Gramsci, Polanyi and Impressions from Africa on the Social Forum Phenomenon.

The article discusses the debate over whether the World Social Forum (WSF) should be embraced or rejected, if in 2007 South Africa is the host country. Peter Marcuse is optimistic that the Social Forum phenomenon can "bring together elements of many social movements, afford an opportunity for coalition-building among them, frequently around urban issues, and thus make a significant contributions to make such a change". To explore and understand the South African activists' ambiguous sentiments about the WSF requires a scale jump, from the global to the recent Africa Social Forum continental meetings, before returning to uneven prospects for building from the bottom up, instead, via municipal-scale Social Forums or via sectorally-based forums, such as land and food, water, energy, etc, in areas that link urban/rural, red/green, North/South and gender concerns. On the one hand, Marcuse is absolutely correct that "while limited direct action at the international level, example Seattle, Genoa, Cancun, are important, ultimately the decisive actions will be those of national governments, both internally and acting with other national governments. To the extent the focus is on action, national targets remain critical". Agreeing, Johannesburg Anti-Privatisation Forum secretary Trevor Ngwane explains the limits of 'autonomist' strategies.