Born last year, in protest against the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the World Social Forum's first meeting brought some 16,000 activists together from 120 countries and 1,000 organizations to Porto Alegre, Brazil, to explore alternative visions for more positive economic and social policies throughout the world.
This year's Social Forum, whose theme is "Another World is Possible", expects over 8,000 accredited delegates and a total of 60,000 people. The Forum will include over 50 seminars, 700 working groups and a camp for 1, 500 young people. The anti-globalization activists will discuss such topics as terrorism, efforts to eliminate sweatshop working conditions and the cancellation of all Third World debt. The Forum will also seek to propose economic and political alternatives to the self-serving collaboration between international corporations and governments that do not serve the interests of human development. In the words of the Forum organizers, "These alternatives aim to bring about a new era in world history and propagate a kind of communitarian globalization that observes universal human rights for men and women throughout all nations and protects the environment, backed by international democratic systems and institutions serving social justice, equality and the sovereignty of the people."
For daily pictures from the World Social Forum, World Economic Forum protests and related issues, please click here.
World Economic Forum and Protests in New York
The World Economic Forum is a 30-year-old organization supported by more than 1,000 major corporations. It usually holds annual meetings in the luxury resort of Davos, Switzerland. This year, as a show of solidarity, the WEF will be meeting in New York City from January 31 to February 4. Nearly 1,000 corporate executives, 250 politicians, 20 heads of state, and 1,000 or so other notables will converge on the Waldorf Astoria. And, undoubtedly kept at a distance, so will the anti-globalization protest movement. The New York protests will be the first major representation of North America's global justice movement since last September's anti-World Bank/IMF protests in Washington were canceled in the wake of September 11.
Background Information
For more information on the anti-globalization issues and movements, explore these sites:
BehindTheLabel.org is a multimedia
news magazine and on-line community covering the stories and people of
the global clothing industry - the hidden stories of the millions of workers
around the world who make our clothes, the people who care how their clothes
are made and the multinational corporations behind the labels. BehindTheLabel.org
is sponsored by an alliance of clothing workers, religious leaders, and
students standing up to demand human rights for sweatshop workers.
The second World Social Forum will take place from 31 January - 5 February
2002 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The forum, whose theme is "Another World
is Possible!", will seek to help build a world based on solidarity, social
justice and participatory political democracy, respecting cultural diversity
and the environment.
In an era where corporate globalization is presented as an inevitability, where the occidental vision of individualism increasingly pervades most governments and undermines traditional cultures, thousands of progressive thinkers and activists from around the world will meet in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to challenge the consensus of neoliberalism and to celebrate an alternative view of democracy and development. The World Social Forum, first held in 2001, was developed as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland. The aim was to map out alternative paths through workshops, debates and "conference-testimonies" at the very time when those who were pushing the world still further towards domination of capital were meeting in Davos. The gamble paid off from multiple points of view and the WSF ended with the decision to meet again in 2002.
The World Economic Forum in New York City: According to its website, the
WEF was established in 1971 as a member-based institution and "serves
as a platform for discussion, debate and action on the key issues on the
global agenda. Supported by 1,000 of the foremost international companies,
the Forum engages business and society in partnership to improve the state
of the world." Annual meetings — billed as "the world's global business
summit" to "shape the global agenda" — have taken place in the Alps
in Davos, Switzerland, where they faced growing protests. This year, sessions
have been relocated to New York City. Meetings will be held at the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel in a "unique club atmosphere," closed to the public and
the media. Labor, community, environmental, student and other groups are
planning parallel events, teach-ins and protests in New York City during
the WEF's meetings. These groups oppose the WEF's vision of corporate
power over the world economy.
