By this present call, we are launching an invitation to social movements and citizens around the entire world to make the next World Social Forum (WSF) an essential meeting to share our mobilizations, our resistances, and strengthen our struggles. We wish that WSF of Montreal aims not only to promote exchanges and the convergences around broad orientations, but also allows social movements to offer political responses to change the course of history.
WSF 2016
23 Jan 2016
The WSF 2016 will be held, for the first time, in a country of the North, in Canada, in a new political context. Indeed, during the elections of October 2015, the Canadian community got rid of the conservative government that, for 10 years, conducted an ultraliberal economic policy based on a predatory extractivism and a strong social conservatism.
The fight against oil sands and oil pipelines in Canada, the mobilization of indigenous peoples for their rights and the strength of social movements, contributed to this political change and motivated the choice to hold the 2016 WSF in Montreal.
Since the student strikes of 2012 in Quebec, struggles continue in an uninterrupted way. We would also mention the mobilizations against austerity policies, the action of environmental movements and the historic mobilization of the trade union movement as part of the negotiations in the public sector.
In North America, Quebec is an important territory of resistance to neo-liberalism and a place where initiatives multiply themselves to build collective alternatives to the prevailing system (peasant and ecological agriculture, urban agriculture, social and solidarity economy, multisectoral coalitions and citizen actions of all kinds…).
Another world is needed, together it is possible
The current capitalist model, dominated by an increasingly aggressive neo-liberal elite, has not only deepened the gap between the 99% of humanity and the 1% of the richest population, but has thrown the planet into an unprecedented social crisis. Austerity and structural adjustment policies have been imposed in most countries while corruption endlessly perpetuates.
Populations are subject to restrictive economic measures from which all are victims, especially the most vulnerable of society, such as women, youth and racialized groups. The social fabric continues to unravel, public utilities disappear under the incessant appetite of multinationals wishing their privatization.
This economic system based on the overproduction and overconsumption is directly responsible for climate changes that threaten the integrity of ecosystems and the survival of populations. The year 2015 has been marked by the Paris agreement on climate change as well as by the adoption of new sustainable development goals (SDGs) at the United Nations. These agreements should be bold to face the crisis, but they rather reflect the lack of will of the elites to act.
Social inequalities are multiplying and the horizon of a warming of more than two degrees Celsius announces a dramatic disruption of the climate for the most vulnerable populations everywhere in the world.
The incessant wars and increased migration of populations are the symptoms of a crisis of the system supplying the false solutions of withdrawal and hatred, xenophobia and racism, in disregard of human dignity and democracy.
Over the last fifteen years, world forums have experienced an important development. By deploying on various continents and by dealing with concrete issues that affect people, they have mobilized hundreds of thousands of people all around the world and have demonstrated that action is required, and that there exists alternatives.
As part of the continuity of large mobilizations against free trade agreements, against the World Trade Organization, against the G7 and against the World Davos Economic Forum, social movements and citizens have come together to say that another world is not only possible, but necessary and urgent.
This first WSF in the North continues this collective commitment. It presents unique challenges from the point of view of the participation and mobilization of social movements. However, it offers the opportunity to take action and to build a global articulation of struggles for a world of social and climate justice.
We invite all social movements and citizens from all over the world to converge in Montreal from the 9th to the 14th of August 2016 to reiterate that we are this other possible world!
Signatories:
AITEC-IPAM (France)
Alternatives (Canada)
ATTAC France
ATTAC Québec (Canada)
CCFD-Terre solidaire – Comité catholique contre la faim et pour le développement (France)
Collectif FSM Montréal 2016 (Canada)
Confédération paysanne (France)
CRID-Centre de recherche et d’information pour le développement (France)
Fondation France Liberté – Danielle Mitterrand (France)
FTQ-Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (Canada)
Related posts:
- FSM ruma para o Norte: Edição 2016 em Montreal (Quebec, Canadá)
- Próxima edição do FSM, no Canadá, aposta na construção horizontal para articular a esquerda
- World Social Forum TV Tunis 2015: Boaventura da Sousa Santos
- ‘Cidades sustentáveis’: Painel do Fórum Social discute como mudar o mundo a partir dos municípios
- Fórum Social deve ir além do debate e agir mais, diz Boaventura de Sousa Santos
