1. Introduction
The African presence at the World Social Forum (WSF) in India remarkably improved the continent's chances of becoming a leading and formidable bloc in the global justice movement mobilising under the slogan "Another world is possible".
Armed with two big banners "Africa is not for sale" and "solutions to Africa's problems are in Africa" the African Social Forum (ASF), which is the prime mobilizing entity for African participation in WSF, joined thousands of other activists who thronged Mumbai to register their protests against neo-liberalism and proudly proclaim that the World Social Forum is not an organisation, not a united front platform, but "…an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centred on the human person". (From the WSF Charter of Principles).
This must be viewed against the background that next to the WSF venue, another group known as Mumbai Resistance (MR) was organising a parallel forum in the Bhagat Singh veterinary college, and had announced "…Critiques of the World Social Forum and its antiglobalisation conference have taken an organisational form."
Calling for more militant resistance, as part of their strategy to sharpen the anti-imperialist struggle worldwide, the group reduced WSF to a puppet of the bourgeois state and big business, simply because its charter excludes representatives of national liberation movements.
Most major roads to Nesco grounds, the venue of mainstream WSF activities and all bridges in Goregoan were visibly endowed with MR graffiti and the most appealing of these writings on the wall was "Debate alone cannot change this world".
This expose was an interesting entry into Mumbai and will definitely affect our debates in Africa on the future and role of the Social Forum.
Having been energised and nourished by anti-capitalist sentiments and resolutely positioned to fight neo-liberalism, most popular forces and progressive organisations under the auspices of the African Social Forum who managed to come to Mumbai will have a lot to discuss and write on, given the two tendencies they confronted in India.
But most importantly, they have to put in place concrete programmes of action and instigate debate on what is required for Africa to bid for hosting the World Social Forum in the near future regardless of the fact that MR 2004 now caricatures the global forum as W$F.
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