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Third Day March at the World Social Forum in Tunisia

 

World Social Forum Opens in Tunisia
Por Morsolin Cristiano - Thursday, Mar. 28, 2013 at 8:18 PM

En este articulo en ingles se analiza la abertura del Foro Social Mundial de Tunis.

 

Tens of thousands of people rally in the streets as the 13th World Social Forum opens in Tunis – the first to be held in an Arab country . “Another world is possible” confirm the demonstrators, demanding social justice instead of neo-liberal policies. 

30,000 participants from around the world through Avenue Mohammed V in central Tunis as the World Social Forum (WSF) opened on 26 March. Seminars on a wide range of issues will be organized at the WSF on 26-30 March, ranging from the fight against neo-liberal and austerity policies, to supporting gender equality, democratic development and human rights in North Africa and the Middle East. 
This is the first time the event has been held in an Arab country and more than 30,000 people are gathering in workshops to discuss women's rights, ecology, climate change and social movements in the region. 

The alternative world forum will begin at 4:00 p.m. local time with a large demonstration at the central square known as January 14th Plaza, although its activities will begin with a Women's Assembly at the campus of the university at El Manar. 
Tunisians here issued a call for the event to be considered a "primordial moment" and called for solidarity with all women in struggle and a rejection of "savage capitalism and all development that objectifies, marginalizes and does violence to women." 

Today, dozens of women marched through the streets of this capital to warn of the imminent danger to their rights in the region. "We want to be a voice for revolution in the new Tunisia, and for freedom to not be repressed," the organizers told the press. In 2010, the act of desperation of the young Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi sparked off a revolution that marked a new era for social movements in the region and across the world. Three years later Tunisia will mark another important milestone for social movements as the Arab World hosts the World Social Forum for the first time in Tunis in March 2013. 

Reflecting the complex political landscape of the country hosting it, the Forum will be the venue of some challenging discussions. Social movements in the region will be grappling with the immense task that the transition from dictatorship to democracy entails. Others participating in the Forum will be discussing transitions of other sorts: agricultural, economic, even an overall 'paradigm shift.' 
CIDSE will also contribute to the Forum's discussions on the transition to a fairer world. At our strategy session on the successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals (the Post-2015 framework) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we look forward to lively debates on the opportunities and risks these two processes pose to this transition. We will hear how organisations in Nigeria and Philippines use the opportunities and tackle the risks these processes involve. We will also hear how the African Catholic Church, through its recent Policy Forum of SECAM (the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar) and a statement from this Forum to Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, Liberian President and Co-chair of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Framework, has seized these opportunities. 

(See: http://www.cidse.org/content/sectors/rethinking-development/world-social-forum-2013/world-social-forum-2013-tunis.html

During the Forum YoPo members will co-organise a session called “Youth Activism in Post-2011 Movements” together with ISA-RC47 (Social Movements) and GENIND research project. 
The years 2011 and 2012 witnessed a global transnational wave of extensive social movements (‘Arab spring’, ‘Indignados’, ‘Occupy’, ‘Yosoy132′ etc.), where a new generation of citizens had a significant impact and sometimes even a leading role. 

Young activists claimed both democracy and social justice and experimented concrete alternatives where they implemented direct democracy in camps and assemblies build new spaces for debate and action online and experimented alternative economic models. They also developed creative actions to defend the population against house eviction and to provide food. Giuseppe Caruso (NIGD) declared that “this panel will focus on the features, outcomes, strength, challenges and limits of youth cultures of politics, emphasizing its subjective dimensions, its concrete outcome and its stance towards institutional politics”. 

Venezuela: Sovereignty a Reference Point for Europe 

The experiences of Venezuela and other Latin American countries are now reference points for Europe since they show that sovereignty can be recovered and an alternative to governments of the privileged can be built, said the Spanish political scientist Pablo Iglesias today in Caracas. 
The professor from the Alcala de Henares University in Madrid noted in an interview with Venezolana de Television (VTV) that the current European crisis is due to lack of democracy, because sovereignty lies in the global economic mechanisms and not in parliaments. 
Hence the importance of a media barrage in Europe to ensure that the experiences of Latin America are not trivialized, where the left has made critical progress and has proven its political will to achieve independence from international economic institutions, said the professor. 
Iglesias participated in this capital at the 10th International Conference of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Activists in Defense of Humanity. 
When questioned by VTV he insisted that Venezuela has shown that things seem impossible only when they are not attempted and assured that the late President Chavez focused on socialism as a constant reinvention, a work in progress. 
According to Iglesias, the opposition did not support Chavez because they knew that no one could buy him, but now, after his death, the Venezuelan leader will be far more dangerous: actually invincible, he stressed 

(See: http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1254391&Itemid=1 ). 

Greens participate in the the World Social Forum in Tunisia 

Twelve years ago, the Southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre hosted this completely unprecedented event with the slogan "Another World is possible". It attracted more than 12,000 people, who wanted to engage with alternatives to mainstream thinking, resist the neoliberal hegemony, and in this context to make heard the voices of those who felt ignored by the world's powerful. 

Since 2001, the World has changed a lot. And the movements have changed too. The World Social Forum has travelled from Porto Alegre in Brazil to Mumbai in India, to Karachi, Caracas and Bamako, back to Brazil to the Northern city of Belem, and, in 2011, to Dakar in Senegal. It has also diversified into regional, national and local social fora, "contaminating" more and more parts of the world with its claim for another possible way of existing, avoiding wars, environmental depletion, racism, oppression and violence. Minorities of all kinds, migrants and feminists have fed into the alter-globalisation dynamics. In one gathering, the World Social Forum, space and movement have at the same time changed and shaped struggles and mobilisations around the globe. 

The financial crisis of 2008 brought about new movements, like the Indignados and the Occupy movement, and it also sped up the reflection about the future of the World Social Forum itself. 
Honouring the Arab Spring, starting in 2011, the World Social Forum decided it was time to enter this region. The Maghreb, and in particular the Tunisian social movements offered to organise the event, which is about to open its doors. 
Since its very first edition, the Greens in the European Parliament have participated in uncountable events of the World Social Forum and co-organised the World Parliamentary Forum. They have always offered their own events, taking up the challenges of the region and debating possible solutions with people on the spot. 

French Green MEP Jean-Jacob Bicep writes: 

"It is the day before and the least we can say is that the hive wakes up cheerfully. In the streets roam activists coming from the four corners of the world. Today the streets of Tunis were quiet but tomorrow they are going to vibrate with the clamour of the people as they march for the opening. All those who are for a new world social order are going to unite their voices to call for change and dispute the hegemony of the unfair order such as it is established today. They will continue to do so in the forums and the debates that will follow one another for the next week." 
2I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible and engaging with you throughout the week, but also hearing your thoughts ata workshops on 28th March, 13:30 -1500, on subject of "De la Colonisation aux Réparations" (http://www.greens-efa.eu/fr/world-social-forum-2013-blog-9518.html ). 

GUE/NGL MEPS PARTICIPATION 

Nine GUE/NGL MEPs, including Group President Gabi Zimmer, will attend this week's World Social Forum (WSF) in Tunis, Tunisia to share experiences, ideas, and build an agenda for future action with international social movements on global justice, migration, workers' rights, EU external policy, gender equality, culture, democracy, and environmental issues. 
WSF is a space for democratic debate and workshops on ideas, proposals and exchanging of experiences for social movements, networks, NGOs and other civil society organisations that are opposed to the dominant neoliberal ideology. The WSF is characterised by its plurality and diversity. Since 2001 it has aimed to facilitate collaborative and decentralised work through a network of associations and movements engaged, both locally and internationally, in concrete actions to build another world. Alongside the WSF, the World Parliamentary Forum will bring together elected representatives from across the globe 

(See: http://www.guengl.eu/news/article/gue-ngl-news/gue-ngl-at-the-world-social-forum-tunis ). 

26.03.2013 

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Highlights of the demonstration of the first day of the world social forum in Tunis, on 26 March 2013. World Social Forum meets Spring Revolution. Tunisi, 26 march 2013, the first day of the World Social Forum begins with a strong and unusual demonstration that involves all kind of people, from society personality, to world representatives of all kind of movement, throughout normal people from all over the world. The images shows the opening rally and interviews of some civic society personality of the arab world and key people of the Tunisian revolution. Saida Garrach Tunisian lawyer and feminist Haucine Abassi secretary general of the Tunisian General Union of Workers Sergio Bassoli CGIL international department Samir Amin Brasilian Indigenous Tom Goldtooth is executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network headquartered at Bemidji, Minnesota. realized by antonio pacor and manuel bellino focuspuller.