs
Purpose: For the 2003 World Social Forum, where civil society
organizations develop social and economic alternatives to current
patterns of globalization, based on human rights and sustainable
development
Location: BRAZIL
Program: Peace and Social Justice
Unit: Governance and Civil Society
Subject: Civil Society
Amount: $500,000
www.fordfound.org/grants db/view grant detail.cfm?grant id=106054
Organization: Brazilian Association of NGOs
Purpose: Support for the organization of the first World Social Forum
Meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil in January 2001
Location: BRAZIL
Program: Peace and Social Justice
Unit: Governance and Civil Society
Subject: Civil Society
Amount: $100,000
www.fordfound.org/grants db/view grant detail.cfm?grant id=107383
Organization: Brazilian Association of NGOs
Purpose: To hold a seminar on international mechanisms for the
protection of human rights during the second World Social Forum
Location: BRAZIL
Program: Peace and Social Justice
Unit: Human Rights
Subject: Human Rights
Amount: $40,000
www.fordfound.org/grants db/view grant detail.cfm?grant id=112616
Organization: Brazilian Consumer Defense Institute
Purpose: For a multimedia public information campaign at the World
Social Forum and the Pan-Amazonian Social Forum
Location: BRAZIL
Program: Asset Building and Community Development
Unit: Community and Resource Development
Subject: Environment and Development
Amount: $30,000
www.fordfound.org/grants db/view grant detail.cfm?grant id=106056
Organization: Feminist Studies and Assistance Center
Purpose: To coordinate a campaign against fundamentalist dogmas during
thesecond World Social Forum
Location: BRAZIL
Program: Peace and Social Justice
Unit: Human Rights
Subject: Human Rights
Amount: $65,600
www.fordfound.org/grants db/view grant detail.cfm?grant id=113190
Organization: Internews Interactive, Inc.
Purpose: For the Bridge Initiative on Globalization, a collaboration
with television agency Article Z, to provide a means of communication
for participants in the World Social Forum and World Economic Forum
Location: SAN RAFAEL, CA
Program: Peace and Social Justice
Unit: Governance and Civil Society
Subject: Civil Society
Amount: $153,000
www.fordfound.org/grants db/view grant detail.cfm?grant id=106245
2. Sponsors of the World Social Forum media centre
Another example of indirect funding: the WSF media centre, given
below.
(source: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/esf.html)
The "independent" media centre Ciranda was sponsored by Le
Monde Diplomatique and IPS, Inter Press Services (IPS). IPS itself
is sponsored by:
* Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
* Carl-Duisberg-Gesellschaft - CDG (Germany)
* Charles Stewart Mott Foundation (USA)
* Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
* European Commission
* Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
* Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
* Ford Foundation (USA)
* Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung - FES (Germany)
* German Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ)
* Group of 77, G77
* International Labour Organisation - ILO
* Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
* John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (USA)
* Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
* Netherlands Organization for International Development Cooperation,
Novib
* North-South Centre (Council of Europe)
* Norwegian Agency for Development - NORAD
* Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
* Student Union, Helsinki University
* Swedish International Development
* Cooperation Agency - SIDA
* U.N. Children´s Fund - UNICEF
* U.N. Development Fund for Women - UNIFEM
* U.N. Development Programme - UNDP
* UNESCO
* U.N. Environment Programme - UNEP
* U.N. Population Fund - UNFPA
* W. Alton Jones Foundation (USA)
3. Other sources of funds
At the first World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, the elected
officials present agreed to constitute an International Network of
Members of Parliament to advance the goals of the WSF. Francis Wurtz,
chairperson of the United Left in the European Parliament, revealed that
"The principle was adopted that the European Parliament would take
responsibility for the coordination of all technical aspects of the
Parliamentary Network, including its financing."
The extent of coordination among the WSF funders is clear from the
following passage from the website of the US-based "Funders Network
on Trade and Globalization":
"World Social Forum Funder Conference: FNTG initiated and has been
helping to organize and co-host (with Ford and Veatch) a funder
conference in New York on June 12 [2002] at the Ford Foundation. The
convening, which brought together over 60 funders from NY and beyond,
highlighted the work of the WSF, but also encouraged funders to
support the participation of relevant US and non-US grantees at this
annual forum, and the development of alternative strategies for
equitable and sustainable development in the US and around the world.
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