US SOCIAL FORUM PHILADELPHIA 2015
The Evolution of a Movement
In 2010 more than 20,000 people attended the US Social Forum in Detroit, chosen in part because of its community building resulting from the lack of support from the federal government. Thousands of bicycles used during the forum were donated to the residents afterward. Some attendees bought vacant homes that were donated to a local organization. The Detroit Liberation Library was created from hundreds of books collected from all over the country and later offered throughout the city. Activists participated in more than 1,000 self-organized workshops. One of the most well attended events was a conversation between Grace Lee Boggs and Immanuel Wallerstein. Thousands of Social Forum participants marched to occupy Chase Bank Detroit headquarters, resulting in a national Chase Bank official speaking with church leaders in Detroit about foreclosures.
The first US Social Forum took place in Atlanta, Georgia. Planning began in 2005, and the following year the Southeast Social Forum took place in Durham, North Carolina. The Southeast Social Forum was intended to create momentum for the US Social Forum. The goal of the first US Social Forum was to begin to build a movement that will end harmful US practices against all people by helping coordinate local activists into a nationwide movement. The National Domestic Workers Alliance was formed as a result of the event, a group working toward a Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights in various states. Activist librarians from the Progressive Librarians Guild and Radical Reference collected materials that were sent to the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan.
A little over seven years ago, January 20-25, 2007, I was in Nairobi, Kenya at the World Social Forum. For those unfamiliar with the forum, it is the global gathering of the world’s peoples, the dispossessed, genders, ethnicities, cultures, and regions. The World Social Forum was established in 2001 in Porte Alegre, Brazil. For many years the forum was held at the same time as the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF takes place in Davos, Switzerland. There the dominant economic actors, nations, and corporations discuss the global capitalist system, which enriches so few. They articulate an economic strategy of dominance rooted in transnational capital. The World Social Forum is the global counterpunch.
By bringing together activists, grassroots leaders, academics, NGOs, students and others from all over the world, the World Social Forum has meant a political space, time and place to begin articulating a new vision of justice and equality for the world’s peoples. It is, at its most stirring, a gathering of those committed to social transformation of the current world order. This means that humanity, in all our complexity, must move together in deep relationality, cohesion, and care for the people and the planet.
Coming together in spaces such as the social forums pushes us to think historically, systemically, and strategically. The historic negative contact and power relationships between Europeans and the majority of the world’s peoples are the facts of imperialism and colonialism intertwined deeply with heteropatriarchy. And, complexly the capitalist world system today creates a polygot of transnational elites, not all white or male. Yet the social forum process reawakens us to the rich cultural legacy of reimagining and re-creating by those most marginalized. The social forum process opens up a space to connect to our multiplicities, the imperative of moving from critique to transformation. The first point is to seek clarity about our theory and practice of liberation in this complex, and complicated space and time. The second point is to know that this is a critical conjuncture to reconsider where we stand –the political moment- and where we might go-the political imperative of vision.
The challenge for all of us committed to social transformation is not simply to exhort change and critique systems but to connect deeply to praxis rooted in our connection to one another. This connect must happen in theory but most demandingly in practice. The quest is to build a movement within the U.S. and globally. We know in the forum process many organizations still locate in either/or single axis analysis. So our press must continue to be building in interconnection and care through all of our multiplicity. This is the corner store of movement building for a transformed world.
Full article: http://thefeministwire.com/2014/04/social-transformation-beyond-critique/
~Rose M. Brewer
Accountability & Coordinating Committee
Gender Justice Working Group
Contact: outreach@ussfphilly.org
