World Social Forum-Mexico: inauguration
The World Social Forum Mexico 2010 took place from 2nd to 4th May in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City, with the theme ‘of the people and by the people: other solutions to the global crisis are possible’. On Sunday 2 May, on the stroke of 11 am, when the brilliant sun was burning the heart of the city of Tenochtitlán, flowers of a thousand different colors, incense, doves and cathedral bells greeted the defiant voices that were raised to open this great event, in the presence of representatives from over forty countries and of thousands of Mexican citizens.
Oscar González, a member of the coordinating team for the World Social Forum-Mexico, gave the opening speech. He condemned the way in which ‘an illegitimate government is violating labour rights and human rights in the federal government’s current war against drugs, which has served only to further worsen the living conditions of most Mexicans’, and explained the need to find new ways of doing politicy, beyond the reach of the powerful, to find ‘the alternatives for which we are struggling, from and with those from below: the need to save nature and the liberation of the whole of humankind’.
In the name of the Head of the Mexico City Government, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, Martí Batres Guadarrama took the microphone to welcome the participants in this Thematic World Social Forum. He spoke of the need to make policies for and of the people and called the Forum an alternative that can help the nations.
Applause greeted Fernando Urbano Morales, a member of the civil society organisation the Centre for Community Support “Working Together” (CACTUS), who denounced recent events in the indigenous community of San Juan Copala in the state of Oaxaca, where a paramilitary group had assassinated social activist Alberta Cariño the previous Tuesday. A minute of applause was dedicated to the memory of the activist and human rights defender.
To cries of support, the general secretary of the Mexican Electrians Union (SME), Martín Esparza Flores, pointed out that while in Boliva electricity companies are being nationalised, in Mexico over a thousand firms have been privatised. Finally, French participant Gustave Massiah, of the International Council of the World Social Forum, spoke of the need to organise the world and society in defense of the fundamental rights of the planet.
The different speakers all agreed that only solidarity between the peoples can save thousands of people around the the world from the global crisis, but that this is a task requiring actions from each and every one of us, women and men, and that the World Social Forum is the spearhead for the creation of another world, of respect and harmony and respect between nations. They agreed that the capitalist system threatens humanity as a species and that all it can achieve is more poverty and inequality. For this reason, another world is not only possible but essential, as the only way to achieve justice and sustainability for both humanity and nature.
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