The Hindu : International : Chavez emerges champion of poor

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 04, 2005

International

International

Chavez emerges champion of poor

By John Vidal

PORTO ALEGRE (BRAZIL), FEB. 3. Even as the Presidents, billionaires and film stars were jetting home from the World Economic Forum in Davos, another very different group was saying its goodbyes in Brazil. But in contrast to the low-key closing speech given in Davos by Jurgen Stark, vice-president of the German Bundesbank, the vast crowds gathered in Porto Alegre for the World Social Forum heard the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, dressed in a red Che Guevara T-shirt, denouncing the U.S. President, George Bush, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and neo-liberal economics. And instead of the polite applause accorded to Mr. Stark from a near-empty hall, Mr. Chavez got the kind of reception that even Bono might be embarrassed to receive. Porto Alegre confirmed that Mr. Chavez is now the indisputable leader of the global poor, a Simon Bolivar of his age, engaged in a mammoth populist experiment to redistribute wealth and land. In Porto Alegre he upstaged Brazil's Leftist President, the pragmatic Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was forced on the defensive by groups who want him to speed up reforms.

Febrile politics

Mr. Lula, the old union leader, chose to travel on to Davos to talk to the people who wield the most financial muscle. It was, many agreed, a sensible, ``grown-up'' decision, but in the febrile politics of Latin America, it may backfire at home. Mr. Chavez, the revolutionary idealist, chose instead to visit a group of landless people who had invaded an empty cattle ranch, and was treated like the king in exile.

The World Social Forum, now the most important gathering of political and social reformers, reflects the Lula-Chavez divide between the pragmatists and the idealists. This year, it attracted 3,000 groups from every country to over 4,000 events.

But before this is interpreted as a sign that ``the Left'' is on the march, it must be said that at least half of those at Porto Alegre were not peasant farmers, the landless, Indian tribes, unionists or the unemployed. Many were simply young, educated urbanites, wanting to camp out in the giant youth park, listen to the rock concerts with a spliff, and show solidarity with the dispossessed by marching. There were as many stalls selling food and crafts as there were political events. The organisers are in a quandary. No one wants to see the WSF become a global Woodstock of ideas, encouraging debate but not action. —

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