Social, ecological, and democratic contradictions remain strong. Social and civic movements are still active and carry the potential for transformation. Workers’ and peasants’ movements remain present. Feminist, ecological, anti-racist movements, as well as those of Indigenous peoples and migrants, are advancing new proposals and possibilities for going beyond existing structures. In this context, more than ever, it is urgent to resist and to open up new possibilities; to restore meaning to democratic perspectives. The reinvention of internationalism will arise from social and civic movements, from the struggles and mobilizations they carry, and from the collective reflections that accompany them. It requires a shared intellectual effort.
Intercoll, through its website, seeks to contribute to the construction of an international collective intellectual body for social and civic movements. It aims to renew the internationalist and alter-globalization movement, taking into account the questions raised by its most recent phases, including that of the World Social Forums.
Intercoll’s strategy develops in five directions:
Build a network of social and civic movement websites and a portal of these sites.
We begin with the websites of movements that participate in the World Social Forums, though we do not limit ourselves to them. We estimate that around 3,000 movements today represent the main forms of internationalism. We aim to identify their websites—wherever they exist—and propose partnership relations. For those movements whose sites use RSS feeds and SPIP-type software, we already automatically republish, daily, the latest publication from their homepage on the site portal, which serves as the entry point to our website.
Update site versions by language and provide a Newsletter.
For each article published on the site, we try to provide ten-line summaries in different languages. Readers can then use free translation tools to read the full texts. However, the multilingual versions are not just meant to facilitate translation. They aim to promote multilingualism as a cultural choice. Currently, we have versions in English, Arabic, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. The Mandarin version still needs to be developed. Versions in Hindi and Swahili are in preparation. Each time a group of sites commits to this effort, we can create a version in the proposed language.
A working group to reinvent internationalism and a blog on Mediapart.
An international working group has been created on the theme "reinventing internationalism." It shares texts on international solidarity, alter-globalization, and internationalism. These texts and the related discussions are published on the website and also shared via the Intercoll blog on Mediapart.
The Wikialter – a Wikipedia for alter-globalization.
A dynamic platform rooted in the voices of social movements. In partnership with a group from Globenet.org, we are launching a wiki for alter-globalization. Gradually, for each topic or country, the wiki will offer: a reference article; a collaborative Wikipedia-style article; an Intercoll dossier; a conclusion on movement strategies; reference websites; and a feed of updates similar to a news agency.
The Intercoll Dossiers.
Each dossier consists of ten articles published by movement websites and written by people working with those movements. The concluding article of each dossier seeks to outline the strategies of the movements in relation to the theme or region. The dossiers can be found under the “Dossiers” section of the website.
Recent dossiers on the site include: Women, Life, Freedom in Iran; Climate and Ecological Debt; Palestine; Arabian Peninsula; Uprisings and Rebellions in Myanmar; Vitality and Social Struggles in Russia; Social Movements in Haiti; Social Movements in Thailand; Social Movements in Hong Kong.
