[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Social Forum of the Americas: Cultural Resistance in Festive Opening Ceremony

[Alfred Kagan]

>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:14494] Social Forum of the 
>Americas: Cultural Resistance in Festive Opening 
>Ceremony 
>Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 12:29:34 -0400
>Thread-Topic: Social Forum of the Americas: 
>Cultural Resistance in Festive Opening Ceremony 
>Thread-Index: AcR0wBCE6/TzRYvGSqeOXiVYc4Qh3w==
>From: "Hornbuckle, Del" <dHornbuckle at provisionslibrary.org>
>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
>Reply-To: srrtac-l at ala.org
>Sender: owner-srrtac-l at ala.org
>
>FYI.
>
>Del Hornbuckle
>
>
>Published on Monday, July 26, 2004 by the Inter Press Service 
>
>
>Social Forum of the Americas: Cultural Resistance in Festive Opening Ceremony 
>by Gustavo González 
>
>QUITO - ''Cultural resistance'' marked the huge 
>fiesta that opened the first Social Forum of the 
>Americas Sunday in the Ecuadorian capital, which 
>has drawn at least 8,000 activists, united once 
>again under the slogan ''another world is 
>possible''.
>
>The Sunday through Friday gathering, the first 
>regional edition of the World Social Forum held 
>every year since 2001, is an assembly ''of all 
>the poor,'' Ecuadorian indigenous leader Blanca 
>Chancoso, speaking in the name of the organizing 
>committee, told the immense crowd that packed 
>the San Francisco plaza in colonial Quito.
>
>''From here, I want to invite you all to this 
>enormous 'minga' (communal work), to build this 
>'other America', which IS possible,'' said 
>Chancoso, at the inauguration of the regional 
>meeting of ''all of our brothers and sisters, 
>from Alaska to Patagonia.''
>
>When the clock struck noon, the people in the 
>square were invited to look towards the east, 
>''where the sun, the fire of life, comes up,'' 
>raise up their hands, and shout seven times 
>'Ullallay' -- a Quichua word that refers to 
>''unconditional love among human beings.''
>
>The ritual, led from the stage by 
>representatives of indigenous peoples from 
>Ecuador's Andes mountain region, like the 
>Otavaleño and Salasaca ethnic groups, was then 
>repeated facing the south, the west and the 
>north.
>
>On the stage, alongside the indigenous 
>representatives, were Argentine writer and Nobel 
>Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and 
>Brazilian activist Chico Whitaker.
>
>The sound of a giant conch shell, ''which gives 
>order to our lives,'' and the burning of the 
>leaves of sacred plants also formed part of the 
>ceremony, in which the indigenous leaders said 
>their prayers, surrounded by fruit and flowers 
>that were later distributed among the public.
>
>''We have held this ritual asking for the 
>protection of the Pachamama (Mother Earth) so 
>that everything will go well in this Social 
>Forum of the Americas,'' a young Otavaleño woman 
>wearing her ethnic group's traditional black 
>skirt and white embroidered blouse, as well as 
>numerous necklaces and bracelets, told IPS.
>
>Participants from throughout the Americas as 
>well as European countries like Spain, Belgium, 
>France, Germany and Italy are taking part in 
>this week's 300 events, which will include 
>conferences, panels, workshops, debates, 
>artistic performances and cultural activities.
>
>Opposition to ''neo-liberal'' globalization and 
>the future Free Trade Area of the Americas 
>(FTAA) and calls for the elimination of an 
>''unjust and immoral'' foreign debt burden will 
>be central themes at the forum, the organizers 
>said Sunday.
>
>Andrea Borges, one of the leaders of Brazil's 
>Landless Workers' Movement (MST), said another 
>of today's big challenges is the fight against 
>the militarization of the continent by the 
>United States, through the installation of 
>bases, as part of the George W. Bush 
>administration's scheme of ''pre-emptive war.''
>
>Rejection of the presence of a U.S. military 
>base in the southern Ecuadorian port of Manta 
>was not only expressed in speeches, but by signs 
>held by the demonstrators and in their chants.
>
>''We are here for life, not for death,'' said 
>Pérez Esquivel. ''We are here to fight and to 
>resist, for the dignity of our peoples.''
>
>''Pre-emptive war is a blueprint for death,'' 
>said the Argentine activist and writer, adding 
>that the Bush administration is trying to impose 
>''one way of thinking'' in the world, which must 
>be met with ''the resistance of our own ways of 
>thinking, looking to our peoples, our cultures, 
>our identity.''
>
>This ''multi-ethnic and multicultural'' forum, 
>in the words of Ecuadorian indigenous leader 
>Leonidas Iza, began to take shape Sunday in the 
>multi-hued varied human landscape in San 
>Francisco plaza.
>
>Women's rights activist Myriam Levere also 
>underlined the role of women's groups in 
>changing an unjust world order based on ''the 
>international and sexual division of labor.''
>
>''Another world is possible, without the 
>patriarchal, market-based society,'' she said.
>
>Environmentalists, members of sexual minorities, 
>trade unionists, grassroots community activists 
>and students formed part of the mosaic of 
>expressions of civil society drawn to Quito from 
>the entire hemisphere.
>
>African-American activists played an important 
>part in the inauguration of the week's events. 
>Jaribu Hill with Mississippi Workers for Human 
>Rights greeted the crowd in English and sang a 
>moving a capella version of a spiritual 
>protesting the exploitation of blacks and 
>calling for unity.
>
>And she had the demonstrators sing in Spanish 
>''el pueblo unido jamás será vencido'' (the 
>people united will never be defeated'').
>
>The music of the Afro-American group 'Tierra 
>Caliente' from the port city of Esmeraldas in 
>the extreme northern part of Ecuador also gave 
>an artistic, as well as festive, touch to 
>Sunday's opening ceremony.
>
>Social Forum of the Americas
>© Copyright 2004 IPS - Inter Press Service
>
>###
>


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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