report on the first romanian social forum

WHAT THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS:
-----WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?
-----WHAT IS THIS REPORT
-----WHO WERE THE TACTICAL ORGANIZERS
-----WHO WERE THE SPONSORS
-----WHAT WAS THE PROCEDURE OF THE MEETINGS
-----PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATIONS
-----A SELECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE SUMMARY
-----CRITICAL CONCLUSIONS
-----WHAT SHOULD BE DONE NEXT
-----A FEW BASIC PRINCIPLES OF A TRUE SOCIAL FORUM

-----WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?

The first "Romanian Social Forum", which took place on 5-7 May in Bucharest.

-----WHAT IS THIS REPORT?

This is the subjective account of a simple participant, written for the Romanian Indymedia network (

http://romania.indymedia.org). Everyone is free to draw their own conclusions, to comment, to disagree and to transform this report into a working document.

-----WHO WERE THE TACTICAL ORGANIZERS?

The official agenda of the Forum mentions a lot of organisers: the labor union confederation CNS â€œCartel ALFAâ€� (www.cartel-alfa.ro), the Group for Applied Economy (Grupul de Economie Aplicata, GEA,

http://www.gea.org.ro), the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society (Fundatia pentru Dezvoltarea Societatii Civile, FDSC,

http://www.fdsc.ro), the Romanian Caritas Catholic Confederation (

http://www.caritas.org.ro), the Romanian Centre for Global Studies (Centrul Roman de Studii Globale, CRSG,

http://ro.crsg.ro), the Pro-Democracy Association (Asociatia Pro-Democratia, APD,

http://www.prodemocratia.ro), The National Federation of Social Assistants from Romania (Federatia Nationala a Asistentilor Sociali din Romania, FNASR). The tactical organisers, in other words, the ones who detained on site power, were: CRSG, led by Dorina Nastase, and Cartel Alfa, led by Bogdan Hossu.

----WHO WERE THE SPONSORS?

To the right of the podium there were two large posters. One of them displayed the logos of all the sponsors: The Association for the Integration of Romania into the European Union (Asociatia "Pentru Integrarea Romaniei in Uniunea Europeana", AIRUE), The British Embassy in Bucharest, Community Habitat Finance (CHF International Romania,

http://www.chfro.org, an organisation that administrates a USAID grant for the EDS program, Enterprise Development Strengthening),tThe European Centre for Workers' Questions (EZA,

http://www.eza.org), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (

http://www.fes.de). The second poster, the biggest, showed only the logos of EDS and USAID.

-----WHAT WAS THE PROCEDURE OF THE MEETINGS?

The place where the Forum took place was a conference hall in the Herastrau Park, far from any means of public transportation that would have allowed the free and spontaneous participation of people. There were 4 panels spread out over 2 days; each panel looked like a conference with invited speakers, which was followed by "discussions." However, it was impossible to ask questions directly from the audience, except by force. The organisers had designated a "synthesis group" for each panel, who selected and gave voice to questions that were written on specially designed forms in advance.

-----PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATIONS

The Romanian Social Forum (FSR) had nothing to do with the World Social Forums (WSF), either in its conception or in its realization. None of the principles stated in the WSF Charter of Principles were used. No civil grass-roots movement was invited; my own participation was fortuitous, due to the fact that I had found out about the event privately. There was no publicly available or transparent information about the organisation of the event or its logistic details. The official website of the FSR (

http://www.forum-social.ro) became functional 3 weeks *after* the end of the event. According the their own admission, the tactical organisers of the FSR did not even known until the opening day about the initiative to organize a Social Forum led by Peter Damo from Aiud (

http://www.forumulsocialroman.ro), which dated from January 2004, although it is true that this initiative appears to be rather sectarian. Only the labor union Cartel Alfa (

http://www.cartel-alfa.ro), claimed to be open and available for future collaboration with networks of social movements and grass-root activists.

-----A SELECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE SUMMARY

The discussions of the first panel, "Corporate Social Responsibility" was dominated by Daniel Daianu (

http://www.forum-social.ro/MODELUL%20SOCIAL.pdf), the former finance minister and the current president of CRSG (one of the main organisers of the forum). He argued that the "economic failure" of the former socialist block states was only the first step towards a "pragmatic redefinition of the social contract" in a larger capitalist context; the next step would be the reformation of the Western European states, which can no longer cope with their own ageing and stultification are incapable of competing with the developing Orient. Daianu came to the social forum in order to proclaim the imperative law that civil society has to obey, because "there-is-no-alternative": capitalism is the only way, and the welfare-state is destined to disappear. The law was not named, but we can understand that it revolves around the neoliberal doctrine: in Daianu's words, " development/ modernization demands an exemplary mobilization of the elites"; as far as the people are concerned, traditional moral values have to be emphasized
("where there's no family there's no country/community"). Obviously, "the discussion has to be about the evolution of capitalism in Romania"; finally, we "have to" make the passage from welfare to workfare (that is, from supporting the underprivileged, to forcing them to work for a dime; a system that even The Economist compared in October 5, 1996 with the "new slavery"). When asked to explain why he assumes an identity between democracy and capitalism, or between capitalism and free markets, Daianu proved his complete ignorance, which he tried to compensate for with professorial arrogance. It's symptomatic, however, that the president of the host-organisation has come to the "social forum" to explain to civil society why it has to obey to the capitalist neoliberal doctrine.

The second panel, "The Role of Civil Society in the Social Dialogue in the European Union and Romania" was more coherent, despite of its title. It actually helped me understand that there is a vision and a common strategy behind these presentations. From Bogdan Hossu, president of Cartel Alfa, the biggest labor union, I finally found out in clear-cut words what would be this new "European Social Model": *The Social and Economic Council (CES), a structure formed by the representatives of labor unions, employers unions, and the government, and whose attributions are generally to approve, amend or write legislative projects*. In this three-fold structure there's also a place for the representatives of NGOs, who currently are appointed by the Government (!). Bogdan Hossu went on to show the tactical disfunctions of CES in Romania. Elena Zamfir, from the National Federation of the Social Assistants - FNASR, and from the Professional Association of Romanian Sociologists, pointed to the fundamental problem that has to be addressed: *the academic community of research is ignored by the government and the legislative branch; therefore we should put together a strategy for the integration of experts in the suprastructure of power*. Regardless of the political colour of the government, a common pattern has surfaced over the past years: the executive pays interest to the work of experts in the initial phase of projects, and then it ignores them. Then Dan Manoleli, the president of FDSC, offered the clearest synthesis of the way the big NGOs in Romania conceive civil society. In his opinion, civil society is composed of: the employers unions, the labor unions, the NGOs and the political parties. Its purpose would be to create a society with a "functional and self-regulative system", one in which "institutions are functional". The president of the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society never mentioned anything about informal or grass-roots movements, and never hinted that he possesses the vaguest knowledge about such phenomena, either in Romania or in other parts of the world. For Manoleli, the development of civil society means exclusively the "development of institutions". In this context, Manoleli came with the proposal *to create a third plateau between the executive and the legislative, a plateau of experts who will write under contract, for money, the legislative proposals*. In other words, he proposed creating an autonomous body of technocrats in the superstructure of the state: a capitalist technocracy. It is a technocracy because technocrats will form a third level of power, composed of experts, lawyers, lobbyists, scholars etc; and it is capitalist because they will sell for money their capital of knowledge and connections. I asked Manoleli what this vision of a capitalist technocracy has to do with democracy, but there was nothing I could use from his long answer. Radu Nicosevici, from the Academy of Advocacy, who spoke last, synthesized the common vision of the panel: *to institutionalize a third level of State Power, near the Government and the Parliament, made up by experts, lawyers, and lobbyists as a method of control of representative democracy*. With the exception of Bogdan Hossu, who presented the tactical perspective of the labor unions, all the other panelists pushed forward a strategic vision articulated from the superstructural perspective of the state!* Doesn't this show so well that the nation-state remains the form of organisation of the capitalist elites?

On the second day, in the panel "The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the Social Domain", Maria Sandor, the former president of FDSC, who is currently representing Cooperative Housing Federation (CHF), continued weaving the same thread, arguing for the "American model" of externalizing services, from the state to the institutions of civil society. Daniel Barbu, a lecturer at the University of Bucharest, spoke in the same spirit and tried to deliver yet another lesson about another European principle that "has to be followed": "subsidiarity", namely in its German and not French rendition. This was about the *minimal outside intervention of the state in the administration of local communities*, such as it used to be in the good old days of the feudal imperial model, when the emperor was leaving his subjects alone most of the time, intervening only during a state of exception. Barbu pleaded for the replacement of the "socialist" term "local administration" with the liberal term "local government". Finally, Mihaela Lambru, from the Faculty of Sociology in Bucharest, put into pragmatic words the theoretical principles stated by Barbu: it's about the *subsidies given by the state to private institutions that are implementing social services*, such as social assistance. "Romania" needs this outsourcing of services because the state is "lazy and irresponsible", and the "elites" have to assume the burden of the mission of compensating for this state of affairs, within the existing power structures of the same state.

The forum ended with a panel entitled "The Churches in the EU and Romania â€“ social partners". And so I was able to learn from Antoine Sondag (Pax Romana International) that human rights are the "common ground" between the different religions of the 25 EU states, that the Romanian Orthodox Church has "signed the papers" regarding NATO and the integration into the EU (!) and that it is doing everything possible to transmit the message of "integration" to its herd. I have to admit that out of all the panelists, the representatives of Caritas Catholica were by far the most knowledgeable participants as far as the WSFs were concerned. Nevertheless, framing the discussion of the social forum with representatives of confessional organisations proved to be a total fiasco; the public was less participative than a dead duck, and the discussions were nul. What could be the purpose of ending a social forum with a tribute (made by Violeta Barbu, the wife of Daniel Barbu) to a Catholic priest?! The elitist, representative, top-down conception that dominated this event was brought to its deserved climax by Mrs. Barbu's presentation, which ended the forum with a moralizing finger pointing towards an exceptional person, whose example should be followed. Thus it continued the leo-straussian mission - the elites showed their undisputable traditional values to the masses, and maintained the cult of dead people. There was no actual place for creative ideas, or even for discussing ideologies. The real model proposed asked for the respectful passivity of the "people", who "have to" accept what the elites are preaching. Could this be any clearer? The ideological neutrality chanted today at every corner by the Romanian right means drowning civil society into the absolute truths imposed by power, and as such it actively blocks civil society from creating its own alternatives, beyond the forms of organization, the values and the interpellations issued from above. It is up to us to take a direct stance against this.

-----CRITICAL CONCLUSIONS

COMMITMENT:

With very few exceptions, the so-called representatives of civil society have proven their complete ignorance regarding the history and principles of the World Social Forum, as well as of the history and principles of the Peoples Global Action. The representatives of the big NGOs (FDSC, Pro Democratia), have ignored the grass-roots social movements, at a national as well as an international level, seeming to be more interested in *integrating their own capital of knowledge and connections into the superstructure of the state*. More lamentable than their ignorance is the complete disinterest they displayed toward grass-roots social movements.

The representatives of civil society have shown a complete lack of interest for the intrinsic political value of civil society. Although the current Romanian presidency puts into practice a neoconservative agenda that reduces civil society to silence under the imperatives of the military alliance with the dominant power of the world, and although the neoliberal agenda of the Tariceanu government has already determined major conflicts with NGOs and with labor unions, issues such as "neoliberalism," "imperialism", "poverty", "economic dependency", "participative democracy", "social solidarity" have been fully ignored. When confronted with this absence, the lecturers have either proven their lack of knowledge or lack of interest, or they have quickly tried to integrate these issues into their "top-down" agenda, in a purely opportunistic fashion.

The common vision of the "experts" and of the "representantives" of civil society has proven to be obedient and limited; obedient to the superstructures of the moment, trying to find ways to sneak "civil society" into the given forms of power; and limited because it knows nothing about the pragmatic experience and knowledge of the do-it-yourself and participative networks.

VISION:

Both in its conception and in its practice, the first Romanian Social Forum made no attempt to define initiatives of resistance to neoliberal globalization, which is one of the essential principle of the World Social Forum Charter. It did not attempt to offer alternatives to capitalism, imperialism, feudalism, existing trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation, which is one of the hallmarks of the Peoplesâ€™ Global Action.

Both in its conception and in its practice, the Romanian Social Forum made no attempt to create initiatives of resistance to the vertical imperatives coming from the state and supra-state structures. On the contrary, a common vision of the speakers of the Forum was developing strategies for molding civil society according to ideas, structures and norms coming from above and integrating the chosen representatives of civil society into the structures of power of the state.

The participants in the Forum articulated a remarkably coherent vision: civil society means labor unions, empoyers unions, churches, parties and experienced NGOs. They gathered together in order to give an answer to the question: "how can Romanian civil society be integrated into the European Union", following the European Social Model (MSE). In other words: "how can we, the representatives of civil society, help the state apparatus and the supra-state power to integrate our herd". The common strategy of this Forum consisted in building a third level of power between the executive and the legislative, the "expert" representatives of civil society, who will have the opportunity to transform their accumulated social capital of knowledge and connections into financial and political capital. On these grounds, this "social forum" had just about nothing to do with civil society, which had everything to loose through the "outsourcing" of its voices within the game of representative democracy. CIVIL SOCIETY IS NOT MADE UP OF EXPERTS: building a body of representatives of civil society, integrated into the structures of power, actively hinders the development of horizontal tactical networks between organisations and social movements.

I noticed that the representatives of civil society shared a deep misconception of informal social movements as a sort of a primitive, immature stage, while institutions and NGOs represented the civilized, mature stage. Nothing could be more false: FUNDAMENTALLY, CIVIL SOCIETY IS NOT AN 'INSTITUTION': the ideas, beliefs and culture beyond already crystallized institutions are the ones that bring people together in a spontaneous fashion and maintaining possibilities of creating society. The purpose of a social forum should not be assembling the most "representative" voices of civil society, but interconnecting people with the aim of exploring the possibilities developed by civil society autonomously.

FORMAT:

The space was too far from any means of public transportation, discouraging the spontaneous participation of the public. And in the chosen format, because of the "synthesis group", the audience (civil society, that is, and not its "representatives") was unable to ask questions and participate. The fact that the organisers have designed special forms for asking questions, nicely printed in two colors, is symptomatic of their top-down conception of the forum - formally, for the organisers, the public should only come with questions, it does not have comments or answers of its own. In the same
vein, the speakers came to the Social Forum as if it was a scholarâ€™s colloquium; the presenters all came to give lessons to civil society, not prepared to learn something in the process. Both the format and the content of the forum prove the overarching desire to form a disciplined and obedient civil society, to trap it in an unproductive and unequal form of dialogue in which one side is there to listen and the other to talk. The forum was a non-participative colloquia with no other follow-ups than the repetition of the Forum in the future and the aim of forming an exclusive core of "representatives" of civil society with a common strategy and interests.

-----WHAT SHOULD BE DONE NEXT

The presence of a few "intruders" has been intensely felt. The preparations for the next Forum (2006) will begin in September 2005. A few of the organisers declared themselves to be open to all interested networks of activists, national and international, and there is enough time for mobilisation. This is why I think we should first make a call for the *regional solidarization of grass root movements*. Focusing the social forum on "Romania" proved to be noxious - the nation-state is not a neutral host of a social forum. The discussions will have to shift from the problems of the nation-state and of how to "infiltrate" the state apparatuses, towards tactics of resistance and participative strategies between the social movements. One thing is to develop strategies of integrating civil society into the given structures of power, and a whole other thing is to develop tactics of action within the existing structures of power, or to develop common strategies of civil society beyond the limits imposed by the state apparatuses.

-----A FEW BASIC PRINCIPLES OF A TRUE SOCIAL FORUM

-transparency and decentralisation of the process of organisation, communication and follow-up.
-accent on participation and productivity, in order to stimulate the free exchange of ideas, experience, information between the participants.
-priority given to the social categories or the communities in the biggest difficulty.
-a clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism, militarism and of all the institutions that are promoting neoliberal globalization.
-a clear rejection of all forms of authoritarianism and of all the systems of domination and discrimination, including global capitalism,neoliberalism, patriarchy, racism, religious fundamentalism, the police-state.
-a rejection of abstract political correctness and a support of direct action, in solidarity with the local social movements, in order to develop forms of resistance that are maximizing the respect for life and the rights of the underprivileged.
-support for an alternative sense of politics: the forum should not take the form of a meeting between bureaucrats, and it should not have as its purpose building a party or any other structure that would support any political institution or enter in the game of representative democracy. The political value of a social forum is beyond the form of organisation of the power of the moment.
-accommodating to the reality Romania, a country at the periphery of global
capitalism, and the development and direct support to local forms of resistance, and to elements that are supporting the development of free markets against global capitalist oligarchies.
-a clear rejection of the concrete policies of anti-democratic, neoliberal and neoconservative orientation, that have been or are being pushed forward by the current Romanian government and presidency: the flat tax, the workfare system, the reformation of the education system on criteria of profit, the reformation of culture on criteria of profit, the national militarist strategy, the participation to the war in Irak.
-a recognition that it is not civil society that has to "integrate" into the EU according to top-down norms, but that it is the responsibility of supra-structural organisations to find out the interests and needs of the civil society. The social forum has to protest against any vertical conception of civil society and to support grass-roots social movements and the philosophies of organization that are anti-authoritarian, non-nationalist, descentralized, participative and autonomous.