FORUM CONNECT SESSION 4 27 APRIL 2021 - https://join.wsf2021.net/activities/9180

•  Each intervention is numbered  @001  to @035  and the time corresponds to the video and In each intervention are outlined and numbered @1 @2 @3 ; etc  the main ideas expressed  
• so references can be made this way @005-1 @32-5 etc

FC4 A Dialogue between activists from social movements about the world social forum

VIDEO   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L64a_Pdbams  : https://our-global-u.org/oguorg/en/forum-connect/

@001 PIERRE GEORGE So we are pleased today to propose to you FC4: a second session of our program :“a dialogue between activists from social movements about WSF”. I am Pierre from the ForumConnect team, along with Kinchi, and Mike. Meena who is the fourth member is not with us today, and she's apologizing, because she's trying to cross India to find her place before the lockdown in front of the second wave of virus that's hitting the country, so she won't be there today.. 

ForumConnect is a working group, self-organized, that's trying to develop a body of knowledge through dialogues on the issue of “why and how participate in the world social forum”, and we rely on the experience of those who participate or/ and those who facilitate, that is organize the manifestations of the social forum process. So there will be two hours on this dialogue, and today we have four panelists who are all from the Asia region. So far one is missing, but we hope to get hold of him, so l will start : each panelist will have a five minute intervention, and then we try to develop some dialogue between them. They have been receiving some standard questions, but other questions that would appear in their interventions are welcome. So without any more ado, I will give the floor in alphabetical order to Farooq. 

Farooq Tariq is from Pakistan. He is a general secretary of kisan rabita, a peasant coalition and is coordinator of various different peasants, small farmers, fisher folks and agricultural workers organization and movement across the five provinces of Pakistan. He's also alternate member of South asia international coordination committee la Via Campesina, and advisor for south asian alliance for poverty and eradication  SAAPE, and is on the international organizing committee of asia europe people's forum AEPF. So Farooq the floor is yours for five minutes.

@002 FAROOQ TARIQ 3mn Thank you, and  greetings to everyone from Lahore. Actually, I am sitting on a side road of a motorway as I was driving from my home to Lahore, so excuse me if there are some noises from the backside.

 I want to share my experiences of the world social forum in which I have been involved since 2002. I would say that it was one of the most fascinating processes that started at the time. We heard it for the first time from our friends from Green left in Australia, when i sent them an e-mail “what is happening in Porto Alegre?”. So they told us : “This is the new process started, and if you want to be part of it, you should organize something in Pakistan”, 

And that's what I did, alongside Karamat Ali, Fahim Zaman, Irfan Mufti, Tassin, Nigath, and many other activists in Pakistan. We started this process and we organized the Pakistan Social forum, and participated in large numbers at the great world social forum of 2004 in Mumbai. I actually led a delegation of 200 pakistani activists by train from Lahore to Mumbai in 2004  a train travel of nearly 30 hours and it was great to be there, we, i brought a pamphlet called “rise of political islam” it was sold out, so i got it printed in one day in India again and it was sold out. So it was a great enthusiasm at the time, and then we also organized some regional social forums in India, and also in Pakistan, and then @1 we organized our own World Social Forum in Karachi in 2006, where over 35 000 participated, and this was like one of the events which laid down the basis for a united opposition to military dictator general Musharraf. 

When I was in India, I said” a great number of us have gathered in Mumbai, and now we will get rid of the BJP in India”, and they got rid of the BJP Vajpayee government after that world social forum. That's what I said in karachi in several meetings that we will get rid of general Musharraf, and because there was a lot of intuition the first time in six seven years we were allowed to speak up at a place where no there was no fear, and all the nationalists were there, trade unions were there, it was a very good sort of a gathering in Karachi.

@2 But the thing which put me down was Nairobi event (WSF in Kenya 2007) : we went to attend the Nairobi World Social Forum, and it was like a commercialized World Social Forum. I don't know if you know that i said ” i will not speak in any of the meetings, i will cook”, because the food was very expensive. So I cooked in our hotel, and sold it for less than one dolla,r for three days. Over one thousand people ate from my stall at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, and that's where we, the South Asian, got in contact with each other, and i met the activist of SAAPE, and i was involved afterwards with this South Asia lines for poverty eradication.So our slogan at that time was “this is an anti-capitalist curry”, “this is an anti-Bush curry”, “this is a an anti impreialiste curry and come and eat here”. So I attended the meeting ( of the international council WSF)  after the World Social Forum also in Nairobi, where I raised all this issue. 

@3 But afterwards, it i didn't feel enthusiasm to be part of world social forum, because I thought the process is losing something, and since then i have, we have been in contact, there is some activism in Pakistan, but i have come out of it, and this is first time i am attending a meeting and sharing my experiences of world social forum, thanks to Meena Menon, who is my colleague at AEPF Asia Europe People's Forum, and she asked me to be part of this meeting. So that's where I'm speaking. I'm very happy that once again I can speak up, to see if we can do something, and we can revive some golden traditions which we had at one time. I don't know much about what has happened afterwards : Fahim zaman was not active, karamat Ali was not active, all those social activists from Pakistan who attended meetings afterwards, they are still there, but they are not active, and I hope that after this meeting, i would also hear the other views, and see the possibilities in Pakistan thank you

@003  PIERRE 9mn Thank you Farooq, you have been very very good with the time . You know I think about Pakistan @1 what is a bit of a mystery is the reason why, after the Pakistan Social Forum of 2006, there's been no further Pakistani process of this level, So that's something that maybe some people will try to understand and comment on. Thanks for being here after, I understand, over a decade of taking a distance, and it's an occasion for you to reconnect. Our group is called ForumConnect and that's our mission, I would say, it's self-assigned. 

Now we'll move to Mikyung from Korea.  She is international director of the korean confederation of trade unions KCTU, which is the largest workers nation center of trade union in South Korea, and one of the most militant worker movements in Asia. Before joining the kctu Mikyung was working as a policy coordinator as the Korean people's action against WTO and FTA. She has attended the international council of the WSF up to 2010, representing KCTU and COPA and was coordinator of the korean edition of the global day of action in january 2008 (called to from many organizations active in the WSF). So the floor is yours mikyung, tell us about your experience of participation in the WSF next five minutes

@004 MIKYUNG RYU 11mn Thank you so much for this initiative and inviting me to this meaningful dialogue.@1 As far as I understand, this  is an attempt to bring social movements and activists together again and reconnect them to each other, to build an alliance at the international level. I think this is so important at the time of a worldwide crisis, that the pandemic brought about. The problems we are facing are common, but the resources needed to solve these problems are unequal, so we have to seek a global solution, and think about how to realize them. So I hope this series of discussions could contribute in building up our momentum for international solidarity among social movements. 

Last year the KCTU celebrated its 25th year's anniversary. Upon its foundation,the KCTU had to face the asian financial crisis (in 1997)  and IMF's structural adjustment program, and neoliberal reform of the labor relation, as a conditionality of the bailout the IMF provided. As an immediate response,@2 the KCTU, a one year old organization at the time, which was not legally recognized by the government, due to the regressive trade union act, staged a nationwide strike for around one month. This strike sparked a heated debate among korean social movements on how to build social movement against the international financial institutions, such as the IMF, the world bank, and WTO, and other international institutions, which promoted the neoliberal globalization, and what could be the alternatives of then protectionism nationalism, or anything else.

@3  At the time, the world social forum provided us a new way of thinking there we met various social movements from every corner of the country, corner of the world, which supported the internationalism of people's movements, so as to say “globalization from below”, instead of the neoliberal globalization led by the international financial and trade organization and transnational capital. The idea was called as alter-globalization movement. They believed that the alternative could be formed by building a universal ideology and social movement suitable for it, which subverted the reality caused by the neoliberal globalization, the national and racial divisions, repression and exclusion.

@4 Within the space of the WSF, social movements collectively try to list up the rights of all the people, and achieve them through the people's movements. Through this new way of thinking, we found a strategic ground, upon which we could stand against the neoliberal globalization, and at the same time, build international solidarity with various social movements in other countries. 

From the beginning, from the first edition of the WSF,@5 korean social movements sent delegations every year and the number of participants kept increasing. For example, from 3 in 2001, some dozen in 2002, some 30 in 2003, 100 in 2004, and 150 in 2005 etc Especially in 2004 and 2005, korean participants were very active in different plenary and workshops, and some more hosted by korean organizations by themselves. This is thanks to the translators, especially, in 2004 and 2005, korean language was one of the official language, and korean interpreters were allocated in many sessions, it was very important for us. 

@6The most important part of the world social forum I found was the social movement assembly.  In every edition of the world social forum, social movements and mass movements gathered and discussed the social, economical, and political situation that social movements are facing, and tried to build consensus on the urgent action points. As the outcome of this discussion, the social movement assembly produced a call for action, with some list of the global day of actions through this process, some key actions were able to organiz, including the global day of action against the US invasion in iraq in 2003, and mobilization against the WTO in Cancun and in Hong kong. 

This format of social movement assembly was adopted by the korean social movement to mobilize social movements domestically or regionally. For example in 2005, when Korea hosted APEC, apart from the mass mobilization, near the meeting venue, we also organized the people's forum, to invite various social movements in Korea and the region, i mean Asia. The participants adopted a statement, including the call for action and resolution on continuation of regional and international exchanges and solidarity to strengthen the alter globalization movement. We did in the same way, when Korea hosted the East Asia Economic Forum, the sub-regional edition of the World Economic Forum. 

@7 The global day of action in  january 2008  was a good tool for all the globalization movements, I remember, with which we could demonstrate that we exist everywhere, and we are connected to one another.On january 26th In that year, we were invited to stage any kinds of action with our own demands at noon in our own time zone, maybe the korean one was the first. This year's virtual wsf reminded me of that experience, and now we are better prepared for that kind of activity, due to the various tools and technology.  

During the virtual WSF 2021,  the international trade union confederation proposed a new social contract as a route to better post covid 19, (see the ITUC activity https://join.wsf2021.net/activities/5460), and various trade union confederation in other countries, different countries held a session, and as a result, we adopted a statement titled “vaccine for all”, on occasion of the world S Day april 7. ( see this date in and initiative of several trade unions  https://join.wsf2021.net/initiatives/9140 )

So the question for us is how we can build the power to realize this idea. So, for the future action,@8 i think the social movement assembly i mentioned, and the global day of action of 2008, and the virtual WSFcould be the reference for the action and continuation of the WSF process. Thank you. 

@005 PIERRE 19mn Thank you very much Mikyung, your presentation has insisted on the global day of action and the similarity that it has with the virtual forum that was held in the beginning of that year, which has opened new possibilities of inclusion of people organizations despite distance,

And it's a challenge for the @1 next world social forum that is being prepared in Mexico next May of 2022, because the idea is to have a “mixed format”, with a face-to-face event, probably open to online participation, and a virtual world social forum event too.  So this is not yet defined, but of course, there is a an interest of preparing this, and also; using those formats in a more continuous way, so this is also something :  the forms of participation can evolve, and i understand you're open to reconnecting with those formats.

Now we can welcome BOONTHAN from Thailand. Boonthan is former secretary general of Asian students association in the 90s. He has been a program officer of Asian Cultural Forum of Development ACFOD, a regional organization facilitating the human rights movement in Asia Pacific. He has been involved in campaigns for popular democracy in Thailand since 1991, and is active on people's plans for the 21st century( PP21). He is also involved in various national, regional and international human rights movements, and he participated in the World Social Forum in 2002 in Porto Alegre. So buntan you're most welcome the floor is yours for five minutes

@006 BOONTHAN VERAWONGSE 21mn  just thank you Peter. Good evening, good afternoon, and good morning for our friends on this platform. So sorry for being a bit late, so I was running from one place to the other. Thank you for inviting me to this platform. I understand that actually, I am supposed to be one of the less experienced about  the world social problem process, since my last interaction with the social forum  was in Porto Alegre and also the Bangkok Thai Social Forum, instead of the Asian Social Forum in 2006.

@1 You can see my t-shirt at the back that's from the Porto Alegre 2002 World Social Forum. So I still keep it, and those activities have been inspiring us quite a lot, in terms of strengthening the international solidarity movement among the like-minded people movement, throughout the region, not just only in Thailand. In 2002, when I was there in Porto Alegre, there were almost 20 Thai delegates over there, representing the trade union movement, the farmers, the urban poor communities, and also many people who have been involved in the political movement. 

@2 And one of the inspiring sessions during that world social forum in 2002 is about the state and regarding the relationship between the social movements and the political movement political parties. So that is also the hot debate, and one of the plenary there, so almost of aal the Thai delegation have been present there, because that is also one of the very crucial issues, since the democratic movement here in Thailand. Also the region started, some times in 1970s, so many of you may have heard about the situation in Asia, that we always are facing the problem with the militarization, or dictatorial regimes, and also somehow some countries are facing the question of the terrorism, and also the superpower cold war is, and that until things have been changed afterward. 

So in the 1980s and 1990s there's also a series of popular uprisings in the region throughout Asia and Pacific, starting from the people's movement in the Philippines. We called it the people's power against the dirty election in 1986, you know overthrowing Ferdinand Marcos the dictator of the Philippines in 1986. We also faced some experience that our friends from Korea, brothers and sisters in Korea had some political movement rise up during that time. Our sister MiKyung might tell the story sometime later on. Again in 1988s the popular uprising in Burma, just like what is happening now in the country, when the military took over on the february of the first of this year,  

But  Porto Alegre world social forum has also inspired us, since we also have learned from history in the region but Porto Alegre is providing us the platform,@3 that we were able to learn from our brothers and sisters from America, South America, and Latin America: how do they struggle for dignity, for their livelihood, for the human kind. That is also something very much inspiring to us, because we felt that we shared the same civilian struggle against the authoritarian regime, but we seldom heard from one another. I think that is also the value the world social forum is providing to us. 

I haven't been involved in the World Social Forum since 2006,@4 once Bangkok have been hosting  the Thai social forum, instead of the Asian Social Forum during that period, because of some difficulties, some uneasiness, to make the thing happen, because organizing huge activities and international events really need some sort of strong commitment, and also a kind of collaboration support from different stakeholders.

As mentioned earlier by Pierre our moderator, I was part of the People Process people plan for the 21st century. PP21 This had been started in 1989 in the cities of Tokyo of Japan and it's also converging, come up with a Minamata declaration at the end, after almost 15 international political forum on various key issue so Minamata declaration have been also giving us a very clear understanding that the so-called development are not really development in the eye of the people. Minamata represents the very ugly face of industrialization. Many of you might have heard about the Minamata disease, you know which that some industries have been leaking the pollution into the Minamata bay, and causing the disease. You know they call it disease, and also because this mercury accumulation in the blood affected to the whole people, the people in the whole region in the southern part of Japan. So that is also symbolizing the very epic phase of industrialization in our century, that what we have been able to learn from the very first thing besides the political and democratic movement from our region.

Anyway Thailand was able to host the second PP21 event in 1992 in December, actually that was six months after the military crackdown against the people, peaceful people movement, peaceful protest by the mass movement which strongly came out to the street. More than a million came out to the street, opposing the military coup in February 1991,  just like what is happening now in Burma. So that we feel very strongly that we are also sharing our sorrow, we also sharing our faith with many of our brothers and sisters in the region. 

So the Thailand PP21 is also highlighting the issue of the participatory democracy at the local, national, and international level. It's also the platform for sharing experience from our brothers and sisters in the region. Fortunately, we have some friends from Africa and latin America, that could join, but not so many. Anyway,@5 three years later, in 1995 we were able to hold another third PP21 convergence in Kathmandu. Early it was supposed to do it in Sri Lanka, but due to some explosion and also political unrest and military attack in Colombo in Sri Lanka we were not able to organize in Colombo, so we organized it in Kathmandu instead. 

During that period Kathmandu our Nepali brothers and sisters were also striving for their political change, because they were living under extreme poverty. At that time Nepal had been regarded as one of the poorest countries, one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. Part of the problem is because the country was under the absolute monarchy: Everything depends on only one single person, or the everyone also regarded this as one of the problematic areas, because one thing convert of one single person can be regarded as the law. I think this is also the problem of many other countries, not sure whether it's also happening in country of our friends from South Africa and Latin America. Anyway, I think that is something that I can share with you, so we are now in the process for putting up our momentum in order to work together in the region, especially focusing on Southeast Asia. 

Sorry for a little bit long but just try to sum up here that, starting from 2000 onward, we were able to put ourselves together among the Southeast Asian countries, especially from the human rights organizations, and also the democratic movement, including various stakeholders.@6 We were able to organize some sort of the activities, i mean there's some regional activity we call it “Asean people forum starting from 2005 onwards  we organize it every year activities, in order to parallel the ASEAN summit. Asean is the regional block of the of the government in the region but seldom is always forgotten the voice of the people; So we organized the Asean people forum, in order to list the voice of the people in Southeast asia, in order to remind the leaders to take into consideration the question of life and death, and also the suffering of the people in the region.

So i think this is something in brief that i can also share with you, about our experience. Sorry that i couldn't share much about the experience from the world social forum. What i can say is that World Social Forum have provided us a very meaningful platform to learn from one another. So in terms of the technical arrangement procedure, I think we can also learn from each other: I can also learn from you, you can also learn something from us. So thank you for your time to allow me to share with you. Thank you.

@007 PIERRE 32mn  well it's puzzling to see that. I mean you have been inspired,@1 those 20 activists from Thailand going to Porto Alegre in 2002, and I don't know if you have kept relationships together, you have lived this experience, and how it has been inspiring. 

At the same time, as you said @2“we had after the Bangkok social forum in 2006, I think you said some difficulties, uneasiness to make things happen, need commitment from stakeholders, so this at the same time ,you have created other platforms that more maybe less ambitious, more sectoral ... So this is also a reflection about uh that we can develop further in the discussion. Thank you 

Now  we go to our last panelist, who is Varghese Tekanat. He is the founder director of Montfort social institute center of human rights, and sustainable development education in Hyderabad India. He's a grassroots activist, working for the protection and the rights of the urban working classes for over 30 years, through labor unions and slum people federation. He's on the core committee from Asia of the International Alliance of Inhabitants. He is on the executive committee of the “working people charter network” and other organizations in india. He is a life member of the brothers of san gabriel society, a faith-based organization, with a global presence, promoting education and development. Over to you Varghese for five minutes. 

@008 VARGHESE TEKANATH 34mn Thank you Pierre. I think it's a very pleasant moment, as the World Social Forum celebrates its 20th anniversary of its very first meeting, and especially thank you Mike for inviting me, thank you for this opportunity to be part of this dialogue between social movements on this occasion.

To take a personal digression, looking for ideological moorings in a milieu marked by the advent of globalization in the later part of the 20th century, in the early part of the 21st century,@1 WSF and its network offered me personally a great relief in finding an anchor for myself, but it is not until the Asian Social Forum meeting that was organized in my city Hyderabad in 2003, that i really contacted, came in touch with the WSF, the organizing committee here, and Ithink the Bombay World Social Forum in 2004 was a very great experience. 

In fact perhaps that was one of the most successful World Social Forum meetings that were held. The organizations had anticipated a participation of about 70, 75 000 people, but then actually about 130 000 people participated. In that meeting, there were 14 000 foreign delegates from 117 countries that came to Mumbai on that occasion. There were about 1653 different events and workshops that were organized, so that was a very great experience for me personally, and all those who attended that. I have been part , ever since i have been part of the world social forum especially@2 the last one the national the indian social forum meeting that was organized again in Hyderabad three or four years ago (http://openfsm.net/projects/espacios-oe/event2016-national-convention-democracy-diversity-dignity )

So I have been engaged with WSF in one form or another since 2003, but the world has changed considerably since the first meeting of the WSF. This is particularly so in India perhaps in every other country. The democratic spaces that allowed resistance to the onslaught of rampant neoliberal policies have shrunk considerably. In India, democratic institutions that ensured accountability on the part of the government are being systematically undermined today.  Unity and diversity, that India always prided in, as its unique contribution to the world civilization itself, has fewer and fewer takers today, and the new and draconian laws that are brutally imposed by the law enforcers, and the law courts that deliver slow and even biased judgments, make freedom and rights provided by the constitution of India a mockery, privatization of the commons is a declared policy to benefit a selected group of corporate companies.

@3 In other words, India is faced with very grave challenges. At the same time, there are common people who are standing up and saying “another world is possible, another india is possible”. The mass movements that resisted the discriminatory citizens act, and the farmers agitation are but the two recent examples of the solidarity and determination that we see among the people in India. Unfortunately, the pandemic played a spoiled spot, coming as it did to the aid of the government, to suppress both these big movements that was nationwide, but the farmers are still fighting, they are still sitting on the borders of Delhi, saying that the new laws that have been brought up during the pandemic, this is not acceptable to us as farmers.

India at the moment is going through a very great tragedy that was, I think, eminently avoidable. covid 19 is taking its toll on unsuspecting populations.  Nowhere else the poor and the vulnerable, such as the millions of migrant workers, domestic workers, transgenders, the urban poor, and those on the social margins are the worst affected. As the new second wave of the pandemic unfolds, it is estimated that India will soon have 500 day and there will be 5000 deaths happening in India every day, those affected are asking are grasping for oxygen, and fighting for hospital beds, and basic essentials, thanks to a government that prided itself in having eliminated the virus from the land officially, and refused to prepare itself for a second onslaught of the pandemic.

It is such a context that makes the vision of WSF important for our people: the pandemic and the impact of climate change bring home to us the fact that nature and humans need to befriend each other in a new and creative manner: promoting and facilitating: i think this new friendship between nature and humans is an urgent task of the WSF as it enters into a new decade of its existence. Given the freshness of its vision and the nature of its work network@4 I think WSF is an idea whose time has come today, perhaps more than 20 years ago. What is required is a concerted effort to reach grassroots communities and their mandates everywhere, i am saying everywhere, so that it attains the status of a self-driven movement of the people themselves.

The opportunities offered by the new media in the context of the pandemic offers us a very brilliant opportunity. It is important that we do not lose this opportunity. @5 Organizations that I am associated with, and many more everywhere I think, are prepared, are a lot more prepared than a decade ago perhaps, two decades ago, for this urgent task of connecting people and taking our battle forward. And I want to wish the WSF the very best in this task, and we are all prepared to be partnering partners in this honor task. Thank you and all the best.

@009 PIERRE 42mn  Thank you varghese. it's been interesting to hear you saying that it would be nice to @1 have the WSF attain the status of a self-driven movement, which has a lot of implications, and of course, we can see, especially in Asia, that there's been a kind of recess of the ideal forum after Mumbai 2004, or after 2006 seems to be a moment where the last forum in pakistan, last forum in in India take place. After, there is a little forum in hyderabad but it's ten years after, and yes, the question of the shrinking of the democratic space, which probably makes it difficult in some regions now to organize this process as it should be. 

So these are of course challenges, and we can comment on them,  so now we are starting the discussion part, so we still have more than one hour to go. Thanking the panelists for being short in general, and are there questions?  I have tried to raise points by commenting each of the interventions. I can also come back to the list of questions that we had shared for this session,(xxxxxxxx)   which is more focused on the effect of participating in the forum, rather than organizing it, which is kind of a further step to be taken.@2 So, what does a movement need from interaction with other movements? This takes talking from the participation point of view. One of the announced functions of WSF is ‘encounters for articulation for effective action’, or as how  would this take place, and I suggest that we make, because i don't see questions in the chat or in the question and answer section.

So maybe we can go on with this issue of @3 what are the learning that your participation brought, even if it's some time ago that you were in this participation. What have been the the lessons learned from participation in WSF in your experience?. And then we can go to another point after that. So who wants to take this :  what have been the lessons learned in practice through your participation in the WSF you've been involved in, for your movements and your practice of other social movements? 

@010 FAROOQ 46mn can i say something there. Yes i think this was one of the greatest impact on our political thinking by participating in World Social Forum processes. For instance, before we went to India, we started organizing Pakistan Social Forum, and we brought together all the movements in Lahore at one time, and it was like two days event, where all the different organizations were organizing,@1 and the lesson learned was that you have to provide an opportunity so people could speak, and then they themselves would decide about the issue of dictatorship, democracy checking spaces, movements class and all other. But the main lesson we learned was from India. It was an excellent gathering, very good disciplined gatherings. The way they organized was very good, and we from Pakistan had first-hand experience of Indian hospitality.

 For instance, the delegation I led from Lahore stayed a few hours in Amritsar, the first city into India while crossing the vaga border. It was the first major delegation that entered the city after the independence of Pakistan !. From 1947 till 2004, there was not such in numbers  of pakistani which came into the city and we were given a very good welcome by the local administration, the minister came, and the all the movements came, and this was like few hours before we take the train to Mumbai, and our exchange with the Indians was absolute tremendous in this one.

And whatever we learned there, although we are not involved anymore in the same process, but we are not going anywhere from our thinking.@2 Our thinking is the same, we found other areas where we could be active. For instance I was very active in the South Asia alliance for poverty eradication  SAPE, after world social forum Nairobi, which was very disappointing for me. And we never left that path of bringing to other people, although not through the social forum, but the lessons learned from world social forum:  how to organize simultaneous workshops, meetings thematic groups, how to invite people... @3 so all the organizational aspects learned from world social forum process were our main lesson, which we implemented afterwards, and now in Asia Europe People's Forum, almost the same similar process is taking place but at a different level and we would be very happy if we can really revive the golden traditions of world social forum. Thank you pierre 

@011 PIERRE welcome Farooq about the lessons learned, maybe some of the other panelists want to make a contribution?. 

@012 VARGHESE 50mn Thank you. I think one of two major lessons that i learned in my, in fact the world social forum was happening during my formative years, as an activist, as a movement builder, and one thing that came to me very strongly is the need for connectedness, the need for connecting people across geographical regions, across languages, across peoples, and that is possible. Until then, even technologically perhaps it was much more difficult to find that connections, but the world social forum proved again and again, and especially my Bombay experience, and also the Hyderabad experience, where we had the Asian Social Forum taking place in 2003,@1 that people can be connected and our struggles are common, across nations, and this solidarity is something that we need to build up and build on, 

And i think that is where i think @2 the new technologies can help us immensely, in making these connections across nations, across national boundaries, across many other limitations, because at this juncture, when governments are turning liberal,I would even say fascist  in many parts of the world, people who love democracy, people who love people's rights, i think we need to come together, so this is one lesson i think that we will learned from that process.

@013 PIERRE 52mn  Thank you Varghese. Would Boonthan or Mikyung make an input on this issue, of what has been learned from the format of the forum, even though the forum itself might have not been continued in Asia so much. But is there any comment that we want to do? 

@014 BOONTHAN Actually just only responding to this question. But you put the question earlier if those 20 people thai delegation who went there in 2002 did survive, yes a few of them already passed away, a few of them become sick and paralyzed, but for the rest, most of them are playing a very key role  as the leader in the movement in various sectors.

 I think that is also something that we can also tell you, once this crisis came, then we were always together. So, to work together under the context of the world social forum,@1 it shouldn't be any problem, if we want to proceed and continue to reactivate the world social forum in Asia or Southeast Asia together. But we also really need time to interact with one another, to spend some time to further do the stock checking whether our movement, our readiness, and our capacity is there, because, from my observation is that many countries at the moment, many of them were stuck with their own domestic struggle, and that is also something that is hindering them to join in the struggle, join the regional or the collective struggle. But once we were able to accumulate our momentum for  common change.

@2 What we really need is the common goal, so far the common goal is not yet really materialized. I think this is also the challenge for many of us in the region, otherwise we have to work our work, within our own movement, our work on sector, this is also create some tension with different others. From my experience, i also learned from lau kinchi our partner from vietnam current the global university, that that is also the strength of the regional cross-border movement in the region as well, so many regional organizations become defunct, and become dried out after some time, due to their financial resources, due to their uneasiness to move forward, because of many of them are very so exotic. 

I think that is also the challenge that we have to find out, and how to come across this problem for connecting with our friends from different continents. Of course, if we were able to come across the problem of language or communication, that we also helped a lot because of a friend who went there to Porto Alegre  some of them also were able to meet with zapatistas, from also learning from their struggle, that is also enabling them to think about the broader view, on how they are going to modify or to adjust movement, and also in order to extend the international solidarity to the other, i think this is also one of the most important thing that is also provide us the platform for the learning. So in the meantime i will also seek the opportunity to communicate with our friends here if our friend  Mikying or Farooq  or our friend from india to see in the future what are we going to do, and to collaborate with one another, this is just only my very first time to come back to the world social forum platform, so I also get to learn from others

@015 MIKYUNG  what i mentioned at this time is, well how can I put this idea,@1 what we learned with the participation in the world social forum is how we can maximize our participation in a broader movement, in the decentralized circumstance, not the centralized one. For example, at the beginning of when the korean social movement participated in the social forum the first time, we try to bring our issues as much as possible, and try to get or draw attention as much as possible from other participants. But later on,  we realized that this is not a good way to strengthen the whole movement. So after that, we learned the way to respect other social movements in a mutual way and how we can build our strengths, of the social movement, so and we also learn that the rights we want to achieve is not exclusive for others, @2 when we try to protect and strengthen our rights, this it is the way to strengthen the rights of others, so we learned the mutual respect and mutual inclusiveness, and through this process we can build a strong action without harming other social movements and other weakening the other social movement and others argument in the movement

@016 PIERRE 59mn I think we're getting into more sophisticated and interesting points as this one,  as you placed the idea of learning to listen, and find this mutual respect and trying to define achievable common goals into some coalitions or articulations that are self organized within the WSF space. We have some comments on “how do we create common goals”. That's a question to discuss. 

Maybe we can get into the perspective with this heritage that all of you carry, sometimes back nearly 20 years ago, or 15 o maybe 10. @1There's been kind of a 10 years blank in WSF in the Asia region, except for the Hyderabad attempt a small forum that was taken in 2016 in Hyderabad 1500 people?, and also the nepal social forum in 2018,(2500 people march), and the last significant forum was in Dhaka in Bangladesh in 2011(10000?), as far as i know.

So if we look forward, there is this perspective of the Mexican forum in 2022, which comes after the virtual forum of earlier this year. This forum will be in presence, face to face, but we don't know exactly how much, and of course, there is the perspective,  at the moment this has not been discussed yet very much,@2 but it has been agreed principally, that this” mixed” Mexico forum will have also an online virtual aspect. 

So this opens a possibility for movements like yours, to participate and find ways of participating, i would say, locally, and also maybe sending one delegate, or a small delegation in Mexico, and combining these two things. So maybe i can just send a question to you, “what would be your level of involvement, that you would be able to take”. Either as actively participating in a scheme with a virtual forum coupled with a presencial forum in Mexico, so you could be active participants, meaning organize activities, announce initiatives for articulation for actions, formulated through discussions etc... Or even you could participate in some international facilitating committee for this international online scheme. 

So what are the, i would say, the considerations that you could share, about the possible involvement of your movements in this “active participation”, or even “facilitation”, which is the step where there is “some kind of working at the service of others”, but at least “active participation”, which is more directed to your goals as movements. So it would maybe be relevant, it's a suggestion, to comment on, with a practical prospect of next year's forum, this double aspect of presencial Mexico plus virtual world scale. So whoever wants to comment on this? 

@017 BOONTHAN 1h04mn Yes actually i didn't respond to your question directly, but i just want to highlight something that, from our experience, here in the region, when we were trying to reactivate our process we called PP21, people plan for the 21st century, which meant we have been living for almost 25 years, actually it is also longer term, also it's a prehistory of the world social forum, we started in 2001, anyway, what we find out is that we were,@1 we faced some sort of gaps. 

The first gap is in terms of intersectional group : how we're going to ensure that people from different movements in different sectors are able to come across to one another?. 

The second gap is regarding the theme, the concern issue, because many organizations have some focus on particular issues. How are they going to come across? For example one group interacted on the LGBTissue, but the other group is concerned on climate change issue , some other group was concerned about the agricultural issue. How these three groups are going to work together, and I think that is also some challenge about the thematic gap. 

The third gap is related to the question of culture, cultural and traditional language, which I think is also very, very challenging for many of us, also within the world social forum process. 

The fourth gap is referring to the generation. What we were facing, here in the region, is that the old generation; like some of us here, we were grown up in the 80s or 90s, but at the moment, the young generation X Y or Z, or alpha, or whatever, they're so talking different language, but they were also aiming at almost the same thing. How we can come across this sort of generation gap?.

@2 I think these four gaps also need to be addressed and exchanged from each other on how we're going to resolve this problem, before we going to tackle the issue of the key motto from what i learned from WSF “another world is possible”, which is also some compatibility  what we also learned from the PP21  process talking about the japanese local which is called  chanaka chaba  it's  meaning something like “the world shouldn't be like this”, something like that. Is this quite similar meaning instead, so how are we going to find in the meantime to come up with a common goal, in order to move forward together? i think this is also feasible for our region, and also perhaps it's also providing the opportunity for many of us to join into the world social process, either in the region, or at the local level. thank you

@018 PIERRE 1h07mn about the prospect of actively participating in the process in the coming year towards Mexico, with this online and presencial dimension, Boonthan has  mentioned four gaps that need to be filled somehow, what about your vision,@1 your respective vision, of the conditions in which ,and the type of activity, of participating formats, you could develop in this context of an online plus presential social forum event next year, but also, as of now, you could also participate online, and show your involvement in this process. So, comments are welcome about this concrete perspective. Yes Mikyun go ahead, 

@019 MIKYUNG1h09mn  well, i  cannot imagine what will be the world like next year, whether we overcome the covid 19 pandemic, or the crisis in different dimensions like health crisis and job crisis, the pandemic has brought out is resolved or not. So it's very hard for me to think about the next years WSF in mexico, but i think, from my experience of the virtual resources from of this year in january,@1  we have to come up with some kind of common goal or a common agenda, and something we have to seek a solution for in a global scale. For example, how we can overcome the inequality in terms of the vaccination under the pandemic, and how we can cooperate on  the climate change as a global crisis.

So we can identify some key elements and key area (where) @2 we have to combine the strength and the power of the social movement in our country, to bring about some kind of a global scale solution is needed. So the slogan “our world is not for sale” or “another world is possible” it's very quick, it was very catching at the time, so to draw  attention and interest from the people who have been far away from the world social forum process for the last 10 years, we have to develop some kind of the common goal and the common action point we have to bring our power okay

@020 PIERRE 1h11mn this becomes a very interesting discussion about @1 “how to have a narrative” that is appealing for people to, say, reconnect, or connect to the forum, and explain what they can expect, and what they…. and how they can progress towards those different expectations, because expectation come through active participation, not just through passive attendance, so yes, there is a dialectics of imagination and preparation of these possibilities. 

Just as an information, the word social forum virtual 2021 has been an occasion for developing some formats of participation that are new, in the sense that two things were new:

 1/  somehow: the idea of developing kind of say “didactic panels”, through the facilitating group, which gives some visibility, but they're not pretending to represent the the forum participants. https://join.wsf2021.net/?q=panel-activities 

and also 2/ the format of participation of announcing “initiatives of action”, self-organized, clearly defined, and clearly defining who is involved, https://join.wsf2021.net/initiatives  and giving dates of action, which forms a calendar. https://join.wsf2021.net/actions-calendar  So in that calendar, people can find “proximities”, and they can discuss articulation further, so this is a kind of tool that is consistent with the approach of the word social forum, which of course needs to be owned and used in practice, to gain real relevance, but these are possibilities to explore. Other comments?

@021 VARGHESE  1h13mn  One thing that is important to observe is that @1 there are new margins that have developed, new peripheries that have developed, since the WSF was active, and, as you rightly said, perhaps it was till 2011 that the WSF was active then there has, and these new margins include victims of new forms of identity politics.

In a country like India, in the last 10 years, this has been a very major factor, and those who have been, even otherwise on the margin socially, economically, culturally on the margins, are faced with the new forms of victimization, and how to bring these people effectively into the WSF platform? I think it is a very important factor, and this include, say, LGBT, foreign community,  a  huge number of migrants, the new types of victimization that the minority communities face :religious, cultural, linguistic minorities face, and there are others. I think @2 these sections of people need to be brought in, very effectively, into the ambiance of the WSF, and how we can do that, this is something that i think need very important deliberations.

The second is the whole change in the nature of work, now technology has taken away the whole description and concept of work itself, and labor rights, many other things that we took for granted for the last over 100 years, have been done away with, so easily, and the new new, especially the new technological platforms that have developed, that gives no identity to workers. 

The other factors that play in the world of work the increasing ….say now in India for instance 44 labor laws have been taken away, that have been gained over the last 100 years. These have been taken away, and then, what we are left with are four level courts that practically takes away every labor right of every worker. 

Now how do we face such situations, in other words, the world of work has come to be altered and redefined,@3 and that has taken away the way we understand work, and the way workers rights are obtained. I think this is another major issue that we need to bring to the platform that we are talking about of the WSF in Mexico and this is happening in the context of the pandemic  and I think this place is a very major challenge. So communities it's important, as we prepare for the WSF in Mexico in 2022, these marginalized communities are met with, their issues are addressed and they are brought into the whole process of WSF, for which we who work at the grassroots would be willing to participate, in whatever form possible. 

@021 PIERRE 1h17mn Okay. This issue of accessibility of participation from marginalized groups has been also addressed in an earlier session of ForumConnect by Paul divakar, and we are publishing the transcription of this,(http://openfsm.net/projects/forum-connect/forum-connect-session2-transcription intervention@013).  

So we hope that you can also look at the transcript of earlier discussions, and try to formulate some questions, practical questions, (here http://openfsm.net/projects/forum-connect/forum-connect-participants-input-display ) for that are relevant for participation down on the flow

@022 FAROOQ 1h18mn I would like to say that @1 the objective conditions are becoming very difficult. It is much more difficult  than what we faced in early 2000s, and further down. The process of the extreme right wing thinking is expanding everywhere, and shrinking places. You can see everywhere, and our Indian friend just told, how labor rights have been taken away. The same story here in Pakistan, @2 so i think the objective condition would force us to come together again, which is the only way for our survival, so world social forum the process which regenerated through last year, this year's virtual world social forum, and the way you have been now putting a lot of effort to bring again together some revival campaigns. 

So I think the activists, in Asia particularly, need such a forum, and they need more than ever before, because of the policies of the new liberalists, who are privatizing everything, who are selling everything. We are facing religious fundamentalism and imperialism both at the same time, both attacking the working class. There is more poverty. Poverty is on the ever increase, inequalities on the ever increase, you can see the reports of oxfam. So we are participating in these campaigns, and also the pandemic has worsened the already worsening conditions of the working class in Pakistan, and also in the other countries.

Now we can see what's happening: Pakistan and India, both atomic powers, and what atomic powers? They don't have oxygen to provide to the hospitals! Shame on the government of these two countries, who can build a lot of arsenal arms to threaten each other, they can't use it, but they can at least threaten each other, and they're using a lot of money on arms anyhow, but they are not spending even one percent of the total GDP on the health issues. 

This is the time where we have to move on this free people's vaccine campaign, which is already been started, and i can tell you the last thing, that when we saw the pictures of our friends in India,  Pakistan stands with India, India Pakistan solidarity was top trends on twitter in Pakistan, despite all the enmity promoted by the ruling classes. The people of Pakistan expressed extreme solidarity at this, in the last three four days, that i have seen never in the last maybe 10 years, the sympathy which is at this time not like they are happy what's happening, they are really sorry that what's happening in India, and India where the government was done with the pandemic, so is in Pakistan the ruling class is the Imran Khan regime, so we need processes like world social forum more than ever. Thank you

@023 PIERRE 1h22mn welcome maybe now  we can move to a open questions that you would formulate, some of you, that's been steered by the discussion and you want this to share with other panelists, so that everyone can express some ideas around them. So time for open suggestions and questions, whoever has one to share with us 

@024 BOONTHAN 1h22mn yes i have a question :  i think this is the very first time that i take part in the world social forum on connection.@1 I just want to ask if we have any existing mechanism within the region, i mean for example in Asia, or in Latin America this and that, or just only the international connecting body. 

I think that is also one of the questions. If so, then do you have some sort of list of the contact person who played an active role in the previous world social forum in the region, or by country basis, so if for southeast Asia, I might be able to link them together, and to have some sort of consultation. I don't know what happened in east asia of Mikyung or our brothers from Pakistan in India, if you have some existing mechanism. @2 I think we can also start the process, but in the meantime, we can also are working together to begin to go beyond the regional effort, if the Mexico session of WSF would identify  some key area of the problem that for example earlier Mikyung  have already level with some some point  the covid 19  this and that , and then, when our brother from India identified participation of the marginalized sector this and that , 

So should we @3 identify some key common area that we were facing in the world we like for example, like the Covid 19, or the question of violence, or the question of justice or 3-4 issues, and then let's different platforms, different areas, try to move on on the issue, and working together along this line. And from time to time then, we may come back again to find out the way : how to materialize, how to quantify the event, international event in Mexico next year, that is also some of the brief examples, it might not be practical for this time, because of I was quite away from the movement from the WSF event  just only some of my humble execution and question. Thank you

@025 PIERRE 1h25mn  yes Boonthan. I think you have put the emphasis on two things on mechanisms and on the problems. 

So I would say about the mechanisms, there are some possibilities, but of course, we are always faced with the technology. @1 For instance Farooq and Varghese, they are in a whatsapp group “south asia”, where over 100 people are, it's just an “open space”, i would say, where people can start discussion if they want, but it's not a ( discussion space). It's just a welcome space for people that are interested in WSF issues, and they can start discussing, then create their own encounters.@2 There is also the possibility to register as a participating organization in the platform that has been created on occasion of the virtual social forum. So these are concrete things. 

And about the problems :i would say this is part of the participation, that's proposing some articulation around proposing starting to gather some relevant people around some issues, and proposing discussions, and then initiatives etc ..This is a kind of the normal progression that can be self-organized, but i think your questions are quite to the point. Thank you

@025 MIKYUNG 1h27mn  on this point, while listening to the comments and questions from other panelists, I fully agree that the overall social process is needed more than ever under the covid 19 pandemic crisis, and the numerous difficulties we are facing right now. 

So maybe as a lead up to the the world social forum of next year, at the regional level, the Southeast Asia, or South Asia, or East Asia, or Asia as a whole,@1 we can build some kind of common ground, and the feelings are we are connected, and we are supporting each other, by exchanging the situation in each countries and the expression of solidarity to each other. For example in Korea many people are in the social movement, or some ordinary people really want to express their solidarity to the people in Myanmar, who are fighting against the military coup, and the massacre

@2 So, maybe we can open a space - as a first step, we can build some kind of a list of contact, questioning each other, and open up a space, where we can show and express our solidarity for the movement in different countries, like in Thailand and India. It's big concern for us, so maybe we can start that kind of thing, to accumulate the experience of the exchange and the feeling of solidarity among ourselves. 

@026 PIERRE  1h29mn  @Okay i will share this group i was mentioning, and of course, you can, this is a kind of snowball thing. It depends on, I would say, the “organizing software” that we have in our minds, and in that case, we can make this group grow. And then people, when they want to make something more specific, they can use the participation formats that are available : activity, initiative, between an explicit articulation of organizations. 

So the idea is “articulate for dialogue”, which doesn't mean compromise to common action, but a compromise to dialogue on definite specific topics, these are ‘activities’, and “articulation for action”, once common goals have been identified and this is ‘initiative’.

So there are these two formats that are available and visible.  We can share here in the chat an image of the platform that has been created this year for the virtual forum. It's a possibility to explore, and see what is called “activities”, and what is called “initiatives”, which are two different things. You can explore this.

 And we can try, through the East southeast Asia and South Asia groups, we can try to keep some momentum . Of course, this is getting to practical ways, based on recent experience, so you can assess this recent experience, and say :“okay how can we use this? and go further using these formats in this platform. 

So Boonthan has contributed this question of “mechanism” and common goals that has been identified. Are there other open questions that you want to share for our remaining 20 minutes? 

@027 BOONTHAN 1h32mn  just sharing of experience. There is the chinese proverb saying something like that: “there is a crisis, but there is always opportunity in the crisis”, so though I'm not a chinese, my grandfather is  aChinese. He told me when I was young, that if you face a crisis for example we have the Covid 19 crisis:@1  how are we going to convert and take opportunity during the crisis, to convert it to the opportunity for change? I think that is also something very challenging, so i couldn't find out the answer yet, how are we going to do that, but this is also something that we have to think about.

In my experience, I was coordinating the Asia Pacific human rights NGO, in preparation for the world conference on human rights  in1993 in Vienna, so i also learned the experience that different organizations, different countries have their own focus, and but they can also be working together under the same platform ,  as they have a common concern, common goal together, in order to reaffirm the universality of human rights, something like that.

But if we can find out the common goal of common value in order to mobilize our friends, our brothers and sisters in the region, to take part in the process, and do they think about their agenda,@2 what should be our common agenda to work together, as a human being, in order to survive from the covid 19 pandemic, for example something like this. So i think that is also something we can also start with mobilization in the practical way, you know under the crisis thank you.

@028 PIERRE 1h34mn  New comments? Now I'm trying to read some elements in the chat :@1 “is there a list of social forum by country and region”. In fact there is a calendar of events  which I can share with you, which gives an idea of the different “events” that are taking place within the broad world social forum process. So let me find this here http://openfsm.net/projects/wsf2012-support. I give you this one, which you can go back to, from now to earlier years up to 2012. So there is the calendar. 

The idea is that it started being a yearly calendar, and now it's more going from one world social forum event to another: so we have just started the calendar between the virtual world social forum and the one in Mexico. So it's a small list, but so here is this one the calendar 2021. But if you go to the calendar 2018, you will have a longer list of events, and it gives you an idea of different things that happened between the forum in brazil in 2018 and the virtual social forum 2021.http://openfsm.net/projects/wsf2012-support/wsf2018-calendar/#lista) 

So this gives you an overview of where there is manifestation of something that is in the spirit of the social forum um oh someone is sharing it i'll put it up if people want to have a quick look. So you can see that it starts in march 2018 in salvador de bahia, and then on the right side, there is a link where you can find more information, and then you have @2 a series of events, where they are, what type the manifestation it is, what are the date, the place, and the contact people from the international council of the world social forum, and a link. So this is going down to the forum that took place in, january which like number of event 67 

And so now, if you go to the next page we're starting a new calendar from january 2021, and maybe Mike you can share this one, which is much shorter:  it's starting from now and for the time being, there is only a few events that are known up till may 2022.  But possibly some other things will appear, so this is another calendar: this is the calendar of events.http://openfsm.net/projects/wsf2012-support/wsf2021-calendar 

@3 The calendar of action dates is different, the content is completely coming from the description of actions that are made by the participants. It's a different calendar. If you scroll down this Mike…..., you see the dates and you see the description of the action, and you see the initiatives in which these actions are taking place, in the frame of which they are taking place.https://join.wsf2021.net/actions-calendar  So for instance, if you go to August you scroll down to august so this you will see a call from two different initiatives:  23rd of august and 17 of august.

Now if you go to the right column “towards extraordinary mobilization” https://join.wsf2021.net/initiatives/9140 , this is an initiative proposed by trade unions to prepare mobilization at the time of “Singapore Davos meeting” and this is a part of the calendar. It's been expressed yes : here you see the description of the initiative, and first you see the organizations. So you have the goal, but just above the goal, you have all the organizations cooperating in this initiative; promoting organizations. So you see these are trade unions, 

But then, if we go to another view, you have, there has been an assembly in, let me find this, there's been an assembly in the virtual social forum 2021, which has made a declaration, in which they want to build a common agenda https://join.wsf2021.net/initiatives/13998 . So this one is appearing, let me find this in, because i'm trying to show the declaration, and it's come here or it can come here also, they wills we might you can also um i'm sharing the link, trying to access the chat, In  this link you can find the two initiatives that are with the same goal around the Davos date. 

See this is just searching the name “davos” in the calendar of actions, https://join.wsf2021.net/?q=%2Factions-calendar&action_name_1=davos And you see there are two initiatives that are focusing on the same thing, around the same date, coming from two different initiatives, and there is this initiative from the trade unions, and there is also an initiative which is the declaration of an assembly, not exactly assembly of social movement, as was mentioning Mikyung, but assembly of peace and environmental movements, and yes, this one that is showing now Mike, so the same way you can see which are the organization that are preparing this assembly.

But if you go to the document that you see, there is if you go down Mike, and download the joined document : if you download this document, you will see the list of signatories, which is about 50 organizations signing this declaration, and with a kind of commitment. So now then this is an announcement, then the question is developing this commitment into practical steps, which still remains to be done, but we are in the forum concept, so these are self-organized articulations showing themselves. 

And people can get in touch with them, to develop further ….Here you see this declaration here is again the link you can see the declaration from this assembly, and you have the list of signatories that is below. So it's not an anonymous declaration. 

It's been prepared by and here you go yeah here you have the list of signatures, so there are about 50 or 60 organizations and 80 individuals. This was done in the spur of the moment: Maybe the list has been increased, because the it was an online form to sign,@4  so of course it's up to the organizers of those assemblies to develop further the interaction between the signatories etc, so it's not the task of the forum organizers, it's a task of the assembly organizers.

But it's interesting, this has been experimentation in the frame of this virtual forum, and they can be taken further, and there has been a know how using the virtual format. so any comments from our panelists about these formats ?  welcome.

@029 FAROOQ 1h45mn I think that's good and it's easy to find, so you have explained quite well how to find it and so on, and that's even better now, we can read it more properly

@030 VARGHESE  yeah i feel that a great deal has been done already, @1 Perhaps we need to consolidate it further, with more organizations coming in, with more people, getting connected…

@031 PIERRE  That's why i mean about  the questions by Boonthan about the “mechanisms” etc we can through this discussion we can give you further elements for you, to get involved 

@032 BOONTHAN 1h46mn okay thank you very much up here for this information so i will start browsing the information from the website anyway. But as the matter of fact here in Thailand ngo people be people from the ground, there's only less than five percent that are using english 

@033 PIERRE We know this is an issue but you can use the formats even with the filling the formats with minimal english and having the documents in Thai. @1I mean it's possible to to have this multi-language handling and being inclusive because then if you create an online discussion in your country, of course it doesn't have to be in english, although you can have maybe an english interpreter, for those who want to participate from outside, but it will it won't be it would still be in Thailand there is many ways to accommodate these challenges, which are very very deep, 

@034  MIKE 1h48mn i come in here up here, just from a technical perspective/  i think many of you are aware that the international alliance of inhabitants has created a volunteer interpretation group. We currently have just under 80 volunteer interpreters, who are providing the services today, and for other meetings We're hoping to expand this to include other languages, not just the european languages. So Boonthan for instance. You may know of young interpretation students who would like to practice english, thai we can easily incorporate those into our interpretation team, and expand the reach of these dialogues. I think it's critical that people can listen in their own languages,@1 so over this year we will expand our range, as we get the volunteer interpreters. And just a word of thanks to all the interpreters today for stepping forward 

@035 PIERRE 1h49mn  So um we are about to close, there is a last thing  maybe Mike, if you can @1 share this last link, which is giving the main ‘acts of participation’ that are available as of now.https://wsf2021.net/proceso2021-info1/ 

 I mean you can use those acts of participation practically, if you want to start developing some core group to participate into the process, so you can register an organization. If you register an organization, you can announce an activity, which is an articulation for dialogue between several organizations, and you can formulate an initiative, which is an articulation for action with a goal and options and action dates, public action dates, that can be common, and this is opening a wide the possibility of having decentralized actions in simultaneous parts of the world etc 

So these are the dates, then you can also publish an “news from the forum”, and there is a website for that, https://wsf2021.net/news, where you can send news that will be published by volunteers, and these will be published “from the forum”. So it means it's you, as an organization, or as a group of organizations, that are having the authorship, but it's within a ,wsf news, website, 

And I would say, then, that we would soon add the question of @2  finding and commenting “proximities”  between actions and initiatives. Of course, if the calendar is wide enough, then you can look in the calendar which movements are involved in actions that are close to your concern , and  you can make contact with them, and say “okay you we are working on health issue and  you also , we you are proposing these actions, we are proposing this action we could discuss together,first in little group  which then may lead to the idea of organizing more activities to discuss about articulating more actions 

So this is about the toolkit: it's not substituting politics of the movements, it's just helping them to participate actively, and self-organizedly

.So i think we are coming to an end of this session. We have tried to focus on the participation, of what it's what are the possibilities from social movements, which are at handOf course then the rest is yours, in the sense that it's up to your goals and your culture of participation, that is why the lessons learned are important, because then you reinvest these things into the participation formats, that are proposed.

We have a message by  Charles from kyrgyzstan. It says “thank you for useful discussion let's hope Central Asia organizations can be active in 2022”. Charles has participated in the virtual forum, and he has formulated there is an initiative  “ book forum”, which they are going to develop, so he is fully involved in this participation perspective.

Well then, I was just saying that @3 we have now started an info mailing list; so those who registered in this session will receive updates and information for the coming sessions. 

We have a next session FC5 scheduled the 8th of june,https://join.wsf2021.net/activities/9182  which is also focused on Asia, and more precisely South Asia about more on from the “organizing forum” point of view:  not so the participation but how to organize something The experience of organizing events, which we have seen has not been so easy in Asia, 

And also we are  developing this transcript and the videos that have been, thanks to the interpreters because they are making videos available in Spanish or Portuguese or French or other languages when available, https://our-global-u.org/oguorg/en/forum-connect/ and so this, supported by transcription, make this material useful for other people in replay, and in self consolidating mode which is our goal now.

http://openfsm.net/projects/forum-connect/forum-connect-documentation The goal of ForumConnect is to create a corpus of knowledge based on dialogue about the social forum 

@036 BOONTHAN  1h56mn thank you very much Pierre thanks to Mike and the team of interpreters i expect to learn from this experience , bye everyone 

@037 VARGHESE  Thanks to organizers, Mike especially. I got back to WSFafter a very long while, and I hope to be part  of this movement.