Amazon Rising Part II

Amazon Rising Part II

I received a copy of the text read from the stage on day one. I encourage you to read it. It set an appropriate context for the days ahead of the WSF and was powerful to be witness to.

Brothers and sisters of the world. Receive a strong Pan-Amazonian embrace. An embrace from the Andes of the Amazon, from the Orinoquia and Patagonia. An embrace from SUDACA, the South American struggle which is constructing Other Possible Worlds. Today is the Day of Afro-Indigenous and Popular Resistance. They cut our lives, but not our roots, and after five centuries of colonial and capitalist destruction, they have not been able to silence us. Now we move from Resistance to Alternatives, here in a unique World Social Forum, to begin to speak from below, with the voice of the voiceless, from three simultaneous stages, in three hours of collective work to transmit our dramas, our struggles, our hopes, our proposals and joys.



We call everyone to radical and profound action and reflection in this grave moment when our mother earth is sick with the fever of global warming, soon to rise by 2 degrees. Mother earth is beginning to convulse and it will soon become very difficult to heal her. The illness of this suicide is destruction, in the name of the myths and the traps of so-called ‘development’, modernity’ and ‘capitalism’, which are ending millions of years of equilibrium between the simultaneous use and conservation of the world by its peoples. Life, not just human life, is in danger, in strategic places: the Amazon, the Pantanal, the Chaco and the remaining tropical forests; the glaciers and cordillers, as in the Andes; the Polar Circles. And it is no accident that the struggles to defend these sites are carried out by indigenous women and men, native peoples, rural workers, Quilombolas, mixed-race people, Garifunas, people of African descent, extractors, coastal peoples and diverse social movements.



There has been enough dismissal of the amazonian peoples and the Global South in the name of the ‘kind’ and their ‘one way of thinking’, always suspiciously colonial, capitalist, Eurocentric and patriarchal. The solutions have been the reverse of what has been thought: walking into the future in the footprints of our ancestors. The unity between the Amazon, Mother Earth and Peoples is threatened by consumerism, contamination, greed, unemployment, land concentration, sexual and religious discrimination and the criminalization of social movements, encouraged by the capitals of agro-business, agro-fuels, genetic engineering, hydroelectric, mineral, hydrocarbon, livestock, timber exploitation and other forms of the commodification of life by multinationals and the States at their service. The Amazonian, Andean and Abya Yala peoples have moved from protest to proposal with alternatives such as economies based on solidarity, community, reciprocity, interculturalism; equilibrium between nature, society and culture; the decolonization of power, knowledge and site of the imagination; the autonomy of bodies and sexual orientations; community self-government and the profound transformation of states, markets and societies; so that other worlds are possible, here and now. We continue constructing new paradigms based on mother earth and the peoples, searching for our roots to walk into the future.



On this 1st Stage, we deal with development, climatic changes, environmental justice, sovereignty and safe food, destruction of the forests, the melting of the Andes and the desertification of the Amazon, energy models, the struggle against forest dams, the impact of the large mining and petroleum companies, and criticism of agro-business and agro-fuels.



On this 2nd Stage, we deal with slave labour, dhescas, unemployment and human migrations, the struggle for land and violence in the country and the city, the criminalization of social movements and leaders, and the campaigns of persecution by the media, and criminalization of popular communication.



On this 3rd Stage, we deal with land and territory, national and popular sovereignty identity, regional integration, identity, reaffirmation of the culture of native peoples, autonomy and plurinational state, imperialist intervention, regional integration based and for the people.



We invite you to listen to the protests of the rivers, the song of the lakes, the histories of the great trees; to listen to the spirits of the forests, glaciers and deserts … to listen to the voice, the cry, the proposals of the children of the earth, the birds of a single wing, which we need to embrace to be able to fly.

Amazon Rising

Amazon Rising
I spoke earlier about the WSF planning committee and some of their process of deciding where WSF 2009 would be. The first day was dedicated to the struggles and the peoples of the region. It was a beautiful display of voices, dances, and the culture. Some of it is expressed in the pictures below. Just so you folks know, there was so much going on during the forum that I only got a glimpse. There were multiple campuses and things going on all the time.

I am trying to get a copy of the statement that was read from the stage that I was at for the Amazon day. It was powerful and I would love to share it. I will post it when I get it!

(The raising of a pole with baskets of fruit as an offering and thanksgiving)

My Brazilian guides and friends who kept me from getting lost and were very kind. They are lay leaders from Santarem and were part of the meetings there too. Wonderful ladies.

A Dramatic Beginning

A Dramatic Beginning

The WSF 2009 kicked off with a parade of the participants. Folks were to come out with their colors, banners, signs ect. It was a glorious spectacle. To add to the drama of the moment, just as the stage performances of the Amazonian region welcoming the world to Belem, it began to downpour. A thick unending warm rain. I believe that I have not mentioned that Belem is the one of the rainiest places in the world. Yes, it is in the rainforest but even so, it is a rainy place. The parade continued and it rained most of the time. There was really not much one could do to avoid it. One of the SVD´s that I was walking with had a full length poncho and a big hat. He was prepared and protected my camera. I one the other hand got wet and that was fine. I just kept in mind that it was below zero in Chicago and embraced where and what I was experiencing. Pictures of the parade below.

Belem and the World Social Forum 2009

Belem and the World Social Forum 2009

Belem, the capital in the state of Para, has a privileged ans strategic location in the extreme north of Brazil, and therefore considered to be the most important gateway to the northern part of the country and to Amazonia. It’s the biggest city in the brazilian amazon with approximately 1,5 million inhabitants.

(the photo show Belem in the distance and the lush rainforest and expresses the paradox of a large city in the rainforest region. Belem is also situated where the Atlantic and the Amazon converge)

The World Social Forum is based on a Charter of Principles.
Around these principles people gathered in Porte Alegre in 2001, it has been held in India, Kenya, Veneszuela and Brazil. There have also been local, national, region and other manifestations of forums around the world.

A short history can be found at http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/main.php?id_menu=19&cd_language=2

Why the Amazon?
The International Council of the WSF, composed by 130 entities, chose the Pan Amazon to host the WSF 2009 in recognition of the strategic role that the region has for all mankind. The region is one of the last areas of the planet still relatively preserved in a geographical area of immeasurable value for their biodiversity and that adds a wide and diverse range of social movements, labor unions, associations, cooperatives and civil society organizations fighting for an Amazon sustainable, compassionate and democratic, articulated in networks and forums, building this ample movement to resist the prospect of another model of development.
The WSF 2009 Amazon will be guided by three strategic guidelines:

• effectively be a space where you build alliances that strengthen proposals for action and formulation of alternatives;

• be hegemonized by self-managed activities;

• and have a clear emphasis in the pan-Amazon.

The effort and demand of the Pan Amazon were recognized and embraced by the International Council (CI) and the result will be one of the major novelties of the WSF in its 8th edition, a full day devoted to the theme Pan-Amazon. The Day of Pan-Amazon. On that day, the testimonies, panels, lectures, discussions, marches and alliances between peoples of the Pan-Amazon and the will world also understand as the 5th edition of the Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (FSPA).

Santarem to Belem part II

Santarem to Belem part II

It is obvious to me that even that these photos only capture a small portion of the beauty that I was so blessed to see and be amoungst during my 45 hours on the Amazon.

(From the top deck where we spent most of our time)

(There is so much that flows through this river that it is a brownish color)

(some of the traffic on the Amazon, moving goods from Belem to Manaus the two big cities on the river)

(you can see the rain coming

across the river pouring out of the clouds)