cheers Joanna S
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Welcome to the Website for World Social Forum 2002 The World Social Forum is an open meeting space designed for in-depth reflection, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and planning of effective action among entities and movements of civil society that oppose neoliberalism and a world dominated by capital and any form of imperialism and that are engaged in building a planetary society centered on the human being. The first edition of the World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre from January 25 to 30, 2001, on the same dates as the World Economic Forum in Davos. This event had its place in time and space. From now on, based on the certainty proclaimed in Porto Alegre that "a different world is possible," it will become a permanent process of seeking out and constructing alternatives, supported by editions of the Forum held in other countries on the same dates as Davos. Yet, these events are not the only elements of the World Social Forum. It is a worldwide process. The alternatives proposed at the different editions of the World Social Forum counteract a process of capitalist globalization headed by huge international corporations and by governments and international institutions that serve their interests. 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.
World Social Forum charter of principles The committee of Brazilian organizations that conceived of, and organized, the first World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre from January 25th to 30th, 2001, after evaluating the results of that Forum and the expectations it raised, consider it necessary and legitimate to draw up a Charter of Principles to guide the continued pursuit of that initiative in the terms of the Information Note that it issued at the close of the Forum. While the principles contained in this Charter – to be respected by @ll those who wish to take part in the process and to organize new editions of the World Social Forum – are a consolidation of the decisions that presided over the holding of the Porto Alegre Forum and ensured its success, they extend the reach of those decisions and define orientations that flow from their logic. 1. The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society centred on the human person. 2. The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre was an event localized in time and place. From now on, in the certainty proclaimed at Porto Alegre that "another world is possible", it becomes a permanent process of seeking and building alternatives, which cannot be reduced to the events supporting it. 3. The World Social Forum is a world process. All the meetings that are held as part of this process have an international dimension. 4. The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in opposition to a process of capitalist globalization commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations’ interests. They are designed to ensure that globalization in solidarity will prevail as a new stage in world history. This will respect universal human rights, and those of @ll citizens – men and women – of all nations and the environment and will rest on democratic international systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples. 5. The World Social Forum brings together and interlinks only organizations and movements of civil society from all the countries in the world, but intends neither to be a body representing world civil society nor to exclude from the debates it promotes those in positions of political responsibility, mandated by their peoples, who decide to enter into the commitments resulting from those debates. 6. The meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as a body. No-one, therefore, will be authorized, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to express positions claiming to be those of @ll its p at rticipants. The p at rticipants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken as establishing positions of the Forum as a body. 7. Nonetheless, organizations or groups of organizations that participate in the Forum’s meetings must be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions they may decide on, whether singly or in coordination with other participants. The World Social Forum undertakes to circulate such decisions widely by the means at its disposal, without directing, hierarchizing, censuring or restricting them, but as deliberations of the organizations or groups of organizations that made the decisions. 8. The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context that, in a decentralized fashion, interrelates organizations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to built another world. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the p at articipants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organizations and movements that participate in it. 9. The World Social Forum asserts democracy as the avenue to resolving society’s problems politically. As a meeting place, it is open to pluralism and to the diversity of activities and ways of engaging of the organizations and movements that decide to participate in it, as well as the diversity of genders, races, ethnicities and cultures. 10. The World Social Forum is opposed to all totalitarian and reductionist views of history and to the use of violence as a means of social control by the State. It upholds respect for Human Rights, for peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people, races, genders and peoples, and condemns all forms of domination and all subjection of one person by another. 11. The meetings of the World Social Forum are always open to @all those who wish to take part in them, except organizations that seek to take people’s lives as a method of political action. 12. As a forum for debate, the World Social Forum is a movement of ideas that prompts reflection, and the maximum possible transparent circulation of the results of that reflection, on the mechanisms and instruments of domination by capital, on means and actions to resist and overcome that domination, and on the alternatives that can be proposed to solve the problems of exclusion and inequality that the process of capitalist globalization currently prevalent is creating or aggravating, internationally and within countries. 13. As a framework for the exchange of experiences, the World Social Forum encourages understanding and mutual recognition among its participant organizations and movements, and places special value on all that society is building to centre economic activity and political action on meeting the needs of people and respecting nature. 14. As a context for interrelations, the World Social Forum seeks to strengthen and create new national and international links among organizations and movements of civil society, that – in both public and private life – will increase the capacity for social resistance to the process of dehumanization the world is undergoing and reinforce the humanizing measures being taken by the action of these movements and organizations. 15. The World Social Forum is a process that encourages its participant organizations and movements to situate their actions as issues of planetary citizenship, and to introduce onto the global agenda the change-inducing practices that they are experimenting in building a new world. São Paulo, April 9th, 2001 ABONG – Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations ATTAC – Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens CBJP – Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission, National Council of Bishops (CNBB) CIVES – Brazilian Business Association for Citizenship CUT – Central Trade Union Confederation IBASE – Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Studies CJG – Centre for Global Justice MST – Movement of Landless Rural Workers
Preparations under way for World Social Forum 2002 Meeting on April 9th, with all constituent groups present, the World Social Forum Organizing Committee continued with its organizational proceedings and took the following decisions: · It set the dates of January 31st to February 5th, 2002 – the same dates as for the World Economic Forum to be held at Davos – for the Forum to be held in Porto Alegre and other cities around the world that are willing to hold meetings in their countries. · It approved the World Social Forum’s Charter of Principles, annexed to this note, which will constitute the basic frame of reference for holding these events. · It set the dates of June 9th to 11th for a meeting, in São Paulo, of international organizations and networks which are to constitute an International Advisory Board and to support the process of extending the Forum worldwide and the holding of the Porto Alegre World Social Forum 2002.
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/asp/eng/
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