Brazil 8 years later: an ally for civil society or competitor for global governance?

In 2002 I was in Porto Alegre (Southern Brazil) for the second World Social Forum. It was the gathering of anti-globalization movement.

I was there not because I was against globalization but I couldn’t find my place in the system where I grew up. I was looking for a place suiting me and ‘another world is possible’, WSF’s slogan, fitted the purpose.

It looked like that civil society in the west had joined with social movements in the south to build a better world. However, there we some discrepancies, even then.

Leaders such as Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky were antiglobalization but the Brazilians who led the WSF, were not really. They wanted a share of the bounty. Not everything to the West, but a fair share to the South as well. This was the message.

The Partito de Trabailladores headed by Lula was the main sponsor. Few years later he was elected president of Brazil and still leads it.

Few years later Brazil proved that it is not against globalization. On the contrary it’s a champion benefiting from it to the point where it came to save it – paying the debts of the West last year.

I’m at the Itacare beach at top tourist resort full of Brazilians: bungalow on the beach, impeccable service, hunky guys playing football on the beach while I’m having a drink and writing my blog.

Do they want to wreck globalization, shut down corporation and defeat western imperialism? NO!

They want to be rich and look alike. They want to be like us – the Westerners. If necessary they will replace us.

There is no alliance anymore. If NGOs in the so-called North call for restrained development, taking in consideration environmental protection and developing countries, the new middle class in the South wants just growth.

Actually there isn’t any South. There are emerging economies. The rest of the world doesn’t really matter.

A new fight is appearing at the horizon. On one side, there is the Western postmodern society, mainly a middle class now wealthy and committed to sustainable development and social justice, but ageing and disillusioned.

On the other side, there are the new roaring countries – BRICS + allies such as Indonesia and Mexico – keen on building their citizens prosperity and leaving the environment and human rights aside until they have matched the ‘gringos’. They are full hope and confidence in a better future. they don’t have any doubt on their entitlement to a share of the bounty.

Naturally in both blocks there will be a fifth column. In the enlightened western countries we will find the marginalized losers of globalization – the remnant of the working class – who haven’t been able to develop the skills and mind-frame to take advantage of 21st century opportunities. They will gather in local clusters leaning to new forms of fascism. Those will be coupled by the immigrants who moved for economic reasons and will create a new second tier class of inhabitants as the slaves were in the Roman Empire.

In the block formed by the emerging economies the fifth column will be the elite – the super rich – together with the artificial civil society Westerners donors and philanthropists are nurturing. They will conform to and champion international standards – i.e the western values.

Even if my forecasts are not 100% correct I bet our future will be entertaining!