Senegal Recoups After Massive Turnout for World Social Forum

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Special to the NNPA from the Global Information Network

Thousands of social justice activists, freedom fighters, artists, and environmentalists from around the continent and abroad discovered Senegals first city of Dakar while attending workshops, panels, and informal discussions at the week long World Social Forum for a better world.

"(The forum] opened with the joy of revolution in Tunisia and is now closing with the Egypt revolution. We hope in the future that we will be able to celebrate other African revolutions," Taoufik Ben Abdallah, a member of the organizing committee, told the crowd at the recent closing meeting.

It was the 10th anniversary for the Forum, first held in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, that drew 12,000 people from around the world. "The mobilization here at Dakar is beyond our expectations," said one of the forum's organizers. The overwhelming size of the forum shows both the momentum of the claim that "another world is possible."

It was conceived after activists opposed to the brazen culture of greed and control of world governments by corporations forced a showdown on the streets of Seattle in Washington State, United States, in 1999, noted web activist Sowore Omoyele.

Bolivian President Evo Morales opened the event with a rousing 30-minute speech. The citys Cheikh Anta Diop University hosted the conference.

Previous Forums were held in Mumbai, India; Nairobi, Kenya, and near simultaneously in Caracas, Venezuela; Bamako, Mali; and Karachi, Pakistan. A U.S. version of the forum was held in Atlanta (2007) and in Detroit (2010).

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