Alliances Day brings the World Social Forum to an End

The World Social Forum came to an end last Sunday in Belém do Pará. The last day was Alliances Day and was devoted to extended meetings with the aim of finding common grounds for common action. In the morning there were partial thematic meetings, and some of the conclusions were later disclosed. In the afternoon it was time for the Assembly of Social Movements, and some global campaigns to be launched in 2009 were then made public. The forum claims it is urgent to find alternatives to capitalism, because another world is possible and necessary.

The forum ended with the same merry high spirits it had started with, despite the fact that most participants were obviously exhausted: many were the kilometers traveled over inside the Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA) and the Universidade Rural da Amazónia (UFRA), looking for rooms poorly signed and debates which were rescheduled again and again or moved somewhere else, under an intense and wet tropical heat.

A road was specifically built to access the two universities where the Forum took place, but it was always jammed. It crossed the Terra Firme, one of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods in Belém do Pará, permanently under army and police surveillance throughout the week. In order to avoid such traffic jam, those attending the forum could use small and risky boats which linked the two areas in 15 minutes, through the waters of River Guamá.

Despite mobility and housing troubles, most of the participants were quite happy with the forum, due to the high quality of debates and the chance to make contacts and bring about networks for collective action. The forum regarded itself as a chance to learn and act, and it seems to have been so. A common call was made: alternative society models are urgently needed – models aimed at defending the people and respecting the ecosystems. The global crisis was regarded by many as an opportunity: if the left does not come up with mobilizing answers soon enough, others will for sure.

One of the main topics argued for as far as alternatives for a better society were concerned was that of solidary economics: cooperativism, associativism and self-administration cannot be discarded as tools to strive for the control of the means of production and challenge capital's hegemony. In the paper released after the assembly on this topic at the last day of the forum, an International Campaign for Ethical Shopping was put forward, as well as the aim of bringing about some form of articulation between organizations working on media technology to bring solidary exchange to the foreground and foster increasingly stronger links between economics, sustainability and finance.

At a time when Europe, with Sarkozy and Berlusconi, apparently wishes to erect a fortress against immigration, the forum has also discussed forms of cooperation and solidarity between the North and the South, because the current crisis will worsen unemployment levels and some right wing populist pressure on immigrants is thus to be expected. On the context of the election for the European Parliament taking place 2009, some organizations, including Solidariedade Imigrante, have come up with a proposal for a day of action, to take place in May, in Europe, against the Immigration Pact and the Return Directive and demanding the legalization of undocumented migrants. Immigration issues had already been raised at the meeting between the Fórum São Paulo and the Party of the European Left, and SOS-Racismo, attending the meeting informally, made contacts for common action with organizations in Latin America.

At the assembly where the link between the crisis, globalisation and labor was debated, a call was made for a new societal paradigm, one which does not only demand more regulation but does not stop short of discussing the aims of such regulatory processes; a new societal paradigm with a new relationship with Nature, focusing on use value instead of exchange value, and on democracy and multiculturalism as the ethic basis for public well being; a new societal paradigm based on a new concept of development, demanding global citizen-based solutions and a new balance of power in politics and society as whole. As Wanden Bello, from Focus On Global South said, «we need to radicalize imagination in order to bring a bout a better world.»