Around 180 delegates came together in Florence on 12-13th November to discuss the ‘Charter for Another Europe’. The meeting marked an attempt to develop a statement of principles “for another Europe”. Read more...

A movement without a name? Its left wing - young fighters on the streets at the summit sieges of Seattle or Genoa - call it ANTICAPITALIST. Its right wing - the speakers in the vast tents of its Social Forums at Porto Alegre, Mumbai, Florence, Paris and now London, call it ALTERMONDIALISTE. Or, if you want something that sounds safe but you don’t like ugly neologisms dreamed up in the offices of the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, you can call it the GLOBAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT.

Whatever you call the “movement of movements” it is suffering from an identity crisis - one which goes well beyond the choice of names. Speaking frankly it does not know where it is going. Does it want to “fix or nix” the international financial institutions? Does it want to abolish capitalism or create a ‘fair and equal’ market? Does it want to take power from the hands of the warmongers? Or is any talk about “taking power” just too twentieth century, too passé for words? Read more...

Globalisation didn’t just happen. People made it happen: chief executives of major corporations and banks, leaders of multilateral organisations like the World Bank and IMF and key politicians. Read more...

Bernard Cassen, director general of le Monde diplomatique and honorary president of Attac, published a book in 2003, claiming to chronicle the origins of the “altermondialiste” movement. It was entitled “Tout a commencé a Porto Alegre – Everything began in Porto Alegre. This is not true. If any one place can be said to have given birth to the movement of movements it was the extremely impoverished Mexican state of Chiapas rather than Porto Alegre, one of the most prosperous of the larger municipalities in Brazil. Read more...

Seattle, 30 November 1999, was a defining moment for the global anticapitalist movement. This was day the movement, which had been growing over the previous five years, finally became conscious of its power. Read more...

A time line of the major protests, summits and actions of the world anti capitalist movement. Read more...

This is what (social) democracy looks like – excerpts from a statement from the Swedish revolutionary group Arbertarmakt in Gothenburg, June 19 2000

The brutal police repression dealt out to demonstrators in Gothenburg, from 14 to 16 June, marks a turning point in the anti-capitalist movement. Any illusions that our movement can develop and move towards realising its goals in a context of playfulness, humour and non-violence were rudely shattered. Read more...

300,000 thousand people were in Genoa to protest at the G8 meeting in July – the biggest anti-capitalist demonstration we’ve seen in years. Read more...

From 21.-24. July, the first Social Forum took place in Germany, in Erfurt. Around 3500 participated during four days of discussion in 300 workshops, seminars and plenaries. Read more...

From 21.-24. July, the first Social Forum took place in Germany, in Erfurt. Around 3500 participated during four days of discussion in 300 workshops, seminars and plenaries.

Like the European and World Social Forums and the French assemblies for a constitutional alternative, the Forum in Erfurt was marked by a strong bid by left reformists and trade union bureaucrats to impose their policies on the social movements. Read more...

The European Social Forum has passed up an important opportunity to break new ground in Central and Eastern Europe, to focus on the immediate struggles facing the European working class and, indeed, to co-ordinate those struggles. Read more...

The European Social Forum has passed up an important opportunity to break new ground in Central and Eastern Europe, to focus on the immediate struggles facing the European working class and, indeed, to co-ordinate those struggles.

As has happened all too often, a handful of “leading” delegates grabbed control of the agenda and ensured that the 150 participants spent the full three days discussing the themes for the next ESF, 11 months away. Read more...

The Western media is full of reports of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China. But these are not the only signs of mass mobilisation in the last weeks. While nationalist marches have been tolerated by police, marches by workers and peasants are brutally repressed. Read more...

The third European Social Forum took place in London during 15-17 October. Over the three days 20,000 people from nearly 70 countries took part in over 500 meetings, listening to over 250 speakers. Read more...

At this year’s European Social Forum on the Saturday afternoon of the three day event 200 young activists came together for 2 hours of debate and discussion on the way forward for the movement against war, racism and neo-liberalism. Read more...

The Youth Assembly of the 2004 European Social Forum declares opposition to the world of war, racism, poverty, and the system that causes it – global capitalism. Read more...

The basic arrangements of European Social Forum are now well underway. The main speakers at 30 huge plenary rallies have been decided— all but the British ones. The over seven hundred smaller meetings (seminars) proposed by different organisations, trade unions, campaigns, NGOs and political organisations have been merged into between 150 and 170 sessions, each with simultaneous translation into various European languages. Read more...

The third European Social Forum will take place in London between 14 and 17 October. It could be an enormously important, even historic event, with tens of thousands of international activists attending. But it is also part of a process, a living part of the history of the anticapitalist movement. But a crisis of leadership is gripping the movement. Read more...

The ESF Preparatory Assembly for the London European Social Forum came together in Berlin on the 17-18 June, while the ’Programme Workgroup’, as now seems routine at these meetings, met on the two days prior to the Assembly itself. Read more...

The London European Social Forum is just four months away.

This paper (Workers Power) has long championed the ESF. It is a tremendous opportunity to combine the very best methods of struggle, policies and organisational initiatives from across the continent and the world. In an era of globalisation and imperialist war, this internationalism is of vital importance if we are to win even local struggles against privatisation, racism and cuts. Read more...

The European Social Forum 2004 Preparatory Assembly gathered on 16-18 April in Istanbul. A “programme workgroup” held on the afternoon of Friday 15 April was effectively an assembly session too. Of the several hundred activists present, naturally a far larger proportion came from Turkey, Greece, Hungary and the Balkans. Read more...

L5I members present at the Istanbul Preparatory Assembly of the 2004 European Social Forum during the weekend 16-18 April proposed a number of measures to try and ensure the ESF in London in October is a success. Read more...

The fourth World Social Forum will open in Mumbai, India on 16th January. One month ahead 52,000 people from all continents had already registered to take part. Organisers expect that anything from 70,000 to 100,000 may actually take part in the forum. The shift to Asia in venue of the WSF presents the possibility for a huge involvement and integration of workers, poor peasants and popular organisations in the worldwide movement against global capitalism and imperialist war. An assembly of Youth will also take part at the forum as will a whole series of other meetings of campaigning bodies Read more...

More than 100 representatives of various organisations met in the City Hall, London on 13-14 December for the first preparatory assembly for the 2004 European Social Forum. A wide variety of trade unions from Britain and the continent, NGOs, local and national social forums, and political organisations participated in a lively - indeed at times stormy - debate. The presence of militants and representatives from the RMT, Unison, the T&G etc. was a big step forward and their contributions added a note of practicality into the proceedings. Read more...

From 13-15 November, according to the organisers’ own figures, 51,000 activists from around Europe and beyond participated in the second European Social Forum. They listened to speeches, debated alternative strategies for resistance to war and globalising capitalism, they made international and even intercontinental contact with one another. This huge international gathering is and remains an enormous step forward over the narrow national isolation of the last twenty years and more. Read more...

During 13-15 November Paris and the surrounding towns of Bobigny, Ivry-sur-seine and St Denis, were hosts to 50,000 activists from around Europe as they debated and networked at the second European Social Forum. Read more...

The European Social Forum meets in Paris this week (12-16 November) after a year of remarkable successes for in expanding the movement against global capitalism and imperialist war. Read more...

The European Social Forum, gathers in Florence this week. From 6-9 November a series of debates and forums will take place, followed by the assembly of the European Social Movements on Sunday 10 November. Read more...

In the run in to the European Social Forum rumours are rife that the organisers will use their enormous material clout to ensure that the forum does not lead to any radical actions. The leaders of ATTAC France, their close allies in the CGT union bureaucracy and the reformist Parti Communiste Français (PCF) dominate the organising committee. Sharp conflicts with the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) are widely reported. Read more...

The governments and central institutions of the European Union have launched a concerted offensive against our social and public services, jobs, and pensions. This is dictated by globalising capital-- the giant industrial financial and trading corporations. They demand that public transport, health, social welfare, pension and education systems be privatized or subordinated to the “laws of the market". Read more...