Put people, not finances, first!
Date: 14 February 2011
The World Social Forum (WSF) took place all last week in Dakar, Senegal. It is now a whole decade since the first WSF took place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a people’s alternative to the annual World Economic Forum – the meeting of political and business elites in Davos, Switzerland.
Although there is some intense debate about the future of the WSF, it continues to be a useful place for movements for economic, social and environmental justice from all over the world to meet. For more detail read Jubilee Debt Campaign’s blog from the event. A call was also issued from Dakar to mobilise for the G8 and G20 summits in France this year, which you can read below:
Put people, not finances, first
Call from Dakar to Mobilize for the G8 and the G20 in France in 2011
For the G8, May 21 and 22 in Deauville
For the G20, from October 31 to November 5, 2011 in Cannes
Gathered together here in Dakar during the Convergence Assembly for Action against the G8/G20 at the World Social Forum, we – the social movements, trade unions, international solidarity associations, women and men from all continents – are calling for massive popular mobilizations during the G8 summit on May 26th and 27th in Deauville and the G20 summit on November 3 and 4 in Cannes. In Dakar, we have debated on the way to address the social, ecological, economic and geopolitical crises that together constitute a true crisis of civilization.
The G20 was formed by the 20 richest countries in disdain/disregard of the rest of the other countries of the world. It proclaimed itself as the protector of world economic and financial stability the day after the financial storm hit in 2008, but has done nothing to protect the people from this great crisis. On the contrary, the G20 upheld the dictatorship of finances that exerts its power over all aspects of our existence: housing, employment, education, agriculture, climate, pensions, knowledge, biodiversity… Through its action, it reinforces the actors and the mechanisms at the origine of the crisis, while making the citizens pay the price.
We know that the democratic responses, based on solidarity with the people, to the global crisis will not come from the leaders of the richest countries, but rather from the peoples themselves. We refuse to give the powerful the right to impose the solutions to the crises they have generated.
This is why we are calling on all to make the G8 and the G20 in France moments of convergence of all struggles of resistence: the struggles against the financial opacity and deregulation, the illegitimate debt in the North and the South, againt the austerity policies and in defence of public services, against the false solutions to climate change and in favour of production and consumption models that preserve the planet, against job instability and for decent work, against speculation on raw materials and for food sovereignty, against dictatorships, militarization and colonialism and for the democratic rights of the peoples…
Our movements demonstrate through their practices and proposals that alternative paths exist. Access of all to fundamental human rights and the protection of our planet can only be achieved through a just distribution of wealth, other modes of development and the democratic management of the common goods.
On the occasion of the G8 and G20 summits in France, we call all movements, networks and organizations to unite. We will count on their diversity and the complementary nature of their ways of reflecting and their modes of action to organize a diverse range of initiatives to build a broad international mobilization.
