Padmanabhan Krishna Murthy had only just arrived in London, but on Tuesday afternoon he had one matter on his mind: how to find Marx’s grave in Highgate cemetery.
Its inscription — ”Workers of all lands unite” — seemed an apt summary of the reason for his latest trip. The Indian trade union leader is one of hundreds of overseas delegates who have arrived in London for the third European Social Forum, a global justice conference that began on Thursday.
But he corrected that suggestion: ”It’s not only workers. It’s people of the world,” he said. ”The same multinationals are operating in Europe and India; you can’t fight globalisation within one continent. The forum is not about a single way of thinking, but about bringing together people who feel there’s a common challenge.”
About 20 000 campaigners from trade unions, charities and religious groups will converge in London this weekend to take part in more than 500 seminars, workshops and talks.
A cultural programme of screenings, theatre and exhibitions is running alongside the political debates and the event will culminate in a demonstration against the war in Iraq on Sunday.
Its affiliates range from the United Kingdom’s National Union of Teachers to the Norwegian-Cuban Friendship Association, via Oxfam. Speakers include renowned American feminist and black activist Angela Davis and the musician Pete Doherty. To add to the mix, other participants range from Gerry Adams to Che Guevara’s daughter, Aleida, and from the rapper Asher D to Ahmed Ben Bella, leader of the Algerian independence struggle.
”The whole point of the forum is finding common ground,” said Murthy. ”People everywhere are feeling the pinch of neo-liberal policies and globalisation … Coming here allows us to build bridges and remove misunderstandings.” But the event has attracted misunderstandings of its own, with participants of previous events claiming that this year’s has been ”hijacked” by mainstream organisations and individuals such as the trade unions and the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. The Greater London Authority (GLA) has given £400 000 to the event.
It has attracted a rival conference, Beyond ESF. Its organisers, backed by the anarchist grouping the Wombles, claim the forum has been ”hijacked by authoritarian organisations such as the Socialist Workers Party and racist, war-crazy corporate whores Neo Labour [who have] got in on the act through Ken Livingstone and the GLA”.
Last month 10 British NGOs, including Oxfam, Greenpeace and War on Want, wrote an open letter criticising ”the lack of transparency and openness in the UK process [of choosing speakers]”.
”I think there have been similar problems in previous years, but they have escalated this year,” said Hannah Griffiths of Friends of the Earth.
”Because the GLA put the money in, understandably, they wanted to track where it was going.”
But Livingstone said ”the European and World Social forums are broadest and most representative” social justice movements in the world today. The forum’s spokesperson said: ”With [more than] 500 sessions and [more than] 250 speakers, no one particular organisation has undue influence.”
Delegates may be inspired by the quotation that completes the inscription on Marx’s grave: ”The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways — the point is to change it.” — Â