Source:
IPS
The Quito meeting has also given rise to new ideas for building theories for ”the articulation of ideas of a new world, in which we must combine equality and diversity at the same rate”.
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This fourth edition of the World Social Forum, which will have its venue for the first time in Asia, will focus on debating the following issues: imperialist globalization, religious sectarianism, identity politics and fundamentalism, castes, racism and social exclusion, patriarchy and militarization. Seventy-five thousand people are expected to attend, ten thousand of which will come from outside India.
A wide range of regional events are being organized with the aim of discussing global, regional or national issues, thus enabling participation in the preparation of the WSF 2004 and bringing the forum closer to the realities of movements and organizations from different parts of the world. These forums are open spaces that give civil society organizations the possibility of engaging in exchanges and debates among themselves. Their methodology and political criteria are those set out by the WSF Charter of Principles.
These thematic forums seek to deepen the discussion on specific issues which are seen by the Forum’s International Council as priorities on an international level.
On the same day in Quito, Ecuador, the First Social Forum of the Americas, to be held in that city from 8 to 13 March 2004, was publicly announced as part of the international launching of the WSF. This first continental Forum will cover key global themes focusing on the particular circumstances in the Americas. Such themes include the economic order, the violent side of the neoliberal project, power, democracy and the State, cultures and communication, and the specific concerns of indigenous and Afro-American peoples. In each case, discussions will highlight resistance movements, visions of the future, and alternative constructions.
New book
The World Social Bibliography A bibliography on the World Social Forum and the global solidarity and justice movement. By Jai Sen and Peter Waterman, with Madhuresh Kumar, December 2003, pdf format.
Versión
en español
At a session organized at the World Social Forum participants discussed the impact of the boom in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry from both ends of the spectrum. Are workers in the US and UK ‘losers' and workers in India and China the ‘winners'?
This issue of WRM's bulletin is entirely dedicated to the activities carried out by forest-related organizations at the WSF to highlight the social aspect of the forests as a means of livelihood for forest and forest-dependant people, as well as the social impacts of their destruction and degradation.
That was the title of one of the main WSF-organized sessions in Mumbai. A huge panel of people, with speakers from Korea, India, Portugal, France, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Israel. By by Milan Rai.
"The first step to addressing these apparent conflicts between the values of the market and the values of human rights is to recognise that the objectives of international human rights and international trade in fact have much in common". By Mary Robinson.
Amnesty International (AI) has come to the forum with the message "Globalise Human Rights", saying that human rights are an example of positive globalisation. Human rights cross borders; every man, women and child has these rights - not because of their citizenship, social status or heritage, but simply because they are human beings.
Those flying into Mumbai airport this week from different countries to attend the WSF, a gathering of the world's social movements, may catch a glimpse of Dharavi's tin and cardboard constructions that seem to nibble away at the perimetre fencing and doubtless affirm faith in the movement's catchy tagline: 'Another World is Possible'.
In the process of planning feminist participation at the WSF 2004, several networks and organizations are holding meetings to discuss and plan a feminist meeting in Mumbai (pdf format).
It will be held in Mumbai, India, from 16 to 21 January 2004. The WSF India process will reach a crescendo as 75,000 delegates are expected to express their belief that Another World Is Possible.
The Third International Health Forum for the Defence of People's Health was held in Mumbai on January 14 and 15, organised by the People's Health Movement as a run-up to the World Social Forum.
Open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action.
Organisations, networks and alliances are working on the issues of children's rights in India and other regions. They focus on issues and concerns of children in the 4th World Social Forum.
Article of Heikki Patomäki and Teivo Teivainen: The World Social Forum: an Open Space or a Movement of Movements, followed by a critique by Peter Waterman. In 2007 the World Social Forum will be held in Africa. Trevor Nwgane shares two essays in connection to the WSF 2007 coming to Africa. The debate is closed with "The Third way" by Heikki Patomäki, written in response to the articles of Trevor Nwgane and Andile Mngxitama.
Hilary Wainwright explains what distinguishes this new way of organising for social justice from the labour movements and political parties of old. March 2004.
The World Social Forum in Mumbai was democracy in action in search of a fairer, people-centred world, says one of its Indian organisers. But to advance its global ambitions, must it look beyond Brazil as the site of future forums?
Marxists, liberals, and others began to argue about the utility of the WSF, its role within India, the problem of funds for something so large as the WSF and the larger question of the relationship between a national struggle and international solidarity. By Vijay Prashad.
This article suggests that because of what seems to perhaps have been one or more human errors, the World Social Forum today in reality has two Charter of Principles in existence. This would be amusing, and perhaps even unimportant, if it did not have some possibly serious consequences. Jai Sen, December 2003 (pdf format).
Comparison of Original April 2001 WSF Charter of Principles with Revised Charter of Principles issued in June 2001, as found on the WSF website in October 2003. Jai Sen, December 2003 (pdf format).
Women are always better organised when social issues are at stake -this was the conclusion of the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) workshop.
Held on January 14-15, prior to the opening of the World Social Forum 2004, the meeting represented diverse feminist perspectives from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America and Europe. They concluded an historic strategising meeting.
At WSF Mumbai 2004, DAWN is holding a seminar on 18 January on the Many Faces of Fundamentalism to highlight and analyse the different ways in which different fundamentalisms —religious and market— affect women's lives.
Feminists from across the world will gather in Mumbai, India at a two-day strategising meeting called "Feminist Dialogues: Building Solidarity" to reflect upon and discuss some key issues challenging women's movements globally. This meeting, attendance of which is by invitation, will be held on 14-15 January 2004, a few days before the World Social Forum (WSF) 2004 commences on 16 January.
This report to social movement analysts and activists in South Africa and the rest of Africa arises from the meeting of the International Council (IC) of the World Social Forum that was held in Mumbai following immediately on from the Fourth World Social Forum that took place there 16-21 January 2004. Rather than trying to report in detail on the Mumbai forum itself, the main concern of this report is to communicate the assessments and the proposals for the future of the forum that were posed during the IC meeting, and to contribute to further discussions and actions on the matters raised directly, or posed indirectly. However, even as activists in Africa are becoming more aware of the WSF, it is necessary to briefly locate this report within some broader overviews of the nature of the WSF and the existing/emerging debates around its aims and functioning.
Two events, held in January 2004, suggest major ways in which the international trade union movement is trying to respond to the shock of globalisation. The question is whether union participation at these two very different events, one at the Fourth World Social Forum (WSF4) in Mumbai, India, and the other at the
Internacional Labour Organisation's (ILO) Training Centre in Turin, Italy, represents competing or complementary ways of expressing internationalism in the era of globalisation. This chapter of the book "Global Civil Society 2004/5" has been concerned with a quite specific, yet rather complex, matter: the past and present relationship of the international labour movement to demoratisation of the social. By Peter Waterman and Jill Timms, pdf format.
The book is not a simple celebration of the Forum, but an attempt to air the political and strategic debates central to the enterprise. "We have to also acknowledge the attempt of the editors to be inclusive of a wide spectrum of views, especially some of the views at the margin of the forum and even some of those ideologically opposed to it". "In this last case, the contextualisation of these contributions, within a wealth of other critical but constructive engagements, does more than words to illustrate the methodological and political gulf between these critical outsiders and the critical participants". By Massimo De Angelis.
Report on the World Social Forum 2004, its future challenge and the country that hosted it.
The principal challenge facing the Social Forum project is whether it will be able to contribute to the creation of new organizational forms equipped with the general vision and capacity to simultaneously and systematically pursue the politics of the universal and the particular. By Achin Vanaik.
Reports and news on the fourth edition of the World Social Forum, which has its venue for the first time in Asia. It is focused on debating the following issues: imperialist globalization, religious sectarianism, identity politics and fundamentalism, castes, racism and social exclusion, patriarchy and militarization.
The next World Social Forum will be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from January 26 to 31st. A new methodology will be used in its preparation process to allow organisations and people who are interested in similar goals to come together in order to build links and plan common actions.
The fact that the meeting was held in Ecuador, a country with a large, highly organised indigenous population, lent the indigenous movement of the Andean nations greater prominence within the sphere of the WSF, bringing with it a sense of the rediscovery of cultural identities. July 2004.
