100 000 march on the opening of the World Social Forum

The hundred thousand participants in the WSF who crossed the city of Belém stopped the traffic and brought the locals to their windows. The huge police deployment was intimidating enough, but did nothing but watch an extraordinary march celebrating all social claims on planet Earth, to the sound of solidary activism and the joys of the will to transform.

In Belém do Pará the docks are the heart of the city's social life: cargo-boats bringing in and out goods containers, tourists on bay cruises, trendy and brand new bars and restaurants, just like in any converted dock area in Europe, side by side with cheap local bars backing up markets such as the municipal and «Ver o Peso», where those Amazon delicacies which spice up local dishes can be found, as well as fruit, dried fish, shrimps and, everywhere, flies.

The march this Word Social Forum opened with left from the docks, the meeting point for the 100 000 visitors lodged in a city where often nature calls the shots: the march was due to begin at 15h30, precisely the time when the rain, fierce and tropical, starts, always at the same time. So, the march didn't leave before an hour later, when the rain was gone.

The hundred thousand participants in the WSF who crossed the city of Belém stopped the traffic and brought the locals to their windows. The huge police deployment was intimidating enough, but did nothing but watch an extraordinary march celebrating all social claims on planet Earth, to the sound of solidary activism and the joys of the will to transform.

More than 1200 native Indians coming from the nine countries located in the Amazon Bay gave the party a distinct flavor and demanded that their rights be respected: the right to health, to the ecosystem, to their thousand year old culture, which learns from the present and also wants to have something to say about the future.

All agendas meet in this forum: the struggle against slave work in poor countries or against job insecurity in the developed world; standing up for education and public health services; trade women's emancipation movements; the right to abort; the fight against human trafficking in all its dimensions; the defense of indigenous cultures and traditional knowledge; the belief in a solidary economy as an alternative to capitalism; the struggle against child labor... fighting for human dignity in all its dimensions is the shared motto of everybody in this forum, where all the social movements' ambitions for transformation meet.

When the march came to an end, in a huge rally at Praça do Operário, the city was brought to a standstill. The visitors slowly went back to the docks. In many squares downtown stages were built for the cultural events which will cheer up Belém this week. The forum's party has begun too!