WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: A Shout for Peace and Change

www.ipsnews.net Adalberto Marcondes

The World Social Forum (WSF) that ended Tuesday in this southern Brazilian city sent out a strong message against war, injustice, and social inequality.

Over the past six days, more than 100,000 people from around the globe, mostly young, debated, shared their problems, pointed out solutions, and managed to subvert the global debate agenda.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 28 (IPS) - The World Social Forum (WSF) that ended Tuesday in this southern Brazilian city sent out a strong message against war, injustice, and social inequality.

Over the past six days, more than 100,000 people from around the globe, mostly young, debated, shared their problems, pointed out solutions, and managed to subvert the global debate agenda.

''Our greatest victory this year is that the world has heard us out,'' said Brazilian activist Cándido Grzybowski, a member of the WSF organising committee.

''The Forum is an arena for proposals from the whole of civil society, and a lot of what has been discussed in 2002 is part of'' the government plan of Brazil's new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, he added.

The third edition of the WSF, which opened on Jan 23, clearly made the World Economic Forum (WEF) -- which for over three decades has met annually in Davos, Switzerland to chart international economic strategy -- look southwards.

That change of attitude in the industrialised North was influenced by the bridge built between this great ''Tower of Babel'' and the formal meeting halls of Davos by Lula, one of the original promoters of the WSF as the head of Brazil's leftist Workers' Party (PT).

''We must tear down the walls that separate those who have everything from those who have nothing,'' Lula said Sunday in Davos, addressing the powerful business and government leaders meeting in the Swiss resort town.

In a huge rally held just hours before he headed from Porto Alegre to Davos, Lula addressed the criticism drawn by his decision to attend the WEF, explaining that his participation would give a voice to the proposals of the WSF, which emerged as a counterpoint to the annual meeting of the world's rich and powerful in Switzerland. Besides the protests against inequality and justice, Porto Alegre raised its voice loudly in favour of peace. Former Portuguese president Mario Soares, for instance, urged all countries to strengthen the United Nations, as the only way to preserve peace. Soares was one of the leaders who presented, in Porto Alegre, the ''Manifesto for Peace and Against War'', signed by a long list of personalities and political leaders from across the ideological spectrum in Portugal.

''It is unacceptable that the United States has abandoned the multilateralism that was built during the last decades in favour of retrograde, imperialist actions. But one must not mistake the American people for the government that rules the country,'' he said.

Ignacio Ramonet, another WSF organiser, said the forum's main message to the world this year was ''No to War!'' -- a reference to the U.S. and British preparations for a military strike against Iraq. This year's edition of the WSF has also shown that the South is thinking about itself, about its own models. Throughout the demonstrations, the message became increasingly clear that corruption, inequality and social injustice would not be tolerated by civil society.

The social and political activists said good-bye to Porto Alegre Tuesday as they headed home with precise objectives to be met before the fourth annual global gathering of social movements, to take place next year in India.

Ramonet said the results of this year's forum will materialise during the coming months, when everything that has been discussed will be compiled and organised in documents and proposals that will be sent to governments, non-governmental organisations, political parties and trade unions.

The documents and proposals will contain the message of hope generated in the past six days by around 100,000 people in debates, seminars and panels, who concluded that ''another world is indeed possible,'' the WSF slogan.

Hundreds of classrooms at the Catholic University, the Gigantinho stadium, port warehouses, and many other spaces in the city of Porto Alegre were set aside this year for talk against hunger, war, gender discrimination, and in favour of minorities and justice, as well as for protests and demonstrations of all kinds.

The presence of almost 4,000 journalists from across the globe sent the forum's messages around the world, and even attracted Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, keen on explaining the confusion and chaos that have hit his highly polarised country, even though he was not officially invited to the WSF. (END)