The world seen from below: draft repport for the International Council of the WSF

, by  Pierre Beaudet

2007 will certainly be marked by the most right-wing president in the history of the United States. This shift to the right and even to the ultra-right is a real threat considering the fact that it is rising world-wide, in the European Union, in South America, in India, Turkey, the Philippines and elsewhere.

It is indicating that this wave will not going to be short-term. In the same time, popular movements continue to resists and even to win, like the mass civil uprising in South Korea. India had recently the biggest general strike of its history. An unusual alliance of environmentalists and Indigenous peoples was steadfast to defeat the US army and the oil giants in Standing Rock.

Most of the resistance is in fact "invisible" or fragmented, from community movements fighting for housing and water in Barcelona, to vigorous student mobilizations in South Africa, Chile, Quebec, defenders of the land in the Amazon and Mexico, solidarity movements with refugees in Germany and Italy and the struggle of Polish feminists. The struggles that might appear "small" and insignificant are never so "small", often incubating larger and more in-depth movements.

To understand this immensely fragmented and complex reality requires a lot of work, investigations and analyses, that can only be produced by popular movements and their "organic intellectuals" (a la Gramsci). To advance in developing new knowledge and new methodologies, these efforts must dare exploring "outside the box".

This multilingual compilation of texts offered here is a small fragment of that drive expressed in many people’s movements world-wide.

Rapport au CI du FSM
Synthèse du rapport au CI du FSM

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