Dear people,
In 1999 the counter-globalisation movement burst onto the streets at the WTO conference in Seattle. Two years later in Porto Alegre, the movement began to organize its own alternative conferences.
Since then, every year, representatives of NGOs and social movements gather in a third world location to discuss, to connect, to teach, to learn, to share.
The main stream press generally ignores these summits, or makes only a brief mention of their existence. And admittedly, they don’t have a lot of news or entertainment value. Compared to the big economic conferences, where participants are empowered to take decisions which influence nations, regions and the world economy as a whole, a social forum has little to no impact. It’s more of a ‘process’, as participants like to say.
This year’s World Social Forum was held under the slogan ‘Dignity’ and started with a demonstration of 30,000 people through the streets of Tunis. Afterwards, the delegates separated themselves from the populace and retreated behind the guarded fences of the convention grounds.
The Social Forum is for those activists who can afford the trip and the required registration: the alternative elite. There was no space for unaffiliated occupiers, indignados, immigrants, refugees or other people interested in building a better world without paying a fee.
So on the final day the angry mob stormed the convention centre and occupied the WSF. People sang the International in a dozen different languages and reunited in assembly. Some delegates of the Social Forum burned their accreditation in solidarity with the occupiers.
It was decided to march down the boulevards of Tunis to the place were a fruit vendor sparked the Tunisian revolution over two years ago.
At the spot, a General Assembly was held by more than a thousand people. It was too big for everyone to participate, so the crowd split in smaller groups to discuss specific issues such as education, environment, debt, western economic interests etc.
There were no walls around it, there were no guards, and no fees. After three days of intense discussions, it was a brief demonstration of what democracy really looks like.
General Assembly in Tunis, March 30 2013, photo via @GlobalRevLive
