Apocalypse Brazil
Latin America: Brazil - Under the control of extreme-right authoritarianism
Brésil. The communist Manuela D’Avila Advances Toward the Conquest of Jaburu
"Tell your children there was no room for hope before.”
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Water and the Amazon rainforest at the heart of the World Social Forum.
Chavez and Lula Go On The Road
Brazil: Welcome to Lula II
Urban planning, Brazil, communism ... What makes Oscar Niemeyer run?
Samir Amin: Colonialism is Inseparable from Capitalism
Capitalism is destructive and unsustainable – It needs to be replaced
The capitalist reality is worse than its caricature...
To Desire to Make Capitalism Moral is, in Reality, to Demand its Suppression.
Geoffrey Geuens: « Financial Markets Are Not Faceless. Their Face Is That of the Oligarchy »
Round the World , Opposition to Capitalism Continues
They are Taking us for a Ride...
The Perceived Causes of Radicalisation
Samir Amin : The New Challenge of the Peoples’ Internationalism
“Yes, American Capitalism Is In Crisis”
Can we go Beyond Capitalism ?
India: the Salt of the Earth Converges on the Indian Social Forum
Moscow is prepared to end the relationship with the European Union if the bloc introduces sanctions that put the Russian economy at risk, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated.
A Devastating Indictment of the European Union (EU)
Rejected by the people, Jovenel Moïse loses legitimacy
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Socialist China
Celebrating the ascendency of Kamala Harris to the vice presidency
Economists Call for Concrete Solidarity
Britain’s communists sign open letter on international response to Covid-19
How to weaponise human rights against Hong Kong
The Uyghur Issue: How Can the U.S. Dare Lecturing China About the Rights of the Muslims?
Rwanda : An occasional French memory
Refugees : EU to the dock
Americans will not win from the confrontation with China" Interview of Jean-Claude Delaunay by L’Humanité
ORIGINAL FRENCH ARTICLE: Le Forum social de Belém boosté par la crise
by Gaël De Santis
Global Crisis Boosts World Social Forum in Belem
Translated Thursday 19 February 2009, by
Alterglobalisation. The World Social Forum (WSF), which ended on 1 February in Brazil’s Amazonian city, was a lot more incisive in its critique of capitalism than it has been in previous years.
There has been a change in vocabulary in Belem. The WSF Assembly of Social Movement is calling for “anti-capitalist measures”, a tougher stand than the anti-liberalism doctrine of previous years. It has to be said that the financial storm has blown through Belem. “We are faced with a capitalism-induced global crisis for which the system itself offers no solution”, was the analysis of a text which called for the end of “the capitalist system and patriarchal domination” in order to create “a society built upon the satisfaction of human needs and the respect of nature’s rights”. The text also evoked the 21st century’s “feminist, ecological and socialist project”.
The forum was considered a success by its organisers. Since January 27th, the city of Belem in the Brazilian Amazon has seen 133, 000 people from 142 countries come together to debate and to attempt to encourage a common struggle. Keen to offer solutions to the crisis, the alter-globalists call for “a series of urgent measures” including “nationalisation without compensation and under full social monitoring of the banking sector”; measures “guaranteeing rights to land, territory, work, education and health for all” and also to “ending the wars”.
The alter-globalists propose a “global week of action against capitalism and war” by way of mobilisation. The week will start on the 28th of March in London protesting against the G20 Summit and will end on the 4th of April in Strasbourg and Kiel in mobilisation against the 60th anniversary of NATO.
A sign of the crisis behind the forum, five South American presidents, Lula Da Silva (Brazil), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), conspicuously boycotted the Forum in Davos and attended Belem. Furthermore, the former socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, whose campaign involved winning over centrist François Bayrou, also wanted to show that “there is no unbreakable barrier between…a left government, social movements…and what is known in France as the extreme left”, as she announced to the French weekly ‘Journal du dimanche’. I’m not so sure how far she is won over by the Forum’s proposals or by the policies of the more progressive Latin American governments.
