HispanicVista Columnists
Foro Digest: World Social Forum Ripe with Hope
- By Roberto Lovato
- New America Media
- Jan 24, 2006
- _________________________________________________
- Roberto Lovato (robvato63@yahoo.com) is a writer with New America Media
From: CARACAS, Venezuela -- Josefina Lema is the
first member of Ecuador’s indigenous Utabalo people I’ve ever met. The
rowdy lobby of the Caracas Hilton, with radical political protests
barricading down the streets outside, is not the place I expect to
encounter her. But here she is.
I listen intently to the five-foot tall Indian woman in the colorful
skirt as she describes why she came to the 6th annual World Social Forum
here in Caracas, which began today.
“I’m here to share experiences, strategies and ideas about how to
preserve our seeds and traditional medicines,” says the leader of Yachac
Mama, an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting “the
knowledge of the Indian people.”
Wearing the prim, white shirt and colorful dress that are the preferred
uniform among the majority of people in places like Ecuador and Bolivia,
she tells me, “A few years ago we were losing our seeds, our traditional
medicines, our way of life because of agrochemical companies from the
United States that introduced patents and genetically modified food.”
“Now things are different,” she says, just two days after neighboring
Bolivia swore in Evo Morales, its first indigenous leader in more than
500 years of white and Mestizo rule. She adds with a smile, “Now we have
leaders who speak for and respect all of us – including Indians.”
She and many of the more than 100,000 activists, thinkers and other
social change agents in the “Foro” credit the five previous gatherings
with helping them achieve such striking political successes as the
election of Morales, the recent failure of the Cancun trade talks and
the stalling of the Free Trade Area of the Americas in several Latin
American countries.
Many of the participants in the Foro from outside the hemisphere came to
get some sense of the political wave not seen in the region since the
1960s and 70s. Faruk Doru, Directeur of the Paris-based Kurdistan
Information Center says he came to study how they (the Latin Americans)
are fostering social change. “I admire the Latin left because of what it
has accomplished,” he says.
But most people I’ve met are here because they believe in what the Foro
banners plastered around Caracas’ crowded boulevards say: “Otro Mundo Es
Posible.” Another world is possible.
Editor’s Note: NAM contributor Roberto Lovato is
attending the World Social Forum in Caracas, where more than 60,000
people, half of them from outside Venezuela, have gathered for the
annual event. His impressions will be posted throughout the week.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=8186833685553bbfcc643a15a2e47f56