by Fabio Alberti, founder of Un Ponte Per

A grey veil seems to cover Kathmandu when you see it from the porthole. Upon landing, one realises that it is not fog, but pollution. Kathmandu is one of the most polluted cities in the world, due to its location in a basin and the development of civil motorisation. A continuous darting of motorbikes slaloming between pedestrians, small Korean and Chinese cars and old Bees converted into collective taxis. A continuous traffic jam. Apart from this, Kathmandu is a marvellous city, immersed in a restrained spirituality that accompanies the lives of Nepalese men and women and made manifest by the omnipresence of temples and small temples, Hindu, Buddhist, Indo-Buddhist, dedicated to a vast pantheon of gods, including a living goddess. There are more temples in Kathmandu than churches in Rome, in a country where mixed marriages are still celebrated without one of the spouses having to change religion. A country governed by a leftist front, Marxist Leninists and Maoists included, but where the privatisation of education and healthcare imposed by the International Monetary Fund can be felt in the streets by the huge number of private clinics and schools and agencies for study abroad, and where the inhabitants of the shacks on the river bank are threatened with collective eviction in honour of the city's 'beautification' process imposed by the new tourist vocation suggested by the World Bank, as a way of development after the reconstruction in large part by the 2015 earthquake.

Kathmandu thus welcomes, from 15 to 19 February, with its contradictions and thanks to a powerful mobilisation of trade union forces and the NGO Federation of Nepal - thousands of affiliated NGOs working in all fields, almost a state apparatus - the thousands of activists convened here from all over the world and especially from South Asia. Perhaps more than a World Social Forum, in fact, this was a continental forum: from the Indian subcontinent there were truly masses present, numerous delegations, made up of activists, but also simple participants in the many social movements that animate the political life of Nepal, India, Pakistan, the island of Ceylon, Bangladesh. And then presences, albeit more limited, from the Philippines, Korea, Africa. The European and American presences are almost symbolic. From Italy, in addition to Un Ponte Per, there were Legambiente, committed since the network to the defence of the high mountains, as well as Unione Inquilini and a few local organisations. They were three days of well-attended discussions, conferences, presentation of projects, convergence on common actions: over 400 meetings on a very wide range of topics, all of a high level and many reporting on social struggles. As in the style of the Social Forums, no official conclusions, but many statements on different topics that together make up the political programme of the possible alternative. The forum was organised in a park in the centre of the city, with large tents hosting the seminars, around a large central square surrounded by small stalls offering food, local handicrafts, most often related to projects to strengthen women's economic autonomy, as well as documentation material on activities and issues. A spatial organisation that favoured exchange and encounters between the people who swarmed that space, moving from one seminar to the next. Here the word socialism is still pronounced with a strong sense, but even more pronounced is the word colonialism, which recurs systematically and in different forms and adjectives in almost every debate. What Europe has put under the trapet by pretending to forget where its wealth comes from is still on the table here and waiting to be addressed. An example of this was the seminar on the 'Decolonisation of Development Aid' in which we, as Un Ponte Per, participated in the run-up to a campaign to establish a day of remembrance for the victims of colonialism.

"We don't want your aid any more, nor do we want to submit to the conditionalities you impose in order to grant it, including gratitude," it was said. "Instead, you still have to repair the damage of colonisation, to which we must add the damage of climate debt"; "It must be the recipients and not the so-called donors who decide where and when to allocate funds". A radical stance especially against aid from states and the World Bank, which often entails the obligation to privatise and liberalise economies. But Western NGOs have not been spared either. The South, at least this South present here, which has grown and networked thanks to the World Social Forum process, is aware that it does not need to go to the Europeans for lessons and that it often knows more than the 'kids who, with no specific knowledge of the place, come here and think they can give directions'. It is clear here that the relationship between northern and southern NGOs must change. Also climate change, another pervasive issue; just as pervasive now is the damage that the populations of these continents are suffering and expect to suffer as a result of the continual rise in the climate, mainly caused by European and US industrialisation, which have discharged far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than they would have been 'entitled' to in a fair way. Here the issue of global warming is not only a question of the policies to be followed in order to avoid the continuous rise in temperature, an issue on which the social movements are very committed, but it is also an issue of climate justice that claims the existence of an ecological debt of the West to the global South that must be paid off and that is in addition to the colonial debt. War, on the other hand, has not been much of a topic. The impression is that the war in Ukraine is seen by most as a small intra-European, 'inter-white' war, with a certain annoyance towards both contenders, NATO and Russia. Rather, eyes seem to be focused with concern on the South China Sea, as the place where the global war between the West and China is likely to break out. Natural and unanimous identification instead with the struggle of the Palestinian people, against the decades-long occupation. It is a spontaneous solidarity between former colonised and colonised, even with some sporadic excesses. However, the flag that flew the most at this forum was the Palestinian flag, quite a difference from previous meetings in which the Forum had held a more cautious attitude by not taking a position and considering the issue at least partly controversial. The damage Netanyahu has done to the image of Israel and the Jewish people, measured here among the vast majority of the world's population, is incalculable. Here one really realises how much of the globe's white population is an exception, and how marginal Europe is. And of this smallness of ours it will be good to realise.


Text and photos by Fabio Alberti, article originally published on 1 March 2024 on serenoregis.org