Surviving Capitalism (Not) : World Social Forum: “The challenge of a global solution outside the system”

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

World Social Forum: “The challenge of a global solution outside the system”

Eric Toussaint is interviewed by Sergio Ferrari, from CADTM.

While our masters meet in Davos, Switzerland, some activists are meeting in early February at Dakar, Senegal to look at ways of countering the ongoing assault on working people throughout the world.

The World Social Forum (WSF) is practically the only space for convergence of social movements on a planetary scale, so it is essential to continue strengthening it. This is the stance of Éric Toussaint, global justice analyst, who knows the World Social Forum from the inside as he has been a member of its guiding body since its founding, the International Council. Éric Toussaint is a Belgian historian and political scientist, and in Belgium, chair of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third world debt (CADTM www.cadtm.org). This organisation, very active in many countries, in particular in Africa, is one of the groups taking part in preparing the upcoming Dakar forum in 2011. Interview.