[WSF-Discuss] Fwd: [DEBATE] : Fwd: The ESF - second day

Sat Sep 20 04:49:21 UCT 2008

America Vera-Zavala's second blog.  Apologies for the delayed posting, and
thanks again, America !
JS

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: America <america at americavz.com>
Date: Sep 19, 2008 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [DEBATE] : Fwd: post it if you want on your websites
To: Jai Sen <jai.sen at cacim.net>

day 2
http://americavz.com/blogg/?p=232

ESF day 2

A social forum is supposed to be rooted and not only land somewhere. In
places like Porto Alegre where the model of the participatory budget and
a successful PT local government was well known the root were obvious.
Here many people are asking me; Where are we?

In the centre of the European Social Forum is Folkets Park. It was there
where the inauguration was held and where you pass by several times a
day on your way from or to a seminar or a cultural event. Folkets Park
in Malmö is the oldest Folkets Park in Sweden. The Swedish Labour
movement is built upon the income from those parks. The Labour movement
built it and held social and cultural events there. Working class people
more than hundred years ago paid entrance and were allowed into a social
space where the rules on clothing was less strict and where a working
class culture was emerging. The Labour movement owned it for almost 90
years and sold it to the Malmö municipality in the 80s. In the beginning
of the century people's parliaments were organised at the Folkets Park.
Working class women and men without the right to vote held huge meeting
and showed that democracy was not real without giving them the right to
vote and participate.

Swedish media are more or less ignoring the ESF. The few articles I have
seen talk about that they were expecting more people, or at least that
is the story they let other people tell. At the same time the prime
minister has been in Rosengård in Mölmö and I don´t know how many
journalist have written ridiculous articles about the prime minister
boxing among kids with immigrant background. The ESF is 100 times more
impressive than that but still either they expect us to be violent or
they think we are not enough.

But that is not the case. We are everywhere.

Today I started with a trip to Rosengård. By bus (I am sure the prime
minister went by limo). There I listened to a seminar on urban activism
with people and groups from Berlin, several cities in Russia and
Istanbul. Then I have been walking around enjoying the forum. All the
people, faces, friends, squares, maps, signs. It is wonderful to be here.

Jai Sen skrev:

> A blog on the ESF now taking place at the ESF !  Which I hope that the
> author America Ver-Zaval will be doing each day, as we go along.  Thanks,
> America !
> And an invitation to others here at Malmö : Please also send post your
> blogs, and send me a copy so that I can post it on the lists I am on.
> Thanks.
>
> JS
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: America <america at americavz.com>
> Date: Sep 18, 2008 12:59 AM
> Subject: post it if you want on your websites
>
> http://americavz.com/blogg/
>
> ESF day 1
>
>
>
> I meet my wonderful friend Jai Sen at Nya Tröls <http://www.nyatrols.se/
> >and
> he tells me to blog, the first thing he does. We haven´t met for at least a
> couple of years since the last social forum in Mumbai or maybe the
> globalisation conference in Oslo. Jai Sen is an activist from India, Delhi
> and he is the editor, along with Peter Waterman of the book Challenging
> Empires <http://www.blackrosebooks.net/wsf.htm>.  A new edition of the
> book
> will be launched tomorrow at one o´clock at Babels, Jerico café, the same
> place where the seminar <http://fronesis.nu/seminarium/>will be Friday
> morning.
>
> Jai wants to know where he is. He is in Malmö, Sweden, and it is day one of
> the European Social Forum, but that is not enough for him and I can see
> what
> he means, what is the political mapping today of Malmö and what is the
> history.
>
> I tell him that one thing I know is that at the famous Möllevångstorget,
> there was riots during the spring of 1917. That spring was the closest
> Sweden ever came to a revolution. There was hunger and protests, riots and
> marches all over the country. At Möllevången there was riots, women were
> asking for bread.
>
> Same evening, same bar. I am talking to my friend Tan Mogul, from Istanbul,
> urban activist. He will be speaking at a seminar tomorrow morning at <
> http://www.esf2008.org/program>9.30 <http://www.esf2008.org/program>in
> Rosengård. So I ask him, do you know Rosengård, yes yes he tells me and
> points it out at the map. No, the history? He has no clue he will be
> speaking at the Swedish Saint-Denis. The suburb, centre for problems,
> immigrant problems, social problems, unemployment problems, all kind of
> problems. The place where Zlatan is from. They all get impressed when I
> tell
> them that. No one from Istanbul asks me if it is dangerous to go.
>
> I have been on stage for hours this evening.
>
> It is the opening evening of the Euro Social Forum and I have been the
> facilitator of the inauguration <
> http://www.esf2008.org/news/inauguration-of-the-fifth-european-social-forum
> >
> program. I am happy that it has started. Speakers have made their visions
> come through. Vandana Shiva gave a fantastic speech about the hope, Enron
> gone, Monsanto will go and by saying those words she made anti-capitalist
> struggle real.
>
> Folkets Park was filled with people. And when the first part of the
> inauguration program was over I ran to inaugurate the Latinamerican park a
> few blocks away. Maybe 500 persons listening to me, Ignacio Ramonet and
> latinamerican music. Back to Folkets Park and the artists. Friends ask me
> who is singing.
>
> Who is Mikael Wiehe, well he is the Swedish Bob Dylan.
>
> I think this is the way to explain things to our activists guest from
> around
> the world.
>
> If you want to make it short.
>
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.169 / Virus Database:
> 270.6.21/1674 - Release Date: 2008-09-16 08:15
>
>
>

-- 
______________________________

Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
www.cacim.net
CACIM, A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
Ph : +91-11-4155 1521, 2433 2451

Check out the OpenSpaceForum @ www.openspaceforum.net

Subscribe to WSFDiscuss, an open and unmoderated forum on the World Social
Forum and on related social and political movements and issues. Simply send
an empty email to worldsocialforum-discuss-subscribe at openspaceforum.net

And, NEW ! : Join CEOS at openspaceforum.net, the CEOS (Critical Engagement
with Open Space) listserve for exchange and coordination on open space
theory and practice and to facilitate a critical discussion of the idea of
'open space'.  Just send an empty mail to CEOS-subscribe at openspaceforum.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.openspaceforum.net/pipermail/worldsocialforum-discuss_openspaceforum.net/attachments/20080920/6f00b162/attachment-0001.html>