Letter From Pôrto Alegre

[Per I. Mathisen]

On Wed, 6 Feb 2002, jean-christophe helary wrote:
> still you have to remember that even though only some north american
> ngo yuppies can make the trip, south american activists are the ones
> who could never take part to _any_ forum anywhere before porto alegre.
> same for the indian groups next time. since i live in japan, i'm
> willing to save a part of my 100,000 yen a month wage to make the trip
> to india. which will probably be less costly than a similar forum in
> nyc, where you could go but not i.

A belated reply since I have not yet returned from Brazil: One of the
important decisions of this year's WSF was to organize regional Forums. I
don't have the list of suggested Forums, but there will probably be one in
India 2002 and 2003, South Europe 2002, Scandinavia 2002, Amazonia 2002,
etc..

The relation of these to the main Forum has not yet been fully discussed,
I believe (or it seemed that way from the international attac meeting),
but this could be a very good way to bring the WSF 'home'.

As to the delegates being 'ngo yuppies', well, the subject has probably
been beaten to death, but the delegates from chile took four days by bus
to get there, and two sri lankan delegates i spoke to said they had a
cheapest flight path that took them two days to reach their destination.
The same stories apply for most delegates, since most were actually from
the third world.

So, perhaps the anarchists of NYC organise will organise a regional Forum,
since they apparently found it hard to attend the one in Porto Alegre?

Yours,
Per

"What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally
happens." -- Benjamin Disraeli