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Press release
Friday 15 October 2004
London activist summit aims to change the world
Campaigners from the World Development Movement (WDM) will join up to 20,000 global social justice activists from across Europe at the European Social Forum being held in London for three days from Friday, 15th October.
The European Social Forum is an extraordinary political space for debate, strategy and action that will take place in Alexandra Palace and Bloomsbury.
Speaking on the eve of the forum Director of WDM, Mark Curtis said: "The ESF in London is a challenge to the mainstream political parties. It is the antidote to the Party conference season. Party conferences are increasingly reduced to rallies where real political debate is ruthlessly controlled. At a time when disengagement with the conventional political process is a issue for mainstream politicians here is a real, radical, passionate movement full of people committed to changing the world.
"London is a centre for footloose international finance and home to many of the world's most destructive multinational corporations. It is the ideal venue from which to send a powerful message that there are alternatives to corporate globalisation and that another world is possible.
"The ESF is an opportunity for WDM to meet with groups campaigning on international development issues from across the continent. It is also about taking action. We will discuss campaigning in the run-up to the G8 next year in Scotland, and how we challenge the anti-development policies of our own Government and the European Commission."
The ESF is an offshoot of the World Social Forum (which has been held in Brazil and India for the past four years) - which itself started as a reply and challenge to the annual World Economic Forum held by business each year in Davos, Switzerland.
The ESF includes hundreds of seminars and workshops on issues as diverse as the European constitution, third world debt, rail privatisation, the relationship between Europe and the Arab world, nuclear weapons, ID cards, land rights, Palestine, climate change and pensions.
The World Development Movement has been committed to the social forum movement since its beginning and has contributed to both the World Social Forum and the first two European Social Forums which were held in Florence and Paris.
The London ESF event is the culmination of over a year's effort by hundreds of different organisations from development and environment groups such as WDM, War on Want and Friends of the Earth to anti-racism and community campaigns such as the 1990 Trust and the Newham Monitoring Project and many trade unions. Almost 2000 organisations from across Europe have been involved in constructing the programme by proposing and organising the many different events that make up the ESF.
Mark Curtis said: "The ESF is not just a three day event. At its best, the way it is organised should be an example of the world we are trying to create: open, democratic and inclusive."
Notes for editors:
Press conference by keynote international speakers on development and the environment at ESF. Friday 15th October, 12:10, Great Hall 10, Alexandra Palace. With: Walden Bello (Director of Focus on the Global South), Oronto Douglas, human rights lawyer and environmental activist against Shell's exploitation in the Niger Delta in Nigeria), Rudolf Amenga-Etego (Campaign against Water Privatisation in Ghana). Berenice Celeyta (Director of Human Rights for Colombian trade union SINTRAEMCALI).
Director of WDM, Mark Curtis is speaking at "Our world is not for sale" on Friday 15th, 4-6pm, Alexandra Palace, Unison Panorama Rm.
WDM's Clare Joy is speaking at "The European economy and the world economy: the WTO and trade justice" on Friday 15th, 1-3pm, Alexandra Palace, TGWU West hall 1.
More on WDM at the ESF
Details of the full ESF programme
Contacts:
Dave Timms, WDM Press Officer, 07711 875 345 or email him.
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