From V Social Forum

Paola Gandolfi

COMMUNIQUÉ 1

Global feminism: searching to build a new mentality

23 January, 2005. Puerto Alegre

The Feminist Dialogue took off in Porto Alegre, Brazil, three days prior to the V World Social Forum that will take place at the same city.

More than 300 women form all regions of the globe are participating in the event, all committed to the feminist advancement in light of all the great challenges facing humanity at this moment.

Feminists pinpoint militarism, fundamentalism and globalization as the main three forces which interlace the multiple oppressions suffered particularly by women, and share with the majority of the people worldwide: neoliberal globalization, war, conflict, militarism and militarization and fundamentalisms.

They affirmed that as women's movement they face the challenge of finding new and
different ways to analyze and understand these forces.

At the inaugural session they recognized that although feminism spearheads the critical analysis regarding the impact that structural adjustments policies have had on the majority of the people worldwide, today the movement has some difficulties in linking with the other movements that are developing the struggles against such policies, said Maxine Molyneux in her intervention to provoke the dialogue. Molyneux is a sociologist, writer and gender professor specializing in Latin America.

The reasons for such difficulty will be analyzed during the three days, as well
as how to overcome it.

The OG has as an objective that the Dialogues analyze "the ways in which we can again have control over our own bodies, as a strategic element of our collective actions and of our vision about alternatives."

At the same time, in their "Concept Note" presented at the Feminist Dialogue, the Organizing Group (OG) states that this event represents both a venue and a challenge to advance the feminist vision towards a change, because the Dialogue is made up by international and transnational feminists.

For the organizers, the Feminist Dialogues are a way to contribute in the configuration of actions and collective thinking transnationally and transculturally, which becomes "imperative in our search for new strategies". They added that because the processes of feminist are articulated in a different ways in different parts of the world, strategies will also need to be global.

The first day of the event was full of renewed energy and enthusiasm, celebrating the coming together once again, prior to the V World Social Forum and after the 1st version of the Feminist Dialogues celebrated at Mumbai, India in January last year, just before the IV World Social Forum.
Susana George, of the Organizing Group, made a review "From Mumbai to Porto Alegre" recognizing that although there had been serious methodological problems before, this second Dialogue promises to overcome some of those deficiencies, precisely because the problems of the first Dialogue had already been assimilated. The Organizing Committee held an analytical and programmatical meeting in Thailand in 2004 as a first step towards this Dialogue's process that contemplates since the first day main speakers, small group workshops, plenaries and cultural activities.

The FD is organized by a coalition of organizations including Isis International (Manila), Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN), INFORM (Sri Lanka), Women's International Coalition for Economic Justice (WICEJ), Articulación Feminista de Mercosur (AFM-Latin America/Caribbean), African Wmen's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET, Africa), National Network of Autonomous Women's Groups (NNAWG) in India.

The main objective of the Feminist Dialogue is to provide a strategic space for feminists to gather in all its diversity in order to explore the current times, their differences and affinities, as well as their role within the social movements of wider range.

Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE/RIF) is broadcasting live the deliberations of the Feminist Dialogue and placing all relevant information at www.fire.or.cr

This broadcasting initiative by FIRE in collaboration with the Media Team of the FM is co-sponsored by a group of women's organizations which not only collaborate in the coverage but also in the distribution of the information. Among them are Association for Women and Development (AWID), FEMLINK, Media Initiatives for Women in Asia Pacific, WOMENSNET from Africa, ISIS International in Chile, Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), the Latin America and Caribbean Health Net and the International Feminist Gift Economy Network.

COMMUNIQUÉ 2

Transnational feminism?

24 January, 2005, Porto Alegre

Feminists from Latin American and the Caribbean gathered in a Spanish workshop questioned the use of "transnational movement" by the feminism. The majority considered that the feminism is international and not transnational, a term assigned to the market with connotations to the advancement of great corporations.

That happened today, during the second day of the Feminist Dialogue (FD) being held at this city from 23 to 26, prior to the IV World Social Forum. The agenda of this day contemplates Simultaneous Workshops by Language Groups (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese) and a Plenary Session to summarize the political achievements in charge of Brazilian feminist María Betania Ávila.

The "transnacionalization" theme is in the Concept Paper of the Feminist Dialogue, when it characterizes the type of movement needed, although the meaning is not defined. The text states that "As women's movements, we have the challenge to find new and different ways to analyze and understand these forces". It further adds "We need to ask new questions which allow us develop a more vital paradigm for the feminist understanding and perspective about globalization. A transnational and transcultural action and thinking turns imperative in our search for strategies. And because these processes are articulated in different ways in different parts of the world, our strategies need to also be global."

No doubt it will be one of the necessary dialogues among the feminists at interregional levels as well as with the other regions of the world gathered here, because among other things this has consequences in respect to the local and international levels, characterized by other movements as "global" to reflect the link between both in the struggle against the type of globalization which strives to wipe out all local matters or to make the local invisible. The concept, regarding communications, was comprised by the Spaniard Manuel Castells, who states that the expansion of the global can highlight the local in the information process. Is this also applicable to political and social processes?

The FD is organized by a coalition of organizations including Isis International (Manila), Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN), INFORM (Sri Lanka), Women's International Coalition for Economic Justice(WICEJ), Articulación Feminista de Mercosur (AFM-Latin America/Caribbean), African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET, Africa), National Network of Autonomous Women's Groups (NNAWG) in India.

Communiqué 3

All feminists are spokespersons at the feminist dialogues

Porto Alegre, 25 January

From the diversity, transparency and plurality the movement, the Feminist Dialogues (FD) started in the Diplomat Room of the Embaixador Hotel with the participation of about 250 women representing 18 organizations and women's networks.

Susan George, from Malaysia, representing the Coordination Group (CG), introduced each group of women representatives from almost all continents, among them the Latin American and Caribbean Network on Popular Education (REPEM), Women Living under Muslim Law (WLUML), Articulation of Brazilian Women, Asian Pacific Forum of Women, Latin American Committee on Women Rights (CLADEM), Global Alliance against Women Trafficking, Women against Globalization, CLADEM-Surinam, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Human Rights (LGBTHR), Black Women-Brazil, Human Rights-Africa and Global Net of Human Rights.

During its intervention, George made a historic retrospective on the beginnings of the feminist dialogues since they were created as an idea "under a tree" to the formation of the CG. The Group was integrated by seven networks or women's organizations in the meeting of Asian Solidarity in June 2003, at Bombay, India. The CG was entrusted with convening other groups, networks and women's organizations to become part of the dialogues.

After the presentation, Sunila Abedeya from Siri Lanka, also a member of the CG, proposed as one of the challenges of this meeting the need to promote a dialogue on global feminism, through a discussion without no pre-established conditions, recognizing the diversity of thoughts and actions. "Today we have the challenge to map the world - she further said - we have to seek ways to work together, to design a strategy; the concept of the FD means that a new way of thinking aims at finding new spaces for interconnection and for the creation of alliances."

At the afternoon session, Maxine Molyneux, a Sociology Professor of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London, made a presentation entitled "Promoting provocation: advancing in our multidimensional identities and our internal diversities".

Her analysis served as the starting point or provocation for the participants . From then on, they met in groups of 4 or 5 to analyze collectively two questions: How do you stand regarding the current tendencies in the context of globalization, militarism and fundamentalisms? How to further express/understand these forces of globalization and fundamentalisms from the perspective of your body?

The methodology of the work comprised expositions, small groups, regional groups, and then culminating in summary plenary sessions, that responded to the feminist that believes vision that the construction of the movement within the feminist organizations in the context of neo-liberal globalization and its extreme manifestations like militarism and fundamentalism, demand analysis, alliances and joint collective actions of the feminist movement.

Communiqué 4

Sailing against mainstream; feminists at the World Social Forum

Porto Alegre, 25 January

By air, sea and land, feminism has increased and strengthened its presence throughout the five events of the World Social From since 2001 to date. "It has provided a space to 'ground' the main themes feminists share with other social movements but which are not always visible", said Sara Longwe from Zambia, representative of FEMNET, Africa. That is how she evaluated the participation process of the feminist movement when she addressed the Press Conference organized by the Coordination Group last night.

The main themes to which Longwe referred to have to do with an extended agenda of the Forum, centered in neoliberalism and corporate globalization without addressing fundamentalism until feminists put it in the agenda.

Similarly, although militarism is in the agenda of the social movements, the Forum hardly addressed the impact militarism has on women until women themselves made it visible in the fora. Furthermore, the input of women highlights their participation in the struggle for a lasting peace which takes into account all forms of violence, including domestic violence as one form of war in almost two thirds of the partnership or heterosexual partnership and dating, considering data from the UN, two thirds of women in the world suffer some kind of violence.

The theme of fundamentalism was taken to the World Social Forum in 2002 by air. In occasion of the inauguration of such Forum, also in Porto Alegre, feminists of Marcosur inflated a huge gas balloon which read "your mouth is fundamental against fundamentalism", thus presenting a campaign which has spread around the work as an expression of the urgency to expose the backlash of those forces against the globalization of the human rights.

Against all odds, the main feminist input is the intersection of these themes: neoliberalism, fundamentalism and militarization. The feminist view integrates these three forces in the same articulated way they are in today's globalized world where domination and the use of capital, religion and weapons share a common goal: the control of the bodies and sexuality, especially of women, the control of resources and even of genetics, of populations, all for the market.

But, besides "grounding" these themes in 2002, in today's V World Social Forum feminists are going to sail against mainstream, as Lucy Garrido, from Uruguay and representative of the feminist organization Marcosur, said today in a live interview from Brazil on FIRE.

"The boat, anchored at the Rio Grande do Sul, is going to do a combined navigation. Sometimes it will be anchored as it is now, full of women doing workshops. Some other times the boat will host parties, some other it will cross the river. It's a provocative boat where women will design strategies, for instance to participate in Beijing + 10; black women will design their actions to further their struggles; in all, a whole series of activities during the five days of the Forum."

On 26 January, during the opening of the World Forum, women decorated the boat with flags and posters, and other symbolic expressions of their struggles, their demands and their worlds. When finished, the hornet of the boat was activated and the boat got ready to sail. "Navigating is a journey you do with compass, maps, a route and which requires the articulation of many people at work, of all its tripulation. Marcosur has organized it, but it belongs to all the women and they will be there."

Even with regards to the logo of the Forum feminists have another view to bring to the process. Lucy says that the main logo World Social Forum "another world is possible" leaves other views out. "We do not want a world of the possible, we want a better world! We want "worlds", where diversity has a place."

The Feminist Dialogue closed today with a final session with commitments to different campaigns, like the Campaign against all fundamentalisms which seeks to amplify the voices of those who oppose the practices, discourses and discriminatory social representations.

It reported about the activities of women in the Forum, in preparation for the 10 years evaluation of the UN adoption of the Declaration and Platform for Action of the IV World Conference on Women celebrated in Beijing 10 years ago.

For more information and photos of the boat, visit www.fire.or.cr

FIRE's team is integrated by Acting Director, Katerina Anfossi and journalist and communicators Andrea Alvarado and Yarman Jiménez. (Press releases translated from Spanish by Ana Ugalde of FIRE.)

FIRE will broadcast the deliberations of the Beijing 10 process from 28 February and 11 March, 2005 live from New York. To that effect an appeal is being made to communicators and journalists with the aim of building a media pool which allows for the articulation of information initiatives.

For further information write to femmediapool@yahoo.com

Translated from Spanish by Ana Ugalde of FIRE