[R-G] A Canadian Ecosocialist at the World Social Forum

[Richard Menec]

http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=618

A Canadian Ecosocialist at the World Social Forum

February 3, 2009

Cy Gonick, publisher and co-ordinating editor of Canada's longest-running 
left-wing magazine, Canadian Dimension ( 
http://www.canadiandimension.com/index.php ), was in Belem, Brazil, last 
week, for the World Social Forum. The following are excerpts from his emails 
from Belem.

The full text of Cy's letters can be found on the Canadian Dimension Blog. 
http://www.canadiandimension.com/blog/


Day One

An estimated hundred thousand delegates opened the 2009 World Social Forum 
with a spirited march down the main street of this northern port city of 
Belem in the heart of the Amazon. An equal number of local residents lined 
the streets observing the carnival-like demonstration and cheering on the 
boisterous marchers along with their drummers, banners and chanters. .

This veteran marcher/activist had never before been surrounded by such a sea 
of humanity as committed as himself to changing the world. I can say that 
the feeling was exhilarating, bordering on jubilation -knowing all the work 
in organizing, capacity building and struggles of so many diverse movements 
that brought these people together but with the usual caution that so much 
more needs to be done.


Day Two

For me the most exciting thing that happened at the WSF today was the moment 
the roof collapsed with the ceiling fan crashing down a few feet from where 
I was sitting in a meeting room along with 60 others listening intently to a 
presentation against the principle of compensation for environmental damage.

This was the first of a series of presentations on ecosocialism at the 
2009WSF, the ones I especially came here to participate in. The concept we 
were introduced to is that no level of compensation is sufficient to cover 
the forever damage to nature inflicted by giant resource corporations in the 
course of their everyday operations.

The only acceptable remedy is one of fully repairing the damage/loss so that 
the land/waters/air is left in the same shape as it was prior to so-called 
development. It was just at the point that Terisa Turner (of the University 
of Guelph and an occasional contributor to Canadian Dimension) rose to ask 
how very poor indigenous peoples faced with an offer of a large cash 
compensation could turn it down, that the roof caved in! Fortunately no one 
was injured.


Day Three

This session, sub-titled "The Significance of the WSF of the Participation 
of the Indigenous Peoples of the World" examined the WSF's special effort to 
include indigenous peoples in the planning as well as the content of the 
Forum.

It was explained to us by J'ai Sen who chaired the session, that the first 
few years of the Forum were planned as "white settler" events with virtually 
no provision for first peoples. That began to change as the WSF shifted from 
Brazil to Nairobi and Mumbai. But it was only at this 2009 WSF in Belem that 
a real effort was to be made to not only have a strong indigenous presence 
at the Forum but their involvement in its planning. Presentations were made 
by indigenous representatives from Columbia, India, Peru (Hugo Blanco) and 
Canada (Ben Powers). The meeting was conducted in classic participatory 
style with statements invited from the audience being responded to by the 
main speakers.

Hugo Blanco, the remarkably vigorous revolutionary peasant leader, now in 
his mid 80s, is the leader of the Campesino Confederation of Peru. He added 
a strong anti-capitalist flavour to the session and his perspective seemed 
to be fully supported by the other speakers.

The most insightful presentation was provided by the Canadian, Ben Powers of 
the Indigenous Environmental Movement. Ben also acted as translator for 
Blanco and other speakers. More than a thousand indigenous peoples, mainly 
from within Brazil, made their way to Belem, a two week journey for many of 
them.


Day 4

The three hour session I attended was really interesting. Sponsored by the 
Ecosocialist International Network, an organization I'm active in, the 
session featured a discussion on indigenous peoples and ecosocialism with 
presentations mainly by Brazilian ecosocialists. The session was chaired by 
Beatriz Leandro of the Brazilian Network of Socialists.

The session opened with Ana Isla, a South American scholar now teaching at 
Brock University and on the editorial Board of Capitalism, Socialism, 
Nature, summarizing her research on the impact of the development of the 
rainforest in Costa Rica that eats up the soil and robs the people of the 
trees that produce their food and livelihood, eventually displacing them 
into the cities where women are forced into the sex trade.

Adilson Viera, Secretary General of the Workers Union of the Amazon, 
described how the resource workers he represents, like fishermen, are 
ecosocialists in everything but name, resisting the encroachment of capital 
that destroys their livelihood.

In his history of ecosocialism in Brazil, Mauricius Laxe (Brazilian Network 
of Ecosocialists) described how it started back in 1991 with the 
ecosocialist manifesto for Brazil that attracted over a hundred supporters 
back then. A year later in response to the UN's Earth Summit in Rio de 
Janeiro, regarded by them as capital's response to the environmental crisis, 
they organized the march of the oppressed.

In 1996 the association of socialists and environmentalists of northern 
Brazil was formed and signed onto the first ecosocialist manifesto drawn up 
by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy on the occasion of the 2003 World Social 
Formation. A second ecosocialist manifesto has been drafted for this 2009 
WSF meeting.

During the discussion following the presentation, Laxe said that the term 
'socialist' is a drawback especially among peasants and indigenous peoples, 
and suggested that ecosocialism be replaced by ecopolitics. That generated 
awide ranging discussion. We were informed that the ultra violent Shining 
Path Maoist group has given socialism a very bad name in Peru.

Joel Kovel intervened to say that in the old USSR, Leon Trotsky expressed 
total contempt for rural existence, resulting in a troubled legacy for 
socialism among peasants everywhere. Joel went on to give a short discourse 
on how in his last ten years, Marx began to re-evaluate his theses that all 
peoples had to pass through several stages of history and that none could be 
skipped and in particular, that capitalism could not be skipped to arrive at 
the socialist stage.

He hinted towards the end of his life that communal societies might not have 
to go through capitalism. Joel suggested that ecosocialists need to return 
to this question as it relates to indigenous peoples in the age of 
globalization. By this time the ageless Peruvian revolutionary Hugo Blanco 
joined the session and offered a number of points including that the two 
features indigenous peoples "from Canada to Chile" have in common are 
collectivism and love of nature and that in their 500 year resistance to 
capitalist encroachment on their lands they are natural ecosocialists.


Day Five

The three hour session on ecosocialism featured two very good talks one by 
Joel Kovel, author of the fabulous book, The Enemy of Nature; the other by 
Terisa Turner, a prof at Guelph University in Canada. Both Joel and Terisa 
have contributed articles to Canadian Dimension sometime in the past two or 
three years.

Joel Kovel is really the father of ecosocialism. He described how this was 
the second gathering of ecosocialists from around the world, the first 
having taken place in Paris in 2007. There, a small group of mainly northern 
intellectuals decided that it was important that the second gathering 
include a large contingent of indigenous people from the global south. 
That¹s why they chose to meet in Belem, smack in the middle of the Amazon.

Joel boldly stated that the only way to save the planet is to end capital¹s 
compulsion to grow. Some form of world government is necessary to impose 
limits to growth which, if effective, would collapse the capitalist system 
since its existence requires endless accumulation. But societies will only 
transcend capitalism with ecosocialism which he defined as production based 
on free association of workers combined with ecocentric means and ends. 
Whereas absentee owners can easily damage the environment, when workers come 
to own the means of production they work with, they are much less likely to 
damage, let alone destroy nature which they are part of, depending upon it 
for both their survival and their comforts.

In his concluding remarks Joel said that, inspired by the ecosocialist 
measures of Cuba and Bolivia under Evo Morales, he is convinced that 
ecosocialists have no alternative but to intervene in state formations as 
they currently exist starting with a mass intervention at Copenhagen, site 
of the UN meeting to reformulate the Kyoto Protocol. Secondly, he urged the 
development of autonomous zones within capitalist societies that would 
establish islands of freely associated labour as capitalism lurches from 
crisis to crisis. Thirdly, he said that what¹s needed now is a mass 
mobilization of society to demand a series of structural reforms to prevent 
climate change, reforms that capitalism cannot endure.

Terisa Turner offered the most optimistic prognosis of our immediate future. 
She described several examples of grass roots movements successfully 
stopping resource multinational corporations and keeping fossil fuel in the 
ground. She argued for a joint global strategy of all out support for these 
efforts of halting resource development combined with consumer boycott 
campaigns - which would deprive capital of energy and resources and markets. 
And direct trade deals that cut out the multinatinationals in place of 
capitalist trade/investment agreements, citing the arrangement between Cuba 
and Venezuela oil for medical services.

She asked, who is engaged in these efforts? Indigenous peoples with women in 
the foreground.

What is their means? Direct action to shut-down production and keep fossil 
fuel in the ground.

She ended her presentation with a call for a people¹s charter on climate 
change in opposition to the Kyoto Protocal and sanctions against governments 
and corporations that violate its measures. As for Copenhagen December 2009, 
she called for a mass organization to stop the proceedings, like Seattle 
1999.

[Coming soon: As soon as we receive it, Climate and Capitalism will publish 
a report on the Ecosocialist International Network meeting that was held in 
Belem immediately after the World Social Forum.]

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