Could it be that the whole multimillion-dollar event, including the NGO Forum, was a charade, designed to give the impression that the more enlightened elements of global civil society have bought into the empty promises of globalization? That certainly was the prevailing view in the third gathering, the unofficial "pavement conference" attended by 20,000 landless and penniless people from around Durban and elsewhere in South Africa.

Unable to afford the $100 entrance fee to the NGO Forum, Durban's poor held their own assembly and march. This was the largest political protest in South Africa since the demise of apartheid, outside of a labor-union general strike. A few US conference delegates strayed wide-eyed into the gatherings. They may not have understood the slogans being chanted by the masses in Zulu: Ulawula ngobubanxa Mbeki, e-South Africa ("Hey Mbeki, you're messing up South Africa"); Wena wawutshelwua ubani ukuthi amanzi ayakhokhelwa? ("Who told you you could sell us water?").

But they couldn't have missed the placards: Landlessness equals racism. You promised us land: you gave us jail. The landless of south africa support the landless of palestine. Since the demise of apartheid, just 1 percent of South Africa's land has been redistributed to the black majority. White farmers still own 85 percent of the land. Homeless families who recently put up shacks on unused land in Johannesburg to fend off the winter cold were promptly and mercilessly evicted by the ANC municipality.

Residents of Durban's still-segregated black townships also condemned the ANC's cost-recovery policies, which have led to thousands of people having their water and electricity cut off and 100,000 people contracting cholera in the past year. Thousands of workers marched to protest the job losses associated with South Africa's home-grown (but by co-written by the World Bank) structural adjustment program. South African unemployment is estimated to be around 40 percent, and according to the UN Development Program, South Africa recently overtook Brazil to become the most unequal society on the planet.

Across South Africa, as elsewhere in the world, a new social movement is forming to resist the new economic apartheid, which comes in the form of structural adjustment, corporate excess and debt-dependency. This is a global apartheid system felt almost as strongly in the ghettos of Western cities as in the sweatshops of the Third World. The "Durban Social Forum" was founded on the streets outside the World Conference Against Racism to challenge this system.

At Pôrto Alegre in Brazil in February 2002, the second "World Social Forum" will unpack an alternative vision for the world, in which peoples' basic rights are paramount. Later this month protesters will once again challenge the World Bank's dependency-creating policies in Washington, DC. Then in November, thousands across the world will challenge the proposed new round of WTO talks to be held in the inaccessible state of Qatar. In September 2002 many thousands will return to Johannesburg to challenge the hype at the Rio+10 summit on sustainable development.

Together with the local struggles for jobs, homes, services, education and healthcare, this is the real cutting edge of the fight against racism on a global scale. The World Conference Against Racism never provided a real opportunity for change. We are pleased that the US government revealed its real interests by going home. At least Bush, unlike his predecessor, represents a more honest approach.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.