Peacebuilding & Demilitarization Program

World Social Forum 2007

Dispatches from the Forum

January 25, 2007
In this seventh World Social Forum tens of thousands of exhausted activists, including five intrepid AFSC staff members, spent these past six days in intense meetings and dialogues. Read >

January 24, 2007
"The most moving moment for me at the World Social Forum was the world coming together to fight injustice..." Read >

January 23, 2007
To show their love for nature and their fellow brothers and sisters around the world, this congregation is involved in different activities to maintain the well being and dignity of the people around the world. Examples of their activities include land issues in Brazil and contamination of water in Peru. Read >

January 22, 2007
The panel for this afternoon’s workshop consisted of peace and demilitarization activists and organizers from the Philippines, Okinawa, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the US and Kenya. Read >

January 21, 2007
Like many countries in Africa, Tanzania in the 1980s experienced an economic crisis. As a result, the World Bank and the IMF persuaded Tanzania to privatize its basic services such as health, education, and water. Read >

January 20, 2007
On this first official day of the WSF, the streets of Nairobi are packed with folks who have traveled here from around the globe by bus, car, airplane, train, and even on foot. Flying under the banner of “Another World is Possible”, they have come here to envision and realize what another world may look like. Read >

For more information on the AFSC work around the World Social Forum, please email abudschalow@afsc.org.

Attendees

AFSC participation and delegation: The AFSC delegation to the World Social Forum 2007 will consist of both U.S. and International staff, namely:

Baltazar Pinguel, Peacebuilding and Demilitarization Program
Allison Budschalow, Peacebuilding and DemilitarizationProgram
Anyango Reggy, Africa Peacebuilding Program
M. Netlyn Bernard, International Programs, Africa
Ana Mlambo, International Programs, Africa

As a whole, the group will be attending workshops and plenaries on a number of different issues. Specifically as members of the No Foreign Bases Network, the AFSC will participante in two workshops on the working against the presence and negative effects of foreign military bases in countries and communities around the world. The group will also join events related to faith-based initiatives, youth empowerment, quiet diplomacy and outreach on the first-ever United States Social Forum in Atlanta, GA June 27-July 1, 2007.

Background on the World Social Forum

The 7th edition of the World Social Forum brings the world to Africa as activists, social movements, networks, coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and all corners of the African continent converge in Nairobi, Kenya for five days of cultural resistance and celebration; panels, workshops, symposia, processions, film nights and much much more; beginning on the 20th of January and wrapping up on the 25th of January 2007.

From its modest origins in Porto Alegre in the year 2001, the World Social Forum has mushroomed into a global counter-force challenging the assumptions and diktats of imperialism and its associated neo-liberal policies that have over the decades, imposed colonialism and neo-colonialism; devastated Southern economies; bolstered the disastrous and repressive reigns of assorted tin pot dictatorships; marginalized women; disenfranchised youth; intensified the destruction of the environment; unleashed bloody, inhuman and needless military conflicts in nation after nation, region after region and deepened the exploitation of poor peoples around the world.

Rallying around the clarion call of Another World Is Possible, the World Social Forum has placed social justice, international solidarity, gender equality, peace and defence of the environment on the agenda of the world's peoples. From Porto Alegre to Mumbai to Bamako to Caracas, Karachi and now Nairobi, the forces and the contingents of the World Social Forum have collectively expanded the democratic spaces of those seeking concrete, sustainable and progressive alternatives to imperialist globalization.

Yet the World Social Forum process is NOT the latest attempt to create a monolithic "world revolutionary vanguard movement" nor is it a reincarnation of an international "united front" seeking to overthrow, one by one, governments around the world. Such a notion would be a complete negation of the very essence and concept of the World Social Forum as outlined in its Charter of Principles. Nay, the World Social Forum is not that at all, far from it.

Rather, the World Social Forum is, to use a Kiswahili word, a global Jukwaa, in other words, an international PLATFORM, to quote from the Porto Alegre Charter "an open meeting place where groups and movements of civil society opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism, but engaged in building a planetary society centred on the human person, come together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, formulate proposals, share their experiences freely and network for effective action."

WSF Nairobi 2007 will be an opportunity to showcase Africa and her social movements; Africa and her unbroken history of struggle against foreign domination, colonialism and neo-colonialism; Africa and her rich heritage of natural wealth, cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity; Africa and her reputation for embracing communities from around the world; Africa and her contributions to world civilization; Africa and her role in the quest for another possible, more progressive global human society.

The theme for the 7th edition of the World Social Forum is "People's Struggles, People's Alternatives".

Words alone can not capture the vibrancy, the potency, the promise and the excitement of a World Social Forum event. There is no alternative to being there, amidst it all, participating, congregating, conversing, marching, singing, laughing, dancing, dreaming, networking and strategizing with sisters and brothers, friends and neighbours, comrades and colleagues from five continents, across oceans, mountains, deserts and rivers and over one hundred and forty countries.

On this page: