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Commenting satirical and too caricatural text The WSF Saga: The Kaiser, the Pope and the Troll 

  This satirical text "Kaiser Pope and Troll",   http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9y is a comment on the European continental meeting that took place november 23rd http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9v that is partially transcribed. It is using a european historical medieval metaphor , staging a conflict beetween the Pope and Church organization, and the "Holy roman germanic Empire" and a scnadinavian Troll. So it is a european cultural background, but it can be received in a generic way. The Pope can be understood as a collective actor made of the signatories of the wsf as open space declaration http://openfsm.net/projects/waos/declaracion and open spacers are also outside of the central Europe theater, as shown by the mention of open spacer cardinals in Scandinavia and India. 

As it often happens the faithful got less and less followers. Some even started to loose the faith in the holy World Social Faith bible. A bitter struggle lasted for two decades or so. On one side the supporters of the holy open space. @0 On the other side those that also wanted to see some common action. Both factions considered themselves to be the good and the other faction to be the bad. There was also the ugly nobodies who none ever listened to because they claimed to not belong to any of the two factions.

 This simplistic oposition is not groundes in fact. Signatories of the declaration "WSF as openspace" http://openfsm.net/projects/waos/declaracion are interested by perspectives of powerful self organized articulations that would emerge , be formed, or would be strengthened by organizations proactively participating in the open space of WSF. 

In the year of 2023 on 23rd of November one more round between the opponents took place. This time in the European ring.@1 In charge was the Kaiser in Vienna.

During and after the 10th november meeting in Florence ( see notes here http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9p ), there was no energy felt in the 30 + people group formed for that purpose, to prepare a first session of european continental meeting. That is why this meeting was moderated by only one person, the Kaiser who has confirmed that he wanted this meeting to take place. It was not a collective preparation. 

He had lost the great battle with the Pope situated in France as common in times of trouble. It concerned making the whole WSF into a movement that lived as it preached. The pope was against all this nonsense. It was against the horizontal spirit enshrined in the WSF bible. @2 There was nothing in this bible about convergence and even less so about political subject. Above all the Pope was against questioning his right to be the only one representing God on earth. Excommunicating the Kaiser was the only right thing to do. 

 This is part of the parodic presentation, however is a fact that, - according to the WSF principles, that is the current reference text presenting the WSF to its possible participants -, coming in the WSF open space implies no commitment to converge on anything specific. Those who want to build or participate in "convergence activities" are free to build and attend those, but there is not a narrative of General Convergece Expectation Committment or Promise that would be "hovering" over the wsf space.

Following up on the parodic metaphor, there is no legitimate group of clergy self located at the center of the wsf space , i-e the IC as body caring for the WSF space is more "under" the WSF space than "at the center of it"- that would be the "interpreters and oracles and generators or political facilitators " of this Great Common Convergence that would promised according  their reading of the reference text. So it is important to clariffy that the word "convergence" is not in the reference text, where the word "articulation" is used.

After his walk to Canossa on his knees @3 the Kaiser had announced to the world that he did not anymore support the idea of making WSF into a decision-making movement. 

This kaiser's declaration has not been made so far, and it might not been made, because his seeing WSF as a big assembleary process may remain the sincere conviction and expectation of the Kaiser. However what is pragmatically meaningful is that the Kaiser, as representative of an IC member organisation, would "accept" a consensus formulation, according to which WSF is only an open space and IC only a facilitating body, caring about WSF ( see first point of the text here http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9x)

Now the Kaiser was prepared for the last stand against the Pope and his followers @4 that believed in magic and faith rather than collective action and making decisions. 

 This satirical simplistic presentation of the "open space faithful" is biaised and not corresponding to their socioligical reality. Among those   considering and using the WSF as open space, there are many that have a long record of activism in organizations that are developing or supporting bottom up collective organizing and popular education processes, through wich collective decision making and collective action  is developped, up to in many cases, risking assasination of their grassroots leaders.  .

@5 We have to debate how consensus decisions are made he claimed.

It is to be remembered that IC, as facilitating body for WSF, has made decisions without any stall situation through using consensus making protocol, as has been recalled and acknowledged in the Tunis discussion. Yes indeed not enough decisions and not proactive and creating enough, decisions, and this is the "putting IC back to work" issue that is in the " wsf as open space" declaration"http://openfsm.net/projects/waos/declaracion).

Those who have formed the project of changing the nature of WSF from open space to an action space , are those who have said, seeing the resistance they encountered, that "consensus decision what to be resignified". But, in the course of discussion in the IC chat, after the publication of the "wsf as space declaration" , that can be seen in http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9x/#A4) , many insiders of this group have pledged that they were not attacking wsf as open space and IC as facilitating body. So they might be willing to "accept" the consensus formulation that IC makes its faciltation decisions through consensus protocol that is basically described in the declaration http://openfsm.net/projects/waos/declaracion.

Now the troll raised his ugly face and voice. What we need is rather to listen to the Norwegian cardinal. The Norwegians have for some reason since  the 1300s a grudge against Rome and the Pope. So this cardinal continued to raise questions concerning @6 how to make WSF relevant to movements, a question none of the factions seemed to have an answer to. 

Again here the satirical approach is making troll's vision blurred. The open space faithful are just reaffirming the nature of open space for WSF and  the understanding that facilitating such a space has to face the permanent challenge of making this open space attractive to its potential participants who are very diverse , with an accent clearly put on collective entities of civil society. The common Challenge lies in a relevant and creative co-implementation by the faciltating collectives of wsf open space and by its participants of the functions of the space affirmed in principle 1 reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action". 

 Raising question is fine, but there remains the basic question " from which vision of the WSF are these questions supposed to be answered ? " . WSF as open space is a good basis for thinking about asnwering the questions by the norwegian cardinal  

 

The problem for the open space faithful to answer the question had been exposed in Florence at a meeting celebrating the greatness of the movement in the past. The answer to the Norwegian cardinal question was here stated explicitly. This is done in two opposing ways by the WSF faithful. Two among supporters of open space stated "magic" as the way to move forward, one stated that decisions are not necessary.

The satirical text is just referriNg here to the word "magic" used by some participants *in the Florence 10th november meeting http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9p refering to their experience 20 ago .

The Pope answers are not so much believing in miracle any more, @7 rather his solution is bureaucratic with the help of long holy interpretations of the WSF bible for just about any situation. 

 It is comfortable for the Troll to describe as "bureaucratic" what is an effort to lay the ground for developing a "participation narrative" from those taking up the collective task of facilitating the implementation of manifestation of the open space concept ( a political innovation) and outreaching to its many possible participants. The WSF principles, logically, as it is a fundamental reference text, do not give much indication about how this implementation and narrative can be developed in the course of the years, with many changes in the geopolitical situation in 20 years and with half of the world population having now an account in private social networks when it was practically no one 20 years ago.

The annoying troll once more claimed to have an answer to the Norwegian question. He said that @8 what was needed was more efficiency. Decisions have to be made faster, not avoided.

 Inasmuch all the content producing activities are self organized in the open space, the faciltators have to address the contact producing common momens and rules for coexistence of activities, that can be called " macroprograming" , when their accumulation in time or space in a big event makes parallelism a necesity. Other manifestation of the open space concept in a more permanent way such a " extension dynamics " which has been explored have not this concern. Now , inside the macroprogrammig frame, the efficiency of any given activity is then a responsibility of the self organizers not of the faciltating collective. An the troll is responding in the next paragraphs. 

Secondly that consensus is a non-issue as movement will never accept that decisions are made in their name. @9 What movements that already have efficient international network and gatherings need is convergence.

 Making their participation in WSF open space, along the formats and macro programming proposed by the facilitating collective "efficient " and "productive of convergence" is the self assigned task of international networks that decide to invest effort in this participation.

This can be helped by WSF by a combination of thematic and regional assemblies in their own time @10 enabling a well prepared final convergence assembly.

 What the Troll is proposing here is a macrprograming scheme for a WSF event with 3 assembly stages ( 1/ speficic/thematic; 2/ (new) regional 3/ newe broad, instead of one ( see macro programing of wsf 2021 which as only the specific/thematic assemblies. In an open space perspective, there need to be public criteria, so that self organized activiites qualify to be in one of the 3 category ( in wsf 2021 the basic requirement was "more than 5 co organizers from 2 continents") and there needs to be more time given correspondig to one day more ( half day for regional assemblies and half day or evening for broad convergnece assemblies, maintaining the possibility of plurality, which for instance had been taken out in WSF 2018 salvador  with only one assembly ( branded as self organized though)       
This means that the broad convergence assemblies are not the very end of the forum event. After that comes the "assembly of assemblies" which is an improper name, because this assembly is not organic, and the "Agora of futures/Square for Action",  where all initiatives of action assumed by groups of organizations are presented in a parallel way, big or small, including the decisions made in the various assemblies, and each participant make their own programing inside it. 

@11 The Pope claimed that such a final assembly had to be outside the WSF. 

 This is a biaised perception of what the wsf as open space declaration says - Beyond what is possible to self organize in a wsf event , the declaration describes  new assembly processes, deliberative and action oriented, parallel to the World Social Forum , these processes can be created from scratch or can emerge from the assembly-meetings in WSF event that the troll describes. They are procesess in their own right and independence, that flow "parallel" to wsf process in time, but are evidently connected to it , as , as political actors of civil society of a new composite assembleary type, they are participants in the wsf process,  and can use the various formats of participation provided therein, without statutory privilege, just quafifying through public criteria  ( such as " more than x organisaiton from y continent organizing them").  So "parallel" does not mean outside , it means "outside and inside", as various inputs form signatories of declaration have expressed , included one visible in the transcript of the european meeting commented satirically by the Troll " http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9v @B9.

An answer to the moderator's question is :1/ you can have assembly meetings in the wsf space, 2/ you can have “permanentized” assemblies, which are outside and inside,the wsf space, inside because they participate as anyone in the forum.

Do you say that Attac is in the WSF? no, Attac is participating in the wsf, but it has its own existence. So for these “permanentized” assemblies, it is the same : they have their own life and they use the forum, as actors and participants.

And 3/ you have this other, even more ambitious, perspective, which is building this “permanentized” assemblies as “social assemblies”. placed in a broader wsf conext, a community of social forum and social assembly processes, all autonomous . which opens a new type of discussion What is this bigger WSF context?

The cardinal from India was not present during the fight on the 23 of November but her presence was felt anyway, The solution she has is similar to the Norwegian cardinal, put questions on the table. She also propose conclusions..@12 So her solution is to say that a general assembly can be both inside and outside.

 As said above, staging an opposition between signatories of the declaration  " wsf as open space"  is artificial if not establish through texts they produce.  So far, there is a rather coherent view, among at least part of the signatories of the "wsf as open space declaration", that the new assemblies described in the declaration are different from " simple" assembly-meetings self organized at the end of a wsf envent.  They are permanent and continuous processes in their own right, that are connected to wsf process through participation in it.So they are  inside, while having their autonomy and more continuous operation "outside" (inasmuch they aspire at being a collectiv political actor reactive to world conjuncture and phenomena) - See the Indian cardinal proposal http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9e  and other proposals here http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.7f/#ENB ,here http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.9x  point 4 and annex 3 , and here http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfic_fsmci/mexico22-input3.10a

The Troll says that the claim that the assembly@13 has to be only outside WSF is an empty statement. No movement sees a need to organize such an assembly if it is not also inside WSF as the Indian cardinal propose. 

 It is indeed an empty statement that no one has made! The declaration is referring to "parallel" time flow  as meaning" both inside and outside" - an assembly meeting in a wsf event may be a "session" of the continuous social assembly process that is, as a assumed political actor of a new tupe, autonomous from the wsf space, where it comes to participate as the other wsf participants.

How can decisions be made when a small minority do not agree? @14 But this is only a problem if one want the International council to make decisions, not for a general or any assembly. @15 If a great majority wants to make a decision this can be made anyway by s sign-on process.

 Indeed. The decision protocols inside such an assembly meeting parto of possible contnuous procss are indeed defined in this process. in autonomous way , taking into consideration the @16 realistic points - In the "wsf as space" declartion, consensus is mentioned just as a decision protocol for the IC in its facilitating mission. nothing more. It is simple and straight forward. 

@16 A permanent world social movement assembly can themselves find out how to do this in practice. To make too many decisions against the will of a minority might damage the legitimacy of the assembly, to allow a minority to block decisions too many times might damage the efficiency and make the assembly irrelevant. 

 Indeed. This flows from the experience of buidling convergences in activiites held in the wsf open space or anywhere else.