World Social Forum: Final Declaration of Social Movements

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Delivered-To: •••@••.•••
Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 16:17:01 -0800
Subject: MST Update #9
From: Dawn Plummer <•••@••.•••>
To: Friends of the MST <•••@••.•••>

MST Informa #9                           February 8, 2002     


World Social Forum: Final Declaration of Social Movements

Resisting Neoliberalism, militarism, and war:
For Peace and Social Justice

Confronting the continually worsening conditions,
neoliberalism, and war, we the world social movement, tens
of thousands of people, meet at the Second World Social
Forum in Porto Alegre. Here in large numbers, in spite of
attempts to break our solidarity. We gather again to
continue our fight, ratifying accords from the previous year
and reaffirming that "a different world is possible".

We are diverse - women and men, youth and adults, farmers,
fishermen and women, city dwellers, unemployed workers,
students, professionals, migrants, indigenous peoples and
people from all beliefs, colors and sexual orientations.
Diversity is our strength and its expression is the base of
our unity. We are a global solidarity movement, united in
our determination to fight against the concentration of
wealth, the proliferation of poverty and the destruction of
our planet. We are constructing an alternative system and
using creative paths to do it. We are constructing an ample
alliance through our struggles and resistance against the
system based in patriarchy, in racism and violence, that
privileges the interests of capital over the needs and
aspirations of the people. This system creates a daily
existence in which thousands of women, children and senior
die of hunger, lack of medical attention and illnesses that
could have been prevented. Entire families are forced to
abandon their land because of wars, modernization, loss of
farmland, natural disasters, loss of jobs, the precarious
nature of public services and the destruction of community
solidarity. In the South as well as the North, the struggles
and resistance demand dignity.

September 11th marks a major change. After the terrorist
attacks, which we completely condemn, just as we would
condemn other attacks against civil society in the rest of
the world, the government of the United States and their
allies responded with massive military action. In the name
of the "war on terror", they put civil and political rights
in jeopardy all over the world. The Afghani war, in which
terrorist methods were used, was expanded to other fronts.
It is nothing more than a permanent global war that
consolidates the domination of the United States government
and its allies. This war reveals the brutal face of
neoliberalism. They satanize Islam, and in doing so,
intentionally exacerbate the problem of racism and
xenophobia. Methods of communication and information create
a war-like atmosphere, dividing the world into "good" and
"evil". The opposition to the war is an important part of
our struggle.

Translated by FMST volunteer Anne Strauss.

Em Portugues:

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Richard K Moore
Wexford, Ireland
Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance 
email: •••@••.••• 
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            -- Frantz Fanon

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      of New York at Binghamton

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    --Daniel Quinn, "The Story of B"

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