[E-rundbrief] Info 607 - WSF-meeting Brazil 10/2007

Mo Nov 5 19:37:42 CET 2007

E-Rundbrief - Info 607 - Mario Osava (IPS Brazil): World Social Forum 
(WSF) - Highlighting the Amazon's Diversity - report from the 
WSF-meeting in Belem, preparing WSF 2009 in Brazil's Amazon region.

Bad Ischl, 5.11.2007

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Highlighting the Amazon's Diversity

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 2   (IPS)  - The international council of the 
World Social Forum met this week in the northern Brazilian city of 
Belem to plan the next steps to be taken by global activists, 
including the eighth edition of the WSF, to be held in January 2009 
in Brazil's Amazon region.

The Monday through Thursday meeting drew more than 100 
representatives from across the globe.

The participants also discussed the Global Day of Mobilisation and 
Action, which will consist of thousands of protests and 
demonstrations on Jan. 26, 2008, instead of the typical huge annual 
international gatherings, several of which have been held in Porto 
Alegre in southern Brazil.

The WSF was originally founded as a kind of counterpoint to the World 
Economic Forum, held at the same time in the Swiss resort town of 
Davos. While the economic forum brings together business and 
political leaders from around the globe, the WSF draws mainly civil 
society representatives who reject globalisation in its current form.

Initially convened in 2001 in Porto Alegre by local civic 
organisations, the annual forum travelled to Mumbai, India, in 2004. 
It was then held in several venues in 2006: Bamako, Mali; Caracas, 
Venezuela; and Karachi, Pakistan. And in 2007, it was hosted in Nairobi, Kenya.

 >From now on, the WSF will be held every two years instead of annually.

The international council decided to meet this week in Belem in 
support of the city of 1.4 million which has been chosen as the site 
for the 2009 WSF, said Cándido Grzybowski, one of the main organisers 
of the forum and director-general of the Brazilian Institute of 
Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE).

"It was encouraging to see the strength of the Amazon social 
movements and organisations, which will ensure the success of the 
Forum in Belem," Grzybowski told IPS. The participating groups have 
already made progress "in terms of both organisation and ideas" since 
the international council selected the site of the next centralised 
edition of the WSF last May, he added.

The city was chosen with the aim of highlighting the importance of 
the Amazon jungle region for the entire world. Belem is the eastern 
gateway to the Amazon jungle, which is shared by eight South American 
countries.

The ongoing deforestation of the Amazon jungle, which harbours much 
of the world's biological diversity and is known as the "world's 
lungs", has long been a source of global concern for 
environmentalists and the public at large.

Grzybowski said the global meeting will also seek to bring visibility 
to the diversity of the population in the Amazon region, which is 
comprised of indigenous groups, "palenques" or "quilombos" 
(communities originally founded by escaped African slaves) and 
riverbank-dwellers, not to mention rural labourers who are exploited 
in modern-day slavery conditions.

The Amazon jungle region is also shared by French Guiana, whose 
status as a remnant of colonialism will be an important issue at the 
WSF in Belem, he added.

The agenda will not only include the question of the independence of 
French Guiana, but also "the consequences of its position for the 
rest of Latin America, especially the other Amazon jungle countries," 
Jean Michel Auboint, a trade unionist and human rights activist from 
the French overseas department, told IPS.

As illustrations of negative effects, he mentioned militarisation, 
the appropriation of traditional knowledge and natural resources by 
the colonial power, and restrictions on freedom of circulation, which 
is a cultural tradition among local communities, like native groups 
or residents of "quilombos".

"Indigenous people do not have full legal rights in French Guiana," 
said Auboint.

The birthplace of the WSF, Porto Alegre, is also known for pioneering 
the concept of the participatory budget, in which local residents 
decide how to allocate part of the city budget.

While discussing the Jan. 26, 2008 worldwide mobilisation, the 
international council found that the activities held will vary 
widely. In Belem, seminars will be organised, as well as two large 
demonstrations under the WSF slogan "Another World Is Possible".

In Rio de Janeiro, the activities will put an emphasis on the need to 
improve security in the city, and will culminate in a show on the 
beach, while a four-day conference focusing on the right to education 
will be held in Sao Paulo.

Seminars and campaigns will also be held in other Brazilian cities, 
announced WSF organiser Salete Valesan of the Paulo Freire Institute.

Communication must play a key role in the current process of 
dispersal of WSF activities, in order to bring visibility to the 
phenomenon and establish connections between the multiple activities 
that will take place across the globe.

To that end, the international council approved the creation of an 
interactive web site -- http://www.fsm2008.net -- to provide a 
variety of audiovisual and other tools for reporting on the numerous 
demonstrations and other activities, Antonio Martins with the 
Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of 
Citizens (ATTAC Brazil), told IPS.

Each and every organisation, "no matter how small," will be able to 
provide information about its activities. Another initiative invites 
both professionals and amateurs to upload videos of up to a minute in 
length to build "a collective audiovisual history" of the Global Day 
of Mobilisation and Action, which will actually begin before Jan. 26 
and continue afterwards in some places around the world.

The international council made "huge strides" this week in organising 
the next WSF, said Grzybowski.

It decided, for example, to create a liaison group made up of 11 
members and five substitutes, which will have a gender balance and 
will represent all of the continents, to take over from the Brazilian 
organisers who up to now have been in charge of the movement's 
administrative questions.

In addition, progress was made towards coming up with a permanent 
fundraising plan, in order to secure financing not only for 
activities, but to ensure the sustainability of the process, with a 
view to overcoming the financial and organisational difficulties that 
crop up with every edition of the Forum, said Grzybowski.

*****
+ Day of Global Mobilisation and Action  (http://www.wsf2008.net/)
+ International Ciranda of Independent Information (http://www.ciranda.net)

(END/IPS/LA WD IP HD EN CS AZ GB/TRASP-SW/MO/07)

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