The fifth edition of the World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre , Brazil from January 26-31, 2004 having returned to its “home” after being held in Mumbai , India last year.

I attended both last year's and this year's forum on the invitation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and as a representative of the Caribbean as I am employed by the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC), one of several regional satellite ecumenical organisations in close association with the WCC and other ecumenical organisations.

Ecumenical organisations like the CCC and the WCC are anxious to form links between the social and justice themes evident at the WSF and the work of their organisations.

Outside of this connection I would probably not have made it to these countries or to this event. I am grateful for the opportunity.

That said, the Caribbean is almost absent from the World Social Forum, both in terms of the number of Caribbean nationals present among the 100,000 participants routinely estimated to be at the forum since its third year, and in terms of themes related to the Caribbean. I know of or met less than 20 Caribbean persons at this year's forum. It seemed to me both last year and this year that Haiti stood in for the entire region.

A handful of representatives

At this year's forum there was a heated panel discussion entitled: “ Haiti : The International Community's Dictatorship” with listed speakers from the Fondasyon Trant Septanm (September 30 Foundation), Haiti Action Committee (USA), Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (Haiti/USA) Marin Interfaith Taskforce on the Americas (USA) and many other individual speakers.

By contrast, African representation at this year's Forum seemed to have grown - judging from coverage accorded to the continent's concerns in one of the daily issues of the Terra Viva , the Forum's own newspaper.

Also, a group met regularly to discuss among other things the African lobby to host the Forum in Africa . Toward the end of the Forum speculation on this topic ended with an announcement that the next hosting of the Forum in 2007 would be held in Africa in a yet to be disclosed country.

After Mumbai last year, my visual impression was that India 's presence at this year's Forum had dwindled to a pavilion and a handful of representatives easily visible to my ethnic-sensitive Caribbean eyes.

Scene from World Social Forum

The second time around of any experience tends to bring sobriety. I continue to describe the World Social Forum as an amazing event, in part because of its ability to attract highly acclaimed and internationally well-known or controversial critical thinkers - Brazilian President Ignacio Lula and members of his cabinet, Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, Portuguese author and Nobel laureate Jose Saramago, Jesse Jackson of the United States. And from within the ecumenical movement, writer Ulrich Duchrow and theologian Ofelia Ortega among many others.

President George Bush was not present but his name was mentioned often, in protest and in caricature and his image could easily qualify along with Che Guevara's and Lenin's as among the most popular images at the forum.

And, equally commendable, the forum this year is said to have attracted 30,000 young people who came by bus from neighbouring countries, or, with groups of friends from around the world.

Many of them lived in an international tent park on the outskirts of the forum and many also turned up in the tents in the sweltering heat to participate in lectures.

I like to think that this event could be formative and transformative for those school and university-going youth who have the opportunity to listen to and interact with people who live the issues – such as fighting for the rights of indigenous peoples or advocating for debt cancellation.

Then too, there were those special moments of encounter which could be filed away as snapshots of my life – an indigenous man from Ecuador gave me a sip of his mate ( a cooling drink of water poured over a concoction of herbs in a stylized calabash) and I immediately understood why it is a preferred drink to any soda or even juice, and, some young guys showed me how to play the capoeira instrument and joined in an impromptu sing-along as I got the hang of it.

Actually these side events – “hippy-happy” activities, I call them - ranging from chanting about Haile Selassie in Portuguese to learning to dance the samba, to skate-boarding or attending music concerts could legitimately occupy all one's time at the Forum.

Still, I often had the feeling that I'd had enough. Maybe I was tired of walking down Borges de Medeiros Avenue every day in the hot sun, and losing money didn't help, or it might be that bout of stomach upset.

Competition for attention

One of the ways that the tremendous diversity at the WSF is conveyed is in the incessant competition for attention. More obvious examples are street sellers shouting out their drinks for sale or loudspeakers and handouts inviting participation in a panel or other event and everywhere trinkets, and what a friend described as the “commodification” of alternative images.

Pannellists, and the organisations who sponsored them were alive to the networking opportunities of the Forum and re-worked and re-staged their discussions throughout the days of the Forum.

At another level, even the city of Porto Alegre has become savvy. The Jornal do Centro , a free newspaper which I picked up at the hotel referred to the economic benefits that the coastal city of 1.3 million people enjoy as a result of the annual tourism generated by the Forum.

According to the publication, Porto Alegre itself has launched a “Stay Forum” lobby in the hope that the business benefits of the Forum won't migrate elsewhere.

Sharon Bradshaw with one of the performers in the closing ceremony of the forum

All of this is legitimate and to be expected, but I began to feel both sated and dissatisfied.

The WSF, I mentioned to a few people was like a good, strong drink. How much of it could you have?

To my surprise a couple of the ecumenical delegates agreed.

It appears too, that in this its fifth year, influential persons on the International Planning Committee of the WSF are beginning to think along these lines. The Terra Viva of January 30 reported that a group of very influential participants at the Forum had elaborated what they hoped would become the consensus of Porto Alegre .

The article began:

“ It might have been out of frustration, or perhaps a sincere desire to help. Whatever the motivation, 19 WSF high-profile activists spent a day and a half hammering out a Consensus for a conference that prides itself on not producing any .... they presented the World Social Forum with a blue-print document containing main themes and called on the other 120,000 participants to sign on to it. The move is likely to unleash speculations of all kinds about the purposes of this new group, most of whom are founders of the WSF and International Committee members .. .”

The WSF is beginning to confront the challenges inherent in moving from a social movement to a more institutionalised presence. I find this evolutionary pull fascinating. What might the World Social Forum become by its tenth year?

Long-term outcomes emerging from this Forum include a greater emphasis on the sub-regional fora in between and a proposal for a bi-annual main Forum instead of the annual one.

In 2004 alone there were three of these sub-regional fora European, Americas and African. And a Caribbean Forum is planned for later this year in Martinique .