Peace and War

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�When Bush comes to shove –�resist!’         
�When Bush comes to shove –�resist!’         

Revision as of 09:30, 4 December 2007

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�When Bush comes to shove –�resist!’

[Author: Susan Webb.google search]

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 01/31/04 00:00 

MUMBAI, India – “Imagine all the people living life in peace ...”

The voices of many continents mingled in a song that has become an anthem of the worldwide peace movement, as Brazilian singer and minister of culture Gilberto Gil sang John Lennon�s �Imagine”�to thousands gathered in this vast Indian metropolis for the closing ceremony of the World Social Forum, Jan. 21.

Voicing a dominant theme of the global event, which brought 100,000 participants here under the banner �Another World Is Possible,”�Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jehangir delivered an emotional, stinging indictment of George W. Bush�s war policies. Like many others, she called for the U.S. to end its occupation of Iraq and to dismantle its military bases around the world.

Winding up the Forum�s five days of meetings, parades and performances, peace, labor, social justice, and environmental activists from throughout India and 130 other countries headed home pledging to build a more powerful united global movement against the Bush administration�s policies of militarism and aggression.

First on their �to-do”�list will be mobilizing for mass demonstrations around the globe on March 20, the one-year anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq.

Danielle Aurol, a French Green Party member of the European parliament, said, �I will be out there demonstrating in Paris, because we don�t accept the way Bush is acting.”�Gulbadan Azam, a Pakistani women�s rights activist, carried a poster throughout the Forum that said, �When Bush comes to shove –�resist!”�Azam said, �The planned demonstrations on March 20 are very important for peace. We have to challenge the U.S. agenda in so many ways, through dance, art and powerful protests.”

American Friends Service Committee representative Joe Gerson told a reporter at the Forum that he was not surprised by the unanimous anti-Bush sentiments expressed at the World Social Forum. �But these people are our allies,”�said Gerson, who also represented the national U.S. peace coalition United for Peace and Justice, which initiated the call for global antiwar actions on March 20. �The plans under way for March 20 will add to the pressure Bush is under since Iraq was invaded,”�he said, adding, �You cannot let this first anniversary of the war go unmarked. It will demonstrate that there is a moral and political force opposed to the [U.S.] government.”

Also coming up is a heightened international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. At a session on the threat of nuclear war, participants mapped plans for a May 1 demonstration in New York City as the United Nations meets on the issue of nuclear proliferation. This campaign has been initiated by Mayors for Peace representing some 560 cities around the world, spearheaded by the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Another well-attended strategy meeting including representatives from Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Asian-Pacific region and other areas projected an international campaign against the 702 U.S. military bases and facilities circling the globe.

The planning for these international campaigns marks a significant new phase for the four-year-old World Social Forum phenomenon. WSF activists say the Forum, which has now become a recognized global people�s gathering point, is ready to expand from meeting place to mobilizer. At a panel titled �Neoliberalism and war and the significance of the World Social Forum,”�WSF international council members agreed that, while the Forum should continue its open, pluralistic character, it�s also time to build a movement.

Michael Warshawski, director of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, said last year�s massive Feb. 15 worldwide antiwar protests showed the WSF has the power to build global campaigns involving major social forces such as unions, farmers, and church activists. The World Social Forum, he said, must be �not only a place of discussion but action oriented.”

“We need to keep maximum unity and diversity, but at the same time give expression to the most important social forces,”�he said. �We can�t ignore the politics of power and simply be a love-in.”

Simon Bushielo, national secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, said, �We need a solid program of action,”�carried out by national movements in their own countries.

At the WSF closing ceremony, in a huge field in the center of Mumbai, former president of India K.R. Narayanan hailed the World Social Forum�s �struggle against imperialism and globalization.”�Noting that the site of the Forum�s closing ceremony was the spot where the last battle of Indian independence was launched, Narayanan said, �Now, we are seeing a new struggle against the power of corporations and militarism.”

Inaddition,PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil –�Under the banner �No to militarization and war: another world is possible,” the World Social Forum, a gigantic meeting of the world�s progressive movements, opened Jan. 23 with a march of up to 100,000 people from more than 100 countries, with flags and banners flying, through this lively port city.

With the threat of a U.S. attack on Iraq looming as the Forum opened, this gathering is expressing the overwhelming world opposition to the Bush administration�s drive for war and domination of the planet.

The World Social Forum (WSF) is organized around five thematic areas: democratic sustainable development; principles and values, human rights, diversity and equality; media, culture and counter-hegemony; political power, civil society and democracy; and democratic world order, fight against militarism and promoting peace. Over five days, thousands of people from the four corners of the globe, in a rainbow of colors and languages, are participating in an overwhelming array of conferences, panel debates, testimonies, �dialogue and controversy round tables,”�seminars and workshops.

From the United States, the AFL-CIO is represented by a delegation led by its Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson. Jobs with Justice also has a sizable delegation, and there are progressive activists present from numerous other U.S. groups. U.S. participation is estimated at close to 1,000, more than double that of last year�s Forum, making it the second-largest country delegation after the host, Brazil.

The AFL-CIO is one of 50 members of the WSF International Council, which also includes the labor federations of Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea and others, and groups concerned with poverty, hunger, trade, the environment, indigenous peoples, and other humanitarian, social and economic issues. Other U.S. council members include 50 Years is Enough!, Global Exchange, Global Policy Network, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Public Citizen.

The World Social Forum is not an organization, and does not include political parties. It describes itself as �an open meeting place where social movements, networks, non-governmental organizations and other civil society organizations opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism come together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, formulate proposals, share their experiences freely and network for effective action.”�The common goal: building �another world”�where the economy serves the people rather than corporate greed –�a more egalitarian, democratic, human-centered society.

The WSF arose out of the growing international anti-globalization movement that emerged in the late 1990s, most notably in the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization, and those in Washington, D.C., against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The movement�s theme was a refusal to accept the scenario of a world wholly controlled by the interests of transnational corporations and the super-rich.

The first World Social Forum met in Porto Alegre in January 2001. Symbolically, the Forum was held in a �third world”�country, at the same time as advocates of the �neo-liberal”�policies of capitalist globalization were meeting at their annual World Economic Forum in Davos, a luxury ski resort in Switzerland. Approximately 20,000 people from 117 countries participated in WSF 2001.

Since then, the WSF has been held each year in Porto Alegre, on the same dates as the World Economic Forum in Davos. WSF 2002 drew about 50,000 people from 123 countries. Next year�s WSF will be in India. In addition, there are Regional Forums every year.

The WSF Secretariat, which coordinates the planning and international outreach of the Forum, is made up of the organizations that initiated the first WSF: Brazilian Association of Non-Government Organizations (Abong), Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (Attac), Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission (CBJP), Brazilian Business Association for Citizenship (Cives), Central Workers Federation (CUT), Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Studies (Ibase), Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) and Social Network for Justice and Human Rights.


The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org. posted by sharon

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