In Time of War, Hope Triumphs in Porto Alegre

By Jennifer C. Berkshire, AlterNet. Posted January 30, 2003.

Porto Alegre--When tens of thousands of protesters streamed through the center of this city in Southern Brazil last week, denouncing George W. Bush and his war on Iraq, it was the second major anti-war gathering in the Americas in as many weeks. The World Social Forum in Porto Alegre was supposed to be about globalization, but talk of war dominated everything.

"Can there be any progress, civil, social or economic, while the American military project continues?" mused one European delegate. It wasn't just the anti-globalization crowd that found itself preoccupied by military matters. The few tycoons who showed up for this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland spent most of their time wringing their hands over the prospect of war.

Despite being separated by thousands of miles -- and a not insignificant distance on the thermometer -- the anti-war protests in Washington and Porto Alegre weren't all that different. Both took place in contexts of economic uncertainty, looming austerity and an air of inevitability about the war itself. Both were notable for the huge presence of ordinary citizens who had made lengthy trips to march against war.

The majority of people who came to Porto Alegre -- more than 100,000, say World Social Forum organizers - -were neither seasoned veterans of the anti-globalization circuit nor political movers and shakers.

"I came here from Foz do Iguacu," a teacher told me over lunch one day, referring to the dramatic falls near the Argentina border, mentioned by the Bush administration as a possible next frontier in the war against terror. "It's a long trip. Fifteen hours," he said, counting them out on his hands.

But while the two marches may have looked alike -- demonic effigies of George W. Bush are as popular in Brazil as they are in Washington -- that's where their similarities ended. The Jan. 18 demonstration in the US sprang out of a uniformly bleak political context, peopled mostly by protesters whose only organizational affiliation was a church group, a school club or a small network of friends and coworkers. The Porto Alegre protest, more shimmying spectacle than tribunal, was powered by deep organization -- trade unions have a powerful presence here -- and above all a sense of hope. After all, this is the same country that recently elected to the presidency Workers' Party candidate Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva.

A few days after the march, Lula spoke to an audience of tens of thousands of fans at the amphitheater in Porto Alegre. There are people in the crowd today who don't speak our language, he said, referring to WSF delegates who had traveled from some 130 countries to come to Brazil. For them I have a simple message, he said. "Look into my eyes."

I thought of Lula's statement on Tuesday night while watching George Bush's State of the Union address. I imagined Bush extending the same offer and wondered who would take him up on it. And what, I wondered, would they see in there?

For the people in Porto Alegre who marched against war that day, Lula's victory is the proof that organization and militant mobilization can work. The Workers' Party, or the PT, is everywhere here, from the flags that flutter about the city to the number 13 (the PT's spot on the electoral list) with which Porto Alegrenses adorn their clothes and cars. In the US, there is simply no equivalent. The Americans who traveled from Cleveland, Chicago and beyond to protest their president do not yet have an organized alternative with which to contest him. Should they join with the rancid Workers' World Party? Jump aboard the Lieberman campaign?

Another World Is Possible--But What World?

The war was the glue that held this, the third World Social Forum, together. "Another World is Possible" may be the official slogan (trademark pending) of the anti-globalization movement, but there is little agreement over what that world should be like. The range of conflicting visions was on vivid display in Porto Alegre; the gulf is as wide as ever between the reform crowd, which seeks fair trade and better managed capitalism vs. the revolutionaries, who want to tear the whole thing down and start over.

Lula essentially walked right into that divide with his decision to go from the people's forum directly to the annual ruling class reunion in Davos. "He's making a terrible mistake by going to Davos," Chris Nineham from the UK group Globalize Resistance said in a talk on the global anti-war movement. "It will lead to disappointment and to the kind of compromises that let people down."

The United Socialist Workers Party, or PSTU, a left split-off from the PT, was firmly on the side of keeping Lula in Porto Alegre. They staged regularly rallies during the forum, imploring Lula not to go, and they were the first to arrive at his speech, armed with huge banners and flags. As the crowd waited for the president to arrive, the PSTU kept up an ominous drum beat and alternated between chants condemning Bush, Sharon and Lula. But as the president began to speak, the PSTU contingent was as rapt as everyone else in the crowd.

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