PORTO
ALEGRE, Brazil -- On these pages the other day
a colleague complained of poor treatment of the
press at the hands of the World Economic Forum
(WEF).
Quit
your whinging, John, and come on down to Brazil. Here
at the World Social Forum (WSF) reporters are stars--or
at least treated as such.
With at least
12, 000 delegates and 60,000 hangers-on,
this meeting, of course, is three
to four times larger than the puny tête à-tête
in New York. And with almost one thousand separate
events, many with fliers, circulares, and come-hither
advertisements, and all vying for coverage,
a reporter squeezing his or her way through
the hallways full of shorts- and sandals clad
delegates gets poked at more than a rich tourist
at an old fashioned bazaar.
And it is not just reporters. Everyone wants
everyone else to come to his or her meeting.
After all, this is a meeting of committed people,
and most here feel they have a lock on at least
one small aspect of the truth, and they want
to spread it. In a three-minute walk through
the main hallway of the Pontifical Catholic
University (PUC), a reporter picked up fliers
inviting him to nine workshops and four seminars.
The interesting choices include workshops
on what can concretely be done about world
hunger, and a lecture on wealth redistribution
to be given by the flamboyant leader of the
Brazilian Workers party, Luiz Ignacio Lula
da Silva, known locally as just Lula.
Those gatherings
unlikely to draw cameras included "Balance and Perspective on State
Protagonism, the Making of Civil Society and
the (de) Construction of Political Sciences
on the World Scene," and another which,
incomprehensibly, advertised the presence of, "ADUFRGS,
ASSURFGS, ATEM; PA ATTAC CAMP CEDEP CM/RS,
CMPLA FECOSUL FETAG."
And, John, if you get tired or confused, take
a break with a yerba mate. This being southern
Brazil, near Argentina, the locals call themselves
gauchos, as do the Argentine cowboys, and freely
pass around gourds full of their favorite yerba
mate tea which they all sip from a common straw,
as befits such a meeting concerned with workers
of the world uniting.
And unite they do, in an atmosphere that might
be described as party anger or anger party.
Just about everyone here is angry at what he
or she believes to be an unjust society, deliberately
made so by the powerful. But most draw comfort
and joy from the comradeship of like-minded
people.
And that, according to the organizers, is
just what they are supposed to do. Make contact,
exchange ideas and cards, and keep the struggle
going. One way to keep the struggle going is
to get the press interested. So they do.
They keep the press interested with invitations
to absolutely everything, even their planning
sessions, and with offers of shared yerba mate,
or a cool drink and, at least in one case,
a joint. So quit your whinging, John, and come
down for a hot yerba mate, a cool drink and
some good comradeship.
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