April 1, 2007
wsf1
Cooking up change
United in the conviction that ‘another world is possible’, around 50,000 grassroots activists from the world’s social movements gathered this January in Nairobi, Kenya for the seventh World Social Forum (WSF).
United in the conviction that ‘another world is possible’, around 50,000 grassroots activists from the world’s social movements gathered this January in Nairobi, Kenya for the seventh World Social Forum (WSF).
The first WSF took place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001. It developed as a radical alternative platform for debate and strategizing, a direct challenge to the World Economic Forum of the rich and powerful held annually in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.
With a strong anti-capitalist bias and a commitment to hammering out alternatives, each WSF has been a huge melting pot. Into this pot a spicy mixture of struggles both local and global for justice, freedom, respect and ecological sanity are stirred up together. The result is a rich concoction of passion, creativity, ideas and that rarest of gems, optimism.
It’s not without its flaws, of course – much of the talk this year focused on whether the WSF movement is still relevant and useful. Heated debate broke out over creeping corporate sponsorship and the exclusion of the Kenyan poor – more on that below.
But it was the first time this extraordinary event has been held in Africa, which gave it a new energy and a fiery flavour. NI editors Jess Worth and Adam Ma’anit were there to report on the struggles, ideas and campaigns bubbling up from the global grassroots. This month’s Currents section dips its fingers into this simmering cauldron of cultural resistance. For more, see the editors’ blogs on our website: www.newint.org
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Jess Worth
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Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
New Internationalist (NI) workers' co-operative exists to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide; to debate and campaign for the radical changes necessary to meet the basic needs of all; and to bring to life the people, the ideas and the action in the fight for global justice.
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