I flew from Portland (Maine) to Porto Alegre (Brazil). In twenty hours, the world changed from the snowing white of the north, twenty degrees below zero to the summer heat and strong sunshine of the tropical south.

I enjoy drastic changes in life as long as I survive them. I found myself floating in an ocean of human bodies with red banners and voices rising to the sky: "Another World is Necessary". Last year the slogan of the World Social Forum was "Another World is Possible".

It took a hard struggle during the whole year to move from the possible to the necessary. Why is another world necessary? More than a hundred thousand people came to Porto Alegre this year to say why another world is necessary (and not only possible). I live in Egypt, I have traveled in Africa, Asia, Europe, to the two Americas, to Australia, and everywhere I have seen how people are dying of hunger, in wars, in the so- called Free Market, under so-called Democracy.

The International Capitalist Media describe Israel as the most democratic state in our region, and the U.S.A as the most democratic country in the world. How many women and children are they killing everyday in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in other places? They say the World Bank is helping poor countries in Africa with aid and loans. How many people in our continent are killed economically by the World Bank?

The International Capitalist Media ignored the big even which took place in Porto Alegre, the hundreds of thousands of women and men who walked through the streets shouting "Another World is Necessary". The media was occupied with the few who dominate the wealth of the world, their meeting in Davos, at the "World Economic Forum". It is not a world forum. It is a forum of the few individuals who own the multinationals and the "free market".

In capitalist democracy "freedom" means freedom to kill, to declare war, to exploit the oil, the land, and the natural resources of others. It is the freedom to occupy other countries by military force. It is the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the American and British occupation of Iraq and Kuwait. These are only a few examples of what is happening in our postmodern era.

The small minority of wealthy rulers in the world were protected in Davos by the Swiss police. They could not move without police and military protection. However, they have now been exposed by the billions of people in the world. People became aware of the of their lies, which they try to conceal with beautiful words such as democracy, the free market, human rights, development, ect…
On the 23 January in the biggest square in Porto Alegre "Lula" inaugurated the third World Social Forum (Lula is the short name for the elected president of Brazil who is called Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, and has been the leader of the Worker's Party for twenty years). In his speech, said to over sixty thousand women and men: "I am going tonight to Davos to tell them about your goals, to carry your message to them."

But the crowd was not convinced. One of them shouted: "Why go all this long distance Lula? Send them an email!" and the crowd roared with laughter. Many people in Brazil consider Lula a liberal capitalist, in spite of the twenty years he spend struggling at the head of the Worker's Party. Power corrupts revolutionary men and women and Lula may be no exception. A Brazilian woman told me his economic policies will benefit what is called the "Nationalist Bourgeoisie". This reminded me of Gamal Abel Nasser's economic policies during the sixties. The Egyptian capitalists corrupted the public sector and this led to the downfall and defeat of Nasser and finally to his death on 28 September 1970.

Some women and men in Porto Alegre believe that Lula is the Nasser of Brazil.

But others disagree. They still consider him the hero of the left wing groups fighting against globalization and imperialism. The new left in Brazil is more radical, younger, those who are part of it describe the old left as dogmatic, rigid, undemocratic, linked to the new liberals, dominating the World Social Forum, who are playing a role in isolating it from ordinary women and men, from the daily struggle of people.

Next January the fourth World Social Forum will be held in Hyderbad in India, and then in Africa. Brazil or any other country should not be allowed to dominate the World Social Forum. It belongs to the world and not to one country. Since it started in 2001 it has been held in Porto Alegre. Why this monopoly? The participants from the Arab countries may one day have a World Social Forum in Palestine, or in Cairo, or even in Baghdad. For the time being this seems to be just a dream. But why should we not have big dreams? In Porto Alegre everybody is dreaming of another world, based on justice and freedom, in which women and men will be equal, in which there will be no wars and no poverty and no pollution of the environment by the capitalists.

I walk along the Jacui River, under the sun of Porto Alegre, the smell of the air reminds me of my village in the Nile Delta, the waters of the river look the same, and the sun rays are almost the sun rays. The faces around me are brown, sun burnt, like the faces at home in Cairo, I feel at home. I do not know the Portuguese language but I understand the music of words and the beat of drums.
I gave my talk in the University PUC, sale number 3, to a big hall which accommodates five thousand people. I felt my heart beating when they gave me a standing ovation. But an old German man with narrow eyes and a big nose pushed through the crowd and came up to me shouting in angry tones: "There is no bridge between the First and Third World so just settle down and accommodate yourself". I laughed and many women and men laughed too. A young Pakistani woman with a veil hiding her face was also angry. She said to me: "I chose to wear the veil, it is my personal freedom!" An American woman with a coating of makeup on her face shouted at me: "I chose to put on make-up. Why are you against the make -up? How can you call it a post-modern veil? It is a free choice! I feel I am free to do what ever I want!"

I smiled and said: "Yes, you are free like the free market, like G.W Bush, like Ariel Sharon, like Hitler; you are free!"
This Third World Social Forum was illuminating to me. It tore the veil off the face of the neo-liberal capitalism dominating the world. Nafta and the European Union are not democratic. They are key players in corporate globalization. The European Referendum campaign has been launched in order to build real democracy and ensure the full participation of women and young people in the European Union. For it is the old men who still dominate the politics of the world (whether left or right, whether in the West or in the East, in the North or in the South). Across the globe, capitalist globalization is still riding triumphant. The shadows of imperialism and neo-colonialism are very evident, especially in our region, the so-called Middle East (middle to whom?). The leaders of the so-called "free world" are meeting in Davos (and other places) walling themselves off from the majority of the world, and defending themselves from the protesters with their militia. Europe and U.S.A are moving steadily to the right, hiding their economic interests with a religious veil whether Christians or Jewish and using Islamic fundamentalism or post-modern terrorism as an escape to reinforce and expand their domination. The so-called "War against Terrorism" has devastated Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, and is relentlessly building up plans to devastate Iran, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Korea and others.

The World Social Forum is not merely an annual event in Porto Alegre. It has become a global movement, a continuous process to create an open space for free and equal exchange of thoughts and action.

In terms of numbers the World Social Forum grew from 25,000 people in the first meeting 2001 to more than 100,000 in the third meeting in 2003. But it is not the numbers alone that count. The world social forum has created an alternative to capitalist globalization. It has created a new hope, a new power which is playing a profound role in helping to free people all over the world from shackles of despair and false consciousness propagated by the global media. But more thinking is needed to obliterate the gap between what is called political activities and social activities, between women's groups and socialist groups.
The left, the socialist movement (including the Marxists) have learned a lot from women's movements in our countries and all over the world.

Women's movements tend to combine social activities with political, economic, religious, historical, and other activities. Women's input to human thought and to philosophy has been and continues to be significant and should not be ignored.
In Egypt as is the case in many countries all over the world the traditional left-wing (including the new anti-globalization groups) tend to exclude women in spite of the fact that they learned new ideas from them.

The traditional left-wing groups should change their old habits. The majority of people who participated in Porto Alegre WSF (s) were women and youth. But some old professional political groups tend to regress to old habits and try to monopolize and exclude them.
At this stage of history we need to struggle against the hijacking of the WSF by certain left wing groups in France or in Europe, in the U.S.A or elsewhere.

Left-wing groups in Europe are stronger than they are in Africa and they try to dominate. A French man, a leader in a group called ATTAC in Paris tried to control some of the groups who came from Africa. An American man in a group called Habitat tried to control some groups from the Arab countries.

Revolutionary groups in Europe and U.S.A should know that we the women (and men) in the so-called "Third World" are not backward, not in need of their leadership. We can lead ourselves, do not need leaders from abroad to show us the way. We appreciate their ability to transcend their nationality, religion, gender, color, class, creed, language, and other divisions inherited from the slave period, we appreciate their socialist tendencies in the struggle against capitalist globalization but they have to overcome remaining prejudices and we refuse to submit to their domination under the guise of freeing us from local or global oppressors. We can fight our own battles just as they fought their own, and we want to cooperate but on equal grounds and have equal exchange of ideas and experiences.
They need to move away from the conception of "giving help" to the conception of equal exchange. And to move from their obsession with economic capitalist globalization to looking at a host of other types of globalization and exploitation in social and in the every day life of women and men. These myriad globalizations have been exploiting the private and public life of women, refugees, immigrants, workers, and have been disguised under the so-called revival of religions or spirituality, or even socialist ideologies. We need to unmask the post modern game of new political groups, and de-mystify the new language of progressive groups that work for us and not with us.
We need to move away from seeing the Porto Alegre Forum as the only World Social Forum, and the others as being only marginal or local or thematic flora.

A self critical reflection is an essential part of the World Social Forum, without which it cannot grow and create new ideas and new actions locally and globally. I like the new word "glocal" since the local is inseparable from the global.
In Porto Alegre I met a few participants from Egypt and other Arab countries. The majority came from Europe and the U.S.A.
However the Palestinian flag dominated the demonstrations, and the protesters against the war in Iraq were visible, though all the other flags were drowned in the red color of the flags carried by the Brazilian peasants and workers. The forum in its totality condemned American unilateralism, militarism and lack of global responsibility in spite of its claims as a super global power. Power with no responsibility is a political disease inherited with the class patriarchal system born with slavery. It is one of the dichotomies forced on us by religion and philosophy. We have to undo this split between good divine power and the Devil's responsibility for evil. We have to un-mask the language of G.W Bush the father, the son, and the holy ghost and his axis of evil.

-Nawal El Saadawi
Porto Alegre 28 January 2003