On the surface, things look very good. Trees are covering more and more areas. In an aerial photo, two-thirds of the Himalayan valley is covered with forests. However, 90 percent are coniferous. Underneath, there is little vegetation, biodiversity is lost, and the soil becomes increasingly poor, dry, unusable, and unable to store water. The Himalayas are rapidly becoming a so-called green desert. The snow is becoming less and less. This is accelerating the melting of glaciers.
Two billion people depend on these glaciers for water to flow from the Indus and Ganges to the Mekong and Yangtze Rivers. As glaciers shrink, there is less and less water available for agriculture downstream. Smallholder farmers have been greatly affected. Many others also depend on water from the so-called top of the world.
Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, is located in one of the Himalayan valleys, surrounded by seven 500 meter peaks. A conference was recently held here to show how to overcome this crisis based on the needs of smallholder farmers and rural areas.
Political sociologist Uddhav Pyarel probably did more than anyone to persuade the International Council to host this year’s World Social Forum in Nepal. He belongs to the first generation to become literate in the village. WSF completely changed his outlook on life. Through attending social forums and meeting people there, he became aware of everything from neoliberalism to the importance of fighting discrimination. He gained so many new perspectives and ideas. He told with particular empathy the story of a Finnish professor he met who cut back on his job and worked as a cleaner. In Nepal’s traditional village society, there is a caste system in which each person is given a specific mission from birth, which they must carry out throughout their lives. Uddhav Pyarel’s encounter with a person who performs intellectual tasks while mopping floors was shocking. His view of the village’s social system completely changed. He hoped that by organizing WSF in Nepal, many participants would similarly broaden their horizons. He believes something similar happened. Many of them came to his WSF in Kathmandu in connection with certain of his NGO projects, and many of them were affected in the same way as he was.
The first World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001. His first decade was a successful antidote to neoliberal globalization. The global conference attracted more than 100,000 participants each year. Soon forums were established on most continents, in many countries, and even in regions like Sweden. After that, its influence diminished until the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to hold anything other than online forums. Now, the World Social Forum has been relaunched, and even its critics see it as a success.
There is criticism that peace issues are being ignored and environmental issues are overshadowed by social issues. His WSF in Kathmandu demonstrated a clear commitment to peace and that environmental and social issues can have their place at the same time. Soumya Dutta of Friends of the Earth India, a network of fishermen, street vendors and other environmentalists, goes so far as to say: This is done, for example, by making the working conditions of those who have to work as porters in increasingly extreme heat a natural part of climate justice efforts. ”
Criticism also centers on the difficulty of WSF in translating into action. An almost hostile conflict has developed between open space advocates and those who want further political mobilization. In Kathmandu, several pragmatic methods were tried to foster political action without changing the rule that the WSF is an open space where decisions are not made in the name of all participants. The newly established WSF World Resistance Assembly was one of his ways of communicating this will. Another was for the members of the International Council, rather than the entire International Council, to adopt a statement condemning Israel’s genocide in Gaza and calling for a joint day of action on May 15. Third, the forum was used to launch things that could not be done within the framework of a social forum, such as cooperation between political parties and mass movements against rising right-wing extremism.
Can Nepal’s WSF bring new momentum to international civil society cooperation and strategy? Facing the dramatic effects of global warming, this country with many farmers may have an opportunity. Central to the climate justice movement and many other movements is recognizing the socio-economic realities of rural areas and the central role of farmers. It is also the ability to shape strategies that change national policies. Nepal is one of the few or only countries with food sovereignty enshrined in its constitution, and one of the central demands of the global farmers’ movement is that all countries must provide their own citizens with food sovereignty. The right to feed has been adopted in this country. It is also a country that has avoided the authoritarian tendencies prevalent in many other countries in Asia and now in Europe and many other parts of the world. Who knows, maybe her WSF in Nepal will be the start of a new momentum that will make rural movements as important as urban ones in solving today’s world problems. No one knows.
Much of what happened at this year’s WSF in Nepal can be considered the normal content of these conferences. Scout assembles the skeleton of Tesla with other young climate change activists. Soon, this vehicle model will join the demonstration train as a critique of “electric capitalism” and will be a lively vehicle fighting for the rights of various groups, including workers, small farmers, women, untouchables, indigenous peoples, and people with disabilities. It will be crowded with people. LGBTQI people, sex workers, immigrants, Kurds, etc.
The World Social Forum began on February 15 with a celebratory procession through the crowded streets of Kathmandu. At the front line were banners supporting Palestine and the message “Another world is possible.” Once again, tens of thousands of civil society activists from around the world gathered in a social forum. Nepal was chosen in part because it is one of the few countries in Asia where authorities are open-minded enough to allow such meetings. Here, possible international cooperation between mass movements and other organizations was revived. A collaboration with broad ambitions to resist all forms of oppression and promote better relationships between humans and nature.
The air in Kathmandu is so polluted that you can chew particles on your teeth. But there’s something else new in the air here. People are increasingly speaking each other’s languages. A young feminist from Lalitpur, which borders the capital, calls for action: The three-day Feminist Forum’s statements were widely praised. The young activists who organized her WSF in Montreal in 2016 are planning his WSF around themes of intersectionality, including sexual identity, ethnicity, class, and more.
The most frequently discussed topic at WSF was climate and climate justice, appearing in 43 different activity titles. Here, the focus is often on workers’ land rights and social rights. Smallholder farmers’ views center on the need for food sovereignty and agroecology. Paralleling the success of small farmers in enshrining food sovereignty into the constitution, organizations such as the Youth Environmental Alliance are struggling to educate the public about the cryosphere, the part of the Earth made of ice. ing. To reach a result.
Some prominent leaders and intellectuals of the mass movement also attended Kathmandu. Medha Patkar of India and the Narmada Movement was also present and gave a fiery speech during his inauguration against the prevailing outlook on development in the world. Aleida Guevara from Cuba spoke to Nepal’s political leaders about socialism, the importance of unity, and equal rights to health and education for all. Walden Bello emphasized the threat of emerging fascism. Eric Toussaint has launched an initiative to start something new again from Porto Alegre, Brazil. What is needed is a global campaign against emerging right-wing radicalism and fascism, this time with the support of both mass movements and political parties.
But Nepal’s WSF may be remembered above all as a major breakthrough for a new generation of Africans ready to take over. CGLTE OA (Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles in West Africa) is a caravan for land, water and farmers’ rights to seeds that has been crisscrossing West African countries since 2016. It is a group of young activists representing cooperation from 16 countries. West African countries have been preparing for a long time.
Today, one of them, Massa Cone, was completed. We need to bring back many of the major movements that have left the WSF. In particular, we must restore Via Campesina, the global small-scale do-it-yourself movement that has brought together 250 million people and is considered by many to be the world’s largest mass movement. This will require updating the WSF’s governing body, the International Council.
The West African delegation seemed to have more energy than anyone else in Nepal. When the closing ceremony was over and most people were tired, they continued to sing cheering and battle songs. Deciding where to hold his next WSF just got easier. It is scheduled to be held in the West African country of Benin in 2026.
Mr. Uddhav Pyarel said, “Our desire to be good hosts for such an important international conference has come true. Now I want to share the responsibility of everyone, wherever they are, with making the world a better place.” For those of us in poor countries, it is important not only to blame others, but also to try to live while learning.”