South Korean Delegation to the WSF 2003

Building a Movement of Movements

On January 21, 2003, the third party of the South Korean Delegation-nine members including myself representing NGOs and social movement-were on a plane headed to Porte Alegre, Brazil, without knowing what to expect and what awaits us. We had to endure 36 hours of plane ride that took us to Tokyo for transit connection, LA for refueling, and Sao Paulo for domestic connection before finally arriving at Porte Alegre. One is reminded again and again how far Brazil is from South Korea.

A question arises then, why is the South Korean Delegation comprising 24 participants from various movements like labor, environmental, alternative media, health rights and anti-capitalism going to such a far away place? A simple answer with three words, World Social Forum (WSF), just won”t do. What is so special about WSF? The WSF purports to be an open forum where groups and movements of civil society opposed to neo-liberalism-and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism-come together to pursue their thinking, debate ideas democratically, formulate proposals, and share their experiences freely and network for effective action. The South Korean Delegation is going to Porte Alegre, Brazil, to be part of this movement of movements.

So have we succeeded in becoming a part of the movement of movements? Was WSF what it proclaimed to be? Interestingly, I have both positive and negative answers to this question. First, the good news (no one likes to hear the bad news first). More than one hundred thousand people including 20,763 delegates representing 717 organizations from 156 countries attended the WSF 2003. One hundred fifty thousand people marched on the opening day of forum, carrying banners protesting against the war on Iraq and against neo-liberal globalization. It was more or less the climax of the wave of anti-war marches that took place around the world just a week before.

The South Korean Delegation with anti-war pickets and banners marched together with the Asian Social Forum group and the Stop the War Coalition, an organization based in Britain that played a critical role in organizing the anti-war demonstration in London on September 28, 2002, which attracted 400,000 people. Anti-war slogans in Korean, Japanese, Indian, and other Asian languages together with English, Spanish, and Portuguese slogans were heard. How much more international can it be!

If WSF proved itself to be international with its opening march, the South Korean Delegation demonstrated that it is part of the international movement by holding a workshop titled ‘South Koreans Take to the Street: Candlelight Vigils and Social Movements.’ The WSF workshops comprise activities proposed by the groups, movements and organizations that register delegates. They are like a factory of the forum, a kind of world civil laboratory, and are intended to bring groups, coalitions, networks, movements and organizations into contact to share their experiences, network, plan and strategies, always with a view to taking action in the present and the future.

In observance of such spirit, the South Korean Delegation organized a workshop composed of five presentations. The first presentation entitled ‘Candlelight Vigil Protests and Anti-US Movement in South Korea’ was given by Kim Eo-jin from All Together, an anti-capitalist organization involved in various labor and social issues. Lee Yu-jin from Green Korea United gave the second presentation entitled ‘Forbidden Rights to Pollute the Korean Peninsula: US Military Activities and Environmental Disaster,’ which exposed the crimes committed by the US military stationed in South Korea. A paper exploring the current situation of the struggle for easier access to Glivec, an anti-leukemia medicine, was presented by Dr. Woo Suk-kyun. Dr. Woo appealed to the participants to sign the petition protesting the recent decision made by the South Korean government to raise the price of Glivec in favor of the drug company Norvatis. That decision by the Korean government was a major blow to the health rights movement and, more importantly, to leukemia patients who now have to pay more than $3,000 to 5,000 a month just to survive. He reported that numerous health rights activists and leukemia patients immediately began their hunger strike protesting against the decision.

Dr. Woo”s emotional testimony was followed by two video presentations entitled ‘To Save Our Saemangeum Tidal Flats’ and ‘2002 Labor and Social Struggles in South Korea.’ The first video showed the efforts of the Korean Federation of Environmental Movements (KFEM) to stop the destruction of the Saemangeum tidal flats that make up South Korea”s beautiful coastline and serve as a feeding ground for at least 200,000 shorebirds. The second video was a short compilation of documentary clips summing up the year of labor and social struggles. The key issues were the struggle of public sector workers against privatization and the struggle of municipal workers, migrant workers, and disabled people for various laborers” rights. The video also clearly showed the hypocrisy of the Kim Dae-jung government by revealing the violent tactics of riot police quelling trade union leaders, workers, and even disabled people demanding what is rightfully theirs.

The highlight of the workshop was the program that followed the five presentations: Solidarity Speeches. At this time, participants were invited to stand up and give solidarity speeches. Surprisingly, participants from the Philippines, Japan, France, the US, and Canada stood up and gave us their solidarity speeches. Everyone praised the richness and diversity of information the presenters provided. A representative from ATTAC Japan shared his excitement and high expectations for future solidarity and cooperation with the South Korean Delegation. A woman from an electric workers union in the US talked about the growing anti-war movement in her country and expressed her solidarity to the anti-war and anti-US movement in South Korea. It was truly a moment of internationalism.

Aside from such positive moments, the whole experience of participating at the forum was not without limitations. First of all, most of the participants, including the South Korean Delegation, were in disarray and in confusion throughout the entire program Frankly, the forum was ill prepared. Just to be fair, it is impossible to organize a forum of this magnitude without a single glitch. However, there is no excuse for delivering the program booklet three days after the opening day. Moreover, the workshop schedule was never posted on the Internet.

Second, my impression of the forum was that it made all the participants passive with all the confusion and too much de-centralized organization of WSF. One American participant commented that he got an impression that the organization of the WSF 2003 was opaque and undemocratic. I believe the most crucial requirements for democracy is openness and information equality, but the WSF 2003 failed in both areas.

Third, the WSF 2003 lacked serious discussions and debates about the strategy, direction, immediate task, theories, and politics of the movement. We live in a very extraordinary and dangerous time as Noam Chomsky and many other speakers said. The Bush”s war on Iraq has just started its count down while economic and cultural wars of neo-liberal globalization are victimizing countless number of people worldwide. If the U.S. does attack Iraq, so many innocent lives will be lost and so many children will suffer.

Nevertheless, people around the world have succeeded in building a movement of movements to oppose neo-liberal globalization that has been destroying their lives, both directly and indirectly. More than ever, now is the time to debate and discuss in the movement how a different world is possible and what we can do to make a change.

Lastly, it is not necessarily a negative point but a challenge to the South Korean Delegation. The South Korean Delegation to the WSF 2003, the biggest delegation yet, has succeeded in coming together for two common causes: organizing the workshop and becoming part of the international movement. Its tasks now are to share that experience with broader social movements in South Korea and strengthen the network formed among different activists in the delegation to build a movement of movements in South Korea. We can start by holding the largest anti-war demonstration on February 15, 2003.