./english/35.txt:50:the Declaration of the Assembly of the Movements, approved on 7th
./english/35.txt:51:May. It was on hungarian initiative, the final text of the Declaration
./english/35.txt:57: The Hungarian Social Forum cwg agrees with the final Declaration of
./english/41.txt:32:There was an advance version of the declaration to which the social movements then added. The main themes were: against the threat of war, against the occupation of Iraq, for a just peace between Israel and Palestine, women’s rights in Turkey, Against Precariousness (founding of a new network), against the G-8 in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) and in Heiligendamm etc. Somewhat irksome was the demand by Babels, which itself had not really earned the medal of honour, especially not for its translations from the Greek and the Turkic, that the speakers should speak their mother tongues and not “shit English or Français merdique”. In my opinion, they had not achieved the performance that would have justified such mean remarks. Therefore, the Russians as well undauntedly first addressed their compatriots in Russian and then switched to English and nobody prevented them. Sophie Zafari first read the draft of the final declaration in English and commented in French and also got through. When, however, an Arabic interpretress wanted to interpret consecutively for a Palestinian speaker, because the majority of the audience (as had been the case during the whole ESF) had not been able to get a radio, she was refused that, and she had to return to her cabin.
./english/42.txt:61:We only have the problem that the subject of our Network is not mentioned in the "official" declarations of the Forum, e.g. in the declaration of the Assembly of the Movements. This is something that must be changed. (I wrote a separate mail to the ESF mailing list regarding this issue.) But this finally doesn't mean that this ESF wasn't a success also for our Network and the people we're working together with.
./english/44.txt:65:We, the participants of the health network at the Athens ESF, reject the neoliberal approach to health and insist on a revitalisation to the principles of Health for All as set out in the Alma Ata declaration. These are universality, comprehensiveness, equity and services free at the point of care. The right to health will only be achieved with social and economic justice.
./english/44.txt:202:DECLARATION AGAINST ANTICOMMUNIST CAMPAIGNS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
./english/44.txt:204:Declaration
./english/44.txt:248:When San Salvador Atenco’s citizens protested against violence, police brutality went beyond limits. A 14-year old boy was killed, a 30-year old man now lies clinically dead and there are 110 injured people and 213 have been arrested. Most of them are members of the FPDT (Frente por la defensa de la tierra) which had signed the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandona jungle and participates in the “Other Campaign”.
./english/45.txt:5:Declaration of Patient Organizations on mental health care
./english/45.txt:34:Declaration of patient organizations on mental health care
./english/46.txt:1:DECLARATION
./english/54.txt:150:sign its declaration, the development of this grouping, prominent among
./english/54.txt:228:draft declaration contained nothing concrete beyond mobilisation for the G8
./english/54.txt:244:the final declaration of the Assembly of the Social Movements. Indeed the
./english/54.txt:256:The declaration as amended now ends:
./english/150.txt:10:Euromarch has developed into a network of activists who are organised under the auspices of a pan-European secretariat based in Paris with liaison committees operating in countries throughout the continent. Policy is debated and demands are formulated at open »Assizes« which are held at approximately 6 monthly intervals. Regular coordination meetings are held at national and pan-European levels and these have tended to focus on declarations and organisational matters for the protest activities which have surrounded the EU summits in Amsterdam, Luxemburg (November 1997), Cardiff (June 1998), Vienna (December 1998) and in Cologne (June 1999).
./english/172.txt:1:Declaration of the Assembly of the Movements of the 4th European Social Forum Athens 7th May 2006
./english/202.txt:9:The available means at the London ESF featured especially the numerous autonomous spaces, which attracted approx. 5000 people, many overlapping with those who registered for the official ESF. Many events and spaces encompassed broad themes which linked apparently ‘single’ issues, thus spanning the foci of existing political campaigns and coalitions. Perhaps the most notable example was the Assemby of the Precariat (and its declaration), situating precarity within an entire exploitative system which potentially threatens everyone but likewise which potentially links their struggles, depending upon the shape of capitalist strategies and our counter-strategies.
./english/205.txt:58:It's no exaggeration to say that this debate was one of the most successful at the ESF, resulting in a call out for the European-wide organization of a Mayday parade of the precariat in 2005 like the ones in Milan and Barcelona this year. It's also clear, however, that some problems remain: for example, the lack of a theoretical solution for the evident differences between immaterial and material precarious labour; or the question of how this new European movement identity relates to other struggles elsewhere (which is a central problem for a truly ‘global' resistance that goes beyond mere ‘international solidarity'). It also remains to be seen what the paths this transformation might take are – many possibilities, including neo-trade unionism, are open. One thing is certain, though: the intensity of the debate and attention doesn't mean per se the guarantee of the existence, or creation, of this new subjectivity; it should be observed that a few of the groups that signed the ‘Middlesex Declaration' have had little contact with the idea, let alone done any work on the area; therefore, for those who left London celebrating the victory of their position, the lesson of Bologna '77 should be applied to movement building as well: lavorare con lentezza.
./english/219.txt:13:We support the Palestinian and Israeli movements fighting for a just and lasting peace. Following the judgement of the UN International Court of Justice and the unanimous vote of the European countries in the UN General Assembly we call for an end to the Israeli occupation and the dismantling of the apartheid wall. We call for political and economic sanctions on the Israeli government as long as they continue to violate international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people. For these reasons we will mobilise for the international week of action against the apartheid wall from 9 to 16 November, and for European days of action on December 10 and 11, the anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
./english/221.txt:3:Middlesex Declaration of Europe's Precariat
./english/221.txt:7:We networkers and flextimers of Northern and Southern Europe, autonomously gathered at Middlesex University and determined to go beyond sclerotizing ESF, solemnly join minds and bodies in the present declaration of conflict against Europe 's governments and corporate bureaucracies.
./english/281.txt:33:spokespersons of the movement and dismiss the rest as ‘too radical’. I don't think it is necessary here to analyse the effects of these dynamics on the movement. Although it is important to note that declarations from alleged progressive intellectuals is intended to divide the movement and undermine alternative groupings. All this raises considerable doubts in me regarding the possible contributions of disciplines such as critical psychology (especially in English speaking countries), that are becoming academically acceptable. Moreover, we have to recognise that many intellectuals and academics jump on the radical bandwagon and try to take advantage of it, especially since there are so few specialists in this field. As an Italian militant involved with academia reports,13 Spring 1998 [...] explosion of the squatting phenomenon [...] many university barons show a sudden interest in ‘understanding’ squatters and I am called as a possible advisor [...] If I put myself forward as a squatting expert I will surely enhance my career prospects. Intellectual contribution to division and reabsorption In analysing the achievements and failures of Radical Social Movements we have to consider the tools, which the System employs to undermine the subversive power of activities and imagination. In my opinion two of the more successful strategies adopted by the System are reabsorption and splitting; in both, the part played by intellectuals and more specifically, academics, is determinant. Here I wish to examine these processes in more detail. When struggles gain public support the System puts into practice various strategies to re-colonize some of the more explicit demands. They take the demand, turn it upside down, empty it of meaning and use it as a slogan to shut up ‘popular protest’. Even some of the ‘human resources’ of the Movement, that is some of the activists, are reabsorbed into the body politic. This probably occurs for different reasons: some militants enter the movement not because they are completely disenchanted with formal politics but because they are not able
./english/299.txt:213:The second aspect of this crisis, the absence of public service, has to do with the development of the so-called ≥Mediterranean≤ welfare State, called åMediterraneanπ because it sounds nicer than årudimentaryπ or åfamilyistπ. This means that reproduction is in the hands of women, frequently in the ådouble work-dayπ regime, and that only in the absence of a woman will the State intervene. Services are, especially in the field of care, a complement to the action of women. Homes with resources will contract another woman, probably immigrant, to externalize part of this work. And this is where other dimensions enter into play, like immigration regulations: the fact, for example, that migration law rests upon discriminatory phenomena that are unjustifiable from any Euro-orthodox point of view such as the pre-assignation by law of certain jobs (domestic service) to certain population groups (foreign women) in function of their sex and their condition as aliens. If all those European declarations really held any water these phenomena would be considered attacks against human rights.
./english/316.txt:13:The WSF – promoted by an identifiable group of Brazilian, French and other, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), trade unions and individuals – is itself linked organically to the more general movement. This is through an informal Forum event, known as the ‘Call of Social Movements’. This has been attended, and its regular declarations signed, by many WSF participant bodies. The Call formalised itself between WSF2-3 with a Social Movements International Secretatriat. But this body, or tendency, is a matter of discomfort for those within the WSF who want to see the Forum as a ‘space’ rather than a ‘movement’. (Social Movements World Network website, Vargas 2003, Whitaker 2003, World Social Forum website,).
./english/364.txt:71:The establishment followed up on the unexpected opportunity to reverse the crisis of legitimacy that had been wracking its system of global governance prior to September 11 by pressing the developing countries to approve a declaration launching a limited set of trade negotiations during the Fourth Ministerial of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Doha, Qatar, in mid-November.
./english/368.txt:66:The Zapatistas and the electronic fabric of struggle When the Zapatistas suddenly appeared in San Cristobal de las Casas and several other cities of Chiapas in the early hours of January 1, 1994, they brought with them a printed declaration of war against the Mexican state and for the liberation of the people of Chiapas and Mexico. News of that declaration went out through a student's telephone call to CNN, and then as journalists arrived to investigate, stories went out via the wire services, newspaper reports and radio and television broadcasts all over the world. For the most part, however, readers and viewers of that reporting saw and heard only excerpts from the Zapatista declaration of war. They never saw the whole declaration, with all of its arguments and explanations for what were obviously dramatically surprising and audacious actions. Except for the rare exception, such as the Mexico City daily newspaper La Jornada, they only got what the editors wanted them to get, according to their own biases.
./english/369.txt:11:The conference had on its agenda: the situation of the left in Europe; the policies of the EU; a common political declaration; the counter-summit in Copenhagen during the upcoming Danish presidency; and a point of information on the general strike in Spain and the mobilisations in Seville.
./english/369.txt:26:Declaration of the Conference of the European Anti-Capitalist Left, Madrid, June 18-19, 2002
./english/376.txt:55:It is unclear how important WSIS will be. Some see activity outside the process as a way to increase pressure on the inside and help advance our concerns in the WSIS Declaration and Action Plan. Many prefer to think of it as an opportunity in terms of people who will be concentrated in Geneva, and in terms of international press coverage of the summit that can be used to inject our concerns into global media space. Others see it as an appropriate moment to push forward the growth of the global media justice movement in many parallel local events, or to advance the idea of a human right to communicate.
./english/376.txt:84:OURMedia III conference - will discuss citizens' movements toward democratisation of the media, evaluation of citizens'/community/alternative media, community media regulation from around the world (comparative regulation), community media for peace (projects in Burundi, Colombia, Afghanistan, the Balkans - Search for Common Ground), citizens' media from around the world, The Indymedia Movement (Kidd), WSIS, the CRIS Campaign. A proposal to try to emerge from OURmedia with a draft declaration for the Alternative/Countersummit.
./english/383.txt:119:Tokyo Declaration on Global Commons. 1999. Environmental Policy & Law, Nov99,
./english/389.txt:9:The World Summit on the Information Society proposes to develop “a common vision and understanding of the information society and the adoption of a declaration and plan of action.” A vision of society must necessarily have people at its center and an understanding of the fundamental rights and needs of humankind. The goals of such a society should be based on principles of social, political and economic justice.
./english/393.txt:144:vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the
./english/393.txt:151:declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that
./english/393.txt:159:must be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions
./english/393.txt:165:be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions they may
./english/395.txt:399:the IC of the WSF also took a decision to precisely this same effect, requiring written declarations
./english/395.txt:401:retroactive, and will require all existing members of the IC to also submit such declarations.)
./english/402.txt:18:At two previous Forums there has been issued a ‘Call of Social Movements’. The initiative for such has come from members of the OC and IC, some being recognisable social movements, others being recognisable NGOs. Both Calls have been publicly presented and then signed by 50-100 other organisations and networks. This year, the notion of a ‘Social Movements World Network’ (SMWN) was widely circulated on the web and subject to a two-session public discussion within the Forum. This eventually produced a much shorter, one-page, declaration, proposing a continuation of discussion about the nature of such a network, with further meetings to take place during major movement events this year and next. It may be that what I received was an interim document and that there either is or will be a longer one. But, following the two dramatic previous Calls, and the larger, better-publicised, two-stage, discussion this year, one is struck by the modesty and caution of this proposal.
./english/402.txt:20:There are good reasons for such caution. The Call – like other Forum bodies and initiatives – is surrounded by a certain amount of mystery. Given overlapping memberships, are we to understand the Call as a device for going beyond the Forum’s self-limitation on making political declarations? How come the Secretariat of the Call, in Sao Paulo, only came to this interested observer’s attention one year after it came into existence? Why did it take seven or eight months for the signators of Call 2 to be publicly identified (at least on a website), when those of Call1 were published instantaneously? What, for the purposes of this new initiative, is a social movement?
./english/418.txt:1:Final declaration
./english/510.txt:14:- a forum governed by rules that renew the traditional practices of collective action. These are the founding rules of the "Porto Alegre generation," appropriate for an era of networks and of recognition of diversity and cross-cutting issues: openness; acceptance of diversity as a value; horizontality in relations between participants; non-directivity and therefore absence of spokesperson, leader, or final declaration. Collected in a Charter of Principles, these choices have now become the fundamental reference for organizing Social Forums.
./english/519.txt:42:The WSF has shown itself very efficient in giving impulse to the left wing’s political struggle in the beginning of this century. Innumerous declarations, platforms and calls have been coming out of the process’ events and have been fundamental to organize from the referendum on the FTTA in Brazil to the protests against the invasion of Iraq on February 15th, 2003. In each forum, social movements network meetings agree on an agenda for global mobiliza-tions, which is reference to thousands of movements and organizations. Declarations such as the “World Charter on the Rights to the City” have been produced in many forums. During the Caracas Forum, de declaration “Another integration, urgent, possible and necessary” was made. The “Ba-mako Call”, written in a seminar that took place one day before the Forum, is an important refer-ence to our days, assembling much of what the WSF has produced up to now. Some examples of “conclusions” produced “during the Forums” could be multiplied infinitely, and many would point out its efficiency as an impelling force to the organization of initiatives which are central to the left-ist movement nowadays.
./english/519.txt:44:But, in spite of all these evidences showing the WSF’s efficiency, some still insist that if the Forum does not undertake resolutions, declarations or platforms, it will “end up being a fair”. Therefore, this insistence seems to rely less on what is made explicit within the discourse (how to organize the struggles better) and more on acting methods and political culture conceptions, to rely on what should be the model of organization for the political action adopted by us. This discussion needs to be done without ambiguities.
./english/519.txt:52:Adopting resolutions “as” the Forum means the establishment of deliberative bodies that surpass the powers and the function of being the process’s facilitators (as they are today, from the IC to the OCs). This would mean to open processes – natural, but inevitable – of dispute for power, with all its problems, something that the Forum has succeeded in avoiding. Within the processes of delibera-tion, this would mean imposing the opinion of some people upon others, which would jeopardize the efficiency of the Forum in its current format where the political argument and the voluntary ad-hesion to any proposal, declaration or campaign prevails. To abandon theses victories obtained by the Forum would mean a great political retrocession to the current left wing.
./english/548.txt:18:At the edge of the WSF activities, 400 delegates from 100 Indigenous groups met in an “Puxirum of Indigenous Arts and Knowledge.” In the Brazilian Tupi-Guarani Indigenous language, Puxirum means “a joining of efforts for a common goal.” Their meeting ended with a declaration that “another world is possible, and we are part of that world.”
./english/571.txt:17:Some of the main challenges concern Article 6 of the Charter, even if it is seldom explicitly mentioned in the debates. According to the Article, “the meetings of the WSF do not deliberate on behalf of the WSF as a body… The participants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body”. In practice, this has meant that the WSF as a body never made a declaration, for example, against the war in Iraq. According to many of its “founding fathers”, such as Chico Whitaker, making a declaration against the war would have been a violation of the Charter of Principles (4). The issue was hotly debated in meetings of the WSF International Council, especially in January 2003 in Porto Alegre, but the decision was not to issue any declaration. The question was not about whether anyone present would not have been opposed to the war, it was about the concept of space that the WSF is supposed to be.
./english/571.txt:29:One way to avoid political silence without violating the Charter of Principles is to facilitate processes whereby organizations that take part in the WSF produce political declarations. The most important attempt to move beyond the self-imposed limits for declarations and other forms of political action is the Assembly of Social Movements that has taken place in all annual events of the WSF. Ideally, most of the participating organizations would sign such declarations and they could have powerful political impact. Until now, the social movement declarations produced during the WSF events have not been circulated very widely and their impact has been relatively modest. Nevertheless, they have created controversies among the WSF organizers.
./english/571.txt:31:Even if these declarations do not officially claim to represent the WSF as a whole, Chico Whitaker, one of the key initiators of the WSF process, and others have been highly critical of them. Whitaker fears that the media may consider them as semi-official conclusions. This can then lead to political disputes about whose concerns get to be expressed in the declarations. In the 2005 WSF in Porto Alegre, a “manifesto” signed by 19 intellectuals that included Ignacio Ramonet, Immanuel Wallerstein, Samir Amin, Bernard Cassen and (mostly) other “non-young” males, caused similar concerns (6).
./english/571.txt:33:For Whitaker, who has been the most vocal proponent of the WSF as “purely a space”, the activities of the Assembly of Social Movements have been a cause for concern, because they may compromise the WSF method. According to Whitaker, the groups behind the Social Movements’ Assembly succeeded in their “most daring coup” in the Mumbai WSF (7). The issue was that the Indian Organizing Committee had given the assembly a space to read its conclusions in the closing ceremony of the Mumbai WSF (8). As a result, some media interpreted the social movements’ call as the main declaration expressing the collective will of the WSF, which for Whitaker went against the established WSF spirit and method. The controversy was mostly triggered by a news cable of Agence France Press that reported on the social movements’ declaration. In the following IC meeting in Mumbai, Whitaker wanted to reach a decision so that the IC would declare that the declaration of the Social Movements Assembly was not an official declaration of the WSF. After long discussions, no such vote or declaration was produced by the IC.
./english/577.txt:22:This diversity in opinion and approach is both a strength of the Forum, as well as its principal weakness. The Forum derives strength from this diversity as it provides the opportunity for a very large number of movements and organisations to come together, each feeling that their views have a place in the open space of the Forum. At the same time the diverse trends and opinions leads, often, to a sense of frustration that the Forum is not able to hammer together a consensus regarding both a strategic understanding and tactics to be applied. This has led to a tendency to attempt to “force” the Forum to take unified positions. An example of this was the declaration of a “Porto Alegre” consensus by a few prominent individuals this time at the WSF. While the contents of the “consensus” suggested was fairly bland and not objectionable, what was problematic was the fact that this went against the grain of the way the WSF as an “open space” functions.
./english/590.txt:12:The first question concerns a danger, which it is necessary to surmount and which, after Mumbai, shows itself to be particularly present. It concerns attempts which - contrary to the Charta of Principle of the WSF, to its spirit and its way of proceeding so far - try to establish a “political leadership disguised as an avant-garde, baptised Assembly of the Social Movements .” Born with the WSF of 2001, this assembly - which as Cassen remarks, should call itself “of some” and not “of the” social movements - would have the right and even the duty to exist. One of the objectives of the WSF is precisely to give birth to discussions, if these do not overthrow the whole logic of the forum. However, this assembly succeeded its most daring coup at the Mumbai Forum: its representatives, after having convinced the Indian organisers that this was nothing but the tradition of all the Forums, had taken the microphone on occasion of the closing ceremony in order to present their “Call”, thereby reducing the whole richness and diversity of the Forum to a single proposition. We can all be in agreement with this proposition, but not necessarily with the fact that it stands as the only conclusion of the Forum or maybe even that it is now treated as the priority of priorities. Of course, this occurrence provided the Agence France Press with the right to say, in its dispatch regarding that closing session, that this “assembly” is the “decision-making body of the World Social Forums” and therefore “the organ entitled to take decisions within the WSF, which itself issues no final declaration”…
./english/605.txt:76:Several of these parties have met in the IV World Parliament Forum, which had consolidated as the parallel event for the parliament members identified with the proposals debated in the Forum. The Parliament Forum has a different structure from the WSF, taking each year a final definition, sometimes after lots of polemics (such as the position about the USA attack in Afghanistan, which polarized the II WPF in the social-democrat formations and the others). This time, the debate of more united (see Final Declaration of the IV World Parliament Forum).
./english/626.txt:26:"There were no concrete outcomes," complain many critics. Yes, there were no formal declarations passed; who needs more of those? But there were hundreds of outcomes. The forging of people-to-people bonds. The uniting of struggles. The building of bridges. The strengthening of solidarity. The shaping of new alliances, new coalitions, new relationships. The articulation of alternatives. These are all outcomes. Intangible perhaps, but valuable outcomes nonetheless.
./english/629.txt:56:The Forum’s Principles Charter reinforces even more this perspective when it deals with the question of “final documents”. Even if they succeeded in not being oversimplifying or narrowing, as it is usually the case with “final documents”, it so happens that the Forum does not have them, as a Forum. It is not a matter of non-commitment with the fight and with the mobilization needed to face the neo-liberalism, as the ones most concerned in transforming the Forum in a movement might interpret. The fact is that a square does not make “declarations”. It is clear that those inside it can do it. The participants of the World Social Forum can do whatever final declarations they wish - and these are most welcome. But they will never be declarations of the Forum as Forum. As a common space to all, it does not “speak”. Or rather, it “speaks”, and a lot, through its own existence. As more and more people and organizations get together in order to find ways to overcome the neo-liberalism, this is in itself an expressive political fact. It is needless that somebody should speak on behalf of the Forum.
./english/629.txt:58:Each and every document or declaration proposed in it will be, this way, a manifestation of those and solely of those subscribing it freely, without pressures or controls as for the positions adopted. That is why the Forum’s Charter sets forth that declarations and proposals cannot be voted or acclaimed by the participants of the Forum, as manifestations of the whole of the “visitors” of the “square”. In fact, this would lead many to leave the Forum-space, for not accepting or for not agreeing with leaders who intend to conduct them from the top of ridiculous hills and trees.
./english/629.txt:60:This option adopted in the Forum was, by the way, easily grasped by a great number of participants in its last edition in Porto Alegre, who contributed to the “panel” with “Proposals for action adopted during the 2003 Forum”. In addition to the fact that this “panel” enabled everyone to express themselves, the final proposals and declarations brought - or sent later - clearly depict the richness and the diversity of the engagement of the participants. The proposals can already be found in the Forum’s web page, but it was not possible this year to show everything that its participants decided to do as a result of the Forum, once the “panel”, as an innovation introduced in this edition, was poorly publicized.
./english/646.txt:84:Unsurprisingly, tensions have sometimes emerged between leading WSF bodies and regional forum organisers. For example, Italian organisers of European Social Forum 2002 wanted to use a social movements declaration drafted by WSF participants as the foundation-stone of their own forum. The Brazilian Organising Committee objected that the Charter of Principles is the only official basis for such events organised within the WSF umbrella.
./english/646.txt:96:The WSF provides a flexible space for actors who may wish to construct projects in very different contexts, local and global. Those organisers emphasising such flexibility urge the WSF to avoid issuing declarations of support for any one political process. As Cândido Grzybowski puts it, “political action is the responsibility of each individual and the coalitions they form, not an attribute of the forum”. Sensing a more pronounced dichotomy between forum as a space and forum as a movement, Chico Whitaker meanwhile has criticised the “self-nominated social movements” that “seek to put the forum inside their own mobilising dynamics, to serve their own objectives.”
./english/646.txt:104:In at least two meetings of the WSF International Council there have been angry demands by some groups to issue a declaration on a particular topic, whether it be crises in Argentina, Palestine or Venezuela. In the Bangkok meeting in August 2002, Walden Bello and others argued that the council should produce a public statement encouraging movements around the world to take part in protests in Cancún in 2003. In the Porto Alegre meeting of the council in January 2003, various delegates argued strongly in favour of making a public statement against the imminent war in Iraq. In both cases, the apparently consensual decision of the council was not to issue any such statements. It is, however, likely that there will be more intense debates on this in the near future.
./english/646.txt:108:Until now, social movement declarations produced during the WSF events have not been circulated very widely and their impact has been relatively modest. The clearest exception is the call for anti-war demonstrations of 15 February 2003 that many movements gathered in the WSF 2003 in Porto Alegre made public. Nevertheless, they have created controversy among the organisers, with people like Chico Whitaker fearing that the media may consider them semi-official. One way to avoid political silence without violating the Charter of Principles may be for the organisers to facilitate their production and endorsement.
./english/668.txt:17:"La Boca Fundamental" (Fundamental Mouth) movement held a series of creative demonstrations and workshops under the slogan, "your mouth is fundamental to fight fundamentalism of all types." Guacira Cesar de Olivera explained to CorpWatch that "everyone has their own, Single Truth -- be it the Taliban, the IMF or the Catholic Church -- and we believe that women suffer most from all types of fundamentalism." These fundamentalisms, she argues, share the basic characteristics of exclusion and domination. The Fundamental Mouth movement took over the inside of the main conference hall one afternoon, urging everyone, women and men to use their mouths to speak out against fundamentalism.Coming Soon to a Venue Near YouOverall, its impossible to quantify or even articulate the "results" from Porto Alegre. The mainstream Brazilian media even criticized the absence of a final declaration. But to reduce the diversity of cultures, the plurality of ideas and opinions, the cacophony of alternative visions to a simple declaration would have been counterintuitive to the World Social Forums "big tent" vision.